Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Author:Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780140449709
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Published: 1961-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Dr. Yamakawa had a shocked expression on his face when he finished reading the article. “What is this?” he asked.

Major Kimura released a long, slow stream of cigar smoke and, with a mellow smile, said, “Fascinating, don’t you think? A thing like this could only happen in China.”

“True,” Doctor Yamakawa answered with a grin, knocking the long ash on his cigar into an ashtray. “It’s simply unthinkable any place else.”

“There’s more to the story, though,” Major Kimura said, pausing with a somber expression on his face. “I know the fellow, Xiao-er.”

“You know him? Oh, come on, don’t tell me a military attaché is going to start lying on a par with a newspaper reporter.”

“No, of course I wouldn’t do anything so ridiculous. When I was wounded back then in the battle of —— Village, Xiao-er was being treated in our field hospital. I talked to him a few times to practice my Chinese. He had a neck wound, so chances are eight or nine out of ten it’s the same man. He told me he was on some kind of reconnaissance mission when he ran into some of our cavalrymen and got slashed in the neck.”

“What a strange coincidence! The paper says he was a real trouble-maker, though. We would have all been better off if a fellow like that had died on the spot.”

“Yes, but at the time he was a good, honest man, one of the best-behaved prisoners of war. The army doctors all seemed to have a soft spot for him and gave him extra-good treatment. I enjoyed the stories he told me about himself, too. I especially remember the way he described his feelings when he was badly wounded in the neck and fell off his horse. He was lying in the mud on a river bank, looking up at the sky through some willows, when he saw his mother’s apron and a woman’s bare foot and a sesame field in bloom—all right there in the sky.”

Major Kimura threw his cigar away, brought his coffee cup to his lips, glanced at the red plum on the table, and went on as if talking to himself, “When he saw those things in the sky, he began to feel deeply ashamed of the way he had lived his life until then.”

“So he turned into a trouble-maker as soon as the war ended? It just goes to show, you can’t trust anybody.” Dr. Yamakawa rested his head against the chair back, stretched his legs out, and, with an ironic air, blew his cigar smoke toward the ceiling.

“Can’t trust anybody? You mean, you think he was faking it?”

“Of course he was.”

“No, I don’t think so. I think he was serious about the way he felt—at the time, at least. And I’ll bet he felt the same way again the moment ‘his head fell off’ (to use the paper’s phrase). Here’s how I imagine it: he was drunk when he was fighting, so the other man had no trouble throwing him down.

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