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.

Please help support Yobanashi Cafe and pick up a copy of Retrogression. Our translations will always be free, forever, but if you enjoyed reading this and have the means then please consider purchasing the full book. You can also support us by sharing on social media. Thank you!

Written by Dazai Osamu and published in February 1935 as the third part of Retrogression. Translated by A L Raye.

Original text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/260_34634.html

---

I was not trying to imitate a foreign style duel. I literally just wanted to kill him, and my motive for doing so was quite superficial. It wasn’t like he was exactly the same as me in every way, and so we hated each other from the bottom of our hearts because the world didn’t need two of our kind; nor was it because he was my wife’s former lover, and that he was always constantly walking around talking to the neighbours in scientific, explicit detail about their frequent affairs. In fact, my opponent was just a young peasant wearing a dog fur jacket who I met for the first time that night at a café. I stole his drink. That was the only motive.

I am a high school student from a northern castle town. I like to go out and have a good time, but I can be rather stingy when it comes to money. If I was patient, then by just puffing on my friends’ cigarettes and going without haircuts I could save up five yen, and with it I would sneak out into town by myself and spend every last penny. In a single night out, I would never spend any more or any less than five yen. In any case, I always seemed to get the most out of that five yen. First of all, I would exchange all the loose change I’d saved for a friend’s five yen note. If the note was new enough to cut my hand then my heart would beat even faster. Then I would carelessly thrust it into my pocket and hit the town. I lived only for the sake of these monthly or bi-monthly outings. At the time, I was being tormented by an inexplicable depression. An absolute loneliness accompanied by an all-consuming scepticism. It’s disgusting to say it out loud! Maupassant, Mérimée, and Ōgai seemed more real to me than Nietzsche, Villon, or Haruō. I dedicated my life to those five yen pleasures.

Even if I went to a café, I never showed any enthusiasm. I acted as though I was tired of playing around. If it was summer I asked for a cold beer and if it was winter I asked for hot sake. I wanted to give people the impression that my drinking was just a seasonal thing. Appearing reluctant, I took no notice of the beautiful waitresses while mulling over my sake. In every café there is always at least one middle-aged waitress who made up for her lack of allure with an insatiable avarice, but I spoke only to those kinds of waitresses. We mostly chatted about the weather or the general cost of living. I was skilled at counting the number of empty bottles, with a speed even God couldn’t keep up with. When the number of beer bottles lined up on the table reached six, or sake bottles reached ten, I would casually stand up as if only just remembering something and softly mutter ‘Check please.’ The final total never exceeded five yen. I would deliberately thrust my hand into each and every pocket as though I had forgotten where I had put my money. Eventually I would find it in my trouser pocket. I would let my right hand grope around inside the pocket for a while to make it look like I was selecting from between five or six different bank notes. Finally, I pull out the single banknote from my pocket and, after pretending to confirm whether or not it is a ten yen note or a five yen note, I hand it over to the waitress. As for the change, I’d leave it behind without even glancing at it, saying ‘It’s not much.’ Hunching my shoulders, I would march away from the café until I reached my school dormitory, never once looking back. The very next day, I would once again start saving up every penny of loose change.

On the night of the duel I went to a café called The Himawari dressed in a long navy blue cape and a pair of pure white leather gloves. I never went to the same café twice in a row because I was afraid that my convention of always producing a five yen note would arouse suspicion. The last time I visited The Himawari was two months ago.

Lately, a young foreigner who bore some resemblance to me was beginning to make it big as a successful movie star, and it was for this reason that I too was starting to gradually attract the female gaze. When I sat down at a chair in the corner of the café all four of the waitresses who worked there, each wearing a different style of kimono, came and stood in a row in front of my table. It was winter, so I asked for hot sake. Then, looking as though I was utterly freezing, I shivered. My resemblance to the movie star benefitted me directly when, even though I didn’t say anything, one of the young waitresses offered me a cigarette.

The Himawari was not only cramped but dingy too. On the right-hand side of the wall hung a poster of a woman with her hair done up in a bun who languidly rested her one-foot-by-two-foot face on her hand, her smile revealing teeth as large as walnuts. The bottom edge of the poster had ‘Kabuto Beer” printed across it in black letters. Facing it on the left-hand wall hung a mirror around 10 metres across and mounted in a gold-coated frame. Grimy red and black striped muslin curtains had been hung over the entrance. Above them, a photograph had been pinned to the wall of a laughing Western woman reclining naked on the grass by the edge of a pond. On the opposite wall, just above my head, hung a paper balloon. The lack of harmony was utterly infuriating. There were three tables and ten chairs. A heater sat in the middle of the room. The dirt floor had been boarded over. I knew there was no way I would be able to relax at this café, though luckily for me the lights were dim.

That evening, I received an unusually warm welcome. Once I had finished the first bottle of sake, poured for me by the middle-aged waitress, the younger waitress from before who had offered me a cigarette suddenly thrust her right palm under my nose. Unfazed, I slowly raised my head and gazed deeply into the girl’s eyes. ‘Tell me my fortune’ they said, and immediately I understood. Even if I kept silent, an air of prophecy emanated from my body. Without touching her hand, I gave her a glance and murmured ‘Yesterday, you lost your lover.’ I had hit the mark and, consequently, an evening of unusual entertainment commenced. An exceptionally stout waitress even called me ‘Sensei’. I read everyone’s palms: ‘You are nineteen years old’, ‘You were born in the year of the tiger’, ‘You long to obtain the perfect man’, ‘You love roses’, ‘Your pet dog has had six puppies.’ I was right every time. When I told the middle-aged waitress, a slim and bright-eyed woman, that she had lost two husbands, she swiftly lowered her head. Out of everyone these strange precognitions excited me the most. By this time, I had already emptied six sake bottles. It was then that the young peasant wearing a dog fur jacket appeared at the entrance.

He sat down at the table immediately next to mine, his furry back facing me, and ordered a whiskey. The dog’s fur had a mottled pattern. As soon as he arrived, the heavenly excitement at my table faded in an instant. I began to get pangs of regret for having drunk six bottles already. I wanted to get even more thoroughly drunk. I wanted to extend the joy of this night for as long as possible. The four remaining bottles were just not enough, not enough at all. I should steal his. Yes, I’ll steal his whiskey! The waitresses would never think I did it because I needed the money, they would just see it as some eccentric fortune teller’s joke and, on the contrary, they would probably cheer for me, wouldn’t they? The peasant would also allow himself a wry smile at this drunkard’s prank. So I stole it! I reached out my hand, grabbed the whisky glass on the neighbouring table, and calmly knocked it back. There was no cheering. The room fell silent. The peasant turned towards me and stood up. ‘Outside. Now.’ He said, and started walking towards the exit. I followed after him, grinning. As I passed by the gold-framed mirror I caught a quick glimpse of myself. I looked every part the suave, handsome gentleman. In the depths of the mirror the woman’s one-foot-by-two-foot smiling face peered back at me. I regained my composure and, filled with confidence, flung open the muslin curtains.

We came to a stop beneath the square lantern that hung above the entryway with ‘THE HIMAWARI’ written on it in yellow romaji. The four white faces of the waitresses floated in the dim light of the threshold. Our argument began as follows:

‘Don’t treat me like a damn fool!’

‘I wasn’t treating you like a fool! Come now, I was just behaving like a bit of a spoiled brat. It’s no big deal, right?’

‘I’m a hardworking man. Spoiled brats just make me angry.’ 

I took another look at the man’s face. He had short cropped hair, a small head, a pair of sparse eyebrows, sanpaku eyes with single eyelids and dark, almost black, skin. He was a solid 15 centimetres shorter than me. I resolved to keep teasing him to the bitter end.

‘Listen, I just wanted to drink some whiskey, since it looked so delicious.’

‘I wanted to drink it too, you know! Whiskey isn’t cheap, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘You’re an honest guy. That’s so cute.’

‘Don’t be a smartass! You’re a high school kid, right? You make me sick, having the nerve to daub all that powder on your face!’

‘On the contrary, I am something of a fortune teller. A prophet, if you will. I bet you’re surprised!’

‘Stop pretending to be drunk. Get on your knees and apologise!’

‘In order to understand me then first and foremost you’re going to need courage. That’s a great phrase, isn’t it? Look at me, I’m Friedrich Nietzsche!’

I waited eagerly for the waitresses to intervene on my behalf, but instead all four of them stared at me coldly while they waited for me to get beaten up. Then I got punched. His fist came flying at me from the right-hand side, and I swiftly ducked my head. Thrown about twenty metres away, my white-striped student cap had taken the blow in my place. Smiling, I started slowly and deliberately walking over to pick up the hat. There had been sleet for the last few days so the slush on the road was very slowly melting. As I crouched down and picked up my mud-smeared cap, I considered making a break for it. I’d still be able to use my five yen, and have another round at a different café. I ran for two or three steps, slipped, and fell flat on my ass. I must have looked like a trampled tree frog. This sorry state of mine made me a little angry. My gloves, jacket, trousers and even my cape were covered in mud. I very carefully got up and, with my head held high, turned back towards the peasant. He was flanked by the waitresses, who were standing guard over him. I didn’t have a single ally to fight in my corner. This particular fact aroused my wrath.

‘I really must thank you.’

After saying this to him with a contemptuous smile, I took off my gloves, and my even more expensive cape, and threw them into the muddy slush. I was pleased with myself for this slightly old-fashioned remark and gesture. Somebody stop me!

The peasant shrugged off his dog fur jacket, handed it over to the pretty waitress who had given me a cigarette, and then slipped one hand into the front of his kimono.

‘No dirty tricks, now!’

Warning him thus, I braced myself.

From inside his kimono he drew out a long silver flute which sparkled in the lamplight. This was handed over to the middle-aged waitress who had lost two husbands.

I was utterly enthralled by this peasant’s integrity. This wasn’t fiction; truly, I wanted to kill this man.

‘Let’s go!’As I shouted this, I kicked with all my might towards the peasant’s shins with one muddy shoe. I was going to knock him down, then gouge out those limpid sanpaku eyes; but my filthy foot hit nothing but air. I became aware of my own ineptitude, and it made me feel miserable. A faintly warm fist hit me right between my left eye and my stuck-up nose. Bright red flames erupted in my vision. I gazed at them. Then, I pretended to stagger. An open palm slap hit me straight between my right earlobe and my cheek and I fell forwards into the mud. In that same moment, I instinctively bit down on the peasant’s leg. It was as solid as a rock. It was like one of those aspen posts you see by the roadside. As I lay face down in the mud I knew now was the time to cry, but even though I desperately tried to weep and sob, alas, not a single tear fell.

---

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.

Please help support Yobanashi Cafe and pick up a copy of Retrogression. Our translations will always be free, forever, but if you enjoyed reading this and have the means then please consider purchasing the full book. You can also support us by sharing on social media. Thank you!

Written by Dazai Osamu and published in February 1935 as the second part of Retrogression. Translated by A L Raye. First published on Asymptote.

Original text: https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/260_34634.html

---

There was no doubt that I’d failed the year, but I was still going to take the exam. The beauty of a worthless effort. I was fascinated by that beauty. This morning I had woken up early, and for the first time in a year I put my arms through my school uniform and walked through those bright iron gates, big and tall and emblazoned with the Imperial Chrysanthemum. I found myself passing under them with some trepidation. Immediately upon entering the grounds there are rows of gingko trees. Ten trees on the right side and another ten trees on the left, all of them giants. When the leaves are in full bloom the road ahead becomes so dim that it’s like a tunnel. Now, though, there isn’t a single leaf. At the end of the boulevard there sat a large, red-bricked building. This was the auditorium. I had only seen the inside of this building once, during the entrance ceremony, and it had given me the impression of a temple. I looked up at the electric clock on the top of the auditorium tower. There was still fifteen minutes left until the exam. Affection filled my eyes as I passed the bronze statue dedicated to the father of a detective fiction novelist and headed down the gentle slope to my right, coming out into the park. Once upon a time this had been the garden of a renowned daimyo. In the pond were common carp, scarlet carp and softshell turtles. Around five or six years ago a pair of cranes were seen frolicing here, and snakes still slither in the grass. Migratory wild geese and ducks also stop to rest their wings in this pond. The whole garden is actually less than 200 tsubo in size, but looks more like 1000 tsubo – an excellent landscaping trick. I sat down on the bamboo grass by the edge of the pond, put my back against the stump of an old oak tree, and stretched both legs out in front of me. Where the path forked lay a line of rocks of various shapes and sizes, beyond which spread the wide open water. The surface of the pond shone white under the cloudy sky and rippled as if tickled by the furrows of tiny waves. After casually crossing my legs, I muttered to myself.

‘I am a thief.’

A line of university students walk along the path in front of me. They pass by in droves, an apparently incessant flow of people. Someday, each will become the pride of his hometown. The cream of the crop. They were all trying to read and memorise the same sentences in their notebooks. I took out a pack of cigarettes from my pocket and put one in my mouth, but I was out of matches.

‘Can I get a light?’

I called out to a handsome college boy wrapped in a light green coat. He stopped, and without taking his eyes off his notebook he handed me the gold-tipped cigarette he held in his mouth. I took it and he slowly walked away without pausing. Even at university I was able to find someone who could match me. I lit my own cheap cigarette from the fancy foreign one and then, rising carefully, I threw the gold-tipped cigarette onto the ground with all my might and stomped on it heartily with my heel. After that, I made my way leisurely to the exam hall.

In the examination room there were at least a hundred college students, all of them shrinking to the back of the hall. They were worried that if they sat near the front they wouldn’t be able to write their answers as they pleased. Looking for all the world like a bright young scholar I sat right in the front row and puffed on my cigarette, my fingertips trembling a little. I did not have a notebook to revise under my desk, nor did I have a single friend with whom I could furtively consult.

Eventually, a red-faced professor carrying a bulging satchel came running into the exam hall. This man was Japan’s foremost scholar of French literature. I saw him for the first time today. He cut quite the figure and, in spite of myself, I felt intimidated by his furrowed brows. I’d heard that this man’s students included the number one poet and number one literary critic in Japan. And Japan’s number one novelist, I thought, and secretly felt a warm flush spread over my cheeks. While the professor was scribbling down the problems on the board, the college students behind me were mostly whispering to each other about the Manchurian economic boom instead of their studies. Presently, five or six lines of French appeared on the board. The professor sat slumped in the armchair on the podium and said irritably:

‘You couldn’t fail these questions even if you wanted to!’

The college students laughed awkwardly. I laughed too. The professor then mumbled a few incomprehensible words in French and started writing something at his desk.

I didn’t know any French. No matter the question, I intended to write ‘Flaubert was a spoiled little rich boy.’ For a while I pretended to be deep in thought by closing my eyes slightly, brushing the dandruff from my hair, gazing at the colour of my fingernails and so on. Eventually, I picked up my pen and began to write.

Flaubert was a spoiled little rich boy. It was his protégé, Maupassant, who was the more mature of the two. After all, the beauty of art is ultimately the beauty of service to the people. Flaubert did not comprehend this grim reality, but Maupassant did. In an attempt to make up for the humiliating disgrace which was his debut work, The Temptation of Saint Anthony, Flaubert wasted his entire life. Having been metaphorically torn apart by his critics, every time he finished writing anything – anything at all – regardless of public opinion, the wounds of his humiliation would ache more and more, so keenly and so painfully, that the unfulfilled hollow in his heart spread further and deeper until finally, he died. He was deceived by the illusion of a masterpiece, enchanted by an eternal beauty, carried away by a fever dream and ultimately couldn’t even save himself, let alone any of his kin. Baudelaire in particular was also a spoiled little rich boy. That is all.

I didn’t write ‘Professor, please let me pass the exam!’ or anything like that. I read what I had written twice over and didn’t find any mistakes, so with my coat and hat in my left hand and the single answer sheet in my right, I stood up. The bright little boffin behind me began to panic as a result of this because he had been using me as a shield. Ah! The name of an up-and-coming writer was written on the answer sheet of this adorable, rabbit-like scholar. Even though I felt pity for this anxious, soon-to-be famous writer, still I gave the doddery Professor a knowing bow and submitted my answer. I walked sedately back through the exam hall but as soon as I got through the doors I raced down the stairs so fast I practically tumbled down them. 

Escaping outside like a young thief, I felt a strange sadness. What kind of melancholy was this? Where did it come from? Despite these thoughts I straightened my shoulders and strode steadily down the wide gravel road that was sandwiched between rows of gingko trees. It’s just because I’m hungry, I told myself. Tucked in the basement beneath classroom 29 was a large cafeteria. I made my way there.

Hungry students overflowed from the basement cafeteria, forming a long line that trailed like a snake across the ground from the entrance, its tail reaching all the way up to the rows of ginkgo trees. You could get a decent lunch here for just fifteen sen, and the line must have been about 100 metres long. 

‘I am a thief. A misanthrope without equal. Never before has the artist become a murderer. Never before has the artist become a thief. You assholes! Bunch of cheap-ass, brainy little bastards!’

Pushing my way roughly through the students thus, I eventually reached the cafeteria entrance. On the door there was a small sign which read:

Today, we are delighted to announce that the cafeteria is celebrating its third full year in business. To honour this occasion we would like to offer you some small tokens of our appreciation.

These tokens of appreciation were special dishes displayed in a glass cabinet beside the entrance: Red prawns nestled in beds of parsley leaves and boiled eggs cut in half with ‘congratulations’ in stylish calligraphy written on them using a blue agar jelly. I made the effort to peek inside the cafeteria and saw the serving girls wearing white aprons threading their way through the forest of black-clad students taking part in the event, slipping through them and gliding around in a fluttering dance. The flags of all nations were strung across the ceiling.

Those fresh flowers that bloom in the basement of the university were the antidote to my restlessness. How lucky I was to come on this wonderful day. Let’s celebrate together! Oh, let’s celebrate together!

Like a falling leaf the thief retreats, swirling outside and slipping into the tail of the giant snake, his figure disappearing in the blink of an eye.

---

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.

Please help support Yobanashi Cafe and pick up a copy of Retrogression. Our translations will always be free, forever, but if you enjoyed reading this and have the means then please consider purchasing the full book. You can also support us by sharing on social media. Thank you!

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.

Please help support Yobanashi Cafe and pick up a copy of Retrogression. Our translations will always be free, forever, but if you enjoyed reading this and have the means then please consider purchasing the full book. You can also support us by sharing on social media. Thank you!