Crackling Mountain and Other Stories Read online

  Over the high mountain of bamboo grass ...

  The old man had lost all restraint. His voice ascending another octave, he danced on and on to his heart’s content.

  The demons were immensely pleased. “Come every moonlit night and dance for us. But we’ll need something valuable as a pledge.”

  The demons talked over the matter, whispering to one another. Didn’t the wen glimmering on the old man’s cheek seem to them like some unusual jewel? If they kept it, he would surely return. And so, having made this silly conjecture, they immediately tore the wen off without any trouble. A stupid thing to do, but after living so long in the depths of the mountain, they probably took it for a magical charm.

  The old man was horrified. “No! Not my grandchild!” he exclaimed.

  The demons gave a joyful shout of triumph.

  Morning. Listlessly stroking his cheek where the wen had been, the old man descended the mountain road which glistened with dew.

  With his wen gone, the old man felt somewhat lonely. After all, there was no one else he could talk to. Still, the cheek felt lighter, and the morning breeze on his skin seemed quite agreeable. Both gain and loss, both good and bad had come from this episode then, and perhaps the two sides simply canceled out one another. It had been good for the old man to sing and dance to his heart’s content after these many years, wasn’t that so? As he was going down the mountainside musing on these questions, he nearly bumped into his saintly son who was heading for work in the field.

  The saint removed his hood and intoned, “Good morning, Father.”

  “Oh,” the old man replied, somewhat at a loss.

  Nothing more was said as they passed by one another.

  Realizing that the old man’s wen had disappeared overnight, even the saint was slightly taken aback. But he believed that quibbling over the features of a parent went against the Saintly Way. So he pretended not to notice and went on in silence.

  When the old man got home, his wife calmly said, “So you’re back.”

  She didn’t ask about what had happened the night before. “The soup’s gotten cold,” she grumbled as she set about preparing the old man’s breakfast.

  “Oh, that’s all right. Don’t bother warming it up,” the old man countered. He felt small and sheepish as he sat down to eat. Yet, the urge to describe his wondrous adventure of last night was very strong, and he almost began to relate what had happened. The words stuck in his throat, though, so cowed was he by the old lady’s stern manner. Bowing his head, he ate his meal dejectedly.

  “The wen looks like it shriveled up,” his wife remarked offhandedly.

  “H’mm,” the old man mumbled, the urge to talk having passed.

  “It broke, then, and the water just squirted out from inside?” She did not seem particularly impressed.

  “H’mm.”

  “It’ll swell up again if more water collects, then.”

  “That’s true.”

  In his own home this business of the old man’s wen didn’t much matter.

  One of the neighbors, though, a second old man with his own wen, was quite curious about what had happened. This man’s wen was on the left cheek, and he found it quite annoying. Believing it had kept him from advancing in the world, he hated his wen with a passion. Every day he looked repeatedly in the mirror and sighed. How much scorn and derision, the old man wondered, had been heaped on him because of it. He had let his sideburns grow long, hoping to conceal the wen; but, alas, the tip glowed on his flowing white beard like the New Year’s Day sun rising gloriously from the sea. Rather then hide the wen, the beard set it off like one of the wonders of the world.

  With his sturdy physique, large nose, and glaring eyes, this oldster looked every inch a man. He spoke and acted with dignity, too, and he dressed with a certain splendor. His learning was impressive, his mind discerning. Rumor had it that his wealth far surpassed that of the other old man, the drinker. All the neighbors knew this second old man was special, so they addressed him as “Master” or “Sir” without fail. He was a fine man, a perfect man—except for that annoyance on his left cheek. His wen depressed him day and night, and he never could relax.

  Though just thirty-seven years old, the man’s wife was not particularly attractive. She was fair and plump, however, and she laughed as merrily and as often as a coquette. Her daughter, who was thirteen or so, was very pretty. The girl could also be quite saucy, but this gave her something in common with her mother. The two of them were constantly in stitches over one thing or another, and this made the home lively in spite of the master’s scowling face.

  “Mother, I wonder why Father’s wen is so red? It’s like the head of an octopus.” The saucy girl would come out unhesitatingly with such a remark. Her mother would laugh rather than scold her, and then she would reply, “Well, maybe you’re right. But, to me, it’s more like one of those wooden drums that hang from the eaves of a temple.”

  “Shut up!” the old man would thunder. Glaring at his wife and daughter, he would spring to his feet and head for one of the darker rooms well within the house. There he would peek into a mirror and give way to despair. “It’s hopeless,” he would mutter.

  Should he apply the knife, even at the risk of killing himself? It had come to this when the old man heard the rumor that the other man’s wen had suddenly disappeared. Under cover of night he slipped over to the old man’s hut and heard from him the marvelous tale of the moonlit banquet.

  When he heard the story the old man was overjoyed. “Well, well, then I too can surely have this wen removed.”

  Fortunately the moon was out again that very night. Excited by what he had heard, this esteemed man ventured forth like a warrior heading into battle, his mouth set in a grimace and his eyes glaring. Come what may, he would impress those demons this very night by dancing with gusto. And, if by some slight chance he didn’t impress them, why then he’d lay them low with his iron-ribbed fan. He figured that a bunch of foolish, drunken demons couldn’t amount to much.

  And so, to dance for the demons or else to quell them, he marched into the depths of Sword Mountain, his shoulders thrown back and his right hand grasping the iron-ribbed fan. But a performance meant to impress the audience will often turn out poorly. In his very eagerness the old man was almost bound to fail.

  He began with a stately move right into the circle of reveling demons. “Your humble servant,” he proclaimed, flipping open his iron-ribbed fan and gazing at the moon overhead. After pausing momentarily as if he were a giant tree, he shuffled his feet lightly and began a slow, groaning chant.

  A priest am I

  Performing my late spring meditation

  By the Straits of Naruto.

  It pains me to realize

  That in this locale

  The entire Heike Clan met its end,

  And every evening

  I come to this shore

  To read the holy sutra.

  As I wait among the rocks of the dune,

  As I wait among the rocks,

  A boat—whose I do not know—

  Goes rowing with a splash of oars

  Amid the white-capped waves.

  How still the inlet this evening!

  How still the inlet this evening!

  But yesterday has passed,

  Today draws to an end,

  And so too will tomorrow.

  Moving ever so deliberately, he again looked up at the moon and struck a rigid pose.

  The demons were dumbfounded. They rose one after another and fled into the depths of the mountain.

  “No! Wait!” The old man cried out in a pathetic voice and ran after the demons. “You can’t forsake me now.”

  “Run! Run! He must be Shoki, the demon-queller.”10

  “No, I’m not Shoki!” the old man exclaimed. Then, catching hold of a demon, he pleaded in desperation, “Please, I want you to take off another wen.”

  “What’s that?” replied the confused demon. “You won’t stop
until we place on another wen? Oh, but we’re keeping that one for the old man. It’s splendid, but if you want it so bad, you can have it. Just stop your dancing! We’d just gotten nice and drunk, and then you came butting in. We’ve had enough of you, so just let me go. We’ll have to go somewhere else now and get drunk all over—that’s enough. Let me go, now. Hey! Somebody! Give this fool that wen we got the other night. He says he wants it.”

  So the demons attached the wen they had been keeping to his right cheek. There! The old man now had two flopping wens and they were heavy. He returned to his village in shame.

  Truly a pathetic ending. In these old tales someone who does wrong usually ends up getting punished for it. However, in this case, the second old man didn’t do anything especially wrong. It’s true that he became overly tense at one point, and so the dance he performed got out-of-hand. But that hardly counts. Come to think of it, there weren’t any bad people in his family, either. And the old tippler too, as well as his family, and even the demons on Sword Mountain, didn’t do anything wrong, either. Even though there’s not a single episode of wrongdoing in this tale, one of the characters comes to grief. Try drawing a moral from this story and you’re in real trouble. So why did I bother telling the tale? If the anxious reader presses me on this question, I’d have to answer that there’s always something both tragic and comical in people’s very nature. It’s a problem at the very core of our lives, and that’s really all I can say.

  Crackling

  Mountain

  Kachikachiyama

  The traditional tale of “Crackling Mountain” describes a vendetta that a rabbit carries out against a badger. The badger had been captured by an old man and was going to be made into a stew. While his captor was away, however, the badger killed the old man’s wife and, assuming her form, served her as the stew to the old man upon his return. The rabbit, as a friend of the old couple, took vengeance by performing the deeds elaborated by Dazai in his reworking of the tale.

  As with “Taking the Wen Away,” Dazai begins “Crackling Mountain” with a preface, this one meandering for several pages before the story itself gets underway. Among other things, he describes a problem that arises from a recent change in the old tale, a change that tones down some of the cruelty for the saké of young readers. Dazai sees this change as giving rise to a new problem. For when the badger is himself killed after merely wounding the old woman in self-defense, then justice is ill served.

  Perhaps this commentary is not meant to be taken seriously. Dazai writes at least partly in jest, and the surest note that he plays in these opening paragraphs is one of self-caricature. Indeed, as the story unfolds, the suggestion that the author is poking fun at himself through his portrayal of the badger becomes almost irresistible.

  Certainly Dazai transforms the traditional tale radically, even as he retells its main episodes. Satirical to a heavy-handed degree perhaps, “Crackling Mountain” can be read all the same for its humor, energy, and inventive play. As with the previous selection, “Taking the Wen Away,” the principal puzzle crops up in the epilogue.

  Given the total context of the tale, this episode could amount to the author’s playing a joke on himself. For, after raising in his preface the problem of the unjust treatment of the badger in the newer editions of the traditional tale, Dazai claims to provide a solution with his revolutionary interpretation of the identity of the two principal characters. But, rather than make the tale more understandable, this ploy creates its own problems, and intractable ones at that.

  One certainty about “Crackling Mountain” is the author’s pose of personal involvement. Dazai was thirty-seven when he wrote “Crackling Mountain,” the same age as his badger. Indeed, the association between author and badger is hinted at throughout the tale. This makes the epilogue doubly perplexing. For, in addition to wondering whether to dismiss the foolish badger or sympathize with him, one also must question if the author sees himself in this badger to the very end.

  In spite of appearances, the rabbit in “Crackling Mountain” is actually a teenage girl, while the badger who undergoes a heartrending defeat is an ugly man in love with her. That’s how things look to me, no doubt about it.

  The setting of the tale is supposed to have been around Lake Kawaguchi, close to Mount Fuji in the Kōshū region. The exact spot is now called The Inner Mountain of Funazu. People in the Kōshū region are—well, brusque is the word. Maybe that’s why “Crackling Mountain” is rougher than the other Otogi Zōshi tales. First of all, the story begins on a cruel note, with the old woman being turned into a stew. Now that was hardly a prank! No, it was downright wicked. The badger committed other atrocities too—like that terrible business of scattering the old woman’s bones under the veranda. It’s a shame, but the tale had to be banned for children.

  In the illustrated version now on sale, the badger only wounds the old woman before running away. In my opinion no one should object to this change as a means of getting around the ban. But, in taking vengeance for this mischief, the rabbit goes much too far. A valiant avenger should dispatch the enemy with one blow. Not in this case, though. Our rabbit taunts her victim, mocks and almost hounds him to death before luring him into the clay boat that, as it crumbles, leaves the poor creature gurgling helplessly in the water. Yes, a cunning scheme from beginning to end, but hardly in accord with the Way of the Japanese Warrior. If the badger had followed through on his vicious intention to serve up the old woman as stew, no one would think twice at the well-deserved punishment he receives. But in the new version that protects innocent children and circumvents the ban, the badger merely wounds the old woman and flees. In all fairness the rabbit shouldn’t be allowed to torture and humiliate the badger so relentlessly, drowning him at last in that disgraceful manner.

  The badger was merely frolicking in the hills when he got caught by the old man. With his captor planning to make him into stew, the situation seemed hopeless. Desperate for a way to escape, he finally succeeded in tricking the old woman and saving his own skin. Now, the scheme to make her into stew was wrong. But the badger’s only crime in the recent illustrated version is to claw the old woman while making his escape. One can hardly call reasonable self-defense a terrible deed, even if unintended injury is inflicted.

  My five-year-old daughter is very homely—just like her father. Unfortunately she thinks in the same eccentric way too. We were in the family air-raid shelter together, and I was reading the illustrated “Crackling Mountain” to her when she blurted out, “The badger . . . what a pity.” “What a pity”—that’s a phrase she’s picked up recently, and she repeats it over and over regardless of what she sees. Since she’s obviously trying to play up to her softhearted mother, her behavior is hardly surprising. Of course, in this case it could well be that she likes badgers. She once saw a group of them nervously trotting about in their cage when her father took her to the neighborhood zoo in Inokashira Park. Maybe that’s why she’s instinctively drawn to the badger in “Crackling Mountain.” Whatever the grounds, though, this little tenderheart of mine is mistaken. Her notions are flimsy, the origins of her compassion obscure. Actually, I shouldn’t be making this much fuss over her.

  Still, that chance phrase—“What a pity”—seemed to have something suggestive about it, even when mumbled by a mere child. Reflecting on the matter, the girl’s father began to realize that, yes, the avenging rabbit had indeed gone too far. With this toddler of his, he might gloss over the matter; but wouldn’t older children, having been taught about The Warrior’s Way and Forthrightness, find the methods of the rabbit underhanded? Now that he had reached the heart of the matter, the dim-witted man started frowning.

  When things happen as in the recent illustrated books—the badger terribly mistreated by the rabbit for merely clawing the old woman; his back burned and then smeared with red pepper; and his death assured by the ride in the clay boat—well, then it’s only natural that any child smart enough to attend our public schools might begin to
wonder. Even if the badger had tried to make the old lady into stew, why couldn’t the rabbit have acted like a true warrior by solemnly proclaiming its pedigree and dispatching the enemy with a single blow? A rabbit may be frail, but that’s no excuse for deviousness. God favors the righteous, and revenge must be carried out openly. Even in the face of heavy odds the avenger must cry out, Heaven wills it! and leap directly upon the foe. When his skills aren’t equal to the task, he must discipline himself like that vanquished Chinese king of Yueh who slept every night on a woodpile to remind himself of the bitter taste of defeat.

  Or else he might wholly devote himself to practicing the martial arts at Mount Kurama. For ages the Japanese hero has generally acted in this manner—in fact, there don’t seem to be any other vendetta tales in which the avenger, regardless of how extreme the provocation, uses wily tricks and torments his opponent to death. Only in “Crackling Mountain” is revenge accomplished by disgraceful means. Hardly the way a man would act, is it? Child or adult, anyone with even a slight concern for justice would feel something was wrong.

  But don’t worry, I’ve thought this problem over. And I’ve figured out why the rabbit took this unmanly approach to vengeance. The rabbit’s not a man, but a pretty girl. No doubt about that. She’s fifteen years old—not quite ready to flirt and meaner than ever for just that reason.

  Everyone knows that lovely goddesses often appear in the Greek myths. Even in their company Artemis is alluring beyond compare—after Aphrodite at least. Artemis is well known as Goddess of the Moon, and her brow displays the pale glimmer of a new, crescent moon. Like Apollo, she is shrewd and determined, and all of the wild animals are subject to her. That doesn’t mean she’s a sturdy Amazon, though; she has a small, slender figure, and her limbs are delicate. Her face is so uncommonly beautiful as to give one a shudder. In spite of this, she lacks the femininity of Aphrodite. Her breasts are small, and she is callous toward those whom she dislikes. By splashing the hunter who peeked at her while she was bathing, Artemis instantly turned him into a stag. If that’s what happened to someone who saw her bathing, I can’t imagine how she would punish a man who tried holding her hand. Such a woman will humiliate any suitor. It’s too bad that stupid men easily give into temptation and thereby seal their own fate.