2: Memoirs Of A Geisha 139 - 309

"When we stepped outside, I couldn't help stopping a moment to take in the sunset, which painted the sky behind the distant hills in rusts and pinks as striking as the loveliest kimono -- even more so, because no matter how magnificent a kimono is, your hands will never glow orange in its light. But in that sunset my hands seemed to have been dippped in some sort of indescence. I raised them up and gazed at them for a long moment.
"Mameha-san, look," I said to her, but she thought I was talking about the sunset and turned toward it with indifference. Uchida was standing frozen in the entryway with an expression of concentration on his face, combing one hand through a tuft of his gray hair. But he wasn't looking at the sunset at all. He was looking at me.
If you've ever seen Uchida Kosaburo's famous ink painting of a young woman in a kimono standing in a rapturous state and with her eyes aglow...well, from the very beginning he insisted the idea came from what he saw that afternoon. I've never really believed him. I can't imagine such a beautiful painting could really be based on just a girl staring foolishly at her hands in the sunset." (Golden, 259)

The passage above is farther into the storyline, where Chiyo has become an apprentice geisha of Mameha, a well known geisha in Gion. Chiyo has gone from shamed in the Geisha house to becoming renamed as Sayuri, an uprising, beautiful, geisha. Mameha works her connections brillantly and attempts to bring Chiyo to the top of the geisha world and defeat Hatsumomo, Mameha's foil who has a deep dislike and jealousy for Chiyo. "Mameha-san, look," I said to her, but she thought I was talking about the sunset and turned toward it with indifference. Uchida was standing frozen in the entryway with an expression of concentration on his face, combing one hand through a tuft of his gray hair. But he wasn't looking at the sunset at all. He was looking at me." Golden shows here how Japan and society perceives Sayuri, something that they stare at in wonderment and beauty, like a sunset.

"I've never really believed him. I can't imagine such a beautiful painting could really be based on just a girl staring foolishly at her hands in the sunset." Golden then reveals Sayuri's perspective of herself, and how she thinks she is still a simple girl and has yet to notice how beautiful she really is.

Golden is trying to convey Sayuri's feelings about being a beautiful geisha. All of Sayuri's life, she has been a small country girl always second best to her elder sister, worried about her family life, hidden behind the curtain. Now Sayuri is brought to center stage, men are noticing her striking gray eyes and Sayuri doesn't realize how much beauty she posses. She doesn't yet have the inflated head of some geishas and is confused as to why she is drawing so much attention from men in the new world that she has been brutally sold into. Sayuri's perspective of herself differs drastically from what the people of Gion (such as the painter, Uchida) see in her.