her off toward the city. Kyoto
places a letter and money at the cottage door for the blind father.
Through a pedler and the woman he learns that his daughter is gone to
be an inmate of the Yoshiwara. He implores the people who had been
jeering him to lead him thither, that he may spit in her face and curse
her.

Iris is asleep upon a bed in the "Green House" of the district, which
needs no description. A song, accompanied by the twanging of a samisen
and the clanging of tamtams, is sung by three geishas. Kyoto brings in
Osaka to admire her beauty, and sets a high price upon it. Osaka sends
for jewels. Iris awakes and speculates in philosophical vein touching
the question of her existence. She cannot be dead, for death brings
knowledge and paradise joy; but she weeps. Osaka appears. He praises
her rapturously--her form, her hair, her eyes, her mouth, her smile.
Iris thinks him veritably Jor, but he says his name is "Pleasure." The
maiden recoils in terror. A priest had taught her in an allegory that
Pleasure and Death were one! Osaka loads her with jewels, fondles her,
draws her to his breast, kisses her passionately. Iris weeps. She knows
nothing of passion, and longs only for her father, her cottage, and her
garden. Osaka wearies of his guest, but Kyoto plans to play still
further upon his lust. He clothes her in richer robes, but more
transparent, places her upon a balcony, and, withdrawing a curtain,
exhibits her beauty to the multitude in the street. Amazed cries greet
the revelation. Osaka returns and pleads for her love.

"Iris!" It is the cry of the blind man hunting the child whom he thinks
has sold herself into disgraceful slavery. The crowd falls back before
him, while Iris rushes forward to the edge of the veranda and cries out
to him, that he may know her presence. He gathers a handful of mud from
the street and hurls it in the direction of her voice. "There! In your
face! In your forehead! In your mouth! In your eyes! Fango!" Under the
imprecations of her father the mind of Iris gives way. She rushes along
a corridor and hurls herself out of a window.

The third act is reached, and drama merges again into allegory. In the
wan light of the moon rag-pickers, men and women, are dragging their
hooks through the slimy muck that flows through the open sewer beneath
the fatal window. They sing mockingly to the moon. A flash of light
from Fujiyama awakens a glimmer in the filth. Again. They rush forward
and pull