- Shukichi Somiya: Marriage may not mean happiness from the start. To expect such immediate happiness is a mistake. Happiness isn't something you wait around for. It's something you create yourself. Getting married isn't happiness. Happiness lies in the forging of a new life shared together. It may take a year or two, maybe even five or ten. Happiness comes only through effort. Only then can you claim to be man and wife.
- Noriko Somiya: I want us to stay as we are. I don't want to go anywhere. Being with you is enough for me. I'm happy just as I am. Even marriage couldn't make me any happier. I'm content with this life... I just want to be by your side. I'm so fond of you. Being with you like this is my greatest happiness. Please, father, why can't we stay just as we are? I know marriage won't make me any happier.
- Shukichi Somiya: That's not true. You'll see. I'm 56 years old. My life is nearing its end. But your life as a couple is just beginning. You're starting a new life, one that you and Satake must build together. One in which I play no part. That's the order of human life and history.
- Jo Onodera: It's good she's finally marrying. She'll make a good wife, no doubt about it.
- Shukichi Somiya: Better to have a son, though. It's pointless to have a daughter. You raise them and then off they go. If they're unwed, you worry. Yet if they do marry, you feel let down.
- Jo Onodera: But didn't we marry other men's daughters?
- Shukichi Somiya: You have a point.
- [both laugh]
- Noriko Somiya: Father, for your loving care these many years, I thank you.
- Shukichi Somiya: Be happy and be a good wife. Be happy.
- Noriko Somiya: So which type am I?
- Shôichi Hattori: Let's see. I'd say you're not the jealous type.
- Noriko Somiya: Oh, but I am.
- Shôichi Hattori: You sure?
- Noriko Somiya: As the saying goes, when I slice pickled radish, it comes out all strung together.
- Shôichi Hattori: That's a matter of the relative interaction between you and the knife. There's no logical connection between pickled radish and jealousy, now is there?
- Noriko Somiya: So you like pickles strung together?
- Shôichi Hattori: At times I wouldn't mind them.
- Jo Onodera: Which way is Tokyo?
- Shukichi Somiya: Tokyo, that way.
- Jo Onodera: So east is this direction?
- Shukichi Somiya: No, that direction.
- Jo Onodera: Has it always been that way?
- Shukichi Somiya: Absolutely.
- [they both laugh]
- Aya Kitagawa: [to Noriko] Men are no good. They're devious. Before marriage they only show their good side, but once they have you, everything awful comes out. Even if you marry for love, you never know what you're getting.
- Shôichi Hattori: Here it is. "Friedrich List." You're right, there's no Z. L-I-S-T.
- Shukichi Somiya: That's what I thought. Liszt was the musician.
- Masa Taguchi: I have a fine prospect. Won't you meet him? His name is Satake. He studied science at Tokyo University. He's from a good family. He works at Nitto Chemicals. His father was a director there until the war. He's 34. Just right for you. His office speaks highly of him. What do you say? He looks like that American. The man in that baseball movie.
- Noriko Somiya: Gary Cooper?
- Masa Taguchi: That's right, Cooper. Looks just like him. He has the exact same mouth. The top half is different, though.
- Noriko Somiya: I'd find it distasteful.
- Jo Onodera: What's distasteful? My wife?
- Noriko Somiya: No. You!
- Jo Onodera: Why?
- Noriko Somiya: It seems - indecent.
- Jo Onodera: Indecent?
- Noriko Somiya: Filthy, actually.
- Jo Onodera: Filthy?
- [laughs]
- Jo Onodera: How far I've fallen! Filthy, eh?
- Masa Taguchi: How can you know how she feels deep inside?
- Shukichi Somiya: Maybe you're right.
- Masa Taguchi: I am. That's how the younger generation is.
- Shôichi Hattori: Young people have changed so much since our day. Take that bride last night. She comes from a good family, yet she plowed into the food and even drank sake. Gobbling up sashimi with that big painted mouth. I was shocked.
- Shukichi Somiya: Of course she ate. Food was scarce for so long.
- Shôichi Hattori: At my wedding, I was too filled with gratitude to eat a single rice ball.
- Noriko Somiya: Who are you to lecture me about marriage?
- Aya Kitagawa: I'm an authority on the subject.
- Noriko Somiya: Authority? You're a divorcee.
- Aya Kitagawa: So what? I only have one "out". Next time I'll get a run.
- Noriko Somiya: Still stepping up to bat?
- Aya Kitagawa: Why not? I just struck out. Next time I'll crack it out of the park.
- Prompter: [singing] The iris hedge planted next to our old home:
- Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus: Only the color remains as it was back then. Only the color remains as it was back then. The color carries with it...
- Prompter: The name of that man from long ago. The scent of wild orange flowers mingles together with the sprig of blue flag in his hair.
- Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus: Iris and blue flag, so much alike: Whose color is deeper? Crying in the trees...
- Prompter: The cicada sheds its brocade gown...
- Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus, Nô chorus: Revealing sleeves as white as deutzia blossoms, as white as the snow. Day breaks. Pale purple clouds to the east herald Amida Buddha's coming. The pale purple iris opens its petals to enlightenment along with the folds of the heart. All the earth will be enlightened, even the flowers and trees. All the earth will be enlightened, even the flowers and trees...
- Aya Kitagawa: What's there to think about? Go on, marry him. Good men are rare these days. Grab him.
- Noriko Somiya: But I don't like it.
- Aya Kitagawa: What?
- Noriko Somiya: Arranged marriage.
- Aya Kitagawa: Don't be picky. You'd never marry unless someone arranged it.
- Noriko Somiya: But...
- Aya Kitagawa: It's true, isn't it? If you found someone you liked, would you walk up and propose? You're not that bold. You'd just blush and squirm in your seat.
- Noriko Somiya: That's true.
- Aya Kitagawa: An arranged marriage suits someone like you.
- Aya Kitagawa: She couldn't make it. Her tummy is this big. Seven months along.
- Noriko Somiya: When did she get married?
- Aya Kitagawa: She didn't.
- Masa Taguchi: Maybe some detail is bothering her?
- Shukichi Somiya: Like what?
- Masa Taguchi: Like his - name.
- Shukichi Somiya: Kumataro Satake?
- Masa Taguchi: Kumataro - "Bear Boy."
- Shukichi Somiya: What's wrong with it? It sounds tough. If anybody's old fashioned, it's you. That wouldn't bother her.
- Masa Taguchi: But doesn't it make you think of hairy chests and things? That bothers young ladies more than you imagine. And what should I call him if they get married? "Kumataro" sounds like a mountain bandit, "Kuma-san" is used for common bumpkins, and "Kuma-chan" sounds like "baby bear."
- Shukichi Somiya: Well, we have to call him something.
- Masa Taguchi: That's the point. I think I'll call him "Ku-chan."
- Shukichi Somiya: "Little Vacuum"?
- Shukichi Somiya: Another drink, Aya-chan?
- [lifts the sake tokkuri]
- Aya Kitagawa: This is my third. I can handle five. I once drank six and then fell down.
- Shôichi Hattori: It was raining a bit last night. I was worried.
- Shukichi Somiya: Fortunately the weather cleared.
- Shukichi Somiya: How time flies. One minute we arrive, and the next we're leaving.
- Noriko Somiya: But I loved it here in Kyoto.
- Shukichi Somiya: I'm glad we came, but a day in Nara would've been nice too. Why didn't we do this more often? This is our last trip together.
- Aya Kitagawa: [after her third cup of sake] What a wonderful feeling.
- [drinks her fourth cup]
- Aya Kitagawa: Number five!
- [drinks her fifth cup]
- Aya Kitagawa: The end.
- [turns her cup over]
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