by Osamu Dazai
Despising each other as we did, we were constantly together, thereby degrading ourselves. If that is what the world calls friendship, the relations between Horiki and myself were undoubtedly those of friendship.
I threw myself on the chivalry of the madam of the bar in Kyobashi. (It is a strange use of the word to speak of a woman’s chivalry, but in my experience, at least in the cities, the women possessed a greater abundance of what might be termed chivalry than the men. Most men concerned themselves, all fear and trembling, only with appearances, and were stingy to boot.) She enabled me to marry Yoshiko and to rent a room on the ground floor of an apartment building near the Sumida River which we made our home. I gave up drink and devoted my energies to drawing cartoons. After dinner we would go out together to see a movie, and on the way back we would stop at a milk bar or buy pots of flowers. But more than any of these things it gave me pleasure just to listen to the words or watch the movements of my little bride, who trusted in me with all her heart. Then, just when I had begun to entertain faintly in my breast the sweet notion that perhaps there was a chance I might turn one of these days into a human being and be spared the necessity of a horrible death, Horiki showed up again.
He hailed me, “How’s the great lover? Why, what’s this? Do I detect a note of caution in your face—you, of all people? I’ve come today as a messenger from the Lady of Koenji.” He lowered his voice and thrust his jaw in the direction of Yoshiko, who was preparing tea in the kitchen, as much as to ask whether it was all right to continue.
I answered nonchalantly, “It doesn’t matter. You can say anything before her.”
As a matter of fact, Yoshiko was what I should like to call a genius at trusting people. She suspected nothing of my relations with the madam of the bar in Kyobashi, and even after I told her all about the incident which occurred at Kamakura, she was equally unsuspicious of my relations with Tsuneko. It was not because I was an accomplished liar—at times I spoke quite bluntly, but Yoshiko seemed to take everything I said as a joke.
“You seem to be just as cocksure of yourself as ever. Anyway, it’s nothing important. She asked me to tell you to visit her once in a while.”
Just when I was beginning to forget, that bird of ill-omen came flapping my way, to rip open with its beak the wounds of memory. All at once shame over the past and the recollection of sin unfolded themselves before my eyes and, seized by a terror so great it made me want to shriek, I could not sit still a moment longer. “How about a drink?” I asked.
“Suits me,” said Horiki.
Horiki and myself. Though outwardly he appeared to be a human being like the rest, I sometimes felt he was exactly like myself. Of course that was only after we had been making the round of the bars, drinking cheap liquor here and there. When the two of us met face to face it was as if we immediately metamorphosed into dogs of the same shape and pelt, and we bounded out through the streets covered with fallen snow.
That was how we happened to warm over, as it were, the embers of our old friendship. We went together to the bar in Kyobashi and, eventually, we two soused dogs visited Shizuko’s apartment in Koenji, where I sometimes spent the night.
I shall never forget. It was a sticky hot summer’s night. Horiki had come to my apartment about dusk wearing a tattered summer kimono. He told me that an emergency had come up and he had been obliged to pawn his summer suit. He asked me to lend him some money because he was anxious to redeem the suit before his aged mother found out. The matter apparently concerned him genuinely. As ill luck would have it, I hadn’t any money at my place. As usual I sent Yoshiko out to the pawnshop with some of her clothes. I lent Horiki what he needed from the money she received, but there was still a little left over, and I asked Yoshiko to buy some gin with it. We went up on the roof of the apartment house, where we celebrated the evening cool with a dismal little party. Faint miasmic gusts of wind blew in from the river every now and then.
We began a guessing game of tragic and comic nouns. This game, which I myself had invented, was based on the proposition that just as nouns could be divided into masculine, feminine and neuter, so there was a distinction between tragic and comic nouns. For example, this system decreed that steamship and steam engine were both tragic nouns, while streetcar and bus were comic. Persons who failed to see why this was true were obviously unqualified to discuss art, and a playwright who included even a single tragic noun in a comedy showed himself a failure if for no other reason. The same held equally true of comic nouns in tragedies.
I began the questioning. “Are you ready? What is tobacco?”
“Tragic,” Horiki answered promptly.
“What about medicine?”
“Powder or pills?”
“Injection.”
“Tragic.”
“I wonder. Don’t forget, there are hormone injections too.”
“No, there’s no question but it’s tragic. First of all, there’s a needle—what could be more tragic than a needle?”
“You win. But, you know, medicines and doctors are, surprisingly enough, comic. What about death?”
“Comic. And that goes for Christian ministers and Buddhist priests, too.”
“Bravo! Then life must be tragic?”
“Wrong. It’s comic, too.”
“In that case everything becomes comic. Here’s one more for you. What about cartoonist? You couldn’t possibly call it a comic noun, could you?”
“Tragic. An extremely tragic noun.”
“What do you mean? Extremely tragic is a good description of you.”
Any game which can drop to the level of such abysmal jokes is despicable, but we were very proud of what we considered to be an extremely witty diversion, never before known in the salons of the world.
I had invented one other game of a rather similar character, a guessing game of antonyms. The antonym of black is white. But the antonym of white is red. The antonym of red is black.
I asked now, “What’s the antonym of flower?”
Horiki frowned in thought. “Let me see. There used to be a restaurant called the ‘Flower Moon’. It must be moon.”
“That’s not an antonym. It’s more of a synonym. Aren’t star and garter synonymous? It’s not an antonym.”
“I’ve got it. It’s bee.”
“Bee?”
“Aren’t there bees—or is it ants—in peonies?”
“What are you trying to do? No bluffing now.”
“I know! Clustering clouds that cover the flowers . . .”
“You must be thinking of clouds that cover the moon.”
“That’s right. Wind that destroys the blossoms. It’s the wind. The antonym of flower is wind.”
“Pretty poor. Sounds like a line out of a popular song. You betray your origins.”
“Well, then, how about something more recondite, say a mandolin?”
“Still no good. The antonym of flower . . . you’re supposed to name the thing in the world which is least like a flower.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do. Wait! How about this—a woman?”
“Then what’s a synonym for woman?”
“Entrails.”
“You’re not very poetic, are you? Well, then, what’s the antonym for entrails?”
“Milk.”
“That’s pretty good. One more in that vein. Shame. What’s the antonym of shame?”
“Shameless—a popular cartoonist I could name.”
“What about Masao Horiki?”
By the time we reached this point we had gradually become incapable of laughter, and were beginning to experience the particular oppressiveness, as if one’s head were stuffed with broken glass, that comes from getting drunk on gin.
“Don’t be cheeky now. I for one have never been tied up like a common criminal the way you have.”
I was taken aback. Horiki at heart did not treat me like a full human being. He could only consider me as the living corpse of a would-be suicide, a person dead to shame, an i
diot ghost. His friendship had no other purpose but to utilize me in whichever way would most further his own pleasures. This thought naturally did not make me very happy, but I realized after a moment that it was entirely to be expected that Horiki should take this view of me; that from long ago, even as a child, I seemed to lack the qualifications of a human being; and that, for all I knew, contempt, even from Horiki, might be entirely merited.
I said, feigning tranquillity, “Crime. What’s the antonym of crime? This is a hard one.”
“The law, of course,” Horiki answered flatly. I looked at his face again. Caught in the flashing red light of a neon sign on a nearby building, Horiki’s face had the somber dignity of the relentless prosecutor. I felt shaken to the core.
“Crime belongs in a different category.”
Imagine saying that the law was the antonym of crime! But perhaps everybody in “society” can go on living in self-satisfaction, thanks to just such simple concepts. They think that crime hatches where there are no policemen.
“Well, in that case what would it be? God? That would suit you—there’s something about you that smells a little of a Christian priest. I find it offensive.”
“Let’s not dispose of the problem so lightly. Let’s think about it a bit more together. Isn’t it an interesting theme? I feel you can tell everything about a man just from his answer to this one question.”
“You can’t be serious. The antonym of crime is virtue. A virtuous citizen. In short, someone like myself.”
“Let’s not joke. Virtue is the antonym of vice, not of crime.”
“Are vice and crime different?”
“They are, I think. Virtue and vice are concepts invented by human beings, words for a morality which human beings arbitrarily devised.”
“What a nuisance. Well, I suppose it is God in that case. God. God. You can’t go wrong if you leave everything at God . . . I’m hungry.”
“Yoshiko is cooking some beans downstairs now.”
“Thanks. I like beans.” He lay down on the floor, his hands tucked under his head.
I said, “You don’t seem to be very interested in crime.”
“That’s right. I’m not a criminal like you. I may indulge myself with a little dissipation, but I don’t cause women to die, and I don’t lift money from them either.”
The voice of a resistance weak but desperate spoke from somewhere in my heart. It said that I had not caused anyone to die, that I had not lifted money from anyone—but once again the ingrained habit of considering myself evil took command.
It is quite impossible for me to contradict anyone to his face. I struggled with all my might to control the feelings which mounted more dangerously in me with each instant, the result of the depressing effects of the gin. Finally I muttered almost to myself, “Actions punishable by jail sentences are not the only crimes. If we knew the antonym of crime, I think we would know its true nature. God . . . salvation . . . love . . . light. But for God there is the antonym Satan, for salvation there is perdition, for love there is hate, for light there is darkness, for good, evil. Crime and prayer? Crime and repentance? Crime and confession? Crime and ... no, they’re all synonymous. What is the opposite of crime?”
“Well if you spell ‘crime’ backwards—no, that doesn’t make sense. But the word does contain the letters r-i-c-e. Rice. I’m hungry. Bring me something to eat.”
“Why don’t you go get it yourself?” My voice shook with a rage I had almost never before betrayed.
“All right. I’ll go downstairs, then Yoshiko and I will commit a crime together. Personal demonstration is better than empty debates. The antonym of crime is rice. No—it’s beans!” He was so drunk he could barely articulate the words.
“Do as you please. Only get the hell out of here.”
He got up mumbling incoherently. “Crime and an empty stomach. Empty stomach and beans. No. Those are synonyms.”
Crime and punishment. Dostoievski. These words grazed over a corner of my mind, startling me. Just supposing Dostoievski ranged ‘crime’ and ‘punishment’ side by side not as synonyms but as antonyms. Crime and punishment—absolutely incompatible ideas, irreconcilable as oil and water. I felt I was beginning to understand what lay at the bottom of the scum-covered, turbid pond, that chaos of Dostoievski’s mind—no, I still didn’t quite see . . . Such thoughts were flashing through my head like a revolving lantern when I heard a voice.
“Extraordinary beans you’ve got here. Come have a look.”
Horiki’s voice and color had changed. Just a minute before he had staggered off downstairs, and here he was back again, before I knew it.
“What is it?”
A strange excitement ran through me. The two of us went down from the roof to the second floor and were half-way down the stairs to my room on the ground floor when Horiki stopped me and whispered, “Look!” He pointed.
A small window opened over my room, through which I could see the interior. The light was lit and two animals were visible.
My eyes swam, but I murmured to myself through my violent breathing, “This is just another aspect of the behavior of human beings. There’s nothing to be surprised at.” I stood petrified on the staircase, not even thinking to help Yoshiko.
Horiki noisily cleared his throat. I ran back up to the roof to escape and collapsed there. The feelings which assailed me as I looked up at the summer night sky heavy with rain were not of fury or hatred, nor even of sadness. They were of overpowering fear, not the terror the sight of ghosts in a graveyard might arouse, but rather a fierce ancestral dread that could not be expressed in four or five words, something perhaps like encountering in the sacred grove of a Shinto shrine the white-clothed body of the god. My hair turned prematurely grey from that night. I had now lost all confidence in myself, doubted all men immeasurably, and abandoned all hopes for the things of this world, all joy, all sympathy, eternally. This was truly the decisive incident of my life. I had been split through the forehead between the eyebrows, a wound that was to throb with pain whenever I came in contact with a human being.
“I sympathize, but I hope it’s taught you a lesson. I won’t be coming back. This place is a perfect hell . . . But you should forgive Yoshiko. After all, you’re not much of a prize yourself. So long.” Horiki was not stupid enough to linger in an embarrassing situation.
I got up and poured myself a glass of gin. I wept bitterly, crying aloud. I could have wept on and on, interminably.
Without my realizing it, Yoshiko was standing haplessly behind me bearing a platter with a mountain of beans on it. “He told me he wouldn’t do anything . . .”
“It’s all right. Don’t say anything. You didn’t know enough to distrust others. Sit down. Let’s eat the beans.”
We sat down side by side and ate the beans. Is trustfulness a sin, I wonder? The man was an illiterate shopkeeper, an undersized runt of about thirty, who used to ask me to draw cartoons for him, and then would make a great ado over the trifling sums of money he paid for them.
The shopkeeper, not surprisingly, did not come again. I felt less hatred for him than I did for Horiki. Why, when he first discovered them together had he not cleared his throat then, instead of returning to the roof to inform me? On nights when I could not sleep hatred and loathing for him gathered inside me until I groaned under the pressure.
I neither forgave nor refused to forgive her. Yoshiko was a genius at trusting people. She didn’t know how to suspect anyone. But the misery it caused.
God, I ask you. Is trustfulness a sin?
It was less the fact of Yoshiko’s defilement than the defilement of her trust in people which became so persistent a source of grief as almost to render my life insupportable. For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people’s faces, Yoshiko’s immaculate trustfulness seemed clean and pure, like a waterfall among green leaves. One night sufficed to turn the
waters of this pure cascade yellow and muddy. Yoshiko began from that night to fret over my every smile or frown.
She would jump when I called her, and seemed at a loss which way to turn. She remained tense and afraid, no matter how much I tried to make her smile, no matter how much I played the clown. She began to address me with an excessive profusion of honorifics.
Is immaculate trustfulness after all a source of sin?
I looked up various novels in which married women are violated. I tried reading them, but I could not find a single instance of a woman violated in so lamentable a manner as Yoshiko. Her story obviously could never be made into a novel. I might actually have felt better if anything in the least resembling love existed between that runt of a shopkeeper and Yoshiko, but one summer night Yoshiko was trusting, and that was all there was to it . . . And on account of that incident I was cleft between the eyebrows, my voice became hoarse, my hair turned prematurely grey, and Yoshiko was condemned to a life of anxiety. In most of the novels I read emphasis was placed on whether or not the husband forgave the wife’s “act.” It seemed to me, however, that any husband who still retains the right to forgive or not to forgive is a lucky man. If he thinks that he can’t possibly forgive his wife, he ought, instead of making such a great fuss, to get divorced as quickly as possible and find a new wife. If he can’t do that he should forgive and show forbearance. In either case the matter can be completely settled in whichever way the husband’s feelings dictate. In other words, even though such an incident certainly comes as a great shock to the husband, it is a shock and not an endless series of waves which lash back at him over and over again. It seemed to me a problem which could be disposed of by the wrath of any husband with authority. But in our case the husband was without authority, and when I thought things over, I came to feel that everything was my fault. Far from becoming enraged, I could not utter a word of complaint; it was on account of that rare virtue she possessed that my wife was violated, a virtue I long had prized, the unbearably pitiful one called immaculate trustfulness.
Is immaculate trustfulness a sin?
Now that I harbored doubts about the one virtue I had depended on, I lost all comprehension of everything around me. My only resort was drink. My face coarsened markedly and my teeth fell out from the interminable drinking bouts to which I surrendered myself. The cartoons I drew now verged on the pornographic. No, I’ll come out with it plainly: I began about this time to copy pornographic pictures which I secretly peddled. I wanted money to buy gin. When I looked at Yoshiko always averting her glance and trembling, doubt gave birth to fresh doubt: it was unlikely, wasn’t it, that a woman with absolutely no defences should have yielded only that once with the shopkeeper. Had she been also with Horiki? Or with somebody I didn’t even know? I hadn’t the courage to question her; writhing in my usual doubts and fears, I drank gin. Sometimes when drunk I timidly attempted a few sneaking ventures at indirect questioning. In my heart I bounded foolishly from joy to sorrow at her responses, but on the surface I never ceased my immoderate clowning. Afterwards I would inflict on Yoshiko an abominable, hellish caressing before I dropped into a dead sleep.