Quotes from "The Key" by Jyunichiro Tanizaki

🦋 The Key (1971) 

Originally published in Japanese as Kagi. 

Tanizaki, Junichiro. The Key. Translated from the Japanese by Howard Hibbett. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1971. 

Personality difference & gendered/cultural impact on men and women:  

He thinks I'm matter-of-fact and unromantic. "You don't love me half as much as I love you," he says. "You consider me a necessity, a defective one at that. If you really love me you ought to be more passionate. You ought to agree to anything I ask." According to him, it's partly my fault that he's not able to satisfy me fully. If I'd try to stir him up a bit he wouldn't be so inadequate. He says I won't make the slightest effort to co-operate with him--as hungry as I am, all I do is sit back calmly and wait to be served. He calls me a cold-blooded, spiteful female.

I suppose it's not unreasonable of him to think of me in that way. But my parents brought me up to believe that a woman ought to be quiet and demure, certainly never aggressive toward a man. It's not that I lack passion; in a woman of my temperament the passion lies deep within, too deep to erupt. The instant I try to force it out, it begins to fade. My husband can't seem to understand that mine is a pale, secret fame, not one that flares up brilliantly. (12) 

Marriage not based on love: 

There must have been a better partner for me, and for him too; we simply can't agree in our sexual tastes. I married him because my parents wanted me to, and for all these years I've thought marriage was supposed to be like this. But now I have the feeling that I accepted a man who is utterly wrong for me. Of course I have to put up with him, since he's my lawful husband. (13)

Love-hate emotion toward her husband: 

Last night I was a little intoxicated, but my husband was worse. He kept after me to kiss his eyes, something he hasn't insisted on lately. And I'd had just enough brandy to do it. That would have been all right, except that I happened to look at the one thing I can't bear--his gray, lifeless face

after he's taken off those glasses. When I kiss him I close my eyes, but last night I opened them before I finished. His waxy skin loomed up before me like a wide-screen close-up. I winced. I felt my own face go pale. Luckily, he soon put his glasses back on, as usual to begin poring over me. I said nothing, and turned off the bed lamp. He stretched out his hand, trying to find the switch, but I pushed the lamp away. "Wait a minute!" he begged.

"Let me have another look. Please. He groped in the dark, but couldn't find the lamp, and at last gave up.  I violently dislike my husband, and just as violently love him. No matter how much he disgusts me I shall never give myself to another man. I couldn't possibly abandon my principles (17) of right and wrong. Although I'm driven to my wit's end by his unhealthy, repulsive way of love making, I can see he's still infatuated with me. and I feel that somehow I have to return his love. (18)

Jealousy increases sexual impulse: 

But what am I after, for that matter? Why did I have Kimura stay for dinner again this evening? I must admit that my own attitude has been rather strange. About a week ago, on the seventh, I already had a slight-_perhaps not so slight--feeling of jealousy toward him. (Indeed, I think it began several weeks ago, before the end of the year.) Yet isn't it true that I secretly enjoyed it? Such feelings have always given me an erotic stimulus; in a sense, they're both necessary and pleasurable to me. That night, stimulated by jealousy, I succeeded in satisfying Ikuko. I realize that Kimura is becoming indispensable to our sexual life. However, I'd like to warn her, though I need scarcely say it, that she mustn't go too far with him. Not that there shouldn't be an element of danger- the more the better, in fact. I want her to make me insanely jealous. It's all right if she makes me suspicious that she has gone too far. I want her to do that. (20)

Kimura: which one he’s after? 

I wonder what he's after. Which one attracts him, Ikuko or Toshiko? If I were he, and had to say which of the two I found (19) more attractive, I have no doubt that, despite her age, I would choose the mother. But I can't tell about him. Perhaps his real aim is to win Toshiko. Since she seems unenthusiastic, he may be trying to improve his chances by ingratiating himself with Ikuko. (20) 

Playing Itsuko: 

• Makes her drunk and she will naturally faint in the bath tub. Let Kimura carries her to the bedroom. 

I quietly went upstairs to get the fluorescent lamp from my study…and put it on the night table. (27)

my real reason was a desite to see Ikuko's naked body in that white radiance. That had been my fantasy ever since I had first heard of fuorescent lighting. Everything went as I had hoped. I took away her covers, carefully slipped her thin nightgown off, and turned her on her back. She lay there completely naked, exposed to the daylight brilliance of the two lamps. Then I began to study her in detail, as if I were studying a map. For a while, as I gazed on that beautiful, milk-white body, I felt bewildered. It was the first time I had ever had an unimpeded view of her in the nude.  

I suppose the average husband is familiar with all the details of his wife's body, down to the very wrinkles on the soles of her feet. But Ikuko has never let me examine her that way. Of course in love-making I have had certain opportunities—but never below the waist, never more than she had to let me see. Only by touch have I been able to picture to myself the beauty of her body, which is why I wanted so desperately to look at her under that brilliant light. And what I saw far exceeded my expectations. (28)

Ikuko, who was born in 1911, doesn't have the tall, Western kind of figure so common among the young girls of today. Having been an expert swimmer and tennis player, she is well proportioned for a Japanese woman of her age; still, she is not particularly full-bosomed, nor sizable in the buttocks, either. Moreover, her legs, as long and graceful as they are, can hardly be called straight. They bulge out at the calves, and her ankles are not quite trim. But, rather than slim, foreign-looking legs, I have always liked the slightly bowed ones of the old-fashioned Japanese woman, such as my mother and my aunt. Those slender, pipestem legs are uninteresting. And instead of overdeveloped breasts and buttocks, I prefer the gently swelling lines of the Bodhisattva in the Chuguji Temple. I had supposed that my wife's body must be shaped like that, and it turned out that I was right. What surpassed anything I had imagined was the utter purity of her skin. Most people have at least a minor flaw, some kind of dark spot, a birthmark, mole, or the like; but although I searched her body with the most scrupulous care, I could find no blemish. (29)

. . . How extraordinary for a woman to have reached the age of forty-four, and to have experienced childbirth, without suffering the slightest injury to her skin! Never before had I been allowed to gaze at this superb body, but perhaps that is just as well. To be startled, after more than twenty years together, by a first awareness of the physical beauty of one's own wife that, surely, is to begin a new marriage. We have long since passed the stage of disillusionment, and now I can love her with twice the passion I used to have. (30)

Who did she sleep with? Guessing to realization 

Surely that was a dream; but could a dream have been quite so vivid, so lifelike? At first I was amazed to feel myself reaching the climax of an excruciatingly keen pleasure, a kind of sensual fulfillment beyond anything I could expect from my husband. Soon, though, I knew that the man with whom I was in bed was not my husband. It was Kimura-san. Had he stayed overnight to help take care of me? Where had my husband gone? Was it all right for me to behave so immorally? (36)

But the pleasure was too intense to let me dwell on such things. Never in more than twenty years of marriage had my husband given me an experience like that. How dull and monotonous it had always been—dreary, stale, leaving a disagreeable aftertaste. I realized that never before not until that moment—had I known true sexual (36) intercourse. Kimura-san had taught me. Yet I realized, too, that I was partly dreaming. Somehow I was aware that the man embracing me only seemed to be Kimura-san, that he was actually my husband. (37) 

Reasons to take photos of Istuko: 

Kimura has had no ostensible reason to visit us since Toshiko moved out, but he still comes over quite regularly, every three or four days. I often telephone him myself. Toshiko stops in almost daily, but doesn't stay. 

I have already used the Polaroid camera twice. I've taken full front and back views of Ikuko's body, as well as detailed shots of every part of it, from the most alluring angles: I have pictures of her bending, stretching, twisting, pictures of her with her arms and legs contorted into all manner of poses.

As to why I take such photographs: first of all, I enjoy taking them. I derive great pleasure from creating these poses, freely manipulating her while she sleeps (or pretends to). My second reason is to paste them in my diary so that she will see them. Then, certainly, she will discover and be amazed at the unsuspected beauty of her own body. A third reason is to show her why I am so desperately eager to look at her in the nude. I want her to understand me—perhaps even be sympathetic. (I dare say it is unheard of for a (52) man of fifty-five to be so fascinated by his forty-four-year-old wife. She would do well to think of that.) Finally, I want to humiliate her in the extreme, to see how long she will go on playing innocent. (53) 

Istuko founds out that her husband knows her diary: 

There is no longer the slightest doubt that my husband has read this diary. Should I give it up, then? I began it solely for the purpose of talking to myself, since I don't like to open my heart to another person. Now that it's obviously being read by someone else, I suppose I ought to abandon it. Yet the "someone" is my own husband, and we have an unspoken agreement to behave as if we weren't aware of each other's secrets. So perhaps I shall go on with it after all. (55) 

Husband’s fear of reading his wife’s diary: 

Still, I can assure her that although I unsealed her diary—even opened it and looked inside—I didn't read a single word of it. It's hard for a near sighted person like myself to read such a tiny script, anyway. I hope she will believe me. Of course, with her, the more I deny it, the more she will think I'm guilty. Perhaps, if I am to be blamed in any case, I might just as well have read it. But I didn't. In fact, I am afraid to know what she may have said about her true feelings toward Kimura. Ikuko, I beg of you, don't confess! Even though I'll not see it, don't make such a confession! Lie, if you must, but say that you're only using him for my sake, that he means nothing more to you. (58) 

• The husband asked Kimura to develop the photos he took. 

Istuko: found out the photographs: 

Often when I'm in that dazed sleep I have the feeling that I've been stripped naked. Until now I've thought it might be another of my fantasies, but if those are photographs of me it must really happen. Yet I don't even object to his picture-taking, so long as I'm not aware of it. I couldn't possibly allow such a thing while I'm awake; still, since he finds such pleasure in seeing me in the nude, I suppose that as a dutiful wife I ought to let him enjoy himself. In the old days a virtuous woman simply obeyed her husband's wishes, no matter how indecent or how disgusting. She did as she was told, there was no question about it. And I have all the more reason to indulge him if it's true he can't satisfy me unless he's stimulated by crazy pranks like that. It's not just a matter of fulfilling my duty. In return for being a virtuous, submissive wife, I'm able to gratify my own strong sexual appetite. (65)

Going mad: 

The fermenting passion that comes from jealousy, the sexual impulses quickened by feasting my eyes on her nakedness—these things are driving me beyond all self-control, driving me to madness. Now I am the insatiable one. Night after night I immerse myself in undreamed-of ecstasies. I cannot help being grateful for my happiness; at the same time, I have a premonition (67) that it will end, that someday I must pay for it, that moment by moment I am whittling away my life. (68) 

• he’s taking drugs to enable him to perform sex! 

Aging: Forgetting things

A terrible anxiety gripped me. If this went on, gradually becoming more severe, I would soon be disqualified from my professorship. Not only that, I might become an invalid, house-bound, cut off from society. For the time being, however, my loss of memory has affected chiefly the names of people and places; I haven't forgotten the circumstances concerning them. …In short, only the nerves that transmit names were paralyzed; it wasn't a paral- (70) sis of the entire system controlling perception and communication. Fortunately, too, the paralysis lasted only about half an hour. Before long the blocked nerve channels were reopened, my lost memory returned, and, except for my vision, I was back to normal. In spite of my anxiety at not knowing how long: it might last, I had managed to survive it without telling anyone, without even letting it be noticed. (71) 

• incident happened: Itsuko fainted in her daughter’s apartment, where Toshiko let Kimura takes care of her mother while she takes a taxi to her father’s. 

Jealousy & Lust: 

Trying to decide the meaning of what happened last night has been an acute but frightening joy. I have yet to hear a word of explanation, whether from Kimura, Toshiko, or my wife. To be sure, I haven't had a chance to ask—but I haven't wanted to, quite so soon. I have found a kind of pleasure in thinking it over by myself, before hearing about it from anyone else. I allow my imagination to roam freely over all sorts of possibilities discarding one for another, and then another—until, in the tightening grip of jealousy and rage, I feel myself quiver with a savage, irresistible lust. When the truth finally comes out, that pleasure will disappear. (80)

As she approached a climax her cries became still more intense. Suddenly I felt the tip of my tongue being bitten--then the lobe of my ear. She had never been like this before. When I think that it was Kimura who, over. night, turned her into such a bold, aggressive woman, I feel violently jealous, and at the same time grateful. Perhaps I should also be grateful to Toshiko. Ironically enough, she seems to be quite unaware of my curious state of mind. She doesn't know that by trying to hurt me she actually gives me pleasure. (88)

Sexual capability vs. Aging: 

Early this morning, after intercourse, I felt

an awful giddiness. Ikuko's face, neck, shoulders, arms-the entire outline of her figure seemed double. (88) 

Kimura’s take on this Triangle relationship: 

"I'm the one who lent your husband the Polaroid camera," he told me. "I did it because I knew he liked to get you drunk and look at you in the nude. But he couldn't be satisfied with the Polaroid, so he finally began taking pictures with a Zeiss Ikon. I suppose he wanted to search out every detail of your body--but more than that, I think he wanted to make me suffer. I think he likes having me develop the films; he likes exciting me, and making me fight a terrible temptation. And he relishes the thought that my own feelings are reflected in you, till you're as tormented as I am. It's cruel of him to do this to us, but I still don't want to betray him. I see how you are suffering, and I want to suffer with you--I want to suffer more and more deeply. (91) 

• dizziness, high blood pressure (94) 

Playing on fire: where to stop?

At first I kept my wife at a considerable distance from Kimura. However, as the stimulation gradually wore off I began to reduce that distance. The more I reduced it, the more jealous I became and the more pleasure I derived. My plan was a great success. But, because Ikuko and I both want the same thing, we haven't known where to stop. It is almost three months since the New Year, and I cannot help marveling that I have dared to struggle so long to cope with her. Now indeed she must realize how much I love her. But what lies ahead? (95) 

Itsuko: Dream to Reality! 

Now that his image has unmistakably come alive, I can separate him completely from my husband. Once and for all, I hereby strike out the words "you are part of him, the two of you really one." The only resemblance between them (104)

is that they both appear to be slightly built. In the nude Kimura-san looks very different. His chest is surprisingly deep and his whole body radiates vitality; he's not at all like my scrawny husband, with his bad complexion, his slack, sagging skin. There's a glossy sheen and freshness to Kimura-san's skin, a tinge of pink under the white, whereas my husband's dark, sallow skin seems dead; its waxy smoothness still nauseates me. My feelings about my husband used to be divided equally between love and hate, but the balance is tipping more and more toward hate. How many times a day I sigh to think what a miserable sort of man I married: if only Kimura-san were in his place! (105) 

Jealous about Itsuko’s change in fashion:

When had she acquired a taste for wearing earrings with kimono?

What surprised me even more was that the earrings suited her so well. I recalled

something Akutagawa Ryunosuke once wrote about the alluring pallor of the back of a Chinese woman's ears. My own wife's ears, seen from the back, were like that. They enhanced the pearls, and were enhanced by them--the effect was quite lovely. But I couldn't believe that this was

her own idea. As usual, I had mixed feelings of jealousy and gratitude. It was chagrining to think that someone else had discovered this exotic aspect of her beauty, which I had failed to see. I suppose husbands are not so observant, because they look at their wives in a fixed way. (107-8)

Aging: high blood pressure & sex 

Dr. Kodama explained to me that, not being a specialist, he couldn't make a definite diagnosis. "Still." he went on,

"I was shocked to see how high his blood pressure was."

"How high was it?" I asked.

He hesitated a moment. "Perhaps I shouldn't tell you this," he said. "When I tried to measure it, my instrument nearly broke. It went over the top of the scale, and kept on climbing. I had to stop. I can't say how high it is." (110) 

I suppose I'm to blame for having brought it on. If it hadn't been for my demands on him, he wouldn't have sunk to such depravity. When I talked to Dr. Kodama I had to blush. Fortunately he doesn't know the truth about our sexual relations. (111)

Itsuko’s concern of her health: 

And so this year, late in January, I had a premonition of illness; every now and then I felt a warm, itching sensation in my chest. One day in February, just as before, I coughed up a scarlet-flecked bit of phlegm containing a thread of blood.

There wasn't much, but it happened two or three times. At the moment it seems to have subsided; I don't know when it may begin again. (112)

What worries me most is that my chest often aches quite severely, and by afternoon I feel exhausted. (To resist that feeling I press all the closer to Kimura-san. I can't overcome it without him.) Before, my chest didn't ache so badly, and I didn't feel such fatigue. Perhaps I'm gradually getting worse--I can't believe that this is only a trivial matter. Besides, I've done everything to ruin my health. They say drinking aggravates this illness; if that's so, it'll be a miracle if I recover. Now that I think of it, maybe I've let myself get drunk so often because I've had a feeling of despair, a feeling that I haven't long to live, anyway. (113) 

Osaka hotel & doubt: 

Of course it was the first time I had heard that they were meeting in Osaka. But where? I wondered. A small hotel, perhaps a disreputable one? I couldn't keep from imagining what kind of place it was, what their room was like, how they looked together. . . . "Asked a sophisticated friend of mine"?—somehow I was reminded of a cheap, cramped, one-room apartment. I pictured them in a high, Western-style bed; strangely enough, I felt I wanted them that way, rather (118)

than on the soft, matted floor of a purely Japanese room. "Some extremely unnatural method'—"other, nastier ways"—I could see them in all sorts of positions, a tangle of arms and legs.

Doubts began to well up in me. Why had Toshiko made her disclosure? Had Ikuko suggested it? (119)

Doubt back to Trust: 

One reason why I haven't doubted her earlier is that she has never refused to sleep with me. Even when she has obviously just come from seeing him, she has never shown the slightest reluctance to let me make love to her. Far from it, she lures me on. I took this to mean that she

wasn't sleeping with him. 

Itsuko’s innate masochistic sexuality

But I had overlooked her innate sensuality. Unlike most women, Ikuko welcomes repeated love-making—and can keep it up day after day. For anyone else, surely, it would be unbearable to repeat the act with a hated partner after leaving one you love. Yet even if she wanted to refuse me, her body would respond willingly to my embrace. (120)

Stroke, Itsuko’s disgust of her husband: 

For the first time Dr. Kodama and Toshiko realized that my husband had been naked. They both seemed to shrink from the sight of him--stretched out under that ugly glare. I felt more embarrassed than ever. It was hard to believe that only an hour ago that man had been lying with me. As often as he's looked at me in the nude, even photographed me, I had never looked at him this way before. Of course I could have if I'd wanted to, but I've tried to avoid it. I'd cling to him and shut my eyes. He has examined every inch of me, to the very pores of my skin, but I haven't known his body nearly as well as I know Kimura's. I haven't wanted to. I suspected it would only make me detest him all the more. It gave me a queer feeling to think I've been sleeping with such a miserable creature. And he called me bow-legged! (136) 

After stroke, meeting Kimura - all planed by Toshiko: 

Go ahead, Mama, and stop in at Sekidencho on your way home. We've got the bath heated."

I guessed that there was something behind it. "Well, then, just for an hour or two; I said. 

It was about three o'clock when I left the house. I went straight to Sekidencho. Kimura was there alone. He said Toshiko had phoned to ask him to come over for two or three hours, while she went to visit her father. 

The bath was stone cold.

For the first time in weeks we were able to have a few leisurely hours together. Yet somehow we felt restless; we couldn't seem to relax. At five I left him there and hurried out to do my shopping at a nearby market. I was afraid my husband might have awakened. (160) 

Toshiko went to find Itsuko’s diary and read it to her father: 

But, supposing I've guessed right, how shall I protect my diary now? I can't bring myself to give it up just because of a single blunder. Still, I've got to make sure it won't happen again. From now on I'll stop writing upstairs during my nap time. Late at night, after my husband and Miss Koike are both asleep, I'll make a new entry, and then hide the book away in some really safe place. (163) 

• After the husband dies from the second stroke, Itsuko read his diary. 

揭秘： 

In his New Year's Day entry he says that I am "furtive, fond of secrets, constantly holding back and pretending ignorance." That is perfectly true. On the whole, he was far more honest than I was--I have to admit that his diary has very few falsehoods in it. It has a few, though. For instance, he says: "It seems unlikely that she would dip into her husband's private writings. . . . I have decided not to worry about that any more.” I saw at once that his real motive was just as he later admitted: "Secretly, I hoped that she was reading it." (169)

The fact that he purposely dropped the key (on the morning of January fourth) proves that he wanted me to read his diary. Really, he needn't have bothered to tempt me. On January fourth | said: "I shall never read it. I haven't the faintest desire to penetrate his psychology, beyond the limits I've set for myself. I don't like to let others know what is in my own mind, and I don't care to pry into theirs."

But that wasn't true—except when I said: "I don't like to let others know what is in my own mind." Soon after our marriage I got into the habit of glancing over his secret notebooks. Of course I'd "known about his diary for a long time." It's nonsense to say "I'd never dream of touching it." (169-170)

Itsuko’s psychology: 

"sometimes the very sight of him made me queasy.” But that doesn't mean I didn't love him. Having had an "old-fashioned Kyoto upbringing,” I "married him because my parents wanted me to, and I thought marriage was supposed to be like this." I had no choice but to love him. He was right to say I set great store by my "antiquated morality." Whenever I began to be sickened by him, I felt ashamed of myself. I thought I was behaving inexcusably toward my dead parents, as well as toward him; the more I loathed him, the more I tried to love him. And I succeeded. Driven by sexual hunger, I could do nothing less. (171)

At the time, my only regret was that he didn't fully satisfy me. Instead of accusing him of weakness, though, I felt ashamed of my own lustful appetite. I was sorry about his declining vigor, and, far from blaming him, tried to be all the more devoted. (171) 

For twenty years I'd felt obliged to suppress my dissatisfaction with my husband. That is why, in spite of a strict Kyoto upbringing, I allowed myself to write unpleasant things about him. Above all, though, I'd begun to understand that making him jealous was the way to make him happy—and that that was the duty of a "model wife.” …Maybe I already loved Kimura without realizing it. All I did fearfully, and in a roundabout way at that--was to drop a disturbing hint. And I did it reluctantly, from a sense of duty. (173) 

But why did Kimura tell my husband about that special camera, as if to suggest photographing me in the nude? I haven't asked him yet, but perhaps he was trying to curry favor. Besides, he must have hoped to see the pictures someday. Probably that was his main reason. I suppose he expected my husband to turn from the Polaroid to the Zeiss Ikon, and to want him to do the developing. On February nineteenth I wrote: "I cannot imagine what is in Toshiko's mind." That wasn't quite accurate. As I've said, I already felt sure she'd told Kimura what went on in our bedroom, and I realized, too, that she was in love with him. That's why she was "secretly hostile to me." It's true she worried about my health, and hated her father for "forcing me to satisfy his sexual demands." But when she saw him bringing Kimura and me together, and saw us indulging his strange whim, she began to hate me too. I suspected that very soon. (177) 

Knowing, too, that Kimura was falling in love with me, she decided to act as go between for us; then, at leisure, she could devise a scheme of her own. That much was clear to me. Yet even now I'm not sure how closely she and Kimura worked together. For instance, I don't think she moved to Sekidencho merely to get away from home: the fact that Kimura was living nearby must have had something to do with it. Was it his idea or hers? He said she made arrangements ("I only followed her lead") --but I wonder if that was true. I'm afraid I still don't trust him.

At heart, I was as jealous of Toshiko as she was of me. But I tried not to let anyone notice it, nor to betray it in my diary. That was partly out of my natural secretiveness; even more, though, it was because I felt superior to her, and my pride was involved. Most of all. I was afraid my husband might think that I had reason to be jealous, that I suspected Kimura of being interested in her. (178) 

I still have a good many suspicions about Toshiko and Kimura. She said she found the Osaka hotel for us-through "a sophisticated friend” of hers—“because Mr. Kimura wondered if I knew of somewhere." Was that really all there was to it? She herself may have used that hotel with someone--may be using it even now. According to Kimura's plan, he'll marry Toshiko when the mourning period is over. She'll make the sacrifice for the sake of appearances; and the three of us will live here together. That is what he tells me. . . . (183)