Sayuri’s first banquet is the evening her long-awaited entrance into professional geisha life becomes a public test. She begins as a silent novice beside Mameha at a formal dinner, then follows her mentor to a second, less formal party, where Hatsumomo’s attempt to humiliate her ends with the room laughing at Hatsumomo instead. The shift from exhaustion and obedience to a small, effective act of self-possession makes the night a turning point: Sayuri is still learning the rules, but she can already use them to answer an enemy.

Preparation and First Appearance

Earlier that day, Mameha and Sayuri had made a circuit of the okiya and teahouses where Mameha was known. Sayuri bowed, introduced herself as Mameha’s younger sister, and offered the formal request for the mistress’s favor. Most visits lasted only minutes, but the round of greetings left her exhausted. By midafternoon the introductions were done; instead of returning to rest for the evening, she learned that Mameha had arranged her first engagement as a novice geisha.

The preparation was both practical and ceremonial. Mameha told Sayuri to bathe because she had been perspiring and her makeup had not held. Back at the okiya, Auntie helped her undress and allowed her a half-hour nap. By five, Sayuri had bathed, dressed, and applied her makeup. She was excited: for years she had watched Hatsumomo, and more recently Pumpkin, leave for their engagements dressed beautifully. Now it was her turn to go out.

The banquet took place at the Kansai International Hotel. Its formality shaped the novice’s limited role. Guests sat shoulder to shoulder in a U-shape around a large tatami room, with trays of food on low stands; the geisha moved through the open center, kneeling briefly beside each man to pour sake and converse. Sayuri remained close to Mameha, following her like a shadow. When Mameha introduced herself, Sayuri repeated the greeting, identifying herself as a novice and asking the guests’ indulgence. She said nothing more, and the guests did not speak to her. Her first appearance was therefore not a display of conversational skill but a carefully managed exercise in visibility, etiquette, and restraint.

The Formal Banquet and the Invitation onward

Near the end of the dinner, Mameha and another geisha performed Chi-yo no Tomo, or “Friends Everlasting,” a dance about two devoted women meeting again after a long separation. The gathered executives, in Kyoto for their company’s annual banquet, seemed largely indifferent; Sayuri, by contrast, watched with rapt attention. Mameha’s fan changed in her hands from an image of flowing water to a cup into which her companion poured sake. The scene gave Sayuri a view of the artistry concealed within the quiet discipline of the banquet, even as the men’s lack of attention exposed the uneven audience for that skill.

The formal event was over by eight. Sayuri meant to thank Mameha and say good night, but Mameha redirected the evening: she was going to the Komoriya Teahouse and invited Sayuri to experience her first informal party. Sayuri was too tired to welcome the extra engagement, yet she swallowed that feeling and followed. For Mameha, the outing was also an accelerated introduction to the social world in which Sayuri would have to establish herself. She warned her to stay alert and avoid anything that could make her look bad.

At the teahouse, a maid led them upstairs to a room containing seven or eight men and about four geisha. Sayuri and Mameha entered by kneeling on the mats and closing the sliding door behind them, then greeted the other geisha before the host and the remaining guests. Mameha was immediately drawn into familiar party talk, including a requested story about a wig maker. Sayuri’s novice status left her following the sequence of greetings and watching how an experienced geisha could move within a room without seeming to strain.

Hatsumomo’s challenge and Sayuri’s answer

The party’s social test sharpened when Sayuri was expected to accompany a guest, Mr. Snowshowers, to the toilet. A novice was not ordinarily expected to perform this task, but his silent expectation made her stand and guide him through the unfamiliar corridors of the teahouse. When she returned with him, another geisha and an apprentice had joined the gathering. The geisha was Hatsumomo; beside her sat Pumpkin. Sayuri had encountered the one person she most wanted to avoid, now smiling as if pleased by the chance to make her suffer.

Hatsumomo took control of the conversation by telling a comic story about Mayuri being blown backward along a street and into a car. She asked Sayuri to imitate a high-pitched sound, then dismissed her effort and told the men that Sayuri was not very bright. The joke placed Sayuri in the position of an unwilling prop: Hatsumomo made her perform, judged the performance, and used the embarrassment to entertain the room. Yet the men were already responding to Hatsumomo’s story, giving Sayuri little room to challenge her directly.

When Hatsumomo remarked on Sayuri’s age and suggested that she had no hair, Sayuri answered that she had a good deal of it and patted her own head. The gesture was brief and literal, but its timing reversed the joke’s direction: the men laughed harder than they had at Hatsumomo’s story. Hatsumomo laughed too, apparently unwilling to show that the amusement had turned against her. The exchange did not free Sayuri from the hierarchy or erase her inexperience, but it showed that a novice could answer without abandoning the decorum the setting demanded.

Mameha was satisfied by the encounter, and Sayuri and her mentor left. Hatsumomo and Pumpkin followed them out soon afterward. That pursuit carried the conflict beyond the party: Sayuri’s successful response had not been a private victory, but a public embarrassment that Hatsumomo would answer at home.

Aftermath and significance

After bathing and removing her makeup, Sayuri stood in the entrance hall answering Auntie’s questions about the day. Hatsumomo came in earlier than usual, her lips pressed together, and confronted Sayuri without her familiar cruel smile. She slapped her across the face. Sayuri was too stunned to recall what happened immediately afterward, but heard Hatsumomo threaten to slap the other side if Sayuri embarrassed her in public again. The blow made the cost of the evening unmistakable: a moment of successful wit could shift the room’s attention, but it could also intensify the retaliation waiting outside it.

The banquet’s two settings disclose complementary demands of Sayuri’s work. At the hotel, she must observe, bow, repeat the correct greeting, and remain unobtrusive beside Mameha; at the teahouse, she must read a room and respond quickly without losing composure. In both, what she feels is not identical to what she must present. She is tired, wary, and reluctant to continue, yet keeps moving, appearing attentive and agreeable. Her debut thus begins not simply as a performance of dance or beauty, but as emotional labor: managing fatigue and apprehension while maintaining a face that serves the engagement.

The story also makes the night’s transition matter. The formal banquet offers Sayuri a first glimpse of Mameha’s fan dance and a place within the professional circuit; the informal party demands that she turn observation into action. Her joke is small, but it interrupts Hatsumomo’s power to define her before the guests. The slap that follows prevents the episode from becoming a simple triumph. Sayuri has entered Gion’s social world, but entry means exposure as well as opportunity: each public appearance can build a reputation and provoke an adversary.