Rashomon and Other Stories (Tuttle Classics) Read online

  He sheathed his sword, and, with his left hand on its hilt, he listened to her meditatively. His right hand touched the big pimple on his cheek. As he listened, a certain courage was born in his heart—the courage which he had not had when he sat under the gate a little while ago. A strange power was driving him in the opposite direction of the courage which he had had when he seized the old woman. No longer did he wonder whether he should starve to death or become a thief. Starvation was so far from his mind that it was the last thing that would have entered it.

  “Are you sure?” He asked in a mocking tone, when she finished talking. He took his right hand from his pimple, and, bending forward, seized her by the neck and said sharply:

  “Then it’s right if I rob you. I’d starve if I didn’t.”

  He tore her clothes from her body and kicked her roughly down on the corpses as she struggled and tried to clutch his leg. Five steps, and he was at the top of the stairs. The yellow clothes he had wrested off were under his arm, and in a twinkling he had rushed down the steep stairs into the abyss of night. The thunder of his descending steps pounded in the hollow tower, and then it was quiet.

  Shortly after that the hag raised up her body from the corpses. Grumbling and groaning, she crawled to the top stair by the still flickering torchlight, and through the gray hair which hung over her face, she peered down to the last stair in the torch light.

  Beyond this was only darkness . . . unknowing and unknown.

  Footnote

  * The “Rashōmon” was the largest gate in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. It was 106 feet wide and 26 feet deep, and was topped with a ridge-pole; its stone-wall rose 75 feet high. This gate was constructed in 789 when the then capital of Japan was transferred to Kyoto. With the decline of West Kyoto, the gate fell into bad repair, cracking and crumbling in many places, and became a hideout for thieves and robbers and a place for abandoning unclaimed corpses.

  YAM GRUEL

  This story might have taken place about eleven hundred years ago. The exact time does not matter. All that the reader has to know is that the remote past of the Heian period forms its background. In those days there lived in Kyōto a certain samurai in the service of Regent Fujiwara Mototsune. I would specify his name, but unfortunately it is not recorded in the ancient chronicles. Probably he was so ordinary a man as to be unworthy of recording in a chronicle. The writers of these works evidently took very little interest in the lives or stories of common people. In this respect they differ greatly from the present-day writers of the naturalist school. However, the novelists of the Heian period were not as leisurely as might be expected. Anyway, among the samurai in the service of Fujiwara Mototsune there was an official of fifth class court rank. He is the hero of this story. In those days an official of fifth class court rank was a low official. The Japanese word for that rank is “goi.” So in this story he will be called “Goi.”

  Goi was a very plain-looking man. His hollow cheeks made his chin seem unusually long. His lips . . . if we mentioned his every striking feature, there would be no end. He was extremely homely and sloppy in appearance.

  No one knows how he came to serve the Regent. Still it is certain that he had gone about his daily chores for a long time, in his discolored silk robe and soft head-gear. From his mannerisms and his unkempt dress, it was hard to believe he had ever been a young man. He was well past forty. His face gave the impression that ever since birth he had had his cold-looking red nose and unshapely mustache exposed to the wind blowing down the Sujaku Avenue. Everyone from the Regent to the herdsmen believed so and had no doubt about it.

  You can easily imagine the kind of treatment Goi received from those around him. His fellow samurai did not care a straw for him. His subordinates, with or without court rank, nearly twenty altogether, were also amazingly indifferent to him. When he was supposed to give them instructions, they disregarded him and carried on with their idle chatter and gossip. His existence no more entered their vision than the air itself. His appearance caused no more ripple of unrest than a drop of water in the Japan Sea. The backwash of this man’s helplessness was felt in the samurai’s hall, where the Steward, the Chief and all his superiors would have nothing to do with him. They gave him all their commands by visual signs.

  It is not by accident that man has a voice. Human speech was not made by a simple process. So sometimes they failed to make themselves understood by him. Then they seemed to attribute their failure to defects in his own understanding. Whenever they could not make themselves understood, they would glare at him as if it were his fault. Then, after eyeing him from the top of his head-gear, which was bent out of shape, to the tip of his worn-out straw sandals, they would suddenly turn their backs on him. For all that, Goi never took offence. He was such a timid and unspirited man that he was impervious to all injustice.

  His fellow samurai thought it great sport to make him the butt of their jokes. The older men constantly made off-color remarks about his personal appearance; this prompted the younger men to practice all their wit on the helpless Goi. In his presence they would never tire of making critical comments about his nose, mustache, head-gear, and silk robe. Moreover, they would often talk of his hare-lipped wife from whom he had separated five or six years ago, and of a drunken Buddhist priest who was said to have been intimate with his wife. And not only that. Now and again they would play practical jokes on him. It is impossible to enumerate them all. If I mention that once they drank off the rice-wine in his bamboo receptacle and put their waste into it afterwards, you can imagine the kind of tricks they played on him.

  But Goi was utterly insensible to this ridicule. At least to the eyes of on-lookers he seemed insensible. Whatever others said of him, his expression remained unchanged. Silently stroking his thin mustache, he went on with his daily chores and seemed no more wounded than a duck thrown into a pond. When his comrades went to such extremes as to fix a piece of paper on his top-knot or to tie a straw sandal on his scabbard, he sadly remonstrated, “Why did you do that?” And his expression made you wonder whether he was smiling or crying. Everyone who saw his innocuous face or heard his thin, squeaky voice would feel a momentary compassion and say to himself, “It’s not only Goi who’s being teased by us. Somebody—many others we don’t know are speaking against our stony hearts through his face and voice.” But very few of them retained this compassion for any length of time. Among those who felt truly sorry for him was a samurai without rank. He came from the province of Tamba, and was a youth beginning to grow a mustache. Of course, at first he, too, joined the others in ridiculing the red-nosed Goi without reason. But one day he happened to hear Goi’s question, “Why did you do that?” and the words stuck in his mind. From that time on he saw Goi in a different light, because he saw a blubberer, persecuted by a hard life, peeping from the pale and stupid face of the undernourished Goi. This samurai could never think of Goi without being impressed by his accusing protest against the hard and heartless realities of life. At the same time Goi’s frost-bitten red nose and mustache, the hairs of which might be counted on one’s fingers, somehow seemed to give him a touch of consolation.

  But this young samurai was an exception. Aside from a few such people, Goi had to continue his dog’s life amid the contempt of everyone around him. First of all, he had no clothes worthy of the name. He had only a dark blue coat and a pleated gown of the same color. But these clothes had faded into what could be called neither indigo nor blue. As for his gown, it was exceedingly worn. His thin legs under this gown, without even drawers, were no more presentable than the plodding legs of a lean ox pulling the cart of a poor court-noble. His sword was nondescript, with doubtful metal fittings and with the lacquer on its hilt beginning to wear off. The red-nosed Goi used to walk about with short steps, his round shoulders all the more stooped under a cold sky, and cast covetous looks right and left. So he was naturally made a fool of even by passing peddlers. The following instance may be mentioned.

  One day on his way from Sanjōmon to Shinsenen, he saw several children gathered at the roadside. Thinking they might be spinning tops, he watched them, from behind, and found them thrashing a stray, shaggy dog, held by a rope fastened round his neck. The shy Goi had almost always been too timid to translate into action whatever he might have really felt. But on this occasion, since they were children, he could muster up some courage.

  “Please spare him,” he said, smiling as broadly as possible and patting the shoulder of the boy who seemed the oldest of the group “If you hit the dog, you’ll hurt him.”

  The boy looked back, and turning up his eyes, stared at him contemptuously. “Mind your own business,” he retorted. And, taking a step backward, he pouted his proud lips and shouted, “What? You, red-nosed wretch!”

  Goi felt as if these words had struck his face. It was not that he had taken the least offence at the boy’s abusive language, but that he felt miserable for having disgraced himself by an unnecessary remark. Concealing his shame with a bitter smile, he silently went on toward Shinsen-en. The children behind made faces and thrust out their tongues at him. Of course he did not see them. Even if he had, it would have made no difference to the spiritless Goi.

  Was the hero of this story a man who was born only to be despised, and had he no particular aim in life? No, not so. For the past five or six years he had had an extraordinary craving for yam gruel. Yam gruel is a gruel made by boiling slices of yam in a soup of sweet arrow root. In those days it was regarded as the supreme delicacy, even at the dining table of the sovereign of the realm. Accordingly, such lower officials as Goi could taste it only once a year when they were invited as extraordinary guests to the Regent’s Palace. On such an occasion they could eat no more of it than barely enough to moisten their lips. So it
had been his long-cherished desire to satiate himself with yam gruel. Of course he did not confide his desire to anyone. He himself might not have been clearly aware that it had been his lifelong wish. But as a matter of fact, it would hardly be too much to say that he lived for this purpose. A man sometimes devotes his life to a desire which he is not sure will ever be fulfilled. Those who laugh at this folly are, after all, no more than mere spectators of life.

  On January 2nd of a certain year, extraordinary guests were invited to a banquet held in the palace of Fujiwara Mototsune. (This was the banquet held by the Prime Minister Regent inviting State Ministers and other court-nobles, and was much the same as the grand banquet held at the Ninomiya Court on the same day.) Goi and other samurai joined in the dinner; for at that time there was not yet the custom of dividing the guests according to their court ranks, and so all the retainers used to assemble in one hall and enjoy the same feast. At banquets in those old days they served a large assortment of dishes and sweets, few of which would be specially appetizing to moderns: glutinous rice cake, fried and sweetened rice cake, steamed ear-shells, dried fowl, the sweet fish of the Uji River, the crucian of Omi, porgy powdered and seasoned, boiled salmon, broiled octopus, large lobsters, large and small tangerines, mandarins, persimmons dried on skewers, and many others. Among these was the yam gruel in question. Every year Goi looked forward to this yam gruel. But this year, since there were a great many guests, his share of yam gruel was proportionately small. And, though it may have been only his fancy, it seemed that the yam gruel tasted more delicious than usual. After he had finished it, his eyes were still riveted on the empty bowl. Wiping the drops off his thin mustache, he remarked to someone nearby, “I wonder if I shall ever eat my fill of yam gruel.”

  “He says he hasn’t had enough yam gruel,” someone laughed. It was a sonorous and dignified warrior like voice. Goi, raising his head, looked timidly toward the speaker. The voice came from Fujiwara Toshihito, the son of Tokinaga, who was Finance Minister under the regency of Mototsune. He was a towering and sinewy broad-shouldered giant, and appeared to be well on his way to intoxication, thanks to the many cups of dark-colored rice-wine he had consumed during the meal.

  “I’m sorry for you,” Toshihito continued, in a voice mingling contempt and compassion, as he saw Goi raise his head. “You shall fill yourself with yam gruel, if you like.”

  A dog, constantly teased, will not readily jump at a piece of meat thrown to him once in a while. With his usual expression that made you wonder whether he was smiling or crying, Goi looked from Toshihito’s face to his empty bowl, contemplating each in turn.

  “Don’t you care to?” Toshihito asked.

  Goi remained silent.

  “What would you say?” Toshihito urged.

  Goi felt that the eyes of all the company were focussed on him. Whether he would be the butt of their ridicule depended on how he would answer. Whatever he answered, he would be made a fool of, he thought. So he hesitated. Had the other not just then thundered impatiently, “If you don’t care to, I won’t repeat my invitation,” he would have only gone on comparing Toshihito and his bowl.

  “I would be much obliged, sir,” Goi answered at last, when he heard Toshihito’s resounding question.

  The company listening to this by-play between Toshihito and Goi roared with laughter. “I would be much obliged, sir,” someone mimicked. Uproarious laughter swept over the group, and the soft and stiff head-gear of the guests bobbed like waves over the yellow, blue, crimson, and vari-colored dishes set before them. Above all, it was Toshihito who laughed the heartiest.

  “Then I’ll invite you before long,” he choked out. Apparently the wine had stuck in his throat. “Are you sure?” he asked emphatically.

  “Yes, I would be much obliged, sir” Goi stammered once more, blushing. Of course all the company laughed again. Toshihito himself, who had asked the question emphatically to make Goi repeat these very words, laughed still more loudly and heartily, and his broad shoulders shook as if he were all the more amused. The rustic court-noble from the north knows only two ways of getting along in life: drinking and laughing.

  Finally the center of conversation turned elsewhere—presumably because the others disliked having their attention concentrated on red-nosed Goi, for all the amusement of ridiculing him. At any rate, the topic shifted from one thing to another, and by the time there was little left to eat and drink, the company’s interest was drawn to the story of a fledgling samurai who tried to get on a horse while he had both his legs in one side of a pair of riding breeches. All but Goi listened. He remained aloof, offering no comment one way or the other. Yam gruel occupied all his thoughts. He would not even put a cup of rice-wine to his mouth. Both hands on his lap, as shy as a girl at an interview with a prospective husband, and blushing even to the roots of his graying hair, he gazed into his empty black-lacquered cup and smiled stupidly.

  One morning, a few days later, Toshihito invited Goi to accompany him on a ride to a hot spring near Higashiyama. Goi, taking him at this word, was only too glad to accept the offer. Since he had not bathed for a long time, he had been itching from head to foot. It would be a godsend if, in addition to being treated to yam gruel, he could take a bath. So he got astride the roan that Toshihito had brought.

  Soon both Toshihito and Goi were riding toward Awataguchi down a road along the bank of the Kamo River. Toshihito, with his black mustache and handsome side-locks, dressed in a dark azure hunting outfit and armed with a long sword, made a fine picture of a warrior. Goi, in a shabby, pale silk robe and two thinly wadded undergarments, his sash tied slovenly around his waist, and the mucus from his nose covering his upper lip, seemed a poor counterpart to the dashing Toshihito. The only comparison was in the horses. Both rode such gallant young steeds—Toshihito on a sorrel and Goi on a roan—that all peddlers and samurai turned to stare at them. Keeping pace with the horses, two servants trotted behind, a valet and a footman.

  Although it was winter, it was one of those exceptionally clear mornings. The air was so calm there was not a breath of wind to sway the dead lotus leaves on the slow waters of the river, winding their way through the stones on the white river bed. The leafless branches of low willow trees facing the river were bathed in satin-smooth sunlight, and even the motion of a kingfisher perched on a treetop cast its distinct shadow on the road. Mt. Hiei showed its whole velvety frost-bitten shoulder over the dark green of Higashiyama. Both Toshihito and Goi made their way leisurely toward Awataguchi, the mother-of-pearl work of their saddles glittering brilliantly in the golden sunlight.

  “Where is it that you’re pleased to take me, sir?” asked Goi, pulling up the reins.

  “Just over there. It’s not as far as you might think,” Toshihito answered.

  “Then is it near Awataguchi?”

  “Yes, that will be about it.”

  When they had ridden abreast as far as Awataguchi, Goi found that this did not appear to be Toshihito’s destination. In the course of time they rode past Awataguchi.

  “Are we going to stop at Awataguchi?”

  “No, a little farther on.”

  Toshihito rode quietly with a smile, intentionally avoiding Goi’s face. The houses on both sides gradually became few and far between, till nothing was visible in the broad paddy fields but crows seeking prey, and in the distance the lingering snow on the northern side of the mountain dimmed into a pale blue. The thorny tops of the unclad trees piercing sharp into the clear sky added to the chill of the air.

  “Then, is it about Yamashina, sir?”

  “No, this is Yamashina. Our destination is a little farther.”

  As they jogged on, they rode past Yamashina and much further. They went even beyond Sekiyama, and a little after noon they found themselves in front of the Mie Temple. In this temple lived a priest who was on close terms with Toshihito. They paid a call on the priest, and he served them dinner. After dinner, they rode on hastily. The road farther on was much more lonely than the road they had already covered. In those days the whole country swarmed with robbers, and was unsafe everywhere.