Read Online Mandarins by Ryûnosuke Akutagawa - Free Book Online
Authors: Ryûnosuke Akutagawa
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quietly standing there as though having eavesdropped on our conversation. Seeing me, the person immediately approached me, exclaiming in a most charming tone: âOh, are you leaving so soon?â
âMadame Katsumi was again wearing a rose in her hair. For a moment I felt breathless but then gave her a glacial stare and a wordless salutation before moving with rapid strides to the entrance, where a rickshaw was awaiting me. My mind was in such a state of confusion that I myself was hardly aware of it. All that I remember is that as I was crossing Ry Å goku Bridge, I found myself repeating over and over the name of Delilah.
âIt was from that moment that glimmerings of the secret behind Miuraâs melancholic demeanor began to make themselves clear to me. I need hardly say that this secret was seared into my mind in theform of those abhorrent characters that represent the word adultery . 4 Yet if my assumption was correct, why did not Miura, of all people, idealist that he was, resolve to divorce her? Did he, for all his suspicions, lack sufficient evidence? Or, was he, despite it all, hesitating to act out of love?
âAs I relentlessly pondered these hypotheses, turning them over one by one, I soon forgot about the fishing trip, and though over the next fortnight I continued on occasion to write, my heretofore frequent visits to the Miurasâ house on the riverbank ceased altogether. It was then, however, that I had another unexpected chance encounter. It was this that gave me the resolve to use our talk of going fishing as a partial reason for a direct meeting and there to lay open to him my anxieties.
âI had gone with my doctor friend to the Nakamura-za to see a play. We were on our way back when we happened to meet a familiar face, a journalist for the Akebono , writing under the name of Chinchikurin-shujin. It had started to rain on this late afternoon as we went for a drink at the Ikuine, located at the time in Yanagibashi.
âWe were seated on the second floor, enjoying moderate imbibing, as we listened to the faraway sound of a shamisen , evoking long-ago Edo. Now our journalist friend arose, caught up in the merriment, and, like a popular writer of fiction from that era, sprinkling his remarks with jeux de mots , began to entertain us with scandalous stories about Madame Narayama. It seems the woman had been a foreignerâs concubine in K Å be. Then for a time she had had Sanây Å« tei Engy Å as her kept man.
âShe had been then in her heyday and wore six gold rings, but in the last two or three years had been up to her neck in debts of legally dubious provenance . . . Chinchikurin-shujin had much else to tell us concerning her dissolute conduct behind the scenes, but for methe most disturbing shadow that he cast with his account concerned the recent appearance in her company of a certain young lady, who, rumor had it, had become for the other an accessory as inseparable as her kimono pouch. Moreover, it was said that she sometimes stayed overnight with the womenâs rights advocate in Suijinâand in the additional company of men.
âWhen I heard this, I saw, amidst the jolly exchange of cups, the pensive figure of Miura flicker hauntingly before my eyes, and found it impossible to join, even out of a sense of duty, in all the boisterous laughter. Fortunately, the good doctor quickly became aware of my subdued spirits and adroitly steered the raconteur in another direction, completely away from the topic of Madame Narayama. Now I could breathe again and continue to converse without marring the conviviality.
âYet that evening had been made to bring me naught but bad luck. Disheartened by the gossip concerning the womenâs rights advocate, I had stood up with my two companions to leave and was standing in front of the Ikuine, about to step into a rickshaw, when another, this one designed for two passengers, suddenly and forcefully swept by, its
âMadame Katsumi was again wearing a rose in her hair. For a moment I felt breathless but then gave her a glacial stare and a wordless salutation before moving with rapid strides to the entrance, where a rickshaw was awaiting me. My mind was in such a state of confusion that I myself was hardly aware of it. All that I remember is that as I was crossing Ry Å goku Bridge, I found myself repeating over and over the name of Delilah.
âIt was from that moment that glimmerings of the secret behind Miuraâs melancholic demeanor began to make themselves clear to me. I need hardly say that this secret was seared into my mind in theform of those abhorrent characters that represent the word adultery . 4 Yet if my assumption was correct, why did not Miura, of all people, idealist that he was, resolve to divorce her? Did he, for all his suspicions, lack sufficient evidence? Or, was he, despite it all, hesitating to act out of love?
âAs I relentlessly pondered these hypotheses, turning them over one by one, I soon forgot about the fishing trip, and though over the next fortnight I continued on occasion to write, my heretofore frequent visits to the Miurasâ house on the riverbank ceased altogether. It was then, however, that I had another unexpected chance encounter. It was this that gave me the resolve to use our talk of going fishing as a partial reason for a direct meeting and there to lay open to him my anxieties.
âI had gone with my doctor friend to the Nakamura-za to see a play. We were on our way back when we happened to meet a familiar face, a journalist for the Akebono , writing under the name of Chinchikurin-shujin. It had started to rain on this late afternoon as we went for a drink at the Ikuine, located at the time in Yanagibashi.
âWe were seated on the second floor, enjoying moderate imbibing, as we listened to the faraway sound of a shamisen , evoking long-ago Edo. Now our journalist friend arose, caught up in the merriment, and, like a popular writer of fiction from that era, sprinkling his remarks with jeux de mots , began to entertain us with scandalous stories about Madame Narayama. It seems the woman had been a foreignerâs concubine in K Å be. Then for a time she had had Sanây Å« tei Engy Å as her kept man.
âShe had been then in her heyday and wore six gold rings, but in the last two or three years had been up to her neck in debts of legally dubious provenance . . . Chinchikurin-shujin had much else to tell us concerning her dissolute conduct behind the scenes, but for methe most disturbing shadow that he cast with his account concerned the recent appearance in her company of a certain young lady, who, rumor had it, had become for the other an accessory as inseparable as her kimono pouch. Moreover, it was said that she sometimes stayed overnight with the womenâs rights advocate in Suijinâand in the additional company of men.
âWhen I heard this, I saw, amidst the jolly exchange of cups, the pensive figure of Miura flicker hauntingly before my eyes, and found it impossible to join, even out of a sense of duty, in all the boisterous laughter. Fortunately, the good doctor quickly became aware of my subdued spirits and adroitly steered the raconteur in another direction, completely away from the topic of Madame Narayama. Now I could breathe again and continue to converse without marring the conviviality.
âYet that evening had been made to bring me naught but bad luck. Disheartened by the gossip concerning the womenâs rights advocate, I had stood up with my two companions to leave and was standing in front of the Ikuine, about to step into a rickshaw, when another, this one designed for two passengers, suddenly and forcefully swept by, its
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