Blue Bamboo: Japanese Tales of Fantasy

by Osamu Dazai

  And so it went until the autumn of Taro’s tenth year, when the village was devastated by a flood. Kanagi River, normally a stream no more than five yards across that flowed lazily along the northern edge of the village, was driven to a mad rage by a month of steadily falling rain. The muddy headwaters swelled, forming whirlpools great and small, and the six branches of the river merged to rush down the mountain at a furious speed, sweeping away hundreds of freshly cut logs, uprooting the oaks and firs and poplars that grew on the banks and hurling them downstream, gathering in a great pool at the foot of the mountain and then overflowing in one mighty upheaval to smash against the village bridge, demolishing it as if it were made of straw, crashing through the embankments, and spreading out like a vast sea that licked at the walls of all the houses and set the pigs to swimming and the ten thousand sheaves of newly harvested rice to floating upon its rolling waves. It was five days before the rain stopped; ten days later the waters began to recede, and, twenty days after that, Kanagi River was once again a leisurely little stream flowing along the northern border of the village.

  The villagers gathered each night in one house or another to discuss what was to be done, and the conclusion was always the same: Sure don’t fancy starvin’ to death! This consensus was always the starting point of the following night’s discussion, during which many questions would be raised but only one conclusion reached: Sure don’t fancy starvin’ to death! They were making no progress at all and beginning to panic when at last a valiant, public-spirited soul stepped forward. Ten-year-old Taro turned one day to his father, Sosuke, who sat with his head cradled in his arms, sighing, and ventured an opinion: “Seems to me there’s a simple solution. Someone should go to the castle and ask the daimyo to send emergency relief. I volunteer.” It was like a bolt of lightning; Sosuke shot up in his seat and let out a joyful shout. The shout ended in another sigh of despair, however, as he realized what a rash suggestion this was. He frowned and buried his head in his arms again. “It may sound simple to a child like you, but an adult would know better. Make a direct appeal to the daimyo and it could cost you your life. It’s out of the question. Forget it. Don’t even consider it.” That night, however, Taro strolled casually out of the house and then, unbeknownst to anyone, hurried straight for the castle town.

  Luck was with him. The direct appeal was a success. Far from demanding Taro’s head, the daimyo actually bestowed a reward upon him. It may have been that the daimyo of that time had grown a bit senile and neatly forgotten the laws of the land, but, in any case, thanks to Taro, the village was saved from extinction. And the following year it began to prosper once again.

  For two or three years afterward, the villagers spoke well of Taro. In time, however, they completely forgot their debt of gratitude and came up with a new name for him: “the squire’s idiot son.” He spent almost every day in the storehouse, reading at random the books in his father’s library. From time to time he came across volumes full of indecent pictures, but these, too, he merely leafed through with an indifferent look on his face.

  At some point, however, he discovered a book on wizardry, and this he read with great fervor, devouring it from cover to cover and memorizing every word. After a year of study and practice he acquired the ability to transform himself variously into a mouse, an eagle, and a snake. Casting the spell that made him a mouse, he’d dash about inside the storehouse, stopping every now and then to let out a squeak; as an eagle, he’d spread his wings, fly out the window, and soar through the sky to his heart’s content; and in the form of a snake, he’d crawl under the storehouse floor, dodging the cobwebs, and slide through the cool, shadowy weeds on his scaly belly. Before long he learned how to turn himself into a praying mantis as well, but this proved disappointing. There was nothing particularly fun about being a praying mantis.

  Sosuke had by now given up on his son entirely. Reluctant to admit defeat, however, he would sometimes turn to his wife and say: “The boy was simply too gifted, that’s all.”

  At sixteen Taro fell in love. The girl, who was the daughter of the oil-seller next door, was a marvelously skilled flutist. Taro loved to sit in the storehouse in the form of a mouse or a snake and listen to her play. Ah, he would think, to have that maiden fall in love with me! If only I were the handsomest man in the province! At last it occurred to him to concentrate his wizardly powers on attaining this goal. Discovering an incantation that might help him become handsome, he pronounced it again and again, day after day, and on the tenth day succeeded in casting the spell.

  Taro approached the mirror with his heart in his throat... and received the shock of a lifetime. His skin was so white as to be almost colorless; his cheeks were full and round and soft and smooth; his eyes were the narrowest conceivable slits; and a long, stringy mustache drooped down to below his chin. It was a face that would have looked right at home on any eighth-century Buddhist statue. And even the splendid article between his legs resembled those of the men of old, hanging down long and fat and heavy. Imagine Taro’s chagrin when he realized what had happened: The wizardry book was too old; it had been written during the Tempyo era and was hopelessly out of date. I’m not going to get anywhere looking like this, he thought, and decided to start all over. When he tried to undo the spell, however, he discovered that it could not be undone. Apparently if a wizard uses his magic to satisfy his own selfish desires, he’s stuck with the result, for better or worse. For three days, four days straight, Taro expended his efforts in vain, and on the fifth day he resigned himself. The girl next door was scarcely likely to find him attractive now, but the world was wide and surely not devoid of women with eccentric tastes. Taro, stripped of his wizardly powers, stepped out of the storehouse with his round, plump cheeks and long, stringy mustache.

  After explaining everything to his parents, who stared at him with mouths agape, he finally convinced them to accept what had happened and to close their mouths. That night, leaving only a note that said “Gone on a journey,” he left the house abruptly. A full moon hung in the sky. The outline of the moon looked a bit blurred, but it wasn’t because of mist; it was because his eyes were so narrow.

  Ambling aimlessly along, Taro reflected upon the riddle of good looks. Why should a face that would have been handsome long ago seem so ridiculous now? It just didn’t make sense. What was wrong with the way he looked? This was an awfully difficult riddle, however, and though Taro pondered it as he passed through the woods outside the neighboring village, as he made his way to the castle town, and even as he crossed the border out of Tsugaru, he was still nowhere near coming up with an answer.

  Incidentally, it’s said that the secret to Taro’s wizardry involved leaning languidly against a pillar or fence with folded arms and muttering the incantation, “What a bore, what a bore, what a bore,” again and again, hundreds of times, until he entered a state of egolessness.

  JIROBEI THE FIGHTER

  Once upon a time, in the town of Mishima, a stopover point on the Tokaido Road, there lived a man by the name of Shikamaya Ippei. Ippei’s family had been in the business of brewing saké since his great-grandfather’s generation. It’s said that saké reflects the personality of the brewer, and Ippei’s saké, which was called Waterwheel, was crystal clear and extremely dry. Ippei had fourteen children—six boys and eight girls. The eldest son was rather slow when it came to understanding the ways of the world, as a result of which he did just as Ippei told him and put the family business before all other things in life. Though he had no confidence in his own ideas, the eldest son would occasionally hazard an opinion in his father’s presence. His courage would fail him even as he spoke, however, and he’d end up retracting his own argument, saying things like: “At least, such would appear to be the case, but then again, one can only conclude that this line of thought is riddled with misconceptions, and I’m sure it’s quite wrong, but what do you think, Father? It somehow seems to me I’ve got it all wrong.” To which Ippei would issue a terse reply: “You’ve got
it all wrong.”

  Matters were a bit different for the second son, Jirobei. There was in his nature a tendency to display a taste for fairness and justice—not the “fairness and justice” that politicians are forever carrying on about, but fairness and justice in the true, original sense of the words. As a consequence, the people of Mishima regarded him as a troublemaker and kept their distance.

  Jirobei disliked what is known as the tradesman spirit. The world, he maintained, wasn’t an abacus. Convinced that the only things of true worth were those without any monetary value whatsoever, he spent most of his days drinking. He refused to drink the saké his family brewed, however, having seen with his own eyes the excessive profit they turned on the stuff. In fact, if he discovered that he’d inadvertently drained a cup of Waterwheel, he would promptly stick a finger down his throat and force it back up. Day after day Jirobei wandered about the town drinking, but his father, Ippei, never reproached him for it. Ippei was a clearheaded fellow, and it pleased him that at least one of his many children had turned out to be a ne’er-do-well: it lent color to the group. He was also the head of the Mishima fire brigade, an honorary post to which he hoped one day to have Jirobei succeed him. Farsighted man that he was, Ippei held that if his son were to continue to gallivant about like a wild horse, it would only help him to accumulate the qualifications required of the future head of the fire brigade, and he turned a blind eye to his second son’s scandalous behavior.

  In the summer of his twenty-second year, Jirobei decided that, come what may, he was going to make himself into a formidable fighter. There was a reason for this.

  On August 15 every year a festival was held at the Great Shrine of Mishima, and tens of thousands of people—not only the townsfolk, but residents of the surrounding mountains and nearby fishing villages—would gather there, all with colorful festival fans stuck in their sashes. For longer than anyone could remember, it had always rained on the day of the festival. Mishima people have a taste for flamboyance, however, and would stand in the rain flapping their fans, drenched to the skin and clenching their teeth to endure the cold as they watched the wheeled dancing platforms and floats passing by and marveled at the fireworks display.

  The day of the festival the year Jirobei turned twenty-two dawned fair and sunny. A single black-eared kite flitted about above the town, lifting its voice in song, and the people who came to the shrine to worship offered thanks first to the god of the shrine and then to the kite and the clear blue sky. It was a little past noon when black clouds suddenly billowed up on the northeastern horizon, and in a matter of seconds a shadow had fallen over Mishima and a moist, heavy wind was crawling and swirling through the streets. Moments later, as if summoned by that wind, large drops of water began to spill from the heavens, and finally the rain, unable to contain itself any longer, poured down in a great torrent.

  Jirobei was drinking saké in a shop across from the gate of the Great Shrine, watching the girls outside running for shelter with little mincing steps, when suddenly he rose up in his seat. He had spotted someone he knew—the daughter of the calligraphy teacher who lived across the street from him. Dressed in a heavy red kimono with a floral pattern, she ran five or six steps, slowed to a walk, ran five or six steps, then slowed to a walk again. Jirobei dashed outside, parting the shop-curtain that hung at the entrance, and spoke to the girl, saying: “Let me get you an umbrella. You don’t want to ruin that nice kimono.” The girl stopped and slowly twisted her slender neck to look at him. When she saw who it was, a blush spread over her soft white cheeks. “Wait one second,” Jirobei said and, ducking back inside, bullied the shopkeeper into lending him a rough, oil-paper umbrella. Ha, calligraphy teacher’s daughter! No doubt your old man, your old lady, and you yourself think I’m a good-for-nothing, a drunk, a rogue, and a scoundrel. Well, you’ve got another think coming. I’m the sort of man who, if I feel sorry for somebody, I’ll see to it that they get an umbrella, like this, or anything else they might need. How does that grab you? Jirobei was inwardly shouting this challenge as he headed back to the street. When he flipped the shop-curtain aside again, however, the girl was gone; there was nothing but the rain, pouring down even harder now, and a stream of people shoving and jostling one another as they ran past. A chorus of catcalls—Woo! Woo!—came from inside the shop, where six or seven local toughs were drinking. Jirobei stood there dangling the umbrella in his right hand and thinking: When you find yourself looking ridiculous, reasoning isn’t worth a damn. If a man offends you, strike him down. If a horse offends you, strike it down. That’s the way to be, he told himself. And from that day on, for the next three years, Jirobei stealthily trained in the art of fighting.

  What fighting requires, first and foremost, is courage. Jirobei cultivated his with saké. He was drinking more than ever now. His eyes grew as cold and cloudy as those of a dead fish, and his forehead developed three greasy furrows, which only added to the brazen insolence of his features. His movements became ponderous and deliberate, so that just to lift his pipe to his lips for a single puff he would swing his arm around from behind in a great, sweeping, slow-motion arc. As far as appearances went, at least, he seemed a man with nerves of steel.

  Next was the manner of speaking. He decided to speak in a fathomless kind of murmur. Before fighting, of course, it’s customary to recite some sort of cocky, clever-sounding threat, and Jirobei agonized over his choice of words. Clichés rang hollow; at length he settled upon something original: “Aren’t you making a bit of a mistake? Or perhaps you’re joking. You’d look awfully funny with the tip of your nose all purple and swollen. It would take a hundred days to return to normal. I do think you’re making a mistake.” In order to be able to deliver these lines smoothly at any given moment, he recited them thirty times each night after going to bed. And as he recited the words, he remembered to refrain from sneering or glaring any more than necessary—maintaining, if anything, a hint of a smile on his lips.

  Now he was ready to begin the actual training. Jirobei was opposed to carrying weapons. Winning a fight with weapons didn’t make you a man; if he couldn’t gain victory with his bare hands, it just wouldn’t feel right. He began his research with the study of how to form a fist. It occurred to him that leaving the thumb outside the fist, unprotected, could result in a sprain. After experimenting with various methods, he tucked his thumb inside and covered it with the knuckles of the other four fingers. This made for a wonderfully hard fist, and when he struck himself on the kneecap with it his hand didn’t hurt at all; he felt such pain in his knee, however, that he nearly keeled over. This was a tremendous breakthrough. Next, he set out to make the skin of his knuckles as thick and hard as possible. Each morning when he awoke he clenched his fist in the manner he’d discovered and punched the hardwood tobacco tray next to his pillow. Walking about the streets of the town, he lashed out at all the stone walls and wooden fences he passed. He pounded the table at the shop where he drank, and pummeled the cast-iron hearth in his house. He spent a year on this stage of the training, and by the time his tobacco tray was falling to pieces, all the walls and fences in sight were riddled with holes of various sizes, the table at the drinking shop had developed an enormous crack, and the hearth in his house was covered with an almost fashionable pattern of dents and bumps, Jirobei was finally sure of the hardness of his fists. He had also discovered during this stage of the training the secret to throwing a punch. Punching straight out, piston-like, was about three times as effective as swinging from the side, he found. And it was about four times as effective if you rotated your arm one hundred eighty degrees as you punched. The fist would dig into your opponent’s body like the tip of a screw.

  The following year he trained in the pine forest behind his house, the site of the former Kokubun Temple. There he punched at an old, dried tree stump that was shaped like a man and stood about five-and-a-half feet tall. Having pelted his own body with blows from head to foot, he had ascertained that the most painful spots were t
he solar plexus and the space between the eyebrows. He’d also contemplated experimenting with the area that is traditionally said to be the most sensitive and vital spot on a man’s body, but eventually ruled out low blows as being beneath a man of his dignity. He knew that the shins, too, were quite vulnerable to pain, but kicking was the only feasible means of attacking the shins, and Jirobei shrank from the thought of using his feet in a fight; such tactics struck him as cowardly and underhanded. No, he would concentrate exclusively on the solar plexus and the space between the eyes. With a long knife he carved on the stump triangular marks that corresponded to these targets and punched away at them day after day. “Aren’t you making a bit of a mistake? Or perhaps you’re joking. You’d look awfully funny with the tip of your nose all purple and swollen. It would take a hundred days to return to normal. I do think you’re making a mistake...” Then, suddenly, a shot between the eyes! A left to the solar plexus!

  After a year of this training, the triangular marks on the stump were buried at the bottoms of two round depressions as deep as tea bowls. Jirobei took stock. Now I can hit the spot every time, he told himself—a hundred shots, a hundred bull’s-eyes. But that’s no reason to relax. My opponent won’t be standing still, like this stump. He’ll be moving... It was then that Jirobei’s eye was caught by the waterwheels that stood at virtually every bend in the road. Dozens of full-bodied, limpid streams, fed by the snows melting on Mount Fuji, babbled past the foundations and under the verandas and through the gardens of Mishima’s houses, and every night, on his way home from drinking, Jirobei would subjugate one of the slow-turning, moss-covered waterwheels that harnessed these streams, whacking away, one by one, at the sixteen revolving blades. At first it was hard to find the range, and he didn’t do much damage, but soon the sight of immobile waterwheels dangling their broken blades became common about the town.