Free Blue Bamboo: Tales by Dazai Osamu by Dazaï Osamu

home, and when the sun went down she stole to Musashi’s house, where she ascertained that her father’s destination had been the inlet at Sakegawa. That same night she made preparations and set out with the maidservant Mari to find him. Making their way along the midnight road by the light of a freshly fallen snow, resting under the eaves of houses or snuggling together for warmth in caves by the sea, dozing off to the sound of the waves before once again leaping up to continue their journey, urging each other on but, being women, making slow progress, the mistress and her servant did not reach Sakegawa until the evening of the third day. There, they staggered to the seashore only to find, to their unspeakable horror, Konnai, now a cold and withered corpse, stretched out on a mat of coarse straw. They were told that his body had been discovered drifting near the shore that morning, his head so entangled with seaweed that at first he was mistaken for the mermaid he’d claimed to have shot.
    Yaé and Mari fell upon Konnai’s body from either side and clung to him, too grief-stricken to speak and sobbing with such passion that even the thick-skinned fishermen turned away, unable to watch. Yaé, whose mother was long dead and who now found herself abandoned by her father as well, wept uncontrollably, nearly out of her mind with grief. But finally, having come to a great resolve in her heart, she lifted her pale face and said: “Mari. We too must die.”
    “Yes,” Mari said, nodding.
    They stood up quietly, and just then there came to their ears the thunder of a horse’s hooves and the powerful voice of Noda Musashi calling to them as he galloped down to the seashore. Dismounting, Musashi stood over the body of Konnai and hung his head.
    “What an abominable waste. Has it come to this, then? Shit! What care I for mermaids now? Musashi is not amused; Musashi is very, very angry, and when Musashi is angry, he is not to be reasoned with. He can be the most unreasonable of men. Whether mermaids exist or not is of no importance now. All that matters is that a certain vile bastard be punished. You, fishermen! Bring horses for these two women. Now! Find a pair of horses and bring them here, damn you!”
    After thus directing his rage at the commoners milling about nearby, Musashi turned to glare at Yaé.
    “And you! Stop that sobbing! There is work to do, revenge to be exacted. If we don’t return immediately, burst into Hyakuemon’s home, relieve him of his foul head, and bring it back to present to Konnai, I shall not permit you to refer to yourself as the daughter of a samurai. Enough of your sniveling!”
    “Hyakuemon?” Mari took a step forward and cocked her head to one side. “Do you mean Aosaki Hyakuemon?”
    “Of course. Who else would it be?”
    “In that case,” Mari said calmly, “I begin to see... For some time now this Aosaki, old as he is, has had his heart set on my mistress. He’s been very insistent that she become his bride. My mistress, naturally, says that she would die before she’d marry a man with a nose like that. Not, of course, that the master was about to permit such a—”
    “So that’s it. That explains everything. The worm had the temerity to claim to be a confirmed bachelor, a woman hater, when in fact he was a rejected lover all along. How despicable. The man is absolutely beneath contempt. To lash out at Konnai in retaliation for his own wounded feelings is worse than loathsome—it’s ludicrous. Ha!” Musashi shouted triumphantly. “The preposterous fool!”
    That night, with Musashi leading the way, the two young women stole into Hyakuemon’s home, halberds in hand. They found their enemy in a room in the rear, drinking saké with a concubine. Musashi, with one stroke of his sword, lopped off Hyakuemon’s long and spindly right arm. Hyakuemon didn’t so much as wince, however, even as his severed arm dropped to the floor, but made to unsheathe his own sword with his left