The Arashino gathering at the Baron’s estate is a carefully arranged social occasion that advances Mameha’s strategy for Sayuri’s mizuage while exposing the unequal power beneath the ceremony. The Baron’s refined estate and kimono collection provide a setting for practiced hospitality, but his remarks about Sayuri turn the gathering toward the sexual appraisal that Mameha’s plan seeks to harness. Nobu’s intervention protects Sayuri from having to answer, even as the Baron’s invitation to Hakone creates a new risk that Mameha immediately warns her to manage.

Purpose and Arrangements

The plan began when the Baron casually told Mameha that he would host a party for the kimono maker Arashino. The Baron had one of Japan’s best-known kimono collections, mostly antiques, but occasionally acquired work by a living artist; buying a piece by Arashino gave him reason to hold the event. Mameha recognized Arashino’s name as that of one of Nobu’s closest friends and saw an opportunity to bring Nobu and Dr. Crab together.

Her design depended on rivalry. She expected the two men to dislike one another and reasoned that, when Sayuri’s mizuage came up for bidding, neither would want the other to claim the prize. Nobu had reason to attend because the Baron invested in Iwamura Electric, although Sayuri did not yet know of that connection. Dr. Crab, who regarded himself as something of an aristocrat, would be inclined to accept an invitation from the Baron. Mameha herself had to persuade the Baron to invite both men, despite his disapproval of Nobu and his not having met Dr. Crab.

Mameha also secured Sayuri’s release from dance rehearsals for the following Saturday. They arrived after the afternoon party was already under way, reaching the Baron’s estate at about three o’clock in a rickshaw. The occasion was to continue through dinner, but their role began with a tea ceremony for the assembled men.

Estate, Tea, and Social Performance

The estate stood at the base of the hills northeast of the city. Its main house dated to the Baron’s grandfather, while his father had designed and built the gardens. The house and grounds had not fully suited one another until the Baron’s older brother moved the pond and created a moss garden with stepping-stones leading from a moon-viewing pavilion. The brother had made these changes the year before his assassination. The pond, garden, and carefully arranged views made the estate itself an expression of the detailed craft associated with the kimono collection.

Instead of preparing tea in an ordinary pavilion, Mameha and Sayuri boarded a small boat on the pond. The boat had seats along its sides and a roofed miniature pavilion at one end, with an open-screened tatami platform and a square sand-filled brazier. Mameha lit charcoal to heat water in an iron kettle while Sayuri arranged the tea implements. After the Baron and his ten guests arrived, he guided the boat into the middle of the pond with a pole. Mameha prepared tea, and Sayuri carried bowls to the guests.

The tea ceremony gave way to a stroll through the garden and then to a wooden platform suspended over the water. Maids had arranged cushions and warm sake for the men. Following Mameha’s instructions to encourage jealousy without appearing to favor one prospective bidder too openly, Sayuri made a point of kneeling beside Dr. Crab. He asked whether the cut on her thigh had healed, recalling an injury from the previous November. The question connected this gathering with an earlier encounter between them, but also required Sayuri to sustain a conversation while remaining conscious of Mameha’s larger matchmaking design.

An Awkward Turn and Nobu’s Intervention

As Sayuri and Dr. Crab spoke, the Baron, sitting on the other side of the platform, stopped his own conversation and overheard Sayuri begin to explain a difficulty with dancing in clothing. Her unfinished remark drew the attention of the group. The Baron made light of the exchange and turned it toward women’s clothing, asserting that a woman was more beautiful without it. Nobu countered by praising the kimono made by his friend Arashino, but the Baron continued to make the discussion about men’s interest in seeing Sayuri unclothed.

Mameha reminded the men that Sayuri was an apprentice and suggested that they spare her the conversation. The Baron rejected that restraint, telling Sayuri that the men present had imagined seeing her naked. The gathering’s formal hospitality thus shifted into public pressure: Sayuri had to maintain a demure composure while the host made her body the subject of conversation. His authority as host and patron gave the remarks force beyond ordinary teasing, and the silence of the other guests left her without an easy way to respond.

Nobu interrupted by standing and saying that he did not know the way to the toilet. His excuse gave Sayuri a reason to accompany him away from the platform. A maid offered to show the way, and Sayuri followed with Nobu behind her. In the house, he stopped before a display of antique swords, drummed his fingers against the glass, and breathed out repeatedly, still angry. Sayuri felt troubled by what had happened and grateful that he had removed her from the gathering, though she was unsure how to express her thanks. His action briefly shifted the scene from public appraisal to a quieter exchange in which his anger registered as a response to the Baron’s behavior.

Afterward, Sayuri also escorted Dr. Crab to the toilet. When they returned, Mameha had restored the men’s conversation by sitting in the background and pouring sake. The episode illustrates the social labor she performs: she can guide talk away from tension and keep a company of guests engaged without needing to dominate the conversation.

Kimono Collection and the Hakone Invitation

The conversation eventually turned to kimono, and the group went downstairs to the Baron’s underground museum. Large panels along the walls opened to reveal robes suspended from sliding rods. The Baron sat on a stool, bleary-eyed, while Mameha guided the guests through the collection. The robe that most impressed them represented Kobe’s landscape: blue sky and clouds at the shoulders, a hillside at the knees, and a long train depicting the blue-green sea, gold waves, and tiny ships.

The Baron proposed that Mameha wear this robe to his blossom-viewing party in Hakone the following week. She replied that she could not attend because she had a medical appointment. The appointment referred to her intention to prevent pregnancy, a matter the Baron had apparently forgotten; he accepted that he could not have children, though he complained that she should have reminded him privately. The exchange revealed the private terms of their relationship within a public gathering, and Mameha maintained control by giving the necessary explanation without disclosing more than the occasion required.

The Baron then invited the other guests to Hakone, where he held an annual party at the height of the cherry blossoms. Dr. Crab and Arashino could not attend. Nobu resisted the idea of travelling simply to see blossoms, and the Baron replied that the flowers were only an excuse for a party. He added that the Chairman attended every year. Sayuri felt flustered at the Chairman’s mention, aware that her reaction might betray a private attachment.

The Baron then declared that Mameha would no longer be invited and ordered her to send Sayuri in her place. Sayuri initially took this as a joke, but immediately imagined how desirable it would be to walk with the Chairman at the estate without Nobu, Dr. Crab, or Mameha nearby. Mameha answered that Sayuri had rehearsals. On the ride back to Gion, Sayuri was excited by the prospect, while Mameha remained silent until warning her to be careful in Hakone. She compared an apprentice approaching mizuage to a meal: another man’s apparent claim could make a prospective patron lose interest. The warning makes the gathering’s consequence plain. Mameha’s plan depends on carefully calibrated competition, but the Baron’s invitation places Sayuri in a setting where that competition and her own hopes may become difficult to control.

Significance

The gathering sets elegant forms against the commercial and gendered pressures they contain. Tea service, the garden, and the displayed kimono establish a world of cultivated attention, while the Baron’s remarks expose how quickly the same occasion can turn an apprentice into an object of male speculation. Mameha’s strategy treats rivalry as a means of increasing Sayuri’s value in the mizuage contest; Nobu’s intervention, by contrast, interrupts that logic long enough to get her away from an exchange that has become distressing.

The episode also uses the estate’s layers of space to organize changing degrees of exposure. The boat and garden platform place Sayuri within the group’s gaze; the interior hallway gives her a temporary exit with Nobu; the underground museum redirects attention to the Baron’s collection and leads to the Hakone invitation. The movement from public embarrassment to private warning does not resolve the danger. Instead, the gathering ends by transferring its stakes to the next occasion, where Sayuri’s anticipation of the Chairman must coexist with Mameha’s instruction to protect the mizuage strategy.