Modern Japanese Literature

by Donald Keene

  They had drawn the carriage into the garden. There it stood, its heavy roof weighing down the darkness. There were no oxen harnessed to it, and the end of its black tongue rested on a stand. When we saw its gold metalwork glittering like stars, we felt chilly in spite of the spring night. The carriage was heavily closed with blue blinds edged with embroidery, so that we could not know what was inside. Around it stood attendants with torches in their hands, worrying over the smoke that drifted towards the veranda and waiting significantly.

  Yoshihide knelt facing the veranda, a little distance off. He seemed smaller and shabbier than usual, the starry sky seemed to oppress him. The man who squatted behind him was doubtless an apprentice. The two of them were at some distance from me and below the veranda so that I could not be sure of the color of their clothes.

  17

  It must have been near midnight. The darkness that enveloped the brook seemed to watch our very breathing. In it was only the faint stir of the night wind that carried the sooty smell of the pine torches to us. For some time his lordship watched the scene in silence, motionless. Presently he moved forward a little and called sharply, “Yoshihide.”

  The latter must have made some sort of reply, though what I heard sounded more like a groan.

  “Yoshihide, tonight in accordance with your request I am going to burn this carriage for you.”

  His lordship glanced sidelong at those around him and seemed to exchange a meaningful smile with one or two, though I may have only imagined it. Yoshihide raised his head fearfully and looked up at the veranda, but said nothing and did not move from where he squatted.

  “Look. That is the carriage I have always used. You recognize it, don’t you? I am going to burn it and show you blazing hell itself.”

  Again his lordship paused and winked at his attendants. Suddenly his tone became unpleasant. “In that carriage, by my command, is a female malefactor. Therefore, when it is fired her flesh will be roasted, her bones burnt, she will die in extreme agony. Never again will you find such a model for the completion of your screen. Do not flinch from looking at snow-white skin inflamed with fire. Look well at her black hair dancing up in sparks.”

  His lordship ceased speaking for the third time. I don’t know what thoughts were in his mind, but his shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Posterity will never see anything like it. I’ll watch it from here. Come, come, lift up the blinds and show Yoshihide the woman inside.”

  At the daimyo’s word one of the attendants, holding high his pine torch in one hand, walked up to the carriage without more ado, stretched out his free hand, and raised the blind. The flickering torch burned with a sharp crackling noise. It brightly lit up the narrow interior of the carriage, showing a woman on its couch, cruelly bound with chains. Who was she? Ah, it could not be! She was clad in a gorgeously embroidered cherry-patterned mantle; her black hair, alluringly loosened, hung straight down; the golden hairpins set at different angles gleamed beautifully, but there was a gag over her mouth tied behind her neck. The small slight body, the modest profile—the attire only was different—it was Yūzuki. I nearly cried aloud.

  At that moment the samurai opposite me got to his feet hastily and put his hand on his sword. It must have been Yoshihide that he glared at. Startled I glanced at the artist. He seemed half-stunned by what he now saw. Suddenly he leapt up, stretched out both his arms before him, and forgetting everything else, began to run toward the carriage. Unfortunately, as I have already said, he was at some distance in the shadow, and I could not see the expression on his face. But that was momentary, for now I saw that it was absolutely colorless. His whole form cleaving the darkness appeared vividly before our eyes in the half-light—he was held in space, it seemed, by some invisible power that lifted him from the ground. Then, at his lordship’s command, “Set fire,” the carriage with its passenger, bathed in the light of the torches that were tossed on to it, burst into flames.

  18

  As we watched, the flames enveloped the carriage. The purple tassels that hung from the roof corners swung as though in a wind, while from below them the smoke swirled white against the blackness of the night. So frightful was it that the bamboo blinds, the hangings, the metal ornaments in the roof, seemed to be flying in the leaping shower of sparks. The tongues of flame that licked up from beneath the blinds, those serried flames that shot up into the sky, seemed to be celestial flames of the sun fallen to the earth. I had almost shouted before, but now I felt completely overwhelmed and dumbfounded; mouth agape, I could do nothing but watch the dreadful spectacle. But the father—Yoshihide. . . .

  I still remember the expression on his face. He had started involuntarily toward the carriage, but when the fire blazed up he stopped, arms outstretched, and with piercing eyes watched the smoke and fire that enveloped the carriage as though he would be drawn into it. The blaze lit his wrinkled face so clearly that even the hairs of his head could be seen distinctly: in the depths of his wide staring eyes, in his drawn distorted lips, in his twitching cheeks, the grief, dread, and bewilderment that passed through his soul were clearly inscribed. A robber, guilty of unspeakable crimes and about to be beheaded, or dragged before the court of the Ten Kings, could hardly have looked more agonized. Even that gigantic samurai changed color and looked fearfully at the Lord of Horikawa.

  But the latter, without taking his eyes off the carriage, merely bit his lips or laughed unpleasantly from time to time. As for the carriage and its passenger, that girl—I am not brave enough to tell you all that I saw. Her white face, choking in the smoke, looked upward; her long loosened hair fluttered in the smoke, her cherry-patterned mantle—how beautiful it all was! What a terrible spectacle! But when the night wind dropped and the smoke was drawn away to the other side, where gold dust seemed to be scattered above the red flames, when the girl gnawed her gag, writhing so that it seemed the chains must burst, I, and even the gigantic samurai, wondered whether we were not spectators of the torments of hell itself, and our flesh crept.

  Then once more we thought the night wind stirred in the treetops of the garden. As that sound passed over the sky, something black that neither touched ground nor flew through the sky, dancing like a ball, leaped from the roof of the house into the blazing carriage. Into the crumbling blinds, cinnabar-stained, he fell, and putting his arms around the straining girl, he cried shrill and long into the smoke, a cry that sounded like tearing silk. He repeated it two or three times, then we forgot ourselves and shouted out together. Against the transparent curtain of flames, clinging to the girl’s shoulder, was Yoshihide, Yoshihide the monkey, that had been left tied at the mansion.

  19

  But we saw him only for a moment. Like gold leaf on a brown screen the sparks climbed into the sky. The monkey and Yūzuki were hidden in black smoke while the carriage blazed away with a dreadful noise in the garden. It was a pillar of fire—those awful flames stabbed the very sky.

  In front of that pillar Yoshihide stood rooted. Then, wonderful to say, over the wrinkled face of this Yoshihide, who had seemed to suffer on a previous occasion the tortures of hell, over his face the light of an inexpressible ecstasy passed, and forgetful even of his lordship’s presence he folded his arms and stood watching. It was almost as if he did not see his daughter dying in agony. Rather he seemed to delight in the beautiful color of the flames and the form of a woman in torment.

  What was most remarkable was not that he was joyfully watching the death of his daughter. It was rather that in him seemed to be a sternness not human, like the wrath of a kingly lion seen in a dream. Surprised by the fire, flocks of night birds that cried and clamored seemed thicker—though it may have been my imagination—around Yoshihide’s cap. Maybe those soulless birds seemed to see a weird glory like a halo around that man’s head. If the birds were attracted, how much more were we, the servants, filled with a strange feeling of worship as we watched Yoshihide. We quaked within, we held our breath, we watched him like a Buddha unveiled. The roaring of t
he fire that filled the air, and Yoshihide, his soul taken captive by it, standing there motionless—what awe we felt, what intense pleasure at this spectacle. Only his lordship sat on the veranda as though he were a different sort of being. He grew pale, foam gathered on his lips, he clutched his purple-skirted knee with both hands, he panted like some thirsty animal. . . .

  20

  It got around that his lordship had burnt a carriage at Yukige that night—though of course nobody said anything—and a great variety of opinions were expressed. The first and most prevalent rumor was that he had burnt Yoshihide’s daughter to death in resentment over thwarted love. But there was no doubt that it was the daimyo’s purpose to punish the perversity of the artist, who was painting the Hell Screen, even if he had to kill someone to do so. In fact, his lordship himself told me this.

  Then there was much talk about the stony-heartedness of Yoshihide, who saw his daughter die in flames before his eyes and yet wanted to paint the screen. Some called him a beast of prey in human form, rendered incapable of human love by a picture. The Abbot of Yokogawa often said, “A man’s genius may be very great, great his art, but only an understanding of the Five Virtues3 will save him from hell.”

  However, about a month later the Hell Screen was completed. Yoshihide immediately took it to the mansion and showed it with great deference to the Lord of Horikawa. The Abbot happened to be visiting his lordship at the time, and when he looked at it he must have been properly startled by the storm of fire that rages across the firmament on one of the leaves. He pulled a wry face, stared hard at Yoshihide, but said, “Well done,” in spite of himself. I still remember the forced laugh with which his lordship greeted this.

  From that time on, there was none that spoke badly of Yoshihide, at least in the mansion. And anyone who saw the screen, even if he had hated the artist before, was struck solemn, because he felt that he was experiencing hell’s most exquisite tortures.

  But by that time Yoshihide was no longer among the living. The night after the screen was finished he hanged himself from a beam in his studio. With his only daughter preceding him he felt, no doubt, that he could not bear to live on in idleness. His remains still lie within the ruins of his house. The rains and winds of many decades have bleached the little stone that marked his grave, and the moss has covered it in oblivion.

  TRANSLATED BY W. H. H. NORMAN

  THE CANNERY BOAT

  [Kani Kōsen, 1929] by Kobayashi Takiji (1903-1933)

  The Cannery Boat is the story of the voyage of a floating cannery in the waters off Kamchatka. The ship is manned by rough sailors, students from the universities, who have been tricked into believing the work is a desirable summer job, and boys from the farms of northern Japan. The descriptions of the life aboard ship are powerful and convincing, but what gives this book its characteristic flavor is the Marxist philosophy underlying it. The boss, Asakawa, is a fiend, and he represents an organization of cold-blooded monsters to whom the loss of sailors’ lives means nothing. The only cheerful moments come when, in the extract given here, some sailors hear of the deliverance afforded by communism. The Cannery Boat, for all its gross imperfections, is considered to be the masterpiece of the “proletarian literature” movement. The author later died in prison of torture.

  •

  In the afternoon the sky changed. There was a mist so light as to seem almost unreal. Myriads of three-cornered waves sprang up across the great cloth of sea. Suddenly the wind began to howl through the masts. The bottoms of the tarpaulins covering the cargo flapped against the deck.

  The crests of the triangular waves were soon flinging their white spray over the whole surface of the sea, for all the world like thousands of rabbits scampering over a vast plain. This was the herald of one of Kamchatka’s sudden storms. All at once the tide began to ebb quickly.

  The ship started to swing round on herself. Kamchatka, which until now had been visible on the starboard side, suddenly appeared on the port side. There was great excitement among fishermen and sailors. Above their heads sounded an alarm whistle. They all stood looking up at the sky. The funnel shook and rattled. Maybe because they were standing directly under it, it seemed incredibly wide, like a huge bathtub, sloping away out backwards. The piercing note from the alarm whistle had something tragic in it. Warned by its prolonged blowing, the boats out fishing far from the main ship returned home through the storm.

  Early that morning the boss had received warning of the storm from another ship which was anchored about ten miles away. The message also stated that if the boats were out they should be recalled immediately. Asakawa had said, “If we’re going to take notice of every little thing that comes along, do you think we’ll ever get finished with this job we came all the way to Kamchatka to do?” This information had leaked out through the radio operator.

  The first sailor to hear this had started to roar at the operator as if he had been Asakawa. “What does he think human lives are, anyway?”

  “Human lives?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Asakawa never thinks of us as human beings.”

  Toward evening there was a great shouting from the bridge. The men below rushed up the companionway two steps at a time. Two boats had been sighted, drawing near. They had been lashed together with ropes. They came very close, but, just as if they were at one end of a seesaw with the ship at the other, the big waves lifted them up and down by turns. One after another immense roaring waves rose up between them. Although so near, they made no progress. Everyone felt the tension. A rope was thrown from the deck, but it did not reach. It only fell on the water with a vain splashing. Then, twisting like a water snake, it was hauled back. This was repeated several times. From the ship all shouted in one voice, but no answer came. Faces were like masks, with eyes immobile. The whole scene, with its unbearable grimness, seared every heart.

  By dusk all the boats except two had got safely back. As soon as the fishermen came on deck they lost consciousness. One of the boats, having become full of water, had been anchored and its crew transferred to another boat. The other one together with its crew was missing.

  The boss was fuming with rage. He kept on going down into the fishermen’s cabin and then up again. The men cast sullen glances at him throughout this performance.

  The next day, partly to search for the missing boat, partly to follow up the crabs, it was decided that the ship should move on. The loss of the carcasses of five or six men was nothing, but it would be a pity to lose the boat. . . .

  When the lost boat did not return, the fishermen gathered together the belongings of the missing men, looking for the addresses of their families and getting everything ready in case worse came to worst. It wasn’t the pleasantest of jobs. As they worked they had the feeling that they were examining their own remains. Various parcels and letters addressed to women relatives were discovered in the missing men’s baggage. Among one man’s things there was a letter written in crudely formed script, obviously with a frequently licked pencil. This was passed from one rough sailor’s hand to another’s. Each one spelled the words out to himself laboriously, but with intense interest, and shaking his head passed it on to his neighbor. It was a letter from the man’s child.

  One man raised his head from the page and whispered, “It’s all because of Asakawa. When we know for sure this poor fellow is dead we’ll revenge him.” The speaker was a big, hefty man who had a past behind him. In a still lower voice one young round-shouldered fisherman said, “I expect we could beat up Asakawa.”

  “Ah, that letter was no good; it’s made me homesick,” said another man.

  “Look here,” the first speaker said, “if we don’t look out the swine will get us. We’ve got to look out for ourselves.”

  One man who had been sitting in the corner with his knees up, biting his thumbnails and listening to every word, remarked, “Leave it to me. When the time comes, I’ll lay into the swine!”

  They were all silent, but they felt relieved.


  Three days later the Hakkō Maru returned to her original position and the missing boat came back. Everyone on board was safe and sound.

  Because of the storm they had lost control of their boat. They were more helpless than babes strung up by the neck, and were all prepared for death. Fishermen must always be ready for death.

  Their boat had been washed up on the coast of Kamchatka, and they were rescued by some Russians living near. The Russians were a family of four. Thirsty as they were for a “home” with women and children in it, this place held an indescribable attraction for the sailors. Added to that, everyone was kind, offering all kinds of help. Still, at first the fact that their rescuers were foreigners, with different colored hair and eyes, using incomprehensible words, made the sailors feel rather strange. The thought soon occurred to them, however, that after all these were just human beings like themselves.

  Hearing of the wreck, many people from the village gathered. The place was a long way off from the Japanese fishing waters.

  They stayed there two days recovering and then started back. “We didn’t want to come back. Who would, to a hell like this?”

  Their story didn’t end there. There was another interesting thing which they were hiding.

  Just on the day they were to leave, as they were standing round the stove, putting on their clothes and talking, four or five Russians entered, and with them was a Chinese. One Russian, with a large face and a short brown beard, burst into a flood of loud talking and gesticulations. In order to let him know that they could not understand Russian the sailors waved their hands in front of their faces. Then the Russian said a single sentence and the Chinese, who was watching his lips, started to speak in Japanese. It was strange Japanese, with the order of the words all mixed up. Word after word came reeling out drunkenly.