Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927) was a Japanese writer of eerie tales who also went by the names of Chōkōdō Shujin and Gaki. Akutagawa’s evocation of the fantastical and uncanny was unique, and much of his work still feels sui generis. He is among the most translated Japanese writers and quite a few of his 150 stories have inspired writers, mangakas, and film directors for generations. His later tales were less popular, as they lacked some of the dark, macabre intensity of his early works, but nonetheless, they are still an important part of the literary canon of Japan’s Taishō era. In fact, the lurid fable of a novel, Kappa (1927), created a whole new creature of Japanese folklore. “Sennin” (1922), reprinted here in a new translation, is a sly, clever tale.
LISTEN TO ME, you all. Given that I am presently in Osaka, I would like to tell you a story that happened in this same city.
In the olden days, a man came to Osaka to find work as a servant. I do not know the man’s real name, but given that he was offering to serve as a valet, legend has preserved him simply as Gonsuké, a generic appellation given to hired hands.
So Gonsuké pushed past the fluttering fabric of the noren, into an employment office and uttered his request to a clerk who held a long kiseru bamboo pipe clenched between his teeth. “You see, sir, I’m offering my services as help, but I’d like to transcend my human condition and become an immortal sennin, too, so I’m asking you to find me masters who could teach me the new trade as well.”
The clerk was left speechless in surprise.
“Did you hear me, sir?” Gonsuké asked, and repeated his request word for word.
“I’m really sorry, believe me, but…” said the clerk, who meanwhile had resumed smoking his tobacco, inhaling large puffs. “Your demand to work as a sennin has no precedents here. I would advise inquiring at some other office.”
Visibly upset, Gonsuké shifted forward on his knees—he was wearing blue working trousers with a tiny pattern on them—moving nearer, in order to argue his case better.
“The matter is in slightly different terms. Let’s see, what is written on the noren in your doorway? Doesn’t it read ‘any placement’? This surely means that you must be able to satisfy any request for a job. Or maybe you have written a lie on your noren?” From his point of view, he had good reason to be outraged.
“That writing is by no means a lie. If you must insist on your demand to find a position as a servant, meanwhile learning to become a sennin, too, kindly come back tomorrow. Within this very day I shall start looking for someone who may suit your expectations.”
The clerk thought this response was the only possible way to get the visitor to leave. In reality, he did not expect to find any household that could teach our man the way of the immortal sennin, assuming they would even hire him as a servant. No sooner had Gonsuké left than the clerk set forth toward the house of a physician who lived nearby. After explaining chapter and verse, the clerk asked, puzzled, “What do you make of this, Doctor? To whom should I turn to find, on such short notice, someone who would teach that servant to become a sennin?”
Upon hearing this question, even the physician seemed perplexed. He pondered for a moment, arms crossed on his chest, eyes fixed on a pine that loomed solitary in the garden. His wife, on the other hand, a quick-witted little woman known as the Old Fox did not hesitate to intrude into the conversation.
“Send him here. In a couple of years we will make a true sennin of him.”
“Really? That would be wonderful, and you would do me a great favor indeed. In fact, I was under the impression that there were a few affinities between a physician and a sennin,” said the naïve clerk.
Then he bowed several times before leaving, quite satisfied.
The physician looked at the clerk’s retreating back and then drily addressed his wife. “What got into you that you should say such nonsense?” he scolded her. “I’m curious to see what you’re going to tell that poor hick in a couple of years, when he’ll start complaining that we have taught him nothing about the way of the immortal sennin.”
Instead of apologizing, the wife burst into laughter.
“Shut up yourself. If it was up to you and your ridiculous honesty, we would have nothing to put on the table in this dog-eat-dog world.” With these words, she silenced him.
The following day, as agreed, that poor hick of a Gonsuké showed up with the clerk. Maybe because he was reporting to his employers for the first time, Gonsuké wore over his hakama a haori covered in coats of arms, even though all his efforts to look his best failed to make him appear any different from an ordinary peasant. And the servant’s appearance was extremely disappointing to the physician, who had been expecting someone more unusual and now, in his surprise, stared wide-eyed at the wannabe sennin, as if he’d been gazing at some exotic deer from India.
“Well, I’m told you wish at all costs to become a sennin. How did this wish come about?” he asked warily.
“There is no precise reason. Well, seeing the Osaka castle it came to me that the powerful man dwelling inside it, surely a much-revered man, will have to die sooner or later, as we all do, even the mighty and glorious, because we are fragile and ephemeral, we are nothing in this world.”
“So you’re willing to do anything to become a sennin,” cut in the physician’s sly wife, without wasting time.
“Precisely, ma’am. I’m willing to do anything to become a sennin.”
“Then you’ll enter into our service this same day, and you will work for twenty years. After this period, we will teach you the way of the immortal.”
“Really? It’s the greatest favor you can do me.”
“In exchange for that, we shall not pay you any money for twenty years.”
“That’s all right. That’s all right. I accept everything. I have no objection.”
And so Gonsuké worked as a servant in the physician’s house for twenty years. He drew water, cut wood, cooked, cleaned. The medicine box balancing on his shoulder, he also accompanied the doctor on his rounds. And given that he never asked for coin, he was the best servant in Japan, a true prodigy.
Twenty years passed. Gonsuké, again decked out in haori complete with coats of arms, stood before his masters. Dignified, he expressed his deep gratitude for being looked after during all these years.
“We have reached the point where, as you promised, you are about to reveal to me how to become a sennin, capable to defeat old age and death.”
The physician, hearing these words, was ill at ease. That poor man had served him and his wife for twenty years without pay, and now it seemed disloyal to disclose to him that they knew nothing about the teachings allowing someone to become an immortal.
Finding no solution, the doctor looked away and quickly said: “My wife, she’s the expert, and she will teach you.”
The Old Fox, however, remained confident and composed.
“I shall teach you to become immortal, but you must promise that you will do everything I tell you to do, no matter how difficult it may seem. Even the impossible. Otherwise, you will not become a sennin, and you shall have to work for us for twenty more years, without a salary, if you wish to avoid the gods’ punishment that will reduce you to ashes on the spot.”
“I understand. I am ready to do anything, even the impossible.”
Happy and content, he waited for the instructions.
The woman ordered, “Climb up the pine tree in the garden.”
Since the Old Fox had not the slightest idea of what the teachings to become immortal entailed, she intended to order him to accomplish tasks he would invariably fail, which would entitle her to have an unpaid servant at her disposal for twenty more years.
Gonsuké, hearing her command, did not hesitate to climb up the pine.
“Higher, you must climb higher.”
The woman, standing on the edge of the porch, craned her neck to gaze at Gonsuké dangling in the tree. Still he climbed. His haori flapped in the wind over the highest branches.
“Now release the right hand.”
Gonsuké clung to a sturdy branch with his left hand and slowly released his right hand.
“The other hand, too!”
“Hey! He will fall to the ground,” said her husband the doctor, joining her at the porch railing. “It’s full of stones under the tree,” he protested, anxious. “He won’t survive his fall.”
“It’s not the moment to make a scene. Trust me, for once…” To her servant, she cried, “Come on now, release your grip entirely!”
Gonsuké hesitated. Up there, without clinging to anything, he could only fall to his death. But then he let go. In no time, he and his haori broke off the pine tree.
And then, and then, instead of plummeting down, he remained mysteriously suspended in midair, stock-still, like a marionette in the morning sky.
“Oh, thank you, thank you so much! I’m a real sennin now.”
He bowed ceremoniously, floating in the blue sky wrapped in silence, and then, taking gentle steps, he rose higher until he disappeared behind the clouds.
Strangely enough, no one heard about the physician and his wife ever again. The pine tree remained in their garden for a long time, up to the day when one Yodoya Tatsugoro, who wished to enjoy the sight of the branches covered in snow, had the tree uprooted and transported into his own garden, and by that time the pine had grown very, very tall.