"MEMOIRS OF AN OPIUM EATER XXXVIII": Month of the Dragon In the House of the MorningStar this evening, I saw the most pathetic and disgusting spectacle - yet also a monstrously funny one. It was Ashidaka Michitaka, the cousin of our venerableEmerald Magistrate, and he was drunk as a prawn in a barrel of sake. Michitaka has a superficial resemblance to his cousin, but only in the sense that a goblin resembles a proper man. Where Naritoki is a bit stout, Michitaka is so fat his belly makes rolls beneath his robes. It is not just his flab that makes him ridiculous, however; he dresses so garishly that he'd make a color-blind Unicorn chuckle. On top of all that, he fancies himself a man of culture and refinement, when he in fact has not the fraction of a tithe of his cousin's elegance and intelligence.
In him we have the perfect puppet of a buffoon, and tonight we saw him in a most amusing farce. Drunk, as I said, and mooning for the love of a geisha called Oko. Ahinin. she still is too wise to submit to Michitaka's embraces when he's sober. Drunk, he's simply too monstrous a spectacle for any but the most debased of prostitutes. Thus we find drunk Michitaka kneeling on the ground before her door, proclaiming his undying passion between hiccups.What he did not see was that Oko was, in fact, outside her chamber with the rest of us.
Her next action was so bold and brazen that it was all we could do to keep our laughter inside. While Michitaka moaned andslobbered before her door,sheslipped out the back, andsoon had returned with a young geisha simply called Syrup (Iomitsu). Now, Syrup is notskilled in the arts ofconversation or music, and furthermore has a long face that would be more handsome on a mare than a woman. Oko had changed robeswith Syrup - andI must now add that Syrup was a full head tallerthan the other woman, so Oko's fine and colorful robe looked tiny and ridiculous on her - and Oko was begging Syrup to lie with Michitaka and pretend to be her (that is, pretend to be Oko). Syrup was not eager, and said she'd be discovered, but Oko begged, and swore Michitaka was far too drunk to know the difference. Then she pushed many coins into Syrup's hands until Syrup said she would try. I cannot even bring myself to imagine what happened when Syrup went into Oko'sroom with Michitaka.
"MEMOIRS OF AN OPIUM EATER": Twentieth Year in the Reign
of Hantei XXXVIII, Seventeenth Day, Month of the Dragon
Today my Dear Friend mentioned that Michitaka came to the
silver smithy today and purchased an expensive comb from our
finest craftsman. She said that he never stopped smirking and
said that it was for a beautiful lady who had finally accepted his
love for her.
Poor Syrup!