The Makioka Sisters

To lose the Osaka house would be to lose her very roots.

Sachiko, who knew little of Tokyo and to whom names like Shibuya meant nothing, could only imagine something like the distant views she had had of the Tokyo suburbs from the Loop Line, of well-wooded hills and valleys and intermittent clusters of houses, and overhead a sky whose very color made one shiver—of a wholly different world, in short, from Osaka. As she read of Tsuruko’s “frozen” fingers, she remembered how the main house in Osaka, true to the old fashion, had been almost without heating.

I have always heard that the cold in Tokyo is particularly hard to bear, and in fact I have never seen anything like it. Not a day passes without that cold, dry north wind. This morning the towels were frozen like boards and crackled when you picked them up. I do not remember that this ever happened, in Osaka. They say it is warmer in toward the city, but here we are high up and far out.

The way she rolled her eyes, the way she curled her lips, the way she held her forefinger as she lifted a cigarette to her lips— perhaps Tokyo speech was not authentic unless it brought its own gestures and facial expressions.

Taeko, the only one of the three in Western clothes, picked her way lightly through the collection of obis on the floor.

miai, a formal meeting between a prospective bride and groom.