Rashomon by Akutagawa Ryunosuke (best book clubs .TXT) 📖

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 life-long 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 courtnobles, 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 near by, “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 broadshouldered 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 headgear of the guests bobbed like waves over the yellow, blue, crimson, and varicolored 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 courtnoble from the north knows only two ways of getting along in life: drinking and laughing.

Finally the center of conversation turned elsewhere Ñ 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 his 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 sidelocks, 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 ÑToshihito on a sorrel and Goi on a roan Ñ 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 tree-top 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.

“It’s still farther off, isn’t it, sir?” Goi asked, looking up into Toshihito’s face and hunching his round shoulders all the more.

Toshihito smiled. It was the sort of smile that a child who has done mischief gives his parent when he has nearly been found out. It seemed as if the wrinkles at the tip of his nose and the slack muscles at the corners of his eyes were deciding whether or not to burst into laughter.

“As a matter of fact, I plan to take you as far as Tsuruga,” Toshihito said cheerfully at last, and, raising his whip, he pointed to the distant sky. Under his whip the limpid waters of Lake Biwa shone in the light of the afternoon sun.

“Oh, Tsuruga?” Goi asked in consternation. “The Tsuruga in the Province of Echizen?”

He had often heard that Toshihito had lived in Tsuruga for the most part, since he married the heiress to Fujiwara Arihito, but till that moment he had not had the least idea that Toshihito was going to take him so far. First of all he wondered how, with only two servants, he could ever get safely to distant Echizen across the many mountains and rivers. And then he thought of the frequent rumors that travelers had been killed by robbers. He raised an imploring face to Toshihito.

“Lord bless me!” Goi blubbered out. “First I thought our destination was Higashiyama, but it turned out to be the Mie Temple. Finally you tell me you’re going to take me to Tsuruga in Echizen. Whatever do you mean? If you’d told me so at first, I’d have brought my servant with