The House of the Sleeping Beauties by Yasunari Kawabata

wanted to drink in the youth of girls put to sleep, to enjoy girls who would not awaken.
    At his pillow there were again two white sleeping tablets. He took them up and looked at them. They bore no marks or letters to tell him what the drug might be. It was without doubt different from the drug the girl had taken. He thought of asking on his next visit for the same drug. It was not likely that the request would be granted. But how would it be to sleep as of the dead? He was much taken with the thought of sleeping a deathlike sleep beside the girl put into a sleep like death.
    'A sleep like death': the words brought back a memory of a woman. Three years before, in the spring, Eguchi had brought a woman bak to his hotel in Kobe. She was from a night club, and it was of the dead? He was much taken with the thought of sleeping a deathlike sleep beside a girl put into a sleep like death.
    "A sleep like death." The words brought back a memory of a woman. Three years before, in the spring, Eguchi had brought a woman back to his hotel in Kobe. She was from a night club, and it was past midnight. He had a drink of whisky from a bottle he kept in his room and offered some to the woman. She drank as much as he. He changed to the night kimono provided by the hotel. There was none for her. He took her in his arms still in her underwear.
    He was gently and aimlessly stroking her back.
    She pulled herself up. "I can't sleep in these." She took off all her cloths and threw them on the chair in front of the mirror. He was surprised, but told himself that such was the way with amateurs. She was unusually docile.
    "Not yet?" he asked as he pulled away from her.
    "You cheat, Mr. Eguchi." She said it twice. "You cheat." But still she was quiet and docile.
    The whisky had its effect, and the old man was soon asleep. A feeling that the woman was already out of the bed awoke him in the morning. She was at the mirror arranging her hair.
    "You're early."
    "Because I have children."
    "Children?"
    "Two of them. Still very small."
    She hurried away before he was out of bed.
    It seemed strange that she, the first slender and firm fleshed woman he had embraced in a long while, should have two children. Hers had not been that sort of a body. Nor had it seemed likely that those breasts had nursed a child.
    He opened his suitcase to take out a clean shirt, and saw that everything had been neatly put in order for him. In the course of his ten days' stay he had wadded his dirty linen and stuffed it inside, and stirred up the contents in search of something at the bottom, and tossed in gifts he had bought and received in Kobe. And the suitcase had so swelled up that it would no longer close. She had been able to look inside, and she had seem the confusion when he opened it for cigarettes. But even so, what had made her want to put it in order for him? And when had she done the work? All of his dirty underwear and the like was neatly folded. It must have taken time, even fir a woman's skilled hands. Had she done it, unable to sleep herself, after Eguchi had gone to sleep?
    "Well…" said Eguchi, gazing at the neat suitcase. "I wonder what made her do it?"
    The next evening, as promised, the woman arrived to meet him at a Japanese restaurant. She was wearing Japanese kimono.
    "You wear kimono?"
    "Sometimes. But I don't imagine I look very good in it."
    She laughed a different laugh. "I had a call from my friend at about noon. She said she was shocked. She asked if it was all right."
    "You told her?"
    "I don't keep secrets."
    They walked through the city. Eguchi bought her material for a kimono and obi, and they went back to the hotel. From the window they could see the lights of a ship in the harbour. As they stood kissing in the window, Eguchi closed the blinds and pulled the curtains. He offered whisky to the woman, but she shook her head. She did not want to lose control of herself. She sank into a deep sleep. She awoke the next morning as Eguchi was getting out