Poor Okichi -- carried away against her will to become concubine to the American consul in Japan, torn away from her handsome lover, stigmatized forever as "Tojin" Okichi, property of the hairy barbarian.
She gazed in horror at his "large frame and the long red beard that covered the lower part of his red leathery face." His hands were like "the hairy legs of a giant spider reaching out for her."
Since "outside her work as a geisha, she had never interacted with any man in a social and non-working situation," she was tongue-tied, despite "the speech lessons that taught her to speak beautiful and classy Japanese."