Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu

The Stolen Wen

Once upon a time, long, long ago,

there lived an old man

with a great big wen on his cheek.

This old man, this Ojii-san, or “Grandfather,” lived at the foot of Mount Tsurugi in Awa Province, on the island of Shikoku. At least, I believe that’s correct, but I have no reliable source material at hand to back me up. I seem to recall that this story of the stolen wen originated in A Collection of Tales from Uji, but it’s impossible to consult the old texts in a homemade bomb shelter. I face a similar problem with the tale following this one, “Urashima-san,” the facts behind which were first reported in the ancient Chronicles of Japan. A long poem about Urashima and his journey to the Dragon Palace is included in the Manyoshu; and there are what appear to be versions of his tale in the Chronicles of Tango Province and Lives of Japanese Immortals, not to mention, in more recent times, Ogai’s well known play. And didn’t Shoyo or someone devise a dance routine based on the story?

In any case, we all know that our beloved Urashima-san lives on in any number of entertainments, from noh and kabuki plays to geisha hand dances. I’ve never had anything resembling a library of my own, however, because I sell or give away books as soon as I’ve read them. When wanting to get my facts straight, therefore, I have to hit the streets, following my own uncertain memory in an attempt to track down a text I recall once having read, but I can’t even do that now, you see. I’m crouching in a hole in the ground, and the only piece of literature available to me is this picture book balanced on my knees. Consequently I am compelled to forego the careful perusal of original texts and to content myself with whatever might unwind in my own imagination. But perhaps that will only make for a more lively and entertaining story…

So goes the sour-grapes-like justification with which this odd person, the father, reassures himself as he resumes:

Once upon a time, long, long ago…

And as he reads the words aloud, wedged inside the shelter, he inwardly paints a new and altogether different tale.

This Ojii-san of ours loves sake. Most drinkers are lonely men, isolated in their own homes. To ask whether they drink because they’re isolated or isolated because the rest of the family disapprove of their drinking would be like clapping and trying to decide which hand made the sound-it can only lead to a lot of vain quibbling. In any case, although there’s nothing particularly problematic about his family situation, a cloud always hangs over Ojii-san at home. His wife, whom we’ll call Obaa-san, or “Grandmother,” is very much alive and well. She’s closing in on seventy, but her back is straight, her eyes clear. It’s said that she was once quite a beauty. A quiet and serious sort from girlhood on, she now goes about her housework each day with grim determination.

“Well, spring has sprung!” Ojii-san burbles. “The cherry trees are in bloom.”

“Is that so,” Obaa-san responds without interest. “Will you get out of the way, please? I’m trying to clean up here.”

Ojii-san slumps in his seat, deflated.

He also has a son who is nearly forty and so morally irreproachable as to be a rarity in this world. This son not only neither drinks nor smokes but makes a point of never laughing or getting angry or experiencing pleasure either. All he does each day is silently toil in the fields, and since the people in the village and surrounding areas have little choice but to respect him for that, he’s known far and wide as the Saint of Awa. He has never married or shaved his beard, and one is tempted to wonder if he isn’t made of wood, or stone.

In short, this family of Ojii-san’s is nothing if not respectable and upstanding. And yet the fact remains that he is depressed. He wants to be considerate of his family but feels he cannot help but drink. And if drinking at home only leaves him all the more dispirited, it’s not because either Obaa-san or the Saint of Awa has ever scolded him for it. They sit at the table with him each evening, eating their dinner in silence as he sips his sake.

Growing a bit tipsy, Ojii-san begins to desire conversation and to make inane comments. “By the way, spring is here at last, you know. The swallows are back.” An uncalled-for observation. “‘Spring evening: one moment, a thousand pieces of gold,’ what?” he mutters. Utterly insipid.

“Gochisosama de gozarimashita.” The Saint of Awa, having finished his dinner, stands up and bows deeply as he intones these words of gratitude for the meal.

“Ah,” Ojii-san says, and sadly drains his little sake cup. “Guess I’ll eat something myself.”

So it generally goes when he drinks at home.

One fine morning, Ojii-san went up

the mountain to gather wood.

On sunny days, he likes to wander the forested slopes of Mount Tsurugi with a gourd dangling from his waistband, collecting kindling at his leisure. When he grows a bit tired of picking up sticks, he sits with loosely crossed legs on a large boulder and clears his throat with a great display of self-importance.

“Ahem! What a view!” he says, and sips sake from his gourd. He looks happy. Away from home like this, he seems a different person. He might even be unrecognizable if not for the enormous wen on his cheek. Some twenty years ago, in the autumn of the year he passed the half-century mark, his right cheek had begun to feel warm and itchy, and then to swell little by little. As he patted and stroked it, the wen grew ever larger, and he would smile sadly and say, “Now I’ve got myself a fine grandchild.”

To which his son, the Saint of Awa, would reply with great joy-killing solemnity, “A man’s cheek cannot give birth to a child.”

Obaa-san, for her part, proclaimed without so much as a reassuring smile that the wen didn’t appear to be life-threatening, and showed no further concern. The neighbors were somewhat more sympathetic, saying that such a large wen must be quite a nuisance and how had he acquired it and wasn’t it painful? But Ojii-san just laughed and shook his head. Far from considering the wen a nuisance, he really has come to think of it as a darling grandchild, a companion to comfort him in his solitude, and when he washes his face each morning he takes special care to purify the wen with cool, fresh water. On days like today, when his spirits are high and he’s drinking alone in the mountains, this wen is an indispensable sidekick. He’s petting it fondly as he sits atop the boulder with his legs crossed wide.

“Ha! What’s there to be afraid of? I’ll have my say! You’re the ones who need to drink and loosen up a little. There’s such a thing as being too serious, you know. ‘The Saint of Awa,’ eh? Well, forgive me, mister holy man!”

He mutters these tirades to his wen, roundly disparaging one person or another, and always finishes by clearing his throat loudly: Ahem!

It grew cloudy.

The wind started to blow.

Rain came pouring down.

Squalls like this are rare in springtime. But we must assume that weather is volatile on mountains the size of Tsurugi. White mists rise from the mountain slope as rain beats down, and pheasants and other birds dart for cover with the swiftness of arrows. Ojii-san just smiles to himself.

“Can’t hurt to cool off my wen in a little shower,” he says, and remains sitting on the rock, watching the rain come down. But the longer he watches, the harder it rains, and the less it looks like letting up.

“Hmm. Now it’s gone beyond cool,” he concedes. Standing up, he sneezes mightily, then shoulders the bundle of wood he’s gathered and crawls into the brush. It’s already crowded in there with birds and beasts taking shelter.

“Excuse me! Coming through! Sorry!” He greets the monkeys and rabbits and pheasants and things with cheerful courtesy and passes deeper into the forest, where he finally wriggles inside the hollow trunk of an enormous old cherry tree.

“Well, well, this is a very nice room!” he says once inside, then calls to the rabbits and the others, “Come on in, everyone! There aren’t any high and mighty Obaa-sans or Saints in here! Come in, come in!” He babbles excitedly for a while, but soon he’s softly snoring. Drinkers tend to say inane and obnoxious things when they’re drunk, but most of them are in fact harmless, innocent souls like this.

Waiting for the rain to stop,

Ojii-san fell fast asleep.

The skies cleared, and the sun went down.

Now a bright moon lit up the cloudless sky.

It’s a waning quarter moon, the first one of spring. It floats in a sky the color of water, almost a pale green, and slivers of moonbeam litter the forest floor like pine needles. Ojii-san is still sound asleep. Only when a cloud of bats flies out of the hollow tree with a thunderous flapping of wings does he wake with a start, alarmed to find that it’s nighttime.

“Uh-oh. This isn’t good.” The somber face of his old woman and the austere countenance of the Saint rise before his eyes. “Never yelled at me yet,” he reminds himself. “But coming home this late, things could get unpleasant. Say! Sake’s not gone, is it?” He shakes the gourd and takes heart when he hears a faint plish-plash. “There you are!” He drains the last drops and begins to feel tipsily sentimental. “Well, I see the moon’s out,” he says, and continues to mumble fatuous remarks to himself as he crawls out from the hollow tree. “Spring evening: one moment-”

And then…

Whose voices were those,

laughing and shouting?

Oh, look! What a wondrous sight!

Was it a dream?

In a grassy clearing in the forest, an otherworldly scene is unfolding. Just look…

Now, I don’t really know what these ogres, these Oni, are like, never having met any. From childhood on, I’ve seen more pictures of Oni than I care to remember, but I have yet to be granted the privilege of coming face to face with one. Complicating matters is the fact that there would appear to be many varieties of Oni. We use the word to describe hateful people, murderers, and even vampires, and one might therefore feel safe in assuming that these beings possess, in general, fairly despicable personality traits. But then one spies in the “New Books” column of the newspaper a headline reading, “The Latest Masterpiece from the Ogre-like Genius of So-and-So-sensei,” and one is perplexed. One wonders if the article is an attempt to alert the public to So-and-So-sensei’s wicked influence or evil machinations. Worse yet, they have gone so far as to label him the “Oni of the Literary World.” One would think that the great sensei himself would react angrily to being called such nasty and insulting names, but apparently that isn’t the case. One even hears rumors to the effect that he secretly encourages their use, which only leaves one-at least one as ignorant as I-even more perplexed. I simply can’t bring myself to conceive of these Oni creatures-with their tiger-skin loincloths, scarlet faces, and crude iron clubs-as gods of art.

But perhaps this is only my lack of experience talking; perhaps Oni come in a wider variety than I’m aware of. If only I had an Encyclopedia Nipponica at hand, I could easily assume the guise of a respectable scholar, admired by women of all ages (as most academicians tend to be), and with a look of unfathomable profundity on my face hold forth at great length and in minute detail on the subject of Oni, but, unfortunately, I’m crouching in a bomb shelter, and the only volume I have at my disposal is this children’s book on my lap. I am obliged to base my argument entirely on the illustrations.

Just look. In a fairly wide, grassy clearing deep in the forest, twelve or fifteen gigantic, red-faced, heteromorphous beings sit in a circle, dressed in those unmistakable tiger-skin loincloths, drinking together in the moonlight.

Ojii-san is momentarily paralyzed with fear. But drinkers, though cowardly and quite useless when not drinking, are apt to display when drunk a courage that few non-drinkers can summon. Right now, Ojii-san is feeling his rice wine. We have already witnessed the fearless and heroic manner in which he rails against his stern missus and his morally irreproachable son when they aren’t around. Nor does he disgrace himself now, after crawling out from the tree on all fours and being stopped in his tracks by the eldritch spectacle before him. He observes the dubious drinking party carefully for some moments. And then something like joy bubbles up in his heart.

“Looks like they’re really enjoying that wine,” he murmurs.

It seems that drinkers derive a certain pleasure even from watching others get drunk. Perhaps, then, most lovers of drink are not what we today would call egoists but rather guardians of the sort of generous spirit that inspires all of us to toast, at times, our neighbor’s happiness. We do this because we want to drink, yes, but if our neighbor gets drunk along with us, our pleasure is double. Ojii-san knows what he’s seeing. He knows intuitively that those hulking red figures before him, neither human nor beast, are in fact of the fearsome tribe known as Oni. The tiger-skin loincloths alone are enough to dispel any doubts he might have. But these ogres are getting happily sloshed. Ojii-san too is sloshed, and he can’t help but feel a certain sense of fellowship. Still on all fours, he watches the uncanny proceedings unfold in the light of the moon.

As far as he can see, Oni-or at least these Oni-show no signs of possessing the tortured, twisted minds of homicidal maniacs or bloodthirsty vampires. Their faces are red and frighteningly grotesque, to be sure, but they seem to him cheerful, easygoing fellows for all that. And, fortunately, this judgment of his turns out to be more or less on the mark. These are of an exceedingly gentle breed we might almost describe as the hermit Oni monks of Mount Tsurugi, and they have little in common with your average demons from hell. They aren’t carrying those dangerous iron clubs, for starters; that alone should be evidence enough that they have no malice in their hearts. But unlike the Seven Hermit Sages who fled to the Bamboo Grove with knowledge far beyond that of ordinary mortals, these hermit Oni are simpletons.

Someone once explained to me a lame-brained theory to the effect that since the Chinese character “wizard” consists of the elements “person” and “mountain,” anyone who lives in a remote mountainous area deserves to be called a wizard. If we stretch a point and accept this hypothesis, then perhaps these hermit Oni of Mount Tsurugi, however deficient they might be in intellect, are worthy of being called wizards as well. In any case, such a term seems a good deal more appropriate than “ogres” for this particular group of scarlet giants drinking mindlessly in the moonlight.

I have described them as simpletons, and now they are justifying that description by celebrating in ways that display an appalling lack of artistic talent or sensibility-screeching and howling meaninglessly, slapping their knees and roaring with laughter, or rising to their feet and leaping and spinning around and around. One of them even curls into a ball and rolls about, bouncing back and forth from one edge of the circle to the other. Surely such exhibitions constitute proof that phrases like “Ogre-like Genius” and “Oni of the Literary World” make no sense whatsoever. One simply cannot credit the notion that these talentless goofballs are somehow divinely inspired.

Ojii-san too can only shake his head at the pathetic level of Oni dancing skills.

“That is some very bad dancing indeed! Mind if I teach you a few moves?”

Ojii-san loved to dance.

He couldn’t help himself.

He ran into the circle and started dancing.

His wen bounced up and down.

It was fun to watch, and funny too!

Ojii-san is full of liquid courage. And because he also feels a certain bond with these Oni, he’s not the least bit afraid as he springs into the center of the circle and begins performing the traditional Awa festival dance and singing in a fine, clear voice:

The Oni are absolutely delighted. They make a cacophony of strange noises-Kya, kya! Keta, keta!-and laugh till tears roll down their cheeks and drool drips from their chins. Encouraged by their reaction, Ojii-san tries another verse.

Really belting out the final lines, he finishes his comical, light-footed dance with a flourish.

The Oni were overjoyed.

“He must dance for us again,

at the next moonlight bash!”

“Let’s keep something valuable of his,

to make sure he comes back!”

So says one of them, and they all put their heads together for a grunt-filled discussion. They seem to come, in their stupidity, to the conclusion that Ojii-san’s bright, shiny wen is a rare treasure, and they decide that if they keep it, he’s sure to return. They’re ignorant, yes, but after living deep in the mountain forest for so long, perhaps they have indeed learned some of the wizardly arts: they pluck the wen clean from Ojii-san’s cheek, leaving not so much as a scar, or any other trace.

Ojii-san is stunned.

“Wait! You can’t take that! It’s my grandchild!” he cries, but the only response is a triumphant cheer.

Morning came.

Dew glistened on the mountain path.

Ojii-san walked homeward,

rubbing his smooth, flat cheek.

Ojii-san’s wen has been his only confidant, and he’s conscious of a certain loneliness without it. But the early morning breeze doesn’t feel so bad tickling his suddenly unencumbered cheek. Guess I came out more or less even. Something lost, something gained. What’s on the plus side here? Well, I danced and sang my heart out for the first time in ages… Such are his generally optimistic thoughts as he makes his way home. Along the path he bumps into his son, the Saint, who’s just heading out to the fields.

“Ohayo gozarimasu.” The Saint removes the kerchief that covers his mouth to solemnly intone his somewhat countrified morning greeting.

“Well, well,” is all Ojii-san manages to say. He’s thoroughly flustered, and the two of them part ways with no further exchanges. Seeing that his father’s wen has disappeared overnight, the Saint is inwardly somewhat puzzled, but since he believes that to offer any manner of critique of one’s own parent’s features is to stray from the true path, he pretends not to notice.

When Ojii-san reaches home, his wife calmly and rotely welcomes him back, without even touching upon the question of where he’s been all night. “The miso soup is cold,” she mutters under her breath as she sets the table for his breakfast.

“That’s all right. I’ll eat it cold. No need to warm it up.” Ojii-san shrinks guiltily into himself as he sits down. He’s dying to tell his wife about all the marvelous things that happened last night, but in the stern and austere atmosphere of her presence he finds the words sticking in his throat. He eats with head bowed, feeling perfectly wretched.

“It looks like your wen has dried up,” she says, in her matter-of-fact way.

“Mm.” Ojii-san has lost the will to speak.

“It must have broken open,” she says indifferently. “Water came out, I suppose?”

“Mm.”

“It’ll probably fill up again,” she says.

“I guess.”

In the end, Ojii-san’s wen is not a matter of much concern to his family. There lives in the same neighborhood, however, another old man with a similarly large and bothersome wen. This old man’s wen is on his left cheek, and he considers it an unspeakable nuisance and firmly believes that it has held him back in life. He looks in the mirror several times each day and bitterly thinks of all the laughter and scorn he has had to endure since youth, just because of this wen. He once grew a beard in an attempt at camouflage, but, sadly, the red dome of the protuberance peeked out from his new white whiskers like the sun rising amidst the foamy waves of the sea, creating an even more spectacular prospect.

Let us note, however, that aside from the wen there is nothing repellent or questionable about this old man’s appearance or bearing. He is powerfully built, with a prominent nose and piercing eyes. He speaks and comports himself in a grave and dignified manner and always gives the impression of being sensible and discriminating. He dresses meticulously and is said to be well educated and to possess a fortune far beyond anything the drunken Ojii-san, for example, could ever dream of; and everyone in the neighborhood holds him in the highest regard, referring to him as “Sir” or even “Sensei.”

In short, the old gentleman is blessed in many ways, but that large, jiggly wen on his left cheek makes it impossible for him to enjoy his good fortune. Because of the wen, in fact, he suffers from a chronic melancholia. His wife is surprisingly young-just thirty-six. She is not especially pretty but fair-skinned and plump, and she’s always laughing in a cheerful if somewhat crass way. They have a daughter of twelve or thirteen, a lovely but rather impertinent child. The mother and daughter are very close and forever giggling together, so that in spite of the husband’s perpetual scowl, the household impresses one as being full of sweetness and light.

“Mother, why is Father’s wen so red?” The impertinent daughter expresses herself frankly and freely, as always. “It looks like the head of an octopus.”

“Ho, ho, ho, ho!” Far from scolding her daughter, the mother just laughs. “It does! That, or a polished coconut shell.”

“Shut up!” the old gentleman shouts. He leaps to his feet, glaring at his wife and child, then retreats to a dimly lit chamber in the rear of the house, where he peers into the mirror.

“Damn this thing,” he mutters.

He’s begun to consider slicing the wen off with a knife-so what if it kills him?-when he catches wind of the news that the old drunk from down the street has been mysteriously relieved of the same affliction. That evening he slips out to visit the drunken Ojii-san’s thatched hut, where he hears the whole story of that mysterious moonlight drinking-party.

“This is wonderful news!” he said.

“I’ll have them take my wen too!”

The old gentleman is thoroughly braced. Fortunately, there’s a moon tonight as well. He sets out with a glint in his eye and his lips tightly pursed in an inverted V, like a samurai scurrying to the front. Tonight I shall demonstrate for those foul ogres a dance that will leave them gasping in stunned admiration. And if by any chance they aren’t stunned, I shall lay them all low with this iron-ribbed fan! What are they, after all, but drunken, dimwitted Oni?

Such are his ardor and enthusiasm as he makes his way deep into the mountain forest with shoulders squared, clutching his fan in his right hand, that it’s difficult to tell whether he wants to dance for the ogres or exterminate them. When an artist is pumped up with the intention of creating a masterpiece, however, the work generally comes out poorly, and this is to be the case with the old gentleman’s performance. He’s so frightfully inflated that it’s destined to be an utter disaster. He steps solemnly and reverently into the circle of wine-guzzling Oni and clears his throat.

“Inexperienced though I may be at this sort of thing…” Saying only this much to introduce his art, he flips open his iron-ribbed fan with a flourish and strikes a pose, glaring unflinchingly up at the moon. After several long moments of this, he lightly taps the ground with one foot and slowly begins to moan his song:

I am a monk, passing the summer

at Naruto in Awa…

With that, he turns ever so slowly, then once again freezes in position, glaring up at the moon.

The Oni were puzzled and frightened.

One by one they jumped up and fled

back into the forest.

“Wait a moment!” the old gentleman shrieks, and chases after them. “You can’t leave me now!”

“Run! Run! It’s Shoki, Queller of Demons!”

“No, no! That’s not who I am!” The old gentleman finally catches up to and prostrates himself before one of the Oni, clinging to its leg. “Please, I beg of you! My wen!”

“What? The wen?” The ogre, confused by all the excitement, misunderstands him. “That’s a treasure we were holding for the other old man, but-all right, you can have it. But no more dancing like that, please! You ruined a perfectly good drunk, and now we’ve got to find a new spot and start all over. Let go of me! Hey, somebody give this crazy old man that wen from the other night! He says he wants it!”

The Oni attached the other wen

to his right cheek.

Now the old man had two wens,

one dangling from each side of his face.

How heavy they looked as he

trudged back to the village!

What a sad ending. You have to feel sorry for the second old man. Most of our children’s stories end with the perpetrators of evil deeds getting what’s coming to them, but this old gentleman did nothing wrong. He tried to perform a dance that, owing to a case of nerves, turned out rather disturbingly weird, but that’s the extent of his crime. Nor was anyone in his family particularly evil. And the same can be said for the sake-loving Ojii-san and his family, and for the Oni of Mount Tsurugi as well. None of them did anything wrong. And yet, although not a single instance of wrongdoing occurs in the story, people end up unhappy.

It’s difficult, therefore, to extract from this tale of the stolen wen a moral lesson for daily life. But were an indignant reader to demand to know why, in that case, I even bothered to write the damn thing, I would have no choice but to reply as follows: It’s a tragicomedy of character. At issue here is an undercurrent that winds through the very heart of human existence.