Written by Dazai Osamu and published in February 1935 as the fourth and final part of Retrogression. Translated by A L Raye.
This story contains an historic depiction of a black minstrel show and frequent references to blackface.
Original text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/260_34634.html
The black girl was in a cage. It was about three metres wide, with a single log bench placed in one of the gloomy corners. She was sitting there embroidering. I wonder what kind of embroidery she could possibly do in the dark? The young boy sneered, twisting his mouth and causing two deep wrinkles to etch themselves either side of his nose, making him appear like a shrewd gentleman.
The Japan Chiarini Circus had brought along a black girl, and the village was abuzz: ‘I heard she eats people!’ ‘She has bright red horns!’ ‘There are flower-shaped spots all over her body!’ The boy didn’t believe a word of it. He thought that deep down in their hearts the villagers probably didn’t believe such rumours either. Because they regularly live their daily lives devoid of any imagination, it is exactly at times like this that they fabricate such arbitrary traditions and no doubt become intoxicated pretending to believe them. Every time the boy heard one of these careless lies he gnashed his teeth, covered his ears and hurried back home. He thought the villager’s gossip was mere stupidity. Why don’t these people talk about more important things? Was not this black girl a member of the fairer sex?
The Chiarini brass band marched down the narrow road through the village, where they were able to announce the arrival of the circus to all four corners of the community in less than sixty seconds. Thatched cottages ran along each side of the road only for about three hundred metres. At the end of the village however the band kept going, without slowing their pace, playing the tune Glow of a Firefly over and over again as they marched between the flowering rapeseed fields, before proceeding in a row down the narrow footpath between the rice paddies, which were right in the middle of being planted. Thus they were able to whip up excitement amongst all the villagers without overlooking a single person. Crossing the bridge and passing through the forest, they eventually arrived at the neighbouring village about a mile away.
There was a primary school at the eastern end of the village, and further to the east of this school was a meadow for grazing livestock. This pasture was about three hundred metres wide, covered in white clover, and was home to two cows and half a dozen pigs. The Chiarini troop set up their mousey-grey circus tent here on this meadow, and the pigs and cows were transferred to the farmer’s barn.
In the evening, the villagers tied up their headscarves and entered the big top in groups of two or three at a time, for a total of about sixty or seventy spectators. The boy thrashed his way through the adults, pushing and shoving them aside until he reached the front row. He rested his chin on the thick rope strung up around the circular stage and waited patiently. Every now and then he would close his eyes slightly, pretending to be entranced.
The acrobatics programme proceeded: Barrels, contortion, the crack of the whip. Then came golden brocade, skinny old horses, a scattering of applause. About twenty carbide lamps hung here and there at haphazard intervals throughout the tent, beset by fluttering swarms of nocturnal insects. Perhaps because there wasn’t enough canvas, the tent ceiling had a large hole in it roughly a metre wide which let in the starry sky.
The black girl’s cage appeared, pushed onto the stage by two men. It looked like wheels were attached to the bottom of the cage, because it made a clattering noise as it rolled onto the platform. The headscarf-wearing crowd jeered and applauded. The boy languidly raised his eyebrows and silently began to scrutinise the inside of the cage.
Every trace of a sneer immediately fell from his face. She was embroidering the national flag of Japan. The boy’s heart began to beat faintly in his chest. It was not that he was some sort of patriot, or held any other kind of militaristic sentiment; rather it was because the black girl had not tricked him. She really had been embroidering. Sewing a round red sun onto a white background was easy, consequently it could be done blindly in the dark. Thank goodness. She is an honest person.
Before long the ringmaster, wearing a tailcoat and sporting a Jintan-style moustache, recounted her background to the audience. Then he shouted ‘Curly! Curly!’ twice in the direction of the cage, cracking his whip with one deft hand. The snap of the whip stabbed sharply into the boy’s heart. He felt jealous of this ringmaster. The black girl stood up.
Though intimidated by the crack of the whip, she performed a handful of clumsy dance routines. Each one was obscene. Apart from the boy, the other members of the audience didn’t understand the performance. All they cared about was if she ate people or if she had bright red horns.
She was only wearing a straw skirt made of freshly-picked rushes. Her skin must have been coated with oil, as every part of her shone brightly. At the end of her performance she sang a few verses of a song, accompanied by the whip cracks of the ringmaster. ‘Soapy, soapy bubbles!’ was the silly little chorus. The boy utterly adored it. No matter how unsophisticated the lyrics are, if they carry such heartfelt agony then surely anyone would be moved by such a melody, he thought as he firmly closed his eyes once more.
That night, the boy sullied himself while thinking about the black girl.
The next morning, after he left for school he climbed out of the classroom window, jumped over the stream behind the building and ran over to Chiarini’s circus. Through the gap in the tent flap he sneaked a peek into the gloomy interior. The Chiarini troupe, having scattered their bedding all over the stage, were rolled up in their futons like caterpillars. The school bell rang. Class had started for the day, but the boy didn’t move. The little black girl wasn’t here. He searched and searched but couldn’t see her face amongst the sleepers. In the distance, the school had become eerily quiet. Classes had probably begun by now. The second lesson of the day was about Alexander the Great and his doctor, Philip of Acarnania.
‘Once upon a time, in Europe, there was a hero named Alexander the Great.’ He distinctly heard the dulcet tones of a young girl reading aloud. He remained stock still. The boy realised then that the black girl was simply an ordinary woman. She normally lived outside of her cage, and no doubt played along with everyone else. That sort of woman would do her laundry, smoke cigarettes and shout in Japanese. The little girl’s recitation had finished, and the teacher’s gravelly voice could be heard: ‘I believe trust to be a virtue. Alexander the Great possessed this virtue, and as a result of this he was able to live to a ripe old age. Now, everyone…’
The boy still stood there. There was no reason for her not to be here. The cage must surely be empty. He stiffened his shoulders. While I’m standing here, she is going to stealthily sneak up behind me and give my shoulders a tight hug. I should therefore be on my guard, and keep my shoulders straight so that I have good posture for when I am embraced. She will surely then give me the embroidered flag, and when she does I must be assertive and say: ‘Am I your number one?’
The black girl did not appear. After leaving the tent, the boy wiped the sweat from his narrow brow with his kimono sleeve and slowly trudged back to school. ‘I had a fever. People say that I have bad lungs.’ He was able to successfully fool the elderly teacher, who wore a hakama and laced-up shoes. Back in his seat, the boy pretended to cough and choke.
According to the villagers, the black girl, who sure enough was locked up in her cage, was loaded onto a wagon and subsequently left the village. The ringmaster had concealed a pistol in his pocket for his own protection.
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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