by Donald Keene
In the starlight Shimazo, who rushes up.
SHIMAZO: (He steps onto the hanamichi where he stops and looks at the stage.) I’m sure that man next to the torii is Senta. It’s already struck ten and he must be waiting for me. I’ll hurry now.
NARRATOR: Accustomed as he is to night’s dark roads,
He quickly strides up to the torii.
SHIMAZO (reaching the stage): Is that you over there, Senta?
SENTA: Oh, it’s you, brother. I’m glad you came.
SHIMAZO: I was still at home when I heard ten o’clock strike. I must be half an hour late. Have you been waiting long?
SENTA: I’ve only just arrived. I stopped at a restaurant for a couple of drinks on the way. Come sit over here.
SHIMAZO: You’ve found a convenient place to sit, haven’t you? (He dusts the stones with his towel, and the two men sit.) You asked me to go somewhere with you tonight. Whose house are we going to?
SENTA: TO a house below Kagurasaka. The man who lives there used to be one of the direct retainers of the Shogunate. He now calls himself a teacher of calligraphy. He’s a low dog who can’t be trusted. Even before the collapse of the Shogunate he was dismissed for his outrageous intimidation of the people, but he got pardoned in the general amnesty after the Restoration. Since then he has been lending money—stolen money, for all I know. He’s a very prosperous gentleman now, and he goes by the name of Mochizuki Akira. I intend to break in there tonight, kill him and his wife, and clean out all his money. Then I’ll head for Osaka.
SHIMAZO: I happen to know something about this Mochizuki. He certainly has money, but you could get it by just threatening him. Why must you kill him and his wife?
SENTA: I have my reasons.
SHIMAZO: What reasons could you have for killing them?
SENTA: The woman Mochizuki now publicly recognizes as his wife was until April of this year a famous geisha in Shirakawa. I was so madly in love with her that sometimes I would stay with her ten days running. I spent a fortune trying to get her to give in to me, but she had her sights trained on higher targets, and wouldn’t listen to me. I had about decided to take her by force if necessary, when I was surrounded by the police and barely managed to make a getaway. I wandered from one place to another, finally ending up here. Then I learned by chance where she is living now. Yesterday I went to her house, intending to extort some money from her. But Mochizuki, what with his experience at intimidating people, was too clever for me, and was unimpressed by my threats. He offered to return the hundred yen I gave the girl when she was at Shirakawa, and ordered me to take the money and leave at once. After having been talked to in such a way I felt that it would be too humiliating to take the money. I left empty-handed and thoroughly disgusted. But tonight will be the second round of my revenge, and this time I want you to go with me. We’ll wipe out my old score with them by killing Mochizuki and his wife, and divide whatever money we find. Once this is over I plan to spend six months or so in Osaka. Well, that’s the favor I have to ask you. I know you may not like it, but I ask you as my brother to help me in this job.
SHIMAZO (reflects for a while): I’m sorry, but I can’t possibly do what you ask.
SENTA: Why can’t you?
SHIMAZO: I’ve had a complete change of heart and I’ve given up crime.
SENTA: I don’t want to bore you by saying the same things over and over, but it’s all very well for you to give up crime—if I am arrested tomorrow you will be implicated all the same. They may let you off lightly and give you ten years, but if it’s a heavy sentence, you may spend the rest of your life at hard labor.
SHIMAZO: I’m perfectly well aware of that, even without your saying it. I have every expectation that the police will catch up with me. But I have a little hope, and I have had good reasons for changing my ways. Listen.
NARRATOR: In the deepening night around him
There are not even shadows of passers-by,
And in the grasses only the insects’ cries.
SHIMAZO (looks around him intently): After I left you, I went back to the town where I was born. My father and sister were the same as ever, but my son, whom I had entrusted to my father’s care, walked with a limp. I was flabbergasted to hear how the boy became a cripple. My father had left a sharpened cleaver on a shelf, and late one night the family cat knocked it off, in the process of catching a mouse. It fell on the leg of my son, who was sleeping below, and hurt him so badly that he was crippled. He now has trouble walking. The strange thing is that the night he got hurt was the twentieth of April, and it was just before midnight. That was the same night that you and I broke into Fukushimaya’s house, and the time was also exactly the same. And the place where I slashed Fukushimaya was the left leg too.
NARRATOR: The sin of the father is visited upon the child,
The proverb goes, but seldom so swiftly!
SHIMAZO: This forced me to realize that I must renounce my criminal ways. At the time that I made this decision I had exactly four hundred yen left of the loot from our robbery. I went back to Tokyo from the country, intending to bring the amount up to five hundred yen, which was my share, and return it to Fukushimaya. I decided I would give myself up to the police, accept whatever punishment was coming to me, and become an honest man. I started a wineshop in order to raise the money. Now you know how I came to be honest and why I can’t do what you ask.
NARRATOR: Thus he told of the punishment for evil,
But Senta would not hear him.
SENTA: You mean that just because your son was hurt on the same night that you stabbed Fukushimaya, you’re now in such a panic that you’ve lost your courage?
SHIMAZO: Yes, as you say, I’ve lost my courage. I realize what the punishment for that crime was. Not only for me—as a result of our stealing the thousand yen, Fukushimaya finally had to sell his land and his shop went into bankruptcy. He disappeared without a trace. I searched fruitlessly for him everywhere. Today, quite by chance, a well-mannered little girl came to my shop and ordered two quarts of soy sauce. I asked where I should deliver them, and she told me they were for Fukushimaya. I took the soy sauce myself, wondering if it would prove to be the same family. As I suspected, it was. The two of them, father and daughter, are leading a life of such misery in their alley tenement that it pained me almost too much to look at them. It was fortunate I arrived when I did—they were in desperate need of a hundred yen, which I gave them without saying why. I want now to return the balance and give myself up. But at the moment, it so happens that my father has come to Tokyo from the country, to tell me how happy he is that I’ve reformed, and I’ll have to postpone surrendering myself for a while.
I was so surprised this evening when you appeared, saying something about an urgent request. We couldn’t very well talk at home, with my father and sister there. Besides, my house is separated from the neighbors only by a thin wall. I thought it would be safer for both of us to talk here, where no one can hear us.
Now you have my whole explanation of why I can’t go with you. I know you’re disappointed in me. I’m sorry.
SENTA: You’ve always been a very cool sort up to now. I wonder what’s come over you. If you’ve been punished because, as people say, the gods have put a curse on you for an evil deed, I should also have been punished. And if everybody gets what he deserves, that means that Fukushimaya must have been robbed as a punishment for having sold bad merchandise. It’s the will of Heaven that his business has folded and that he’s been forced into a life of poverty. What could be more foolish than to return the money to him? I’ve been living very comfortably during the past six months since the robbery, obviously because my sins were not bad enough for Heaven to punish me. Come on with me tonight and give up your chicken-hearted moralizing.
SHIMAZO: This is one favor I can’t do for you, no matter how much you ask me. I have given up crime for once and for all. If you can’t do the job alone, so much the better. You can change your ways tonight too.
SENTA
(with an angry gesture): There’s no use talking to you any more, I can see. But do you mean to say you’ve forgotten how when we were in prison we made ourselves blood brothers? How we cut each other’s arm with a broken shell and drank the blood? We swore that from then on we would stick together, through life and death. You can’t have forgotten. If you won’t do what I ask, it means you no longer feel any loyalty.
SHIMAZO: No, it’s because I am your friend that I want to stop you.
SENTA: Explain yourself.
SHIMAZO: I don’t know all the details of the grudge you bear towards Mochizuki, but let’s suppose that you succeed in running off with all his money tonight after you have killed the two of them. The police will suspect you at once, since you went there only yesterday to blackmail them. An alarm will be telegraphed all over the country. You’ll never escape. You’ll be caught in three days. Then, when they sentence you, it won’t be as a thief but as a murderer, and you’re certain to be beheaded. You may be able to lay your hands on a thousand yen tonight, but if you’re caught within three days, you won’t have spent more than fifty yen of it. What could be more stupid than to throw away your life for such a trifling amount? If you take my advice and go straight, I will be a real brother to you in every way and do whatever I can for you. What I am saying is for your own good. If you can’t manage to give back the whole five hundred yen you got as your share, return whatever you can to Fukushimaya, and then go with me to the police and confess everything.
SENTA: You’re not forty yet, but already you seem to have lost your nerve. I still have enough fight left in me so that even if I’m surrounded on all sides, I’ll keep on until I drop. If I gave myself up now they might, I suppose, commute the sentence by one degree, and I would be condemned to ten years at hard labor! You call me stupid, but you’re not very bright yourself.
SHIMAZO: Ten years of hard labor? That shows how little you understand such things. The government will show special clemency if you return the money you stole and surrender. They’ll reduce a ten year sentence to seven or even five years. And when once you serve out the sentence all the crimes you have committed are washed into the sea and are completely forgotten. If you can really pass this test and work day and night with all your strength
NARRATOR: It is certain that you will receive
Blessings from Heaven which once punished you.
SHIMAZO: If these were still the old days of the Shogunate, when any theft over ten yen was punishable by death, I could see why you might prefer to take a parting fling at crime, since you were doomed to die in any case. But now the penal code has been changed, and even a burglar who steals a thousand yen escapes with life imprisonment. If, instead of being grateful that you live in such times as these, you throw away your life by killing somebody, it shows you’re not very enlightened. Don’t show such neglect for the precious body you have received from your parents. Change your heart and join me.
NARRATOR: Senta with crooked heart falsely took
Shimazo’s straight words of understanding.
SENTA: The reason why you’re going straight is that you have a son you love, besides your father and your sister. I can see why you’d like to become an honest man. But I have neither parents nor family, and even if I reformed, it wouldn’t make anybody happy. I’ll go on stealing all the rest of my life. If I make a mistake and get killed for it, well, that will be an end to it.
SHIMAZO: You really are completely stupid. Even admitting that your parents are no longer in this world, don’t you think they’re worrying about you in their graves? If people simply vanished without a trace when they died, nobody, not even the Emperor, would pay respects to the dead. Something must surely remain. You’ve got to change your ways, renounce your crimes, and bring happiness to your parents in the other world.
SENTA: Why should I bother with making them happy? They’re my parents, yes, but all that means is that out of their own pleasure they created me. I feel no gratitude or obligation to them. Let them suffer now at their own pleasure.
NARRATOR: In his fit of wrath he uses vile words;
Shimazo hearing them is completely dismayed.
SHIMAZO: I hadn’t thought you were such a thick-headed fool. From tonight on I’ll not talk to you any more, and you can go to hell for all I care.
SENTA: And what do you mean by that? When we swore to be brothers, we promised to stick together whatever happened, in life or in death. If you won’t do what I ask you, we’re no longer brothers. I am breaking our relationship. We’re strangers from tonight on. If I get caught tonight I’ll send the police after you, so you had better be ready and waiting.
SHIMAZO: Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve been saying?
SENTA: If we are still brothers, I’ll obey whatever you say, since you arc the older. But once we become strangers, we’re equal, and then why should I listen to what you or anyone else says?
SHIMAZO: If you won’t listen, don’t. And now that I no longer have any obligations to you, I’m going to turn myself in. They will be coming to arrest you. Don’t be a coward and run away.
SENTA: I won’t turn and run. Come and get me any time you like. I’ll be risking my life when I break into Mochizuki’s house tonight, but whether I kill two people or three, I have only one head they can cut off. If you try to stop me with any underhanded trick, you are a dead man, Shimazo.
(He removes his kimono from one shoulder to permit freer movement of his arm, then draws from his cloak a dagger hidden in its folds. He brandishes it before Shimazo, who glances at it contemptuously, and with a scornful laugh assumes a posture of defiance.)
SHIMAZO: If that’s the best you can threaten, it’s not very impressive. I don’t suppose you’ve forgotten how I swore to be your brother because of the help you gave me when I was sick in prison, but when we served our term and got out, I was the one who taught you how to stage a robbery. What do you think you’re doing now, waving a dagger at me? Are you planning to stab me? I don’t doubt you can cut off the corner of a tombstone, but you can’t cut off my head! If you think you can, go ahead and try!
NARRATOR: He thrusts himself forward with no sign of fear;
Senta hesitates, uncertain whether to strike.
SENTA: What else can I do but stab him?
(He slashes at Shimazo, who dodges and with a stick engages Senta in a wild scuffle. Shimazo cracks the stick against Senta’s wrist and the dagger drops to the ground. Senta tries to retrieve it, but is prevented by Shimazo. The two men strike poses. They then grapple again. Shimazo finally strikes Senta to the ground. He picks up the dagger and presses it against Senta’s chest.)
SHIMAZO: Well, Senta, all it would take for me to kill you now is just one thrust, and there is nothing you can do about it. You won’t reconsider even if it costs you your life?
(He releases the pressure of the dagger.)
SENTA: Who is going to change his ways? If you want to kill me, go ahead. That will make a murderer out of you, but I won’t be the only one to die. Go ahead and kill me.
SHIMAZO: Yes, even though you’re a scoundrel, you’re still a human being, and I realize that if I kill you I’ll die for it.
SENTA: If you realize that, kill me. Come on, kill me. Kill me quickly.
(He pushes himself against Shimazo, who takes Senta by the front of his kimono and forces him to the ground.)
SHIMAZO: You’ve asked for it—I will kill you.
NARRATOR: Holding the dagger downwards, Shimazo
Lifts his arm to stab him, but hesitates:
Villain though Senta is, until today
They had called each other brother.
Stirred by his emotion Shimazo relents.
SHIMAZO: You tell me to kill you, and I know I should. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I once thought of you as my brother. If you will only realize that what you have done is wrong, and give up being a thief, I’ll help you all the rest of my life. And as for the five hundred yen—your share of the loot—I’l
l make it up somehow, if only you turn over a new leaf. As I said, I intend to surrender to the police as soon as I have returned the money to Fukushimaya. I’ve made up my mind to throw myself on the mercy of the government, and am confident that they will shorten my sentence. To give yourself up after returning the money is not a very spectacular thing to do, but even thieves will recognize you as a hero for it. Would you rather be praised and enabled to live out your full life, and even be of some service to your country, or abused and forced to die? You’ve reached the boundary between life and death now. Be sure you are doing the right thing.
NARRATOR: Shimazo, full of forgiveness, a true brother,
Speaks words of advice that sink with the breeze
Of the autumn night into the flesh
Of Senta the villain who, as one waking
From nightmares, returns to virtue’s ways.
SENTA: (He gradually looks up, and in an attitude of repentance lifts his head.4 When he has raised it fully, he wipes away his tears and joins his hands in supplication.) Forgive me, brother. You have convinced me. I’ll change my ways.
SHIMAZO: You’re really serious?
SENTA: What else is there to do? You’ve always advised me more patiently, more kindly than any blood relation, even though I’ve been such a monster. That was because we were sworn brothers, but today at last your words have sunk in. They have completely changed me. To prove to you that I’m not lying—(He picks up the dagger and attempts to kill himself, but Shimazo stops him.)
SHIMAZO: Senta, what are you doing? I was giving you such harsh advice because I wanted to save your life. Do you think I would talk that way if I dreamt it would drive you to kill yourself? Now that you’ve repented, what makes you do such a thing? (He twists away the dagger.)