Ten Nights' Dreams - The First Night

Ten Nights’ Dreams

Natsume Souseki

The First Night

Original Title: 夢十夜第一夜 (Yume Juuya Daiichi Ya)
Date of publication: July 26th 1988
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Original text

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I had a dream like this.
I was sitting at someone’s bedside with my arms crossed. The woman lying there was looking at me and whispering that she was going to die. Her long hair was spread on the pillow, framing her soft, beautiful face. Warm blood could be seen below the white skin of her cheeks, her lips were, of course, red. She did not look like she was dying. Yet the woman quietly, but clearly said she was going to die. I myself thought she was indeed going to die. There, you see, you think you’re going to die, I asked her, watching from above. I’ll die for sure, she said as she opened her eyes widely. Her big tear-filled eyes framed by long eyelashes were a single pitch black surface. My own appearance showed vividly deep inside her black pupils.
I stared at the luster of those black eyes that were so deep, my own figure seemed transparent, and I wondered if she really was going to die. And then I graciously put my face next to her pillow and assured her once again, I’m sure you won’t die, it’s alright. When suddenly, she said with sleepy eyes, speaking in a quiet voice, But I’m really dying, it can’t be helped.
When I asked her wholeheartedly, Well, can you see my face?, she smiled at me and said, If I can see, you ask, the sky, I can see it in your face. I remained silent and averted my gaze. While crossing my arms, I wondered if she really had to die.
After a while, she started speaking again.
“When I die, bury me. Dig the hole with a big shell. And use a star piece that is going to fall from the sky as my grave stone. And then wait next to my grave. I’ll be coming to see you again.”
I asked her when that would be.
“The sun shall rise. And then it shall set. And then it shall rise again, and set again. —The red sun moves from East to West, and as long as it falls from East to West — can you wait?”
I nodded quietly. The woman raised her voice over the silence a little, before she boldly said: “Please wait for one hundred years.”
“Please sit next to my grave for one hundred years. I’m sure I will come to meet you.”
I simply said I would wait. That was when my clear reflection in her black eyes started blur. A blur like water moving ever so quietly, it flowed away, when suddenly the woman’s eyes closed shut. Tears appeared between her long eyelashes and ran down her cheek — she was dead.After that I moved down to the garden and dug a hole with a pearl oyster’s shell. This shell was smooth with a sharp edge. Whenever I scooped up the earth, the moonlight would shine on the back of it. I could smell the damp soil. I spent a while digging the hole. I lowered the woman into it. And then I gently returned the soft earth. And once again, the moon shone on the back of the pearl oyster shell.
I went to pick up a star piece that had fallen down and gently tucked it in the ground. It was a round piece. Maybe the edges had been worn off during the long time it was falling from the sky. When I embraced the stone to erect it, my chest and hands felt a bit warm.
I sat down on moss. And as I thought that I would spend the next hundred years waiting here, I crossed my arms and gazed at the round gravestone. Just as the woman said, the sun rose in the East. It was large and red. And just as the woman said, it finally set in the West. It set, still a bright red. I counted the first day.
After a while, the celestial path gained back its crimson hue. And once again the sun set quietly. I counted the second day.
I spent the days counting along until I did not know anymore how many red suns I had seen. I counted and counted but so many red suns passed over my head. And yet the hundred years would not pass. Finally, I looked at the round stone overgrown with moss and wondered if the woman had deceived me.
Suddenly, a fresh stalk poked out from under the stone and grew into my direction. It grew as I watched it until it almost reached my chest. Instead, the stalk swayed and dropped its head ever so slightly to grow a bud which bloomed into puffy petals. The fragrance of the pearl white lily penetrated down to the bone. From far above, a drop of dew fell and the flower swayed under its own weight. I leaned my head forward in the cold mist and kissed the white flower. Without removing my face from the lily, I turned towards the sky and saw the morning star glimmer one more time.
That was when I realized: “The hundred years are over.”

Autumn Halo

Autumn Halo

Oda Sakunosuke

Original title: 秋の暈 (Aki no Kasa)
Date of publication: April 25th 1976
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I think whoever took the word for autumn [秋] and added a heart [心] to make the meaning sorrow [愁] was a genius. I believe that people who really think deeply about things can sense the changing of seasons, especially that which we call the signs of autumn, much better and more intensely than the average person. I, too, am one of those who feel the signs of autumn sooner than others. However, that is not because I think about things. To tell the truth, it’s because I stay up all night, every night.

My vigils started at age 19 and stayed for ten years, and especially when I was busy with work I would stay up almost every night. Therefore one could say I saw every sunrise, but the most beautiful one was in autumn, or rather the one when summer turned into autumn.

At five shaku and eight sun¹ and 13 kan² I was very thin, which means I was good with heat, so I spent hardly any night nude and would always wear my yukata³ sitting at my desk, but during August nights I was already cold in it. When other people were tossing in their sleep due to the heat, I was feeling the chilly wind on my skin. The sound of the wind-bell⁴ was also unexpectedly clear. I did not hear the sound of cicadas at one point, I thought the bugs that were lost in my room were summer bugs, and when I slapped one of them with my fan, it died with a sad chirping sound. It was probably a bell cricket. On August eighth, the beginning of autumn, I do not even have to look at a calendar to say ah, I guess it’s autumn already. Sooner than anyone else...

Four, five years ago in August, I happened to go to Shinano-Oiwake⁵.

Oiwake, Karuizawa and Kutsukake were called the three lodgings of Asama Negoshi, Oiwake was a popular guest house with many writers but has burned down, however the oil shop here was left the same as when it was a lodging; Hori Tatsuo, Murou Saisei, Satou Haruo and many other authors liked to stay at this oil shop, especially Hori Tatsuo would spend a large part of the year in one of those rooms, just like the spa at Yugashima in Izu⁶.

We left Ueno⁷ at around ten o’clock. I fell asleep around Takasaki⁸, but a sudden burst of cold air woke me up. We had reached Usui Pass⁹. I could see a grove of white birches in the moonlight. The ears of pampas grass were whisking past the train window and the burnets were blooming. The bluish moonlight almost made you think it was dawn. However, night had yet to end.

Finally we reached Karuizawa station, passed Kutsukake, and then arrived at Oiwake.

When we got off at the dimly lit station, the station employee shouted:

“Shinano-Oiwake! Shinano-Oiwake!”

He announced the station name with a drawn-out voice like the quivering flame of a candle. The train we came in left the station, we crossed the tracks and reached the road to Oiwake. Mount Asama was shrouded in an eerie black, its shape coming to mind the more one looked at it. Soon, night would dawn.

As we walked down this solitary road with no one else around, we reached a forest immediately. Naked lightbulbs were hanging on the white birches in the front. Around that dim light, the loneliness of autumnal dawns gathered like a halo. It was a profoundly distant view. Autumn flowers in lovely colors were growing on the mist-covered nocturnal roadside. I felt autumn deep inside my heart. Even though the calendar still said it was summer...

There had been a time of extreme solitude in my life. One night, I was walking a dark path while listening to the lonely sound of my geta¹⁰ on the ground, when I suddenly I noticed the faint fragrance of osmanthus. And before I knew it, a warm sensation rose in my chest. The rain had just stopped.

I put a twig of sweet osmanthus in my apartment room for two, three days. Its aroma comforted me in my loneliness. I feared the fading of this smell, so I kept my curtains closed. Yet a cold wind sneaked in through the crevices. And it quietly blew right through my lonely heart. It made me sad.

After a week, the smell of the osmanthus had faded. Yellow petals were scattered on the floor. I listened to Chopin’s “Raindrop”. And when I dragged on my cigarette, the cold air mingled with the smoke in my mouth. It was all inexplicably somber.

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<sup>1. ~176cm/5.9ft↩
2. ~49kg/108lbs↩
3. A light kimono for summer↩
4. Japanese people perceive the sound of a high-pitched bell as cooling↩
5. A railway station in Karuizawa, Nagano↩
6. A place in Shizuoka↩
7. A part of Tokyo↩
8. A city in Eastern Kanto↩
9. Pass between Nagano and Gunma↩
10. Traditional Japanese shoes made from wood↩</sup>

The Life of Hagiwara Sakutarō

Hagiwara Sakutarō (born in Maebashi in 1886 - died in Tokyo in 1942) was a Japanese poet. He was one of the first to write modern, free-verse poetry and break with the rules of traditionally structured forms. Hagiwara's collections include Tsuki ni hoeru ("Howling at the Moon", 1917) and Aoneko ("Blue Cat", 1923).

In many of his poems, the author uses his vivid imagination to convey an attitude of pessimism, despair, and existential angst. He often uses colloquial, straightforward language, while bringing its rhythmical and musical elements to the fore.

Hagiwara was also a musician: he played the mandolin and the guitar. A mandolin solo piece that he created, called "A Weaving Girl", is still famous today - listen to it here.

A Tale of Dutiful Children

Love poems

A Tale of Dutiful Children

Hagiwara Sakutarou

Original title: 愛の詩集 孝子実伝 (Ai no Shishuu Koushi Jitsuden)
Date of publication: November 10th 1995
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Original text

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Indebted to one’s father
Indebted to one’s human flesh and bones
Eventually you will shed your tears
And tread on that thick ice
The moment night dawns in your home village
Everything shall be covered in blood

Hagiwara Sakutarou

The Life of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (born in Tokyo in 1892 – died in Tokyo in 1927) was a Japanese writer. He is widely regarded as the “Father of the Japanese short story”. He saw Natsume Sōseki as his teacher and idol, and his short story Hana (“The Nose”), attracted a letter of praise from Sōseki himself.

His later works, which include Kappa (1927) and Aru ahō no isshō ("A Fool's Life", 1927), incorporate references to his deteriorating physical and mental health.

On 24 July, 1927, he committed suicide through an overdose of barbital. He described his suicidal anguish in letters addressed to his friends.

The Akutagawa Prize, a literary award, was established in his memory by Akutagawa's lifelong friend Kan Kikuchi.

The Red Candle

The Red Candle

Niimi Nankichi

Original title: 赤い蝋燭 (Akai Rousoku)

Date of publication: November 15th 1936
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A monkey that went from the mountains to a village to play picked up a single red candle. Red candles were not something you saw very often. And that is how the monkey mistook the red candle for fireworks.

The monkey carefully took the red candle and brought it back to the mountains.

The animals in the mountains were in an uproar. That was because no one, not the deer, not the boar, not the bunny, not the turtle or the weasel, not the tanuki or the fox, had ever seen fireworks. To think that the monkey would pick up such a rare thing!

”Oh my, how marvelous!”

”What a great thing you got!”

The deer, the boar, the bunny, the turtle, the weasel, the tanuki¹, and the fox were crowding around the monkey to take a look at the red candle.

”Be careful, don’t come too close. It could explode”, the monkey said.

Everyone jumped back in surprise.

And then the monkey told them about the noise fireworks made as they went off and how beautifully they spread in the sky. If it’s that beautiful, I want to see it, is what everyone thought.

”Then let’s launch it off tonight on the peak”, the monkey said. Everyone was very excited. They were looking forward to seeing it embrace the stars at night.

And then it was night. Everyone went up to the peak with hearts beating excitedly. The monkey had already fixed the red candle to a branch and waited for the others to come.

They decided it was time to launch the fireworks. However, a problem came up. That was, no one tried to light the fireworks. Everyone liked to see the fireworks, but no one liked fire.

So there were no fireworks. They decided to draw lots and let chance decide who would light the fire. The first one was the turtle.

The turtle gathered all its courage and approached the fireworks. But it could not light the fire. No, no. When reaching the fireworks, it pulled its head in and did not come back out.

They drew lots again, and this time it was the weasel’s turn. The weasel did better than the turtle. That was because it did not pull its head in. But the weasel was very nearsighted. And that is why it just stumbled around the candle.

Then the boar jumped out. The boar was a very brave beast. It actually managed to light the fire.

The surprise made everyone jump into the grass and cover their ears. Not just their ears, they also covered their eyes.

But the candle, unaffected, just burned quietly.

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^{1. A mammal native to Japan. Resembles a raccoon↩}

The Youth and Death

The Youth and Death

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke

Original title: 青年と死 (Seinen to Shi)
Date of publication: September 1914
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     No backgrounds. Two eunuchs¹ appear while talking.
――Another six consorts² gave birth this month. And we don’t know how many dozens are pregnant.
――And no one seems to know the father.
――Not a single one of them. But that’s impossible, the consorts are located in the inner palace, where no man except for us can go. And yet there are consorts giving birth each and every month!
――Maybe there’s a man sneaking in.
――At first I thought so, too. But no matter how many guards we put out there, the childbearing won’t stop.
――Have you asked the consorts?
――That’s the weird thing. We asked a variety of questions, whether there was a man sneaking in and such. But they just say there are voices, but no figures to be seen.
――I see, that is indeed strange.
――It’s unbelievable. Anyway, that is all we know about the mysterious invader, so we need to think of measurements for their protection somehow. What do you think?
――I don’t have any good idea when you ask so suddenly, but it seems to be true that the man exists.
――Sounds right.
――Then how about we spread some sand on the floor? It doesn’t help if the man came flying, but if he enters on foot, there will be footprints.
――I see, what an excellent idea! Then we can follow those footprints to catch him.
――Well, let’s just try if it works.
――Yes, let’s. (They leave)

×

     Maids are spreading a large amount of sand.
――Well, we covered the whole floor in sand.
――There’s still room in that corner. (Throws sand)
――(They leave)

×

     Two young men are sitting in candle light.
B: It’s been a year already since we started going to that place.
A: Time flies. And up until last year we were so fed up with things like raison d’être or summum bonum.
B: By now I’m even forgetting about Ātman³.
A: I also bid the Upanishads⁴ farewell a long time ago.
B: If I remember correctly, we seriously reflected on a lot on topics like life and death back then.
A: Heh, we were only saying what came to our minds. And I don’t even know how much I’m thinking these days.
B: Is that so? I have never thought once about death or anything since then.
A: If you’re fine with that, then it’s alright.
B: I mean, isn’t it foolish to think about questions you’ll never have an answer for?
A: We’ll both die one day, though.
B: We won’t die for another year or two, I’m sure.
A: Who knows.
B: We might even die tomorrow. But if we worry about that, we won’t get anything interesting done.
A: I don’t think so. Maybe there is nothing as meaningless as the joy of not expecting your death.
B: Meaningless or not, I don’t think I need to expect death or anything.
A: But aren’t you living in deception, then?
B: That may be true.

A: Then you don’t need your current lifestyle. Aren’t you choosing a lifestyle to break that deception?
B: Anyway, I don’t feel like thinking anymore. No matter what you say, I have nothing else to do.
A: (Regretfully) If you say so.
B: Night has advanced while we were having our useless discussion. Let’s go.
A: Yes.
B: Then hand me the mantle that makes one invisible. (A hands it to B. When B puts on the mantle, he disappears. Only his voice remains.) Let’s get going.
A: (Puts on the coat. He, too, disappears. Voice only.) The night fog is emerging.

×

     Voices only. Darkness.
A’s voice: How dark it is.

B’s voice: I almost stepped on the hem of your mantle.
A’s voice: I can hear the fountains.
B’s voice: We’re already beneath the balcony.

×

     A large group of nude women are sitting, standing or sleeping. Dim light.
――They won’t come tonight, will they.
――The moon is hiding already.
――I hope they come soon.
――I’m in the mood to hear their voices.
――Just their voices was not enough.
――Right, you can feel them, too.
――It was scary at first.

――I was shaking all night long.
――Me too.
――But when we do, they tell us not to fret.

――Right, right.
――It was still scary.
――Did you give birth to his child?
――Quite a while ago.
――I wonder if he’s going to be happy about it.
――Such a cute child.
――I want to be a mother, too.
――Oh my, I don’t feel like it at all.
――Oh?
――Yes, isn’t it terrible? I just want to be spoiled by men.
――Oh well.
A’s voice: You still have your lights on tonight I see. Your skin is so beautiful, how it moves under that blue silk.
――Oh, there they are.
――Come here.
――No, come to me tonight.
A’s voice: You’re wearing gold rings and the like, I see.
――Yes, why?
B’s voice: It’s nothing. Your hair smells like jasmine, doesn’t it.
――It does.
A’s voice: You’re still shaking.
――I’m so happy.

――Come here.
――You’re going to her again?
B’s voice: Your hand is so soft.
――Please spoil me anytime.
――Take someone else tonight.
――Here. Good.
――Ah, ah.
     The women’s voices grow into vague moans and then disappear.
     Silence. Suddenly, soldiers with spears appear from somewhere. The soldiers’ voices.
――There are footprints!
――Here, too!
――There, that’s where they escaped!
――Don’t let them get away! Don’t let them get away!
     Disturbance. The women all shriek and run away. The soldiers look everywhere for footprints. The light goes out and the stage becomes dark.

×

     A and B appear while wearing the mantle. A man with a black mask comes from the other side. It’s slightly dark.
A and B: Who’s there?
Man: You two wouldn’t forget my voice, would you.
A and B: Who are you?
Man: I am death.
A and B: Death?
Man: There’s no reason to be so surprised. I have existed since long in the past. And I exist now. And I will continue to exist. Perhaps I’m the only one who can say ‘I exist’.
A: What did you come here for?
Man: Usually, there is only one thing I come for.
B: So that’s what it is. That’s what you’re here for.
A: Yes, exactly. I’ve been waiting for you. Now is the time to see your face. Come, take my life.
Man: (To B) Did you wait for me, too?
B: No, I didn’t wait for you or anyone. I want to live! Please let me live a bit longer! I’m still young. Warm blood still flows through my veins. Please, let me enjoy life a bit more!
Man: You know that begging has never stopped me.
B: (In despair) Do I really have to die? Do I really have no choice but to die?
Man: When you got old enough to understand, it was already the same as being dead. Be glad that you could praise the sun until now and consider that my goodwill.
B: It’s not just me. It’s the fate of every human to die one day once they’re born.
Man: That is not what I meant. You forgot about me until today, didn’t you. You lived without hearing my breath. You tried to live in nothing but joy by breaking all deceptions, but without realizing that that joy was itself nothing but a deception. Once you forgot about me, your soul started starving. Starving souls tend to yearn for me. By trying to avoid me, you invited me.
B: Aah.
Man: I am not the destroyer of everything. I give birth to everything. You forgot me, the mother of all. To forget me is to forget life. Those who forget life must die.
B: Ah! (Falls over and dies.)
Man: (Laughs) What an imbecile. (To A) No need to be scared. You can come closer.
A: I am waiting. I’m not a chicken.
Man: You wanted to see my face. Morning is dawning already. You can give my face a close look.
A: That’s your face? I never imagined it to be so beautiful.
Man: I did not come to take your life.
A: But I’m waiting. I’m a human who knows nothing but you. I’m useless even when I’m alive. So take my life. Cure my suffering.
Third voice: Don’t be stupid. Look closely at my face. You life was saved because you didn’t forget me. However, I don’t approve of everything you do. Look closely at my face. Do you understand your mistake? Whether you can live on now is up to your efforts.
A’s voice: It looks to me like your face is getting younger with every moment.
Third voice: (Quietly) It’s dawn. Come see this wide world with me.
     The man with the black mask and A can be seen leaving in the light of dawn.

×

     Five, six soldiers drag in the corpse of B. The corpse is nude and wounded in several places.

――From legends about Nagarjuna⁵――

（August 14th 1914）

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<sup>1. Servants or slaves who were castrated to be able to work in certain positions.↩
2. Mistresses, girls in a harem↩
3. A word/concept in Hinduism that describes the true self↩
4. Sanskrit texts that contain the core philosophy of Hinduism↩
5. A famous Buddhist philosopher (150~250 AD)↩</sup>