Sayuri–Hatsumomo rivalry

Sayuri and Hatsumomo’s rivalry is a contest over power inside the Nitta okiya, and its decisive reversal comes when Sayuri no longer has to fear punishment for speaking back. What begins as Hatsumomo’s tyranny over a vulnerable younger woman ends with Hatsumomo losing her home and place in Gion, while Sayuri’s growing standing makes her difficult to intimidate.

Unequal Power and a Sudden Reversal

For years, Hatsumomo’s authority over Sayuri had been reinforced by Sayuri’s precarious position in the okiya. That balance begins to change when Mother tells Sayuri that she intends to adopt her as her daughter and that one day the okiya will be hers. The prospect also means a change in rooms: Sayuri would leave the smaller room and move into the larger one Hatsumomo and Pumpkin occupied. Sayuri does not take this security for granted, but understands that it could place her beyond Hatsumomo’s reach.

Hatsumomo enters while Mother is discussing the adoption and orders Sayuri out, expecting the old deference. Instead, Sayuri answers that she will leave if Mother wants her to. The reply matters less as an open victory than as a change in the conditions of speech: Sayuri can now address Hatsumomo without expecting immediate punishment. Their rivalry has not vanished, but the fear that once made Hatsumomo’s authority seem absolute has begun to loosen.

Adoption, Status, and Competition

Hatsumomo’s hostility sharpens when she learns that Mother may adopt Sayuri. She recalls that Mother had once spoken of adopting Pumpkin and had asked Hatsumomo to deliver the news. Mother, however, says Pumpkin’s apprenticeship has not gone as expected. Sayuri feels the cruelty of this uncertainty: Pumpkin had hurried downstairs looking upset, and no one could say what her future would be. In this household, a change in one girl’s prospects threatens to reorder the lives of the others.

The rivalry is also bound to money and rank. In the summer of 1939, Sayuri is occupied with engagements, occasional meetings with General Tottori, and dance performances, and is often exhausted by the work. Mother tells her that she has earned more in six months than Hatsumomo and Pumpkin combined, and says it is time for them to exchange rooms. Sayuri does not mistake this for a settled triumph. She has learned to regard Hatsumomo as a sleeping tiger rather than a defeated one, and expects her to experience the move not as an ordinary exchange but as the loss of her room.

Secrets and the Cost of Exposure

Hatsumomo’s ability to wound Sayuri depends not only on rank but on access to private information. She finds Sayuri’s journal and reads aloud a passage about Mr. Tsu, whose missing arm and altered appearance do not frighten Sayuri as they do other girls. Hatsumomo uses the passage to suggest that Sayuri’s feelings are really about Nobu, turning private reflection into a weapon of mockery. Sayuri’s distress is sharpened by the knowledge that her own carelessness—leaving the journal where Hatsumomo could find it—has exposed her secrets.

The confrontation becomes physical and disorderly. Sayuri approaches to retrieve the journal, but Hatsumomo clutches it and takes up a glass that Sayuri had thought held water; the smell of sake reveals that Hatsumomo is drunk. She threatens to take the journal to Mother and continues toward her room. The episode shows the rivalry at its most intimate: Hatsumomo seeks leverage not through an open contest but by violating Sayuri’s privacy and threatening to make her private thoughts part of household discipline.

The journal incident also links back to the emerald brooch Hatsumomo had accused Sayuri of stealing. After Hatsumomo has broken a bottle and tracked blood and ointment across the upstairs hall and onto the tatami, Mother orders her to repay Sayuri for the brooch. She also makes her responsible for replacing the bloodied mats, warning that the day has already become costly and may not be over. The accusation that once threatened Sayuri now forms part of the bill Hatsumomo must pay.

Expulsion and an Uncertain Afterlife

Hatsumomo’s fall reaches beyond the rooms of the okiya. At a party, the mistress responds calmly to the disturbance, speaks soothingly to Shojiro, and signals the theater director to remove Hatsumomo. He takes her downstairs and pushes her out onto the street. She does not return to the okiya that night. The next day she comes back disheveled and is summoned to Mother’s room; a few days later she leaves for good, carrying her belongings and jewelry in a bag and wearing a plain cotton robe Mother has given her. Her hair hangs loose around her shoulders, and she says goodbye to no one.

Hatsumomo has not chosen to leave: Mother has thrown her out. Mameha believes Mother may have wanted to be rid of her for years, while the narrator also notes that Hatsumomo was earning less than before and that food had become harder to obtain. Her expulsion is therefore both the end of a personal struggle and a consequence of her declining value to the household. The cruelty that had once helped make her formidable also makes her difficult for another okiya to accept, even after she has been cast out.

What becomes of Hatsumomo afterward is never confirmed. A few years after the war, Sayuri hears that she may be making a living as a prostitute in Miyagawa-cho. The report remains rumor: a man at the same party vows to seek her out, but cannot find her. That unresolved ending completes the rivalry without turning it into a neat victory. Sayuri survives Hatsumomo’s intimidation and sees her expelled, but the account offers no reunion, reconciliation, or reliable knowledge of Hatsumomo’s later life.