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Rashomon

By Akutagawa Ryunosuke

It was the evening of a certain day. A servant was waiting under the Rashomon gate for the rain to stop. Besides this man, there was no one else under the wide gate. Only a cricket was perched on a large pillar, its vermilion paint peeling in places. Since the Rashomon stood on Suzaku Avenue, one would expect to see two or three more men in women’s hats and men’s caps waiting out the rain. Yet, there was no one but this man.

The reason was that for the past two or three years, Kyoto had been plagued by one disaster after another, such as earthquakes, whirlwinds, fires, and famines. Consequently, the desolation of the capital was beyond description. According to old records, Buddha statues and Buddhist implements were broken up, and the wood, still bearing traces of vermilion or gold leaf, was piled up by the roadside and sold as firewood. With the capital in such a state, no one paid any attention to the repair of the Rashomon. Taking advantage of this neglect, foxes and tanuki moved in, and robbers took up residence. Eventually, a custom even arose of bringing unclaimed corpses to this gate and abandoning them. Thus, as soon as daylight faded, everyone grew uneasy and avoided the vicinity of the gate.

In return, however, a great number of crows gathered from somewhere. In the daytime, one could see several crows circling and cawing around the high roof finials. Especially when the sky above the gate turned red with the sunset, they stood out as clearly as if sprinkled with sesame seeds. The crows, of course, came to peck at the flesh of the corpses on the gate. — Although, today, perhaps because it was late, not a single one was in sight. Only here and there, on the stone steps that had crumbled in places and were overgrown with long grass, were the white droppings of crows dotted about. The servant sat down on the topmost of the seven stone steps, resting the hem of his freshly washed dark blue robe, and absently gazed at the falling rain, worrying about a large pimple that had appeared on his right cheek.

The author wrote earlier, "A servant was waiting for the rain to stop." However, the servant had no particular plan even if the rain stopped. Normally, of course, he should have returned to his master’s house. But his master had dismissed him four or five days earlier. As mentioned before, the city of Kyoto was in an unprecedented state of decline at that time. The dismissal of the servant, who had served for many years, was merely a small ripple effect of this decline. Therefore, rather than saying, "The servant was waiting for the rain to stop," it would be more appropriate to say, "The servant, trapped by the rain, had nowhere to go and was at a loss." Moreover, the day's weather had not inconsiderably affected the sentimentality of this Heian-era servant. The rain, which had begun to fall after the hour of the monkey, showed no signs of stopping. Therefore, the servant, intending to somehow secure his immediate livelihood for the next day—in other words, to make the impossible possible—was lost in thought as he listened, almost without hearing, to the sound of the rain falling on Suzaku Avenue.

The rain enveloped the Rashomon, gathering a rushing sound from afar. The twilight gradually deepened in the sky, and looking up, the gate’s roof seemed to support the heavy, dim clouds beyond the slanting eaves.

To make the impossible possible, there was no time to be selective about the means. If he were to be selective, he would only starve to death under the earthen wall or on the roadside. And then he would be brought to this gate and discarded like a dog. If he were not selective—the servant's thoughts circled the same path many times, finally arriving at this impasse. However, this "if he were not selective" always remained "if he were not selective," never leading to a conclusion. While acknowledging that he had no choice but to abandon selectivity, the servant lacked the courage to actively affirm what naturally followed: "he had no choice but to become a thief."

The servant sneezed loudly, then got up with great effort. Kyoto, with its evening chill, was already cold enough to warrant a brazier. The wind, along with the twilight, blew freely through the pillars of the gate. The cricket that had been perched on the vermilion pillar had also disappeared somewhere.

The servant, shrinking his neck, raised the shoulders of his dark blue robe, worn over a light yellow under-robe, and looked around the gate. He intended to find a place where he could spend the night comfortably, sheltered from the rain and wind, and out of sight. Then, fortunately, a wide staircase leading up to the upper level of the gate, also painted vermilion, caught his eye. If there were people upstairs, they would be dead anyway. The servant, being careful not to let his sword, with its holy hilt, slide out of its scabbard, stepped with his straw-sandaled feet onto the lowest step of the staircase.

A few moments later. A man was crouched like a cat on the middle step of the wide staircase leading to the upper level of the Rashomon, holding his breath as he peered at the situation above. The light of a fire from upstairs faintly illuminated the man's right cheek. It was a cheek with a red, pus-filled pimple among his short beard. From the beginning, the servant had assumed that only corpses would be found upstairs. But as he climbed two or three steps, he saw that someone upstairs had lit a fire, and that the fire was moving here and there. This was evident from the way the dim, yellowish light flickered and reflected on the cobweb-covered ceiling. On this rainy night, at the top of the Rashomon, anyone lighting a fire could not be ordinary.

The servant, treading as quietly as a guardian spirit, finally crawled up the steep staircase to the topmost step. Then, keeping his body as flat as possible and stretching his neck forward as much as possible, he cautiously peered into the room above.

He saw that, as he had heard, several corpses were carelessly abandoned in the room. However, the reach of the firelight was narrower than he had expected, so he could not tell their number. He could only vaguely discern that...

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