Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, or the Beauty of the Ultimate Gaze

Trans­lated from French • Eng­lish (anglais)

“A vague un­easi­ness.” (Bon’­yari shita fuan.) These words, traced in haste by Aku­ta­gawa Ryūno­suke¹Re­jected forms:
Acu­ta­gawa Ryuno­suche.
Aku­ta­gawa Ri­unoské.
Ak­outa­gawa Ryunosouké.
Ak­outa­gaoua Ry­ounosouké.
Ak­outa­gava Ry­ounosouke. be­fore ab­sorb­ing the poi­son at dawn on 24 July 1927, are as the key to all his writ­ings. He was thir­ty-five years old. He left be­hind him some hun­dred and fifty short sto­ries in which “the splen­dour of art and the tor­ments of ex­is­tence con­spire to lend his work an inim­itable aura”²Zhao Yu­jiao, in her trans­la­tion of Rashō­mon: A Se­lec­tion of Short Sto­ries by Aku­ta­gawa Ryūno­suke (罗生门：芥川龙之介短篇小说选), Kun­ming: Yun­nan Peo­ple’s Pub­lish­ing House, 2015. Trans­lated from the Chi­nese by me. — and the stu­pe­fac­tion of a Japan that dimly sensed, in this death, the end of an age.

In the House of Hades

Many cul­ti­vated Ja­pa­nese have passed, in their youth, through a pe­riod strongly marked by this dis­creetly in­tel­lec­tual writer, tinged with a care­free irony, but who, be­neath a ca­sual ex­te­ri­or, ill con­ceals some­thing ner­vous, anx­ious, il­l-as­sured, akin to those cour­te­sans whose win­ning smile can­not quite veil the malaise that wells up within their in­ner­most be­ing and which, at a given mo­ment, springs to the sur­face of ex­is­tence to sub­merge it. Thus, since his enig­matic sui­cide, Aku­ta­gawa’s soul has haunted Ja­pa­nese let­ters. Endō Shūsaku re­counts this ob­ses­sive dream:

“I was in a dark room, fac­ing Aku­ta­gawa Ryūno­suke. He stood be­fore me with­out a word, his head bowed and his arms crossed over his worn grey ki­mono. He rose abrupt­ly, drew aside the bam­boo blind be­hind him, and en­tered the ad­join­ing room. I knew that it was the world of the dead. […] It was then that I awoke. Why did I so fre­quently have such mor­bid dreams? Be­side me, my wife slept peace­ful­ly.”

Endō, Shūsaku, Une femme nom­mée Shizu : nou­velles (A Woman Named Shizu: Sto­ries), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Minh Nguyen-Mord­vi­noff, Paris: De­noël, coll. « Em­preinte », 1997.

How can one not think of the Iliad, when Achilles sees in a dream the shade of Pa­tro­clus and stretches out his arms to seize it, in vain: “The soul had van­ished be­neath the earth, like smoke […] / Alas! there is, then, even in the house of Hades, / A soul, or else a shade”? Thus does Aku­ta­gawa re­turn, a fa­mil­iar shade, in the mem­ory of a peo­ple that re­fuses to let him dis­ap­pear en­tirely into the house of Hades.

Under the Sign of the Dragon

“Aku­ta­gawa was named Ryūno­suke, ’Son of the Drag­on,’ for he was born on 1 March 1892 at the hour of the Drag­on, on the day of the Drag­on, in the month of the Dragon of the year of the Drag­on.”³Richard Col­lasse, Dic­tio­n­naire amoureux du Japon (A Lover’s Dic­tio­nary of Japan), en­try « Aku­ta­gawa Ryūno­suke ». The mad­ness of his moth­er, when he was but a few months old, be­queathed to him in­stead the ter­ror of a cursed hered­i­ty. The child was taken in by the ma­ter­nal fam­i­ly, an old line of re­tain­ers of the shogu­nate, which nour­ished him on the Chi­nese and Ja­pa­nese clas­sics. The col­li­sion of this tra­di­tional Ori­ent with the con­tem­po­rary Oc­ci­dent — Mérimée, Ana­tole France, Poe, and so forth — made of him “a man torn, di­vid­ed, riven; a man dou­ble and con­tra­dic­tory”⁴Claude Roy, in his pref­ace to Rashô­mon et autres con­tes (Rashō­mon and Other Tales).. This dif­fi­culty of be­ing, com­mon to his gen­er­a­tion, his short sto­ries would re­fine and am­plify to the point of a kind of ob­ses­sion. And yet, of all Ja­pa­nese writ­ers, none was bet­ter dis­posed than Aku­ta­gawa to take refuge in art. He de­scribed him­self as a read­er, perched atop a book­shop lad­der, sur­vey­ing from on high the pet­ti­ness of the sell­ers and cus­tomers bustling among the shelves: “Hu­man life is not worth a sin­gle line of Baude­laire” (Jin­sei wa ichi­gyō no Bō­dorēru ni mo shikanai), he would say.

The Dazzling Play of the Puppeteer

Aku­ta­gawa had es­tab­lished him­self at twen­ty-four as the prince of the short tale. Favourite dis­ci­ple of Nat­sume Sōseki, he had even been con­sid­ered as the mas­ter’s son-in-law. His so-called “his­tor­i­cal” tales — Rashōmon, In the Thicket (Yabu no naka), and oth­ers —, in which he blends a res­o­lutely mod­ern spleen with “the voices that weep, the voices that laugh” of old Japan, re­main his most cel­e­brat­ed. What one ad­mires in them is not the ex­ac­ti­tude of the his­to­ri­an, but the bur­lesque pup­pets, the chill­ing mar­i­onettes of the fair­ground show­man, which he makes dance at the end of in­vis­i­ble strings by “his sump­tu­ous eru­di­tion, his hy­per-a­cute sen­si­bil­i­ty, his in­nate sense of drama”⁵Georges Bon­neau, His­toire de la lit­téra­ture japon­aise con­tem­po­raine (1868-1938) (His­tory of Con­tem­po­rary Ja­pa­nese Lit­er­a­ture (1868-1938)).:

“The whole world
Put into a box
The pup­pet show­man”
(Yo no naka wa / Hako ni ire­tari / Kairaishi)

Cha­vanes, Ed­wige de, « Aku­ta­gawa Ryūno­suke (1892-1927) ». In Cinéma et lit­téra­ture au Japon : de l’ère Meiji à nos jours (Cin­ema and Lit­er­a­ture in Japan: From the Meiji Era to Our Day), ed. Max Tessier, Paris: Cen­tre G. Pom­pi­dou, coll. « Cinéma sin­gulier », 1986, pp. 44-45.

Jean-Jacques Ori­gas com­ments: “The au­thor seemed to slip away: had he not en­ti­tled col­lec­tions of short sto­ries The Pup­pet Show­man [Kairaishi] and Carousel of Shad­ows [Kagetōrō]? And yet the reader per­ceived his pres­ence in ev­ery line”. This the­atre of shad­ows at­tains its height in In­fer­nal Fig­ures (Jigokuhen), where the painter Yoshi­hide, to com­plete his fres­co, con­tem­plates his own daugh­ter burn­ing alive be­fore his eyes, then hangs him­self. For ac­com­plished art is akin to the flame that de­mands liv­ing fu­el. And Aku­ta­gawa would make it a point of hon­our to make him­self its will­ing vic­tim.

A Martyr to Art

“Sud­denly [the pup­pet show­man] ap­peared in per­son, amid the sets of real life. And, in works of­ten heartrend­ing, he de­scribed […] the ob­ses­sions that, lit­tle by lit­tle, as­sailed him and that were to carry him off.” In 1927, the dis­in­te­gra­tion of his rea­son un­der mor­bid ob­ses­sions, un­der gloomy self-in­dul­gences, dic­tated his fi­nal mas­ter­pieces: it turns to snig­ger­ing with Kappa, to hal­lu­ci­na­tion with Gears (Haguruma), to mad­ness with The Life of an Id­iot (Aru ahō no is­shō). “I am, af­ter all, the son of a mad­woman”, he con­fides in the Let­ter to an Old Friend (Aru kyūyū e okuru shuki), writ­ten on the eve of his death. And he adds: “Per­haps you will laugh at the con­tra­dic­tion in which I find my­self, I who, while lov­ing the beauty of na­ture, re­solve to do away with my­self. But na­ture is beau­ti­ful be­cause it is re­flected in my ul­ti­mate gaze…” Kawa­bata Ya­sunari knew how to ex­press the tragedy of this fi­nal in­can­des­cence: “Most of­ten sickly and en­fee­bled, [he] blazes up at the last mo­ment be­fore go­ing out en­tire­ly.”⁶Kawa­bata Ya­sunari, The Ul­ti­mate Gaze (Mat­sugo no me), un­pub­lished in French. Thus the Son of the Dragon was ex­tin­guished, a mar­tyr to art, the Bible open, to the sound of the fall­ing rain. Shiga Naoya, on learn­ing of his death, ut­tered this phrase of ad­mirable re­straint: “He could not have done oth­er­wise.”

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Further Reading

On “Halfway Through the Life of Daidōji Shinsuke”

Quotations

“Shin­suke had hated this pover­ty. No — even to­day, he pre­serves in the depths of his heart an echo of the ha­tred of that time, in­ef­face­able. He could not buy books, nor at­tend the sum­mer cours­es, nor wear a new over­coat. But his com­rades en­joyed all these priv­i­leges. He had en­vied them. And even, at times, been jeal­ous of them. This en­vy, this jeal­ousy, he re­fused none­the­less to ad­mit. Be­cause he had noth­ing but con­tempt for their in­tel­lec­tual abil­i­ties.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « À mi-chemin de la vie de Shin­suke Daidôji : tableau d’une psy­cholo­gie » (Halfway Through the Life of Daidōji Shin­suke: A Por­trait of a Psy­chol­o­gy), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Ed­wige de Cha­vanes. In An­tholo­gie de nou­velles japon­aises con­tem­po­raines. 1 (An­thol­ogy of Con­tem­po­rary Ja­pa­nese Short Sto­ries. 1), Paris: Gal­li­mard, coll. « Du monde en­tier », 1986.

On Horse Legs

Quotations

“Han­z­aburō was once again seized with stu­pe­fac­tion. Ac­cord­ing to this ex­change, first­ly, he was dead. Sec­ond­ly, three days had al­ready elapsed. Third­ly, his legs were de­com­posed. All this was ab­surd. Come now, did his legs not obey him just as… Scarcely had he tried to put one foot for­ward than he let out a re­sound­ing cry. Not with­out rea­son. White trousers with an im­pec­ca­ble crease and match­ing shoes, his legs both buck­led un­der the wind com­ing in through the win­dow! At this spec­ta­cle, Han­z­aburō nearly doubted his own eyes.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, Jambes de cheval (Horse Legs), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Cather­ine An­celot, af­ter­word by Ni­nomiya Masayuki, Paris: Les Belles Let­tres, coll. « Col­lec­tion Japon. Série Fic­tion », 2013.

On “The Snipe”

Quotations

“Just at that mo­ment, cries were heard out­side; soon hur­ried foot­steps came up the stairs, and an in­stant later the door opened abrupt­ly. Five or six peo­ple — men, wom­en, and chil­dren — burst into the room, each shout­ing some­thing dif­fer­ent.

’Pa­pa, we’ve found it,’ cried Ilya cheer­ful­ly, at the head of the group, bran­dish­ing the snipe.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « La bé­cas­sine » (The Snipe), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Horiguchi Daigaku, Japon et Ex­trême-Ori­ent (Japan and the Far East), no. 7-8 (Ju­ly-Au­gust 1924), pp. 1-12.

Downloads

Printed Works

• Trans­la­tion of « La bé­cas­sine » (The Snipe) by Horiguchi Daigaku (1924). (Google Book­s).

On “The Faith of Wei Sheng”

Quotations

“Frown­ing dark­ly, Wei Sheng be­gan to pace, at an ever quicker step, the sand­bank over which the shadow of night was creep­ing. Mean­while, the wa­ters of the river gained, lit­tle by lit­tle, inch by inch, foot by foot, upon the sand­bank, while the smell of al­gae and wa­ter ris­ing from the river be­gan, icy, to cling to his skin. He raised his eyes: over there, above the bridge, the lu­mi­nous bright­ness of the set­ting sun had al­ready died away, and only the balus­ters of the stone para­pet, all black, hatched in clean lines the night-blued sky. But the woman still does not come.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « La foi de Wei Cheng » (The Faith of Wei Sheng), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Ed­wige de Cha­vanes. In Les noix, la mouche, le cit­ron (The Wal­nuts, the Fly, the Lemon), Ar­les: Édi­tions P. Pic­quier, 1991.

On The Sorceress

Quotations

« 「俊さん。」――さう云ふ声が一瞬間、信子の唇から洩れようとした。実際俊吉はその時もう、彼女の俥のすぐ側に、見慣れた姿を現してゐた。が、彼女は又ためらつた。その暇に何も知らない彼は、とうとうこの幌俥とすれ違つた。薄濁つた空、疎らな屋並、高い木々の黄ばんだ梢、――後には不相変人通りの少い場末の町があるばかりであつた。

「秋――」

信子はうすら寒い幌の下に、全身で寂しさを感じながら、しみじみかう思はずにゐられなかつた。 »

秋 (Au­tumn) on Ja­pa­nese Wik­isource, [on­line], ac­cessed 10 July 2026.

“’Shun-san!’ For the space of a sec­ond, this cry nearly es­caped her lips. In­deed, at that mo­ment, Shun­kichi re­vealed his fa­mil­iar sil­hou­ette right be­side the car­riage. She hes­i­tated once more. He, sus­pect­ing noth­ing, at last passed the hooded car­riage. The grey­ish sky, the ir­reg­u­lar rooftops of the hous­es, the trunks of the tall trees spread­ing their branch­es… Then there was only the out­skirts, with its lit­tle-fre­quented streets. Be­neath the slightly cold hood, Nobuko felt with ev­ery fi­bre of her body the melan­choly of the au­tumn sea­son and, in spite of her­self, a faint cry es­caped her lips.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, La magi­ci­enne (The Sor­cer­ess), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Élis­a­beth Suet­sugu, Ar­les: P. Pic­quier, 1999.

“’Sun­san!’ This call was about to es­cape from Nobuko’s mouth. In ef­fect, at that in­stant, the fa­mil­iar sil­hou­ette of her cousin ap­peared be­side the kuruma⁷Ev­ery­thing that rolls, in Japan, is kuruma.. But Nobuko hes­i­tated again, and Sunki­ti, not sus­pect­ing his cous­in’s pres­ence, passed the car­riage.

A gloomy sky, the un­even rooftops of a lonely sub­urb, the coloured leaves of the tall trees, the land­scape of the dim street un­rolling be­fore her… And in her kuruma, into which the cool evening air was al­ready slip­ping, feel­ing with her whole be­ing a painful soli­tude, Nobuko could not help say­ing to her­self: ’Au­tum­n!’.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « L’au­tomne » (Au­tum­n), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Sio­den Hu­miko (Sh­io­den Fu­miko), Extrême-Asie (Far Asia), no. 46 (April 1930), pp. 205-212.

“Was Nobuko about to call out: ’Shun-san!’ This cry nearly burst from her lips. The fa­mil­iar sil­hou­ette of Shun-kichi hap­pened to be, at that very mo­ment, be­side her rick­shaw. She hes­i­tated once more, and Shun-kichi, sus­pect­ing noth­ing, went by.

The slightly clouded sky, the scat­tered hous­es, the tall yel­lowed tree­tops… There re­mained on her hori­zon only the dis­tant lit­tle quar­ter, with its road of rare passer­s-by. ’Au­tum­n!’ thought Nobuko, be­neath the cold tar­pau­lin of the rick­shaw, and the de­spair of soli­tude sud­denly over­came her en­tire­ly.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « Le nez • L’au­tomne » (The Nose • Au­tum­n), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Kaze Keita, Les Œu­vres li­bres (The Free Works), no. 106 (March 1955), pp. 108-124.

« 横浜の或亜米利加人へ雛を売る約束の出来たのは十一月頃のことでございます。紀の国屋と申したわたしの家は親代々諸大名のお金御用を勤めて居りましたし、殊に紫竹とか申した祖父は大通の一人にもなつて居りましたから、雛もわたしのではございますが、中々見事に出来て居りました。 »

雛 (Dolls) on Ao­zora Bunko, [on­line], ac­cessed 10 July 2026.

“A prom­ise was thus made to hand over the dolls around the month of No­vem­ber to an Amer­i­can of Yoko­hama. My fam­i­ly, which bears the name Ki­noku­niya, had as­sured from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion the role of cred­i­tor to the daimyōs, and my grand­fa­ther who, I be­lieve, was called Shichiku, was a man versed in the di­ver­sions. At the risk of the mod­esty that ought to tem­per my words, I am obliged to say that these dolls — my dolls, then — were of a very fine make.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, La magi­ci­enne (The Sor­cer­ess), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Élis­a­beth Suet­sugu, Ar­les: P. Pic­quier, 1999.

“The un­der­tak­ing to sell the dolls to an Amer­i­can re­sid­ing in Yoko­hama was made in the month of No­vem­ber. For gen­er­a­tions, our house, whose trade name was Ki­noku­ni-ya, had lent money to the feu­dal lords. It was my grand­fa­ther, named Shichiku, a man full of ex­pe­ri­ence and de­tached from the goods of this world, who had given me the dolls; they were nonethe­less, I may say, of ex­cel­lent work­man­ship.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « Les poupées » (The Doll­s), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Serge Elis­sé­eff (Serge Elis­séev), Japon et Ex­trême-Ori­ent (Japan and the Far East), no. 4 (March 1924), pp. 327-346; repr. in Neuf nou­velles japon­aises (Nine Ja­pa­nese Short Sto­ries), Paris: G. Van Oest, 1924.

Downloads

Printed Works

• Par­tial trans­la­tion of La magi­ci­enne (The Sor­cer­ess) by Serge Elis­sé­eff (Serge Elis­séev) (1924). (Google Book­s).
• Par­tial trans­la­tion of La magi­ci­enne (The Sor­cer­ess) by Sio­den Hu­miko (Sh­io­den Fu­miko) (1930). (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).
• Par­tial trans­la­tion of La magi­ci­enne (The Sor­cer­ess) by Sio­den Hu­miko (Sh­io­den Fu­miko) (1930), copy. (Google Book­s).

On The Life of an Idiot and Other Stories

Quotations

“[…] at some point I must have taken a wrong turn, for I sud­denly found my­self be­fore the fu­neral hall of Aoya­ma. It had been fully ten years since I had last passed be­fore this build­ing — since, pre­cise­ly, the fu­neral cer­e­mony of Nat­sume Sōse­ki. Ten years ear­lier, too, I had not been hap­py. But I was at least at peace. My eyes fixed on the ex­panse of gravel that stretched within the gate, I saw again the ba­nana tree of the ’Sōseki Vil­la.’ I could not help feel­ing that my life, too, had reached its term. Nor could I de­fend my­self from the sen­ti­ment that it was not chance which, af­ter ten years, had led my steps here.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, La vie d’un id­iot et autres nou­velles (The Life of an Id­iot and Other Sto­ries), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Ed­wige de Cha­vanes, pref­ace by Jean­nine Kohn-Étiem­ble, Paris: Gal­li­mard, coll. « Con­nais­sance de l’Ori­ent », 1987.

On “The Christ of Nanjing”

Quotations

“At the same mo­ment, the statue of Christ that hung on the wall fell with a clat­ter. A heavy si­lence lasted sev­eral sec­onds. Then, feel­ing a great mys­te­ri­ous emo­tion, the young Chi­nese woman picked up the statue and looked again at the face of the mute for­eigner and the face of Christ. She re­mained moved. The face of the holy Christ bore a sin­gu­lar re­sem­blance to that of the for­eign­er. All at once a bright smile ap­peared on the pale face of the Chi­nese wom­an, and she ap­proached this man with an ex­pres­sion of joy.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « Le Christ de Nankin » (The Christ of Nan­jing), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Mat­suo Kuni (Mat­suo Kuni­nosuke), Bifur, no. 8 (June 1931), pp. 97-100.

Downloads

Printed Works

• Trans­la­tion of « Le Christ de Nankin » (The Christ of Nan­jing) by Mat­suo Kuni (Mat­suo Kuni­nosuke) (1931). (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).

On The Frogs

Quotations

« 渡辺の橋の供養の時、三年ぶりで偶然袈裟にめぐり遇った己は、それからおよそ半年ばかりの間、あの女と忍び合う機会を作るために、あらゆる手段を試みた。そうしてそれに成功した。いや、成功したばかりではない、その時、己は、己が夢みていた通り、袈裟の体を知る事が出来た。が、当時の己を支配していたものは、必しも前に云った、まだあの女の体を知らないと云う未練ばかりだった訳ではない。己は衣川の家で、袈裟と一つ部屋の畳へ坐った時、既にこの未練がいつか薄くなっているのに気がついた。それは己がもう童貞でなかったと云う事も、その場になって、己の欲望を弱める役に立ったのであろう。しかしそれよりも、主な原因は、あの女の容色が、衰えていると云う事だった。 »

袈裟と盛遠 (Kesa and Moritō) on Ao­zora Bunko, [on­line], ac­cessed 10 July 2026.

“Af­ter three years with­out hav­ing seen her, I met her again by chance at the pu­rifi­ca­tion cer­e­mony of the new bridge of Watan­abe, then, for six months, I em­ployed ev­ery ruse in the world to meet her in se­cret. And I at­tained my ends. More than that, even. I came to know her body, as I had dreamed of. And yet, the sen­ti­ment that an­i­mated me then was no longer merely the vex­a­tion of not yet hav­ing pos­sessed her. When we took our places, the two of us, on a mat in the house of Ko­ro­mo­gawa, I per­ceived that, with­out my know­ing, my re­grets had grown less poignant. That I was no longer a vir­gin had doubt­less helped to di­min­ish my de­sire. But there was some­thing else more de­ci­sive: the beauty of this woman had fad­ed.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, Une vague in­quié­tude (A Vague Un­easi­ness), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Sil­vain Chupin, pref­ace by René de Cec­ca­t­ty, Mona­co: Édi­tions du Rocher, coll. « Nou­velle », 2005; aug­mented repr. un­der the ti­tle Les grenouilles (The Frogs), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Cather­ine An­celot and Sil­vain Chupin, Paris: Cam­bourak­is, coll. « Lit­téra­ture », 2024.

“It was on the day of the Bud­dhist fes­ti­val, at the Bridge of Watan­abe, that I met Ke­sa. A strange chance af­ter three years of sep­a­ra­tion. I learned that she was mar­ried. For six months, I used man­i­fold ruses to ob­tain from her a se­cret ren­dezvous. Not only did I ob­tain a ren­dezvous, but I came at last to know that body of which I had never ceased to dream. Now, at that mo­ment, I found that there were in my heart other sen­ti­ments still than the ar­dent re­gret of hav­ing awaited this pos­ses­sion so long. At her side, in the Ko­ro­mo­gawa House, I ob­served that the al­lure of her body no longer en­tirely filled my soul.

Per­haps the diminu­tion of my de­sire was ex­plained by the fact that I was no longer a vir­gin and that my first ar­dours had sub­sid­ed. Per­haps also by an­other cause: Ke­sa’s face no longer ra­di­ated youth as it once had.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « Kesa et Morito » (Kesa and Moritō), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Mat­suo Kuni (Mat­suo Kuni­nosuke) and Émile Steinil­ber-Ober­lin, France-Japon (France-Japan), no. 10 (July 1935), pp. 163-166.

Downloads

Printed Works

• Par­tial trans­la­tion of Les grenouilles (The Frogs) by Mat­suo Kuni (Mat­suo Kuni­nosuke) and Émile Steinil­ber-Ober­lin (1935). (Bib­lio­thèque na­tionale de France (B­n­F)).

On Rashōmon and Other Tales

Quotations

« 或日の暮方の事である。一人の下人が、羅生門の下で雨やみを待つてゐた。

廣い門の下には、この男の外に誰もゐない。唯、所々丹塗の剝げた、大きな圓柱に、蟋蟀が一匹とまつてゐる。羅生門が、朱雀大路にある以上は、この男の外にも、雨やみをする市女笠や揉烏帽子が、もう二三人はありさうなものである。それが、この男の外には誰もゐない。 »

羅生門 (Rashō­mon) on Ja­pa­nese Wik­isource, [on­line], ac­cessed 10 July 2026.

“It hap­pened one day at dusk: a man of low con­di­tion was there, be­neath the Rashō Gate, await­ing a lull in the rain.

There was no one but him be­neath the vast Gate. Alone, upon an enor­mous col­umn whose red coat­ing had fallen away in places, a cricket had set­tled. The Rashō Gate be­ing on Suzaku Av­enue, one would have ex­pected to en­counter there, be­sides this man, two or three oth­ers — women in con­i­cal hats or men crowned with eboshi⁸A tall bon­net, most of­ten black, worn in for­mer times by no­bles. — seek­ing shel­ter from the rain. And yet, there was no one but him.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, Rashô­mon et autres con­tes (Rashō­mon and Other Tales), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Mori Ari­masa, Paris: Gal­li­mard, coll. « Con­nais­sance de l’Ori­ent », 1965; repr. with a pref­ace by Claude Roy, Paris: Le Livre de poche, coll. « Le Livre de poche. Clas­sique », 1969.

“The night was cool. The lackey of a samu­rai stood alone be­neath the ar­cades of the Rashomon, wait­ing for the shower to pass.

This ed­i­fice had been raised fac­ing the Av­enue of Su­jaku. It was not rare for passer­s-by, in sedge hats or no­ble head­dress­es, to come and shel­ter there from a down­pour. But that evening, the lackey was alone; no other pres­ence than that of a crick­et, upon a faded red col­umn.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « Rashomon • Dans le tail­lis » (Rashomon • In the Cop­pice), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Ono Yoshio and René de Berval, France-Asie (France-Asia), no. 103 (De­cem­ber 1954), pp. 217-225.

« 長崎あたりの村々には、時々日の暮の光と一しょに、天使や聖徒の見舞う事があった。現にあのさん・じょあん・ばちすたさえ、一度などは浦上の宗徒みげる弥兵衛の水車小屋に、姿を現したと伝えられている。と同時に悪魔もまた宗徒の精進を妨げるため、あるいは見慣れぬ黒人となり、あるいは舶来の草花となり、あるいは網代の乗物となり、しばしば同じ村々に出没した。 »

おぎん (O-Gin) on Ja­pa­nese Wik­isource, [on­line], ac­cessed 10 July 2026.

“It hap­pened at times that, be­neath the rays of the set­ting sun, an­gels or saints would visit the vil­lages of the Na­gasaki re­gion. It is even told that Saint John the Bap­tist once made his ap­pear­ance at the mill of Miguel Ya­hei, a faith­ful of Uraka­mi. The dev­il, for his part, to ob­struct the re­li­gious zeal of the be­liev­ers — trans­form­ing him­self now into a strange ne­gro, now into an ex­otic flower or a car­riage with wat­tle blinds — was rife in those same vil­lages.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, Rashô­mon et autres con­tes (Rashō­mon and Other Tales), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Mori Ari­masa, Paris: Gal­li­mard, coll. « Con­nais­sance de l’Ori­ent », 1965; repr. with a pref­ace by Claude Roy, Paris: Le Livre de poche, coll. « Le Livre de poche. Clas­sique », 1969.

“It even hap­pened that an­gels and saints de­scended to visit the vil­lages, around Na­gasaki, with the rays of the cre­pus­cu­lar sun. It is even pos­i­tively re­ported that once Saint John the Bap­tist ap­peared in the mill of Michel Ya­hei, at Uraka­mi. For his part, the de­mon too ap­peared of­ten in those same vil­lages in the form of an un­known ne­gro, an ex­otic flow­er, or a bam­boo palan­quin, in or­der to pre­vent the faith­ful from prac­tis­ing ab­sti­nence.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, Le nez et autres con­tes (The Nose and Other Tales), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Maruyama Jun­tarō, Tōkyō: Hakusu­isha, 1927.

« すると、一生懸命にのぼった甲斐があって、さっきまで自分がいた血の池は、今ではもう暗の底にいつの間にかかくれて居ります。それからあのぼんやり光っている恐しい針の山も、足の下になってしまいました。この分でのぼって行けば、地獄からぬけ出すのも、存外わけがないかも知れません。犍陀多は両手を蜘蛛の糸にからみながら、ここへ来てから何年にも出した事のない声で、「しめた。しめた。」 »

蜘蛛の糸 (The Spi­der’s Thread) on Ja­pa­nese Wik­isource, [on­line], ac­cessed 10 July 2026.

“To tell the truth, his fierce strug­gle had not been in vain: the Pool of Blood he had left a mo­ment be­fore had al­ready faded into the depths of the dark­ness. The dis­tant glit­ter­ing of the ter­ri­ble Mount of Nee­dles was like­wise be­neath his feet. At this rate, per­haps the es­cape from Hell would come about more eas­ily than he had ex­pect­ed. Wind­ing the spi­der’s thread around his arm, he said with a smile of sat­is­fac­tion: ’I’ve got it! I’ve got it!’ in a tone for­got­ten since his ar­rival in this place, how many years ago now.”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, Rashô­mon et autres con­tes (Rashō­mon and Other Tales), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Mori Ari­masa, Paris: Gal­li­mard, coll. « Con­nais­sance de l’Ori­ent », 1965; repr. with a pref­ace by Claude Roy, Paris: Le Livre de poche, coll. « Le Livre de poche. Clas­sique », 1969.

“Then he saw that his ef­forts had not been in vain: the Lake of Blood, in which he had still found him­self a short time be­fore, had dis­ap­peared into the dark­ness. He also saw the faint glow of the ter­ri­ble Moun­tain of Nee­dles be­low him. At this rate, es­cap­ing from the Un­der­world would per­haps be no more dif­fi­cult than he had imag­ined. Grip­ping the thread with both his hands, Kan­data be­gan to laugh in a voice he had no longer used dur­ing all those years spent in the un­der­world: ’It’s go­ing to work, I’m go­ing to suc­ceed.’”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « Le fil d’araignée » (The Spi­der’s Thread), trans. from the Ja­pa­nese by Christo­pher Chas­sag­neux and Lu­cie Demesy, La main de Thôt (The Hand of Thoth), no. 13, 2025.

“Climb­ing so hard was worth the trou­ble, for the Pool of Blood, where he had been un­til then, had now dis­ap­peared into the shad­ows be­low. Even the faint glow of the ter­ri­fy­ing Moun­tain of Nee­dles was be­neath him. If he kept climb­ing at this rate, es­cap­ing from Hell might be eas­ier than ex­pect­ed. Kan­data wound the spi­der’s thread around his hands, and, in a voice he had not used since his ar­rival here, many years ago, he laughed and said: ’There it is, I’m there!’”

Aku­ta­gawa, Ryūno­suke, « Le fil de l’araignée » (The Spi­der’s Thread), in­di­rect trans. from the Eng­lish by Lu­cile Rusu with the col­lab. of Clara Wartelle-Sakamo­to, af­ter that of Anne Mc­Nulty and Sato Eriko. In Pe­tites his­toires japon­aises : con­tes et nou­velles bilingues pour pro­gresser en japon­ais (Lit­tle Ja­pa­nese Sto­ries: Bilin­gual Tales and Short Sto­ries for Pro­gress­ing in Ja­pa­nese), Malakoff: A. Col­in, 2022, pp. 38-61.

Downloads

Printed Works

• Par­tial trans­la­tion of Rashô­mon et autres con­tes (Rashō­mon and Other Tales) by Christo­pher Chas­sag­neux and Lu­cie Demesy (2025). (La main de Thôt).
• Par­tial trans­la­tion of Rashô­mon et autres con­tes (Rashō­mon and Other Tales) by Ono Yoshio and René de Berval (1954). (Google Book­s).

Bibliography

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• Cha­vanes, Ed­wige de, « Aku­ta­gawa Ryūno­suke (1892-1927) ». In Cinéma et lit­téra­ture au Japon : de l’ère Meiji à nos jours (Cin­ema and Lit­er­a­ture in Japan: From the Meiji Era to Our Day), ed. Max Tessier, Paris: Cen­tre G. Pom­pi­dou, coll. « Cinéma sin­gulier », 1986, pp. 44-45.
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• Ori­gas, Jean-Jacques, « Aku­ta­gawa Ryūno­suke (1892-1927) », En­cy­clopæ­dia uni­ver­salis, [on­line], ac­cessed 10 July 2026.
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