「まだお起きにならないのですか」と
Little gal -- who incidentally refers to herself not as Little gal but as Lil gal -- takes note of her wet genroku and cries out, "Gendoko wet!" Fearing the child will catch cold, Osan rushes out from the kitchen, snatches the cleaning rag, and wipes her dry. Throughout all this, the one who's been relatively quiet is Miss Sunko, the second daughter. Miss Sunko is turned away and occupied with a jar of white face powder that's rolled off an upper shelf. She's opened the jar and proceeded to make herself up. Her first move was to take her finger, whitened with powder, and run it down her nose to the tip. This nose, normally nondescript, now stands out in relief. The next stop for her whitened fingers was her cheekbones, which were daubed into white circles. At this point, the maidservant enters the scene, and after wiping Lil gal's dress clean turns her rag on Sunko's face. Sunko's a bit put out.
I take these scenes in in passing, making my way to the living room and then on to the room where the master sleeps. Thinking to see if he's awake, I quietly peek in. The master's head is nowhere to be seen. All I can see is one large, arched foot protruding from under the edge of the bedding. Apparently concerned that his exposed head might be subject to another wake-up call, he's turtled in and hid himself under the quilt. As he lies there concealed, the wife, who has finished cleaning the study and is still shouldering her broom and duster, reappears. From the threshold, she calls out as before.
"Still not up?" Having called out, she stands there for a moment, surveying the headless mass of bedding. Again receiving no answer, she advances several steps and gives the mat a firm thrust with her broom. "Don't you think you'd best be up?" She's determined to have an answer. The master is, in fact, awake. It's because he's awake that he's steeled himself against the wife's assault by burying himself, head and all, in his bedding. He's fostering some foolish misconception that if he simply lies low, head out of sight, the wife will let him be. The course of events, however, is proving otherwise. Her first call to him was from the threshold, some half a room away, which had given him a sense of assurance. The thrust of the broom was closer, only half again as far, which had put some fear in him. Her second call was louder and closer, penetrating the covers with double or more the force. Realizing his ruse is up, he reluctantly responds with a feeble grunt.