Old Man Crazy to Paint

Yoshiwara

By night the Yoshiwara glows with the light of a thousand lanterns and a thousand candles. Its patrons gather in the tea houses and the taverns. They drink, they sing, they amuse themselves with the courtesans. The Yoshiwara is a place where any dream can be bought for a few coins.

But dreams have their price. The women who serve in the Yoshiwara hide their pockmarked faces behind thick layers of makeup. They must hide the signs of the failures of the flesh. Who would dream of congress with an onibaba - a demon hag - when one could have the fresh-faced innocence of the miko? Those who cannot play the game of sighs and disguise are discarded. Some fight their way back to a new life, hardened by their experiences. The rest lurk in the filthy alleys and under the eaves of the brothels, until their lifeless bodies are found and brought to the Nage-komi dera: the Throw-away temple for the throw-away dead.

By day the Yoshiwara is bleak. The cold sunlight shows the faded glory for what it is. Lonely men sit in the tea houses, trying to make their pennies last. Then they trudge to their toil, their only goal to earn enough so that they can once again forget the pain of their existence in the beautiful, warm candlelight.

Above it all sits the shōgun in his palace. The people look up at him and ask, "Tokugawa-sama, are broken dreams the coin of the realm?"

And the shōgun looks down at the Yoshiwara and is satisfied.