Crackling Mountain and Other Stories

by Osamu Dazai

  Dazai gives a good illustration in one passage of how to make free use of bookish knowledge. The recital accompanying the second man’s dance starts off parodying the style of the Noh drama and ends with an echo of several lines from a famous poem by Shimazaki Tōson.1

  As with certain other of his stories, including “Crackling Mountain,” Dazai ends on a cryptic note. Taken literally, the final lines reflect a common theme of his; that is, the conjunction of the comic and the tragic. But perhaps the long paragraph ending this tale merely leads the reader down a blind alley. Even if it does, the tale itself proves quite engrossing merely for being told.

  Preface to “A Collection of Fairy Tales”

  “Ah! There they go again.”

  Setting aside his pen, the father stands up. He wouldn’t bother to stop just for the sirens; but when the anti-aircraft guns start firing, he lays his work aside and gets up from his desk. Fastening the air-raid hood on his four-year-old daughter, he picks up the girl and heads for the backyard shelter. His wife is already crouched inside, their one-year-old daughter clinging to her back.

  “Sounds pretty near this time,” he observes.

  “H’mm,” his wife replies. “It’s still cramped in here too.”

  “Is it really?” He sounds rather irritated and adds, “If I dug it deeper, we could be buried alive some day. It’s just right like it is.”

  “Couldn’t you have made it a little wider?”

  “Well, I guess so. But the ground’s frozen now and it’s hard to dig. I’ll get to it sometime.” Having put off his wife with this evasive reply, he listens carefully to the radio for information on the air-raid.

  Now that one complaint has been set aside for the time being, his four-year-old daughter starts insisting that they leave the air-raid shelter. There’s only one way to calm her down, and that’s to get out the illustrated book of fairy-tales and read her such stories as “Momotaro,” “Crackling Mountain,” “The Split-Tongue Sparrow,“ “Taking the Wen Away,” and “Urashima.”

  Although his clothes are shabby and his looks quite fatuous, this father isn’t a nobody. He’s an author who knows how to create a tale.

  And so, as he starts reading in his queer, dissonant voice, “Long, long ago...” he imagines to himself a quite different tale.

  Once upon a time there was an old man with a large, cumbersome wen on his right cheek.

  This old man lived at the foot of Sword Mountain, located in the Awa district on the island of Shikoku. That’s how I remember it, but there’s no way to check here in this air-raid shelter. Worst yet, I can’t confirm whether this story was first told in The Tales of Uji,2 as seems to be the case. I’m a bit hazy about where the other stories got started, too—Urashima, for instance, which I plan to tell next. I am aware that the true story of Urashima is duly recorded in the Chronicle of Japan3 and that there’s even a ballad on him in The Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves.4 And let’s see, now—besides that, there’s a similar tale in the Tango Gazetteer5 and one in the Biographies of the Taoist Immortals6 as well. Coming down to recent times, didn’t Ōgai7 write a play about Urashima? And didn’t Shōyō8 set the story to music for dancing? In any event, Urashima puts in countless appearances on the stage, whether in Noh, Kabuki, or geisha dancing.

  As soon as I’ve finished reading a book, I either give it away or sell it. Without a library of my own to check things, I’m in a fix right now. I’d have to go around looking for books that I barely remember having read. And that’s almost impossible at a time like this. Here I am, squatting in the air-raid shelter with just a picture-book open in my lap. I’d better forget about these inquiries and tell the tale on my own. It will probably turn out more lively that way.

  And so, in the corner of his air-raid shelter, this oddball of a father rambles on to himself, as if unwilling to admit defeat. While he reads from the picture-book to his daughter, he ends up concocting his own version of the story.

  Once upon a time . . .

  . . . there was an old man who really liked to drink saké. Now such a drinker often feels lonely in his own home. Does he drink because he’s lonely? Or is he lonely because his family despises him for drinking? That’s merely a pedantic question, like trying to decide which hand makes the noise when clapping. Anyway, when the old man was at home, he always looked glum.

  This wasn’t because his family was malicious, either. Though almost seventy years old, his wife was in fine health, with such a straight back and clear eyes that people still remarked about how attractive she had been as a young woman. She had never talked much, but she did the housework diligently.

  Hoping to enliven her, the old man would occasionally say something like, “Spring must be here, the cherry trees have bloomed.”

  “Is that so,” she’d reply unconcernedly. “Move over a bit. I want to clean there.”

  The old man would look glum.

  His only son, almost forty years old at the time, conducted himself in an irreproachable manner. It wasn’t merely that he didn’t smoke or drink; he didn’t even smile, he never got angry nor was he ever happy. He merely worked the fields in silence. Since the people hereabouts could not but revere him, his reputation as “The Saint of Awa” kept growing. He wouldn’t take a wife or shave his beard, so one might have mistaken him for a stone or a piece of wood. With such a son and wife, it was no wonder that the old man’s house was regarded as exemplary in local circles.

  All the same, the old man remained glum. Though hesitant to take a drink at home, he couldn’t resist indefinitely, regardless of the consequences. Yet, when he did have a drink, he merely felt worse. Not that his wife or his son, the Saint of Awa, would scold him. No, they merely ate their dinner in silence while the old man sat there sipping from his cup.

  “By the way ...” When he was tipsy, the old man wanted to talk so badly that he would usually come out with some banal remark. “Spring will soon be here,” he’d say. “The swallows are back already.

  Such a remark was better left unsaid. Both his wife and his son remained silent.

  Still, the old man couldn’t resist adding, “One moment of spring. Ah, isn’t that equal to a fortune in gold?”

  He shouldn’t have tried that one, either.

  “I give thanks for this meal,” the Saint of Awa intoned. “If you’ll excuse me ...” Having finished, he paid his respects and left.

  “Guess I’ll have my meal too.” Wearily the old man turned his cup over.

  When he drank at home, it usually came to this.

  One beautiful morning he went to the mountain to gather firewood.

  In good weather the old man liked going up Sword Mountain to gather firewood, a gourd-bottle at his hip. Somewhat weary from gathering wood, he would sit with his legs crossed upon a large rock and clear his throat loudly.

  “What a view,” he’d exclaim. Then, taking his time, he would drink from the gourd-bottle, a look of perfect contentment on his face.

  Away from home, he was a different person. Only one thing remained the same—the large wen on his right cheek. About twenty years ago, the old man passed a milestone in his life by turning fifty. In the autumn of that very year, he noticed that his right cheek was becoming unusually warm and itchy. At the same time, the cheek started to swell. The old man patted and rubbed the growth, and it got larger and larger. Finally, he laughed wistfully and declared, “Now I’ve got a fine grandchild.”

  “Children are not born from the cheek,” his saintly son responded in a solemn tone.

  His wife too, without the least hint of a smile, said to him, “It doesn’t look dangerous.“ Aside from this, she showed no interest whatever in the wen.

  The neighbors, on the other hand, were very sympathetic. How did the wen get started? they asked. Did it hurt? Wasn’t it a nuisance? But the old man laughed and merely shook his head. A nuisance? Why, he regarded the wen as a darling grandchild, the one companion who would comfort him in his loneliness. Washing his face in the mor
ning, he was especially careful to use clean water on the wen. And when, as happened to be the case now, he was alone on the mountain enjoying his saké, the wen became absolutely essential—it was the one companion he could talk to.

  Sitting cross-legged on the rock, the old man drank from the gourd-bottle and patted the wen on his cheek. “What the hell,” he muttered, “there’s nothing to be scared of. A man should get drunk and not worry about appearances. Even sobriety has its limits. I cringe before that name, Saint of Awa. I didn’t realize how great my son really is.”

  Having confided this bit of invective to the wen, he cleared his throat with a loud cough.

  Suddenly the sky grew dark, the wind arose, and the rain began to pour.

  A sudden shower seldom comes along in the spring—except for high up on Sword Mountain. Here, one must be alert for changing weather at any time. As the slope turned hazy in the rain, pheasants and quail started up from here and there, flying like arrows toward the shelter of the woods. The old man, however, remained calm. “A little rain might cool off this wen. Nothing wrong with that,” he said, smiling.

  He continued to sit cross-legged on the rock, gazing upon the scene. But the rain gradually became heavy, until it seemed as though it would never let up.

  “This isn’t just cooling things off, it’s making things downright chilly,” the old man complained as he stood up. Sneezing loudly, he hoisted the firewood he had collected onto his shoulder and crept into the woods.

  Here he found a great crowd of birds and animals, all of them seeking shelter. “Sorry ... excuse me,” the old man mumbled, picking his way among the animals. He saluted one and all—the wild doves, the rabbits, the monkeys—as he advanced into the woods. Eventually he found a large mountain cherry-tree that was hollow at the base of its trunk. “Ah, what a fine parlor,” he exclaimed as he crawled in. “How about it?” he called out to the rabbits. “Ain’t no saint or grand old lady here. Don’t be shy. C’mon in.”

  Even though your habitual drunkard might spout such nonsense when tipsy, he usually turns out to be quite harmless. The old man was in a merry mood, but within minutes he had fallen asleep and was snoring gently.

  As he wearily waited for the evening shower to pass, the old man fell asleep. Eventually the clouds moved on, and the moon shone brightly over the mountain.

  A spring moon in its final quarter floated in the watery sky—perhaps, one might add, a watery sky of pale green. Moonlight filled the woods like a shower of pine needles, but the old man slept on peacefully. When bats started flitting out from the hollow of the trunk, the old man suddenly awoke, amazed to see that night had fallen.

  “Now I’m in for it,” he said, a vision of his somber wife and austere son floating before his very eyes. Ah, he had gone too far this time. They had never scolded him before, but coming home this late would be very awkward. H’mm, any saké left? he wondered, giving the gourd-bottle a shake. There was a faint splashing at the bottom. “A little,v he murmured before quickly summoning his strength and swilling the saké to the last drop. Slightly drunk, he muttered another trite thing—“Ah, the moon is out. A moment of a spring evening”—and then he crawled from the hollow.

  Oh, what noisy voices! What a strange sight. Was he dreaming?

  Look! On a grassy clearing in the woods, a marvelous scene from some other world was unfolding.

  As the author of this story, I must confess here that I don’t really know what a demon is. That’s because I’ve never seen one. Granted, I’ve come across demons in picture-books since my childhood—so often, in fact, that I’m bored by them. I’ve never been privileged to meet a demon in the flesh, though.

  Demons come in a variety of types, with names like “bloodsuckers” or “cutthroats.” Since they’re supposed to have a mean nature, we use the word demon for creatures we despise. But then again, a phrase like “the masterpiece of Mr. So-and-So, a demonic talent among the literati,” will show up in the daily newspaper column on recently published books, and that really confuses things. Surely the paper doesn’t intend this shady term as a warning about what a mean talent Mr. So-and-So happens to be. In extreme cases, Mr. So-and-So gets crowned a “literary demon.” That’s such a crude term you begin to wonder just how indignant Mr. So-and-So might become. But he doesn’t seem to mind, and nothing happens. In fact, I’ll hear a rumor that he secretly endorses the odd term himself. All this is completely beyond a stupid person like me.

  I can’t figure out why a red-faced demon who wears a tigerskin loincloth and wields a misshapen club should be our God of the Fine Arts. Perhaps we should go slow in using such difficult terms as “mean talent” and “literary demon.” That’s what I’ve been thinking for some time now; but my experience is limited, and I can’t help wondering whether I’m just being foolish.

  Yes, even among demons there seem to be various types. At this point I might peek into the Japan Encyclopedia, which would quickly turn me into a scholar admired by young and old, by women and children. (So-called scholars usually operate in this way.) I’d put on a knowing look and discourse in detail about all sorts of things. Unfortunately I’m crouched here in this air-raid shelter, and all I’ve got is the child’s picture-book lying open in my lap. I’ll just have to take it from there.

  Look! There where the woods opened out, ten or so deformed—Would you call them “beings”? Or “creatures”? Anyway, these were ten or so large, red figures, and each of them certainly was wearing a loincloth. They were sitting in a circle having a party in the moonlight.

  At first the old man was startled. When sober, he may be worthless and lacking in self-respect, just like most other drinkers. But, with a few drinks under the belt, he’ll show more pluck than your ordinary fellow. That’s why the old man was feeling gay now, even heroic. Why should he worry about his straight-laced old lady or his irreproachable son? While watching the grotesque scene before him, he didn’t quail or seem frightened in any way. Crawling from the hollow, he gazed at the strange banquet with a feverish look.

  Ah, he could tell they were pleasantly drunk. In fact, he too felt a pleasant glow within his breast, a symptom any drinker feels while watching others carouse. This feeling, by the way, springs from benevolence rather than selfishness, and prompts the drinker to raise a cup to his neighbor’s happiness. Somebody wants to get drunk, and so much the better if a neighbor will join in. Even the old man knew this. He saw intuitively that these huge red beings weren’t people, nor were they animals. They belonged to that frightful tribe known as demons. Just one look at the tiger-skin loincloths made that clear. The old man would get along with them, however. That’s because they were pretty high at the moment, and so was he.

  Still on his hands and knees, the old man watched the strange, moonlit banquet yet more closely. Demons they surely were, but not the sort with an awful temperament—not like those “bloodsuckers” or “cutthroats.” Although their red faces were actually quite fearsome, the demons seemed friendly and guileless to the old man. He was more or less right about this. These demons, in fact, had such a gentle temperament they might well have been called The Hermits of Sword Mountain. They were an utterly different tribe from the demons of hell. For one thing none of them carried a menacing object such as a steel club. This, one might say, proved they were not bent on doing evil.

  At the same time they were hardly like the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, either. Even though we might call them hermits, these demons were hardly akin to these erudite Chinese hermits who took refuge in their grove. No, these Hermits of Sword Mountain were foolish souls, really.

  The pictograph for “sage” shows a man and a mountain. That’s why, according to a simple theory I’ve heard, anyone who lives in the depths of a mountain might be called a sage. If we go along with this, then the Hermits of Sword Mountain too deserve the title of “sage,” regardless of how foolish they were.

  Anyway, I think we should use the right term when referring to these huge red beings now enjo
ying their moonlight banquet. They’re hermits or sages, not demons. Earlier, I spoke of them as foolish souls, and anyone who observed their behavior during the banquet could see why. They let out senseless cries, slapped their knees and howled with laughter, jumped up and pranced about, bent their huge bodies, and rolled from one end of the circle to the other—all of this apparently meant to be some dance or other. Their level of intelligence was more than obvious, their lack of talent simply astonishing. This in itself would show that terms like “demonic talent” and “literary demon” are utterly meaningless. I can’t imagine why an ignorant demon without any talent should be a God of All the Fine Arts.

  The old man too was flabbergasted by the moronic dance. After snickering to himself, he muttered, “What a clumsy way to dance. Shall I show them one of my supple numbers?”

  The old man immediately leaped out and began performing one of the dances he loved so much, and the wen on his cheek flopped back and forth in a strange and amusing manner.

  The saké he had drunk gave the old man courage. Besides that, he was beginning to feel easy about the demons. And so, he broke into the circle, not the least afraid, and began the Dance of Awa9 which he took pride in doing so well.

  Girls in Shimada coiffures

  And old women in wigs;

  How tempting are their red sashes.

  Won’t you go, wife, in your straw hat?

  Come ... come ...

  The words were in the Awa dialect, and the old man sang them beautifully. The demons were delighted! They gave forth a strange staccato shout, then rolled on the ground laughing, weeping, and slobbering.

  Across the great valley filled with stones,