Akutagawa A Week

An archive of Anthony Perrin's 2014 attempt to translate one short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke per week. New material can be found at hotoke-no-ishi.tumblr.com.

[akutagawaaweek]

Tag

Tag

He was playing tag with a younger girl behind the houses. The neighborhood was still bright, but it was just about time for the gas lamp on the corner to be lit.

“Come over here!”

With a comfortable lead, he looked over his shoulder at the girl, who was ‘it.’ She chased after him with all the strength she had, her eyes locked on him. Gazing at her face, he wondered if she was making a strangely serious face.

Her face remained with him for a long time. But at some point in the following months and years, it vanished completely from his mind.

Then, twenty years later, he happened to run into her aboard a steam train in the snow country. As it became dark outside the window, the scent of his damp shoes and overcoat suddenly struck him. Then:

“It’s been a while.”

With a cigarette hanging out of his mouth (this was he and his fellows’ third day out of jail), her face suddenly filled his eyes. She had recently lost her husband and was speaking enthusiastically of her parents and siblings. Unconsciously reverting to a twelve-year-old, he gazed at her face and wondered if she was making a strangely serious face.

They are now married and living somewhere in the suburbs. But since then, he has not once seen her strangely serious face.

(December 1, 1926)

[akutagawaaweek]

Cheap Fiction Nirvana

Cheap Fiction Nirvana

I

It was a morning in September, 1831. The great bathhouse in the Dōbō neighborhood of Kanda, as usual, had been filled with customers since the morning. The scene today was not at all different from the once in Shikitei Sanba’s comic novel, published god only knows how many years ago: “The bathhouse of the floating world, with room for gods, for the Buddha, for love and evanescence.” Within the bathhouse were poor boys singing old ballads of failed romances; playboys wringing towels by the side of the bath; sumo wrestlers having their tattooed backs bathed. There was Yoshibei Yako, who for some time had been washing only his face. There was Abuhachi Tonbo, a boy who was sitting in front of the fish tank, pouring water on his head and playing with his bamboo bucket, pots, and goldfish. People from all walks of life were here in this narrow wash, their wet bodies glimmering smoothly, moving blurs in the thick steam and morning light coming in from the windows. And the noise was not constant throughout. First there was the sound of bathers splashing water on themselves and of buckets. And then there were voices, talking or singing. Finally, there was the occasional sound of the clerk’s signal. Therefore, on both sides of the bathhouse’s low door, it was as noisy as a battlefield. Then, ducking under the curtain in the entrance, comes a merchant. Here comes a beggar. Naturally, people were going in and out. Amidst the confusion—

Quietly going into the corner, amidst the confusion, was an old man of about sixty silently washing himself off. He looked to have passed sixty. His sidelocks had decayed in an unsightly manner, and he appeared to have somewhat poor eyesight. However, in his loose skin of his hands and feet, he still had the power to resist the coming of old age to his undaunted, skeletal—or rather, ghastly— physique. This, too, was apparent on his face, in the cheeks stuck to his lower jaw, and in the area around his largish mouth. The awesome glimpse of this energy was no different from the old man’s long-ago glory days.

Once the old man had finished cleaning the upper half of his body, he began to wash his lower half, without clearing out his bucket. However, no matter how much he scrubbed with his silk washcloth, he could not get the filth (which there was enough of to require the word filth) out of his clear, wrinkled skin. Perhaps this awakened in him a lonely, autumn-like feeling. Upon meticulously cleaning his feet, the old man suddenly stopped moving his hand holding the washcloth, as if all the power had gone out of him. Then, his eyes fell to the muddy water in the bucket, where vividly reflected was the sky through the window. In the reflection, as he saw ripe persimmons below a corner of the tiled roof, sparse, narrow branches were criss-crossed.

In his mind, the old man saw a reflection of death. However, that ‘death’ did not hold anything unpleasant like something which might have once threatened him. You might say that in the sky in that bucket, he sensed a peaceful tranquility which was silent, yet yearned for. How delightful would it be were he able to escape from all the petty material troubles, and slip into that ‘death’—were he able to sink into the dreamless sleep of an innocent child! He was not just exhausted by the day-to-day. For decades, he had been fatigued by the anguish of his incessant writing…

The old man, discouraged, raised his eyes. Around him were still voices chatting lively, as well as a great number of nude figures bustling around in the steam. The strains of voices singing songs both sad and happy were added to the ballads inside the low door. In here, of course, there was not an atom of the shape of the eternal thing which now cast a shadow upon his heart.

“My! Mr. Kyokutei, I cannot believe my eyes! I would not have thought, even in my dreams, that you would come to the morning bath, sir!”

The old man was suddenly surprised by this very shout. When he looked, there was a boy of good complexion, average height and means, thin hair. Wet towel on his shoulder, Thin Hair laughed heartily as he stood before the bucket. He appeared to have just gotten out of the bath and was ready for rinsing.

“It is good to see that you are in good spirits, as usual,” Bakin “Sakichi” Kyokutei* replied, a little sarcastically, and smiled.

II

“It is good to see you, too. I am not fine in the least. But speaking of fine, sir, I’m well into Eight Dogs, and it is an exceptionally strange, fine work,” Thin Hair said in a raised tone as he put the towel on his shoulder into his bucket.

“Funamushi, disguised as Goze, tries to kill Kobungo. He is apprehended for that and after a period of torture, he is saved by Sōsuke. There is no planning involved, because Sōsuke has another shot at Kobungo! It is kind of silly to bring it up, my name is Ōmiya Heikichi. I work at the general store. I really believes it’s a cut above the rest, sir. Not even I could find a single thing to criticize about Eight Dogs. It really is terrific!”

Bakin, silent, started washing his feet again. He, of course, had long held considerable feelings of good will for his dear readers. But because of that good will, there was no chance that their evaluation of his character would change. For the wise Bakin, it was the most natural thing in the world. And the strange thing was that, conversely, there was nothing at all that evaluation could influence in regards to his good will. So, depending on the situation, he might feel scorn and good will towards a single person, at the same time. Like this Ōmiya Heikichi. He was surely one of those readers.

“Anyway, writing something to that caliber must have been backbreaking work. Now, when all is said and done, they may be calling Eight Dogs the Japanese Romance of the Three Kingdoms! You’re Japan’s answer to Luo Guanzhong!–Oh, but I am being rude.” Heikichi laughed loudly. The voice might have frightened someone. A squat, cross-eyed man with short dark hair looked over his shoulder at Heikichi and Bakin, and then, giving them a strange look, spat into the drain.

“You’re busy with poetry, I assume.” Bakin deftly changed the subject. However, this does not mean than he had any interest in the cross-eyed man’s expression. His eyesight, fortunately (?), had declined so much that he could not see clearly.

“I must thank you profusely for bothering to talk with me. As much as I love poetry I have no hand for it, and so I am always barging into places trying to practice the art, but poets never turn up. Incidentally, sir, if I may ask, might you have a particular preference for either song or poetry?”

“Oh no, I’m rather out of practice with that sort of stuff. It’s been quite some time since I’ve done either.”

“Surely you jest!”

“No, it simply doesn’t agree with me, though it’s not for lack of trying.”

Bakin put particular stress on “doesn’t agree with me.” He was not of a mind that he could not compose songs or poetry. And so he of course was confident that he was not lacking in understanding of that field. However, he had long held disdain for that area of the arts. This was because when he poured even his whole heart and soul into songs or poems, the form was too short. Therefore, even when constructed masterfully, the only requirement was that his work be of a certain number of lines, that what could be expressed in a single line or verse, be it emotion or description, be of a certain number of lines. For Bakin, that was a second-rate sort of art.

III

Behind Bakin’s particular stress on “doesn’t agree with me” lurked this scorn. Unfortunately, Ōmiya Heikichi did not appear to pick up on this at all.

“Oh! so that’s how it is! We all think that, were we such a master of the craft as you, sir, we should be able to write as we please—oh, but they do say that God does not grant two gifts,” said Heikichi with restraint, rubbing at his skin with his wrung towel until his skin turned red. But the conceited Bakin, who had taken his kind words literally, was more disgruntled than ever. And on top of that Bakin did not care at all for Heikichi’s tone. He then threw his towel and sponge aside, and, rising halfway, he started grandstanding, his face sour.

“Of course, I plan on attaining mastery of contemporary poetry.”

However, as soon as it left his mouth, Bakin felt embarrassed by his childish boast. Even before, when Heikichi had used words of highest praise in regards to Eight Dogs, he did not feel particularly happy. So in that sense it was clearly a contradiction to feel the opposite now, to feel disgruntled when appearing to be unable to write song or verse. Upon undergoing this sudden self-examination, Bakin, to conceal his red face, floundered about and washed his shoulders with the bucket.

“Of course. So it seems that such masterpieces are not waiting in the wings. But when you, sir, write songs or poems, they will surely appear great to my meager eyes. Oh, I’m just flattering myself.” Heikichi again laughed loudly. The cross-eyed man from before was no longer beside him. His spit was flowing through the water in which Bakin had bathed. However, it was apparent that Bakin’s shame had increased since. “My, I’ve spoken for too long. I think I’ll go take a bath now.”

The unusually unlucky Bakin felt an irritation towards himself along with this reply, while at the same time he stood slowly to at last escape the clutches of his good-natured dear reader before him. However, Heikichi, enthused, appeared proud, totally fulfilling his role as the author’s fan.

“Then, sir, I hope you might write be a song or a poem one of these days! You won’t forget, will you? Well then, please excuse me. You have been of great help to me, and if you ever find yourself passing through, please feel free to drop by. I’ll leave you alone now.” The words came out as if they were on the run.

Then, starting to wash himself with his cloth again, Heikichi watched Bakin retreat through the entryway. And when he was on his way home, he thought he might make his wife listen to the time that he met Mr. Kyokutei.

IV

Within the entryway was the dimness of night. The steam from the baths was thicker than mist. Bakin, whose eyesight was poor, uncertainly pushed his way through the people within and somehow groped his way to the corner of the baths. There, at last, he soaked his wrinkled body in the water.

The water was a little too hot. Feeling the hot water soak into his fingertips, Bakin drew in a long breath and slowly looked around the bath. There might have been seven or eight heads bobbing in the darkness. Around all the people talking, or singing, the smooth surface of the water, greasy with humanity, reflected the dull light coming from within the entryway, bobbing in a bored fashion. There, that nauseating “bathhouse smell” infiltrated their noses.

There had long been a tendency towards the romantic in Bakin’s imagination. In the steam, without meaning to, he conceived of a scene in a novel he would try to write. There was a massive ship’s sun shade. On the sea outside the sun shade, it was twilight and a breeze appeared to be blowing. The sound of the waves rapping on the side of the ship was gloomy, like moving oil. Along with that sound, there might be the flapping of the wings of a great many bats, causing the shade to flutter. One of the crew looks on silently from the side of the ship to realize this. Above the sea, crawling with mist, hangs in the sky a desolate, red, new moon. And then…

His imagination was suddenly shattered. For from that entryway, someone’s criticism of one of the books he had written slipped into his ears. Furthermore, it seemed almost that the loud, clear voice had spoken intentionally to make him hear it. Bakin, for an instant, made to get out of the bath, but stopped and began to listen closely to that criticism.

“Mr. Kyokutei, or the Master Writer, or whatever he’s calling himself now, he might seem big, but the stuff guys like them write isn’t original. It’s just warmed over! Let’s be frank: isn’t Eight Dogs basically the same book as Water Margin? But even if you let that slide, all that’s good about it was in the original. Anyway, the original is hundreds of years old. So all you have to do is read that one first. However, that’s still warmed over Kyōden-type writing; Kyōden did the same thing years ago. I’m not angry, I’m amazed.”

With his hazy eyes, Bakin tried to pick out the man bad-mouthing him. Obscured as he was by the steam, it might even have been that cross-eyed man who had been beside him. Were that the case, he had surely grown irritated over Heikichi’s praise of Eight Dogs and spoke purposely so that Bakin would hear.

“Most importantly, only a little bit of what Bakin writes sticks. It’s like an empty stomach. And if there is something it’s most likely just what his primary school teacher taught him about the classics. He’s not relevant to the modern age. The proof? If it’s not more than a hundred years old, he hasn’t written about it. When he writes about the tale of Osome and Hisamatsu, he doesn’t call it Osome and Hisamatsu, he calls it The Romance of the Seven Autumn Flowers. Bakin does this sort of thing all the time when he’s plagiarizing.”

Bakin could not rouse feelings of anger, even if he wished to, because he understood which of them was superior. Though Bakin was irritated by these remarks, he held no hatred for their owner. Instead, he felt a desire to express his own disdain and show how ignorant this man was. It was likely only his age that stopped him.

“On that subject, Jippensha Ikku and Sanba are quality writers. There’s realistic characters in their writings. They’re not fabrications built out of superficial knowledge and being too clever. Totally different from the likes of Bakin.”

Bakin had learned first-hand that hearing criticism of one’s own books was not just simply unpleasant, it was downright dangerous. This does not me that he would lose his nerve over the criticism, but rather that it would then later join the items reacting against his creative energies. And he feared that the result of retreating under dishonest motives would be multiple deformed literary works. It was no problem for authors who only chased the latest fads, but for an author with just a little spirit, this was a danger to which it really was quite easy to succumb. And so Bakin, for these many years, had tried to avoid reading criticism of his works as much as possible.

Despite those thoughts, however, he did not lack for temptation to read criticism. Now, in this bath, listening to the cross-eyed man, he had half given in to this temptation.

Realizing this, he scolded himself, still immersed in the bath. Then, ignoring the high-pitched voice, he made to stand in the doorway with great vigor. Outside he could see the blue sky amidst the steam, and a persimmon tree kissed by the gentle sun. Bakin came to the water tank and began to rinse.

“Anyway, Bakin’s a hack. I suppose that’s what you get from Japan’s Luo Guanzhong.”

However, the man from before in the bath, perhaps thinking that Bakin was still there, continued in his violent philippic. Perhaps the cross-eyed man, beset by disaster, had not seen the figure in the entryway.

V

 However, Bakin had been in the dumps when he exited the bathhouse. The cross-eyed man’s poison tongue had definitely had at the very least its intended effect. Walking though bright, autumnal Edo, he went over the minute details of the criticism with a fine eye. Then, on the spot, he determined that it was a fool’s baseless argument from any angle. Despite this, though, he could not easily bring his emotions back to as they had been before.

Bakin raised an unpleasant gaze to the houses on either side of him. The houses, separate entities from his feelings, carried on under the sun. A copper banner reading “TOBACCO,” a sign for a “GENERAL STORE,” a lantern with “PALANQUIN” on it, a flag for “FORTUNE TELLING” –all this formed a meaningless parade and just passed by Bakin’s eyes in a jumble.

“Why am I, who disdains criticism, so affected by it, I wonder?” Bakin continued to think. “What displease me the most is that that cross-eye had a grudge towards me. Regardless of the reason, though it is uncomfortable to be thought of like that, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

As he thought, Bakin felt ashamed of his own timidity. Truthfully, in order for there to be few men like him who acted as though no one else was around, there would also have to be few men like him who were susceptible to the intentions of others. So, the two effect of appearing totally opposed to those deeds were of the same cause: he realized, naturally, the fact that they were born of the same nerve effects.

“However, there is something else I find disagreeable. That is being put in a position to antagonize the cross-eye. For a long time have I disliked being put in that sort of position. It is for that reason I do not gamble.”

Upon this analysis, Bakin took one more step, and then an unforeseen change wrought itself on his mood. I daresay you could see it in the way his lips, pressed tightly together, slackened suddenly.

“In the end, the fact that the one who placed me in that position was the cross-eye makes me uncomfortable. If it had been someone of somewhat higher caliber, surely I would have had the heart to rebel against that feeling. How dumbfounded should I be that that cross-eye had such an effect!”

Laughing, Bakin looked up at the sky overhead. The cries of hawks and the rays of the sun fell like rain. He was conscious of his spirits, which had been low, lightening by degrees.

“However, no matter what that cross-eye said about my books, at his best all he could do was put me ill at ease. No matter how much the hawks cry, they cannot halt the progress of the sun! Eight Dogs is surely perfection. And so there is no romance in Japan, now or in the past, to equal it.”

Tending to his injured pride, now on the recovery, Bakin headed for home down a quiet narrow path.

VI

Once he had returned home, on the porch there were a pair of familiar, thin-stripped sandals. Once Bakin saw this, his guest’s blank face immediately came to mind. Then he remembered, bitterly, this time-wasting annoyance.

“You’ve wasted the whole morning today, too,” Bakin thought as he ascended into the house. His maid, Sugi, hurriedly threw herself to the ground at the return of her employer. Looking up at him, she said, “Mr. Izumi! Welcome home!”

 Nodding, Bakin gave his towel to Sugi. However, he did not want to go to his study just yet.

“How is O-hyaku, the widow?”

“She is praying at the temple.”

“With O-michi?”

“Yes, and with your grandson, young Master Tarō.”

“And my son, Okitsugu?”

“He has gone to see Mr. Yamamoto.”

His family were all absent. For a moment Bakin felt a taste of something resembling disappointment. Out of options, he opened the door to the study, next to the entryway.

When he opened the door, in the middle of the room was a man, smoking a thin silver pipe in the middle of the room, strangely unsurprised. His face was pale and gleaming. Apart from the rubbings on the folding screens and the nature scrolls that hung to the ground, there was nothing approaching decorative. Along the wall were no less than fifty shelves of unstained wood, standing lonely on one side. It looked to have been at least one year since the paper in the shōji screens had been put up. Above the white, speckled here and there with patched paper, the shadows of old banana leaves appeared at an angle, moving oddly. To cut it short, this shabbily-dressed guest did not fit at all with the atmosphere.

“Well, welcome home, sir!” said the guest when the door was opened, bowing his head in reverence. This was the bookseller Izumiya Ichibei, the publisher of his new edition of The Plums in the Golden Vase. It was his first book after Eight Dogs, and it had been well-reviewed.

“Sorry to keep you waiting. Don’t usually go to the bath in the morning.” Bakin grimaced instinctively, and with his usual politeness, took a seat.

“Oh, a morning bath! I see,” Ichibei said with admiration. Men who could praise any trifling incident as easily as him were rare. No, men who could make an admiring face were rare. Taking a puff, Bakin, as usual, steered the conversation towards business. He had no taste for this Izumiya’s admiration.

“So what business do you have here today?”

“Well, I was hoping you might have another manuscript for me,” said Izumiya in a girlish voice, making a show of twirling his pipe around his fingertips. This man was possessed of a strange disposition. This is to say that his outward deeds and his inward thoughts did not usually agree. Not only did they not agree, but they could be at opposite ends of the earth at any given moment. So while he had a strong will, his voice, in inverse proportion, was rather gentle. When he heard this voice, Bakin again grimaced instinctively.

“No way I would have something ready.”

“Well, something must be distracting you.”

“Nothing’s distracting me. I’ve written a lot this year, and I’m not about to get into picture books.”

“I see, so you must be busy.” As soon as he spoke, Ichibei tapped his pipe on the ashtray, as if it was a signal, and making a face as if the previous conversation was forgotten completely, he launched into a story about Jirodaiyū the Rat.

VII

Jirodaiyū the Rat, a thief of good reputation, was arrested in early May this year, and sent to prison in the middle of August. As he had crept into the residence of the regional governor and given the gold he had stolen to the poor, he was generally referred to by the strange pronoun ‘chivalrous thief,’ and he had great popularity.

“Anyway, the governor’s estate that he entered was of seventy-six buildings, and I was surprised to hear that he absconded with over 3,000 ryo. He may be a thief, but that’s a deed beyond the caliber of normal men.”

Bakin’s curiosity was stirred. After Ichibei had told him the story, he had always liked to believe that he had given him the impetus of a story. That conceit was obviously a great irritation to Bakin. However, though he was irritated, his curiosity had nevertheless been stroked. For Bakin, who took his duty as an artist seriously, was wont to fall into temptation, especially on this matter.

“Hmm. I see, he’s a great man. I had heard many rumors, but I hadn’t imagined anything such as that.”

“It must simply be that he is the best of all the thieves. It has been whispered that all he has done previously is been in the employ of the governor of Tottori’s chief retainer, and that is how he was so knowledgeable about the layout of the governor’s estate. I heard from an eyewitness account that he is a stout, charming man, and that he wore simple clothes, dark blue on top and white on bottom, of Echigo Province hemp. Might that be of use to you, sir, were you to write something on this?”

Bakin gave some vague reply and took another puff from his pipe. But Ichibei was not a man to be surprised by so much as a vague reply.

“What do you think? Can I expect some piece featuring this Jirodaiyū, in the vein of The Plums in the Golden Vase? I, of course, understand that you are rather busy at the moment. I would appreciate your agreeing to this.”

The Rat had come to here, and then suddenly returned to his original request for a manuscript. However, Bakin, accustomed to these parlor tricks, would not consent. Besides, his mood had darkened rather more than it had before. This was because he had been foolish enough to fall for Ichibei’s plan and let his curiosity be stimulated. Smoking clumsily, Bakin at last expounded on this theory.

“First of all, were I to write unwillingly, I could not produce something satisfactory. It goes without saying that this would have an effect on sales, and people like you would find it boring. So my unwillingness is good for the both of us, no?”

“I understand. I am asking something great of you. Something like that,” said Ichibei, “stroking and surrounding” Bakin’s face with his eyes. (This was a phrase Bakin used to describe Ichibei’s eye movements).** Then, scatters of cigarette smoke came out of his nose.

“I really can’t write anything. I don’t want to and I don’t have the time. Sorry.”

“That’s really very troubling.” Abruptly, this time Ichibei went into stories about contemporary authors. All the while with his narrow silver pipe clenched in his thin lips, of course.

VIII

“The author Ryūtei Tanehiko has some new book coming out, I hear. It may one day be the most graceful work of misery. It has been said that nobody but Tanehiko could write something of such humanity.

When Ichibei got into one of these moods, he tended to throw out names of authors left and right. Whenever he listened to this, Bakin thought to himself that “nobody but Bakin” must have been said. Where was the need for this man, who regarded authors as his own, to go so far as to toss out names from his frivolous mouth, just to get a manuscript? Even when Bakin got worked up, it was seldom that he got angry like this. Today, when he heard Tanehiko’s name, he could not help his already bitter face screwing itself up all the more. However, Ichibei realized not a bit of it.

“And then, I learn that my little shop is to publish the works of Tamenaga Shunsui. You may not like him, sir, but that is the way the simple folk will turn.”

“Oh! Is that it, huh?” In his memory Bakin recalled the face of Shunsui, crudely exaggerated, which he had once glimpsed. “I am no writer. I am a laborer who writes the love stories that my dear customers desire.”*** Bakin had long heard the rumor that Shunsui had spoken thusly. Naturally, Bakin felt, in his soul, great disgust for this utterly un-writer-ly writer. Nevertheless, he was still unable to suppress his usual feelings of discomfort when listening to Ichibei toss out names.

“Anyway, when it comes to the romantic, he is a talented one. He has become synonymous with it.” Ichibei looked to Bakin, then immediately dropped his eyes to the silver pipe on which he was chewing. That instantaneous glance was the mark of an inferior who should be afraid. That was what Bakin thought, at least.

“Even when Shunsui has written at that level, his brush continues to slide across the paper, double or even triple what he has done before. He may have not even left the paper. Might you, sir, or others, sometimes be as quick?”

Along with discontent, Bakin felt as though he was being threatened. For a man so full of himself as Bakin, having his writing speed be compared to the likes of Shunsui or Tanehiko was of course something which did not agree with him. Furthermore, he was a slow writer. Appearing as it did to be proof of his own incompetence, it often brought him down. On the other hand, however, as a measure of his own artistic conscience, it was often something he wished to admire. However, if left to the scrutiny of the masses, no matter how he felt it would decidedly not be allowed. Then, allowing his eyes to drift to the nature scrolls, Bakin spat out:

“There’s a time and a place. If there’s an early time, there’s a late time.”

“Oh, I see. A time and a place.”

Ichibei thrice gave his admiration. However, it goes without saying that it was admiration that ended with the saying of the words themselves. Immediately afterwards he cut right back in.

“That being said, I would be honored to look upon one of these manuscripts you mention so frequently. You know, Mr. Shunsui…”

“I’m not Shunsui.” When Bakin was angered, the left side of his lower lip crooked downwards. It was now crooked downwards with terrifying energy. “You’ll have to excuse me. Sugi, Sugi, have you got Mr. Izumiya’s shoes?”

IX

Once he had chased away Izumiya Ichibei, Bakin leaned against the pillar on the porch and gazed out at the small garden, going to great unsuccessful efforts to quell the queasiness in his stomach that his anger had aroused.

In the sun-bathed garden, clipped-leaves banana trees and closely-trimmed parasol trees were among the greenery of the pines and bamboo, basking in the gentle warmth of the spanning autumn. The lotuses near the font were already bereft of most of their flowers, but the sweet scent of the osmanthus growing outside the opposing fence had not yet diminished. The usual cries of hawks from the distant sky sometimes reached here, like the blowing of a whistle.

In contrast to this nature, Bakin remembered the entrenched vulgarity of society. The unhappiness of men who live in a vulgar society, being caused by that selfsame vulgarity, lends to one’s unavoidably doing and saying vulgar acts and deeds. In truth, now Bakin had driven Izumiya Ichibei away. To drive someone away was, though vulgar, insignificant. However, because of the vulgarity from another, Bakin had been pushed to the point where he would have to be vulgar. And he had. He had done nothing more than, to the same degree as Ichibei, debase himself. To put it simply, he was as depraved as the rest of them.

In this line of thought, Bakin recalled a similar incident in the recent past. Last spring, there had been a man—Nakajima Masabei, maybe?—from Upper Shinden in Sōshūkuchiki who had sent him a letter seeking to become his apprentice. According to his letter, he had become deaf when he was twenty-one. Now twenty-four, he had resolved to understand the whole world via writing, and he had been diligent at writing novels. It does not need to be said that he was a great fan of Eight Dogs and Chronicle of an Island Tour. And being in this rural area is in some way a hindrance to my craft. So, might I be allowed to live with you for a while? I have manuscripts for six books. And, with your pen, I want to publish them through a proper store… It went on like this. This whole request was naturally, for Bakin, rather too selfish. However, the part about him being hard of hearing seemed to have tugged at Bakin, himself poor of sight, to some degree. In his reply, in which he at last said that he would be unable to accede to the man’s request, Bakin laid thick the politeness. Then, in the letter Bakin received in reply, there was not one sentence, from beginning to end, which was not a violent attack.

“I gave a patient read to your clumsy books, Eight Dogs and Chronicle of an Island Tour, both of them overlong, but you have refused so much as to glance at my six books. Surely, this is because of the vulgarity of your character?” This was how the letter began, and it wrapped up with an attack that the reason why the master had chosen not to allow an apprentice into his house was that he was an old miser. Angry, Bakin immediately composed a reply. Within, he included a line about it being to his eternal shame that his works were read by shallow brats such as you. Bakin had heard nothing of him since then, but to this day he still wondered if those manuscripts would be published. Would they someday be read all throughout Japan?

Lost in memories, Bakin could not help but feel pitiable, towards this Nakajima Masabei and towards himself. Again, he was guided by some indescribably loneliness. The banana trees and the parasol trees did not so much as ruffle their leaves. The cries of the hawks were clear, as before. This nature and that man… Until, ten minutes later, when his maid Sugi came to inform him that she was preparing lunch, Bakin leaned absentmindedly, as if in a dream, on the pillar on the porch.

X

Bakin, finishing his solitary lunch, at last retired to his study, where, to appease his uncontrollable discomfort, he opened Water Margin for the first time in a long while. By chance the section he opened to was the one where General Lin Chong, the “Panther’s Head,” on the run, takes shelter in a temple on a windy, snowy night. There, he watches from afar as his fodder depot is burned in an attempt on his life. That theatrical scene had always inspired interest in Bakin. Though, he was strangely uneasy that this would not continue.

His family had still not returned from the temple. The house was silent. Water Margin in front of him, Bakin made a melancholy face and smoked clumsily. Then, in the smoke, he was plagued by the never-ending doubt he carried with him always.

 This was the doubt as to whether or not he could negotiate between the two poles of being a moral person and being an artist. For a long time Bakin had had no doubts about Confucianism. His own works were certainly artistic representations of the so-called The Way of the Sages. So there was no contradiction. However, there was an unexpectedly large discrepancy between the value The Way of the Sages gave to art, and the value he would have his feelings give to art. Therefore the moral man within him affirmed the former, and at the same time the artist within him, consequently, affirmed the latter. Of course, Bakin could not say that he had never considered some cheap compromise to slice through this contradiction. In truth, behind his half-baked harmonious works for the public was a vague attitude towards art which he tried to hide.

However, even if the public were deceived, Bakin himself was not. In denying the value of cheap literature, while calling it “the tools of moral instruction,” he always encountered the waxing artistic inspiration within him. All of a sudden this made him uneasy. To be honest, it was for this reason that a single sentence of Water Margin could exert such an unexpected effect on his mood.

On this point, the ideologically cowardly Bakin, smoking in silence, forcefully tried to wash away thoughts of his absent family. However, Water Margin was in front of him. As his unease was concentrated there, he could not easily separate it. Then, as luck would have it, a friend whom he had not seen in a long time came knocking. Kanzan Watanabe was clad in a robe and overcoat, and under his armpit was a package wrapped in purple cloth; perhaps he had come to return the books he had borrowed.

Delighted, Bakin went out to the porch himself to meet his old friend.

“I have come by today to return the books you graciously lent to me, and also to see your face,” said Kanzan, as Bakin had expected, on the way to the study. Besides the package, Kazan held something which looked like a silk canvas, wrapped in paper.

“If you have a moment I would like you to see something.”

“Of course, right away.”

Kanzan, as if he was trying to hide his excitement, gave a half-forced smile and unwrapped the silk canvas. There were painted a smattering of lonely, naked trees in the distance. Among them were stood two men, holding hands, engaged in friendly chatter. Between the autumn leaves scattered in the forest and the crows darting about the treetops, there was no place you could look which did not call to mind a chilly autumn.

Bakin’s eyes, when they fell upon these lightly colored Hanshan and Shide, gradually became tinged with a wet, sparkling halo.

“Wonderful as always. I recall the poet Wang Mo Jie: “The nested crows descend at the sound of the gong, and as I walk in the empty forest there is the sound of leaves.”

XI

“This is something I painted yesterday, and as I was pleased with it, I have come thinking to present it to you, my elder,” said Kanzan, satisfied, stroking his chin, dusted with a young beard. “Though I say I am pleased, this is about as far as I have gotten among all that I have painted. I cannot paint something just as I see it, no matter how I try.”

“I’m honored. Though I do feel embarrassed over how much you do for me,” Bakin muttered as he looked over the painting. Thoughts of his work, still unfinished, suddenly flashed through the back of his mind for some reason. Kanzan, being Kanzan, looked as though he thought Bakin was still thinking about the painting.

“Each time I look at a paintings of the ancients, I wonder how they painted it. The trees, the rocks, the people, they’re really trees, rocks, people. And also, the souls of the ancients who painted them live gently within. Just that is something grand. Were we in that age, we would not even be children.”

“The ancients call their descendants terrifying, I imagine.” Envious of the attention Kanzan was paying to his own painting, Bakin, unusual for him, cracked a joke.

“Their descendants are terrifying. We, caught in between the ancients and posterity, cannot move; we are only pushed and prodded forwards. It is not just us, of course. It was the same for the ancients, and it will be the same for their descendants.”

“If you do not progress at all, you will be pushed over. So finding a way to advance, even if by a single step, must be essential.”

“Indeed! More essential than anything else.”

The host and the guest, moved by their own words, were silent for a moment. Then, both of them listened closely for the quiet sounds of the autumn day.

“You have made the usual progress on Eight Dogs?” Kanzan at last moved the conversation to another topic.

“No, not a step, but what is there to be done? Not even the ancients were able to do it.”

“You worry me, sir, when you say things like that.”

“I worry more than anybody else. However, I will not make it any further than I already have. I am prepared for to die in battle with Eight Dogs.”

Having said this, Bakin gave a bitter smile, born out of his own shame. “It may only be cheap fiction, but there are numerous reasons why it cannot be.”

“It is the same thing with my painting. When I start, I want to make it as far as I can.”

“Perhaps we shall die together.”

The two let out a shout, laughing. However, within the laughter flowed a loneliness understood only by the two of them. And at the same time, both host and guest equally felt a kind of powerful excitement from this loneliness.

“Though I am jealous of your painting. It must be wonderful not receiving any kind of government censure or the like.” This time it was Bakin who completely changed the subject.

XII

“Not receiving any… Sir, you should not need to worry about that in the works you write.”

“Oh no, I very much need to!” As an example of Bakin’s books being redacted by the town censor in an unbelievably blockheaded way, Bakin told the true story of being ordered to revise a section in one of his own novels because a government official takes a bribe. So I have those sorts of critics as well.

“And is it not funny that the more problems censors find, the more they reveal their own corruption? Because they take bribes, if someone writes of them taking bribes, they find it disgusting and force them to revise it. Because they themselves are depraved, they label any book that so much as speaks of feelings between men and women as pornography! It is ridiculous that they put themselves on a higher moral level than authors. It is as though they are monkeys looking into a mirror and baring their teeth at their reflection. They take offense at their own vulgarity!”****

Kazan sniggered in spite of himself at the fervor of Bakin’s comparison. “That may be how it is! However, being made to revise your work should not be an insult to you, sir. No matter what the censors may say, if what you have written is wonderful, that should be enough.”

“Despite that, there is so much that is just a little too tyrannical. Yes, once or twice I wrote a passage about sending food and clothing to prisons, and had five or six lines cut out.” As he said this, Bakin, along with Kanzan, broke out into giggles.

“However, come fifty or a hundred years, when there are no more censors, Eight Dogs shall still remain.”

“Whether or not Eight Dogs persists, I feel as though the censors will be around for a good long while!”

“Really? It does not seem that way to me.”

“No. Even if there are no censors, there will always be men like censors. They will never be truly stopped. Think back to the burning of the books and the burying of the scholars in China, and you will see that you are quite wrong.”

“You are saying nothing but hopeless things, sir.”

“I am not hopeless. What is hopeless is a world overrun with censors.”

“Then should we keep on working?”

“You cannot do anything besides that.”

“Then let us die in battle together.”

This time the two did not laugh. Not only did they not laugh, but Bakin hardened his expression and looked at Kanzan. There was a strange edge to Kanzan’s joking words.

“However, the young one has the choice to live. For the young can die in battle at any time,” Bakin said, after a moment. Bakin, who was aware of Kanzan’s political views, might have felt a sudden sort of unease. But Kanzan forced a smile and did not reply.

XIII

 After Kanzan had returned home, Bakin, channeling his remaining interest, turned to his desk for to work on the manuscript for Eight Dogs. It was an old custom of his to, before he put brush to paper, read over once up to where he had written yesterday. And today, too, he carefully read through the many pages of narrow rows of writing with correction in between.

There, for some reason what had been written did not at match up with his feelings. Between the characters lurked an impure grating, one that wrecked the conclusion of the harmony. Bakin, at first, chalked it up to his own temper.

“I’m in a poor mood today. I should just write what little I can.” With that in mind, Bakin again began to read. However, the madness of the rhythm had not changed at all. He was in such a state that you would not think him to be an old man.

“Perhaps I’ll just go back a bit.” Bakin tracked his eyes across what he had written previously. All there was were coarse words and phrases all jumbled together. Bakin read even farther back. And then farther and farther.

However, clumsy arrangement and disorderly sentences gradually unfolded before his very eyes. Here was a description which produced no image. An exclamation containing no emotion. And an argument following no logic. All his batches of manuscripts, which he had spent many days writing, were nothing more than needless loquacity to today’s eyes. Bakin suddenly felt a stabbing pain in his heart.

“I’ll have to start over from the beginning!” With this cry in his mind, Bakin thrust the manuscript away in irritation, then flopped down, resting up on one shoulder. And yet, his eyes would not leave his desk, as if they were still interested. Upon that desk, Bakin had written Crescent Moon; he had written The Dream of Nanka; and now he had written Eight Dogs. And on top of that was a Zhaoqing inkwell, a paperweight of a dragon poised to strike, a copper jug in the shape of a toad, a porcelain inkwell depiction lions and peonies, and a bamboo brush stand engraved with orchids. All of this stationery had accompanied him through the agony of writing. Even though it was connected to his seeing all those objects, Bakin could not stop his distasteful unease that today’s failure, as a matter of course, cast a dark shadow over all his life’s work—that his own ability was fundamentally shaky.

“Until a little while ago, I had resolved to write a work unparalleled by any in this land. However, that may be the regular human hubris.”

This unease brought about a feeling of desolate isolation upon him, more difficult to bear than anything. He had never forgotten to be humble before the masters of the craft in Japan and China whom he so respected. However, to his fellow contemporary boring, worthless, writers, he had been not just haughty, but arrogant to the last. Bakin had been so ready to label them hated, big fish in small ponds, recognizing them, in the end, as owners of the same ability as him was no easy task. Furthermore, his strong sense of self was brimming passionately, sheltered in between “enlightenment” and “resignation.”

Still lying before his desk, gazing at his failed manuscript with the eyes of a shipwrecked captain looking at his sinking ship, Bakin continued to battle silently with the forces of hopelessness. If not at that very moment had the doors been flung open behind him, a voice said, “Grandpa, I’m home!” and a tiny tender hand grabbed his neck, Bakin might have been caught permanently in that melancholic state. But as soon as his grandson Tarō flung the screen open, he, with the pluck and frankness only a child possesses, suddenly jumped energetically onto Bakin’s knee. “Grandpa, I’m home!”

“Oh, you’re home early.”

With those words, the joy of another man sparkled on the wrinkled face of the author of Eight Dogs.

XIV

Bakin could hear the shrill voice of his wife, O-hyaku, and the reserved voice of his daughter, O-michi, animated, from the direction of the living room. The voice of fat man interspersed occasionally meant that his son Sōhaku appeared to have returned with them. Tarō had serious face pointed up at the ceiling to catch what they were saying. His cheeks, exposed to the air, were red, and the nostrils of his small nosed moved each time he drew breath.

“Hey, Grandpa,” Tarō, clad in rich brown clothes emblazoned with the family crest, blurted out suddenly. His dimples were going in and out with the effort of thinking and the effort of trying to resist the urge to laugh. This, naturally, felt like Bakin to be an invitation for him to laugh himself.

“All day, every day.”

“All day, every day, what?”

“Be diligent.”

At last Bakin erupted in laughter. In the middle of his laugher he continued suddenly: “And then?”

“And then…um…don’t get angry.”

“My! I hope that’s all.”

“There’s more.” Looking up into the face with narrow sideburns, Tarō himself burst into laughter. Looking at his laughing—narrowed eyes, white teeth showing, and apparent dimples—Bakin, sinking in awareness of happiness, could not think that this boy would grow up to have a face that held the sorrows of modern man. And then again, his heart was tickled.

“There’s more?”

“There is. There’s a lot more.”

“Like what?”

“Um… Grampa. You’ve gotten even greater.”

“I will?”

“So. Really. They say you just hang in there.”

“I am!” Bakin said reflexively, in a serious voice.

“More, really, just hang in there, they said.”

“Who’s saying that?”

“Well…” Tarō glanced mischievously at Bakin’s face, and then laughed. “Who?”

“Yes, who? You must have been listening to the monks when you went to the temple today.”

“Nope.” Shaking his head firmly, Tarō lifted up his back halfway from Bakin’s knee and stuck out his chin a little. “Um…”

“Yes?”

“The goddess Kwannon of Asakusa said so.” As he spoke, the child, laughing happily loud enough to be heard throughout the whole house, suddenly leapt away from Bakin, as though he was afraid of being caught. Then, clapping his hands in amusement at so leading on his grandfather, Tarō, almost tripping, fled towards the living room.

It was then that for an instant something grave flashed through Bakin’s heart. A happy smile came to his lips, and his eyes were filled with tears. He did not question whether this joke was something of which Tarō had conceived, or if it was something his mother had taught him. It was strange that he should hear those words at this time, from his grandson’s mouth.

“Did the goddess say that? Be diligent! Don’t lose my temper! And hang in there!”

The sixty-something old artist, laughing and crying, nodded his head like a child.

XV

That night.

By the light of a dim lantern, Bakin began to continue working on his manuscript of Eight Dogs. His family did not come into his study while he wrote. The sounds of the lampwick drinking the lamp oil, along with the chirping of crickets, spoke to the loneliness of the long night.

When Bakin first put down his brush, it was as though some faint light was moving in his head. But, in between lines ten and twenty, according to his brush, the light gradually increased in size. Bakin, who knew that this thing had happened in his experience, held his brush with extreme caution. His muse was no different than a flame. If he did not know how to stoke it, even if it burned once it could go out just as quickly…

“Don’t hurry! Just write the best that you can,” Bakin repeatedly whispered to himself as he held back with his brush, as he was liable to rush. But the thing in his head, already like a smashed star, was flowing faster than a river. And moment by moment it increased in power and pushed Bakin forward, despite himself.

At some point he lost the sound of crickets. Likewise, his eyes were not troubled a bit by the faint light of the lantern. The brush moved with its own energy, sweeping across the page. Bakin continued writing frantically, feeling as though he was locked in a battle for his with a god.

The current in his head, like the Milky Way running across the sky, flowed greatly from an unknown source. Bakin was afraid of that fierce energy, and he realized that there was a chance that his body could not bear such energy. Gripping his brush tightly, he shouted this to himself over and over:

“Continue to the end! If I do not write what I am writing now, I may never be able to!”

However, the current, like shining haze, did not slow down at all. Rather, with bewildering activity, drowning all, it attacked Bakin in a surge. At last he became its captive. Then, forgetting everything, he worked his brush with the energy of a storm in the direction of the current.

At that time, what was reflected in his eyes, now like a king’s, was not advantage and disadvantage, not love and hate. And thoughts of being troubled by praise had long gone from the corners of his eyes. What was there was a simple, strange joy. Or perhaps a feeling of ecstatic tragedy. Those of you who do not know this sensation cannot taste the mental state of cheap fiction nirvana! You cannot understand the majesty of a hack novelist! It is here that “life” washes the dregs, and it as though, before the author, it glitters beautifully like new crystals…

***

At that time, around the lantern in the living room, the mother-in-law O-hyaku and the daughter O-michi continued to knit opposite each other. Tarō must have been put to bed already. The sickly Sōhaku had retired a little while ago, preoccupied with his medicine.

“Is Father not in bed yet?” murmured O-hyaku in disapproval, oiling her needle.

 “He must be writing again, so he must be lost in thought,” replied O-michi, without taking her eyes off the needles.

“Good-for-nothing, that one. He doesn’t even earn a lot of money.” As O-hyaku spoke, she looked at her son and daughter. Sōhaku pretended that he hadn’t heard her and gave no answer. O-michi, too, said nothing and continued with her needles. The crickets, here as well as in the study, chirped without change to herald the autumn.

(November 1917)

*Bakin is occasionally referred to throughout the story by a series of nicknames and pen names. I have generally just changed these to Bakin, unless they are necessary for the story to make sense. Also, I do not pretend to understand the way authors have a dozen or more pen names.

** This was apparently a real phrase Bakin used that Akutagawa pulled from his diary.

*** I don’t know if Shunsui was known to say something like this, but this is rather close to how Akutagawa described his own profession: “merchant of writings.” This whole story, really, seems like it is dripping with Akutagawa’s personal experiences.

**** After reading this passage I immediately flipped to the end to look at the date of publication, to see to what degree censors would have had to read this passage. November 1917 might not be the best time in Akutagawa’s career to write something that so blatantly accuses censors of moral deprivation, but I would say he was probably reasonably safe. He’s also accusing fairly low-ranking government officials, and not higher-ups or royalty, which probably helped. Akutagawa had periodic troubles with censors throughout his career, but nothing major. He committed suicide shortly before censorship started kicking into high gear.

[akutagawaaweek]

A Day in the Life of Ōishi Kuranosuke

A Day in the Life of Ōishi Kuranosuke

A fine light struck the tightly-shut shōji, and the shadows of the plums on the rough old tree vividly claimed the brilliance from the right edge to the left edge, like a painting. Originally the retainer of the Takumi-no-kami, Asano, and presently in service to the Hosokawa clan, Ōishi Kuranosuke was behind those shōji, sitting upright with one knee over the other. For a while he had nothing on his mind but reading. The book, borrowed from a Hosokawa vassal, was likely a volume on the Three Kingdoms.

One among the nine people in the room, Kataoka Gengoemon, had gone to the toilet moments ago. Hayami Tōzaemon had gone to the room below to talk, and had not yet returned. And after that, the six men Yoshida Chūzaemon, Hara Sōemon, Mase Kyūdayū, Onodera Jūnai, Horibe Yahei, and Hazama Kihei, were absorbed in reading, or perhaps checking the news, as if they had forgotten the shadow on the shōji. Perhaps because all six of them were old men aged fifty or greater, there was a chilly silence in the still-early spring of the chamber. Although there was occasionally a cough, this was not loud enough of a noise to break the faintly drifting scent of ink.

Kuranosuke suddenly took his eyes off the Three Kingdoms book, and, as if looking far off, silently held his hands above the brazier next to him. Within the wire-mesh brazier, at the bottom of the arranged coals, something red was illuminating the ash with the faintest of light. When he felt this fire, in Kuranosuke’s heart a feeling of peaceful satisfaction welled up, as if for the first time. Just on the 15th of December of last year, he had taken revenge for his deceased lord, and when he returned to Sengaku Temple, he had composed for himself the death poem, “Happy as can be / Have accomplished my desire / Leave the flesh behind / And the transient moon above / Not one single cloud obscures” …the happiness he had felt then had returned.

Sine departing from Akō’s castle, he must have spent close to two years among all sorts of scheming and anxieties. Managing a band of hotheaded young fools prone to rash action, only to slowly spin a web of deceit, was not ordinary backbreaking work. Furthermore, the spy which the enemy clan had loosed was constantly looking over his shoulder. Feigning licentiousness, he, along with deceiving their eyes, at the same time had to untangle the suspicions of his comrades who had been deceived by that licentiousness. Thinking back on the old days of plotting at Yamashina or Maruyama, the distress of those days once again came to fill his heart—yet it had all already gone where it was to go.

If there was to be something that had not been put in order, it was only the magnanimous words of the imperial court towards the gang of forty-seven. But, there is no doubt that even the existence of those imperial words was not far off. Yes. All had gone where it was to go. And in addition, it was not just that they would say that they had fulfilled their plan of revenge. All of it had been fulfilled in a way which almost perfectly coincided with his own moral requirements. He had not only tasted the satisfaction of the completion of his deed, he could enjoy the satisfaction of embodying morality at the same time. Moreover, even if you think on that satisfaction from the perspective of revenge, or as a means, it was hardly obscured by a guilty conscience. Was satisfaction beyond this even possible for him…

While thinking as such, Kuranosuke, relieved, and perhaps tired of his reading, called out to Yoshida Chūzaemon, who was practicing writing with his finger upon the book which lay upon his knee, from the brazier.

“It’s quite pleasant today.”

“Indeed. Even if continues in this fashion, there is a possibility that because it is quite nice out I might be beset by drowsiness.”

Kuranosuke smiled. On this first day of the first month, Tomimori Suke’emon, drunk on three cups of New Year’s liquor, had sung, “Today of all days / Shall I be without spring shame / Sleeping warrior?” and that verse suddenly came to his mind. The meaning of the poem was no different from the satisfaction that Ōishi Yoshikatsu*, later Kuranosuke, was now feeling.

“Just as I suspected, you must have lost your edge since completing your goal.”

“Indeed. And there’s this, too.”

Chūzaemon, picking up his pipe at hand, humbly took a single puff. The smoke, allowed to rock in the early spring afternoon, vanished as a faint blue into the clear silence.

“That this sort of tranquil day has visited us is something that neither of us expected.”

“Indeed. You never think that you will meet it again, even in a dream.”

“We appear to be lucky indeed.”

The two of them smiled with their eyes in satisfaction. …If at that time, a shadow had been projected onto the screen behind Yoshikatsu, and then that shadow had disappeared along with the hand on the door handle, and instead, the burly shape of Hayami Tōzaemon had not come into the room, might have been able to drink in, even now, the warmth of a pleasant spring day, along with his feelings of proud satisfaction. However, in reality, at the same time that a rich smile rose to the cheeks of Tōzaemon, of good complexion, two men entered without reservation. They were, of course, not noticed.

“Something exciting is going on downstairs.”

Saying this, Chūzaemon took another puff on his cigarette.

“Lord Den’emon is in charge today, so there is bound to be excess conversation. Kataoka and the like arrived moments ago, and they have sat down.

“I thought the truth was late!” Choking on smoke, Chūzaemon smiled painfully. Then, Onodera Jūnai, who had been repeated working his brush, raised his head slightly looking like he had thought of something. But then his eyes quickly fell down to the paper, and he began to write diligently. This was most likely an update to his wife in Kyōtō. Even Kuranosuke laughed, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes widening.

“Was there some interesting story?”

“No. Just the usual idleties. But a while ago, when Chikamatsu was engaging in his story of Jinzaburō, even Lord Den’emon and the rest were listening with tears in their eyes. But besides that—no, speaking of which, there is an interesting story. Ever since we killed Lord Kira, I have heard that all throughout Edo revenge-style acts have become popular.

“Well! I did not think that!”

Chūzaemon looked at Tōzaemon with a curious face. His partner, having heard this story, for some reason looked extremely triumphant.

“Just today I have come to hear two or three similar stories, but the strangest one of all was one that happened around the port district in South Hacchōbori. The story goes, a rice shop owner in that neighborhood got into a fight with his neighbor, a dyer, in a bathhouse. Anyway, what happened was he was apparently splashed with hot water or something, a trifling thing at any rate. And then, in the end, the rice shop owner was hit severely with a bucket by the dyer. Then, the rice shop owner’s apprentice took a grudge and ambushed him outside around sunset. He suddenly smashed him in the opposite shoulder with a hook, he did! And the best part is, apparently he did it while saying, “Know your enemy!”

Tōzaemon, gesturing, smiled. “That is violence in excess!”

“It was apparently a grievous injury for the dyer. But even still, it’s strange, the apprentice was the talk of the town. And also, there was one in Tōrichō, one in Shinkōjimachi, and…there was another one somewhere. Anyway, it’s happening all over the place, I hear. Is it not funny that we’re being imitated, it seems?”

Tōzaemon and Chūzaemon exchanged glances, smiling. Hearing of the influence the revenge plot had had on the minds of Edo, no matter how small, was certainly pleasant. Among them only Kuranosuke was silent, hand upon his forehead, a bored expression on his face: Tōzaemon’s story had left, albeit faint, a strange cloud over his satisfaction. Though this is not to say, of course, that he felt responsible for all the effects his deeds had had. After they had enacted their plan of revenge, he naturally had felt indifference in his conscience towards the revenge craze sweeping Edo from the beginning. However, in spite of that, he felt as though the spring warmth he had felt until now had diminished somewhat.

To tell the truth, at that time, he had merely been a little surprised that the influence of their mere acts had reached these strange places. But, the fact that normally he should be laughing along with Tōzaemon and the rest had sowed seeds of discontent in the part of his mind in charge of satisfaction. For he feared, in the darkest recesses of his soul, that his satisfaction ran contrary to logic, and that he might be possess of such a selfish nature that he affirmed his deeds and the results of those deeds. Of course, at that time these analytical thoughts were furthest from his mind. He had just come to feel unhappy somehow, a single cold breath in the spring breeze.

However, it appeared that Kuranosuke’s lack of mirth did not exceptionally attract the attention of the two. No, it was just like the good-natured Hayami Tōzaemon to believe without doubt that Kuranosuke was interested, as he himself had an interest in the story. If that was not the case, after all, he certainly would have not personally headed downstairs and dragged the Hosokawa retainer on duty today, Horiuchi Den’emon, upstairs for this express purpose. Still, ever faithful, he looked past Chūzaemon and said something like, “Let’s get Den’emon up here.” Then, he quickly opened the dividing door and bounded cheerfully into the room below. Before long, accompanied by the boorish-looking Den’emon, he returned triumphantly, his usual grin slashing his face in half.

Chūzaemon turned his gaze from Yoshikatsu to Den’emon. “No! I say! I’m so sorry to bother you with the invitation!” he said, smiling. Once Den’emon’s artless and sincere personality had been put aside, the long relationship between him and them was forged with the warmness of old friends.

 “As Mr. Hayami has graciously invited me, while I think I may be a bother, I departed.”

When Den’emon took his seat, moving his fat eyebrows, the muscles of his sunburned cheeks threatening to break into laughter at any moment, he looked around at everybody in the room. Along with this he greeted everybody in the room: the one reading, the one moving his brush around. Kuranosuke too, of course, gave a polite bow. But the slightly humorous sight among them was Horibe Yahei, dozing off, his glasses still on, atop the Taiheiki he had begun to read. As soon as he opened his eyes, taking off his glasses in confusion, he bowed his head. Hazama Kihei, typically, looked like he found this incredibly amusing, and, turning to face the partition at his side, he screwed up his face in pain trying not to laugh.

“It seems that Lord Den’emon also has not a bit of fondness for old men, so you will not leave here,” Kuranosuke said in a wholly unsuitably smooth tone. For, though to some degree he was still out of it, the feeling of satisfaction at the bottom of his heart was still flowing gently.

“No, that is not it at all. But somehow, I get tangled up in those other people, and before long I am stuck in conversation.”

“Even now, if you would listen, it seems there may be a rather interesting story!”

Chūzaemon interjected from the side. “When you speak of interesting stories…”

“That story of the copycat crimes all throughout Edo,” Tōzaemon said, grinning, looking at both Den’emon and Kuranosuke.

“Indeed, well, that story? The truth is, human nature is a strange beast. When I feel the loyalty of all those around us, that sort of thing must be imitated, all the way down to the merchant and the peasant. I do not know to what degree the customs of the depraved haves and the have-nots will be made better. My! Jōruri. My! And kabuki! It being a time when there are only things I have no wish to see, it is just fine with me.”

It seemed that the course of the conversation had again gone in a direction uninteresting for Kuranosuke. So, in a purposely solemn tone, using humble words, he skillfully diverted it in that direction.

“Thank you very much for your words of praise for our loyalty, but in your opinion, shame takes precedence,” he said, looking round the room.

“Were you to ask why, in the well-populated doman of Akō, the people you see gathered here today are all those of low status. At the very beginning, even such great names as the chief Okuno Shōgen offered their advice, but about halfway through ideas changed, and his eventual leave from the alliance was nothing but unthinkable. In addition, those such as Shindō Genshirō, Kawamura Denbyōe, Koyama Gengozaemon were more senior than Hara Sōemon, and even ones like Sasa Gozaemon were of a higher social standing than Yoshida Chūzaemon. But as our action drew near, our thoughts did change. Among them are your relatives. From this angle it is not unreasonable to feel ashamed.”

The atmosphere in the room, along with Kuranosuke’s words, lost the pleasantries that they had had up to then. They were suddenly tinged with a serious tone. Because of this, it could be safely said that the talk, as he had intended, had changed course. But, as for whether the course it had taken was, for Kuranosuke, a pleasant one is another question.

According to his recollection, first Hayami Tōzaemon rubbed both of his balled fists on top of his knees two or three times. “Every single one of them are damnable curs! Not one of them could follow the winds of a warrior!”

“Hear, hear! And those like Takata Gunbei aren’t worth a dog’s life!” Chūzaemon, eyebrows raised, looked to Horibe Yahei for approval. Yahei, easily incited by the injustices of the world, had been silent since the beginning.

“The morning they pulled out, when we met those fools, even though we spit on them I felt unsatisfied. And anyway, it was not just that they shamelessly showed their faces to us, it was that they were at the height of joy, their long-held ambition accomplished by us!”

“Takada, damnable Takada, and Oyamada Shōzaemon and the rest are good-for-nothing fools!”

When Mase Kyūdayū said this to nobody in particular, even Hara Sōemon and Onodera Jūnai, similarly, began to excoriate the oathbreakers. Even the reticent Hazama Kihei, though his mouth did not see much use, repeatedly nodded his silver-haired head in agreement with all seated.

“At any rate, though it is known that in this glorious domain, along with us faithful servants, there are others, nothing is done about it. That is why samurai, all along, have been called depraved or wastes of government stipends by even the common peoples. There is even the rumor that Lord Okabayashi Mokunosuke’s seppuku last year was forced upon him all along by an agreement of his kin. Even though that is not the case, that it has come to this point means that we are not without dishonor. It goes without saying that others are all the more so. Edo is so easily encouraged by righteousness that imitations of our actions are mimicked all over the city, and there is also the fact of our anger of late. Even if it does not happen that the others are cut down, there is no end to it!”

Den’emon let this out triumphantly as if he could not think this was somebody else’s problem. From the present situation, he was more of a mind to do the duty of this cutting down than anybody. As if Yoshida, who had incited this, Hara, Hayami, Horibe and the rest all felt the same excitement, they began to engage in more and harsher verbal abuse of the traitors. But among them, a single man— Ōishi Kuranosuke—stared absently into the fire as the words died down, hands upon his knees, an uninterested look on his face.

He discovered the new fact that the result of the progression of the conversation he had diverted, at the cost of his late comrade who had had a change of heart, was that they were extolling their own loyalty all the more. And along with that, the warm spring breeze blowing at the bottom of his heart had abated, for a second time, to some degree. Of course, his regret for the oathkeepers was not simply because he had wanted to change the course of the conversation. In his capacity he had thought, regrettably, uncomfortably, to change their minds. But, he could not think of those disloyal samurai as detestable, but rather with compassion. Looking at it through his eyes, which had tasted sympathy, had tasted the circle of life, again and again, their change of heart was all too natural. If the word honesty were allowed, it would be so honest as to be pitiable. Therefore, even towards them, he had not changed his consistent tolerant attitude. Not to mention, at this point, revenge having been done, what should be given unto them should be nothing more than a pitying smile. It seemed that he thought that killing them, in this world, would be furthermore unsatisfactory. Must they be human filth so that we can be loyal servants? The difference between us and them, contrary to what we might think, is not large: Kuranosuke had previously thought of the strange influence passed on to the people of Edo without amusement. Now, with a slightly different significance from that, he perceived the effects the oathbreakers had suffered in the realm of public opinion represented by Den’emon. The sour face he made was no coincidence.

However, Kuranosuke’s displeasure held the honor of being the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Den’emon, seeing him sitting in silence, surmised that this must be the result of the humility largely typical of him. He admired him all the more. In order to express his change in this admiration, this simple samurai from Higo Province completely changed the course of the conversation and all at once began to babble words of admiration for Kuranosuke’s loyalty.

“The other day I heard from a certain well-learned man that a Chinese samurai named something-or-other, stalked his master’s enemy, up to the point when he drank some water with charcoal and was rendered mute. However, upon his insincere improprieties being exhausted, might he not continue down a less and less difficult course, unlike Lord Kuranosuke?”

With this introduction, Den’emon then proceeded into a lengthy recounting of a year ago when Kuranosuke had exhausted his debauchery. Even collecting leaves on Takao and Atago must have been difficult to a degree for him, who had been pretending to be mad. There was no doubt that even the parties under the cherry blossoms at Shimabara and Gion had been difficult for him, who was engaged in desperate measures…

“If you would know, in Kyōtō at that time, I learned of the reasons songs like ‘Ōishi’s Rock Comes Tumbling Down’ were in vogue. Completing the deception of a whole country cannot be done if it is not absolutely good. The other day, when Amano Yazaemon had the honor of composed courage bestowed upon him, that was the height of logic.”

“No, it was nothing so great as that,” Kuranosuke answered grudgingly.

It appeared that while Den’emon was unsatisfied with Kuranosuke’s refusal to humor him, but at the same time he felt his humility all the more. He turned away from Kuranosuke, whom he had been opposing for a long time, to face his longtime partner when on business in the capital, Onodera Jūnai. Then, his passionate feelings of admiration began to leak out all the more. Though Jūnai , among all in the group the most well-renowned and cultured, found that childlike zeal at once funny, it must also have been charming. Unassumingly welcoming Den’emon’s thoughts, Jūnai, started into, in detail, the time that Kuranosuke, in order to deceive the enemy clan’s plans, had donned a priest’s vestments and gone to visit the geisha Yūgiri at Masuya.

“It was on that street the grim-faced Kuranosuke composed that song ‘An Image of Home.’ That has attracted so much popularity that there is not a place in the quarter in which it is not sung. It must have been Kuranosuke’s habit at the time to go out in black robes to Gion, and among the falling cherry blossoms, extol his lady Uki’s name while walking drunkenly. ‘An Image of Home’ was all over and Kuranosuke’s debauchery was sung of. These were not in the least unreasonable. Anyway, that geisha called Yūgiri, and the one called Ukihashi, in Shimahara and Shumoku… if you asked them about Kuranosuke, they’d fuss that they handled him with every courtesy.”

Kuranosuke listened disgusted to this story of Jūnai’s, with feelings approaching contempt. At the same time he unconsciously recalled the memories of those bawdy times. They were so vivid it was strange. In those memories he saw the light of a long candle, he smelled the scent of aloe oil, he heard the strains of “The Whore from Kaga” on a shamisen. No, even the verse of “An Image of Home” Jūnai was now singing— “…on the tear-stained sleeve it scrapes / A memento of dew for striving to be happy on the sleeve…”—called to mind clearly the shapes of Yūgiri, and Ukihashi, as if they had escaped from the palace of the prince. He recalled how they had called him “The Happy” and “Mr. Happy” after that song. He must have, in some way, boldly made use of his lifestyle of every profanity, which often appeared in his memories. And so he must have tasted moments of tranquility within this profligate living in which his plan of revenge completely slipped his mind. Deceiving himself, in denying this truth, made him an overly honest man. Of course, even saying that this fact was immoral, for a man who perceived human nature, could not even be dreamt of. Therefore, receiving praise for enacting every sort of profanity and having it treated as giving the last full measure of devotion was not just uncomfortable, it left him feeling guilty.

Kuranosuke, thinking this, and being praised for his so-called desperate plan of feigned madness, made an unmistakably sour face. He was conscious of the fact that the spring breeze blowing in his chest again, which had received some damage and now faintly lingered, exhausted itself in an instant. All that remained was a thin cold shadow of antipathy towards the whole misunderstanding, and towards his stupidity in not anticipating said understanding. His plan of revenge, his comrades, and lastly he himself—facing these unpleasant facts, he held his hands over the flame in the brazier which had grown faint. Avoiding Den’emon’s eyes, he heaved a pitiful sigh.

***

Some time later. Taking a trip to the toilet as an excuse to leave, Ōishi Kuranosuke leaned against the column on the porch and gazed at the vivid white flowers on the aged plum tree between the garden moss and the rocks. The sun’s color had already grown dim, and it appeared that dusk was already spreading from the shadows of the thickly-grown bamboo. But within the screens, the usual interesting-sounding voices continued unabated. While listening to them, he became aware of the natural sadness of the group enveloping him. Along with the faint scent of plums, where had the loneliness which had soaked through to his very soul, this indescribably loneliness, come from? Kuranosuke, looking up at the tough, cold flowers, which looked like they had been worked into the sky, lingered for a long time.

(August 15, 1917)

[akutagawaaweek]

Dialogue with a Hack Writer

Dialogue with a Hack Writer

EDITOR                     Could I have you write something for next month’s issue of my magazine?

AUTHOR                   I can’t do it. I’ve been sick all recently and I’m completely unable to write anything.

EDITOR                     I’d like to ask for you specifically, though.

            Herein there is an argument in which the EDITOR tries to get the AUTHOR to write something. In the course of this argument, neither listens to the other.

AUTHOR                   …depends on something like that, then please just refuse this time.

EDITOR                     I’m in a bind. Anything’s fine: even just two or three pages. Frankly it just needs to have your name on it.

AUTHOR                   Is it not foolish to publish something like that? Of course it’s a shame for my readers, but it would also be a loss for the magazine. If you piss on somebody’s head and tell them that it’s raining, they will turn on you.

EDITOR                     It wouldn’t be a loss at all! Even when we run anonymous stories, if they’re good they’re good, and if they’re bad they’re bad. The one who bears responsibility is the magazine publisher, but in the case of famous authors’ works, whether they’re good or bad the fault always lies with the author.

AUTHOR                   So then am I not all the more responsible?

EDITOR                     However, in the case of such a master like yourself, even if you put out one or two bad works, there probably won’t be any grumblings that you’ve impugned your fame.

AUTHOR                   That’s the same reasoning that says that if a man’s livelihood is not troubled by the theft of five or ten yen it’s okay to steal from him! Just tell the party who’s been robbed that it’ll get better, why don’t you?

EDITOR                     I’m uncomfortable with you thinking it robbery, but you could think of it as charity.

AUTHOR                   Your joking isn’t putting me at ease. When a magazine comes to buy my manuscripts, is that not the same as a business transaction? There must be all sorts of posters: for requests, for missions. However, there must be few magazines who will remain loyal in those insistences or mission until they post losses. In the case of a successful author, manuscripts are bought. In the case of an unsuccessful author, nobody will buy, even if begged: that much is evident. Looking at it this way, for both authors and magazines, should not the authors themselves focus on their own benefit, by refusing, or taking responsibility?

EDITOR                     You must keep in mind the wishes of your hundreds of thousands of readers, though.

AUTHOR                   That’s some childish sentimentality! Not even a middle schooler would take that seriously.

EDITOR                     Not at all. With my whole heart I intend to meet my readers’ aspirations.

AUTHOR                   That must be the way you are. Meeting readers’ aspirations is making good business at the same time, you know.

EDITOR                     I’m worried that you think of it like that. All you’re saying is business, business, but  when I get you to write something, it’s not just business.  It’s also because I really like your work.

AUTHOR                   That may be the case. When I want to write, even a little, there must be some good will mixed in. Naïve men like myself are easily moved by just that good will. Even when I say over and over that I can’t write, I come to want to write if I do. Though I have leapt before I have looked, that will not be satisfactory on my deathbed. If I do not end up in unpleasant circumstances, you definitely will.

EDITOR                     Aren’t you just saying that man is an emotional creature and not a thinking one? Then try and feel my emotions.

AUTHOR                   I’m not feeling your ready-made emotions.

EDITOR                     Can you please just write me something without talking so much about reason? I’d like to save face.

AUTHOR                   Hmm. I’ll write this dialogue with you.

EDITOR                     If you really have to, that’s fine. Can I have it by the middle of the month?

            A MASKED MAN suddenly appears between the two.

MASKED MAN        (to the AUTHOR) You are a pitiful creature! One moment you say these grand-sounding things, then in covering up your own ineptness, you will write any sorry thing at all, no matter how ramshackle! Long ago I saw Balzac write a marvelous short story in one night. When he became angry, he soaked his feet and then continued writing. When I think of that fierce spirit, the likes of you appears to me as no different from that of a dead man. Even if you took responsibility for a moment, why do you not learn? (to the EDITOR) You are undedicated! Even in America running a sham story is starting to be a problem. Give one look to the world outside your pitiful little life and consider high quality!

            The EDITOR and the AUTHOR stare at the MASKED MAN, dumbfounded, unable to say a word.

(October 1921?)*

(Unfinished)

*Akutagawa’s question mark, not mine.

[akutagawaaweek]

Ramblings

Ramblings

I

My stomach is a whale. That whale which Columbus spotted. There are times when I hesitate not to breathe out saltwater. I grow tired of howling voices.

II

My tongue, and my mouth, every time I have a fever, grow thick with ferns.

III

I wonder, it is just me who thinks of a large sago palm every time he has diarrhea?

IV

When I hear my stomach rumbling, I feel as though I am giving birth to shark eggs.

V

I have come to feel that, when I am wrought by depression, that there are lice crowded throughout all the folds of my brain.

(May 1926)

[akutagawaaweek]

The Early Autumn of O—

The Early Autumn of O—

Knees tucked against my chest, I was talking with O—, a painter in the Western style. He was in a red shirt, lying on his stomach on the tatami, chain-smoking Bats. And beside O—, there was a strangely imposing artificial leg, facing upwards so its white sock was pointed towards the ceiling.

“Can’t you just feel the last of the summer heat?”

Before he replied, O—, raising his eyebrows, gave a look to the flowers on the edge of the veranda. Countless small shoots of aster were in a tangle, basking in the sun without a sound.

“Hey, they’re blooming! These…whatchamacallits, they’re the ones you see on decorated fans!”

X

It was sunset. The air was clear and the ocean could not be heard. As expected, I was walking with O— along a wide sandy path. Then from the other direction came a young woman walking along the hedges. A fairly tall thing, her simple patterned clothes tied with a red belt.

“Oh, I feel so sorry for her. Having to deal with those long legs.”

In truth, the woman’s attitude was just as O— had said.

X

Cane tucked into his armpit, O— was taking a piss on a concrete wall behind some large villa. Then came along a bespectacled policeman. It appeared, naturally, that he wanted to find offense with this, and so he pointed at O— with his white fan.

“It’s this. This,” O— managed in more or less of a stammer, rapping on his right leg a couple times with his cane. The right leg was the artificial one, and so the knocking sound was unmistakable.

“My house is just over there, so…”

Grinning, the policeman walked on without a word.

X

It was night, the western sun just lingering on the roofs of the houses and the tops of the pines. I happened to run into O— in front of a candy store. Uncommonly for his, O— had changed into Western clothes and he had resorted to his crutches.

“So it’s crutches today.”

O— smiled, showing his white teeth.

“Yeah, went with the oars today.”

X

I had gone over to O—’s house, and in a small room beneath the lamp we talked of many things. But mainly of sensitivity and telepathy and the like. This is what we talked about. There was another story, too: one night or other,  a friend of mine, U—, poured himself a cup of water and placed it at his bedside, and when he looked a short while later at some point half the water was gone. When he was dozing, the water all of a sudden splashed on his face. And yet, when he jumped up in surprise, the cup was perfectly fine.

 And then when we were out walking, we decided to go into town to go shopping. Then O— uncharacteristically, started to shut the bay window. And he said to me, laughing, “When the light hits the window, you know, when I came in from outside there was somebody sitting here. Seemed like he was drinking just some hot water.”

O—, you see, had been cooking for himself in this house.

X

O—, wearing a black vest over a red shirt as usual, was stoking a fire in a pit under the rear eaves of the house around eleven in the morning. The kindling was of dried pine needles and pinecones. Coming to the back door, I said, “What’s up? You gonna boil something?” But when O— turned around, he ignored my questioned and gestured to the nearby pines with his chin.

“You’re gonna boil something like this, you’ll need ALL the trees!”

X

O—, wearing a panama hat, was sitting on a squat sand dune, diligently working a broom. There was a bungalow, only its supports white, in the middle of some pine trees, its shutters lowered in silence. That is my impression of it.  The pine trees rose to about twenty feet, the same as the ones around our place, and the young pinecones were buffeted by the typical autumn-like breeze.

“So you get pinecones on these sort of pine trees too, you see.”

O replied, still sweeping, without turning towards me.

“I feel like a girl’s gotten pregnant.”

X

O—, in between his main work, seriously composed poetry. To this occasion to paint a portrait of O— I will add some of those poems:

I wonder if clouds / Are interposed with bamboo / Grown among orchids

You should not well dry / Your bedding on the same shelf / Where you keep loofahs

Early fallen leaves / Oh! shall lead to butterflies / Thread-thin silver-grass

Gently fading light / Peels the sponge gourd skin at / The side of the well

Lo, these hearty trees / On the edge of seasons are / Pine forests of grass

Speaking of chestnuts / In the first harvest there are / Large ones to be found!

Break a balsam seed / When the seed has broken wide / You hear a bird’s cry

(1915, October 11, Kugenuma)

[akutagawaaweek]

Art, Etc.

Art, Etc.

X

The artist, above all else, must aspire to complete works of art. Otherwise, the act of devoting one’s self to the arts likely becomes meaningless. Even if he is moved by the humanity, if that is all he seeks, then he ought to be able to get that merely from listening to a sermon. Beyond devoting one’s self to the arts, we must, in the works of art we pass down to others, primarily move them artistically. Furthermore, there is simply no path for us besides the one where we aspire to complete works of art.

X

Art for the sake of art, with one misstep, can decay into masturbation.*

Art for the sake of humanity, with one misstep, can decay into automatic action.

X

One should not read ‘completion’ as the production of an error-free work. It is the complete realization of one’s particularly developed artistic ideals. If that artist cannot always do that, that artist should be ashamed. Therefore, a great artist is that artist whose area of completion is of the largest scale. For an example look at Goethe.

X

Of course, man cannot transcend the limits of his aptitude which are bestowed by nature. If he sighs at that and grows lazy, he knows nothing of the whereabouts of those limits. So it is necessary for him to be of a mind like Goethe and devote himself. If he is ashamed at this, then in a hundred years he could not even hope to become Goethe’s driver. And above all there is no need for him to go around telling everybody he meets that he will be like Goethe.

X

When we head down the path towards artistic completion, there are some things which impede our devotion. Thoughts of an easier life? No, not that. That is a more mysterious characteristic. As the mountain climber climbs high, he grows strangely wistful for the foot of the mountain beneath the clouds. If he does not comprehend this—those men, for me at least, are beyond salvation.

X

A caterpillar on the branch of a tree lives in constant danger on account of its foes: temperature, weather, birds. The artist, too, to preserve his life, must endure such dangers in the same way as the caterpillar. What he fears above all else is stagnation. No, there is nothing called stagnation within the world of the artist. If he does not progress he will surely degenerate. When an artist degenerates, he begins to do only one automatic action. That being, he writes only the same works. If automatic action starts, it must be thought that he, as an artist, is on the verge of death. When I wrote “The Dragon,” I, too, was clearly on the verge of this variety of death.

X

Those who hold a more correct view of art will not necessarily only write better works. Is it just me who, when he considers this, feels a sensation of loneliness? I pray I am not the only one.

X

Here is a theory that is all the rage now: Regarding form, in books the content is the end. However, this is a lie that appears to be true. The content of a creation is content which inevitably becomes one with form. If there are those who that that first there is content, and then later form is manufactured, then those are the words of ones who are blind to the divinity of literary creation. Let me give you a simple example. Surely most everybody must know that Oswald Alving says in Ghosts, “Give me the sun.” What is the content of the words, “Give me the sun?” Once, Tsubouchi Shōyō, in his commentary on Ghosts, translated it as, “It’s dark.” Of course, in theory, “Give me the sun,” and, “It’s dark,” may be the same. However, in content, the two could not be further apart. The content of those solemn words, “Give me the sun,” cannot express anything more than the style of the ordinary, “Give me the sun.” That Ibsen so precisely wedded content and form is one of his greatest points. It is not strange that José Echegaray should praise it so highly in the introduction to The Son of Don Juan. It is from confusing the content of those words with the abstract meaning in those words which the mistaken emphasis on content comes. Simply skillfully manipulating content is not form. Form is in content. Or vice-versa. For those people who cannot grasp this delicate connection, the arts, forevermore, shall be nothing more than a closed book.

X

Art begins with expression and ends with expression. A painter who does not paint, a poet who composes no poetry, and other such phrases, are phrases with no meaning except for as metaphors. Rather than speaking of chalk which is not white, the artist must think of more foolish words.

X

However, woe be upon those who hold the mistaken belief of the preponderance of form. I daresay that realistically they shall meet with more of a doom than those who hold the superiority of content. The latter bestow meteorites instead of stars. The former see fireflies and make them for stars. On character, education, and other such points, my constant vigilance is not one to be carried away by the acclamation of the mistaken adherents of the superiority of form.

X

When you can truly read with your heart the work of a great artist, we, overwhelmed again and again by that greatness, feel as though those other authors might as well not exist. It is like when one looks at the sun; when he turns his eyes away, his surroundings have grown dim. When I read War and Peace for the first time, I did not know how much I would scorn other Russian authors. However, that was not correct. We must understand that besides the sun, there is the moon. There are stars. Goethe, even while admiring Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment, had enough composure to hesitate scorning the Vatican’s Raphael.

X

In order to create exemplary works, artist, depending on the time and place, are quite capable of selling their souls to the devil. This means, of course, that I have done so. There are probably people who have done so with less reservations than I had.

X

So spake Mephistopholes, come to Japan: “There is no piece of art about which nobody can utter any criticism. The duty of the wise critic is merely to seize the opportunity at which it seems that that criticism will be widely recognized. Therefore they make use of that opportunity and damn that author’s future prospects. This sort of damnation is doubly effective. Against society and against the author himself.”

X

Whether art is understood or not understood is not the domain of explanations. It is nothing more than drinking water to find of for one’s self if it is warm or cold. Understanding art is no different from this. It is like reading a book on aesthetics and considering one’s self a critic, or like reading a travel guide and thinking that one can travel all throughout the country without getting lost. And even so society may have been deceived. However, the artists—no, I fear perhaps only Santayana…

X

I sympathize with every opposition to art. Even in the case of those opposed to my own, on occasion.

X

The life of the artist, no matter how brilliant, is a deliberate one. What I mean by that is, when the Chinese painter Ni Zan painted Pine Over Rock, all the branches of the pine extend outward in outrageous directions. Not even Ni Zan, at the time, knew what the effect the branches would have on the canvas. However, that there would be some effect because of the branches, he knew only too well. If he had not known, Ni Zan would have been no genius. He would just have been some mechanical puppet.

X

“Unconscious artistic acts” is nothing more than another way to ask for water from a stone. Therefore, Rodan spurned inspiration.

X

Long ago, Cézanne vehemently opposed some criticism of Delacroix which he had heard which said that Delacroix painted flowers over half-baked material. It might have just been Cézanne’s intention to speak of Delacroix. However, in that opposition was laid bare Cézanne himself.  That awesome inner Cézanne which, for the sake of seizing some inevitable law which commands that artistic emotion be brought about, cannot turn away from his duty.

X

The application of this inevitable law is what is called technique. So there are only two types of people who disdain technique: those who do not understand art from the beginning, and those who use a bad definition. In regards to those who use a bad definition, they, who boast that it’s just not for them, are just like those who consider vegetarian to be a way to avoid paying for meat; they have a total misunderstanding of vegetarianism. From whence comes this disdain? All artists ought to polish their technique all the more. Speaking of Ni Zan, who I brought up as an example earlier, had to, all the more, get the knack of sending the pine branches out in directions to bring about some result. “Write with your soul.” “Write with your life.” These gold-plated platitudes are best left to middle school lessons.

X

Simplicity is sacred. However, simplicity in terms of art is a simplicity which is of great complexity. A simplicity beyond squishing a seed between pieces of wood to get the juice out, beyond even just squeezing the seed. Before that simplicity is achieved, to no matter what degree one must have embarked on creative endeavors, one unrealized in this area is like this: though he may read over the same verses sixty times or more, he babbles like a child, while thinking himself Demosthenes. He cannot know to what degree which that cheap simplicity is near true simplicity.

X

What is dangerous is not technique. It is those with some small talent who abuse technique. These amateurs conceal their lack of seriousness with parlor tricks. Though I am loath to admit it I myself have among my poorer works stories composed entirely of these parlor tricks. I daresay this is a fact even my foes will recognize with delight. But…

X

I fear that my desire to live a comfortable life means that when I am satisfied with my lot in life, I, then, will be dragged into depravity by demons of elegance. To best avoid being consumed by this desire, I make others and myself trust in me, and I defend the remainder from relying wholly on the will of myself and others. That I am interested in playing at this sort of loquaciousness is also because of that. Before long there will come a time when I do not give it my all and I will have nothing left. (10/8/1919)

  * I’m obviously being very liberal here, but I really think this is the best translation of a very difficult passage. The only thing I don’t like about it is that there’s no word that cuts to the heart of an idea like “masturbation” for the next sentence. I had to take “automatic action” from later on in the text.

[hotoke-no-ishi]

As a supplement to my translation of Akutagawa’s “Tanizaki Jun’ichirō,” here is the grave of the man himself. Tanizaki, that is, not Akutagawa. Located on the grounds of the Hon’en Temple in eastern Kyōto. A great time to visit it is whenever it’s not raining, or you’re liable to kill yourself slipping on the ridiculously hazardous rocks. It’s definitely beautiful around sunset, though.

Tanizaki narrowly edges out Akutagawa as my favorite Japanese author, but Akutagawa working exclusively in the short story genre obviously makes him a better choice for this sort of project. Also, Tanizaki is pretty well covered in English translation. I think they might have got everything, actually.

[akutagawaaweek]

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō

One summer afternoon, I went out to go browsing with Tanizaki and Kamita. On that day, Tanizaki wore a red necktie with his black suit. I felt as though romanticism was symbolized by this magnificent tie.  And of course I was not the only one. The people we passed, men and women alike, surely received the same impression. There was not a single person we passed by who did stare at Tanizaki’s face as we passed by. However, no matter what was said Tanizaki would not recognize this fact. “He’s lookin’ at you! You in your travelling coat.”

It was true that I had borrowed my father’s travelling coat instead of wearing my summer coat. However, the travelling coat was what was worn by the master of tea ceremonies and the priest of my family temple.   The masses’ surprise could not possibly equal that at that of the unique tie that looked like a single rose. And yet, as Tanizaki, like me, was a poet who did not hold logic in high esteem, I thought to do nothing besides forcing Tanizaki to see the truth, more forcefully this time.

In a little while we sat down in some café hidden in Jinbō. We had come in to get some carbonated water or something to cool our dry throats. Even after I had placed my order, I stared with rapt attention at the burning beacon of romanticism at Tanizaki’s throat. Then, a waitress, her makeup coming off, approached our table with cups in both hands. The cups, in truth, were full of limpid water with throbbing tiny bubbles. The waitress lined the cups in front of us, one by one. And then—I still recall vividly that waitress’s words! She left one hand on the table, as if it was difficult for her to leave, and then peered closely at Tanizaki’s chest.

“My! You’re wearing a necktie of a fine color!”

Ten minutes later, when I got up from the table I tried to give her a fifty sen tip. Tanizako, like all Tōkyōites, felt scorn for the needless act of tipping. Even at the time I am sure that the fifty sen tip did not evade Tanizaki’s derision.

“Really, was she of any help?”

Not feeling shamed by my elder’s derision, I gave the wrinkled bill to the waitress. She had done more than just bring us glasses of carbonated water. Indeed, for me she had given me a boon from on high concerning the truth about the red necktie. To this day I have yet to give a fifty sen tip with such sincerity. 

[akutagawaaweek]

Cold

Cold

It was a snowy morning. Yasukichi, on a chair in the physics instructor’s office, was gazing into the flame of a stove. The flame, as if it had breath, flickered and burned yellowly, and sank into dusky ash. This proved that it was continuing to battle the cold hanging in the room. Yasukichi, with sudden conception of the cosmic cold beyond the earth, felt some sort of sympathy for the glowing coals.

“Horikawa.”

Yasukichi looked up into the face of Miyamoto, a bachelor of science, standing before the stove. The spectacled Miyamoto, hands thrust into his pockets, had a friendly smile beneath his thin mustache.

“Horikawa. You do know that women are objects?”

“Well, I know they’re animals.”

“Not animals. Objects! I’ve discerned this as a result of my recent labors.”

“Mr. Horikawa, you mustn’t take what Mr. Miyamoto says seriously.” These were the words of the other physics instructor, the bachelor of science Hasegawa, whose hairline was receding. Yasukichi turned to the man. Hasegawa finished checking an exam sheet in the desk behind Yasukichi, and a bewildered smile reached his face.

“How rude! Shouldn’t you be overjoyed at my discovery, Hasegawa? Oh, Horikawa, you do know the law of convective transference?”

“Convective transference? That have something to do with moving prisoners around?”

“You literary types worry me.” During this exchange, Miyamoto fed more coal into the stove, off which the flames reflected.

“So, when you touch two different objects together, of varying temperatures, the heat continues to move from the warm object to the cold one, until both of the objects are about equal.”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“That’s the called the law of convective transference! Now, let’s make a woman an object. Okay? If a woman is an object, then it follows that a man is as well. Therefore, you can conclude that sex is the same as heat. When this man and woman touch together, their lovemaking, like convective transference, ought to continue to move from the more distracted man to the not as distracted woman, until their sex is about equal. Surely that’s how it is in your case, Hasegawa.”

“Hey, it’s started!” called out Hasegawa, rather much happier than would be expected, in a laugh as though he was being tickled.

“E is the amount of heat that moves over S area in T time. Therefore—got it? H is temperature, X is the distance measured from the direction of the heat conduction, and K is the thermal conductivity determined by the substance! So, in Hasegawa’s case…”

Miyamoto began to write official-looking things on the small blackboard. However, he turned around suddenly and, totally disappointed, tossed away the fragment of chalk.

“Really, with an amateur like you, Hasegawa, I can’t even brag about my discovery! Anyway, it appears that Hasegawa, in accordance with formality, has brought up his fiancé.”

“If there really was such a custom, the world would be at ease.” Yasukichi stretched out his legs and gazed out faintly at the snowy world outside the window. Because this physics’ instructor’s room was on the corner of the second floor, it was easy to look out over the exercise grounds, the lines of pines opposite that, and the red brick building beyond those with once glance. And the ocean—the ocean’s dim waves flickered in the space between the buildings.

“Instead it’s the literati who are on the rise. Any prospects for your books, by the way.”

“I can hardly sell a single copy, as usual. Doesn’t seem like there’s any convective transference going on between authors and readers. By the way, your wedding hasn’t happened yet?”

“No, it’s going to be about another month. There’s so much to do for that, and I’m in a state when I can’t study something.”

“So anxious you can’t study, huh?”

“I’m not Miyamoto, and even if first and foremost we need a house, I’m no good when I’m not renting. To tell you the truth, this past Sunday I walked pretty much the whole city. And even then when I found ones that seemed open, they were already promised to somebody else.

“What about me? If you don’t mind taking the train to school every day.”

“I’m afraid you’re a little too far away. I hear there’s places to rent in that area, and the misses is hoping for that area—hey, Mr. Horikawa! Aren’t your shoes going to burn?”

Before he realized it, Yasukichi’s shoes had touched the body of the stove, and along with a hazy mist rising there was the stink of burning grass.

“There’s your convective transference again!”

Wiping his glasses, a grin spread across Miyamoto’s nearsighted face.

X X X

A frosty morning, four or five days later. To catch the train, Yasukichi was flat out running past a resort. It was an embankment of about ten feet, wheat fields to the right of the road, the train tracks to the left. Faint sounds died over the deserted fields. It seemed as though it could only be the sound of somebody walking in the fields, but in truth it was the sound of the frost beneath the ground, collapsing on itself.

Eventually the eight o’clock outbound train, blowing its long whistle, passed the embankment with not much speed. Yasukichi’s inbound train should be about half an hour later. He took out his watch. However, somehow it was 8:15. Yasukichi blamed the time discrepancy on his watch. “No need to worry about missing the train,” he of course thought. The wheat on the side of the road was gradually becoming hedges. Yasukichi produced an Asahi cigarette and started walking more casually than before.

The road, littered with coal cinders and the like, built to a crossing at a mound—by chance Yasukichi found himself here. Yasukichi noticed people crowded on both sides of the crossing. He suddenly thought of one of them being run over. Happily, along the fence by the crossing, stopped on a bicycle laden with goods was an acquaintance of his, the butcher’s son. Yasukichi tapped on his shoulder from behind, cigarette in his hand.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Somebody got run over. The outbound train just now,” the boy said rapidly. His face, held by rabbit-fur earmuffs, was glittering with a strange liveliness.

“Who?”

“The crossing guard. He got hit thinking he would save one of the students who looked like he was in the way. Oh! There’s a bookseller named Nagai in Hachiman-mae, right? It was his daughter who was about to get run over.

“But he saved her?”

“Yeah, she’s crying over there.”

‘Over there’ was a crowd of people opposite the railway crossing. Indeed, there was a girl there, being questioned by a policeman. Beside him was some minor official-looking man occasionally speaking. The crossing guard was—Yasukichi saw, in front of the guard’s hut, a body laid under a straw mat. In truth, it caused him to feel, along with disgust, a curiosity. At a distance, it seemed all you could see from under the mat was just the shoes.

“Those people took the body away.”

Beneath the signal pole on this side were two or three railroad workers, huddled around a small fire. The small yellow flame produced neither light nor smoke. It was just that cold. One of the workers was warming his breech-covered rear.

Yasukichi passed the railway crossing. The tracks, being close to the station, spanned any number of crossings. Each time he passed a crossing, he wondered if it had been this one where the crossing guard was hit. The blood, still on the tracks, spoke to the tragedy of two or three minutes ago. Yasukichi, mostly by reflex, moved his gaze to the other side of the crossing. This, however, had no effect. He was taken aback by the sight of the gobs of red collected on the tracks glimmering in the cold, and in the same instant it seared his heart vividly. And furthermore, that blood was faintly ascending as it evaporated…

After a while, Yasukichi continued his unrelaxed pace towards the train platform. His head was full of the grisly spectacle he had seen moments ago. In particular, the vapor ascending from the trail of blood was stuck firmly in his head. It was then that he recalled the convective transference they had discussed. As the law which Miyamoto had taught said, the heat of the life within that blood, with no thoughts whatsoever of behaving unnaturally was cruelly passing into the train tracks. And furthermore, it makes no difference whose life it is; the crossing guard who sacrificed himself in the line of duty or a hardened criminal, their life cruelly departs. Yasukichi understood that these thoughts were pointless, of course. The faithful child must drown, the chaste wife must burn: he had tried to persuade himself of this many a time. However, the facts he had seen before his very eyes left such a deep impression that it could not easily be explained away with logic.

And despite all that, the people on the platform, independent of his feelings, were all making happy faces. Yasukichi felt frustration at this. The booming voices of the navy officers, in particular, were materially unpleasant. He lit his second Asahi cigarette and walked to the platform. From here there was a place where he could see the railway crossing, two or three blocks down. It seemed that the groups of people had dispersed at this point. There was just the tiny point of the railway workers’ fire, yellow flame flickering.

Yasukichi felt some kind of sympathy for that distant flame. However, there was no doubt that seeing the crossing made him feel uneasy, of course. He turned his back to it and returned to the crowd of people. But before he could walk ten steps, he discovered that he had dropped one of his red leather gloves. When he had lit his cigarette, he had held the right glove he had removed. Yasukichi turned around.  There, before the platform, the glove had tumbled out of the palm of his hand. It was as if it was silently telling him to stay put.

Beneath the frosty sky, Yasukichi sensed the soul of that one left behind red leather glove. And at the same time, he felt the faint rays of warm sunlight coming into the freezing world.

(April 1924)

[akutagawaaweek]

Duck Hunt

Duck Hunt

The final time I had the pleasure of Mr. Ōmachi Keigetsu’s acquaintance was when we went duck hunting with the gentlemen Kosugi Hōan, Kōjiri Tanesuke, and Ishikawa Torakichi on the seas near Shinagawa in January of 1924. We all gathered early in the morning at a boathouse near Ichi-no-hashi in Honjo, I remember that we had a motorboat prepared and we went down the river. Kosugi and Kōjiri were both distinguished hunters. Furthermore, it was said that our boatman was also a famous duck hunter. And even though we had three expert animal massacring sinners with us, that day we could not get a single duck. Regardless of the ducks or the cormorant, the birds which had come to the sea all took off as soon as they sighted our boat. Mr. Keigetsu, appearing very happy at our inability to catch any ducks, said “Wonderful! The ducks of this age have learned to read, and so they’ve fled to areas marked ‘No Hunting!’” as he clapped his hands. Furthermore, because of his audacious laughing, with his dubious, hood-like hat perched upon his head, and his mustache dappled with drops of alcohol…just because of that the ducks had fled.

In this sort of situation, we were just buffeted by sea breezes for ten hours. We didn’t get a single duck. However, it appeared even Mr. Keigetsu, thrilled that we had not caught a duck, had sobered up a little when we once again reached the shore of Ichi-no-hashi. “I promised my kids I’d come back with two ducks, that’s probably something I have to do…I believe they were gonna give the ducks to their schoolteachers,” he blurted out. So we decided we had to go down to the coop and buy two ducks caught with birdlime. Whereupon Mr. Kosugi said, “They’ve probably gotta have gun wounds in ‘em, we wanna put a hole in each of them here?”

But Mr. Keigetsu, shaking his head childishly, said, “Well, there’s a whole lot ‘cause of this,” and, wrapping the birdlime-covered ducks in newspapers, took them home.

[akutagawaaweek]

Collected Works

Collected Works*

Essentially I am not the type to form attachments easily. Outside of collecting insects while I was in elementary school, up until now there has been nothing I felt passion for. Therefore I feel something like respect for those of you who desperately amass matchboxes (of course!) or items from even oilcans or posters to the works of the great artists, old and new. From time to time I feel something like wonder mixed with a small amount of disgust.

Books are no exception. By nature of my trade I have some small collection of books. However, I have not collected these works. Rather, they have collected of their own accord. Were we to suppose that they are collected works, we would have to have prepared a wholly understood reasoning. But I offer as proof that the books on my shelf are collected works their exceedingly jumbled and disorderly state. There is hardly any reasoning there.

Well, it is not necessarily totally without rhyme or reason. The books on the shelf indicate my tastes, at least. Or perhaps the changes in my tastes through various periods. On that point—on the point that it indicates me, I have no selections of my own works. For a long time I have written down the date I added the books to my collection, and I thought I might write some sketch which would suggest the changes throughout their owner’s life. However, I found a story written by a Westerner which it was too similar to, and so it ended there. Doubtless it is to the joy of the country that it ended there. But at any rate you must say that it is charming that the books on a shelf reflect their owner like a mirror, or if not charming, an unpleasant truth. (Therefore, ‘improving’ the works of another” is as ethically improper as “bid rigging” at an auction.)

I am not blessed with the joys and sadnesses known only to collectors. Anyway, because I buy what I find while browsing in bookstore, or while reading the catalog, the result is I have no strong feelings for my purchases. It, of course, does not cost me much money.

Despite this, I have my doubts as to whether or not this matter is a story of enjoying books.

(July 1924)

*This is a pretty close translation of the title, but it’s obviously not a pun in Japanese.

[akutagawaaweek]

At the Water’s Edge

At the Water’s Edge

I

…The rain still continued to fall. After finished lunch, we gossiped of our friends in Tōkyō as we smoked countless Shikishima cigarettes.

Where we were was a detached space of two large rooms, shaded from the empty garden by a reed shutter. Though I called it empty, in the garden there was just a sparse scattering of sand sedge—‘missionaries’ wheat,’ it was called—with their ears drooping over the sand. By the time we had come the head of the wheat was no longer all there. What was there was freshly grown, bright green.  However, before long each ear of wheat would change to the same brown and grow plump with seeds.

“Well, I wonder if I should get to working.”

M—, totally stretched out on the ground, was wiping his glasses on the thickly-starched bathrobe provided by the inn. His work was that he had to write something each month for our magazine, and it pointed to that creation of something.

After M— had retired to the next room, I took the cushion for use as a pillow and began to read Eight Dogs. Yesterday I had started to read the section where Shino, Genpachi, Kobungo, and the rest set out to save Sōsuke. “And at that time Amazaki Terufumi withdrew from his purse five parcels of gold dust. First, as the third parcel was enough to be carried on a fan… Sankenshi collected thirty ryō. Though it be a trifling land, this was only for traveling expenses. Without it becoming a parting gift, in its becoming a boon of Satomidono, I command, as my parting words, for this to be the last.”

While reading, I recalled the forty sen payment for my manuscript which had arrived the day before last. Both of us had graduated from the university’s English department this July. Therefore, we were in imminent danger of having to create a plan to support ourselves. I had gradually forgotten about Eight Dogs, and come to think about becoming an instructor. However, it seemed that I soon fell asleep, and had this short dream:

It appeared to be late some night. I was lying alone in a room, the shutters closed. Then, someone knocked on the door, calling out, “Hello?” I was aware that on the other side of the door there was a pond. However, I knew not at all who could be calling out to me.

“Hello? I have something to ask of you, I’m afraid…” the voice outside the door said. When I heard those words, I thought, “Aha, so it’s K—!” K— was in the philosophy department, one year my senior. A man who failed at everything he tried. Still prone, I replied in a rather loud voice:

“Don’t give me that pathetic voice. You asking about money again?”

“No, it’s not about money. There’s just a girl I wanted my friend to meet…”

That voice was altogether unlike K—. Furthermore, it was altogether unlike a person who was worried about me. Quickly getting excited, I jumped up to thrust open the door. In reality the pond expanded out wide from the edge of the porch. However, of course I could not see any sign of K—.

I gazed out for a little while at the moon reflected on the pond. It seemed that the tide was coming in from the flowing seaweed. Soon I noticed the ripples glimmering right before my eyes. As the ripples came to my feet, there came to be a single carp. It was leisurely wiggling its fins in the area where the water was clear.

“Oh, it was the carp that said hello,” I thought, relieved—then I awoke. By that time gentle light was already peeping in through the reed shutter. I took a washbasin to the garden and went to the back well to wash my face. However, once I had washed my face the memory of the dream still clung strangely to me. “So that carp must be one of those things from my unconscious mind,” was what I thought, more or less.

II

…After about an hour, we slipped on borrowed sandals, and, towels wrapped around our heads, we went to go swimming in the sea near Hanjō. The path wound down through the garden and then continued directly to the shore.

“Will we be able to swim?”

“It might be a bit cold.”

We talked as such as we detoured around a thicket of missionaries’ wheat (you would be amazed at how itchy your calves can get after carelessly treading through wet missionaries’ wheat). The weather as we got to the beach was definitely too cool. However, I held some lingering affection for the sea in Kazusa—or rather for a Kazusa summer sunset.

Even when we had arrived yesterday, there were of course seven or eight men and women in the sea, testing the waters. However, today there was only no sign of people, even the red flags marking off the area for bathing were not flying. There was just the waves breaking on the expansive shoreline. And in the screens set up for changing clothes—there a dog was chasing a cloud of insects. And even then, when it saw us, it immediately fled in the opposite direction.

Though I had already removed my sandals, I could not work up enough interest to go swimming. However, before I realized it M— had stowed his robe and glasses in the changing area, and putting on his swim cap, rushed into the surging shoals.

“Hey, you really wanna go in?”

“That’s what we came here for, isn’t it?” M—, about knee-deep in water, stooped over, and turned to show me his sunburned smile.

“Get in already!”

“No thanks.”

“You’ll come in if I give you my ‘Winning Smile.’”

“You’re talking nonsense!”

‘Winning Smile’ was a student of fifteen or sixteen whom I had exchanged greetings with once when I was here. I was not an exceptionally attractive youth. However I was a vibrant youth who looked something like a young tree. One long ago day, the tenth of something, we emerged from the sea and flopped out bodies on the hot sand. There, splashed by the salt water, we dragged around a plank of wood. But, when he saw us tumble at his feet, he laughed, showing off his bright teeth. After he had gone by, M— sent me a sarcastic smile and said:

“He gave you his winning smile!” Since then we had had the name Winning Smile between us.

“No way you’re coming in?”

“No way.”

“God damn egotist!” Body dripping, M— began to swim steadily further out. Unconcerned for M—, I climbed atop a small sand dune a little ways distant from the changing area. Then, I placed my borrowed sandals beneath me and tried to smoke a Shikishima. However, in the wind, which was stronger than I expected, I could not get my match to the cigarette.

“Hey!”

M— had returned at some point and, lingering in the shallows, was calling out to me. Unfortunately, the unceasing waves made it so I could not hear him clearly.

“What’s wrong?” By the time I called out M— had already thrown on his robe and sat down beside me.

“Goddamn jellyfish got me.”

In the past few days, apparently the jellyfish population had exploded. In truth, the morning of the day before last, I too had had needle tracks running up my left arm from elbow to shoulder.

“Where?”

“All round my neck. I thought it’d got me and so I looked behind me, and there were a bunch of them just floating there.”

“That’s why I didn’t go in.”

“Shut up! Though, they did shut down the bath.”

Along the shore there was, besides the beached seaweed, glittered sunlight as far as I could see. There was just the occasional shadow of a passing cloud. For a while we gazed in silence at the waves which crashed on this shore, cigarettes in mouths.

“You decided to go into teaching?” M— asked suddenly.

“Not yet. You?”

“Me? I…” M— started to say something, but then we were suddenly surprised by laughter and loud footsteps. There were two women, about our age, clad in swimsuits and swim caps. Passing by us as if they owned the beach, they ran right for the water. We saw them from behind: one was wearing a bathing suit of deep crimson, and the other was like a tiger, yellow and black stripes. At some point we grinned in unison, looking at their retreating figures.

“They haven’t returned yet.” M— entrusted even his jokes with some strong feelings.

“Well, should we go in one more time?”

“You’ll go in alone. Anyway, you’ll have ‘Singesicht’ to keep you company.”

Like ‘Winning Smile’ before, one of us had given the woman wearing the black-and-yellow swimsuit the nickname ‘Singesicht.’ It came from the sensuality (sinnlich) of her facial features (gesicht). Both of us found it difficult to extend any feelings of good will towards this woman. And the other woman, well, M— had a comparative interest in the other woman. He also insisted that the conditions were right for, “You to take her, and so I’ll get her.”

“Get in there, for the women’s’ sake!”

“Hmm, to display a sacrificial disposition? But you’re aware of exactly what we saw, too.”

“Is ‘being aware of’ the right thing to say?”

“No! It’s a little offensive.”

Holding hands, the two women had already entered the shallows. The waves did not stop at their feet; the spray splashed up. It was then that they jumped back, as if they were afraid of getting wet. Their frolicking was so showy that I felt it incongruous with the lonely, lingering heat of the summer, here at the water’s edge. Truly, their beauty was more like that of butterflies than women. Listening to their laughing voices, carried by the wind, we stared at them for a while longer.

“Oh, how brave!”

“I can still touch the bottom.”

“Not anym—oh, there it is.”

Long ago having let go of each other’s hand, the women proceeded separately further into the water. One of them—the one in the crimson swimsuit, moved particularly quickly. At that instant, standing in water up to her breasts, while beckoning to the other woman, she called out in a shrill voice. Even from afar that swim cap-covered face laughed lively.

“A jellyfish?”

“Maybe.”

However, in a line, they headed out further into the ocean.

Eventually we could only see their swim caps, and we finally got up from the sand. After that we didn’t talk much (we were undoubtedly hungry) and leisurely headed back to the inn.

III

The dusk was cool like autumn. Upon finishing dinner, we headed to the beach once again, in the company of a friend, H—, who was on his way home, and Mr. N—, son of the innkeeper. This is not at all to say that we were all going for a walk. H— was looking for his uncle from the village of S—, and Mr. N— had come to order a basket for trapping chickens from a basket-maker in that same village.

The path along the beach to S— Village circled the foot of a tall sand dune and then headed in the exact opposite direction from the area marked off for bathing. The sea, of course, was hidden by the dunes, and all that you could hear was the faint sound of the waves. However, as the black ears of the sparsely grown tall grass appeared, they were incessantly buffeted by the salt breeze.

“This isn’t missionaries’ grass growing over here. What is it called, Mr. N—?”

I picked one stalk at my feet and passed it to N—, who was dressed in casual clothes.

“Hmm, it’s not knotweed. What is it called? I bet Mr. H— knows. I’m not from around here.”

We had heard that Mr. N— had become the son-in-law of a Tōkyō family. And we had also heard that his wife had met another man and eloped with him.

“Mr. H— knows a lot more about fish than me, too.”

“Well, H— is quite the scholar! And here I am thinking all I knew about was kendo.” H— just grinned at this, dragging along his beaten walking stick.

“Mr. M—, you must have something to do as well?”

“Me? I’m just here to swim.”

After Mr. N— had lit his Golden Bat cigarette, he told a story about the Tōkyō stockbroker who was stung by a scorpion fish while swimming. No matter who said what, the stockbroker said no, it’s not as though I’ve been stung by a scorpion fish. He persisted in saying that it was definitely a snake eel.

“Are you telling me there’s really snake eels?” However, the one to answer that question was the tall, swim-capped H—.

“Really? There are snake eels in this ocean, you know.”

“Even now?”

“Well, not often.”

All four of us laughed. Away from us were two people nagarami picking (Nagarami is a species of snail), walking with fishing baskets. Both of them were men in red loincloths, all muscles. However, their figures, painted with water and sun, evoked feelings not of the ephemeral but of the shabby. When Mr. N— passed them by, he exchanged a brief greeting with them, and then called out, “Why don’t you take a bath?”

“What an intolerable job!”

I, too, felt that I could not go nagarami picking.

“Yes, absolutely unbearable. Anyway, if you go swimming out far enough, you sink to the bottom a lot.”

“And to make matters worse, if you get swept up in a current, nine times out of ten nobody can save you!”

H—, shaking his beaten walking stick, talked all about currents. He also mixed in things like that currents can go on for something like three miles from the shore.

“Say, Mr. H—, when was that? When was it you said that the ghosts of the nagarami pickers appeared?”

“Last year—no, autumn, the year before last.”

“There were really ghosts?” Before Mr. H— could answer, M— let slip his laughter.

“They were not ghosts. But, what they said was ghosts appearing was a cemetery in the shadow of the mountain, stinking of fish. And to make matters worse, the corpse of the nagarami picker were covered in shrimp, and so even though nobody took it seriously at first, it was definitely unsettling. Before long a naval officer is hanging around the cemetery all night, and at last he sees the ghosts with his own two eyes. Catching them is easy. It was just some prostitute from the town who was engaged to the nagarami picker. And still, for a little while there was some clamor that you could hear the voice of a fiery man!”

“Didn’t it even get to the point that that woman was startling people?”

“Yes, every night around twelve she would go to the nagarami picker’s grave and just stand there in a stupor.”

Mr. N—‘s comedy seemed an appropriate tale for this beach. But nobody was laughing. Everybody just continued on walking in silence.

“Well, maybe it’s time to head back.”

When M— said this, we were walking along the deserted shore. At some point the wind had begun to blow. The surroundings were bright enough that we could still see the tracks of birds on the wide expanse of sand. However, as far out into the ocean as we could see, it was all blackening in the dusk. Each time the arcing waves impacted they left behind a line of froth.

“Well, excuse me.”

“Good-bye.”

Once H— and Mr. N— had departed, we walked back along the cold water’s edge, in no particular hurry. Occasionally in addition to the waves breaking we could hear the clear chirping of cicadas. They must have been the cicadas in a forest at least three towns away from here.

“Hey, M—!” At some point I had fallen five paces behind M—.

“What?”

“You want to head back to Tōkyō?”

“Sure, why not?”

And then M— began to whistle jauntily, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”

(7th August, 1925)

[akutagawaaweek]

Looking at a Locomotive

Looking at a Locomotive

…My kids, they play locomotive. Not a stationary locomotive, of course. They shake their hands, they go “choo-choo-choo,” imitating a locomotive in motion. I assume this is not limited to my own children. So then why do they pretend to be locomotives? It is, of course, because there is some kind of power in a locomotive. Or perhaps because they themselves want to have the violent life of a locomotive. And the possession of this sort of desire is not limited to children. Adults are the same, of course.

But an adult’s locomotive is not a literal locomotive. However, everyone rushing headlong, and along a track at that, is exactly what a locomotive does. This track might be money, or perhaps prestige, or women. But we, whether we are children or adults, have a want to rush along freely, and at the place where we have that want, as a matter of course, we lose freedom. This is not at all paradoxical. It is a fact of a paradoxical life. However, the countless generations within ourselves, and the mores of one era of one country, have never failed to put the brakes on these sorts of desires. And yet these desires have lurked within us since time immemorial…

I stood on a high embankment, watching my children running with a locomotive, and could not help but think of this. Opposite the embankment was another one, and upon it was a somewhat wilted beech tree bent over. The locomotive—No. 3271 was a Mussolini. The tracks the Mussolini was running on were perhaps shining with light. And yet, when I thought of the rusty short stretch of tracks upon which no train can run at the end of any railroad, I thought that nothing can be done to change the fact that the Mussolini, like us, would one day live out its life to the end. Furthermore…

Furthermore, we have a want to go wherever, but at the same time we run along a track. We cannot carelessly overlook this contradiction. What we call tragedy surely begins there. Macbeth, and of course Koharu in The Love Suicides at Amijima are locomotives, naturally, in the end. Koharu, like Macbeth, may not be possessed of a strong disposition. But despite that they charge recklessly forward for the sake of love. (Westerners’ theories of tragedy sadly do not apply here. The creation of tragedy is human life. It is not as though it is a creation of aestheticists.) When these tragedies are transmitted to the eyes of a third party, for all sorts of unclear motives, (The clarity of all these motives may not be desired even by the characters within a tragedy.) they change forward futilely and halt in vain—or perhaps we just see their downfall. Consequently it becomes comedy. That is, comedy is tragedy in which sympathy does not reach a third party. After all, big or small, we are no different from locomotives. I feel for that old locomotive, No. 3236 with the tall chimney. No. 3236, slowly changing positions upon the turntable.

And yet, to what degree did the society of one era of one country, and our ancestors, apply the brakes? I feel that they braked there, and so it is not as though I can feel the engine—the fire blazing with coal—at the same time. We are not we, ourselves. The truth is, like locomotives, we have come to amass a long history. Besides, we are collections of countless pistons and gears. Furthermore, the tracks upon which we are set are not understood by either locomotives or we ourselves. These tracks, unfortunately, must go through tunnels and over bridges. Any sort of liberation is absolutely prohibited for us for the sake of these tracks. This kind of fact may be terrifying. But no matter how much we think about it, it is certainly incontrovertible.

If a locomotive is reliable, it cannot become free. Any conductor driving any train is the act of whimsical gods. But usually, anyway, they do not despair at the fact that they run until they are rusted through. Any locomotive’s surface solemnity must sparkle. Like iron coated with oil…

We are all locomotives. Our jobs are nothing more than spitting smoke and sparks into the sky. The people below the embankment, too, recognize the locomotives on account of that smoke and those sparks. And for an electric train, replace the smoke and sparks for just that echo. Flaubert’s words—“The man is nothing, the job is everything”—have an effect on me because of this. Holy men, artists, social activists…all are on their tracks, where they must inevitable rush on whatever course. They do nothing—save for going faster.

The sense of our selves whenever we see a locomotive may not be restricted to just us. Saitō Ryokuu records the locomotive going over the Hakone mountains as shouting, “I-can-do-it-I-can-do-it.” And yet the locomotive which descends through the Usui Pass must be all the more filled with delight. It always sings cheerily, “Chugga-chugga-choo-choo!” If we make the former the tragic locomotive, than the latter may be the comedic locomotive.

(July 1927)

[akutagawaaweek]

Ten Needles

Ten Needles

One—Certain People

I know that there are certain people who are in this world. These people analyze and they dissect. To put it another way, a single rose, to these people, along with being beautiful, is ultimately seen as the Rosaceae in botany textbooks. Even when they are snapping off the flowers…

But intuitive people are happier than those people. One of the virtues of what might be called seriousness is not granted to those people (who analyze and dissect). Those people exhaust their whole lives in a terrible game. All sorts of happiness, in order for these people to dissect, is diminished, and likewise all sorts of pain, in order to dissect, is amplified. The phrase, “If I was never born,” describes these people perfectly.

Two—We

We are not necessarily we. Our ancestors all breathe within us. If we abide by the ancestors within us, we must fall into unhappiness. “Past deeds” is used to figuratively explain this sort of unhappiness. “Finding ourselves,” then, is finding our ancestors within us. And at the same time finding the gods in heaven which control us.

Three—The Crow and the Peacock

The most terrifying fact for us is that is that we, in the end, cannot overcome ourselves. If we blindfold ourselves with all sorts of optimism, a crow cannot become a peacock, no matter how long we wait. A single poem of a given poet is always all of his poems.

Four—Bouquet in the Air

Science explains all sorts of things. And in will most likely do so in the future. However, what we esteem is science itself, or perhaps art itself: that is, just a bouquet caught in the air of our mental activity. Even if we do not say l’home est rien, we, “as people,” are not particularly distinct. You can find Baudelaire “as a person” at any mental hospital in the country. But Les Fleurs du mal and Prose Poems have not once been in their hands.

Five—2+2＝4

2+2＝4 is a fact. But as a matter of fact you must confirm the innumerable factor of the + (plus) in between. That is to say, all sorts of problems are contained within this +.

Six—Heaven

If we were able to create heaven, it would just be on the earth. This heaven, naturally, would most likely be a heaven where roses bloomed among the thorns. There, besides people contented by that despair known as “resignation,” there would just be many dogs walking around. There is nothing at all bad about becoming a dog.

Seven—Repentance

Our hearts must be moved by all sorts of repentance. But, the shape of all repentance is, “try and not do what I HAVE done. Try and do what I have SAID.”

Eight—Other Certain People

I also know certain people. These people are completely and totally insatiable. They try to get one more woman or one more idea or one more China pink or one more slice of bread. Therefore there is no one who lives more in luxury than these people. And at the same time there is no one who lives more in misery than these people. These people, unawares, have become the slaves of many things. Accordingly, even if they were offered heaven by a stranger—or perhaps the path to heaven—in the end, heaven cannot become a possession of these people. Most likely these people have been granted the words, “Greed will be the death of you.” These people cannot in the least receive satisfaction from even a fan of peacock feathers or a meal of suckling pig. These people inevitably cannot find anything but sadness and pain (in addition to the natural sadness and pain not looked for but found). There these people are digging a trough to separate them from other people. These people are not fools. But, they are fools above fools. What saves these people may just be what is changed by people besides them. Therefore there is no way they can be saved.

Nine—A Voice

It is thought that a single voice talking in a great throng of shouters can never be heard. But, it truth it can be heard. As long as a single lick of flame remains in our hearts: then from time to time his voice may hold a microphone of posterity.

Ten—Words

We cannot transmit our feelings easily to strangers. That is just dependent on the people we transmit our feelings to. In the long ago days of Sakyamuni, of course, when even a newspaper article of a hundred lines or so did not satisfy a stranger’s feelings, there is nothing that can possibly be understood. The one who understands “his” words must always be “the second him.” However, that “him” always grows like a plant. Therefore his words of a certain era may not be understandable to anyone but “him” of a second era. No, he may even appear to be a stranger to even himself of a certain era. But, fortunately “the second him” believed he understood “his” words.

(July 1927)*

(Posthumous)

*Akutagawa committed suicide on July 24, 1927, so this is likely one of the first of Akutagawa’s works published posthumously. I imagine literary magazines would have been rushing to publish any stories they had received and not run yet.

[akutagawaaweek]

After Death

After Death

…I have a habit where, if I do not read a book or something I am unable to sleep, even if I am in bed. And it is not uncommon that I cannot sleep no matter how much I read. So at my pillow there is always reading material, an electric light, and a bottle of Adalin sleeping pills. On that night, as usual, I had two or three books inside the mosquito net and had the light on.

“What time is it?”

This was the voice of my wife, who had already been napping in the neighboring bed. She was cradling the baby in her arms and looking at me from right beside me.

“It’s three.”

“Three already. I thought it was still around one.” With that lukewarm reply, I did not engage her at all.

“Be quiet. Be quiet, go back to sleep.”

Mimicking me, my wife giggled in a small voice. But, after just a little while, she pressed her nose upon the baby’s head and at one point returned quietly to sleep.

Still facing towards them, I was reading a book called Excerpts from Sermons on Destiny. These were selections from eight volumes of Japanese, Chinese, and Indian stories collected by a monk in the 1700s. But naturally interesting stories were hard to come by. In the middle of a story about the Confucian relationships—master and servant, father and mother, man and wife—I felt drowsiness steadily overtake me. Then I shut off the light at my bedside, and I immediately fell into sleep…

In my dream I was walking with S— through a sweltering town. The width of the gravel path was no more than six or nine feet. And over that were hanging, from every house, identical orange sunshades.

“You didn’t think you would die,” S— said to me, waving a fan.

Though I had, unfortunately, thought as such somehow, it was a disgusted-sounding voice which was expressing that feeling so bluntly.

“It seemed you would live a long life.”

“Is that right?”

“You were all saying so! You’re, um, five years younger than me!” S— counted on his fingers. “Thirty-four? Dead at around thirty-four.” At that point he suddenly fell silent.

I was not exceptionally regretting having died. But I felt, somehow, that being in front of S— was embarrassing.

“Were you in the middle of something?” S— asked again, reserved.

“Yeah, I was writing something on the long side.”

“And your wife?”

“In good health. The kids aren’t sick either.”

“Well, that’s the most important. I don’t know when I’ll die…”

I looked for a bit at S—‘s face. As would be expected, S— was delighted at my death without having died himself: I felt that clearly. Then, it looked in that instant that S— had understood my feelings, and he made a sour face and stopped talking.

After a little while, walking with his mouth shut, S—, using his fan to block the sun, came to a stop in front of a canned goods store.

“Well, excuse me.”

At the store, within the gloom there were many potted white chrysanthemum flowers. With a fleeting glance at the store, for some reason I thought, “Oh, S—’s house was an Aoki Goods franchise.”

“Are you with your father now?”

“Yeah, for a little bit.”

“Okay, see you later.”

After parting from S—, I turned into the next available alley. In the shop window on the corner was placed an organ. A side panel had been removed so that you could see its insides, and inside stood many green bamboo pipes. When I saw this, I thought, “Huh, so you can even use bamboo.” Then—suddenly I was standing before the gate to my house.

The ancient gate and black fence had not changed a bit. No, even the branches of the cherry trees above the gate were as I had seen them yesterday. However, on a new nameplate was written: “Kushibe Temporary Residence.” When I stared at that nameplate, I truly felt my own death. And yet, entering the gate and going into the house from the porch, of course, did not feel dishonest in the slightest.

My wife was sitting on the porch of the living room, making some armor out of bamboo. The area around her was littered with dried bamboo, from that work. However, of the armor upon her knees, all that had been done was the torso and one of the upper legs.

“How are the kids?” I asked, sitting down.

“Yesterday they all went with my aunt and grandmother to Kugenuma.”

“And your uncle?”

“He’s on his way to the bank.”

“So there’s nobody here?”

“No, just me and the quiet.”

Her head down, my wife stuck a needle through the skin of the bamboo. But I had suddenly felt a lie in that voice, so I raised my own.

“But isn’t the Kushibe Temporary Residence nameplate out there?”

Surprised, my wife looked up at me. She was making the face she always made when she had been scolded, eyes at a loss.

“It’s out there, right?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“So is he here?”

“Yes.” The life went out of her, and she was only fiddling with the bamboo armor.

“I don’t mind if he is! I mean, I’m dead already—“ I had half convinced myself. “You’re young, you don’t have to say those sort of things. But if he’s a good guy…”

My wife looked up at me again. Looking into her eyes, I felt I had done something which could not be undone. At the same time I felt the blood drain from my face. “He’s not a good guy?”

“I don’t think he’s a bad guy…”

However, I understood clearly that my wife held no respect for Mr. Kushibe. So then why had she married such a person? Even if I could still forgive that, my wife putting on a brave face at Mr. Kushibe’s baser points…I felt an unbearable unpleasantness in the pit of my stomach.

“Do you make them call him ‘Dad?’ The kids?”

“Saying that sort of thing…”

“No! No matter what the justification.”

Rather than shout over me, my wife had already hidden her face in her sleeve, making her shoulder quiver.

“What an idiot you are! So I can die without regret, huh?”

Unable to bear looking at her, I went into my study. There, from the doorframe, was hanging a firefighter’s hook. It was wrapped in black and crimson lacquer. Somebody had held it—while recalling this, I was suddenly walking on a road lined with orange fences.

It was already dusk. And the coal-covered path was soaked completely through with drizzle or dew or something. Still feeling angry, I set off walking as quickly as I could. But no matter how far I walked, besides me was only that orange fence stretching on.

Naturally, I opened my eyes. It seemed my wife and the baby were sleeping soundly. However, the night was already tinged with whiteness, and the strangely serious cries of cicadas rang out clearly from some faraway wood. While listening to those cries, fearful of being exhausted tomorrow (today, really), I tried to get to sleep quickly once more. But, not only could I not sleep easily, I also recalled clearly my recent dream. My wife in the dream unfortunately performing her wifely duties as the unburied. S—, perhaps, indeed, even in actuality. And I—I am becoming a terrible egotist where my wife is concerned. And particularly if I think that my dream self is of the same character as myself, I am becoming an even more terrible egotist. Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing that is not the same as my dream self. Both so that I could sleep, and to avoid my aggravated conscience, I swallowed a half gram pill of Adalin, and sank into a dead sleep…

(September 1925)

[akutagawaaweek]

The Women of Japan

The Women of Japan

I

There is an interesting book here. Its title is Japan, and it was published in 1852. The author is one Charles MacFarlane, and though he never came to Japan, he was a man with a deep interest in Japan. At the very least, he was a man with an interest in Japan. Japan is a compilation of articles about Japan that this man collected from books from Latin America, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Germany, England, and so on. Those books collected things from 1560 to 1850, and his taking an interest in this topic, namely, Japan, was apparently thanks to the quartermaster general James Drummond. Regardless, the young Drummond, pursuing business, lived for many years in Japan under a Dutch name, despite being an Englishman. The author MacFarlane met with this Drummond in Brighton and was allowed to see those gathered books concerning Japan. Drummond did not just loan them to the author, he also spoke to him much on the subject of Japan. The author, making use of those talks as well, wrote Japan for us. Furthermore, this Drummond, incidentally, married the grand-niece of the famous author Smollett, and it was said that his wife took great interest in literature.

This book, being a product of these circumstances, is so off the mark it is the traveller’s journal of a tourist who has never set foot in Japan. Its copper illustrations even make Korean customs for Japanese ones. However, this does not mean that this should have no interest for us today. For instance, claiming seriously that the emperor of Japan owns many pipes, and that he smokes with a different one each day must be called charming. Within this book there is a chapter with an introduction to and a discussion of the women of Japan. I thought I would briefly introduce myself to them today.

The issue of what social position women possess, according to the author MacFarlane, is a true measure based on high and low class. The social position of the women of Japan is much higher than in all other Asian countries. The women of Japan, unlike the women of other Asian countries, are not in a sorry place. Not only do they garner significant societal treatment, they can be trusted to entertain in place of their fathers or husbands.

The sense of faithful wives and virgin maids being totally entrusted to them, it can be said that there is hardly such a thing as an unfaithful wife. Although, being that it is a fact that the result of broken fidelity is immediate death, that this is all the more adhered to is also a fact.

In Japan, all receive a formal education, from the highest in society to the lowest. According to what I have heard, the number of schools throughout Japan is higher than any other country in the world. Furthermore, even peasants and the indigent are said to be able to read, if only a little. Therefore, girls’ education as well as boys’ education is the same. So much so that the very famous poets, historians, and other writers of Japan include in their ranks many women.

Among the rich and the nobility, men generally do not guard their faithfulness as closely as women. However, it is an absolute certainty that the women who are their mothers and wives pass through their lives chastely. Though I have searched through the tales of Japan and consulted with many travellers, it must be said that there is no room to doubt this fact.

The women of Japan, above all, are shamed by dishonor. I must say that it is difficult to count the number of stories of women who, injured by disgrace, commit suicide. The below story should be sufficient to prove this fact:

A man of some standing went on a trip. In his absence, a nobleman (i.e. a man of standing) committed illicit acts with the man’s wife. His wife was not only seduced, but even added more severe insults. However, this nobleman, either through violence or through trickery, had broken this woman’s chastity. Then the husband returned. His wife, like always, greeted him with love. However, there was in this attitude something which had been severely violated. The husband, thinking this strange, asked many questions, but his wife, for some reason, gave this reply: “Please, if you could, do not ask me anything until tomorrow. Tomorrow my relatives and the important men of this town will come for us, and, before them, I will tell the whole truth.”

Then, the next day, guests came to the husband’s house one by one. Among these guests was the nobleman who had shamed his wife. The guests all received a great banquet on the balcony of the house. Before long, when the festivities had come to an end, his wife stood and made her disgrace public. Furthermore, she spoke vehemently to her husband: “I have lost any right to be your wife. Please kill me.”

All of the guests, and for the first time her husband, soothed the wife, saying that she had committed no sin, and that she had been the victim of the nobleman. The wife expressed deep words of gratitude to them all. And then, leaning on her husband’s shoulder, she wailed so hard her chest almost split. However, she suddenly kissed her husband and in the next moment she dropped her husband’s hand and rushed for the edge of the balcony. As soon as she reached it she threw herself to the depths below.

Despite that, despite the fact that the wife’s suffering of shame had been made public, who had done the shaming was not. For this reason, the nobleman who had shamed the woman quietly descended from the balcony amidst the clamoring of the husband and guests. Then, beside the body of the woman, he committed hara-kiri in a most samurai-like fashion. This hara-kiri is a method of suicide among the citizens of Japan. One ends one’s life by cutting oneself crosswise above the stomach.

According to the author of Japan, MacFarlane, this was a story found in Randall’s memoirs. I truthfully have no idea whether or not there is such a story in Japan. After thinking about it a little, this same story could be found in perhaps a Tokugawa-era novel or play. Or it might be a story which really happened in some backwater town in Kyūshū. Even so, I find interesting the exceedingly Western-style elements: a party held on a roof balcony; the wife of a warrior of Japan kissing her husband. Though it is simple to laugh and say it is funny, if one thinks of the same sorts of mistakes that of course arise from conceptions of the West by long-ago Japanese, it is true that Westerners are not the only ones being arrogantly laughed at. No, not just the West. Even in ideas of China in neighboring countries, mistakes of this manner are commonplace. In short, try reading the characters and moods which appear in Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Koxinga. It is a strange item with little to do with either Japan or China.

Besides this story, MacFarlane offers another story to show how great the women of Japan. “The great warrior Chūya, along with his friend Jioshitsu, devised a plot against the emperor. Chūya’s wife was a woman of great intelligence and great beauty. Chūya’s plotting, after fifty years of planning, was at last discovered due to a blunder on Chūya’s part. Then the government issued an order for Chūya’s, as well as Jioshitsu’s, arrest. In accordance with the situation of those times, it was absolutely necessary for the government to have Chūya taken alive. For this reason, they had to take him, by any means, by surprise. Therefore, policemen stood before Chūya’s gates and called out, “A fire! A fire!” So that he could see the fire, Chūya ran outside of the gates. The officers attacked him. However, Chūya fought gallantly and slew two officers. Despite that, he was eventually greatly outnumbered and apprehended by the police. Chūya’s wife, meanwhile, hearing the sounds of fighting, had already realized what was going on and thrown her husband’s important documents into the fire. In those documents were the noblemen and others who were participants in the conspiracy. Chūya’s wife’s presence of mind, even today, has become the target of admiration all over Japan. For that reason when one praises a woman’s judgment or decisiveness, one says they are like the wife of Chūya.”

This Chūya is, of course, Marubashi Chūya, and Jishitsu is Yui Shōsetsu. And this too, going by what MacFarlane says, of course reads like a story from Randall’s memoirs.

The impression Japan’s author MacFarlane has of the women of Japan is extremely idealistic. That even the women of Japan in the 1860s protected their virtue magnificently to that degree is unbelievable. And again, before we laugh so hard at MacFarlane’s foolish naivety, it is a fact that these sorts of comedies are likely to occur even today in regards to ideas about foreigners’ customs. Just the other day in the newspaper some woman was claiming that the lives of American schoolgirls were like those of angels, and if some American in fifty years’ time were to catch wind of this article, I am certain he would give it a good laugh afterwards, just like we do with MacFarlane.

II

Sir Rutherford Alcock’s Three Years in Japan, compared with MacFarlane’s book, is a record of the real Japan.

Both volumes were published in 1863 by Harbor Books of New York. There are many illustrations, and among them are many reproductions of the cartoons of Keizai Kuwabata.

First, the author, Sir Rutherford Alcock, unlike MacFarlane, did not imagine Japan from his desk. As the title says, he lived in Japan for three years.

Second, Sir Alcock, unlike MacFarlane, was not unlearned. He was of fair scholarship, and he was particularly well versed in the philosophy of John Stuart Mill, popular at the time. For that reason, even along with observing various events in Japan, each passes down their own viewpoints. Among those viewpoints, there are those which today we must crack a smile over, but that is not to say that there are none which should be studied closely. This, too, is a feature nowhere to be found in works like MacFarlane’s.

Sir Alcock was the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom who stayed in the final days of the Tokugawa bakufu. In Japan during his stay, Ii Naosuke was even felled by the hands of assassins outside of Saukuradamon. Many Westerners were killed by rogue samurai.

So, as one might expect, as discussed in his account, even the Tōzen Temple in Shinagawa, the city where Sir Alcock lived, was attacked by wild warriors, an incident that left many dead and wounded. On top of that, Sir Alcock climbed Mt. Fuji and bathed in the hot springs of Atami. In this manner, because he lived in Japan in the closing days of the Tokugawa era, when important events were happening both at home and abroad, and because he did not just stay in Edo, but traveled all over, it is no coincidence that Sir Alcock’s memoir is of great interest.

Above all, Sir Alcock’s travel memoir, unlike the works of Loti or Kipling, is not rich with literary color. For example, even in depicting Asakusa, it is a fact that yellowed gingkos and red temples before one’s eyes are not what come to mind, unlike in Loti’s “Japan in Autumn.” However, as I said before, this point of view on this observed incident is considerably interesting.

For example, Sir Alcock, watching an old woman treat a child using mugwort on the porch of a farmhouse, laments: “…I found that man’s ingenuity in torturing himself for some fancied good or evil was not without its example among my friends here, however primitive their habits and low their estimate…” And, on the occasion of climbing some mountain and hearing the cry of the uguisu, he complains: “As we toiled slowly up, leading our horses, we heard some very sweet notes of the unguissu, not unlike the notes of a nightingale, and I think nearly the only bird in Japan that sings. It had one or two very sweet notes. They say the Japanese teach them to sing beautifully, which is the more extraordinary, if true, as they certainly do not teach themselves; and, if I had not lived among the Chinese, I should have said they had the least conception of either harmony or melody of any race yet discovered.”*

These are views that one cannot help but laugh at, but he discusses the Japanese idolization of revenge in connection with the Sakuradamon incident, and his argument on the subject of the influence plays such as the Forty-Seven Ronin have on the populace is an terribly interesting one. But going down that path would delay getting to the point, so I will aim to return to it at a later opportunity.

However, so that I can introduce the main thrust of Three Years in Japan before that, here is Sir Alcock’s impression of going to Nagasaki for the first time, excepted below:

“The 4th of June, of pleasant memory to Etonians, opened the port of Nagasaki to our rain-drenched party. It has often been described by recent travelers, and even under a cloudy sky the entrance was not devoid of beauty. Island after island comes into view as the bay is entered, many very picturesque in form.

“As the ship moves farther up the bay, the town of Nagasaki is seen lying at the farther end, clustering at the foot or a range of hills, and creeping no inconsiderable distance up the wooded sides. Decima, to the right, fixes the eye — a low, fan-shaped strip of land, dammed out from the waters of the bay, the handle being toward the shore, and truncated. One long wide street, with two-storied houses on each side, built in European style, gives an air of great tidiness…

“The first aspect of the bay itself strongly recalls to the European traveler some of the more picturesque fiords of Norway, especially the approach to Christiania, the capital. The hills rise boldly from the water’s edge, and the pine grows plentifully here as there. But the Swiss lakes also produce scenes much more resembling this than one could have anticipated. On landing only, something more tropical appears in the trees and shrubs. The pomegranate and persimmon, the palm and the bamboo are there. But the gardinia and camellia flourish also; and every where our common ferns may be seen, and ivy covering the walls; while by the road-side the thistle is not wanting, to confound all geographical divisions into floral zones.”

Well, so that’s how it is! Now, when you look at his argument about the women of Japan, according to Sir Alcock, what he has to say about the social position of the women of Japan and its connection to men is consistent and eternal praise. However, in truth, I have to wonder whether or not it is truly worthy of praise. I have no intention of getting into Sir Alcock’s issue that Japanese, as a people, are more immoral than those people of other nations. Even so, in Japan fathers sell their daughters to brothels and, even when tasked, the law does nothing to punish them. It approves the act. And furthermore not even their neighbors criticize them. I cannot believe that a sound moral feeling exists in this sort of country.

But of course, Japan has no slave trade. Serfs or slaves are not traded like livestock. (But to say that there is none of that just a half-truth. If you ask why, it is because for the young women of Japan there is something called “within a fixed period, where, according to the law somehow, human trafficking does occur. By this definition men and boys are doubtlessly traded as well.) However, on top of the keeping of concubines, it is a truth easily seen by all that the dignity of a family cannot be protected.

How the poison of this sort of national crime can be alleviated is not something I have discovered at the moment. However, one part of that cure is certainly, just as in China, seems to be the very strong authority of mothers over children.

The women of Japan are treated just as objects; their thoughts and feelings ignored, their rights as women ignored, they are sold to husbands. Furthermore, during their husbands’ lifetimes, they are treated like cattle or even slaves.

However, their absolute authority over children, limited completely to children, alleviates this poison to some small degree, so that the mothers of Japan may be allotted a social standing higher than men. I fear that saying that women can climb even to the level of the empress is an example of this.

In truth, however, since the ancient beginning of that house, there have been precious few empresses. Certainly, the position of the women of Japan regardless of their being sold like cattle or slaves, there is nothing you cannot do with patience, it appears. However, on this point, if you do not look into various sources, you cannot make a clear judgment. Also, the love between parent and child is considerable. At any rate, surely the organ of familial love is developing.

Sir Alcock’s Japanese women, unlike MacFarlane, hit the bulls-eye. The social standing of the women of Japan, since the era in which Sir Alcock stayed (i.e. during the reigns of the Emperors Kaei and Man’ei), appears to have barely progressed.

However, I have doubts whether Westerners’ praise of the women of Japan since Alcock’s time is objectively of the social standing of the women of Japan or of something observational. Rather than that, the result of the women of Japan actually being taken by foreign men, due to honesty and loyalty, may birth thoughts of great gratitude.

This is a tale of the first year of the Tokugawa era, and even when the town of Hirado in Hizen province expelled the British from the town, it is said that their Japanese wives put up a dramatic struggle for the sake of their love. So, if Sir Alcock had also taken a Japanese wife, his disdain of the women of Japan might not have been as he had written. Even so, for that reason, his being able to hold views on the women of Japan that approached justifiable must, at least, be called fortunate for voracious readers in later days.

A few years ago, when I was in China on a boat heading back up the Yangtze, I happened to meet up with a Norwegian. He was indignant about the low social standing of the women of China.

Anyway, according to what he said, at the time of the great famine in Henan in the province of Zhili, the men of China, before they sold their cows, sold their wives. Regardless, this Norwegian placed the women of China or the women of Japan, as wives, above the imperial families. In truth, on that same ship with him was his American wife, and for that reason he had a great argument with her. So, man appears to be an object which, in his innermost thoughts, cannot resist, if I may use the words of Sir Alcock, thoughts of praise for a woman who is like to cattle or a slave. That is to say, besides the women’s movement being carried forward by the arms of each woman, there is little hope of success.

(May 1915)

***

*For these excerpts I turned to the various public domain versions of the book available rather than translate them anew.