Memoirs of a Geisha: Chapter 25 Summary & Analysis

Now that Sayuri is free to go to parties with Hatsumomo following her, Mameha takes her around Gion, introducing Sayuri to her wealthiest clients. Sayuri finds most of the events fairly boring because the men just get drunk and tell dirty jokes. After two more years of parties and outings, Sayuri makes the shift from being an apprentice to being a geisha. In the summer of 1938, she turns eighteen and “turns the collar.” Apprentices where red collars, while regular geisha wear white ones. Once a geisha turns the collar, she becomes eligible to take on a danna.

Sayuri interrupts the narrative to explain that since moving to New York, she has come up again and again against the perception that geisha are prostitutes. Yet in the West Sayuri has met many women who rely totally on their wealthy boyfriends or husbands for money. Sayuri explains that a danna is like this Western boyfriend.

Three weeks after Sayuri turns the collar, Mother tells her that at this time next month Nobu will become her danna. Since making an offer for her mizuage, Nobu has asked for Sayuri’s company more frequently than any other man. Though Sayuri has come to like Nobu over the years, if he becomes her danna then she will never have a chance to be with the Chairman, because of the custom that prevents two business partners from pursuing the same geisha. All afternoon, Sayuri feels a buzzing in her head. Being with the Chairman was the one hope that had motivated her through the years. Sayuri feels that if Nobu were to become her danna instead, then all her struggles and suffering would have been pointless.

The next day, Sayuri goes to Mameha’s to tell her what Mother said. Mameha says she should be proud to have a man as successful as Nobu as her danna. In a burst of emotion, Sayuri cries out that she wants more than kindness. Mameha says that a geisha is not entitled to ask for more. When Sayuri asks if Mameha has “strong feelings” for the Baron, Mameha simply responds that their relationship is convenient for him and beneficial for her.

Mameha ends the conversation by saying that Nobu and Sayuri have an en – the Japanese word for a karmic bond. Sayuri interrupts the narrative again to explain that in her day, people viewed themselves as pieces of clay that “forever showed the fingerprints of everyone who has touched them.” She says that Nobu’s touch had made a deeper impression on her than most other people’s. Sayuri says that even at the time she knew that “somewhere in the landscape of my life Nobu would always be present.”

In the days after her conversation with Mameha, Sayuri loses hope that the Chairman will ever become her danna. While entertaining at a group of boring men at a party, she feels for one horrifying moment that she might be the sole living human in all the world. Sayuri feels that the only thing that gives her life any purpose, however small, is entertaining military men. By 1938, troops fighting the war in Manchuria were coming back to Japan on leave. After drinking a few glasses of sake, military men with watery eyes would tell Sayuri that nothing kept their spirits up during war as much as their memories of her and the other geisha of Gion.

A few weeks pass, and then one day Mameha tells Sayuri that the time has finally come for her to collect her winnings from her agreement with Mother. Mameha says she’s already waited long enough to collect them. Several days later, Mother, Mameha, and Sayuri meet together in the reception room at the okiya. When Mother agrees to pay Mameha the other half of what is owed to her, Mameha reminds her that Mother agreed to pay an extra fifty percent over the normal amount. Mother says that Mameha must be misremembering, and suggests that they ask Sayuri what truly happened. Though she feels torn between making Mother angry and betraying Mameha, Sayuri feels she must tell the truth. Sayuri says that she remembers Mother promising Mameha the extra amount. Mother concedes to pay Mameha the due amount, saying she must have grown forgetful in her old age.

After the accounts are settled, Mameha asks Mother about how the search for a danna is going. Mother says that she is in the final stages of agreeing upon terms with Nobu. Mameha suggests to Mother that she can make more money if other men compete with Nobu over becoming Sayuri’s danna. When Mother says that no other men have shown any interest, Mameha suggests General Junnosuke Tottori as a possible danna. Sayuri has entertained the General almost every week for the past few months. Sayuri realizes that Mameha must be trying to stop Nobu from becoming her danna.

Mameha tells Mother that with the war in Manchuria, it could be helpful to have a military man as a danna, because he can provide the okiya with things that the government will soon ration off. Sayuri notices Mother worryingly squeeze her tobacco bag to see how much tobacco she has left. Sayuri takes this as a sign that Mameha might have convinced Mother.