Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (19 page)
Read Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories Online
Authors: Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Shortly after the fifth hour of the morning on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the fourth year of Enky
Å
, in the Castle of the Tokugawa Sh
Å
gun, Shuri murdered Hosokawa Etch
Å«
-no-kami Munenori,
11
Lord of Kumamoto Castle in Higo Province, a man he neither loved nor hated. The particulars of the event are as follows:
Among the Great Lords of the realm, those of the Hosokawa family were outstanding for their military attributes. Even Her Ladyship, Munenori's consort, known as “the Princess,” was talented in the martial arts. It was inconceivable, therefore, that there might be anything lacking in the martial skills of Munenori himself. That such a man from such a distinguished lineage should have met such a miserable end at the hands of a relative amateur could only have been due to sheer bad luck.
In retrospect, however, it became clear that there had been any number of omens in the Hosokawa house foretelling the
occurrence of this calamity. First, the Hosokawas' villa in suburban Shinagawa-Isarago had burned to the ground earlier that year. What made this all the more ominous was that the house contained a shrine to the god of the North Star with a miraculous stone that spurted water before any fire could spread, and so the villa had never burned down before. Then, early in the fifth month, someone noticed that a protective amulet from the Aizen'in Temple had been miswritten. Hanging on the front gate, where it should have said “MAY THIS HOUSE KNOW CONTINUED LUCK IN BATTLE AND FREEDOM FROM CALAMITIES,” the word “CALAMITIES” had been omitted. They consulted with a priest from a family temple and decided to have the plaque rewritten immediately at Aizen'in. The third omen came early in the eighth month, when mysterious big lights appeared night after night from the area of the mansion's great hall and flew off toward the neighborhood of Shiba.
In addition to these signs, at noon on the 14th a retainer well versed in astrologyâa man named Saiki Moemonâcame to see the Tokugawa censor stationed in Munenori's Tokyo residence and said, “Something terrible might happen to His Lordship tomorrow, the fifteenth. When I was studying the skies last night, the General's Star
12
looked as though it was ready to fall. Better to err on the side of caution. Please make certain that His Lordship does not leave the house.” The censor himself had little faith in astrology, but he knew that Lord Munenori had great respect for this man's prognostications. He decided at least to tell one of Munenori's close attendants, and from him it reached the ear of Etch
Å«
-no-kami himself. As a result, they decided that on the fifteenth he would forgo both a performance of N
Å
and Ky
Å
gen
13
and a courtesy call that he had planned to make on his way home from the Castle. Attendance at the Castle itself, however, he would not put off.
Then, on the very day, the 15th, there was one more evil omen in addition to all the others. It was Etch
Å«
-no-kami's custom on the 15th of every month to dress in linen ceremonial robes and, with his own hand, to offer sacred saké before the war god, Hachiman Daibosatsu. On that particular morning,
however, after he had received the tray holding two round earthenware bottles of sacred saké from the hands of a page and turned to offer it up before the god, both bottles inexplicably toppled over, spilling their sacred contents. As might be expected, everyone in the room went pale.
When Etch
Å«
-no-kami proceeded to the Castle later that day accompanied by the Buddhist attendant Tashiro Y
Å«
etsu,
14
he first entered the Great Hall. Soon afterward, however, he felt the need to move his bowels and, accompanied this time by another Buddhist attendant, Kuroki Kansai, he entered the privy beside the anteroom and relieved himself. He then emerged from the privy and was washing his hands in the dark lavatory when suddenly, from behind, some unknown person cried out and slashed at him with a sword. Taken off guard, he spun around and in that instant the sword flashed again, cutting him down the forehead. Blinded by his own blood, Etch
Å«
-nokami could not see the face of his attacker, who used this advantage to rain blow after blow on him. Etch
Å«
-no-kami stumbled out of the lavatory and collapsed on the veranda of Chamber Four, just off the hall. The attacker threw down his weaponâa short swordâand disappeared.
Meanwhile, the attendant who had accompanied Etch
Å«
-nokami to the privy, Kuroki Kansai, reacted to this unanticipated catastrophe with panic. He fled back to the Great Hall, and then went into hiding, as a result of which no one knew that Etch
Å«
-no-kami's blood had been shed. The victim was finally found some time later by an officer of the Sh
Å
gunal guard named Homma Sadagor
Å
, who was on his way from the guardroom to the servants' quarters. Homma immediately informed the Castle foot patrol, and from that office rushed the chief patrolman, Kuge Zenb
Ä
, with such other foot patrolmen as Tsuchida Han'emon and Komoda Niemon. Then the entire castle erupted as if someone had broken open a hornet's nest.
They lifted the wounded man from where he lay, but his face and body were so covered with blood that no one recognized
him. Someone bent toward him and spoke into his ear until, at last, he replied in a feeble voice, “Hosokawa Etch
Å«
.”
“Who did this to you?”
His only reply was, “A man in formal dress,” which could have been any man allowed into the Castle. No further questions seemed to reach him. His wounds were recorded as, “Nape of the neck, 7 inches; left shoulder, 6â7 inches; right shoulder, 5 inches; 4â5 cuts on each hand; 2â3 cuts around the head: above the nose, beside the ear, top of the head; diagonal cut down the back to right flank, 1 foot 6 inches.” Attended not only by the duty inspectors, Tsuchiya Ch
Å
tar
Å
and Hashimoto Awa-no-kami, but also the Chief Inspector, K
Å
no Buzen-nokami, the wounded man was carried to the Hearth Room. They set low screens around him and assigned five Buddhist attendants to watch over him, after which one Great Lord after another came from the Great Hall to tend to his needs. Matsudaira Hy
Å
bush
Å
y
Å«
treated him most tenderly of all as they were still carrying him in, such that all who witnessed this, it was said, could see the depth of his devotion.
The Senior and Junior Councilors having meanwhile been notified of the emergency, orders went out to lock every gate in the Castle to forestall any eventuality. The crowd of retainers who had accompanied their masters as far as the Great Main Gate saw the huge gate being closed and immediately assumed there was a crisis in the Castle. This set off a tremendous commotion, and though several inspectors came out to try to quiet the men down, time and again the crowd would surge toward the gate like a tsunami. The confusion inside the Castle continued to grow as well. Inspector Tsuchiya Ch
Å
tar
Å
took a number of men with him from among the foot patrol and the fire watch. They searched everywhere, including all guard stations and even the kitchen, in a determined effort to find the attacker. They were, however, unable to discover the “man in formal dress.”
Rather than these men, the culprit was found by a Buddhist attendant named Takarai S
Å
ga, much to everyone's surprise. S
Å
ga was a bold young fellow, and he went around searching
in places that the group had ignored. When he peeked into the privy near the Hearth Room, he found there, crouching like a shadow, a man whose hair had come loose at the temples. Because it was dark inside, he could not be sure what he was seeing, but it looked as though the man had pulled a scissors from his leather pouch and was cutting the disordered locks. S
Å
ga leaned into the privy and called out to the man:
“Sir⦠may I ask who you are?”
The man replied hoarsely, “I am a man who is cutting his hair
15
because he has just killed someone.”
This left no room for doubt. S
Å
ga immediately called for help and they pulled the man from the privy, entrusting him for the moment to the foot patrol.
The foot patrol in turn brought him to the Sago Palm Room, where the Chief Inspector and the other inspectors gathered and interrogated him about the bloody attack. All he did, however, was stare blankly at the Castle's great commotion, offering no coherent reply. And when he did open his mouth, it was to say something about a cuckoo. Now and then his blood-stained hands would tear at the hair of his temples. Shuri had lost his mind.
Hosokawa Etch
Å«
-no-kami drew his last breath in the Hearth Room. By secret order of His Sequestered Lordship Yoshimune, he was removed from the Castle as having been “wounded,” his palanquin carried through the Middle Gate to the Hirakawa Gate. Formal announcement of his death did not come until the 21st of the month.
On the actual day of the murder, Shuri was put in the custody of Lord Mizuno Kenmotsu of Okazaki and removed from the Castle, also through the Middle Gate to the Hirakawa Gate, but in a palanquin covered with green netting and surrounded by fifty Mizuno foot soldiers. The men were uniformly dressed in brand-new dark-orange jackets and brand-new white breeches, and they carried brand-new poles, the ends of which they set on the ground with each step. The display was said to
have won Kenmotsu praise as evidence that he was always well prepared for any eventuality.
Seven days later, on the 22nd of the month, acting as the envoy of the Sh
Å
gun, Chief Censor Ishikawa Tosa-no-kami read the official verdict to Shuri: “Although you are judged to have become mentally deranged, whereas Hosokawa Etch
Å«
-nokami died from the untreatable wounds you inflicted upon him, you are hereby ordered to commit
seppuku
in the residence of Mizuno Kenmotsu.”
Shuri sat formally on his heels in the presence of the envoy, but though he was presented with a short sword in the customary manner, his limp hands remained on his knees. When he made no move to lift the sword from its tray and slash himself across the belly, the Mizuno retainer assigned to second him, Yoshida Yas
Å
zaemon, did what he had to do, lopping off Shuri's head from behind. The cut could not have been more perfect, leaving a flap of skin at the throat so that the head did not drop to the ground. Yas
Å
zaemon lifted the head and displayed it to the Sh
Å
gun's official witness. With its high cheekbones and yellowed skin, the head was almost painful to look at. The eyes, of course, were not closed.
The witness examined the head and, smelling the blood, expressed his satisfaction to the swordsman: “An excellent cut.”