Courtesan and man attendant walking in the night, illustration from the book Narrow Alley (Roji no hosomichi)

A courtesan and her male attendant walk together through the night in this 1919 illustration from Yumeji's book "Roji no hosomichi" (Narrow Alley), the nocturnal setting and the pair's ambiguous relationship creating a scene of intimate complexity. The courtesan — a woman defined by the performance of romantic feeling — and her attendant move through the narrow lane with the purposeful intimacy of people inhabiting a world that operates by different rules than the daylit street. Yumeji's depiction draws on the long history of yoshiwara night scenes while updating it with Taisho-era psychological nuance.