AN INHUMAN LOVE
Original Japanese text 「人でなしの恋」 written by Edogawa Ranpo. Translated into English by 43badstar.
I
Allow me to tell you about Kadono, my husband who passed away ten years ago. Such a long time has gone by that when I try to say his name aloud, it feels as though it belongs to a stranger, and the things that occurred between us often seem as if they had really only been some kind of dream. As for how it came to be that I married into the Kadono family, it goes without saying that he and I were not in love with each other beforehand. No, it was nothing so indecent, rather, persuaded by a matchmaker, my mother entreated me again and again. And how could a simple girl such as myself refuse? So it was decided, as I nodded my head while drawing circles with my finger on the tatami mat.
But, I did look forward to having that man as my husband-to-be. Since we lived in a small town, and because he came from a rather respectable family, I did know his face, at least. According to rumor, he was the temperamental sort, but also quite good-looking. I had already been aware, but Kadono was indeed a terribly handsome man, not that I am bragging.
Although I have described him as beautiful, perhaps due to his weak constitution he was melancholy, with skin so pallid it was practically translucent. But that was what made him all the more such a splendid-looking gentleman. He was something more than just beautiful, and it left an incredible impression upon me.
With such a lovely countenance, I thought he must surely be acquainted with some other pretty girl, so how could he love and cherish someone so plain as me for the rest of his life? I worried myself sick about all sorts of things, and so I made up my mind to listen closely to the gossip of friends and servants.
In this way I gradually gathered information in jumbled bits and pieces. Although I hadn’t heard any of the sort of salacious rumors I had been worried about, I came to know why it was that Kadono was seen as disagreeable. As it were, he was quite the eccentric. He had very few friends, and kept himself shut up in his home most of the time. But out of all the rumors I heard, the worst of all was that he hated women. Now, there wouldn’t be any problem if that were just a rumor spread to discourage casual relationships, but it seemed to me he might really be a woman-hater. The talks of our marriage had been his parents’ idea since the start, and the matchmaker said that he had needed far more convincing than even I did! However, I hadn’t heard anything with certainty, it had all been little slips of people’s tongues. Perhaps, as a girl just about to be married, I was prone to making assumptions. No, before I married into that family and endured what I did, I really was just jumping to conclusions. But I know now that I was merely making excuses for the sake of convenience, and to some extent, for the sake of my own conceit.
When I remember the way I felt as a young girl, I find it almost adorable. On one hand, I was anxious, but I did get to visit the neighboring town’s draper to inspect their garments, all of which had been sewn by hand. I was surrounded by all sorts of tools and gadgetry, with various articles having been prepared. In the midst of all this, I received a splendid engagement gift. My friends all congratulated me and told me how they envied me. I had grown used to being teased by everyone I met, so I must say I am embarrassed to admit how happy it all made me. The bright, colorful atmosphere throughout the store was like heaven for a nineteen-year-old girl like me.
First of all, no matter how eccentric or disagreeable he may have been, the superb gentleman that I am describing to you now had me thoroughly charmed. Besides, a person like that could only have been warm and caring; He would protect me and me alone, he would pour all his love and affection onto me, cherish me… My, how naive I was! I can’t help thinking in such a way when I look back on it.
At first, the wedding felt far enough away that I was counting the days on my fingertips. But with each dream I had, it grew closer and closer, and my naive fantasies morphed into a more realistic unease. The day came at last, and the wedding procession lined up before the gate.
Again, I don’t mean to boast, but the procession of about a dozen was exceptionally fine for my little town. I’m sure anyone who has been in this position knows what it’s like when you’re riding in that car, but it really was so overwhelming. I felt exactly like a sheep being led to the slaughter. It’s difficult to describe, but not only was I mentally frightened, but I felt this throbbing pain throughout my entire body…
II
Somehow, I had become so engrossed in the wedding ceremony that for a day or two I was unsure whether or not I even slept at night. I was congratulated by more relatives and servants than I could count, but nothing about them managed to stick in my head. Then, as we were driving back home, I stared at my husband from behind, unsure whether it was all a dream or reality. …Oh, do excuse me, I keep going on about things like that. Allow me to get back to the important parts of the story.
Things settled down after the chaos of the wedding; They do say it is easier to worry than to act. As for Kadono, he turned out to be not as eccentric as the rumors had suggested. On the contrary, I found him to be gentler than the average person, and especially kind to me. I felt so very relieved that the painful tension that had been troubling completely subsided. So content I was that I wondered if I had ever been this happy before in my entire life. Not to mention, my parents-in-law were both such nice people that the advice my mother had given me before my marriage now seemed pointless. Kadono was an only child, so I had no siblings-in-law either. As his wife, I felt I had so little to worry about that I allowed myself to become absent-minded.
Kadono’s handsomeness was… No, it’s nothing like that. This is a part of the story, too. Now that we were living together, looking at him was different than when I had seen him from afar or caught a glimpse of him through a gap in a fence. From my point of view, he felt like the only man in the world, so it’s only natural that as the days passed by, I began to think more and more that he was completely without equal. But it wasn’t just about how beautiful I found his face to be. What a mysterious thing love is! Kadono was not exactly unusual in the way that an eccentric is, rather, he was taciturn, and somehow seemed constantly despondent and single-mindedly obsessed with something. Nowadays, his features would be described as clear and handsome. His appeal was impossible to put into words, which was utterly excruciating for my nineteen-year-old self.
It really seemed as if my entire world had been flipped on its head. If the nineteen years I spent being raised by my parents was the real world, then my marriage, though it regrettably lasted only half a year, was a dream. It felt as if I was living life inside a fairytale. If I may exaggerate, it was as if I were Urashima Taro in the Dragon Palace, showered in Otohime’s love. Even when I think of it now, at that time, I truly must have been as happy as Urashima Taro. People think that marriage eventually becomes something difficult, but it was the complete opposite for me. Or, no— Perhaps it is more accurate to say that everything came crashing down before we could even encounter such troubles.
I can only say that those six months were enjoyable, as I’ve forgotten most of the finer details. Furthermore, those details have little to do with this story, so I’ll refrain from too much fond reminiscing. But Kadono did dote upon me so much so that no other husband in the world could hope to compare. Of course, I felt so grateful and was so enraptured that there was never any room for doubts in my mind. In hindsight, though, Kadono’s over-fondness for me held a truly frightening significance. That isn’t to say that his fawning over me was the reason things fell apart; It was a sincere attempt on his part to make me feel loved. It never felt as if he were attempting to deceive me in any way. The further he endeavored, the more readily I accepted it, depending upon him as he gave himself over in both body and soul. But why had he made such an effort? It wasn’t until long, long after that I came to realize the terrible motive behind his actions.
III
It was exactly six months after our wedding that I had first noticed something was “off”. Looking back on it now, it was at that moment that Kadono had sadly exhausted himself in trying to show his love for me. It was due to that weakness that he was steadily drawn in by the charm of another…
How could a little girl like myself have possibly understood what a man’s love was like? For so long I believed that Kadono’s way of loving surpassed that of all men’s, that it was superior to any man’s… However, despite having such faith in him, I eventually came to suspect little by little that there was something false about Kadono’s love… That the ecstasy I felt was nothing more than a formality to him. In my heart I sensed that his love was somehow strangely cold and empty, as if he were chasing after something far away. As he gazed fondly at me, deep inside he seemed to be indifferent, instead fixated on something else in the distance. The words of love he whispered to me felt hollow, his voice sounding like that of a machine. But at the time, I could hardly even bring myself to suspect that his affections had drifted away from me and towards another; It hadn’t occurred to me that his love could have all been a lie from the very start.
When it comes to doubt, once the first hints appear, it spreads as quickly and frighteningly as do the evening clouds. Every move my partner made, every last little detail, became clouds of deep, deep suspicion that swarmed together inside my heart. I became certain that I knew the secret meaning his words held. Whenever he was absent, I wondered where on earth he had gone off to. This and that kind of thing kept happening, and there was no end to my distrust. I felt the ground had suddenly disappeared beneath my feet, giving way to a great black hole that pulled me down into an unimaginable hell.
Even so, in spite of the fact that my misgivings were so great, I was unable to obtain any definitive proof. When Kadono did leave the house, it would only be for a very short time, and I generally knew his whereabouts. Although I had secretly checked for things like diaries, letters, or photographs for anything I could use to ascertain what he was feeling, not a single trace was to be found. Perhaps my doubts were baseless after all, and in my girlish innocence, I was pointlessly looking for trouble. But no matter how many times I considered the possibility, once my suspicion had taken root, there was nothing I could do to dispel it. Kadono had become prone to vacantly staring at the same place to the point where he would completely forget about my existence. The more I saw him so absorbed in his reverie, the more certain I became that there just had to be something more to it. Well, that’s it then, isn’t it? I told myself. As I have said before, Kadono was terribly melancholy by nature. Being so withdrawn, he spent most of his time holed up in a room reading books. In addition to that, he had said that he was too easily distracted in the study, and so instead he would go up to the second floor of the storehouse that stood out back. He had been blessed in that his ancestors had left behind a large number of old books accumulated there. At night, he would bring an old paper lantern to that gloomy place where he could do his reading all alone. This had been his only passtime ever since his youth. For the entire half a year since I had come to live with him, he hadn’t set foot near the storehouse. But after those six months, he once again resumed his frequent visits. It was then I suddenly realized there must be some significance to that place.
IV
It was a bit odd for Kadono to do his reading on the upper floor of a storehouse, but I felt, more or less, that there was nothing particularly suspicious or blameworthy about it. But when I thought it over again, I had already thoroughly considered everything else; I had watched Kadono’s every move and examined all his belongings, but there was nothing amiss. The only thing remaining was that second floor of the storehouse. I also found it strange that he would always go to the storehouse late at night, sometimes even checking to see if I was asleep next to him before sneaking away. I wondered if it was only nature calling, but he would take quite some time before he returned, and when I went out to the porch, I could see a faint light coming from the window of the storehouse. Again and again I was struck by this dreadful, indescribable sensation.
I had only been shown around the storehouse once when we were first married, and as the seasons changed I had only been inside on one or two other occasions. Even with Kadono shutting himself up inside, I hadn’t thought the reason for his distance could be lurking within, and so I never followed him there. Therefore, the second floor had escaped my observation, but now it had to be viewed with scrutiny as well.
Our wedding had been in the middle of spring, and I first began harboring doubts about my husband during the harvest moon of that fall. Strangely, even now I recall the image of Kadono crouched on the porch, facing away from me… For a long time he sat there just staring, lost in thought and bathed in the pale moonlight. When I saw him like that, I felt something strange in my heart, and it became the impetus of my distrust. From then on, my suspicions only grew deeper and deeper. And at the end of autumn, at the height of my misery, I finally followed Kadono into the storehouse.
How fickle fate is! The devotion of my husband (false though it may have always been) that brought me such unmatched joy had faded in just six months. Now I was like Urashima Taro opening the treasure box; I was woken with a start from my euphoria, only to find an endless hell of terrifying doubt and jealousy waiting for me with maws agape.
I hadn’t been distinctly wary of what was inside the storehouse at first, until I caught that glimpse of my husband which had aroused my suspicions. I wanted to clear away my doubts if I could, and prayed that there was something in there that would put my mind at ease. On one hand, I was afraid of doing something that made me look like a burglar, but on the other, I had already made up my mind; If I called it off at this stage, I’d regret it terribly. One evening, it was so chilly it felt as if I were only wearing a thin slip, and the chirping of the autumn insects had grown quiet. I was making my way to the storehouse wearing my garden clogs when I stopped and looked up at the moonless night sky; Although the stars were beautiful, they felt extraordinarily far away. It was on that mysterious, lonely evening that I ultimately snuck into the storehouse, planning to spy on my husband who I presumed to be upstairs.
Our parents and the servants in the main building had already all gone to bed. It was a large estate in a country town, so although it was only ten o’clock, it had fallen deathly silent. I was frightened of passing through the dark thicket to reach the storehouse. The ground along that path was damp even in clement weather, and living in the brush were large toads which made the most unpleasant noises: “Crrroak… Crrroak…” Persevering, I at last managed to find my way to the storehouse. Inside was similarly pitch-black, and I shuddered as the faint scent of camphor and mildew particular to old buildings such as those enveloped me. Without the flames of jealousy burning within her heart, no girl of nineteen years could have done what I did. Truly, there is nothing more frightening than love!
Groping through the darkness, I approached the staircase to the upper floor. I peeked up at it and found the reason it had been so dark; The trap door at the top was shut tight. Holding my breath I climbed up step by step, careful not to make a sound… When I finally reached the top, I tried to gently open the trap door, only to find that I could not open it; Kadono must have been cautious enough to lock it from above. If he were only reading books, then there should have been no need for him to use a lock— Even a thing as minor as that gave me cause for concern.
I wondered what I should do. Should I knock and ask him to open up? No, if I did something like that, he’d see how disgraceful I am, and he’d shun me further still… But I just couldn’t bear to be left in this state of uncertainty without knowing how long it would continue. Could I really be so bold to ask him to open the door, in this storeroom so conveniently separate from the main house? Was tonight to be the night I would lay out the suspicions that had been plaguing me to my husband and ask his true feelings?
V
Why was it that I ventured into the storehouse that night? Using common sense would lead anyone to realize that nothing could have been going on in a second-story storeroom in the middle of the night. It really was just my ridiculous anxieties run amok, but perhaps I had been led there by a sort of inexplicable sixth sense— A gut feeling, as it is often called. In one’s life, there sometimes occur unexpected things which cannot be judged using common sense. At that time, I overheard whispering coming from the upper floor. Furthermore, it was two voices: a man’s and a woman’s… Needless to say, the man was Kadono, but who in the world was the woman with him?
No, it can’t be, I thought to myself, although my doubts had been so obviously confirmed before my eyes. Being an inexperienced young girl, I was more horrified than I was furious. I was beside myself with dread and sorrow. I wanted to cry out, but instead I grit my teeth while my body trembled as if wracked with fever. But even so, I couldn’t help but to stand there, straining to hear the voices speaking overhead.
“If we continue seeing each other like this, I’ll start feeling sorry for your wife.”
The woman spoke so slowly and quietly that I could hardly make out what she was saying, but filling in the parts I couldn’t hear with my imagination, I was at last able to grasp the meaning of her words. Judging from her tone of voice, she was three or four years my senior. However, she was not fat like me, but slight and delicate. She must have been as beautiful as a dream, as if she had come right out of one of Izumi Kyōka’s novels.
“I feel that way, too,” Kadono’s voice said. “I’ve already told you how I’ve tried as hard as I possibly could to love Kyouko. It’s sad, but I just can’t do it after all. You’ve been by my side since I was young. No matter how many times I’ve thought it over, and over again, I just can’t give you up. I can’t apologize to Kyouko enough. But even though I feel so terrible, so sorry for her, I still can’t help but come to see your face night after night. Please, can’t you understand how miserable I am…?”
Kadono’s voice was clear and strangely cutting, his words biting into and impressing upon my heart.
“I’m pleased to hear you say that... I never imagined someone as lovely as you would think so much of me, now that you have such a splendid wife. My, how very fortunate I am! I’m so very glad…”
Then, with my hearing having become extremely keen, I sensed the woman seeming to rest against Kadono’s knees…
Well, I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination. You can guess how I was feeling at the time. If I had been the age I am now, would I have interfered? Perhaps I would’ve broken down the door, rushed over to the two and lay all my bitterness bare before them… But when I was a little girl, I was not able to muster up that kind of courage. Sadness surged up within me, fixing me in place at the top of the stairs. I was unable to bring myself to leave, all the while feeling as if I were dying.
Eventually, I heard the sudden sound of the floorboards creaking underfoot; Someone was approaching the trap door. It would have been too humiliating had we seen each other here and now, so I hurried down the steps and out of the storehouse, into the surrounding darkness. I quietly hid myself, resentment burning in my eyes as I kept watch in hope of recognizing that woman’s face. I heard the rattling sound of the trap door being opened, followed by a flash of light. Descending with quiet footsteps with paper lantern in hand, my husband was unmistakable. Working myself into a rage, I waited for the woman to follow, but Kadono instead closed the main door to the storehouse with a clatter. Even as the sound of his sandals passed by my hiding place and grew farther and farther away, it seemed the woman had no intention of coming down.
The storehouse had only one door, and although there were windows, they were all covered in wire screens— Meaning there were no exits. Therefore, it was exceedingly odd that even after waiting for so long, the door never seemed to open. There was no way Kadono would leave such an important woman behind all alone. Perhaps, then, they had been planning this for a long time, and had made a secret passage somewhere in the storehouse. When the thought had entered my mind, I envisioned a woman driven mad by love; Forgetting her fear, she crawled through a pitch-black tunnel, all just to meet with a man… Even the faintest noises suddenly made me afraid to be all by myself in the darkness. I also began to worry that my husband might question my absence, and so with that in mind, I decided to return to the house for the evening.
VI
How many times did I hide myself in the storeroom in the dark of night after that? And how many times did I feel as if the world was ending as I eavesdropped on my husband and his lover, hearing all manner of their whispered intimacies? I took great pains each time to watch for the other woman, but just as it had happened on the first night, my husband Kadono was the only one who emerged from the storehouse; I never caught even a glimpse of the mysterious woman. Once, I brought a box of matches with me, and after watching my husband leave, I secretly went up to the second floor. I searched all around by matchlight, and even though there had been no time for her to hide anywhere, I couldn’t find a single trace of the woman. Another time, after waiting for a chance to get away from my husband, I stole into the storehouse in the middle of the day. I peeked through every nook and cranny, thinking I might find some secret passage, but there were none. I also thought there may have been a hole torn in the wire mesh of one of the windows, but I could not find any gaps for even a single mouse to escape from.
How very mysterious it was! After I had made sure of it myself, more than feeling saddened or frustrated, I was so unspeakably unsettled that I couldn’t help but shudder. Where was it that she crept in from night after night? Nonetheless, the voice that always repeated my husband’s loving words in a coquettish whisper would vanish like a ghost, disappearing without a trace. Was it possible that Kadono had been bewitched by some kind of vengeful spirit? Kadono had a naturally melancholic disposition, and he was somehow different from normal people, reminding me in some ways of a snake (Again, perhaps this is why I was so particularly taken by him); Vengeful spirits find atypical people such as him easy to possess, do they not? Reflecting on it again, I begin to feel that he had been indescribably peculiar… In the end, I think I saw Kadono himself as something devilish. Preferably, I would have returned to my parents’ home and told them the whole story from top to bottom, or have notified Kadono’s parents about it. I was so terribly frightened that I had made up my mind to do it several times, but I might’ve been laughed off as foolish for bringing up such a vague ghost story. My girlish sensibilities opposed the idea, and so wishing to avoid the embarrassment it might cause, I would postpone my decision after a day or two. I was such an unruly girl back then, wasn’t I?
Then one night, something happened. Unexpectedly, I noticed something odd; As the lovers' tryst on the second floor of the storehouse ended and Kadono was about to come downstairs, I heard something that sounded like the gentle clack of a lid being shut, followed by the clink of a lock and key. Thinking about it harder, I realized I had heard that noise every night without fail, despite it being very faint. Nothing in the upstairs storeroom could have made such a noise except for the several long wooden trunks lined up inside. So then, I wondered if the woman might have been hiding inside one of those. A living human needs to have food and drink, and in the first place, it would be unreasonable to expect someone to spend such a long time in one of those claustrophobic chests. But for some reason, I felt convinced that this was the unmistakable truth.
After having this realization, I couldn’t sit idly by any longer. I wouldn’t be satisfied until I somehow stole the key to the trunk, opened the lid, and saw the other woman inside. Even if it came to biting and scratching, I would not let myself be beaten by her! I ground my teeth in frustration as I waited for the dawn to come, having already come to the conclusion that that woman was definitely hiding inside the trunk.
The next day, I succeeded in stealing the key from Kadono’s letter box with surprising ease. At the time I had been completely lost in my obsession, but even still, it was quite a large task for a nineteen-year-old girl. To that end, I had had so many sleepless nights one after the other that my skin had certainly turned pale and my body withered. Luckily for me, my parents-in-law spent their days in rooms separate from me, and my husband Kadono was lost in his own world, so I was able to spend the entire half a month without raising their suspicion. That aside, how I must’ve felt sneaking into the storehouse with key in hand, finding it to be gloomy despite the daylight and smelling of cold, wet earth! Recalling it now, I find it incredible that I had been able to do such a thing at all.
However, before I stole the key, or perhaps as I was going up to the second story, with my heart in all sorts of chaos, I suddenly thought of something absurd. It doesn’t matter much either way, but I’d like to establish it before moving on. A few days prior, I had started to suspect that the other voice I heard may have been Kadono affecting his own. Now, this guess of mine may sound like something out of a rakugo performance, but I thought he might have been quietly rehearsing dialogue for a novel or play, since no one would hear him from the upstairs storeroom. And so, my preposterous theory was that, instead of hiding some elusive woman, the trunk perhaps contained a costume for theater. Hohohohoho, I was so worked up I couldn’t even think clearly! My mind was in such disorder that a wildly convenient idea like that came to me out of nowhere; I really was that out of my head. Because, really, who in the world would put on a ridiculous voice to whisper sweet nothings back and forth, especially considering what had been said?
VII
The Kadono family was well-known throughout the town for its long history. The second story storeroom was full of all sorts of old articles left behind by their ancestors, making it look like the storefront of an antiques shop. Against three of the walls were what I would call red lacquered trunks, and there stood five or six tall, old fashioned bookcases lined up a row. More books that couldn’t fit were piled up on top, their blue and yellow covers worm-eaten and covered in dust. On the shelves there were things like aged-looking scroll boxes, wicker baskets with large family crests on each side, and old pottery. Among all this were odd, eye-catching things such as a gigantic lacquered bowl which had been used for tooth-blackening. Anyhow, each and every thing, although they had reddened over the years, bore a crest in golden maki-e lacquer. Most unsettling of all were two sets of ornamental armor, seated on storage chests right at the top of the stairs as if they were living human beings. The first was dignified and imposing, with black threads holding the plates together. The second I suppose had scarlet threads, but they had darkened and split in some places; In the old days though, it certainly must have been a thing of beauty, its threads burning bright as flames. Of course they had their helmets as well, complete with the dreadful iron masks that covered from the nose down. In the dim daylight of the storehouse, I thought the two of them, sitting there perfectly still, would come alive at any minute— Their greaves and gauntlets would move to grab the bladed spear hung up just above my head! All of a sudden I wished to cry out and flee the storehouse.
The little windows let in faint autumn light through the wire mesh, but they were so very small that the corners of the room were as dark as night. The golden lacquer and metal fittings shone dim and ominous, like the eyes of evil spirits in the wild. Recalling my wild idea about a vengeful ghost, how could a woman like me bear to have been in that room? In any case, I was able to withstand my awful fear for the sake of opening the trunks… I suppose it must’ve been the power of that tricky thing called “love”.
I thought something like that was impossible, but still, for some uncanny reason, as I opened the tops of the trunks one by one, an icy feeling welled up inside my body as if I had suddenly stopped breathing. Despite feeling like I was peering inside of a casket, I would raise the lid and boldly stick my entire head inside. As per my expectations (or perhaps against them), all of them were full of nothing but old garments, bedding, collections of beautiful books, and things like that. There was nothing questionable to be found. But then, what in the world was the meaning behind the sound of a lid being shut and locked that I always heard? While I thought to myself that it was all very, very strange, my eyes happened to fall upon a number of white wooden boxes piled inside the last chest I had opened. Written on their surfaces with expert care were “Ohina-sama”, “court musicians”, “three drunks”, and so on— They were all hina dolls. Having confirmed the absence of anything suspicious, I did feel somewhat relieved; But at the same time, due to my feminine curiosity, I was interested in opening those boxes to see what was inside.
I took them out of the boxes one by one, seeing that they were Ohina-sama, the sakura tree to the east, the tachibana tree to the west, and so on and so forth. The scent of camphor together with the old-fashioned nature of the things created an air of nostalgia, and without a doubt, the meticulously detailed old dolls had me lost in my own little world… For a short while I found myself engrossed with the hina dolls, but soon enough, I noticed something; On one side of the trunk was an oblong white wood box, differing from the others in that it was about three feet long. I felt as if it must be very valuable. On its front read “gift”, written with the same professional quality. Wondering what it could be, I gently took it out and opened it to glance inside, only to come face to face with something that made me turn away in shock. In that moment, the supernatural suspicions I had been harboring for the past several days were completely and utterly erased.
VIII
If I were to tell you the thing that gave me such a start was just a doll, you might laugh at me and say “What, is that all?” But, you see, that is only because you do not yet understand the lengths the old master dollmaker went to in order to create this work of art. Have you ever been in a corner of a museum, when all of a sudden you come upon an old doll and shudder due to how very lifelike it is? And perhaps, supposing it had been a doll of a young girl or boy, you might have been surprised by its otherworldly charm. But do you know how mysteriously ghastly a specialty doll can be? And— In ancient times, when pederasty was widely practiced— Those who dabbled in it would have dolls crafted in the likeness of their favorite boys so that they could caress them every night. Were you aware of this fact, strange as it is true? No, well, I needn’t use such an old example, because if you are familiar with the marvelous tradition of jōruri bunraku puppets, or perhaps the living dolls of the modern master Yasumoto Kamehachi, then you can imagine why I felt such a shock at seeing that one doll.
Later, after secretly asking Kadono’s father, I came to know that a nobleman had bestowed the doll upon them as a gift, and it had been created by a dollmaker known as Tachiki, who had been famous during the Ansei era. Although they are commonly referred to as Kyoto dolls, it seems they are actually called Ukiyo dolls. Their bodies are larger than three feet tall, about the size of a ten-year-old child. They are complete with all four limbs, their hair is done up in the traditional shimada style, and they are dressed in clothing with large dyed patterns. This is also something I heard later on, but, it seems the dollmaker Tachiki’s style made it so the girl dolls had strangely modern faces, despite being made so long ago. The doll’s blood-red lips seemed to be asking for something, and she had plump cheeks on either side of them. Her eyes were actually quite large and bright, with double eyelids; Above them were thick eyebrows raised with her magnanimous smile. But most mysterious of all was the charm of her delicate ears, which subtly seemed to change color, as if they were draped in scarlet habutae fabric. The color of her florid, lustful face had faded a bit due to time; The outside of her lips were oddly pale. Fingermarks had made her smooth skin seem shiny with sweat, serving to make her look all the more bewitching and seductive.
Looking at that doll’s full figure and large breasts in the gloomy, camphor-stinking storeroom was enough to send a chill down my spine… I felt as if at any moment she would smile at me and start to breathe…
Good god, my husband was in love with a cold, lifeless doll! Once I saw how strangely glamorous it was, I knew there could be no other answer to this mystery. My husband’s misanthropic nature, the lovers’ talk on the second floor of the storehouse, the sound of the trunk lid being shut, the fact that I never saw the other woman— When I put all of the pieces together, there could be no other explanation except that who I thought was a woman, had actually been this doll all along.
Now, this is based upon miscellaneous things I later heard from two or three people, but I believe that Kadono had been born oddly predisposed to fantasies. Before he had the chance to fall in love with a human woman, he happened to come across the doll in the trunk, and his heart was captivated by its powerful charm. From the very beginning, he had never been reading in the storehouse. I have heard from others that there is no shortage of stories from the past where a person fell in love with a doll, or a Buddha statue, or something similar. Unfortunately, my husband was such a man, and worse still, by some extraordinary coincidence, a masterfully-made doll had been kept in his house.
His was an inhuman love, a love not of this world. Those who experience this sort of love are, on one hand, able to experience something no other living person can; A kind of mysterious, nightmarish pleasure enthralls their heart like something out of a fairy tale. But conversely, they are endlessly tortured and castigated for their sin, and so struggle frantically to escape this hell. Kadono taking me as his wife, and losing himself completely in his endeavors to love me… Had it all been nothing but an empty sign of his anguish? When I consider that, I understand what he meant when he said he felt sorry for me during those lovers’ talks. There was no doubt in my mind that my husband had been putting on a woman’s voice in order to speak as the doll. Ahh, what an unlucky star I was born beneath!
IX
Now then, everything that I have confessed so far has been leading up to the terrible events that are about to follow. You’ve surely grown tired of my long, boring ramblings, but there’s no more of that, don’t worry. I’ll be able to talk through the main points in no time at all.
Don’t be startled, but, the terrible event I mentioned is the story of how I committed the sin of murder. As for why such a heinous criminal wasn’t punished and instead leads a peaceful life… I did not commit the murder directly with my own two hands, so to speak, but rather committed the crime indirectly. Even if I had admitted to everything at the time, I would not have been found guilty of anything. However, although I am legally innocent, I am clearly the criminal who led Kadono to his death. I am terribly sorry to say that, back then, in my girlish innocence, I was so overcome with fear that I never did confess. Since then, to this very day, I have not had a single peaceful night’s sleep. I confess all this to you now in order to atone for my crime against my late husband, at least in some way.
But really, I must’ve been blinded by love in those days. When I realized that my rival in love hadn’t been a living person, but instead an unfeeling doll, no matter how much of a masterpiece it may have been, it looked to me like an inanimate mass of clay. I was so frustrated, so furious, so beyond humiliated that my beast of a husband could be so shallow. I felt if a doll like this hadn’t existed, none of this would have happened, to the degree that I felt hatred for the dollmaker Tachiki himself for having created it. Ahh, well, if I were to bash in this damn doll’s pretty little face and tear off its limbs, then even Kadono couldn’t love it! Having thought of that, I couldn’t put things off any longer. But just to be sure, that night I confirmed my husband’s affair with the doll one more time. Once early morning came, I ran up the stairs to the second floor of the storehouse and at last tore the doll asunder, smashing in its face until it was completely unrecognizable. If I left it there like that and watched for my husband’s reaction, it would tell me whether my guess had been correct— Although I knew it was impossible that I had been mistaken. And so, looking just like a person that had been run over, the doll’s head, torso, and limbs were broken and scattered in all directions. Seeing the hideous corpse out in the open, so different than how it looked the day before, I was finally put at ease.
X
That night, being none the wiser, Kadono yet again checked to see if I was sleeping, and went out into the darkness with paper lantern in hand. It goes without saying that he was in a hurry to meet with the doll. Still pretending to be asleep, I secretly watched him leave. I had a good feeling about it, more or less, but at the same time, for some reason, a mysterious sadness came over me.
How would he react when he discovered the remains of the doll? Would he, ashamed of his abnormal love, quietly clean up the doll’s body and put it away, pretending as if he knew nothing about it? Or perhaps he would track down the culprit and reprimand them, shouting at them and striking them in his anger… How pleased I would be if that were to happen! Kadono’s anger would make him realize that he was never really in love with the doll. I had already begun to feel restless, lying still and listening carefully, trying to surmise what was happening inside the storehouse.
How long I waited there! I waited and waited, but my husband never returned. He shouldn’t have had any business in the storehouse after seeing that the doll had been broken, so why hadn’t he come back even after so much time? Was it possible that he was meeting with a living person after all? Thinking of it made me so anxious that my patience reached its limit. I rose from the floor, prepared another paper lantern, and ran into the dark thicket in the direction of the storehouse.
As I climbed the staircase, I noticed that unlike usual, the trap door had been left open. Furthermore, I could see the faint, red-brown light from a lit lantern shining down the stairs. A certain premonition made my heart leap in my chest, and so I flew up the flight of stairs, crying out for my husband. And… ahh, by the glow of the paper lantern, I saw that premonition had come true. There lie the dead bodies of both the doll and my husband resting atop of one another, the wooden floorboard a sea of spilt blood. Beside them lie a bloodsoaked sword that had been passed down through the generations. There was nothing at all comical about a human and a lump of earth having committed a lovers’ suicide; It was an unfathomably solemn scene. My chest suddenly tightened, and I stood there stock still, dumbstruck, not able to speak or even shed a tear.
The doll’s head hung limply in my husband’s arms, and from its half-destroyed lips dripped a stream of blood, looking as if it had spit it up itself. And even in its last moments, the doll still smiled the most uncanny smile…
