Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories (37 page)

15
.
cutting his hair
: Perhaps as a sign of religious atonement, as in taking the tonsure.

16
.
Mizuno Hayato-no-sh
ō
: This incident occurred in 1725. The victim recovered from his severe wounds. The attacker and his family were punished by confiscation of their considerable holdings (70,000
koku
), but the family was allowed to keep its name. Altogether, there were seven such armed attacks in Edo Castle during the Tokugawas' two and a half centuries of rule.

The Sino-Japanese War (1894–5), fought over control of Korea, was Japan's first foreign war in modern times. Japan succeeded in capturing the valuable Liaodong Peninsula from China but was soon forced to give it back by the “Triple Intervention” of Russia, Germany and France, which laid the groundwork for the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5). The central character of this story, He Xiao-er (Kash
ō
ji in Japanese), is a Chinese soldier caught in the first struggle for Liaodong. The translation omits most mentions of the surname to avoid confusion with the English pronoun.

1
.
Empress Dowager
:Cixi(1835–1908), the powerful “Last Empress” of China.

2
.
Strange Tales of Liaozhai
: The collection of supernatural tales is
Liao zhai zhi yi
by Pu Songling (1640–1715), which has been partially rendered into English as
Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
, tr. John Minford (London: Penguin Books, 2006), and
Strange Tales of Liaozhai
. Story 72, “A Final Joke” (in Minford's edition), tells how a certain man named Jia literally laughed his head off many years after receiving a near-fatal wound. It gave Akutagawa the idea for this story (IARZ 3:394).

1
.
Takehisa Yumeji's illustrations
: Painter, poet, and graphic designer Takehisa Yumeji (1884–1934) was one of the most sought-after illustrators of fictional works of his day, specializing in tall, slim beauties projecting a dreamy, elegiac mood.

2
.
Miss Mary Pickford
: “Green Onions” appeared in 1920, four years before Tanizaki Jun'ichir
ō
's novel
Chijin no ai
(translated by Anthony Chambers as
Naomi
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985)), with its waitress-heroine who resembles the screen star Mary Pickford (1892–1979).

3
.
naniwa-bushi, eat mitsu-mame
:The
naniwa-bushi
style of chanting with stringed accompaniment was oral literature for the semiliterate, recounting rousing tales based on old-fashioned plots that pitted duty against personal desire;
mitsu-mame
is an equally plebeian and old-fashioned dessert of sweet beans and agar-agar cubes in thick syrup, rather like Western canned mixed fruit.

4
.
The Cuckoo… in the Valley
: All but the last could be ranked as sentimental or melodramatic works appealing to popular taste, though in O-Kimi's eyes their Western and modern elements would certainly place them above the pre-modern plebeian preferences of O-Matsu: Tokutomi Roka (1868–1927),
Hototogisu
(1900), tr. Sakae Shioya and E. F. Edgett, as
Nami-ko: A Realistic Novel
(Tokyo: Yurakusha, 1905)—see also note 7 and “Daid
ō
ji Shinsuke: The Early Years”; Shimazaki T
ō
son,
T
ō
son shish
Å«
(1904) and see “The Life of a Stupid Man,” Section 46(and note 27); Akita Ujaku (1883–1962) et al.,
Matsui Sumako no issh
ō
(1919), biography of the life and loves of a notoriously “liberated” actress; Okamoto Kid
ō
(1872–1939),
Shin-Asagao nikki
(1912), a modern version of an 1832 puppet play; Prosper Mérimée, “Carmen” (1845), the story upon which the Bizet opera was based;
Takai yama kara tanizoko mireba
(possibly just an echo of a line from a popular song of 1870) has not been identified (IARZ 5:340).

5
.
Kaburagi Kiyokata
: Major figure (1878–1927) in the selfconsciously nativist modern Nihonga (literally, “Japan picture”) movement, which distinguished itself from Western oil painting by use of watercolors on paper and silk. Kaburagi was noted for his portraits of traditional beauties, of which
Genroku Woman
was representative. The Genroku Period (1688–1704), saw a
flowering of arts produced for an audience of commoners—woodblock prints, Kabuki drama, the puppet theater, etc.

6
.
Kitamura Shikai
: Modern pioneer (1871–1927) in marble sculpture. His
Eve
(1915) is owned by the Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art. Akutagawa wrote to a friend in 1915 that he found one of Kitamura's works (not
Eve
) just as “stupid” and “unbearable” as most of the other sculptures in an art show he had attended (IARZ 5:340).

7
.
tragedy based on The Cuckoo
: A heart-rending melodrama about a handsome young couple forced apart by the groom Takeo's mother upon her discovery that the beautiful heroine Namiko has tuberculosis,
The Cuckoo
was a blockbuster as a book, as a play in the modernized Kabuki-style theater (i.e. Shinpa, which, unlike Kabuki, uses actresses in female parts), and as a movie. Several film versions were made between 1909 and 1958, but this story is probably referring to the 1918 version—in which a male actor played the heroine.

8
.
two mirrors… slipcovers
: A beauty parlor customer would sit at a typical Japanese low cabinet to which was attached a tall mirror that was normally kept covered when not in use. Ancient feelings about mirrors as objects of special power still survive in Japan, though in greatly diluted form.

9
.
6-yen… 70 sen it cost for a measure of rice
: A sen is a hundredth of a yen. Waitresses were paid around 10 yen per month at the time of the story (a college graduate could expect a starting salary of 65 yen or more; Akutagawa was paid 100 yen monthly by the Naval Engineering School in 1917). What with 6 yen of her base pay being consumed by rent, a 3-measure monthly rice supply costing her over 2 yen, and a daily dip in the public bath costing 5 sen, O-Kimi would have had to depend on tips to make ends meet. See Iwasaki Jir
ō
,
Bukka no ses
ō
100-nen
(Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 1982), pp. 286–301.

10
.
the Hundred Poets card game… the martial music of Satsuma
: Tanaka's talents include the memorization of 100 short poems needed to excel in a traditional popular New Year's card game that calls for snatching up the appropriate card as quickly as possible when the first few lines of a poem are read aloud. He can also accompany himself on a 4-or 5-string lute known as a “biwa” while singing stirring tales of war and heroism, an especially manly art that originated in the Satsuma domain in the sixteenth century.

11
.
Douglas Fairbanks
…
Mori Ritsuko
: Douglas Fairbanks (1883–
1939), a Hollywood film star, and Mori Ritsuko (1890–1961), a popular stage actress of the day.

12
.
Puvis de Chavannes' St. Geneviève
:
Watch of St. Geneviève
, the last painting by Puvis de Chavannes (1824–98) is considered one of his most stirring, another of the art works evoking
sentimentalisme
in this story.

13
.
“The Wanderer's Lament”
: “Sasurai,” a song made popular at the time by its use in a Tokyo performance of Tolstoy's
The Living Corpse
(1911) in Japanese translation.

1
.
the recently overthrown Qing dynasty
: The Republican (First) Revolution began in October 1911 and brought down the Qing dynasty (1644–1912).

2
.
Shuntian Times
:The
Shuntian shibao
(in Japanese:
Junten jih
ō
), founded in 1901 by Japanese entrepreneur Nakajima Masao, was a Chinese-language newspaper for Beijing, the surrounding area of which was known as Shuntian during the Qing era. For some reason, the editor “quoted” below has a Japanese “name,” Mudaguchi, which means “idle chatter.”

3
.
Annals of Horse Governance… Quality of Horses
: All are genuine Chinese reference works:
Ma zheng ji
,
Ma ji
,
Yuan Heng liao niu ma tuo ji
,
Bo Le xiang ma jing
.

4
.
ancient records
: From the chapter on punishment in
Kongcongzi
(
The Kong Family Masters' Anthology
), a fictitious Confucian text compiled in the third century
AD
.

5
.
loudly beat the drum
: Echoing Chapter 11, Verse 16 of the Confucian
Analects
(
c
. 450
BC
).

6
.
Okada Sabur
ō
: Novelist (1890–1954), went to France in 1921 and began publishing French
contes
that contrasted sharply with the autobiographical fiction that dominated much of Japanese publishing. In 1920, Akutagawa found some of his work at least “promising” (IARZ 6:61). Major Yuasa has not been identified.

1
.
Ek
ō
in Temple… Honjo Ward
: Founded in 1657, the Ek
ō
in Temple remains an important center of neighborhood life. Akutagawa grew up in this strongly traditional neighborhood of
Honjo Ward on the flat, low-lying east bank of the Sumida River after he was adopted, though he was born in Ky
ō
bashi Ward in another, west bank, part of Tokyo's “low city.” See Edward Seidensticker,
Low City, High City
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), pp. 4–5, 8–9, 214–20.

2
.
Roka's Nature and Man
…
Beauties of Nature
: Tokutomi Roka (1868–1927),
Shizen to jinsei
(1900), tr. Arthur Lloyd et al., as
Nature and Man
(Tokyo, 1913)—see also “Green Onions”; Sir John Lubbock (1834–1913),
The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live In
(1893).

3
.
mother's milk
: Akutagawa conflates his birth parents and adoptive parents in this story. See the notes below, plus the other stories in this section, and the Chronology for factual accounts of his life.

4
.
vita sexualis
: For an English translation of the controversial novel to which this refers indirectly, see Mori
Ō
gai,
Vita Sexualis
(1909), tr. by Kazuji Ninomiya and Sanford Goldstein (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1972).

5
.
battle of Fushimi-Toba
: Akutagawa's birth father fought with the rebel Satsuma troops against the army of the Tokugawa government on 3 January 1868 in the Kyoto suburbs of Fushimi and Toba, the single greatest clash leading to the downfall of the regime.

6
.
dairy farm that the uncle owned
: Actually Akutagawa's birth father, who would have been about fifty-five at the time.

7
.
father
…
Â¥500
: The uncle who adopted Akutagawa retired in 1898 as an assistant department head in the Tokyo government's internal affairs division with an annual stipend of ¥720, rather better than Shinsuke's father (IARZ 24:57). Compared with the average middle-class annual income of ¥600, Shinsuke's father's was on the low side: they were not poor, but not comfortable.

8
.
school-sponsor meetings
:
Hosh
ō
nin kaigi
, precursor of modern parent-teacher groups.

9
.
Kunikida Doppo
: As a pioneer of the modern Japanese short story, Kunikida Doppo (1871–1908) was Akutagawa's single most important predecessor. The highly wrought diary that covered Doppo's mid-twenties,
Azamukazaru no ki
(
Diary without Deceit
) was one of the most successful and influential pieces of introspective writing of its day. If Akutagawa himself kept a diary like Shinsuke's, it has not survived, but the passages “quoted” here read much like Doppo's; indeed, this story's pervasive
self-conscious use of parallel prose owes much to him. See also notes 14 and 15.

10
.
Way of the Warrior
: Low-ranking samurai like the Buddhist attendants in the story “Loyalty,” the Akutagawas had for generations served as tea masters to the Tokugawa Sh
ō
gun. On the Way of the Warrior (
bushid
ō
), see
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
, tr. William Scott Wilson (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1992).

11
.
middle school to higher school
: In Akutagawa's day, four years of compulsory elementary school were followed by three of upper-level elementary school, five of middle school, and three of higher school. He attended middle school from age 13 to 18 and higher school from 18 to 21.

12
.
suicide
: A hypothetical situation briefly described in
Notes from the House of the Dead
(1860–61), Part I, Chapter 2.

13
.
“Dharma”
: Good-luck dolls representing the Zen patriarch Bodhidharma tend to be round and have enormous eyes.

14
.
Katai
: Doppo and Tayama Katai (1871–1930) were associated with the “Naturalist School” of fiction that flourished in Japan in the first decade of the twentieth century.