The Bamboo Gate
Oba Shinzo, an office worker, lived on the outskirts of Tokyo and
commuted to his office in the Kyobashi district; every morning without fail he would
walk briskly the more than a mile to the station, saying that it was ideal
exercise. Of a gentle disposition, he was well liked at the office.
His family consisted of his old mother, who was sixty-seven or eight
and exceedingly hearty, his wife of twenty-nine, his wife's younger sister
Okiyo, his seven-year-old daughter Rei, and a maid called Otoku who had been
with them five or six years―a total of six persons, himself included.
His wife, who was sickly, took little hand in domestic affairs.
Household matters were mostly in the charge of Okiyo and Otoku, helped by his busy
old mother. The authority of the maid Otoku was especially strong; her age was
only twenty-three, but she had announced her resolve to serve the family all her
life, and sometimes even the old mother had to give way to her. From time to time,
Okiyo would complain that Otoku liked her own way too much, but she was always defeated
in the end by Otoku's earnest concern for the family's best interests.
On the other side of a hedge stood a small building, little better
than a shed. Here lived a gardener and his wife. The husband was some
twenty-seven or twenty-eight, his wife around the same age as Otoku. The two
women, next-door neighbors, were a good match for each other in gossiping.
When the gardener and his wife first moved in, they had asked
permission to draw water from the Oba's well, having none of their own. The Oba's,
thinking it a reasonable enough request, agreed. Another two months or so
passed, and they came again to ask if they could make a gap of about three feet
in the hedge, so that they would not have to go round via the gate every time.
This aroused considerable objections among the Oba's. Otoku in particular
insisted that it would amount to making a way in for burglars. But thanks to
the perennial good-nature of Shinzo, the master of the house, permission was
given in the end, on condition that a stout wooden gate should be made and kept
strictly closed. The gardener, however, cut some green bamboo from a nearby
thicket and made a rough-and-ready gate of bamboo interspersed with fronds of
cryptomeria.
“Do you call this a gate?"said Otoku in a loud voice when she saw it. “Where's the latch? You might just as well not
have a gate at all."
Ogen, the gardener's wife, overheard her as she was washing out the rice-pot
at the well.
“It's good enough,"she said. “How can you expect us to make the proper kind of gate like a carpenter?
"
“Then why don't you get a carpenter to make it?
"asked Otoku, incensed.
She was perfectly aware how poor the gardener and his wife were.
“I would, too, if it was worth his while!"
“He'll come if you ask him, "said Otoku, unable to resist another dig.
Ogen, who hated to get the worst of things, looked put out at this,
but knowing the power that Otoku wielded in the Oba household, prudently kept
herself in check.
“Come now, let's leave it at that, " she said in a semi-concilatory tone. “I shall be almost the only one to use it, so
it's up to me to see it's kept shut. Any real burglar could get over the hedge
or the front gate at any rate, so a gate like this doesn't really make any
difference."
“I suppose not,"said Otoku. “So there'll be no need to worry if only you keep it strictly shut. I
expect you know, though―there are lots of sneak-thieves and dishonest garbage collectors hanging
about this district, and you need to be on your guard all the time. You know
the place belonging to that military man Kawai next to the new baker's?
They say somebody the other day lifted a big
copper bowl they'd only just bought."
“Really? How?" said Ogen, pausing in the act of drawing water and turning to look
at Otoku
“It was out by the well, and they took it the
very moment the maid went out to the back to hang up some washing. The gate was
slightly open, they say, so it goes to show."
“Well! You can't be too careful, can you? Don't
worry, I'll watch out. But you take care too―“don't leave anything likely to be stolen lying around outside, even
for a moment."
“I normally don't do that kind of thing; but even
so, it slips one's mind sometimes, doesn't it? You must be careful with garbage
collectors and so on, too. To get through the gate they have to pass right by
your house."
“Of course I'll be careful. Even a piece of firewood
or charcoal is too valuable to have stolen."
“It certainly is. Talking of charcoal, by the way,
isn't it terribly dear lately? Look―that's top quality hard charcoal at eighty-five sen a bale." She
pointed to one of the bales lined up under the eaves between the well and the
kitchen door. “I wonder how
much it contains? I'm sure it work out at so many sen a piece. It's like
cooking with money, I can tell you. Both soft and hard charcoal are just about
twice what they cost last year. It's too bad, really. " She sighed.
“And you need a lot in your family, too,
because there are so many of you. There's just the two of us, so we get by on
very little. Even so, I have to buy three to five sen's worth loose almost every day. It's too
bad."
“It must be difficult, " said Otoku
sympathetically.
Launched on the new topic of charcoal, the two of them dropped the
question of the gate and within an absurdly short time were back on their old neighborly
terms, gossiping twenty to the dozen.
It was the end of November, when days were at their shortest, and it
was already getting dark when Shinzo, the head of the family, came back from
the office. Hearing that the gate was finished, he slipped on a pair of wooden
clogs and came round to the garden by the kitchen, still in his office clothes.
For a while he just stood looking at the gate, smiling.
“Quite a gate, isn't it, sir? " said Otoku at
his side.
“Did the gardener make this? "
“Yes, sir. "
“It's a very odd gate, but it's a good job for
a gardener. " He laid a hand on it, and shook it. “Seems stronger than it
looks. Well, this'll do. It's better than nothing, I suppose. I'll have the carpenter
come sometime to make a proper one. A wooden gate's a wooden gate, even when
its bamboo. " And he went off laughing into the house.
Ogen heard this from inside her own house.
“He's real easy to get on with, the master is,"
she thought, giggling to herself. “There aren't many people as kind as he is, for a start. The wife's nice
too, and the old lady is a bit of a fuss, but she's awfully good at heart.
Okiyo's a bit awkward at times, ―you expect it with someone who's been married and come home again―but she's a kind nature. "
She was going on in this fashion when the recollection of Otoku's
sarcasm that day brought her up short.
“If I wasn't under an obligation to the
family, I'd never stand for any her talk. But these country misses, they get
big ideas if people treat them at all well. And look what happens, the impudent
little hussy! " she remembered Otoku's remark.
“'Quite a gate, sir,' she says! I suppose she
meant to find fault, but the master, thank heaven, wasn't having any of it.
That showed her, that did!"
“But she's got her points, one must admit, "she
went on, changed her tack again. "Her looks aren't bad, and she'd still be
young enough to find plenty of husbands, if she was like me. But then she's too
keen on serving the family. And she's so awfully honest that the Oba's can
trust her with anything…"
Thinking on these lines, Ogen lit the lamp and was going to
replenish the brazier when she found there was not a single piece of charcoal
left. Tutting to herself, she tested the battered old kettle with her hand.
Fortunately, it was still warm. “I hope he comes back while the water's still hot. But unless he
brings back an advance today we shan't have any fire tonight or tomorrow. I can
manage a fire by collecting leaves, but there's no rice for tomorrow either! "
This time, instead of tutting, she let out a feeble sigh. Sitting
dejectedly in the dim light of the lamp, with her untidy hair and her pallid
face, she was a very pathetic sight at that moment.
She was still sitting there when her husband Isokichi came dawdling
back. Without preliminaries, Ogen asked him about the advance. Silently, he
took a purse out of his apron and handed it to her. She inspected the contents.
“Only two yen? "
“Yes. "
“What's the good of two yen? If you were getting
an advance at any rate, you might just as well have got five yen. "
“I can't help it if they won't let me have it.
"
“Yes, but I'm sure even the boss would let you
have five yen if you asked right. Look here. " She showed him the empty
charcoal box. “We're out of charcoal
too. If I buy rice tonight there won't be much money left. "
Isokichi, who had been puffing silently at his pipe, banged out the
ash. He drew the small table toward him, helped himself to rice, and began
eating. This consisted of pouring plain hot water onto the rice and downing the
mixture noisily, but he seemed to enjoy it greatly.
Ogen sat in silence, fascinated by the sight of her husband eating.
Five or six heaped bowlfuls disappeared, and still there was no sign of his
stopping.
“Are you as hungry as all that? " she asked,
half annoyed, half amused.
“I didn't have any afternoon break today," he said,
helping himself to yet another bowlful.
“Why? "
“When I got there after making that gate the boss
gave me a dirty look and complained about me coming late―just at the busiest time, he said. So I
explained about the gate, but he said that's got nothing to do with me―the bastard! So I thought what the hell, and
I went hard at it, and when they brought something to eat at around, two or
three I refused to look at it. The maid came and said, come and eat, it's nice
seaweed rolls today, but I just kept on with my work. So one way or another I
wasn't at all keen on asking the boss for an advance, but I couldn't very well
not either, so as we were leaving I asked him to let me have five yen. Ha, ha,
he says, so you want to slack and have an advance, do you? Some people's
skins are thick, I must say. You'll
have to make do with this, then. And he handed over two yen. Can I help it? "
Thus Isokichi disposed at one and the same time of the reasons for
his hunger and the fact that he had only got a two yen advance. And as he
finished talking, he put his chopsticks down at last.
Generally speaking, Isokichi was a man of few words and bad at
expressing himself, but just occasionally he would let go in fine style,
throwing in some invective for good measure. It delighted Ogen enormously. But
though she had been living with him for some three years now, she still could not
make up her mind whether he was a good worker or lazy. He would sometimes take
three or four days off from work, occasionally as much as ten days, but when
the fancy took him, she knew, he would do work enough for three ordinary men. So
if only the fancy took him, she felt sure, they would be all right. She had
never stopped to wonder at precisely what stage the fancy was going to take
him. She also had a reassuring feeling that in a crisis he could do bold,
drastic things that other people would hesitate at. Sometimes, though, she wondered.
Sometimes it occurred to her that he might be unexpectedly lacking in
self-respect. This only happened, however, at times when they were left
completely destitute, and then the thought was so depressing that she tried as
hard as possible to dispel it.
He was, in fact, a dark horse, and he always made the women in the
Oba household feel rather uneasy. Even Otoku showed a certain deference to Isokichi.
Ogen was secretly rather proud of the fact, and when Otoku behaved in this
fashion, or when Okiyo used polite language to Isokichi, the joy welled up
inside her.
The result was their perpetual poverty. Though their earning
capacity ought to have been as its heights, they had no real home of their own,
but lived forever in sheds or the corners of old storehouses. Thus the wives of
the other gardeners came to look on Ogen as a mystery―which was to say, a fool.
Isokichi's meal over, Ogen
rushed out with a basket and came back soon with some charcoal she had bought
loose. Then, as she lit the fire, she chattered to Isokichi of her exchange
with Otoku about the gate, and what the master had said when he saw it.
Isokichi showed no sign of reaction at all.
Soon, Isokichi began yawning sleepily, so Ogen got out a single,
grubby, wafer-thin quilt, spread another on top of it, and the two of them got
into bed, and huddled close together. The cold night wind blew in through
cracks in the walls and up through the floor; they bunched themselves up as
small as possible, but still Isokichi's back was half exposed to the air.
2
December came, and the cold rapidly became more intense. Frost
needles formed, there was ice on the puddles, and the sudden wintriness of Tokyo's
suburbs startled those residents who, having fallen for the fashion for
suburban living, were spending their first winter there. Oba Shinzo, however, was
used to it, and every day went to work unperturbed in boots and a thick
overcoat. Even so, the first Sunday of the month brought clear blue skies. The
sun sparkled, not a breeze stirred the air, and the unseasonal tempted Shinzo's
old mother and wife to go shopping downtown, taking little Rei and Otoku with them
and leaving Shinzo and Okiyo to look after the house.
Any trip downtown from the suburbs―referred to by the normally stay-at-home women as “going to Tokyo"―required quite a flurry of preparation. So great was the commotion
involved in getting the old lady, Shinzo's wife and daughter, and even Otoku
changed and ready to go that their eventual departure left the house hushed and
still, with an almost deserted feeling.
Shinzo, still in his padded silk kimono done up with a narrow sash,
lounged around in his own den, which was warm and sunny. Toward noon, however,
he began to get bored, and emerging from his study was strolling up and down
the verandah when Okiyo called him from within the sliding doors:
“Shinzo! "
“What is it? "
“'What is it,' indeed! " she tittered.“There's nothing for lunch! "
“Very well."
“'Very well,' he says! "She tittered again.
“There really isn't anything much, you know. "
He slid open the door of the room where she was and found her busily
plying her needle.
“You're hard at it, I see. "
“It's a topcoat for Rei. Don't you like the pattern?
"
He made no reply but gazed about the room.
“I wonder you don't do your sewing in a room
that gets more sun. Why, you haven't even got a brazier."
“It's not enough to make my
fingers numb yet. Besides, it's officially decided we're to economize this
season. "
“Economize with what? "
“Charcoal. "
“Charcoal's gone up, admittedly, but surely
not enough for us to start cutting down on it all of a sudden?"
Shinzo, who dissociated himself completely from everyday household
affairs, was quite ignorant of such matters.
“Why, but Shinzo, we spent a good deal more on
charcoal than on rice in November alone, and the three months when we need most
charcoal―December, January
and February―are still to
come. So it will be difficult if we don't economize all we can. Otoku moans all
day long about the way we use charcoal and the price of it, and I don't wonder it.
"
“But what's the good if we cut down on charcoal
and then catch colds or something? "
“I hardly think that's very likely."
“At any rate, it's nice and warm today, isn't
it? Even mother shouldn't feel the cold today." He stretched and yawned. “What' s the time? "
“It's nearly twelve already. Shall I get
lunch? " “No I'm not at
all hungry yet. I'ts funny―at the office, I can't wait to get at my lunch-box…"
He went out and peered in turn into all the rooms from the back
parlor to the maid's room. In the maid's room, which he had never been in
before, he found a window left about two feet open. He poked his head out idly,
only to find himself gazing straight into the face of Ogen from next door, who had
looked up instinctively at the same moment.
Her face crimsoned, and in her confusion she barely managed to
falter out:
“Just look what fine-quality charcoal you use in
your house. "
She produced a piece of cut charcoal which she was holding in her
hand. Beneath the window the bales of charcoal lay, already undone at the top; Ogen
could not help passing near them on her way from the gate to the well.
Shinzo, also somewhat embarrassed, searched for a reply.
“We men know nothing of charcoal, " he said. He
flashed her a smile and promptly drew his head in again.
He went straight back to his den and pondered over Ogen's behavior.
But it was difficult to reach any verdict. The most obvious theory was that she
had been stealing the charcoal, but he could not be completely convinced of
this. She might really just have been looking at it. She might have picked it up to look at it as she was passing, then
blushed for no particular reason at being so unexpectedly observed from above.
It was possible, at least. Being disposed to accept this latter theory if at
all feasible, Shinzo eventually made up his mind that it was so, and determined
not to mention the matter to anybody.
It occurred to him that if, by any chance, she had in fact been
stealing it would only make matters worse not to act. But he told himself that
she was most unlikely to persist in her wrongdoing once she had been seen at
it, and this persuaded him all the more strongly that he should keep the matter
to himself.
Either way, he reflected, it had not been a wise policy to let the
gardener make his bamboo gate at that spot.
Between three and half past the shopping expedition came trooping
back home, and promptly assembled in the living room for a voluble
recapitulation of the day's experiences. Not only Okiyo, but Shinzo himself
were dragged out to listen and provide suitable interjections of interest and
wonder. Little Rei had embarrassed them by insisting they buy her a large doll
at the emporium at Shimbashi…a drunk had made a nuisance of himself on the
train ... Shinzo's wife had bought him a finest-quality imported undershirt at
a bargain price because he felt the cold so . . . when one went to town, one always
ended up spending more than one intended ... and so on and so on, indefinitely.
The people doing the talking, in fact, seemed to it all much more interesting
than the listeners.
When a lull came in the chatter, Otoku got up as though she had
suddenly remembered something, and, going out of the kitchen door, came back
after a while round-eyed and with an unwontedly serious expression.
“Well did you ever! " she exclaimed in a
subdued voice, gazing round goggle-eyed at the others. Sensing that something
had happened, they gazed back at her.
“Well, did you ever! " she repeated. “Okiyo, you haven't taken any of the charcoal
from outside today, have you? "
“No, I only used what was in the box. "
“Then I was right! I've been telling myself
for some time there was something funny about the way the charcoal was going
down. Admitted the charcoal man cheats with by raising the bottom, that still
wouldn't account for it going as fast as this, I told himself. So having my own
idea, I had a little peep into Ogen's house through a hole in the shoji while
she was out yesterday. And what do you think? " She dropped her voice still
further. “There were a couple
of pieces of top-grade hard charcoal, all nicely banked up with ash, in that
battered old brazier of theirs! I felt sure when I saw it, and thought of speaking
to the old lady about it. But then I thought I'd set a trap first, just to make
sure myself. And so I did today! " She smirked at them.
“What sort of trap? " Okiyo asked with a worried
air.
“I made a mark on each of the top pieces of
charcoal before I went out today. And what do you think? When I looked just
now, four pieces of the top-grade charcoal had clean disappeared! And two big
pieces of soft charcoal I'd put out on top with marks on them had gone too! "
“Oh dear, how dreadful! " exclaimed Okiyo, scandalized.
Shinzo's old mother and his wife exchanged glances in silence. “Well, this is it," thought Shinzo, but he
still decided to postpone telling what he had seen today. In fact, he did not have
the heart to do so.
“So now we know who the charcoal thief is, "said
Otoku.“What had we
better do? " The question sounded rather flat. She had expected astonishment
and a storm of debate, and the lack of vocal response from the master and
everybody, in fact, except Okiyo had somewhat taken the wind out of her sails.
“Do? " countered Okiyo after a short silence.
“About what? "
“The charcoal, of course, " said Otoku rather
impatiently. “If we leave it
as it is, we shall just go on losing it for ever. "
“How would it be under the kitchen verandah? "
asked Shinzo. Since he had resolved not to disclose what he had seen, he had to
make some suggestion, although he knew that even if they took no action at all.
Ogen was not going to steal again in a hurry.
“It's full up, " declared Otoku, dismissing
the suggestion summarily.
“I see, "said Shinzo, and lapsed into silence
again.
“Then how would this be? " proposed Shinzo's wife.“We could take up the floor of the closet in
Otoku's room and put the charcoal there for the time being at least. And we
could clear out the closet in the middle room to put Otoku's things in."
“Let's do that, then, " agreed Otoku promptly.
“It's taking advantage of you rather . . "
said Shinzo's wife to Otoku.
“Not all; in fact, I'd prefer it if I can put
my things in the closet in the middle room. "
“Well, that's that, then,' said the old lady.“But this kind of thing wouldn't have happened
in the first place if only Shinzo had have a shed made without shilly-shallying
when he was asked. There'd be no trouble if only there were a shed…" Her long silence, it seemed, was only broken
in order to complain about the shed again. Shinzo smiled and scratched his head
embarrassedly.
“No, the real trouble is the bamboo gate, you know,
" said Otoku.“That's why I said
making a gate there was like making a way in for a thief. Though what's
happened in fact is that the thief has made his own way in." Without
realizing it, she had let her voice rise in pitch.
“Quietly, quietly! " said the old lady. “People will hear if you talk as loudly as
that. I didn't want to make a gate there either, but now it's done it can't be
undone in a hurry. If we blocked it up in too much haste it would only make
relations awkward. The gardener himself is sure to get tired of that little shed
of a place in the end and move out or do something. We'll block it up then; in the
meantime, we'll keep quiet and pretend to know nothing. You, Otoku too, you
mustn't mention the charcoal to Ogen under any circumstances. We didn't
actually see her stealing it, and after all we should only do ourselves a
disservice by making people of that kind resentful through making a fuss over a
little bit of charcoal. Really. " The old lady was quite preoccupied expounding
her own private fears.
“Yes, that's really true, " said Okiyo,
echoing the old lady's anxiety. “You always tend to make insinuations, Otoku, but you'd better not
try it with Ogen. She'll take you up on it and then anything may happen. There's
something about her husband Isokichi that makes me nervous. He's a queer fish.
Just the kind of man who'd fly at you without caring about the consequences. "
The old lady had not mentioned Isokichi by name, but that, of course, was what
she had had in mind.
“Come now, he's only a man like any other, "said
Shinzo, getting up.“Even so, it's
best not to get mixed up with him. "
He went off to his study and, the charcoal question having been
settled for the moment, Otoku and Okiyo hastily set about preparing the evening
meal.
Otoku was secretly eager to see what sort of face Ogen would put on
things, but was puzzled when she failed to put in her usual appearance at dusk
to draw water at the well.
About an hour after sunset, Isokichi came to draw the water himself.
3
Although she had been seen by Shinzo, Ogen believed she had passed
things off successfully. She had put some soft charcoal in the sleeve of her kimono,
wrapped up some of the fine-quality charcoal in her apron, holding it in place
with her left hand, and had been about to take one more piece when Shinzo had looked down from the window.
But the master was good-natured and
unsuspicious by nature, and she doubted whether he had realized anything was
amiss. Nevertheless, as dusk approached she could not bring herself to go to
draw water as usual.
So she went to bed, with the quilt up over head, before Isokichi got
home from work. But though she lay down, she could not sleep. Thin though the grubby
quilts were, at night she and Isokichi kept the cold out with the warmth of each
other's bodies, but alone the bed was hard as a board, refusing to fit into her
body, and she felt twice as cold as she had done up. She started to shiver, so
she curled herself into a ball, bringing her legs up as close to her body as
possible, till finally she scarcely looked like a human being asleep at all.
Thinking things over, she began to feel uncomfortable. She was used
to poverty, but not to thieving. Admittedly, the value of the charcoal she had
been pilfering during the past few days was slight, but this was the first time
she had, when nobody was looking, unmistakably taken something belonging to
somebody else. The thought made her feel uneasy in a way she had never known before,
an uneasiness mingled with both fear and shame.
Today's incident floated up vividly in her mind's eye. She could see
the master's face clearly as he looked down at her, and the thought of how she had
held out the charcoal in her hand to cover her embarrassment brought the blood
flaming to her cheeks.
“Whatever was I up to? " she exclaimed in voluntarily.
By progressive stages, she became more agitated. “What shall I do if it comes out? …How could it, though-the master's
too kind-hearted….But you never know with kind-hearted people. ….Kind-hearted
people are stupid.…. " Gradually, the solitary exchange grew more worked up.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid! " she cried again.
Then she snorted defiantly and added, as a kind of after thought. “As if they could find out, anyway. "
She put her head out from under the quilt. The sun had set and the
moon was shining on the paper of the sliding door at the entrance. But she made
no move to get up and light the lamp, drawing her head in immediately and
curling up into a ball again. She was still there when Isokichi came home.
On being told that she had gone to bed with a splitting headache, he
himself placidly lit the lamp, put more charcoal in the brazier under the
kettle, which was getting cold, and went to draw water. While the water was
boiling he sat puffing at a fill of tobacco in his miniature pipe.
“What sort of pain? "he asked.
Getting no reply, he stared a while at the round hump in the quilt.
“What sort of pain, I said? "
Still there was no reply, and he fell silent. Soon the water boiled,
so he poured it, as usual, straight onto the stone-cold rice, and began
munching at the crisp pickled radish as though it were a long-awaited feast.
The sound of Ogen sobbing came from under the quilts, but the noise
of crunching pickle and rice being swallowed, and his total absorption in the
food before him prevented Isokichi from hearing it, and by the time he had
finished eating the sobbing had stopped.
He began tapping on the edge of the brazier; the quilts began to
heave, and soon Ogen was sitting by the brazier, still half wrapped in the
bedclothes. Her kimono gaped open slightly at the front, showing her knees, but
she made no move to adjust it; her face, he noticed, was suffused with blood
and her eyes moist with tears. She was sobbing steadily.
“What's up, I asked you―tell me! " he said, but, as was his nature,
he showed no sign of surprise or alarm.
“Isokichi, I'm thoroughly fed up, " she began, her voice tearful. “I've been having with you for three years
now, and it's been a hand-to-mouth kind of existence. Not a single day when life
was really worthwhile. It's not that I want an easy life, but this is too much
even for me. Look at us, we're little better than beggars! Are we? "
Isokichi made no reply.
“All we're doing is eating to keep alive.
People hardly ever actually starve, that means everybody at least eats enough
to keep alive. I feel that's just not
enough for a human being. " She wiped the tears with the sleeve of her kimono. “You've got a trade like other people, haven't
you? And there are only two of us to support, aren't there? But what happens―the same poverty, day in day out, and it's
not just poverty at that. We've never once lived in a decent house. Always this
kind of shed or―"
“Do stop your endless chatter, woman! "
He banged the ash out of his pipe roughly against the brazier, still
avoiding facing her directly.
“Go on, get angry if you want to, "she said, growing
excited.“Tonight for
once I'm going to have my say, whatever happens. "
“Nobody likes being poor. "
“Then why do you always have at least ten days
off every month? You don't drink and you don't have other amusements outside
the house. If only you went to work properly we shouldn't be poor like this. "
He was silent, gazing into the ash in the brazier.
“If only you'd got more go in you, we shouldn't
be stuck as we are, not able to buy even a decent bale of charcoal…"
She threw herself down on the quilts and began to cry. Suddenly,
Isokichi got up, stepped down into the unfloored entrance, thrust his feet into
a pair of straw sandals, and darted out of the house. It was a clear moonlit
night with no breeze, but a cold that chilled to the marrow. Isokichi hurried
out to the new road and along it half a mile or so, to call on his friend Kinji.
He stayed playing chess with Kinji till ten-thirty, then, as he was leaving, asked
him for the loan of one yen. Kinji refused: tomorrow, yes, but tonight he was
without a sen.
There was a charcoal shop on the way home. It sold sake,
firewood, and charcoal by the bale. The Oba's got their firewood and charcoal
here, and here Ogen came to buy charcoal too. The shops in these newly
developed suburbs shut early, and this one was already closed. He loitered for
a while in front of it, then suddenly hoisted on to his shoulder one of the
bales of a charcoal piled up in the front, and made off down a path into the
paddy fields by the side of the shop.
Hastening home, he set the bale down with a thud in the entrance.
Ogen, who had cried herself to sleep, woke up at the sound but did not call
out. It did not even occur to her to wonder what the noise had been. Isokichi
too said nothing, but crept into the bed behind her.
The next morning Ogen noticed the bale of charcoal.
“What's this, Isokichi? " she asked in
astonishment.“This bale of
charcoal. "
“I bought it, of course, " he said from
beneath the quilt. He stayed there till the meal was ready.
“Where did you buy it? "
“Does it matter? "
“Can't I ask? "
“A shop near Hatsu's. "
“Why ever did you buy it so far away? " She paused.
“Oh, Isokichi―I suppose you wouldn't pay the money for the
rice today? "
He got up.
“You kept harping on about you couldn't buy charcoal,
so I went to Kinji's house last night to borrow some, but the bastard didn't
have any. So I went straight to Hatsu's place, asked him to lend me a little to
buy charcoal with. If one bale's enough, he said, all generosity, you can get
it from our sake shop. So I went straight there and got it in his name.
That should do you for four or five days, won't it? "
“I should think so, " said Ogen happily.
She wanted to open the bale at once, but decided to put off the pleasure and
busied herself getting breakfast instead.
“Four or five days, indeed! " she said as she worked.“That'll last us ten in our house! "
The previous night she had worried a lot after Isokichi had rushed
out of the house, and had concluded that if she was going to urge her husband
to have more go, it was no good lying around being depressed herself. She also
decided that it would only look more suspicious if she did not show herself to
the neighbors.
So she sent Isokichi off with his packed lunch as usual. She had
breakfast herself and cleared away, then took a bucket and opened the gate.
Okiyo and Otoku were out there. Seeing her, Okiyo said:
“Ogen, you're looking dreadfully pale. Is something
wrong? "
“I've had a bit of a cold since yesterday. . .
"
“Oh dear! You must be careful, you know. "
Otoku was silent, save for a brief “Morning. "
Then, seeing Ogen staring pale and wide-eyed at the spot where the
bales of charcoal had stood, she gave a smirk. It was not missed by Ogen, who glared
back at her. This Otoku took as evidence that they were already quarreling. She
wanted to give vent to some cutting sarcasm, but restrained herself because of
Okiyo's presence. Just then a boy of eighteen or nineteen arrived through the gate
to take orders for Masuya. Mausya was the name of the shop from which Isokichi
had stolen the charcoal the previous night.
“Good morning, ladies, "said the errand-boy politely.
Then, missing the bales of charcoal that had been standing there outside until
the day before, he said,
“Hullo, where've you put the charcoal! "
“Oh, we've put it all inside, " responded
Otoku promptly, as if she had been waiting for the chance. “It's just not safe to leave it outside, you see.
With the price of charcoal today it's silly to let even a piece of it get
stolen. "
She looked at Ogen. Okiyo glared at Otoku. Ogen, having drawn her
water, was already a few paces off.
“It really isn't safe, "said the boy. “We finally had a bale stolen from our shop
last night. "
“How? " asked Okiyo.
“Because we always leave it piled up outside unattended."
“What did they take! " pressed Otoku, her eyes
on Ogen.
“Best-quality hard charcoal. "
Their words reached Ogen's ears as she made her way unsteadily out
through the gate, her teeth clenched.
Inside the entrance, she almost flung the bucket down and hastily
opened the bale.
“Best-quality hard charcoal! " The exclamation
came involuntarily.
Otoku got a thorough scolding from both the
old lady and Shinzo's wife. When dusk came and Ogen had put in no appearance,
Okiyo, feeling worried, went to see her, intending to cheer her up and enquire
about her cold at the same time. So still was everything inside the house that
she called out: “Ogen, Ogen! "There
was no reply, so
she timorously opened the sliding door.
Ogen was hanging dead
from a sash tied to the beam in the center of the entrance; she had used the
charcoal bale, it seemed, to stand on.
Two days later, the bamboo gate was taken down, and the hedge
reverted to its previous state.
Another two months, and Isokichi had taken another woman of about
the same age as Ogen as his wife, and was living in the village of Shibuya. But
the house they lived in was, again, little better than a pig-pen.
Translated by John Bester
Kunikida Doppo (1871-1908) was born in Choshi, a town of close on 100,000
inhabitants in Chiba Prefecture, near Tokyo. In 1887 he entered the English
Language Department of Tokyo College. In1889 he was baptized as a Christian.
Fond of reading Wordsworth and Carlyle, he wrote his own first work. Uncle Gen (Gen Oji) in 1897. In
1901, he published Musashino, and in
1905 a collection of short stories.
In 1906 he founded his own publishing house, Dopposha, but it went
bankrupt the following year.
His work can be divided into three periods. The first, which can perhaps
be called his lyrical period, and lasted from 1894 to 1901, saw publication of
his poems in a collection entitled Doppogin, and the stories The Unforgettables(Wasurerarenu Hitobito), Uncle Gen (Gen Oji ), Mist on the River (Kawakiri ),and
Musashino..
The second period, from 1901 to 1904, saw the appearance of some of
his most mature and characteristic works—works such as Beef and Potatoes (Gyuniku to Bareisho). In the contrasts he draws between
ideal and actuality, fate and the individual, social convention and real life,
he reveals himself as the most intellectual of the romantics.
In the third and last period, from 1904 to 1908, the failure of his
business ventures seems to have wrought a major change in his creative
activity. Works such as Laughter and
Tears (Nakiwarai), Extra
(Gogai), Death in Despair (Kyushi), and The Bamboo Gate, translated in this issue (Take no Kido) are more objective and more socially aware than the
works of his second period. Death in
Despair (Kyushi) is perhaps one of the most important works produced by the
Japanese naturalists.
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The short story appearing here, “The Bamboo Gate"(Take no Kido) was first published in the magazine Chuo Kouron in January, 1908. It
is a fine, unique work written in his final years as he was suffering from
pulmonary tuberculosis and in financial hardship. In this story, he writes
about the daily life of poor people in an objective but warm-hearted
naturalistic style, comparing the home lives of white-collar workers in the
Tokyo suburbs and artisan workers of the “bamboo gate."
“The Bamboo Gate"
(Take no Kido) in English translation was published in October 1964 by the Pen
Club of Japan. (From The Japan P.E.N. News No.13, 1-5, 1964)
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The Japan P.E.N.
Club, in order to preserve them in an archive of modern Japanese culture, is
digitizing the English translations of literary works as they appeared in The
Japan P.E.N. News (irregular publication dates, July 1958-September 1971) and
will publish them at irregular dates online in the Digital Library -
International Edition.
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