Free Blue Bamboo: Tales by Dazai Osamu by Dazaï Osamu Page A

hand. Mari stepped in from the side and kicked his legs out from under him, but he rose to his knees, still undaunted, and thrust his sword at Yaé. With a gasp of astonishment, Musashi sank his own blade into Hyakuemon’s shoulder, and he fell, sprawling backward but, far from giving up the ghost, writhed about on the floor like a snake, pulled a dagger from his sash, and hurled it with vicious force at Yaé, who barely managed to dodge its path. She and Musashi exchanged a dumbfounded glance, amazed at the tenacity of their foe, before finishing him off.
    Once they’d accomplished their mission, Yaé and Mari hurried with Hyakuemon’s head to Sakegawa, where Konnai’s body still lay. Musashi, meanwhile, returned to his home and wrote out the details of the entire vendetta, expressing remorse for the great crime of putting Hyakuemon to death without first receiving permission from the daimyo, and claiming all responsibility for what had occurred. Then, after commanding his servant to deliver the document to the castle first thing in the morning, he performed seppuku without the least hesitation, thus ending his life in a manner worthy of the excellent and admirable samurai that he was.
    After presenting Konnai with his enemy’s severed head and then seeing him buried with due ceremony, the two women returned home, where they closed the front gate and ensconced themselves within the house to await the daimyo’s verdict. Dressed in immaculate white kimono, they too were prepared to take their own lives should that be the judgment. In due time a council of chief retainers announced their decision: Hyakuemon himself had been such a perverse man as to qualify as an unnatural monster of this world; and since Musashi had taken responsibility for the incident and had already carried out his own punishment, there was nothing untoward in considering the affair a private dispute that had been settled in a satisfactory manner. The daimyo approved this decision and even praised the two women for the laudable manner in which they’d avenged their father and master. Shortly thereafter, Yaé was wed to Imura Sakunosuke, youngest son of the ranking retainer Sakuemon. Her groom took the Chudo family name as his own, thereby assuring the continuation of Konnai’s lineage. Soon thereafter, the maidservant Mari became the bride of a handsome young assistant law enforcement official named Toi Ichizaemon.
    Late one night about a hundred days after Konnai’s death, a dispatch arrived at the castle from Kasuga Shrine, located at the seaside in Kitaura:
    A most peculiar skeleton was discovered washed up on the shore here today. The flesh has rotted away, leaving only bones, but the upper half of the body is very much like that of a human being, while the lower half is unmistakably that of a fish. Although no explanation is yet available, it was deemed that such an extraordinary discovery should be reported at once...
    An administrator was immediately sent to Kitaura to investigate. He ascertained that the strange skeleton was indeed that of a mermaid, and that embedded in its shoulder was the tip of one of Chudo Konnai’s famous arrows. Thus that spring was a season of twofold joy for Yaé, and thus ends this story affirming certain victory for those with the power to believe.



nce upon a time, in a certain district in Hunan, there lived an impoverished scholar named Yu Jung. Poverty and scholarship have always gone hand in hand, it seems, and one can’t help but wonder why that might be. Consider Yu Jung for example. Far from being of low birth or inferior breeding, he was in fact a man of rather handsome features with an air of genuine refinement. And though it might be overstating things to claim that he loved books the way some men love love, he had faithfully followed the path of learning since his earliest days, never engaging in any improper behavior to speak of. Yet he was simply not one of those upon whom fortune had ever seen