Written by Dazai Osamu and published in February 1935 as the first part of Retrogression. Translated by A L Raye.
Original text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/260_34634.html
He was not an old man. He was only around 25 years old, but at the same time he was, undoubtedly, an old man. For every year that a normal person lived, this old man lived it three times over. Twice now he had failed to kill himself, one of which had been an attempted double suicide. He had been thrown into prison three times for subversive behaviour. In the end he had written over one hundred novels but never sold a single one. That said, the old man wasn’t really serious about any of these undertakings. For him it was all just a way to pass the time along the road, so to speak. There were only two things that made the old man’s aching heart beat faster and flushed his hollow cheeks; getting drunk and endlessly fantasising while leering at various women. No, it was the memory of these two things. His aching heart and hollow cheeks – these were not lies. For the old man died today. Throughout his long life, there were only two things that were true; his birth, and his death. He lied about everything else right up until he died.
He was now on his deathbed, having picked up a disease from fooling around. The old man had acquired enough of a fortune that he hadn’t needed to worry about his livelihood, but it was not so great an amount that he could squander it. The old man did not think that it was such a shame to die now, because he could not comprehend living a life of meagre means.
When a normal person is about to die they often stare at the palms of their hands or hazily look up into the eyes of their next of kin, but this old man typically kept his eyes closed. Sometimes he shut them tightly, sometimes loosely while letting his eyelids flutter, all without making a sound. He said he could see butterflies. Blue butterflies, black butterflies, white butterflies, yellow butterflies, purple butterflies, turquoise butterflies… Thousands upon thousands of butterflies that swarmed and flew above his forehead right there and then. He said this deliberately. For miles around it was just a haze of butterflies. The sound of a million flapping wings was like the midday roar of horseflies. Perhaps it was some kind of battle. The powder of their wings, their broken legs, their eyes, their antennae and their proboscises all poured down like rain.
When asked if there was anything he would like to eat, he said he wanted some rice porridge with azuki beans. When the old man had written his first novel at the age of 18, he had described an old man on his deathbed muttering that he wanted to eat this same meal.
So the porridge was made. Boiled azuki beans were sprinkled into the rice and salt added for flavour. It would have been a real feast for an old man in the country. With his eyes closed and continuing to lie face-up, he took two spoonfuls before saying ‘That’s enough.’ When asked if there was anything else he wanted, he smirked and said he wanted to fool around. His pretty young wife, who was kind-hearted and bright yet completely illiterate, blushed – though not from jealousy – in front of the line of relatives. Then, while still holding the spoon in her
hand, she began to weep softly.
The above story is included in Retrogression, our first publication that follows Dazai’s attempt at the Akutagawa Prize through stories, letters and diary entries. The published version has multiple footnotes with cultural information and references, including recently rediscovered and previously lost poetry Dazai wrote in a Bible during his time in Musashino Hospital.
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