E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
Reihe: Pushkin Collection
Tanizaki The Siren's Lament
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-78227-810-8
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Essential Stories
E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
Reihe: Pushkin Collection
ISBN: 978-1-78227-810-8
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Jun'ichir? Tanizaki (1886-1965) is widely considered one of Japan's most important writers. Born in Tokyo to a family of printers, he began his literary career in 1909 and published numerous plays, essays, novels and short stories. His writing is characterised by ironic wit, subtle interpersonal dynamics and charged depictions of sexuality and cultural identity. The Tanizaki Prize, one of Japan's most prestigious awards, is named in his honour.
Weitere Infos & Material
It was around the tolling of the fifth hour, in the early evening, when Harugoro, a fishmonger from one of the back streets, came rushing into the Suruga-ya pawnshop in a flush of drink. Merrily jingling the large front pocket of his work apron, he extracted the freshly minted two-shu silver coin just given him, so he said, from an official serving in the coiners’ guild in the Ginza, and, having handed it over, he recovered his spring clothes— a hanten and a haori—which had been languishing in pledge for a little over three months. After he left, however, possibly on account of the foul weather, not a single other customer parted the curtain at the entrance to the ordinarily busy pawnshop. From his perch behind the lattice of the counter, Shinsuke, who had been engrossed in a popular novel, his chin propped up on his hand, now tended to the dying embers of the brazier, grumbling to himself about the bitter cold. He then reached out a hand to clip the ear of the shop boy who was dozing soundly right beside him.
‘Shota! Hey, wake up! I know it’s sleeting, but be a good lad and run over to the Old Hermitage, the soba house in Muramatsu-cho, and ask them to send over two bowls of tempura soba. Get something for yourself, too, if you like.’
‘Now there’s an idea! Seeing as I’m awake… It’s cold, and I’m hungry, so why not let you treat me to something before the master returns?’
With these words, Shota smartly tucked in the hem of his kimono, and, no sooner had he picked up the broad-brimmed hat that was lying on top of the geta box, than he dashed out into the sleeting blizzard.
After tidying up the counter and padlocking the door to the storeroom, Shinsuke shut the main entrance to the shop. The owner and his wife had gone out early that evening to visit some relatives in Yotsuya who had fallen on hard times. As he left, the owner had told Shinsuke that they would probably not return until very late, or even until the following morning, depending on the circumstances, and so he should be sure to close up properly. With the master’s words ringing in his ears, Shinsuke set off, lantern in hand, to check all the doors, from the kitchen to the back yard, then upstairs, where the maids’ quarters were, to check the storm shutters that opened onto a balcony that was used for drying laundry. As he made his way back downstairs, the light from the lantern dimly lit up the tops of two heads: servants who were asleep in the darkness, snug beneath their quilts with a design of arabesques.
‘O-Tami? Are you asleep?’ he ventured, raising his voice slightly. But there came no reply.
Then, trying to muffle the sound of his footsteps as best he could, he carried on, treading along the icy floorboards of the corridor, to check the door to the veranda that skirted the inner garden.
The light of a lamp made the sliding paper door of the eight-tatami room adjoining the veranda glow a pale red. Usually, the room, in which there stood a large rectangular brazier in front of a Buddhist altar, and beside it a chest where the tea things were kept, was reserved for the owners. That night, however, taking advantage of their absence, the daughter of the house, O-Tsuya, appeared to have ensconced herself there.
Suddenly gripped by a keen sense of anguish and regret for his lowly status, Shinsuke thought how cosy it must be in there, as he gazed enviously at the flickering red light.
For more than a year already, he had been in love with O-Tsuya, who, for her part, was far from indifferent to him. Yet, no matter how much they might have loved one another, she, being the owner’s only daughter, was well beyond Shinsuke’s reach.
Had I been born to a great family and not that of a pauper, he lamented in his heart, I could have asked for the beautiful O-Tsuya’s hand in marriage…
It must have been close upon midnight. The bitter cold had stolen into the house, and Shinsuke, as he loitered in the corridor, was shivering on account of the draught blowing in through the gap in the door. He passed the lantern to his left hand, which he had been keeping warm inside the breast of his kimono, and began to blow on the numb fingertips of the other. When they touched, his thighs were so cold that they no longer seemed to be a part of his body. Yet the cold was hardly the only thing sending shivers running through him.
‘Shinsuke, is that you?’ O-Tsuya called out to him.
She must have woken up just as he was passing by the tatami room—unless, of course, she had been awake all along. She seemed to have moved the shade of the night light as well, turning it towards the corridor, for the shoji now glowed a more intense red than before.
‘Yes, it’s me,’ he said. ‘The master won’t be back until late, so I’ve been going around checking that the doors are all shut.’
‘Are you turning in now, too?’
‘Chance would be a fine thing! I have to stay up until the master comes back.’
As Shinsuke knelt there, placing both of his hands on the floor and bowing in an attitude of deference to the daughter of the house, the shoji was suddenly pulled back from inside the room, creating a gap about a foot wide.
‘It’s cold out there. Come in and close the screen behind you,’ said O-Tsuya, as she combed up a stray hair at her temple. She was sitting amid her Gunnai silk quilts, her long-lashed gaze fixed in adoration upon the man who, even in the dim light, looked fair and handsome.
‘Everyone else has gone to bed, I suppose?’
‘No, I sent young Shota out on an errand, and he should be back any minute. As soon as he returns, I’ll send him straight to bed, so if you could just wait a little longer till then…’
‘All this waiting and waiting… How tiresome it is! Opportune nights like this are such a rarity. Come on, Shinsuke, tonight of all nights, isn’t it time to make up your mind?’
Dressed in a night robe of dappled scarlet, its fabric as supple as water, O-Tsuya rearranged her two alabaster feet, which peeked out from under the quilt, and placed her hands together in a gesture of supplication.
‘Make up my mind? What on earth do you mean?’
Under the onslaught of all this beauty that seemed to snatch his breath away, Shinsuke lifted his gaze in a wide-eyed stare that was, for all his twenty years, much too innocent and naïve. The sight made his heart pound like never before.
‘Run away with me tonight! We’ll go to Fukagawa. There’s no use talking about it any more. See how I’m begging you!’
‘Impossible!’ he spluttered, worrying how he would manage to keep his iron resolve in the face of such bewitching allure. Ever since the age of fourteen, when he was taken on as an apprentice in the pawnshop, he had served so faultlessly that the master placed such faith in this boy as he would in no other. If he could just wait another year or two, he may not be able to marry the fragrant, charming O-Tsuya, but the master would surely set him up in business, and then he would be well on his way to all the fortune and success that one could wish for. What a joy this would be for his old parents, who were living in the Kiyoshima neighbourhood of Asakusa in the hope and expectation of this glad day. The idea of seducing and eloping with a young woman—his master’s daughter, no less—was preposterous; he could not, must not do it, he told himself over and again.
‘So, you’ve forgotten the promise you made to me just the other day? Well, have you, Shinsuke? Yes, now I see it all. You mean to make a plaything of me, so that you can cast me aside when you’re finished. It’s as plain to
see as day.’
‘Nothing of the kind… It’s just—’
He was about to place a comforting hand on O-Tsuya’s shoulder, which was heaving as she attempted to stifle her sobs, when suddenly there came a loud and insistent rapping at the front door. Taken aback by Shota’s return, Shinsuke flew into a panic, hastily grabbing his lantern and leaping to his feet.
‘I’ll come back later, I promise, once Shota has gone to bed, and we’ll talk it over. If you really are serious about this, I’ll have to give it some thought…’
Having at last disengaged himself from O-Tsuya’s embrace, Shinsuke returned to the shop, his composure regained, and hastened to unlock the side door.
‘Oh, I’m frozen!’ cried the youth as he rushed in, practically tumbling onto the dirt floor. ‘It’s started snowing out there, Shinsuke!’ he said, brushing the snow off his broad-brimmed hat. ‘It looks like we’re in for some heavy snowfall tonight.’
It was about an hour later when the young apprentice, having finished off his part of the midnight repast, crawled into bed and fell asleep. The wind had abated, unnoticed, but the snow was evidently still falling, for a deathly stillness had settled outside in the sleeping...
