ABSTRACT
O'Iwa did not move. The two women approached and laid hands on her. Her yielding made no difference in the roughness of their treatment. Dragged, hustled, shoved, with amplitude of blows, she was already much bruised on reaching the place of punishment—the seméba, to use the technical term of these establishments “for the good of the Community.” During a temporary absence of the mistress, a ray of kindliness seemed to touch the woman O'Kin. She pointed to the square of some six feet, to the rings fastened in the rafters. “Don't carry self-will to extremes. Here you are to be stripped, hauled up to those rings, and beaten until the bow breaks. Look at it and take warning. Kin is no weakling.” She shoved back her sleeve, showing an arm as hard and brawny as that of a stevedore. With disapproval she observed O'Iwa. The latter stood unresisting, eyes on the ground. Only the lips twitched from time to time. As the only person in the house, male or female, not to fear the Okamisan, O'Kin could only put down the courage to ignorance. She shrugged her shoulders with contempt. “A man would cause you no pain. The same cannot be said of Kin. You shall have the proof.” Perhaps severity would be more merciful, by quickly breaking down this obstinacy.
