A Day in the Life of Ōishi Kuranosuke
A fine light struck the tightly-shut shōji, and the shadows of the plums on the rough old tree vividly claimed the brilliance from the right edge to the left edge, like a painting. Originally the retainer of the Takumi-no-kami, Asano, and presently in service to the Hosokawa clan, Ōishi Kuranosuke was behind those shōji, sitting upright with one knee over the other. For a while he had nothing on his mind but reading. The book, borrowed from a Hosokawa vassal, was likely a volume on the Three Kingdoms.
One among the nine people in the room, Kataoka Gengoemon, had gone to the toilet moments ago. Hayami Tōzaemon had gone to the room below to talk, and had not yet returned. And after that, the six men Yoshida Chūzaemon, Hara Sōemon, Mase Kyūdayū, Onodera Jūnai, Horibe Yahei, and Hazama Kihei, were absorbed in reading, or perhaps checking the news, as if they had forgotten the shadow on the shōji. Perhaps because all six of them were old men aged fifty or greater, there was a chilly silence in the still-early spring of the chamber. Although there was occasionally a cough, this was not loud enough of a noise to break the faintly drifting scent of ink.
Kuranosuke suddenly took his eyes off the Three Kingdoms book, and, as if looking far off, silently held his hands above the brazier next to him. Within the wire-mesh brazier, at the bottom of the arranged coals, something red was illuminating the ash with the faintest of light. When he felt this fire, in Kuranosuke’s heart a feeling of peaceful satisfaction welled up, as if for the first time. Just on the 15th of December of last year, he had taken revenge for his deceased lord, and when he returned to Sengaku Temple, he had composed for himself the death poem, “Happy as can be / Have accomplished my desire / Leave the flesh behind / And the transient moon above / Not one single cloud obscures” …the happiness he had felt then had returned.
Sine departing from Akō’s castle, he must have spent close to two years among all sorts of scheming and anxieties. Managing a band of hotheaded young fools prone to rash action, only to slowly spin a web of deceit, was not ordinary backbreaking work. Furthermore, the spy which the enemy clan had loosed was constantly looking over his shoulder. Feigning licentiousness, he, along with deceiving their eyes, at the same time had to untangle the suspicions of his comrades who had been deceived by that licentiousness. Thinking back on the old days of plotting at Yamashina or Maruyama, the distress of those days once again came to fill his heart—yet it had all already gone where it was to go.
If there was to be something that had not been put in order, it was only the magnanimous words of the imperial court towards the gang of forty-seven. But, there is no doubt that even the existence of those imperial words was not far off. Yes. All had gone where it was to go. And in addition, it was not just that they would say that they had fulfilled their plan of revenge. All of it had been fulfilled in a way which almost perfectly coincided with his own moral requirements. He had not only tasted the satisfaction of the completion of his deed, he could enjoy the satisfaction of embodying morality at the same time. Moreover, even if you think on that satisfaction from the perspective of revenge, or as a means, it was hardly obscured by a guilty conscience. Was satisfaction beyond this even possible for him…
While thinking as such, Kuranosuke, relieved, and perhaps tired of his reading, called out to Yoshida Chūzaemon, who was practicing writing with his finger upon the book which lay upon his knee, from the brazier.
“It’s quite pleasant today.”
“Indeed. Even if continues in this fashion, there is a possibility that because it is quite nice out I might be beset by drowsiness.”
Kuranosuke smiled. On this first day of the first month, Tomimori Suke’emon, drunk on three cups of New Year’s liquor, had sung, “Today of all days / Shall I be without spring shame / Sleeping warrior?” and that verse suddenly came to his mind. The meaning of the poem was no different from the satisfaction that Ōishi Yoshikatsu*, later Kuranosuke, was now feeling.
“Just as I suspected, you must have lost your edge since completing your goal.”
“Indeed. And there’s this, too.”
Chūzaemon, picking up his pipe at hand, humbly took a single puff. The smoke, allowed to rock in the early spring afternoon, vanished as a faint blue into the clear silence.
“That this sort of tranquil day has visited us is something that neither of us expected.”
“Indeed. You never think that you will meet it again, even in a dream.”
“We appear to be lucky indeed.”
The two of them smiled with their eyes in satisfaction. …If at that time, a shadow had been projected onto the screen behind Yoshikatsu, and then that shadow had disappeared along with the hand on the door handle, and instead, the burly shape of Hayami Tōzaemon had not come into the room, might have been able to drink in, even now, the warmth of a pleasant spring day, along with his feelings of proud satisfaction. However, in reality, at the same time that a rich smile rose to the cheeks of Tōzaemon, of good complexion, two men entered without reservation. They were, of course, not noticed.
“Something exciting is going on downstairs.”
Saying this, Chūzaemon took another puff on his cigarette.
“Lord Den’emon is in charge today, so there is bound to be excess conversation. Kataoka and the like arrived moments ago, and they have sat down.
“I thought the truth was late!” Choking on smoke, Chūzaemon smiled painfully. Then, Onodera Jūnai, who had been repeated working his brush, raised his head slightly looking like he had thought of something. But then his eyes quickly fell down to the paper, and he began to write diligently. This was most likely an update to his wife in Kyōtō. Even Kuranosuke laughed, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes widening.
“Was there some interesting story?”
“No. Just the usual idleties. But a while ago, when Chikamatsu was engaging in his story of Jinzaburō, even Lord Den’emon and the rest were listening with tears in their eyes. But besides that—no, speaking of which, there is an interesting story. Ever since we killed Lord Kira, I have heard that all throughout Edo revenge-style acts have become popular.
“Well! I did not think that!”
Chūzaemon looked at Tōzaemon with a curious face. His partner, having heard this story, for some reason looked extremely triumphant.
“Just today I have come to hear two or three similar stories, but the strangest one of all was one that happened around the port district in South Hacchōbori. The story goes, a rice shop owner in that neighborhood got into a fight with his neighbor, a dyer, in a bathhouse. Anyway, what happened was he was apparently splashed with hot water or something, a trifling thing at any rate. And then, in the end, the rice shop owner was hit severely with a bucket by the dyer. Then, the rice shop owner’s apprentice took a grudge and ambushed him outside around sunset. He suddenly smashed him in the opposite shoulder with a hook, he did! And the best part is, apparently he did it while saying, “Know your enemy!”
Tōzaemon, gesturing, smiled. “That is violence in excess!”
“It was apparently a grievous injury for the dyer. But even still, it’s strange, the apprentice was the talk of the town. And also, there was one in Tōrichō, one in Shinkōjimachi, and…there was another one somewhere. Anyway, it’s happening all over the place, I hear. Is it not funny that we’re being imitated, it seems?”
Tōzaemon and Chūzaemon exchanged glances, smiling. Hearing of the influence the revenge plot had had on the minds of Edo, no matter how small, was certainly pleasant. Among them only Kuranosuke was silent, hand upon his forehead, a bored expression on his face: Tōzaemon’s story had left, albeit faint, a strange cloud over his satisfaction. Though this is not to say, of course, that he felt responsible for all the effects his deeds had had. After they had enacted their plan of revenge, he naturally had felt indifference in his conscience towards the revenge craze sweeping Edo from the beginning. However, in spite of that, he felt as though the spring warmth he had felt until now had diminished somewhat.
To tell the truth, at that time, he had merely been a little surprised that the influence of their mere acts had reached these strange places. But, the fact that normally he should be laughing along with Tōzaemon and the rest had sowed seeds of discontent in the part of his mind in charge of satisfaction. For he feared, in the darkest recesses of his soul, that his satisfaction ran contrary to logic, and that he might be possess of such a selfish nature that he affirmed his deeds and the results of those deeds. Of course, at that time these analytical thoughts were furthest from his mind. He had just come to feel unhappy somehow, a single cold breath in the spring breeze.
However, it appeared that Kuranosuke’s lack of mirth did not exceptionally attract the attention of the two. No, it was just like the good-natured Hayami Tōzaemon to believe without doubt that Kuranosuke was interested, as he himself had an interest in the story. If that was not the case, after all, he certainly would have not personally headed downstairs and dragged the Hosokawa retainer on duty today, Horiuchi Den’emon, upstairs for this express purpose. Still, ever faithful, he looked past Chūzaemon and said something like, “Let’s get Den’emon up here.” Then, he quickly opened the dividing door and bounded cheerfully into the room below. Before long, accompanied by the boorish-looking Den’emon, he returned triumphantly, his usual grin slashing his face in half.
Chūzaemon turned his gaze from Yoshikatsu to Den’emon. “No! I say! I’m so sorry to bother you with the invitation!” he said, smiling. Once Den’emon’s artless and sincere personality had been put aside, the long relationship between him and them was forged with the warmness of old friends.
“As Mr. Hayami has graciously invited me, while I think I may be a bother, I departed.”
When Den’emon took his seat, moving his fat eyebrows, the muscles of his sunburned cheeks threatening to break into laughter at any moment, he looked around at everybody in the room. Along with this he greeted everybody in the room: the one reading, the one moving his brush around. Kuranosuke too, of course, gave a polite bow. But the slightly humorous sight among them was Horibe Yahei, dozing off, his glasses still on, atop the Taiheiki he had begun to read. As soon as he opened his eyes, taking off his glasses in confusion, he bowed his head. Hazama Kihei, typically, looked like he found this incredibly amusing, and, turning to face the partition at his side, he screwed up his face in pain trying not to laugh.
“It seems that Lord Den’emon also has not a bit of fondness for old men, so you will not leave here,” Kuranosuke said in a wholly unsuitably smooth tone. For, though to some degree he was still out of it, the feeling of satisfaction at the bottom of his heart was still flowing gently.
“No, that is not it at all. But somehow, I get tangled up in those other people, and before long I am stuck in conversation.”
“Even now, if you would listen, it seems there may be a rather interesting story!”
Chūzaemon interjected from the side. “When you speak of interesting stories…”
“That story of the copycat crimes all throughout Edo,” Tōzaemon said, grinning, looking at both Den’emon and Kuranosuke.
“Indeed, well, that story? The truth is, human nature is a strange beast. When I feel the loyalty of all those around us, that sort of thing must be imitated, all the way down to the merchant and the peasant. I do not know to what degree the customs of the depraved haves and the have-nots will be made better. My! Jōruri. My! And kabuki! It being a time when there are only things I have no wish to see, it is just fine with me.”
It seemed that the course of the conversation had again gone in a direction uninteresting for Kuranosuke. So, in a purposely solemn tone, using humble words, he skillfully diverted it in that direction.
“Thank you very much for your words of praise for our loyalty, but in your opinion, shame takes precedence,” he said, looking round the room.
“Were you to ask why, in the well-populated doman of Akō, the people you see gathered here today are all those of low status. At the very beginning, even such great names as the chief Okuno Shōgen offered their advice, but about halfway through ideas changed, and his eventual leave from the alliance was nothing but unthinkable. In addition, those such as Shindō Genshirō, Kawamura Denbyōe, Koyama Gengozaemon were more senior than Hara Sōemon, and even ones like Sasa Gozaemon were of a higher social standing than Yoshida Chūzaemon. But as our action drew near, our thoughts did change. Among them are your relatives. From this angle it is not unreasonable to feel ashamed.”
The atmosphere in the room, along with Kuranosuke’s words, lost the pleasantries that they had had up to then. They were suddenly tinged with a serious tone. Because of this, it could be safely said that the talk, as he had intended, had changed course. But, as for whether the course it had taken was, for Kuranosuke, a pleasant one is another question.
According to his recollection, first Hayami Tōzaemon rubbed both of his balled fists on top of his knees two or three times. “Every single one of them are damnable curs! Not one of them could follow the winds of a warrior!”
“Hear, hear! And those like Takata Gunbei aren’t worth a dog’s life!” Chūzaemon, eyebrows raised, looked to Horibe Yahei for approval. Yahei, easily incited by the injustices of the world, had been silent since the beginning.
“The morning they pulled out, when we met those fools, even though we spit on them I felt unsatisfied. And anyway, it was not just that they shamelessly showed their faces to us, it was that they were at the height of joy, their long-held ambition accomplished by us!”
“Takada, damnable Takada, and Oyamada Shōzaemon and the rest are good-for-nothing fools!”
When Mase Kyūdayū said this to nobody in particular, even Hara Sōemon and Onodera Jūnai, similarly, began to excoriate the oathbreakers. Even the reticent Hazama Kihei, though his mouth did not see much use, repeatedly nodded his silver-haired head in agreement with all seated.
“At any rate, though it is known that in this glorious domain, along with us faithful servants, there are others, nothing is done about it. That is why samurai, all along, have been called depraved or wastes of government stipends by even the common peoples. There is even the rumor that Lord Okabayashi Mokunosuke’s seppuku last year was forced upon him all along by an agreement of his kin. Even though that is not the case, that it has come to this point means that we are not without dishonor. It goes without saying that others are all the more so. Edo is so easily encouraged by righteousness that imitations of our actions are mimicked all over the city, and there is also the fact of our anger of late. Even if it does not happen that the others are cut down, there is no end to it!”
Den’emon let this out triumphantly as if he could not think this was somebody else’s problem. From the present situation, he was more of a mind to do the duty of this cutting down than anybody. As if Yoshida, who had incited this, Hara, Hayami, Horibe and the rest all felt the same excitement, they began to engage in more and harsher verbal abuse of the traitors. But among them, a single man— Ōishi Kuranosuke—stared absently into the fire as the words died down, hands upon his knees, an uninterested look on his face.
He discovered the new fact that the result of the progression of the conversation he had diverted, at the cost of his late comrade who had had a change of heart, was that they were extolling their own loyalty all the more. And along with that, the warm spring breeze blowing at the bottom of his heart had abated, for a second time, to some degree. Of course, his regret for the oathkeepers was not simply because he had wanted to change the course of the conversation. In his capacity he had thought, regrettably, uncomfortably, to change their minds. But, he could not think of those disloyal samurai as detestable, but rather with compassion. Looking at it through his eyes, which had tasted sympathy, had tasted the circle of life, again and again, their change of heart was all too natural. If the word honesty were allowed, it would be so honest as to be pitiable. Therefore, even towards them, he had not changed his consistent tolerant attitude. Not to mention, at this point, revenge having been done, what should be given unto them should be nothing more than a pitying smile. It seemed that he thought that killing them, in this world, would be furthermore unsatisfactory. Must they be human filth so that we can be loyal servants? The difference between us and them, contrary to what we might think, is not large: Kuranosuke had previously thought of the strange influence passed on to the people of Edo without amusement. Now, with a slightly different significance from that, he perceived the effects the oathbreakers had suffered in the realm of public opinion represented by Den’emon. The sour face he made was no coincidence.
However, Kuranosuke’s displeasure held the honor of being the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Den’emon, seeing him sitting in silence, surmised that this must be the result of the humility largely typical of him. He admired him all the more. In order to express his change in this admiration, this simple samurai from Higo Province completely changed the course of the conversation and all at once began to babble words of admiration for Kuranosuke’s loyalty.
“The other day I heard from a certain well-learned man that a Chinese samurai named something-or-other, stalked his master’s enemy, up to the point when he drank some water with charcoal and was rendered mute. However, upon his insincere improprieties being exhausted, might he not continue down a less and less difficult course, unlike Lord Kuranosuke?”
With this introduction, Den’emon then proceeded into a lengthy recounting of a year ago when Kuranosuke had exhausted his debauchery. Even collecting leaves on Takao and Atago must have been difficult to a degree for him, who had been pretending to be mad. There was no doubt that even the parties under the cherry blossoms at Shimabara and Gion had been difficult for him, who was engaged in desperate measures…
“If you would know, in Kyōtō at that time, I learned of the reasons songs like ‘Ōishi’s Rock Comes Tumbling Down’ were in vogue. Completing the deception of a whole country cannot be done if it is not absolutely good. The other day, when Amano Yazaemon had the honor of composed courage bestowed upon him, that was the height of logic.”
“No, it was nothing so great as that,” Kuranosuke answered grudgingly.
It appeared that while Den’emon was unsatisfied with Kuranosuke’s refusal to humor him, but at the same time he felt his humility all the more. He turned away from Kuranosuke, whom he had been opposing for a long time, to face his longtime partner when on business in the capital, Onodera Jūnai. Then, his passionate feelings of admiration began to leak out all the more. Though Jūnai , among all in the group the most well-renowned and cultured, found that childlike zeal at once funny, it must also have been charming. Unassumingly welcoming Den’emon’s thoughts, Jūnai, started into, in detail, the time that Kuranosuke, in order to deceive the enemy clan’s plans, had donned a priest’s vestments and gone to visit the geisha Yūgiri at Masuya.
“It was on that street the grim-faced Kuranosuke composed that song ‘An Image of Home.’ That has attracted so much popularity that there is not a place in the quarter in which it is not sung. It must have been Kuranosuke’s habit at the time to go out in black robes to Gion, and among the falling cherry blossoms, extol his lady Uki’s name while walking drunkenly. ‘An Image of Home’ was all over and Kuranosuke’s debauchery was sung of. These were not in the least unreasonable. Anyway, that geisha called Yūgiri, and the one called Ukihashi, in Shimahara and Shumoku… if you asked them about Kuranosuke, they’d fuss that they handled him with every courtesy.”
Kuranosuke listened disgusted to this story of Jūnai’s, with feelings approaching contempt. At the same time he unconsciously recalled the memories of those bawdy times. They were so vivid it was strange. In those memories he saw the light of a long candle, he smelled the scent of aloe oil, he heard the strains of “The Whore from Kaga” on a shamisen. No, even the verse of “An Image of Home” Jūnai was now singing— “…on the tear-stained sleeve it scrapes / A memento of dew for striving to be happy on the sleeve…”—called to mind clearly the shapes of Yūgiri, and Ukihashi, as if they had escaped from the palace of the prince. He recalled how they had called him “The Happy” and “Mr. Happy” after that song. He must have, in some way, boldly made use of his lifestyle of every profanity, which often appeared in his memories. And so he must have tasted moments of tranquility within this profligate living in which his plan of revenge completely slipped his mind. Deceiving himself, in denying this truth, made him an overly honest man. Of course, even saying that this fact was immoral, for a man who perceived human nature, could not even be dreamt of. Therefore, receiving praise for enacting every sort of profanity and having it treated as giving the last full measure of devotion was not just uncomfortable, it left him feeling guilty.
Kuranosuke, thinking this, and being praised for his so-called desperate plan of feigned madness, made an unmistakably sour face. He was conscious of the fact that the spring breeze blowing in his chest again, which had received some damage and now faintly lingered, exhausted itself in an instant. All that remained was a thin cold shadow of antipathy towards the whole misunderstanding, and towards his stupidity in not anticipating said understanding. His plan of revenge, his comrades, and lastly he himself—facing these unpleasant facts, he held his hands over the flame in the brazier which had grown faint. Avoiding Den’emon’s eyes, he heaved a pitiful sigh.
***
Some time later. Taking a trip to the toilet as an excuse to leave, Ōishi Kuranosuke leaned against the column on the porch and gazed at the vivid white flowers on the aged plum tree between the garden moss and the rocks. The sun’s color had already grown dim, and it appeared that dusk was already spreading from the shadows of the thickly-grown bamboo. But within the screens, the usual interesting-sounding voices continued unabated. While listening to them, he became aware of the natural sadness of the group enveloping him. Along with the faint scent of plums, where had the loneliness which had soaked through to his very soul, this indescribably loneliness, come from? Kuranosuke, looking up at the tough, cold flowers, which looked like they had been worked into the sky, lingered for a long time.
(August 15, 1917)