Chiyo (Sayuri) and Hatsumomo

Chiyo (Sayuri) and Hatsumomo are bound by an antagonistic relationship in which Hatsumomo’s seniority and standing in the okiya give her power to punish and manipulate the younger girl. Their conflict is not confined to personal dislike: it shapes Chiyo’s debts, restrictions, and prospects, while Chiyo’s covert retaliation exposes the narrow forms of resistance available to her. The contrast between Hatsumomo’s costly kimono and Chiyo’s later handful of possessions also makes their rivalry a measure of changing power and material circumstance.

Unequal Standing and Open Contempt

Hatsumomo makes her contempt plain from the beginning. When she asks Mr. Bekku to take out the garbage, the entryway is empty; Chiyo understands that Hatsumomo is treating her as refuse. She then explains her disdain through the image of crossing the street at the sight of filth. The insult is delivered in front of others, turning Chiyo’s presence into a public affront and showing how casually Hatsumomo can use her position to degrade her.

The power imbalance becomes physical when Chiyo asks Hatsumomo where Satsu is. Hatsumomo first makes information conditional on Chiyo earning it, then appears pleased when Chiyo promises not to bother her again. Chiyo expects a whispered answer; instead, Hatsumomo slaps her. The blow leaves Chiyo stunned and slumped in the hallway, holding her face. When Mother intervenes, Hatsumomo claims she struck Chiyo because the girl had spoken of running away, presenting the assault as punishment on Mother’s behalf. Her account makes the violence look like discipline even as it demonstrates Hatsumomo’s capacity to act against Chiyo and define the story afterward.

Mameha’s Kimono and the Debt It Creates

Hatsumomo’s control becomes more consequential when she draws Chiyo into the destruction of Mameha’s kimono. She offers information about Chiyo’s older sister as the inducement: if Chiyo follows her plans, she may ask one question afterward. Chiyo knows she has little choice but to obey. In the storehouse, Hatsumomo directs her to the upper loft, where red lacquered cases hold robes wrapped in linen paper. The collection’s immense value helps explain why Granny fears fire, but for Chiyo the beautiful clothing is not simply a display of wealth: Hatsumomo turns it into the instrument of a trap.

Back in the courtyard, Hatsumomo prepares ink and puts the brush into Chiyo’s hand, telling her to practice on Mameha’s kimono. The robe’s vine, woven from lacquered threads and colored like leaves fading in autumn, makes the intended damage especially stark: Chiyo is being made to mark a work of art, not an expendable garment. When the okiya confronts the incident, Mother says there is no dispute about who held the brush and orders that Chiyo pay. Auntie objects that Chiyo already has enough debts, but the decision leaves her responsible for the damage. Auntie later warns that Hatsumomo has burdened Chiyo with so much debt she may never work it off. The scheme thus converts Hatsumomo’s personal hostility into a lasting economic constraint on Chiyo’s future.

Confinement and Covert Retaliation

The punishment restricts Chiyo’s movement as well as her finances. She is confined to the okiya for fifty days, allowed to attend school only with Pumpkin, and barred from running errands. She wants to find Satsu at Tatsuyo, but does not know the way and fears being caught; a runaway maid from a neighboring okiya had been returned and beaten so severely that Chiyo remembers the girl’s wailing. Chiyo waits out the confinement rather than risk the same fate. The choice shows that Hatsumomo’s reach operates within a larger regime of discipline: escape is imaginable, but its cost is visible and frightening.

Unable to strike back openly, Chiyo devises petty acts of revenge against those she holds responsible. She mixes pigeon droppings into Hatsumomo’s face cream, though the cream already contains nightingale droppings, and takes satisfaction in the possibility that the prank may cause discomfort. Against Granny she rubs the toilet rag inside a sleeping robe. When the cook cuts back Chiyo’s twice-monthly portions of dried fish as an extra punishment, Chiyo scatters mouse droppings in the kitchen and punctures a rice bag so the cook must search the cabinets. These acts do not free Chiyo from the debt or the okiya’s rules; their importance lies in the small, furtive agency she can claim while those with authority determine her daily life.

Clothes, Gifts, and Changing Circumstances

The relationship is also framed through clothing as both craft and wealth. Hatsumomo’s dressing requires Mr. Bekku’s practiced work: the kimono’s extra fabric is folded at the waist, and her long, heavy obi is secured with cords, clasps, and padding until the brocade lies nearly without a wrinkle. Its autumnal deer pattern and plum-colored obi threaded with silver make her glamour visible, while Chiyo estimates that the outfit may cost as much as a policeman or shopkeeper earns in a year. The kimono storehouse, with cases stacked nearly to the ceiling, gives that splendor a material scale. Hatsumomo’s prestige is inseparable from a costly wardrobe and the labor that makes it appear effortless.

Later, scarcity alters what such possessions mean. When Chiyo moves into Hatsumomo’s room, she carries only a few scrolls, inkstones, bowls, books, magazines, and stereoscopic photographs, including a silver viewer given by the Kabuki actor Onoe Yoegoro XVII. Cosmetics and permanents have been banned as luxuries by the military government, and lavish gifts have become rare. The contrast with Hatsumomo’s earlier abundance is not a simple reversal of their rivalry, but it places their lives within the broader contraction of wartime resources. Objects once tied to display and status become harder to acquire, while Chiyo’s modest belongings record how much less she has been able to accumulate.

A later banquet briefly complicates the pattern of gifts and humiliation. When Chiyo’s hair ornament falls near Nobu’s legs, Nobu retrieves it and asks for the package he had brought. He gives her an antique ornamental comb, red and decorated with bright flowers, saying he had intended to present it later. The episode does not erase the older conflict with Hatsumomo, but the comb offers a pointed counter-image to the damaged kimono: an object associated with beauty and public attention can be given to Chiyo rather than used to entrap or burden her.

Rivalry in the Wider Okiya and Its Legacy

The kimono incident also exposes the wider antagonism between Hatsumomo and Mameha. Auntie says Hatsumomo hates anyone more successful than herself, and Mother declares her respect for Mameha while forbidding further behavior of this kind. Yet Mother still makes Chiyo pay, so recognition of Hatsumomo’s conduct does not undo its material consequence. Chiyo is caught between the women’s rivalry and the okiya’s interest in assigning the cost to the person easiest to charge.

Hatsumomo’s authority, meanwhile, rests on more than her ability to intimidate Chiyo. During the war, Mother prospers through the gray market, buying and selling other people’s heirlooms. When Mr. Arashino sells kimono for cash, he asks Chiyo to contact Mother to recover them; Mother handles many of the robes sold in Kyoto but repeatedly says she cannot find the ones he hopes to buy back. The wartime circulation of valuable clothing recalls the storehouse and its wealth, but changes its meaning: kimono now pass through a market shaped by shortage and need. Together, these episodes place Chiyo and Hatsumomo’s hostility inside a world where clothing can signify status, become a source of debt, or be traded away for survival. The relationship remains defined by unequal power, but its material setting changes—from abundance and punishment to scarcity and uncertain recovery.