Seven Japanese Tales Read online

  The whole affair had been arranged by young Ritaro, who was surrounded by a swarm of geisha and other entertainers. As usual, Shunkin was accompanied by Sasuke. That day Ritaro and his friends were so hospitable that Sasuke felt quite embarrassed. He was not much of a drinker: lately he had become accustomed to having a little saké at supper with Shunkin, but he was forbidden to touch a drop of it elsewhere without her express permission. Since getting drunk would make him unfit for his duties as her guide, he was only pretending to sip from his cup.

  But Ritaro saw through his trick, and called out to Shunkin in a thick, insinuating voice: “Madam, Sasuke won't drink unless you say it's all right. But this is a party — let him have the day off! If he can't hold it, there are two or three other fellows who wouldn't mind being your guide!”

  “I suppose a little won't hurt,” said Shunkin politely, forcing a smile. “Only please don't make him drink too much.”

  When they heard this, Ritaro and the others cried: “Come on! She says it's all right!” and began pressing cups of wine on him from all sides. Still, Sasuke kept himself under control, and managed to empty most of them into a nearby vase.

  It seems that all the attending gay-quarter jesters and geisha were astonished at the voluptuous charm of the samisen teacher of whom they had heard so much. They saw with their own eyes that rumor had not exaggerated her beauty, and they were full of praise for her. Perhaps some flattered her in order to curry favor with Ritaro, but there is no doubt of her fascination. At thirty-six, as she then was, Shunkin looked a full ten years younger; her complexion was extraordinarily fair, and a glimpse of her neck and shoulders gave the onlooker a sudden shiver of pleasure. As she sat there modestly, her exquisite hands resting in her lap, her head tilted slightly forward, the loveliness of Shunkin's blind face captivated everyone.

  That afternoon while they were all out strolling in the garden Sasuke led Shunkin among the plum blossoms, guiding her slowly from tree to tree and stopping before each of them. “Here is another!” he would say, as he held her hand out to stroke the trunk. Like all blind people, Shunkin depended on her sense of touch to make sure that something was really there; it was also her way of enjoying the beauty of flowers and trees. But when one of the jesters saw her eagerly caressing the rough bark of an old plum tree with her delicate hands, he cried out in a queer, shrill voice: “Ooh, I envy that tree!” Then another jester ran up in front of Shunkin, threw himself into a grotesque pose, arms and legs aslant, and announced: “I'm a plum tree too!” Everyone burst out laughing.

  All this was meant as a compliment, there was no intention of making fun of her. However, not being used to the boisterous pranks of the gay quarter, Shunkin was offended. Since she always wanted to be treated as if she were normal a joke of this sort annoyed her intensely.

  Finally it began to get dark and they went inside to carry on with the party. “You must be tired, Sasuke,” Ritaro told him. “I'll look after Shunkin for you. Your supper is ready in the other room — go in and have another drink too!”

  Thinking it best to fortify himself with a good meal, Sasuke did as he was told and retired to the next room to have his own supper before the others. Though he asked for rice immediately, an old geisha stayed close at his side and insisted on pouring saké for him, one cup after another. Thus he spent more time at his meal than he had expected, but even after finishing it he had to wait to be summoned. Meanwhile, something happened in the other room: perhaps Shunkin got up to go to the lavatory and asked for Sasuke, only to have Ritaro block her way and tell her that if that's what she wanted, he'd take her himself. And perhaps he was trying to lead her forcibly out into the corridor. In any case, Shunkin was heard to cry: “No! Please call Sasuke!” She had shaken herself free from Ritaro and was standing there cowering when Sasuke came hurrying to her. With one glance at her face, he understood the situation.

  After that, Shunkin felt relieved to think that she would be spared any further trouble with Ritaro. But apparently he could not accept such a blow to his reputation for being irresistible to women. He had the impudence to come for a lesson the very next day, as nonchalantly as ever. This led to a sudden change of attitude on Shunkin's part. If that's what he wants, I'll drum it into him, she thought; let's see if he can stand real discipline. From then on she was merciless.

  Day after day, the bewildered Ritaro found himself working till the sweat ran and he had to gasp for breath. Having supposed himself to be an expert, he had thrived on flattery; but when he was sharply reprimanded for every slip, it became evident that his playing was riddled with errors. Now that Shunkin heaped abuse on him he began to lose heart for his lessons — which, in the first place, had been a mere pretext for seeking to fulfill a quite different aspiration. When she drove him even harder he deliberately played in a dull, listless manner. At last Shunkin cried: “You idiot!” and struck out at him with her plectrum, wounding him between his eyebrows. Ritaro gave a howl of pain, daubed at the blood trickling down from his forehead, and, as he left the room, muttered angrily: “You'll pay for this!” He never appeared again.

  According to one opinion, the person who injured Shunkin was the father of a girl who was in training to become a geisha, and who put up with Shunkin's severity in order to benefit from the thoroughness of her teaching. But one day Shunkin struck her on the head with a plectrum, and the girl ran home crying. Because the wound left a visible scar, her father took the matter very seriously indeed. Furious with anger, he went to Shunkin to demand satisfaction. “You can talk all you want about discipline, but you have no right to torture people!” he told her roughly. “This child's face is her fortune, and now you've scarred her! You won't get away with that. What are you going to do about it?”

  His strong language immediately aroused Shunkin's stubbornness. “People come to me because I'm strict,” she retorted. “If you don't like it, why did you send her here?”

  But the girl's father refused to let it go at that. “It's bad enough for a teacher to hit a pupil, but when she can't see what she's doing it's positively criminal! A blind person ought to behave like one!”

  Because the man seemed on the point of violence, Sasuke intervened and, after a good deal of talking, persuaded him to go home. Meanwhile, Shunkin sat there in silence, pale and trembling; she never uttered a word of apology. Some say that this man took revenge by disfiguring her.

  However, the girl's scar was probably only a tiny one on the forehead or behind the ear. To ruin Shunkin's looks for life on that account would have been incredibly vengeful, even for an agitated doting father. And Shunkin was unable to see her own face, so that if the aim had been to punish her alone, spoiling her beauty would hardly have seemed the best way to accomplish it.

  I wonder if the aim of the attacker might not also have been to cause grief to Sasuke, which would presumably make Shunkin suffer even more. If we follow this line of reasoning, perhaps our heaviest suspicion must fall on Ritaro after all. We have no way of telling how passionately he desired her, but young men are likely to be attracted to the ripe beauty of women older than themselves. No doubt the beautiful blind woman had a peculiar glamor for him, whetting an appetite jaded by long dissipation. Even if he had begun with a casual attempt to seduce her, the fact that he had not only been snubbed by her but slashed across his manly brow might well have made him seek a really vicious revenge.

  Still, Shunkin had so many other enemies that it is hard to say who had the worst grudge against her, or why. We cannot safely conclude that Ritaro was the guilty one. Nor was it necessarily the usual affair of passion: perhaps money was at the root of it, since more than one pupil had been heartlessly rejected because of his poverty. Then there were said to be others who, though not so brazen about it as Ritaro, were jealous of Sasuke. The fact that Sasuke was a “guide” who occupied an equivocal position in Shunkin's household could not be concealed for long. All the pupils eventually found out what was going on, and those who had fallen in love with Shu
nkin secretly envied Sasuke's happiness — some of them even resented his devotion in serving her. If he had been her legal husband, or at least her accepted lover, they would have had no reason to object. But to all appearances he was merely her guide, her servant: he took care of her every need, even massaging and bathing her, like a faithful slave. To those who knew what went on in private between them, his humility must have seemed ridiculous. Some remarked sarcastically: “It might be a little taxing, but I wouldn't mind being that kind of a companion! There's nothing self-sacrificing about him.” And so one of the other pupils may have hated Sasuke, and said to himself: “How do you suppose he'd take it if her pretty face turned hideous over night? I wonder if he'd still be the perfect servant, and go to all that trouble for her. That's something I'd like to see!” Quite possibly the real motive was a desire to strike at Sasuke.

  Indeed, there are so many theories about the crime that it is hard to choose among them. Some think the attacker was not one of Shunkin's pupils at all, but one of her professional rivals. Although there is no particular evidence for such a view, it may yet be the most perceptive. Shunkin's customary arrogance and high regard for her own ability — a regard which the more discriminating members of the public tended to accept — may have wounded the self-esteem of other artists, even seemed to menace their position. Among blind musicians, some of the men held official rank as “Master,” a title which was still granted by the Court in those days and which permitted them to enjoy special privileges as well as public acclaim far beyond that of ordinary performers. When the rumor began to circulate that these favored artists were less gifted than Shunkin, they must have felt deeply resentful, not least because of their own blindness. Perhaps they tried to think of some devious way to finish her career once and for all. Jealous artists have been known to poison their rivals with mercury; but since Shunkin was a singer as well as an instrumentalist, and extremely proud of her good looks, an enemy may have decided to disfigure her so that she would never dare perform in public again. If her enemy was another woman teacher, she must have hated the very sight of the vain, lovely Shunkin, and taken all the more pleasure in destroying her beauty.

  When we consider how many people had reasons for hating Shunkin, we can see that sooner or later someone was sure to injure her. Without realizing it, she had sown the seeds of her own misfortune.

  It happened around three o'clock one morning at the end of April, six weeks after the plum-viewing party at Tengajaya:

  Startled awake by Shunkin's moaning, Sasuke ran in from the next room and hastily lighted a lamp. Apparently someone had forced open the shutters and entered her bedroom, but, hearing Sasuke, fled without taking anything. By the time Sasuke arrived it was already too late to catch a glimpse of him.

  Meanwhile, the frightened thief had snatched up a nearby kettle and dashed it at Shunkin's head, splashing her lovely snow-white cheek with a few drops of scalding water. Regrettably, they left a scar. Of course it was only a tiny flaw; her face was actually as beautiful as ever. But from then on Shunkin was acutely embarrassed by that trifling scar, and always concealed it by wearing a silken hood. She would spend the whole day shut up in her room, never venturing out into company, so that even pupils and close relatives hardly saw her face. As a result, there were all sorts of rumors and speculation about it.

  That is how the incident is described in the Life of Shunkin, which goes on to say:

  After all, it was only an insignificant blemish, but because of her extreme concern for her appearance she disliked having it seen. Perhaps, with the morbid sensitivity of the blind, she thought of it as a cause for shame.

  And then:

  By some strange turn of fate, within a few weeks Sasuke began to suffer from cataracts, and soon lost his sight altogether. At a time when his eyes were beginning to fail and everything around seemed to be getting hazy, he groped his way to Shunkin, and declared exultantly: “Madam, I am going blind too! Now I shall never see your scar as long as I live — how lucky that my blindness comes just at this time! It must be the will of Heaven!”

  For a long while afterward Shunkin seemed depressed.

  Much as one may sympathize with Sasuke's wish to conceal the truth, there is no denying that this account has been deliberately falsified. I cannot believe that he merely happened to develop cataracts, or that Shunkin — however great her concern for her appearance or her morbid sensitivity — would hide her face and shrink from the sight of others because of a minor scar. The fact is that her beautiful face had suffered a tragic change.

  According to Shigizawa Teru (as well as several other sources), the intruder went immediately to the kitchen, made a fire, and boiled a kettleful of water, which he then took into Shunkin's bedroom and with deliberate care poured full in her face. That was what he had come to do — he was no ordinary thief, nor did he act out of desperation. The wound was a severe one: Shunkin lost consciousness until the next morning, and it took more than two months for the skin to heal. That explains why there were so many rumors about a hideous change in her looks; perhaps there is even some truth to the report that her hair fell out, leaving one side of her head completely bald. Sasuke's own blindness may have kept him from seeing Shunkin in her disfigurement; but how could it be true that “even pupils and close relatives hardly saw her face”? Surely someone like Shigizawa Teru must have seen it. But even Teru, out of respect for Sasuke's feelings, never revealed the secret of Shunkin's looks. Once I asked her point-blank, but she only said: “Sasuke always thought of her as a very beautiful lady, so that's the way I thought of her too.”

  It was more than ten years after Shunkin's death when Sasuke finally told a few people closest to him a more detailed — and more trustworthy — story of how he lost his sight.

  On the night that Shunkin was attacked he was sleeping in the little room next to her bedroom, as usual. Awakened by a noise, he noticed that the night light had gone out. Then he heard a groan coming from her pitch-dark room. Startled, he jumped up, relit the lamp and hurried with it over to Shunkin's bed, which was behind a folding screen. The room itself seemed undisturbed, as he glanced around it in the weak lamplight reflected from the gold ground of the screen. The only thing out of place was a teakettle near her pillow Shunkin was lying on her back, under the covers but for some reason she was moaning. At first Sasuke thought she was having a nightmare, and tried to rouse her by asking what was wrong. Just as he was about to shake her, he cried out in sudden horror and clapped his hands over his eyes.

  “Sasuke, Sasuke!” Shunkin gasped. “I'm hideous! Don't look at me!” Writhing in pain, she frantically tried to cover her face with her hands.

  “Please don't worry,” he said, moving the lamp away. “I won't look at you — my eyes are shut.” When she heard this Shunkin seemed to relax and slip into unconsciousness.

  But she kept on murmuring deliriously: “Don't let anyone see my face!. . . Don't tell anyone. . .”

  And Sasuke would try to comfort her. “You mustn't worry. As soon as the blistering heals you'll look the same as ever.”

  But after she regained consciousness, she became more and more vehement. “How can I be the same after such an awful burn?” she would exclaim. “Stop trying to console me — just don't look at my face!” She refused to let anyone but the doctor see her condition: when the dressing had to be changed, she allowed no one else — not even Sasuke — to stay in the room.

  Thus, it seems that although Sasuke did have a glimpse of her red, scalded face when he rushed to her bedside that night, what he saw was so appalling that he instantly shut his eyes, leaving in his mind nothing more than a hazy memory of some weird hallucination there in the flickering lamplight. After that her whole face was bandaged, except for her mouth and nostrils. I suppose that Sasuke was as afraid of seeing her as Shunkin was of being seen. Whenever he approached her bed he closed his eyes or looked away, so determined was he to remain unaware of her changed appearance.

  But one day, when
Shunkin's convalescence was well along and the wound almost healed, she suddenly turned to him as he was sitting alone at her bedside. “Sasuke,” she asked, in a voice charged with feeling, “did you see my face?”

  “No, of course not!” he replied quickly. “I wouldn't disobey you by looking, when you told me not to.”

  But even the strong-willed Shunkin seemed to have lost all her spirit. “It won't be long till the bandages have to be taken off,” she said. “The doctor won't come any more either. So I'll have to let you see this face of mine, even if you're the only one who does.” She began to cry — something almost unheard-of for her — and dabbed at the tears through her bandages.

  Sasuke was speechless with grief, and the two wept together. At last he spoke up in a firm voice, as if he had come to a decision. “Please don't worry,” he told her. “It'll be all right — I'll make sure that I never see your face.”

  A few days later Shunkin was able to leave her bed: the time had come to remove the bandages. Early that morning Sasuke stealthily took a mirror and a sewing needle from the maids' room, went back to his bed, and there, sitting bolt upright and peering into the mirror, tried to thrust the needle into the pupil of his left eye. He had no real knowledge that pricking his eyes with a needle would make him blind, but he thought that this might be the easiest and least painful method. Difficult as it was to aim such a thrust into the pupil, the white of the eye was too tough to be readily pierced; and after a few attempts he succeeded in puncturing the soft pupil to a depth of about a quarter of an inch. Instantly the whole surface of the eyeball clouded, and he realized that he was losing his sight. There was neither bleeding nor fever; he scarcely felt any pain. No doubt he had ruptured the crystalline lens tissue, causing a traumatic cataract. Next, Sasuke used the same method on his right eye — within a few moments he had destroyed both eyes. To be sure, he could still see dim outlines for about a week afterward. Then he was totally blind.