Dazai Osamu - Otogizoshi - The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu

“You just scoop them up with a net. It’s easy. These days all the big ones are swarming off the shore of Ugashima Island. Let’s go. Can you row a boat?”

“Hmm.” The tanuki sighs thoughtfully. “It’s not that I can’t row. I mean, if I wanted to, hell, nothing to it, but-”

“Great,” the rabbit says, pretending to believe his tenuous boast. “That’s perfect. I have a little boat of my own, but it’s too small for both of us. Besides, it’s just a flimsy thing made with thin wooden planks, and it leaks. Very dangerous. I don’t care about me, but the last thing I want to do is put your life in danger, so let’s work together to build a boat just for you. You’ll need a sturdy one, made of mud.”

“That’s so kind of you! You know what? I think I’m going to cry. Allow me to weep. I don’t know why I’m like this, so easily moved to tears,” he says and adds, with a theatrical sob in his voice, a brazen request. “But would you mind making that good, sturdy boat for me by yourself? Please? I’d really appreciate it. While you’re doing that, I’ll throw a lunch together. I bet I’d make a first-rate galley cook.”

“No doubt.” The rabbit nods quickly, pretending to see the logic of his self-centered assessment. The tanuki smiles contentedly: life is sweet. And with that smile, his fate is sealed. What the tanuki doesn’t realize is that people who affect to believe all our nonsense often harbor evil and insidious plots in their hearts. But ignorance is bliss, as they say, and right now he’s very pleased with himself indeed.

Together they walk to the lakeshore. Lake Kawaguchi is a pale, glassy expanse today, unmarred by a single ripple. The rabbit begins shaping clay from the shore into boat form, and the tanuki thanks her repeatedly as he scuttles this way and that, focused exclusively on gathering the contents of his lunch. By the time an evening breeze has awakened wavelets over the entire surface of the lake, the small clay boat, gleaming like burnished steel, is ready for launching.

“Not bad, not bad!” The tanuki prances up to the boat and first places his oilcan-size lunch box carefully inside. “You’re a resourceful little thing, aren’t you? I mean, you made this beautiful boat in the blink of an eye! It’s like a miracle!” Even as he spews this transparently self-serving flattery, inwardly his lust is being augmented by a burgeoning greed. He reflects that with a skilled and hard-working wife like this he might be able to live in ease and luxury, and he firmly resolves to stick to this woman for the rest of his life. “Oof!” he says as he boards the craft. “I bet you’re good at rowing too. It’s certainly not that I don’t know how to row-I mean, come on. But today I’d like to admire the skill of my woman.” Insufferably presumptuous. “Back in the day, they used to call me a master oarsman, a genius with the oar and so forth, but today I think I’d rather lie back and watch. Why don’t you just tie the front of my boat to the back of yours? That way the boats too, like us, will be bound as one, to the end. If we die, we’ll die together. Baby, say you’ll never leave me.” He continues to ramble on in this crude and self-deluded manner as he stretches out on the bottom of his mud boat.

Told to tie the boats together, the rabbit freezes for a moment, wondering if the fool is on to her, but a glance at his face assures her that all is well. He’s already on the path to dreamland with a lecherous smirk on his face, still babbling idiotically as he drops off. “Wake me if you catch any carp. Dee-licious… Me, I’m thirty-seven…” The rabbit laughs through her nose, ties the tanuki’s boat to hers, and spears the water with her oar. The two boats glide away from shore.

The pine forest of Ugashima looks as if it’s on fire in the setting sun. And here’s where the author pauses to display his knowledge. Did you know that the design adorning packs of Shikishima cigarettes was based on a sketch of this very skyline, the pine forest of Ugashima Island? I have this on the word of a gentleman who should know and pass it on to the reader as reliable information. Of course, Shikishima cigarettes have disappeared now, which means that this digression isn’t likely to be of any interest to younger readers whatsoever. Pretty useless knowledge I’ve unveiled here, now that I think about it. I guess the best I can hope for is that those readers who are thirty-odd years or older will sigh and think, Ah, yes-those pines , idly recalling the scenic old cigarette packets along with their memories of geisha encounters or whatever.

Well. Be that as it may, the rabbit gazes raptly at the sunset over Ugashima.

“What a beautiful view,” she murmurs.

This, I need scarcely point out, is very disconcerting. One would think that not even the worst sort of villain would have the composure to appreciate scenic beauty just before committing the cruelest of crimes, but our lovely sixteen-year-old maiden is truly enthralled with that spectacular sunset. It’s a thin line between innocence and evil. Men who can drool over a nauseatingly narcissistic maiden who’s never known suffering and gush about the purity of youth and what have you ought to watch their steps. That “purity of youth” often turns out, as in the case of this rabbit, to be a frenzied dance-an indecipherable, sensual mishmash that casually combines murderous hatred with self-intoxication. It’s the foam on a glass of beer, and it’s the greatest danger there is. Valuing physical sensations above moral considerations is evidence of either mental deficiency or demonic evil. Take, for example, those American movies that were so popular all around the world awhile back. They were full of “pure” young males and females who were overly sensitive to tactile sensations and juddered nervously about like spring-wound devices. Is it going too far to say that all this “purity of youth” business can be traced back to America? Movies like Love on Skis , or whatever it was. And in the background someone’s coolly committing some dimwitted crime. It’s either idiocy or the work of Satan. Of course, maybe Satan has been an idiot all along. I’m not certain about that, but I’m fairly sure that with this digression I’ve managed to turn our petite, slender, lithe-limbed sixteen-year-old female rabbit, whom we earlier compared to the heart-quickening moon goddess Artemis, into something unspeakably dreary. Did someone say “idiocy”? Can’t be helped.

“Hyaah!” A queer squawk erupts from below. It’s the cry of our beloved and decidedly impure thirty-seven-year-old male, Tanuki- kun . “It’s water! My boat’s leaking! Yikes!”

“Quiet. It’s a boat made of mud, for heaven’s sake. Naturally it’s going to sink. Didn’t you know that?”

“What do you mean? No! What? I don’t get it. Wait. It doesn’t make sense. You’re not going to… No, that would be too fiendish. You’re my woman! I’m sinking-that’s the reality here, and if this is your idea of a joke, you’ve gone too far, you know. It’s domestic violence! Ah! I’m going down! Help me out here, sweetie. The lunch will be ruined! I brought worm macaroni sprinkled with weasel poop. What a waste! Glub. Argh! Now I’m swallowing water. Hey! Seriously, enough with the nasty prank. Wait! Don’t cut the rope! Together till the end, man and wife, in this life and the next, the unbreakable bond of romantic- Oh no! You cut it! Help! I can’t swim! I mean, I used to be able to swim a little, but when a tanuki gets to be thirty-seven all the sinews start stiffening, and- Yes, I confess. I’m thirty-seven. The truth is, I’m way too old for you. But you need to respect your elders! Remember your duty to be kind to senior citizens! Glub. Argh! You’re a good girl. Be a good girl and reach that oar over to me so I can- Ow! Ouch! What are you doing? That hurts! You’re hitting me on the head! Oh, so that’s how it is. Now I get it. You’re trying to kill me!”