Sakamoto Shōzaburō Rikunosei

Bando Shojiro VI is a famous kabuki actor and onna-gata, a performer who specializes in women’s roles. In the geisha world of the novel, he is both a skilled mimic and a conspicuous center of attention: his arrival at a Pontocho party first draws Hatsumomo into his orbit, then exposes the volatility beneath their closeness. His encounter with Mameha turns an evening of entertainment into a public humiliation and helps precipitate Hatsumomo’s expulsion from the okiya.

Identity and Reputation

Shojiro is known for playing women onstage, and his public admiration of Hatsumomo has made their connection a subject of notice. In a magazine interview, he called her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and said that he imitated her gestures in performance to make himself more alluring. Whenever he was in town, Hatsumomo visited him. The relationship is presented through the narrator’s recollection of what was known about them, rather than through any account of Shojiro’s private intentions.

His profession also gives the Pontocho scene its particular charge. Shojiro’s mimicry is not simply a display of technical skill: it lets him command the room, and the room’s laughter confirms his authority as an entertainer. Yet the same talent can turn cruel when he imitates Ichiwari’s habit of picking her nose. She reddens and covers her face with her kimono sleeve, while Shojiro continues even after the mockery has become uncomfortable. The episode establishes the uneasy boundary between theatrical imitation and social injury that the later confrontation with Hatsumomo will cross more dramatically.

The Pontocho Party

The narrator learns that Shojiro will attend a party in Pontocho, across the river from Gion, and hurries to tell Mameha. By the time she reaches the okiya, Hatsumomo has already dressed and slipped out, taking care to leave early enough that no one will follow. At the teahouse, Shojiro is drinking sake and entertaining the guests. The theater director, who is present, eventually urges him to request a dance from Mameha, one of Gion’s renowned dancers.

Shojiro resists at first, saying that he does not want to see dancing and is enjoying himself. His reluctance is of a piece with his evident preference for being the focus of attention. But the director insists, and other geisha join in; Shojiro finally asks Mameha to perform, sulkily. Hatsumomo pours him more sake, and the two exchange a long look that suggests they regard the request as having spoiled their evening together.

After a maid fetches a shamisen and a geisha tunes it, Mameha performs several short pieces. The narrator cannot say precisely what wins Shojiro’s interest—perhaps the sake, perhaps Mameha’s dancing, since he is a dancer too—but he asks her to sit beside him when she returns to the table. He pours her sake and turns his back on Hatsumomo, treating her as though she were merely another admiring apprentice. The reversal is visible in Hatsumomo’s hardened mouth and narrowed eyes, while Mameha deliberately cultivates Shojiro’s attention with a softened voice and gestures of feigned self-consciousness.

Mimicry, Jealousy, and the Break

When the conversation turns to Bajiru-san, Shojiro announces that Bajiru has abandoned him and offers to demonstrate the difference between them. He first shows his own style by sashaying across the room, moving a folding fan with a fluid wrist and letting his head roll from side to side. Then he grabs Mameha, dips her as if in a passionate embrace, and kisses her face. The room cheers and applauds; Hatsumomo alone remains openly displeased.

Mameha makes the performance personal. Calling attention to Hatsumomo’s jealousy, she urges Shojiro to show the company how the two of them make up, and asks him to give Hatsumomo the same kisses he has just given her. Shojiro struggles to get Hatsumomo to her feet, then takes her in his arms and bends her backward before the watching crowd. The comic display abruptly breaks: Hatsumomo bites his lip hard enough to shock him, though not to draw blood, and then slaps him. Her eyes are narrowed, her teeth exposed, and her drunken aim sends the blow to the side of his head rather than his face.

The room falls quiet. Mameha intervenes in a calm voice, soothing Shojiro while signaling the theater director to remove Hatsumomo. The director takes her downstairs and shoves her out onto the street. The scene’s turning point is not simply that Shojiro’s attention has shifted; it is that the party’s staged play at intimacy becomes an actual public assault. The gathered audience, which had applauded the embrace, now witnesses the collapse of the performance into anger.

Aftermath and Narrative Significance

Hatsumomo does not return to the okiya that night. When she comes back the next day, her hair is disordered and she appears to have been sick; Mother summons her to her room, where she remains for a long time. A few days later, Mother throws her out. Hatsumomo leaves in a plain cotton robe, carrying her belongings and jewelry, without saying goodbye. Her expulsion follows the Pontocho incident, although the narrator makes clear that Mameha believed Mother had probably wanted to remove her for years. Hatsumomo’s declining earnings and the difficulty of obtaining food also make her presence an economic burden on the household.

Shojiro’s part in the episode is consequential but limited: the novel does not follow his life after the party. Instead, the incident reveals how the attention he commands can rearrange relationships in public, and how his theatrical gestures can become instruments of humiliation when others are made their unwilling subjects. The final consequences fall chiefly on Hatsumomo. Once expelled, she is left without the okiya that had supported her, and the narrator later hears an uncertain report that she may have made a living as a prostitute in Miyagawa-cho. The report is never confirmed; a man who went looking for her could not find her. Shojiro’s scene therefore closes not with a resolution of his own story, but with an irreversible consequence for the woman whose attachment to him was exposed before the crowd.