Shijō Avenue is a public thoroughfare through which Chiyo first sees the purposeful life of Gion passing beyond her reach, then later walks with Mameha as strangers begin to acknowledge her. These contrasting passages make the avenue a measure of her changing place in the district: at first she watches from its margins; later, she is seen alongside an established geisha.

Setting and First Passage

During a period when she has been confined to maid’s work for a year and a half, Chiyo leaves the school garden and turns onto Shijō Avenue. A Kabuki performance of Shibaraku is drawing crowds up the steps of the Minamiza Theater. In the flow of men in Western suits or kimono, geisha stand out in brilliant colors, like autumn leaves on dark water. Chiyo does not yet know Kabuki, but the scene gives visible form to the life and activity she believes she has been denied.

The avenue’s movement continues into the surrounding streets. Chiyo hurries away beside Shirakawa Stream, yet men and geisha still seem to be moving through lives full of purpose. Even the water appears to follow its own course toward the Kamo River, Osaka Bay, and the Inland Sea. Feeling that she has no future, Chiyo weeps against a low stone wall by the stream. Shijō Avenue is thus part of a passage from public spectacle to private despair: the crowded street makes her isolation more acute rather than relieving it.

A Vow at the Shrine

Later, the coins the Chairman has given Chiyo acquire a purpose beyond buying shaved ice. She runs back along Shijō Avenue to the Gion Shrine at the avenue’s eastern edge. Too intimidated to pass beneath its great entrance gate, she walks around it, crosses the gravel courtyard, and climbs to the shrine. There she places the coins in the offertory box, claps three times, bows, and prays to be allowed to become a geisha, accepting that the training will bring hardship.

The route links the Chairman’s brief kindness to Chiyo’s resolve to enter the world she had earlier watched from outside. Her prayer does not produce an immediate sign: when she opens her eyes, traffic still sounds on Higashi-Oji Avenue and the trees move in the wind. She returns to the okiya carrying the Chairman’s handkerchief inside her robe. The avenue leads her to a deliberate commitment, while the unchanged scene leaves its fulfillment uncertain.

Being Seen with Mameha

When Mameha takes Chiyo out, Shijō Avenue becomes the setting for a different kind of passage. Wearing soft gray lacquered zori, Chiyo follows her down the stairwell and onto the street. An elderly woman bows first to Mameha and then to Chiyo; soon afterward, a young geisha Chiyo admires does the same. As they walk, nearly everyone they pass speaks to Mameha or bows to her, then gives Chiyo a small nod or bow as well.

Chiyo is unused to being noticed and repeatedly stops to return the greetings, falling behind Mameha. Mameha takes her into a quiet alley and explains how to walk while keeping the upper body independent of the lower. The moment is both public recognition and instruction: Chiyo is included in the courtesies directed toward her mentor, but must learn the practiced movement that will let her participate in street life without losing its rhythm.

Narrative Significance

Across these visits, Shijō Avenue changes from a vantage point for Chiyo’s sense of exclusion into a route on which her emerging status becomes perceptible to others. Its crowds and geisha first sharpen the contrast between the lives she observes and her own maid’s routine; the shrine journey turns that contrast into a vow; and the later walk with Mameha shows her beginning to inhabit the social world she once watched pass by. The avenue’s significance lies in this recurring contrast between movement witnessed from the margins and movement learned through recognition and training.