‘But now there was a new note in the whispering. It was no longer threatening. It called and coaxed. It drew. A new terror gripped me. There had come upon me a mighty desire to leave the cave and go out where the lights swung; to let them do with me as they pleased, carry me where they wished. The desire grew. It gained fresh impulse with every rise of the beam until at last I vibrated with the desire as I had vibrated to the chant in the Temple. My body was a pendulum. Up would go the beam and I would swing toward it! Only my soul kept steady. It held me fast to the floor of the cave; And all that night it fought with my body against the spell of the pit people.
‘Dawn came. Again I crept from the cave and faced the Stairway. I could not rise. My hands were torn and bleeding; my knees an agony. I forced myself upward step by step. After a while my hands became numb, the pain left my knees. They deadened. Step by step my will drove my body upward upon them.
‘And then – a nightmare of crawling up infinite stretches of steps – memories of dull horror while hidden within caves with the lights pulsing without and whisperings that called and called me – memory of a time when I awoke to find that my body was obeying the call and had carried me half way out between the guardians of the portals while thousands of gleaming globes rested in the blue haze and watched me. Glimpses of bitter fights against sleep and always, always – a climb up and up along infinite distances of steps that led from Abaddon to a Paradise of blue sky and open world!
‘At last a consciousness of the clear sky close above me, the lip of the pit before me – memory of passing between the great portals of the pit and of steady withdrawal from it – dreams of giant men with strange peaked crowns and veiled faces who pushed me onward and onward and held back Roman Candle globules of light that sought to draw me back to a gulf wherein planets swam between the branches of red trees that had snakes for crowns.
‘And then a long, long sleep – how long God alone knows – in a cleft of rocks; an awakening to see far in the North the beam still rising and falling, the lights still hunting, the whispering high above me calling.
‘Again crawling on dead arms and legs that moved – that moved – like the Ancient Mariner’s ship – without volition of mine, but that carried me from a haunted place. And then – your fire – and this – safety!’
The crawling man smiled at us for a moment. Then swiftly life faded from his face. He slept.
That afternoon we struck camp and carrying the crawling man started back South. For three days we carried him and still he slept. And on the third day, still sleeping, he died. We built a great pile of wood and we burned his body as he had asked. We scattered his ashes about the forest with the ashes of the trees that had consumed him. It must be a great magic indeed that could disentangle those ashes and draw him back in a rushing cloud to the pit he called Accursed. I do not think that even the People of the Pit have such a spell. No.
But we did not return to the five peaks to see.
The Hell Screen
Rynosuke Akutagawa
Translated into English by Morinaka Akira
Rynosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927) was a Japanese writer active in Taish period Japan and often called the ‘father of the Japanese short story’. His name loosely translates to ‘Son of Dragon’, as he was born in the year, month, day, and hour of the Dragon. He published his first short story, ‘ Rashmon’, while still a student and wrote over one hundred more in his lifetime. Depression and hallucinations hounded him and he eventually committed suicide at the age of thirty-five. His dying words in his will claimed he felt a ‘vague uneasiness’. The story reprinted here, ‘The Hell Screen’ (1918) in a new definitive translation, is a masterpiece, with the ‘weird’ always ever a glimmer in the background.
Neither in the past nor in the time to come could one imagine a person comparable to the High Lord of Horikawa. I heard that, before his birth, Dai Itoku-Myo-o1, the King of Magical Science, appeared at his mother’s bedside. From birth, Horikawa was different from the others. Of all the things he ever did, I cannot recall an act that did not deserve our wonderment. To mention an example among many, the structure of his palace – how should I define it? – Immense? Grandiose? – was so astounding as to surpass the boundaries of our limited imagination. Some went so far as to compare his temperament and conduct to those of the First Emperor of the Ch’in or the Emperor Yang, although, while considering this comparison, we should keep in mind the idea that different people have different opinions, as with the proverbial blind men who touched different parts of an elephant and drew contradicting conclusions about the animal. Contrary to those emperors, our lord’s intention was never to enjoy the luxury life can provide. He had a kind and generous heart that would partake in the happiness and distress of all, even the humblest among his subjects. For these reasons, when he encountered a procession of ghosts in the large palace of Nijo, he was able to pass through them unscathed. And when the spirit of Secretary Tooru prowled every night the Kawaranoin Palace in Higashi-Sanjo, famed for the garden inspired by the marine landscape of Shiogama in the Michinoku province, the Lord reprimanded it, after which the spectre vanished forever. Of course, as soon as the people of Kyoto, young and old, men and women, heard Horikawa’s name, they would genuflect as if they had seen Buddha’s avatar.
One day, on his way home from the banquet of the Plum Blossoms, one of the oxen pulling his cart broke away and injured an old man who was passing by. It is rumoured that the old man joined his hands to express his gratitude for having been touched by the hoof of the Lord’s ox.
His life was full of many memorable facts, most of which should be bequeathed to posterity.
During a court banquet, the Emperor gave him thirty horses, all of them white…Once, when construction work on the Nagara Bridge was damaged, he offered his favourite boy attendants as human pillars to propitiate the gods…He had a carbuncle removed from his thigh by a Chinese bonze who had introduced the magical healing methods of a celebrated Chinese physician. If I should recount all the anecdotes, I would never finish. But among all these episodes, none surpasses in horror the story of the Hell scene painted on a screen that is now part of the Lord’s family treasure. Even the High Lord, who was usually impassive, seemed to have been utterly shocked by the events. No need to explain that we, his attendants, were frightened out of our wits. In more than twenty years passed in the service of the Lord, I had never witnessed more horrid a spectacle.
But before telling you the story, I must introduce the painter called Yoshihide, the author of the Hell scene on the screen.
II
Yoshihide! Some people may even remember him today. In his time he was considered the first among painters, an unrivalled artist. When what I am going to relate happened, he was already over fifty. At first sight, he appeared to be a short, cantankerous old man, all skin and bone. Each time he came to the Lord’s palace, he wore a clove-dyed hunting garment and a floppy eboshi on his head, but he had a vulgar appearance and his lips, too red for his age, had an unsettling bestial quality. I do not know for sure the cause of this red colour. Some said he had the habit of licking his paintbrush. Others, more slanderous, compared his appearance and gait to those of a monkey and nicknamed him Saruhide (Monkey-hide).
About this moniker, this is the story I heard. Our Monkeyhide had an only daughter, who was fifteen years old and served as a lady-in-waiting in the Lord’s palace. This girl, intelligent and observant beyond her age because she had lost her mother when she was little and had taken care of herself, was charming and very beautiful. For these reasons, she had won the good graces of Her Ladyship and all the waiting ladies.
Someone from the province of Tamba, west of Kyoto, had offered a well-trained monkey to the Lord. The Prince, the Lord’s young son, who was at the time in the age of mischievousness, named the monkey Yoshihide. The monkey’s gestures were amusing indeed, and everyone in the palace laughed at the animal. If this mockery had been all, things would not have been that bad for the monkey,
but each time it climbed up the pine tree in the garden or soiled the mats in the Prince’s bedroom, everyone chased him, shouting, ‘Yoshihide, Yoshihide,’ to tease the poor beast.
One day, Yoshihide’s daughter, Yuzuki, passed through the long corridor, carrying a letter attached to a winter-plum branch, when she saw the small monkey come from beyond the sliding door and run toward her. The monkey limped and seemed incapable of climbing up one of the palace columns as she used to do. The Prince ran after the monkey, a switch in his hand, and cried, ‘Stop, tangerine thief! Stop.’
At this sight, the young woman stopped for an instant. Just then, the monkey flopped down at her feet, gripped the hem of her kimono and begged her with doleful cries. She could not refrain from feeling compassion. Holding the plum branch with one hand, she picked the monkey up with the other, her long mauve-coloured sleeve flying.
‘Lord,’ she said in a smoothly agreeable voice, bowing. ‘Let me intercede in this monkey’s favour. It is only a beast. Prithee, forgive it.’
But the Prince had been chasing the monkey with determination. He made a face and stamped his foot three times. ‘Why do you wish to protect it? This monkey is a tangerine thief, I tell you.’
‘It is a beast,’ she repeated. Then she took on a sad expression and dared say, ‘When I hear that name, Yoshihide, I have the impression my father is being reprimanded.’
Hearing this remark, the Prince, arrogant or not, gave in. ‘I see. If you ask in the name of your father, I will pardon the monkey.’ Then he threw the switch down and went back through the sliding door whence he had come.
III
From that day on, Yoshihide’s daughter and the monkey became fast friends. She tied a beautiful red ribbon around the animal’s neck, and also hung a tiny bell she had received from the young Princess. The monkey would leave her presence on no account. Once, Yuzuki had to stay in bed with a light cold, and the monkey watched over her, gnawing on its fingernails in apparent concern.
Now things took a peculiar turn. No one would mistreat the monkey any longer. On the contrary, they all began petting it. Not only did the Prince throw persimmons or chestnuts to the monkey, once His Highness became furious because some samurai had shot a kick at the little beast. This news reaching his ears, the Lord gave gracious orders that girl and monkey be brought before his presence. He must also have known why the girl had come to protect the beast.
‘You are a good and dutiful daughter,’ the Lord said. ‘I am pleased with you.’ With these words, she received a scarlet hakama2 from the Lord.
The monkey mimicked the girl’s deference by raising the hem of the robe to its forehead, to the Lord’s immense amusement and pleasure. You can see that the Lord took the young woman into his good grace because he had been impressed with her filial piety, not because he admired her charms, as it was whispered. The rumours might have been justified on some grounds, but I will talk about such things later on. Suffice it to say that the Lord was not one to fall for as lowly a girl as a painter’s daughter, no matter how charming.
The girl withdrew from the Lord’s presence feeling highly honoured, but being naturally wise and intelligent, she did nothing to awake her fellow maids’ jealousy. On the contrary, this honour won the ladies’ favour for both herself and her monkey. Her Ladyship loved Yuzuki so much she kept the lady-in-waiting in her constant presence and brought her everywhere she went in her princely carriage.
Now let me set the girl aside for a while as I tell you about her father, Yoshihide. Although Yoshihide the monkey came to be loved by everyone, Yoshihide the painter continued to be hated by everyone. And they went on calling him ‘Monkeyhide’ behind his back. The residents of the palace were not alone in this general dislike. The great priest of Yokawa, for example, would turn red in the face at the mere mention of Yoshihide’s name, as if he had seen a devil (as the rumour had it, Yoshihide had painted the priest in a humoristic scene depicting his conduct, but I know of no foundation proving the rumour true). At any rate, Yoshihide had a bad reputation everywhere. If one or two people did not speak ill of him, they were his fellow painters, who had seen his paintings but had never met him in person.
Not only had Yoshihide a vulgar aspect, he also had such shocking habits that everyone considered him a nuisance. For this reputation, he had no one but himself to blame.
IV
He was avaricious, mean, cowardly, lazy and insatiable, but above all he was insolent and conceited. Always ‘I, the greatest painter in Japan’ was plastered across his forehead. His bad temperament manifested itself beyond his work, through a profound contempt for all customs and practices in life. According to an apprentice who had lived with him for a long time, one day a spirit was spouting a terrible oracle from the mouth of the famous medium of Higaki. Yoshihide, turning a deaf ear to the oracle, took the brush and ink he always carried and painted the medium’s frightening face. Our painter deemed the eventuality of being cursed by a spirit as serious as a child’s play.
Yoshihide did inconceivably sacrilegious things. In picturing the goddess Kichijoten, he copied the face of an abject courtesan, and in picturing the King of the Magical Science Fudo, the god that destroys all demons, he copied a thief’s figure, and so on, but if someone reprimanded him he answered impudently, ‘How strange. Do you really believe the deities Yoshihide painted will hit him with lightning?’ When he spoke in this way many of his own disciples took leave of him in fearful anticipation of terrible consequences. In other words, Yoshihide was arrogance incarnate – he truly thought he was the smartest man under the sun.
No need to say how highly he esteemed himself as a painter. His paintings were so different in brushwork and colouring from those of other painters that many of his colleagues, who were on bad terms with him, considered him an impostor. Several legends affirmed that the famous paintings by the ancient masters like Kawanari, Kanaoka and others were so well rendered that one could smell the fragrance of the plum blossoms painted on the doors as the delicate scent wafted about in the moonlit nights, and one could also hear the courtiers painted on a screen play their flutes. But all the paintings by Yoshihide seemed to elicit disturbing feelings. One would cite the scene of the Goshushoji3, the cycle of births and deaths, hung on the portal of the Ryugai temple. Each time one passed under the gate at night, one could hear the celestial creatures sigh and sob. Some said they could smell the stench of rotting corpses. As rumour had it, the waiting ladies whose likenesses Yoshihide had painted at the Lord’s command all fell ill and died within a few years. According to the slanderers, those events were proofs of Yoshihide’s dabbling in black arts. His paintings, the critics said, were cursed. Being an eccentric, Yoshihide took pride in these rumours.
Once, when the Lord told him, as a joke, ‘It would seem you are partial to ugliness,’ he replied with arrogance, a grin on that strangely red mouth of his, ‘That is true, my Lord. It is an unaccomplished artist who cannot perceive beauty in ugliness.’
Notwithstanding his superiority over any other painter in the country, how could he make such a haughty reply to the Lord? His apprentices secretly nicknamed him ‘Chira-Eiju.’ Maybe you already know that Chira-Eiju was the name of a Tengu4, who came from China in older times.
Nevertheless, even the insufferable, shameless Yoshihide was not without feelings; one, single human emotion remained within him.
V
Yoshihide adored his only daughter, the little lady-in-waiting, and his love for her bordered on madness. As I said before, she was sweet and devoted to her father. It seemed strange that, to this avaricious man, nothing was beautiful enough for his daughter: kimono, hairpins and expensive hairdressers. Although he never contributed his tithes or mites to any Buddhist temple, he doted so much on her no expense was too extravagant for the girl’s adornment, although I do not know if this rumour is true. He adored her wildly and madly, and he never gave any thought to finding her a good husband. On the contrary, if anyone had courted her, he would have hire
d street assassins to get rid of the suitor in the dead of night. When the Lord expressed the wish of having the painter’s daughter as a lady-in-waiting, Yoshihide was so displeased he came to the palace with a sour face, even in the presence of the Lord himself. The rumour that the Lord had called the painter’s daughter to the palace because he was enamoured of her beauty might have originated in the displeasure the painter bore so openly. I am sure it was mere gossiping, while it was true that Yoshihide adored his daughter and strongly wished to have her at home with him.
One day, Yoshihide painted a cherub in the likeness of one of the Lord’s favourite boys. The Lord, pleased, said to the painter, ‘Yoshihide, I will grant any request of yours. So tell me what you wish.’
‘If it pleases Your Lordship,’ Yoshihide dared say. ‘Let my daughter be released from your service.’
The painter’s reply would have been conceivable if he had answered another lord, but who would have imagined Yoshihide would be so presumptuous as to ask of the Lord Horikawa to let go of his favourite lady-in-waiting, even though Yoshihide loved his daughter so much?
Even though the Lord was very indulgent, he seemed offended. He stared at the painter for a moment, and then he uttered, ‘No. I can’t grant that,’ and left on the spot.
The two of them found themselves in the same situation four or five times. Thinking back on it, I can recall that the Lord’s gaze became ever colder when he looked at the painter. And the painter’s daughter wept when she was alone in her room, covering her face with the sleeve of her kimono. Thereafter the rumour spread all the more that the Lord was enamoured of the girl.
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories Page 26