is a novel by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki. It was serialized in publisher Hakubunkan's magazine Shin Seinen from October 1931 to November 1932. Initially, it was planned to be serialized for one year, but it was interrupted at the twelfth installment because it had not been completed within the planned period. In the February 1933 issue of Shin Seinen, Tanizaki wrote of completing the work but he ended it without writing significantly more. After some additions and revisions it was published as a novel by Chuokoronsha in October 1935. The book included a prologue written in Chinese by “Setyo Gyofu” (“Fisherman Setyo”, Tanizaki's own pseudonym), and a footnote by the novelist Masamune Shiratori. Set in the Sengoku (“Warring States”) period, it depicts the life of a samurai warlord or daimyo with a perverse amorous life. Synopsis The narrator explains that the story is based on the memoirs of the nun Myōkaku, who was once in the service of the Lord of Musashi, and the lord’s former servant Dōami. Hōshimaru, heir to the Lord of Musashi, is held hostage as a child in Oshika Castle, the seat of the neighbouring Lord Tsukuma Ikkansai. In 1549, when he is aged twelve, the castle is besieged by Yakushiji Danjō Masataka. Hōshimaru is not allowed to enter the battlefield, but observes the castle’s women cleaning and dressing the severed heads of the enemy samurai who have been killed. He is excited by the smile of a beautiful girl as she dresses a man’s head which is noseless, a so-called “woman-head” whose nose had been removed in the heat of the battle as a substitute for the entire head which would be retrieved later. He wishes to repeat the excitement, and secretly enters the enemy camp so he can claim a head and bring it back to the girl and make her smile again. In the camp, he kills Lord Masataka, but is only able to claim his nose. The Yakushiji leaders abandon the siege in fear that their lord’s ignominious fate will be revealed. Hōshimaru does not get his head and remains silent. At fifteen, Hōshimaru comes of age and takes the name Terukatsu. He is Lord Ikkansai’s page, and starts to earn a reputation as a warrior. The beautiful Lady Kikyō, daughter of the slain Lord Masataka, marries Tsukuma Oribenoshō Norishige, who succeeds his father Lord Ikkansai. The purpose of the marriage is to reconcile