Mandarins: Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

  No border guardsman, as the proverb tells us, can halt the passage of time. One should imagine how within a twinkling of an eye, a year had come and gone. Then there was in Nagasaki a conflagration that in one night destroyed half of the city. So terrifying was the spectacle that the hair of those who witnessed it stood on end, for they might well have believed that they had heard the trumpet of the Last Judgment thundering across the fiery sky.

  To the misfortune of the old umbrella-maker, his house lay down-wind of the blaze and was quickly enveloped. The entire family fled in panic, only to realize that the grandchild was nowhere to be seen. They had clearly left her asleep in one of the rooms. The old man scuffed the ground and cursed, while his daughter attempted to rush into the inferno, only to be restrained. The wind grew all the more intense, the flames licking upward as though to engulf the very stars in the heavens. Even the townspeople who had gathered with the intention of battling the fire could do no more than mill about or attempt to calm the frantic mother. But now pushing his way hurriedly through the crowd came Irmão Simeon. A stout warrior who had survived arrow and bullet on the field of battle, he bravely entered the burning house as soon as he understood what had come to pass. Yet the flames proved too much even for him, and after two or three attempts at plunging through smoke, he turned back and hastily retreated. He came to where the grandfather and mother were lingering and said: “This too is in accordance with all that the Divine Will has ordained. To this you must resign yourselves.”

  At that moment, someone to the side of the old man was heard to cry out: “Lord, help me!” Simeon turned, recognizing the voice with both wonder and certainty. One look at those pitiful, fair features was enough for him to know that this was Lorenzo. His pure, gaunt face glowing red with the fire and his dark hair, now grown beyond his shoulders, fluttering in the wind, the beggar stood in front of the crowd and stared straight ahead at the blazing house. Yet only an instant later, it seemed, he had rushed in amidst those burning pillars, walls, and beams, even as a terrible wind arose to fan the already raging flames. Simeon felt his body covered in sweat, as he made the sign of the cross in the air and cried out, “Lord, save him!” In his mind’s eye, he could see once again the beautiful, mournful Lorenzo, standing at the portals of Santa Lucia, bathed in the light of the sun, as it shimmered in the wintry wind.

  The Christians gathered there looked on in amazement at Lorenzo’s courage, but they seemed unable to forget his past sin. Immediately the sound of wagging tongues was borne by the wind over the din of the crowd: “A fine display of paternal love! His shame was too great for him to show his face until now that he must leap into the fire to save his own child!” There was not one among them who did not exchange such words of scorn.

  The old man appeared to agree with them. He stared at Lorenzo, and then, as though to conceal the strange agitation in his heart, twisted and turned where he stood, shrieking absurdities. His daughter, now utterly distraught, knelt motionless; covering her face with both hands, she was earnestly praying. The sky rained sparks, as smoke swept over the ground and into her face. Lost to the world, she continued silently in her entreaties.

  Now again there was a stirring in the multitude facing the blaze, as Lorenzo, emerging from the inferno, his hair disheveled, appeared as though descending from heaven, the infant in his arms. But suddenly a beam, apparently having been burned asunder, came crashing down with a terrifying roar, sending smoke and flames high into the night sky. All sight of Lorenzo was lost, with nothing remaining but pillars of fire, rising from the earth like branches of coral.

  There was no one in the crowd of the faithful, from Simeon to the old umbrella-maker, who was not stunned and confounded by the terror and horror. The young woman uttered a shriek and jumped up, exposing her bare legs, before collapsing again, as though, they say, struck by lightning. Yet whatever the truth may be, it suddenly and wondrously appeared to them, though when they did not know, that the infant, for all the tenuousness of earthly life, was now in her mother’s firm embrace.

  Oh, there are no words that can do homage to the infinite wisdom and power of Deus! Lorenzo had, with all his force, thrown the child forward as the burning beam fell, so that she had rolled, quite unharmed, to the very feet of her mother. The girl threw herself prostrate on the ground, her voice choked with tears of joy, while her father, standing erect, raised his arms and in solemn tones spontaneously offered up a hymn of praise to the Lord of Mercy—or rather, I should say, had just begun to do so, when Simeon moved ahead of him and with a single bound threw himself into the surging storm of fire, intent on the rescue of Lorenzo. Now the old man raised his voice again, though now directing an anxious and piteous prayer into the dark firmament. He was not, of course, alone. All of the faithful around them were in unison in their tearful entreaty: “Lord, save them!” And the Son of the Virgem Maria, our Savior Jesu Cristo, who taketh upon Himself the sufferings and sorrows of us all, at long last heard their prayer. Behold! Lorenzo, horribly burned, now emerged again from the fire and smoke in the protective arms of Simeon.

  This was not, however, to be the end of the night’s wondrous and terrible events. The faithful hastened to carry Lorenzo, who was struggling for breath, to the doors of the church, which was mercifully upwind of the fire. There they laid him down to rest.

  As the padre came out to meet them, the umbrella-maker’s daughter, who had been clutching the infant to her breast even as her tears continued to flow, suddenly knelt at his feet and before the entire assembly made a most unexpected confissão: “This child is not of Lorenzo’s seed. In truth, she was conceived through my sinful liaison with the son of the gentios next door.”

  The earnestness of her trembling voice and her glistening, tear-filled eyes would alone have dispelled any suspicion as to the veracity of her confession. The crowd around them could only gasp in astonishment, oblivious to the firestorm that filled the sky.

  She ceased her weeping and continued:

  “I pined and yearned for Lorenzo, but so fervent was he in his faith that he quite rebuffed me. I sought to tell him of the resentment that filled my heart by falsely claiming that the child in my womb was his. Yet such was his nobility of spirit that rather than despising me for my great sin, he has this night put his own life in peril by entering the flames of this veritable Inferno to save my daughter. His merciful and benevolent deed would seem to me to be truly like the return of our Lord Jesu Cristo. But knowing the grave and terrible wrongs I have committed, I could have no reason for grudge if my body were now instantly torn to pieces by o Diabo himself.”

  No sooner had she completed her confession than she threw herself again on the ground and sobbed. From the surrounding faithful, now two or three deep, burst a wave of voices: “Mártir! Mártir!”

  And what else might he have been called? Neither the padre to whom he had looked up to as a father nor the brother who had been Simeon had known what lay in his heart. Yet had he not out of pity for a sinner most admirably followed in the steps of our Lord Jesu Cristo, even allowing himself to be degraded to mendicancy?

  As he listened to the girl’s words, Lorenzo could do no more than nod his head twice or thrice. His hair burned, his skin scorched, he was unable to move his hands and feet and so close to the end of his strength as to be unable to speak. Kneeling at his side, the old umbrella-maker and Simeon, heart-stricken as they heard the daughter’s confession, crouched by his side and did what little they could for him. As he drew ever-shorter breaths, it was clear that he was not far from death. All that remained unchanged was the hue of his starry eyes, gazing into the distant heavens.

  With his back to the portals of Santa Lucia and his white beard blowing in the fierce night wind, the padre listened to the confession and then solemnly declared: “Happy are the repentant. What human hand would dare inflict punishment on anyone so blessed? Henceforth be bound to God’s commandments and serenely await the Day of Judgment. Ah, Lorenzo, seeking to serve the Lord by fo
llowing in His footsteps . . . Rare is such virtue among all the Christians of this land—especially for a lad so young . . .”

  Yet what was this? The priest suddenly fell silent and stared intently, indeed reverentially, at Lorenzo there at his feet, as though he had seen the light of Paraiso. The trembling of his hands too suggested that here was nothing of the ordinary, and now tears were flooding his withered cheeks.

  Behold! Simeon! And you, old maker of umbrellas! As the exquisitely beautiful boy lay silently before the portals of Santa Lucia, illuminated by the reflection of the flames, redder still than the blood of our Lord, the holes in his burned upper garment revealed two pure, pearl-like breasts. Even in his fire-seared face, there was an unmistakable and now undisguised tenderness and sweetness. Ah! Lorenzo was a woman, a woman!

  See now the faithful, their backs to the fierce flames, forming a fencelike circle round her! This Lorenzo, once charged with lasciviousness and banished from Santa Lucia, was as lovely a girl of this land as the umbrella-maker’s daughter!

  At that awe-filled moment, they say, it was as though the voice of God could be heard from beyond the starry heavens. Like heads of grain before the wind, one, then another, and finally the entire flock bowed their heads and knelt before Lorenzo. The roar of the towering flames, reverberating through the sky, was the only sound to be heard—except now for a sobbing voice, that of the umbrella-maker’s daughter perhaps or of Irmão Simeon, the elder brother. Presently amidst the desolation was also the trembling voice of the padre, his hand raised high over Lorenzo, as he intoned a solemn, mournful chant. When he had finished, he called out to her, but she now looked up into the still dark night sky and then beyond to the glory of Paradise. With a peaceful smile upon her lips, she breathed her last . . .

  I have heard it said that this is all that is known about the life of this woman. But what of it? That which is most precious in a human life is indeed found in such an irreplaceable moment of ecstasy. To hurl a single wave into a void of depravity, as dark as a nocturnal sea, and capture in the foam the light of a not-yet-risen moon . . . It is such a life that is worth living. If so, is it not in knowing the end of Lorenzo’s life that one knows it all?

  2

  Among my books is one published by the Jesuits of Nagasaki; despite its title, Legenda Aurea, it is not strictly the collection of “golden legends” known in the West. Rather it contains, along with the words and deeds of Occidental apostles and saints, a record of valiant and dedicated Japanese Christians, apparently intended to further the cause of evangelization.

  Printed on mino paper, the two volumes are written in a mixture of cursive-style characters and the hiragana syllabary. The letters are so faint as to cause one to doubt whether they were, in fact, printed. On the front leaf of the first volume, the Latin title is written horizontally; below it, two vertical lines in Chinese characters note: “Imprinted in the first days of the third month in the Year of Grace 1596, the Second Year of the Keichō Era.” On each side of the date is the image of an angel blowing a trumpet; these are technically quite crude but are nonetheless possessed of a certain charm. The front leaf of the second volume is the same, though the printing date is given as the middle of the fifth month.

  The volumes each contain approximately sixty pages; the “golden legends” contained in the first are eight, those of the second, ten. Each also begins with a preface by an anonymous writer, followed by a table of contents that includes words written in Roman letters.

  The style of the prefaces is hardly polished, and intermittently the reader even encounters expressions that suggest literal translation from a European language. Even a cursory examination raises the suspicion that they were indeed written by an Occidental priest.

  This story is an adaptation of Chapter Two in the second volume. In all probability, it is the faithful rendition of events that took place at a church in Nagasaki, but of the great fire it describes there is no other record, not even in the Chronicles of Port Nagasaki. Thus, it is quite impossible to assign a precise date.

  The exigencies of publication have obliged me to embellish the text here and there. I trust that in so doing I have not marred the simple elegance of the original.

  O’ER A WITHERED MOOR

  Summoning Jōsō and Kyorai, he said to them: “Last night, as I lay sleepless, I suddenly thought of this and had Donshū write it down. Each one of you should read it.”

  Ill on a journey,

  Wandering in fevered dreams

  O’er a withered moor.1

  HANAYA’s DIARY

  It was the seventh year of the Genroku era, on the twelfth day of the tenth month. The merchants of Ōsaka had awakened to the fleeting hues of a rosy dawn, fretfully seeing in this a sign, as they gazed far beyond the tiled roofs of the city, that yesterday’s rain would return. Happily, however, not even the tops of the leafless willow trees were obscured by rain, so that now it was a pale early winter’s day, cloudy but calm. Even the water of the river, flowing absentmindedly between the rows of houses, was somehow lusterless, and the discarded leek leaves floating on its surface seemed—or was this merely an impression?—to be a tepid green. The passersby along its banks, some hooded, others shod in split-toed leather socks, likewise appeared, without exception, to be quite lost to the world, oblivious to the bitter wind that blew. The color of the curtains hanging outside of the shops, the carriages going to and fro, the distant sound of a shamisen playing for a puppet theater—all conspired to guard the pallor and tranquillity of this wintry afternoon, not so much as disturbing the urban dust on the decorative knobs of the bridge posts.

  It was there, at this same time, in the rear annex of Hanaya Nizaemon’s residence in Midōmae-Minami-kyūtarō-machi, that the revered haikai master Matsuo Tōsei of the Banana Plant Hermitage, then in his fifty-first year, was quietly drawing his last breaths, “like the slowly fading warmth of buried embers.” Tending to him were disciples from the four corners of the land. As for the time, the Hour of the Monkey2 may have half elapsed.

  The sliding doors in the middle had been removed to form a single immense room; from a stick of burning incense placed at the bedside rose a wisp of smoke, casting a thin, bone-chilling shadow on the bright, new paper of the door, beyond which lay the veranda, the garden, and the all-embracing winter. Bashō lay serenely with his head toward the door. Prominent among those around him was his physician, Mokusetsu, frowning as he held a hand under the bedclothes to check his patient’s sluggish pulse. Sitting hunched behind him was the unmistakable figure of the master’s old servant Jirōbei, who had come with him from Iga. For some time he had been reciting in a low, unceasing voice the holy invocation of the Amida Buddha.

  Next to Mokusetsu sat another whom all would recognize: Shinshi Kikaku, massive and obese, his breast generously inflating his square-sleeved pongee half coat. He was intensely observing their master’s condition, as was the dignified Kyorai, wearing a finely patterned, deep-brown, square-shouldered garment. Sitting quietly upright behind Kikaku was Jōsō; the bodhi prayer beads dangling from his wrist conveyed the air of a priest. The place beside him was occupied by Otsushū, whose constant sniffling was no doubt a sign of the unendurable grief that had seized him. Glaring at this spectacle, his cantankerous chin jutting out, was a diminutive monk, arranging and rearranging the sleeves of his old clothes. This was Inenbō, who sat facing Mokusetsu. To his side was the dark-complexioned Shikō, an air of obstinacy about him. The others were apprentices, most maintaining so strict a silence that they scarcely seemed to be breathing. They sat at all sides of his bed, lamenting unceasingly the cruelty of death in separating them from their master. Among them there was one who had thrown himself prostrate into a corner, his body flattened against the straw mats. This was probably Seishū, who was wailing uncontrollably, though the sound was swallowed up in the frigid silence of the room and did not distract from the faint scent of incense that rose from the bedside of the invalid.

  A few moments befor
e, in a voice rendered uncertain by phlegm, Bashō had expressed his last wishes and then appeared to fall into a comatose state, his eyes half-open. Only the cheekbones of his terribly emaciated face, marked by slight traces of smallpox, stood out; his lips, swallowed up in wrinkles, were drained of all color. Most pitiful of all was the expression in his eyes, in which floated a vague light, as though they were vainly searching for a distant place far beyond the roof—in cold, infinite space.

  Ill on a journey,

  Wandering in fevered dreams

  O’er a withered moor.

  Perhaps drifting dreamlike in that moment of delirium, as in his death verse of several days before, was the vision of a vast desolate field in a moonless twilight. At length Mokusetsu turned toward Jirōbei sitting behind him and murmured:

  “Water . . .”

  The old servant had already prepared a bowl and a small plumed stick. These he timidly pushed toward his master; then, as though the thought had suddenly occurred to him, he began to move his mouth rapidly in a single-minded recitation of the mantra: “Namu Amida Butsu.” Deeply ingrained in the simple soul of Jirōbei, a man reared in the mountains, was the belief that to be reborn in the Pure Land, whether Bashō or any other, one must cling to the mercy of Amitābha.

  At the very moment that he called for water, Mokusetsu found himself wondering anxiously, as was his wont, whether he had done all that he could as a physician. Bolstering his courage, he turned to Kikaku beside him and gave a wordless nod. All those gathered around Bashō’s bed were immediately seized by the tense premonition that the moment of death was at hand. It is also undeniable that mixed with this taut emotion was a fleeting sense of relief, indeed, something akin to serenity in the thought that the inevitable moment had now arrived.