Lotus & Other Tales of Medieval Japan

by Takeshi Umehara

  From then on time passed uneventfully for Tarō until, at the age of eighteen, he experienced another parting. His father had taken to his bed for two or three days with what seemed to be a minor illness when suddenly he left this world on his journey to the next. Tarō consulted with O-roku and arranged for the usual ceremonies—the funeral, and the memorial services on the seventh, the twenty-seventh, and finally the forty-ninth day. Then he immediately sold off the house and household furnishings and built a simple little hut on a small plot facing the road. He explained his plans to O-roku: "I want to lead a totally lazy life from now on. By 'a lazy life,' I mean lying around doing nothing, day and night. There's a saying, The greatest pleasure in this life is a good snooze,' and I plan to enjoy my earthly paradise right here in this little hut. But there is one problem, one obstacle to my life of laziness, and that's the fact that a man has to eat. Just think how simple it would be if he didn't! Why, men would easily have become like gods. By the way, O-roku, I have some money left over from selling the old house and furniture, and after paying for this hut. This is all the money I have in the world now. I figure it'll pay for my food for about the next five years. And as far as food goes, I won't cause you any trouble, I promise: three rice balls and a pot of tea each morning is all I'll be needing."

  O-roku didn't quite know how to respond to Tarō's suggestion so she consulted her son Shichisuke, who said, "That'll mean a big profit for us. If that's all he wants, the money would easily last ten years—maybe twenty, if you cut corners. Anyway, we're sure to make a profit. You're a lucky woman, Mother, to have such a fool for a master. You'd better say yes."

  O-roku was worried about what Tarō would do when the five years were up, but he responded, "We'll worry about that when the time comes. Anyway, I want to hibernate for the next five years." With this reply, and encouraged by Shichisuke, O-roku decided to go along with the plan. Shichisuke took care to let the people of the neighborhood think that his mother had received only a fifth of the money she actually had, so everyone praised her for being such a kind-hearted person and taking such good care of her former master's son.

  Thus Tarō had succeeded in reducing the energy he expended in the act of eating to a minimum, but there remained one other bothersome aspect of human life to be dealt with: excretion. A man has to go to the bathroom several times a day to take care of this need. Unless he could find a way to minimize the energy used in going to the bathroom, his lazy way of life would remain a dream. So Tarō devised a clever plan and put it into effect. He had a long narrow hole dug in the earth below his sleeping-mat, just where his buttocks rested when he lay down. Then he cut a round hole in the corresponding section of the mat. Now he could urinate while lying face down and defecate face up. Thus he was able to cut to an absolute minimum the energy involved in excretion. There was at first a problem with the smell from below; but he devised a solution to that by making a lid for the hole in the earth and a drawstring for the one in the sleeping mat, so once his business was done, everything could be put back to normal.

  Despite these elaborate measures, Tarō's room was not very pleasant. He couldn't seem to get those three daily rice-balls into his mouth without scattering grains of rice here and there; sometimes, too, he accidentally stepped on a riceball, so there were clots of mashed rice all over the floor. Then too, he often forgot to close the lid after going to the toilet, and sometimes neglected to wipe himself; so the room was spattered with excrement, liquid and solid, and gave off a truly horrendous stench. Innumerable flies alighted on the bits of rice and feces, and great clusters of them covered Tarō's rice-balls. He was, in effect, eating their leftovers day after day. Tarō was completely unconcerned, however, and happily munched away at his rice-balls, occasionally getting a fly or two along with them. "Sorry, sorry," he'd say to the flies, "I almost ate you up! By the way, how was the rice today? Good?"

  Tarō's room was a world where feces and rice, urine and tea were jumbled together. The smell was worse than a pigsty, and no one would go near the place apart from O-roku. That was fine with Tarō—he could enjoy his lazy life unhindered.

  And what precisely did he do all day, in this lazy life of his? Certainly he read a little, for he had kept five books out of the hundred owned by his father and placed them by the bed. Alas, however, even those five books became covered with rice-grains and excrement and lay scattered in disorder beside his pillow. Later on, Tarō would explain that in the course of this lazy way of life he was cultivating his imaginative powers. Now imagination is a convenient thing: in actuality, Tarō dwelt in a filthy hut, but in imagination he could live in the most splendid of houses. Tarō could freely create in his mind a grand mansion and then see himself as its noble inhabitant.

  Sometimes, of course, even he tired of these imaginings; yet he was never bored by his life because he could always enjoy the pleasure of conversation with his guests—those guests being the flies. At first he had tried to drive them off, but no matter what he did, they were impossible to get rid of. And so he decided it would be best to make friends with them. Observed with a sympathetic eye, the flies proved to have their own individual traits and personal characteristics. For example, when O-roku brought the rice-balls, some of the flies immediately alighted on them, while others would avoid them and make for the grains of rice sticking to Tarō's lips and chin. Still others would ignore the rice completely and seek out excrement. After the most painstaking observation, Tarō succeeded in distinguishing one fly from another and became aware of these individual differences. To him, this was a great discovery, and he spent the next half year or so in the most intense study of fly society. As he came to understand the ecology of their society, he was able to form friendships with the flies and engage them in conversation.

  "Well, Gurukichi, what good wind has blown you in my direction today? It's been a long time, you know. I guess you don't like my rice-balls anymore: I bet you're buzzing around looking for something more to your taste. What's that? You say you had a good feast on some bear's liver the day before yesterday? And yesterday you had a real delicacy, dragon's brains? And today you drank some cat-wine brought all the way from Southern Barbary? My rice-balls can't compete in terms of flavor, you say? Yes, well, that's fine. It's fine with me, Gurukichi, but you're putting yourself in real danger. I'm happy to have you fellows come over for some rice-balls; but, you know, gourmets tend to be stingy, and cruel too. You wouldn't think they'd lose much by letting a few flies have a nibble at their food; but I think you'll find they'll get hopping mad and be after you with a fly-swatter. One swat with one of those and you'll be flat as a pancake! Ohh, you think you're too smart to let some human half-wit get you with a fly-swatter? Don't be too sure of yourself, Gurukichi.

  Its dangerous, I tell you, very dangerous. You'll end up swatted one of these days. It'd be better for you to come and have rice-balls with me. It may not be very delicious, but it's safe. And anyway, it's rather vulgar to spend your time flying about looking for better and better things to eat. You should avoid such base behavior."

  Gurukichi listened to these admonitions with a bored expression, as if to say "Yes, yes, I know all that." He never reappeared at Tarō's hut, though, and it was said that he had been swatted to death in the kitchen of a rich landowner a block or so away.

  "Nauko, you're the best-looking fly I've ever seen. You're always being followed by a swarm of boy-flies. You lead them around as you buzz about, lost in wonder at your own beauty. 'I'm the most beautiful creature on earth,' you seem to be saying to yourself. But be careful! It's not only boy-flies, under the spell of sex, who are watching you. There are bees and dragonflies that would love to eat you up. And spiders are very fond of flies, too. I heard some of them talking just the other day: 'That Nauko looks real good. Let's get her,' they were saying. So don't get too infatuated with your own looks. They're not that special, to begin with. A butterfly would think herself far more beautiful than you. And a bird would be sure she was much more beautifu
l than any butterfly. And the same for humans. Now, I think even the handsomest human is uglier than a bird or butterfly—or a fly, for that matter; but there are human beings (particularly among the females) who believe themselves to be the most beautiful creatures on earth. Anyway, it's dangerous to fall in love with your own beauty!"

  Nauko laughed as she listened to what Tarō had to say, but she too never appeared again. According to her boyfriend, who was always hanging around her, she was buzzing about engrossed in herself one day when suddenly a bird flew by and gobbled her up.

  Tarō also spoke with Dobuhei, whose favorite spot was the area around his mouth, with the grains of rice sticking there. "You always used to like being around waste-matter, didn't you, Dobuhei? You lived in an outhouse for years: your body smells of it. So why did you decide to move, and pick the area around my mouth?" Tarō asked this question many times, but Dobuhei wouldn't answer, until finally one day he gave this unwilling reply: "I like dirty places, and I find the smell of night-soil wonderfully fragrant. I couldn't live a single day without it. But, you know, an outhouse is a dangerous place. You never know when someone's going to take a crap—you could be crushed! Your mouth is a much safer place. And it has much the same smell, too. The smell of crap and sweat and dirt and garbage, all combined together—wonderful! And it's all so nourishing: spit and snot and sweat mixed in with the rice stuck here—what could be more delicious? So I decided, from now on forget about outhouses, I'm staying near Tarō's mouth forever."

  "You're quite a guy, Dobuhei. It's like we're brothers!" said Tarō, and from then on he made sure to leave plenty of rice sticking to his lips and chin so his friend would feel right at home.

  This was the reality of Tarō's lazy life over a period of five years. Of the twenty-four hours in a day, he slept for twelve and lazed about for another six, mostly fantasizing or observing and chatting with his friends the flies. Of course he also read a little once in a while, just for fun.

  The agreed-upon five year period was coming to an end, and O-roku was concerned about what Tarō would do from then on. One day she said timidly, "Master Tarō, the five years we agreed on are up this month. I'm not saying the money you gave me for food for the five years wasn't enough. But prices have risen since then, so the cost of food has been high too. And anyway, we had an agreement. So after this month, I won't be able to provide you with three rice-balls and a pot of tea everyday, like before.... Still, you are the son of my dear late master, so if you want, I'd be willing to keep on providing the rice-balls and tea—not forever, you understand, but for a while."

  Tarō, however, turned down this offer. He thanked O-roku warmly for her devotion over the past five years but said that they'd had an agreement, and from now on there was no need for her to make three daily rice-balls for him.

  "Well then, what will you do for food?" she asked.

  "Could you please send a notice 'round to the neighbors and ask them to bring me any leftover rice they might have? I'm not trying to force them, of course. If there's rice, I'll eat it, and if there's not, I'll go hungry. If there's no rice for a long time, and I end up dying of starvation, that'll be fine with me too." O-roku was surprised, but she did as Tarō said and asked the neighbors to let her know if there was any leftover rice, so she could take it to him. She was feeling a bit guilty so she made a point of going from house to house each evening to collect the rice, which she then delivered to Tarō. Occasionally too she would make rice-balls for him as before, saying they were someone else's leftovers.

  Still, Tarō was not receiving rice as regularly as he had been before. Whenever O-roku took her own rice to him, pretending it was leftovers, her son Shichisuke gave her a dirty look. It sometimes happened, then, that Tarō went without food for several days; even so, he never complained. One day O-roku delivered five special festive rice-cakes to him. "I got something nice today so I brought some along for you!" she said happily. They were large, flat, plate-shaped cakes eaten on the third day after a wedding. One of her relatives had got married and O-roku had been given ten, of which she brought five for Tarō, hiding the fact from her son. Tarō had not eaten anything for four or five days, so he was famished and polished off four of the cakes immediately. Actually, he wanted to eat the last one as well, but he didn't know when he might eat again if he did. So he kept it and played with it, rolling it around on his chest, licking it, rubbing some of the oil from beside his nostrils on it, and balancing it on the top of his head. As he was amusing himself in this fashion, the rice-cake slipped away from him and rolled over the floor, out of the hut, and on to the side of the road. It would have been too much trouble to go and get it. Someone would come along and retrieve it for him, surely. So Tarō waited. But humans aren't the only ones who are fond of rice-cakes. Dogs came, and crows, eyeing the cake by the roadside. Lazybones Tarō kept them off with a pole from inside the hut and waited for a passerby.

  On the third day, the local steward, Atarashi Zaemon Nobuyori, passed by on horseback on his way home from a hawking expedition, accompanied by fifty or sixty mounted warriors. As he passed along the road in front of Tarō's hut, the steward heard a strange, harsh-sounding voice calling after him: "Master Steward, Master Steward, Lazybones Master Steward!" Surprised to be so addressed, the steward drew up his horse and approached the hut. A strong odor assailed his nostrils. He threw the door open and walked in. What a terrible sight! A veritable pigsty. It was a wonder to the steward that any human being could live in a place like this. Yet there was Tarō sprawled on the floor, his head raised like a snake about to strike, gazing fixedly at him.

  "Are you the famous Lazybones Tarō?" asked the steward.

  "That's right—the one and only, the genuine article!"

  "I see. Now then, you called me 'Lazybones Steward' just now, didn't you. Why do you call me lazy?"

  "Because you are lazy. The rice-cake I dropped three days ago is sitting right there by the road, and you couldn't be bothered to pick it up! I'm amazed anybody so lazy can carry out the important duties of a steward."

  The steward glanced out and saw that, indeed, a large round rice-cake was sitting by the side of the road. Stunned, he stared at Tarō for a moment and then said, "I see. You really are the laziest man in Japan. Tell me, though, how do you get your food?"

  "If people give me food, I eat; and if they don't, I don't. Sometimes I go for three or four days without a meal, but even so, I can't give up this lazy life of mine. There's nothing like it. You should give it a try yourself, sir! I'll gladly teach you the rudiments."

  "You want me to lead a lazy life? No, no, that won't do. It's you who should give up the lazy life! How about it: if I give you some land, will you become a rice-farmer?"

  But this kind offer on the steward's part was flatly rejected: "Absolutely not! I'd rather die than tie myself to some little plot of land."

  The steward tried another tack: "Well then, I'll stake you in a business. Why not try your hand at trade?"

  "A country man like me wouldn't be good enough at duping people for that."

  He's quite a character, thought the steward, and decided to demonstrate his goodheartedness by sponsoring Tarō for a further three years of lazy living. Thus, he ordered the people of Atarashi to provide him with food for the next three years. A troublesome whim of the steward's, from their point of view, but if it were only a matter of having O-roku carry on with the three rice-balls and pot of tea each day, it would be a simple enough demand to satisfy. And so Lazybones Tarō's lazy life was extended for another three years.

  The three years' sponsorship was nearing its end when another, more troublesome demand was made of the people of the village. Atarashi was in fact a manor owned by a certain Middle Councilor living in the capital, Kyoto, and managed by the steward assigned for that purpose by the military government in Kamakura. The Middle Councilor had sent an order that someone from the village be despatched at once to the capital for a period of obligatory service, as was the custom in those da
ys. It would involve three months' service, with almost no wages. Naturally, no one in the village was eager to go, yet the order had to be obeyed. The villagers held an assembly to discuss whom to send, but no one would agree to go: everyone, it seemed, had an ill parent at home, or, if they had no parents, had been expressly forbidden at their father's deathbed ever to set foot in the capital. The discussions went on for days without any solution in sight. Suddenly, though, a village elder had a brilliant idea: send Lazybones! He was a burden to the village anyway, so by sending him off to do service, they would be killing two birds with one stone.

  The elder, in a state of great excitement, presented his idea to the group, but there were two doubtful points. First, even supposing Tarō agreed to go to the capital, would the people at the Middle Councilor's residence find him of any use at all? Would there not come a complaint against the villagers for sending such a good-for-nothing? Some people had quite strong negative views on this matter; but it was suggested that, if need be, the village could always say that Tarō had been a model worker while in Atarashi, and something must have gone wrong with him after he went to the capital. Someone suggested that, on the other hand, Tarō might in fact change for the better once he got to the capital. By dint of such ingenious arguments, the doubters were silenced, and it was decided by consensus to send Tarō.

  The bigger problem was whether he would agree to be sent. If he refused to go, the "great" plan would indeed "grate" on everyone's ears, wouldn't it? Even so, the prevailing view was that they should "make the attempt," "there could be no harm in trying," "what did they have to lose?" and so on. Chōemon, the elder whose idea it was, and Hambei were appointed to go and convince him.

  It was the first time either of them had ever visited Tarō's hut, and when they entered, what filth, what a stench! They'd heard gossip, of course, but the reality of the dirt and smells exceeded all expectation. Chōemon held his nose as he began: "Good day to you, Tarō. The three years ordered by the steward are almost up now, and we were all wondering if, you know, you might not like to go off to the capital. There's a grand palace there where the Emperor himself lives! How about going to live at the Middle Councilor's place in the Emperor's capital? Ahh, it's a fine mansion, and there's lots of pretty girls living there too. It'd be like a sightseeing trip for you. You could stay, oh, about three months and do a little work now and then for the Middle Councilor. What's that you say? A man like yourself, used to a lazy life for such a long time, is unable to work? Not at all, Tarō! You've given your body a good long rest these past years, and now you're brimming with energy! And, you know, it's not healthy to lie about too much. Work is the thing for health! And though I say 'work,' what you'd be doing in the capital is much easier than the farm work that goes on here in the village. So how about it, Tarō, won't you go?"