A Fool's Life Read online

  A Fool's Life

  by

  Ryunosuke Akutagawa

  Translated by Will Petersen

  first appeared in Caterpillar magazine, April-July 1968, and reprinted, as a book, by Mushinsha Ltd., Tokyo, 1970

  A Note to a Certain Old Friend, Reprinted from

  Akutagawa: An Introduction, by Beongcheon Yu.

  Wayne State University Press,

  Detroit, Michigan.

  to Kumè Masao

  Whether or not this manuscript ought to be published, and of course, when it should be published or where, I leave to you.

  You know most of the people who appear in it. But if you have it published, I'd rather it didn't have an index.

  I exist now in a most unhappy happiness. But strangely, without remorse. Only that I feel sorry for those who had me as husband, father, son. Goodbye.

  In the manuscript, consciously at least, there is no attempt to justify myself.

  Last, I leave this manuscript to you feeling that you knew me better than anyone else (the skin of this cosmopolitan me stripped away). At the fool in this manuscript, go ahead and laugh.

  20 June 1927

  Akutagawa Ryunosuke

  1. The Age

  It was the second level of a bookshop. Twenty years old, he was climbing a foreign type ladder leaning against the shelves, looking for new books. De Maupassant, Baudelaire, Strindberg, Ibsen, Shaw,Tolstoy,.....

  The twilight was beginning to press in. But feverishly he continued poring over the letters on the books' backs. Gathered before him, rather than books, was the fin de siècle itself. Nietzsche, Verlaine, the brothers Goncourt, Dostoevski, Hauptmann, Flaubert, .....

  Resisting the darkness, he tried to make out names.

  But the books of themselves were sinking into shadow.

  His nerves strained, ready to go down. A bare bulb, directly over his head, burst on. Perched at the ladder's top, he looked down. Among the books the moving clerks the customers. Odd, how very small they seemed. How shabby.

  "The sum of human life adds to less than a line of Baudelaire."

  For a time, from the ladder's top, he had been watching them.

  2. Mother

  The mad people were all made to dress alike in grey kimono. It made the enormous room even more depressing. One of them was facing an organ, fervently playing hymns. Another, standing in the very middle of the room, no, you couldn't call it dancing, was capering.

  With a hale and hearty doctor he stood looking on.

  His mother, ten years ago, hadn't been a bit different.

  Not a bit,—their odor was his mother's odor.

  "Well, let's go."

  The doctor leading the way, they went down the hall to a room. In one corner in large glass jars soaking in alcohol were a number of brains. On top of one of them he could make out a white blob.

  Something like the white of an egg. As he stood talking with the doctor, again his mother came to mind.

  "The man this brain belonged to worked for an electrical firm, an engineer. Used to think of himself as a huge dynamo, discharging black light."

  Avoiding the doctor's eyes he looked out the window. Nothing. Just a brick wall, the ledge planted with fragments of broken bottle. Patching thin moss.

  White.

  3. Home

  In the outskirts in a room on the second floor he slept and woke. Maybe the foundation was shaky, the second floor somehow seemed to tilt.

  On this second floor he and his aunt constantly quarreled. Nor was there a time when his foster parents had not had to intervene. And yet, above all others, it was his aunt he loved. All her life alone, when he was in his twenties she was almost sixty.

  In the outskirts in this room on the second floor, that those who loved each other caused each other misery troubled him. Feeling sick at the room's tilting.

  4. Tokyo

  The Sumida river heavy under cloud. Looking out of the moving steam launch window at the Mukojima cherry trees. In full bloom the blossoms in his eyes a line of rags, sad. In the trees,—dating from Edo times.

  In the cherry trees of Mukojima, seeing himself.

  5. Self

  With a graduate, sitting at a cafe table, puffing at one cigarette after another. He hardly opened his mouth. But listened intently to the graduate's words.

  "Today I spent half a day riding in a car."

  "On business, I suppose?"

  His senior, cheek reclining on palm, replied extremely casually.

  "Huh?—just felt like it."

  The words opened for him an unknown realm,— close to the gods, a realm of Self. It was painful. And ecstatic.

  The cafe was cramped. Under a painting of the god

  Pan, in a red pot, a gum tree. Its fleshly leaves. Limp.

  6. Sickness

  In a salt breeze without let, the big English dictionary open wide, his finger searching for words.

  Talaria

  :

  Winged boots, sandals.

  Tale

  :

  Narrative.

  Talipot

  :

  East Indian palm. Height 50 to 100 ft.

  Leaves made into umbrellas, fans, hats.

  Blossoms once in 70 years.

  His imagination vividly projected the palm's blossom. As he did he became aware in his throat of an itch. In spite of himself, phlegm dribbled onto the page. Phlegm?-----but it wasn't phlegm. Thinking of life's brevity, once more he conjured up the blossom of the palm. Over the remote sea, aloft, soaring higher, the blossom.

  7. Painting

  All at once he was struck. Standing in front of a bookshop looking at a collection of paintings by Van

  Gogh, it hit him. This was painting. Of course, these

  Van Goghs were merely photo reproductions. But even so, he could feel in them a self rising intensely to the surface.

  The passion of these paintings renewed his vision.

  He saw now the undulations of a tree's branching, the curve of a woman's cheek.

  One overcast autumn dusk outside the city he had walked through an underpass. There at the far side of the embankment stood a cart. As he walked by he had the feeling that somebody had passed this way before him. Who?-----There was for him no longer need to question. In his twenty-three year old mind, an ear lopped off, a Dutchman, in his mouth a long stemmed pipe, on the sullen landscape set piercing eyes.

  8. Sparks

  Rain drenched, treading asphalt. The rain ferocious.

  In the downpour he breathed in the rubber coat odor.

  Before his eyes an aerial power line released sparks of violet. Strangely he was moved. Tucked away in his jacket pocket, meant for publication in the group magazine, was his manuscript. Walking on in the rain, once more he looked back at the line.

  Unremittingly it emitted its prickly sparks. Though he considered all of human existence, there was nothing special worth having. But those violet blossoms of fire,-----those awesome fire works in the sky, to hold them, he would give his life.

  9. Cadaver

  On a fine wire from the thumb of each cadaver dangled a card. On each was recorded a name, a date.

  His friend, bending over one of the bodies, working his scalpel, began peeling skin from the face. Beneath the layer of skin the fat was a lovely yellow.

  He stared at the body. For a short story of his,----no doubt, to authenticate atmosphere for a tale of dynastic times he looked on. But the stench, like that of rotten apricots, was sickening. His friend, frowning, continued silently working the scalpel.

  "Lately cadavers are hard to come by."

  His friend had been saying. Before he realized it, his response was prepared.-----"If I were short a cadaver, without any malice, I'd commit m
urder." But, of course, the response occurred only in mind.

  10. Mentor

  Under a large oak tree he was reading his mentor's book. In the autumn sunlight the oak stirring not a slightest twig's leaf. Somewhere off in the far sky a pair of glass pans hung from a balance, in perfect equilibrium.-----Reading his mentor's book, he imagined the scene......

  11. Night's End

  Dawn slowly breaking. He found himself on a corner somewhere looking out over a wide market place. Converging on the market place people, wagons, all gently suffused with rose.

  Lighting a cigarette, he quietly approached the market's center. As he advanced, a lean black dog barked. But he felt no fear. Even for the dog there was love.

  In the market's center, a plane tree, its branches spreading wide in each direction. Standing at the root he looked up through the weave of branches into the high sky. In the sky exactly overhead glittered a star.

  His twenty-fifth year,-----three months since he had met his mentor.

  12. Naval Base

  The submarine's inside was dim. Surrounded by machinery, he was bending over, peering into a small lens. Reflected on the lens the harbor scene was bright.

  "You can probably see the Kongo out there."

  A naval officer was addressing him. Staring at the bit of warship on the square lens he didn't know why, but somehow he was thinking of Dutch parsley. Even on a mere 30 sen portion of beef steak. The barely perceptible fragrance.

  13. Mentor's Death

  In the wind dragging after the rain he was pacing the newly constructed railway platform. Sky bleak.

  Beyond the platform chanting at high pitch three or four railworkers lifted and let hammers fall.

  The after rain wind ripped the workers' chant and his sentiment to shreds. His cigarette unlit, his anguish was close to exaltation. Mentor's condition critical, the telegram was crushed into his overcoat pocket......

  From behind the pine mountain the long six a.m.

  Tokyo-bound, pale smoke laid low, meandering, approached.

  14. Marriage

  The very day after his marriage, "Right off, you start wasting money," already he was carping at his bride. Though actually it was not so much his as his aunt's complaint. To him, of course, but to his aunt as well, his bride bowed apologetically. A bowl of yellow narcissus, her gift to him, in front of her.

  15. They

  They lived in peace. In the expansive shade of a great basho tree's leaves.-----Even by train, over an hour away from Tokyo, in a house in a town on the seacoast. That's why.

  16. Pillow

  Pillowed on rose leaf scented skepticism, he was reading a book by Anatole France. That even such a pillow might house a centaur, he didn't seem to realize.

  17. Butterfly

  In wind reeking of duckweed, a butterfly flashed.

  Only for an instant, on his dry lips he felt the touch of the butterfly wings. But years afterward, on his lips, the wings' imprinted dust still glittered.

  18. Moon

  In a certain hotel, halfway up the stairs, he happened to pass her. In the afternoon her face seemed moonlit. Following her with his eyes (they hadn't even a nodding acquaintance) he felt a loneliness such as he'd never known......

  19. Man-made Wings

  From Anatole France he shifted to the 18th century philosophers. But he avoided Rousseau. One side of his nature,-----a side easily swayed by passion, was perhaps already too near Rousseau. The other,-----the side endowed with icy intellect, brought him nearer the author of Candide.

  Twenty nine years of human existence had offered him little illumination. But Voltaire at least equipped him with artificial wings.

  Unfolding these man-made wings, easily he glided up into the sky. Bathed with reason's light, human joy and sorrow sank away beneath his eyes. Over squalid towns, letting irony and mockery fall, he soared into unobstructed space, heading straight for the sun. That with just such man-made wings, scorched by the sun's radiance an ancient Greek had hurtled into the sea, dead. He'd seemed to have forgotten......

  20. Shackles

  It was settled that he and his wife would share the same roof with his foster parents. That was due to his being hired by a certain publisher. He had depended wholly on the contract's words, written out on a single sheet of yellow paper. But later, looking at the contract, it was plain the publisher was under no obligation. All the obligations were his.

  21. Madwoman

  Two rickshaws under a clouded sky pulled down a lifeless country road. A salt breeze indicated the road headed toward the sea. In the rear rickshaw, suspecting himself of an utter lack of interest in the rendezvous, he wondered what lead him on. In no way, love.

  Then, if not love,-----to avoid answering, "At least we're alike." He couldn't deny that.

  In the rickshaw ahead rode a madwoman. Not only that. Her sister, out of jealousy, had committed suicide.

  "There's just no way."

  This madwoman,-----this animal instinct driven woman filled him with loathing.

  The rickshaws skirted a graveyard, reeking of shore.

  An oyster shell crusted faggot fence. Inside, tombstones blackish. Looking past tombstones at sea, a vague shimmer. Suddenly for her husband-----for this husband incapable of securing her love, contempt.

  22. A Painter

  It was a magazine illustration. But, a cock in black and white expressing an unmistakable individuality.

  He asked a friend about the painter.

  About a week later the painter paid him a visit. This was one of the events of his life. He discovered in the painter a poetry unknown to anyone. And more, he discovered a soul even the painter himself was unaware of.

  One chill autumn dusk, in a solitary stalk of corn suddenly he saw the painter. Tall, armed with aggressive leaf, from the sod its roots like fine nerves, exposed. This was, of course, also a portrait of his own vulnerable self. But the discovery led only to despair.

  "Too late. But when the time comes....."

  23. She

  The square growing darker. His body feverish, walking around. The big buildings, so many of them, vague, in the silvering sky electric lights of windows upon windows glowing.

  At the curb he stopped, to wait for her. About five minutes later, looking strangely haggard, she came up to him. Seeing his face, "Nothing. Just tired." She smiled. Side by side, they walked the dim square. It was their first time together. To be with her he felt he would give up anything.

  Later, riding in a taxi, she fixed her eyes on his face,

  "And you won't regret?" He answered flatly, "No regrets." Pressing his hand, she said, "I won't regret, but." In that moment, too, her face seemed moonlit.

  24. Childbirth

  Lingering by the sliding door he was looking down on a white gowned midwife scrubbing the red baby.

  Each time the soap got into its eyes the baby contorted its face piteously. Worse, it shrieked continually. It smelled like a mouse. All the time questions gnawed at him.-----

  "Why did it come into this world? Into this world of misery. Why was it burdened with a father like me?"

  And this was the wife's first baby. A boy.

  25. Strindberg

  Standing in the doorway, in the pomegranate blossoming moonlight looking out on drab Chinamen playing mah-jong. He went back to his room.

  Under a low lamp he began reading Le Plaidoyer d'un Fou. But before he read even two pages he found himself smiling sardonically.-----Strindberg was not so different. In letters to his lover, the Countess, he too wrote lies......

  26. Antiquity

  Discolored Buddhas, celestial beings, horses, lotus blossoms nearly overcame him. Gazing up at them everything was forgotten. Even his own fortune in escaping from the hands of the madwoman......

  27. Spartan Discipline

  With a friend, walking up a backstreet. Moving directly toward them, a hooded rickshaw approaching. Totally unexpected, riding in it, she of last night.

  In the day
time too, her face seemed lit by the moon.

  His friend present, naturally there couldn't be any sign of recognition.

  "A beauty."

  His friend noted. He, looking off to where the street banged up against the spring hills, not able to hold back.

  "Yes, a real beauty."

  28. Murderer

  A country road in sunlight, smell of cow dung hanging in air. Wiping sweat, he trudged uphill.

  From both sides, the odor of fragrant ripening wheat.

  "Kill, kill......"

  How long had he been repeating these words over and over in his head. Kill whom?-----He knew very well whom. He remembered a mean, close cropped man.

  Golden wheat. Beyond it, a Roman Catholic cathedral. Dome.

  29. Form

  An iron wine bottle. Some time or other this finely incised wine bottle had taught him the beauty of form.

  30. Rain

  On a big bed with her, talking of this and that.

  Outside the bedroom window rain was falling. The blossoms of crinum in this rain must be rotting away.

  Her face still seemed to linger in moonlight. But, talking with her was no longer not tiresome. Lying on his stomach, quietly lighting a cigarette he realized the days he had spent with her had already amounted to seven years.