Chairman tells Nobu about Sayuri’s encounter with the Minister

The Chairman’s disclosure to Nobu about Sayuri’s meeting with the Minister transforms a staged encounter into a verdict on her relationship with Nobu. Recalling the look he once saw in Sayuri beside the Shirakawa Stream, the Chairman explains why he told Nobu what he had learned—and treats Nobu’s angry response as evidence that their bond could not be her destiny.

The Disclosure

The Chairman tells Sayuri that Nobu has given her up and that he has taken nothing away from him. Sayuri initially cannot understand the meaning of this distinction. The Chairman then explains that, when he saw her with the Minister, her eyes recalled the desperation he had witnessed years earlier at the Shirakawa Stream. After Pumpkin told him that Sayuri had intended the encounter for Nobu to see, he decided to tell Nobu what he had observed.

The disclosure makes the Chairman an active participant in the consequences of Sayuri’s plan. What might have remained a private performance for Nobu’s eyes becomes information the Chairman deliberately conveys to him. The account does not establish that Nobu’s response was based on a full explanation from Sayuri; it shows the Chairman interpreting Nobu’s anger after the revelation as decisive.

The Stream Recalled

To explain the force of the memory, the Chairman recounts a childhood incident from Yoroido. A boy named Gisuke climbed a tree to jump into a pond, only to reach a height from which he was afraid to climb down; rocks made a fall dangerous, and the water was too shallow for the jump. Sayuri ran to find Gisuke’s father, Mr. Yamashita, who calmly positioned himself beneath the tree. When Gisuke lost his grip, his father caught him and set him upright.

The memory gives the Chairman’s reading of Sayuri a specific shape: he remembers her as someone who sought help for a person in danger, and later recognizes desperation in her eyes. The recalled rescue also prepares the emotional meaning of his decision to intervene. He casts himself as the person who steps forward when Sayuri appears to be falling toward harm, though this is his interpretation of their history rather than a neutral account of her choices.

A Judgment About Destiny

Sayuri understands the old scene anew, imagining herself falling toward the rocks and the Chairman catching her. The recognition brings tears she cannot wipe away. The account then moves from rescue imagery to physical intimacy: the Chairman gathers her into his arms and kisses the exposed skin at her throat, with an urgency that recalls Sayuri’s memory of a maid craving a ripe pear. His explanation to Nobu thus accompanies a moment in which emotional relief, remembered vulnerability, and desire converge.

The decisive shift is not simply that Nobu learns about the encounter. The Chairman makes Nobu’s response a test of the relationship: because Nobu reacts angrily and cannot forgive Sayuri for what she has done, the Chairman concludes that Nobu was never truly her destiny. His statement that he took nothing from Nobu presents the separation as the consequence of Nobu’s own reaction, even as the Chairman’s disclosure helped bring that reaction about. The scene binds revelation, interpretation, and intimacy together, leaving the Chairman’s judgment—not Nobu’s own words in this passage—as the final explanation Sayuri receives.