Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan/Volume 1/The Razor
The Razor
(A Short Story)
By
Naoya Shiga,
Translated by
Eiji Ukai & Eric S. Bell.
For a short biography and a portrait of Naoya Shiga, refer to Book II.
The Razor
Part I
Yoshisaburo, the master of a barber’s shop at Roppongi, in Azabu, a suburb of Tokyo, had taken a bad cold, and, for a wonder, had taken to his bed for a few days. It was now just before the Festival of the Autumnal Equinox, and his shop was extremely busy with cutting and dressing the hair of many of the soldiers from the near-by barracks.
While he was lying in bed, the barber thought again about the two apprentices, Gen-ko and Jita-ko, who had once been in his employ, and who had been dismissed only a month before. As his mind dwelt on them he murmured to himself, “If only they were here now!”
Yoshisaburo was Gen-ko’s and Jita-ko’s senior by a year or so, and had once lived with them, serving his apprenticeship in the same shop. Their former master had taken a great deal of interest in Yoshisaburo, for he realised that he gave great promise of becoming a very skilled barber. Later on, his master had given him his only daughter in marriage and a few years after that the former had retired from business altogether, and the shop had been turned over to his son-in-law.
Gen-ko, who had been secretly in love with his master’s daughter, quickly resigned his apprenticeship after the marriage, hut Jita-ko, who was gentle in character, continued to work for Yoshisaburo, and at once commenced addressing him as master.
Yoshisaburo’s father-in-law died half a year later, and his wife also passed away some months after him.
Yoshisaburo was a master-hand in the art of using a razor. He was so painstaking and thorough in his profession, that, when the smallest spot on a freshly-shaven face felt rough to his fingers, he was not satisfied, nor could he cease his shaving until he had made it smooth and clean. Yet he had never been known to hurt the skin of any of his clients. His customers all declared that their faces remained smooth one day longer by Yoshi’s shaving than by the work of any other barber. He was very proud of the reputation he had of never having hurt a single customer in all his past ten years as a barber.
Gen-ko, who had left the shop at the time of Yoshisaburo’s marriage, returned again unexpectedly some years later, and Yoshi, remembering their former friendship, could not help offering again to take the repentant Gen-ko as his apprentice. But during the two years which had elapsed Gen-ko had somewhat degenerated in character, and now began to neglect his duty. He also enticed Jita-ko to go with him to some disreputable house in Kasumi-cho, which was the resort of military men. Gen-ko at last became so dissipated that he even instigated the gentle Jita-ko to steal money from his master’s shop.
Yoshisaburo, who noticed this, felt very sorry for Jita-ko, and instead of reproaching him, he gave him kindly advice every now and again. But still these petty thefts continued. At last, after putting up with his two apprentices’ misdeeds for a month longer, Yoshi was obliged to dismiss them from his shop.
After that, Yoshisaburo engaged two new apprentices. Kane-ko, the elder of the two, was a pale-faced and rather dull youth of twenty. The other was a boy of about twelve years of age named Kin-ko. The latter youth had a remarkably strange-shaped head which projected at the back.
During the busiest season, just before festival-time, the work in the shop progressed at a snail’s pace owing to the slowness of these two assistants, and it was quite natural that poor Yoshi was in an agony of anxiety. He eventually fell sick, and becoming rather feverish, had to confine himself to his bed.
One day, towards noon, the customers increased in number. The noisy opening and shutting of the sliding glass-door of the shop, and the creaking of the partly broken wooden clogs, which the slovenly Kin-ko walked about in, reduced to exasperation the already strained nerves of the sick barber.
Again the glass door clattered, and this time a maid-servant of some gentleman who lived near-by, entered the shop, and he heard her say to his assistants: “I’m from Mr. Yamada’s at Rindo-cho. My master is starting on a journey tomorrow morning, so will you kindly sharpen his razor by this evening? I shall call later on to get it.”
“Well, madam, how about tomorrow morning? We are awfully busy today,” said Kane-ko. The girl seemed rather put out by the assistant’s reply, but after a moment of hesitation she answered, “Then be sure to have it ready by then.” As she left she shut the glass door behind her, but opening it again suddenly she added, “Excuse me for bothering you again, but will you be so kind as to ask your master to do it himself. My master prefers to have it sharpened by him?”
“I’m sorry, but my master is sick,” replied Kane-ko. Yoshisaburo heard this from his room, and quickly called out, “I will do it, Kane-ko!” His words were sharp and hoarse. Without answering his master, Kane-ko said quietly to the girl, “All right, madam, we will see that it is done.” The girl closed the door again and went away.
“Confound it!” said Yoshisaburo to himself, and stretching out his feverish arm from the bed, he gazed at it vacantly for a while. His arm was very hot, and felt as heavy as if it had been earthenware. Then he gazed absent-mindedly at the papier-maché dog which sat upon the shelf, and on which a number of flies were resting.
Unconsciously he heard the talking that was going on in his shop. A few soldiers who were there were passing comments on some of the small restaurants in that neighborhood, and were abusing the bad food given them in the barracks, declaring that as the cool weather increased their appetites, however, the food seemed a little tastable now. Listening to these discussions Yoshi began to forget his illness, and felt slightly better. He turned over wearily in his bed.
His wife, O-Ume by name, wrapped in a hanten-overdress, and with her baby on her back, was busily preparing the supper. The evening sunbeams were streaming into the kitchen through the door beyond the three-mat room. As Yoshi watched his wife, his spirits returned and he began to feel less troubled.
“I had better sharpen that razor now,” he thought, and he tried to raise his tired body into a sitting position. But when he sat up he felt dizzy, and again laid his head back upon his pillow.
“Shall I bring you some water to wash with, my dear?” asked his wife gently, and she came near to his bed, with her wet hands hanging at her sides. Yoshisaburo tried to say, “No,” but his voice was so weak that his wife did not catch his reply. When she tried to take the bed-clothes off him, and to carry his spittoon and other things from his bedside, he tried to cry out to her, “No, leave them alone!” but again his wife did not hear him. Once more his reviving spirits became irritated.
“Shall I support your body from behind?” asked his wife, and she came and stood behind her husband.
“Bring me the razor-strop and Mr. Yamada’s razor!” said Yoshisaburo. His wife looked at him for a moment and was silent, then she said quietly, “Are you able to do it now?” “Bring them to me at any rate!” was his sharp reply.
“If you want to sit up, my dear, you must put on your overcoat…”
But he interrupted her by saying, “Bring them quickly, I say!” Though he did not speak very loudly, his voice sounded irritated. His wife kept quite calm, and after taking her husband’s overcoat from the cupboard, she put it carefully over his shoulders from behind as he sat upright on his bed. Yoshisaburo snatched at the collar of his overcoat, pulled it off his shoulders again, and threw it roughly off the bed.
His wife remained silent, and then opening a small sliding-door, she disappeared. She soon returned from the shop with the strop and the razor. Finding no proper place to hang the strop, she drove a small nail into the wooden pillar by his bed.
Part II
Barber Yoshisaburo, even when in good health, was never quite satisfied with his work after sharpening a razor, and now that he was irritated, and with his hands trembling with fever, he was less successful.
Seeing her poor husband’s bad humour, the gentle wife said, “Hadn’t you better make Kane-ko do that for you, dear?” As he did not answer her, she repeated the question several times, but still she got no reply. He, however, began to feel very weak, and after working quietly with the razor for some fifteen minutes, he sank down on his bed quite exhausted. After that he soon fell asleep.
Mr. Yamada’s maid-servant called at the shop that evening on her way back from an errand, and took away the razor.
O-Ume-san had prepared some groats for her husband, and she wanted him to take them before they got cold, but seeing him asleep, and noticing how exhausted he was, she refrained from waking him, lest he should again fly into a temper with her.
But it was now 8 o’clock, and she was afraid that if she delayed matters too long, she might also miss the chance of giving him his medicine. So she at last made up her mind to awaken her husband. Upon waking, Yoshisaburo was in a slightly better mood, and sitting up, he took his supper. As soon as he had finished it, he lay down again on his bed, and soon fell into another sleep.
A little before 10 o’clock, Yoshi was awakened once again to take his medicine. He had been half asleep, wrapped up almost to his head in his heavy bed-clothes, and his face was quite damp with fever. The shop was quiet. He looked around feebly. On a pillar near his bed hung the black leather strop. The dim light of the lamp, which burned with a weirdly yellow flame, shone upon the back of his wife, who was giving the baby her breast in the comer of the room. Everything in the room seemed to him stiflingly hot.
“Master! … master!” came the hesitating voice of Kin-ko from the door of the shop.
“Yes, what is it?” answered Yoshisaburo from under his bed-clothes. The boy did not seem to catch the muffled reply of his master, and so he called again, “Master!”
“What’s the matter?” This time his voice was quite clear and sharp.
“The razor has been sent back from Mr. Yamada, Sir.”
“What, another one?”
“No, master, the same one that you sharpened this evening. The messenger said that Mr. Yamada tried it once, but he thinks there is rather a poor edge on it. He wants you to try it yourself, and then to send it back to him if you think it is all right.”
“Is his messenger still waiting?”
“No, master, she went away some time ago.”
“Hand it to me,” said Yoshisaburo, and pulling his arm out from beneath the blankets of his bed, he took the razor, which was enclosed in a morocco-leather case, from Kin-ko, who bent over his master’s bed to hand it to him.
“Hadn’t you better ask Barber Yasukawa to do it for you, my dear, for your hands are rather shaky with fever?” said O-Ume-san, and, drawing her kimono across her breast, she came to her husband’s side. Yoshisaburo was silent, and stretching towards the lamp, he turned it up. He took the razor out of its case, and examined the blade very intently, turning it over and over with one hand. His wife sat down by his bedside, and gently reaching out her hand, she felt his forehead. But Yoshisaburo pushed her hand away, and seemed to be embarrassed. He cried out, “Kink-o!”
“Yes, master,” answered the lad from near the end of the bed where he had been standing.
“Bring me the hone!”
The hone was brought. Yoshisaburo roused himself again, and raising one knee, in the manner of all good razor-sharpeners, he began to slowly grind the razor. The clock slowly struck 10 o’clock.
O-Ume-san began to realize that any more advice on her part was in vain, so she sat looking anxiously at her husband. He went on sharpening the razor for a little while, and then worked it smoothly on the leather strop. It seemed to him that the stillness of the room began to quiver with the chafing sound of his razor. In whetting it, his shaky hands were stretched out before him, and the strop was swinging to and fro as if it would snap. It flew outwards, and twined round and round the razor.
“My God! Look out!” cried his frightened wife, and she gazed in alarm at her husband’s face. His brows quivered nervously.
Yoshisaburo unwound the strop, and threw it down. He then stood up, razor in hand, and tried to make his way towards the shop in his night attire.
“Good gracious! You should not do that…” O-Ume-san cried, as she tried to stop her husband. She was weeping softly, but her efforts to prevent him were in vain. Yoshisaburo reached the shop without uttering a single word, and his wife followed him.
In the shop there was no customer. Kin-ko was there alone, sitting absent-mindedly in a chair before one of the huge mirrors
“Where’s Kane-ko?” asked O-Ume-san.
“He has gone to visit his sweetheart, Miss Toki,” answered Kin-ko nonchalantly.
“My God! To think that he has gone there openly declaring where he was going in that way!” said the angry barber, but O-Ume-san began to laugh, for it struck her as being rather humorous. Yoshisaburo looked very annoyed.
Now, this Miss Toki was rather an untidy and slovenly looking girl, who worked at a certain shop not far from the barber’s. Over this shop hung a sign-board with “Grocery for Soldiers” painted on it. It was said that she was a graduate from a girl’s high school. Very often one or two soldiers, some students, or other young men were seen sitting talking to her.
“Go and tell him to return quickly, as we shall soon be shutting up the shop,” said O-Ume-san to Kin-ko.
“It’s not yet so late!” Yoshisaburo remarked sharply. His wife then went back into the house.
The barber began to whet the razor, and he felt decidedly more at home in his shop than doing the task while lying in his bed. His wife entered again and brought his warmly-lined hanten-coat, and managed, after a little coaxing, to get him to put his arms into the sleeves. She seemed quite satisfied after she had done this, and sitting down near the entrance of the shop, she watched her husband absorbed in the work of sharpening the razor. Kin-ko was sitting on one of the barber’s shairs, with one leg aslant, and was shaving the other leg up and down with his own razor.
Suddenly the glass door opened, and there appeared a young man of low stature, about twenty-one or two years of age. He wore a new Japanese lined garment of half silk, and had his Heko-sash knotted in front of his body. A pair of new-fashioned komageta-clogs were on his feet.
“I want to be shaved as quickly as possible, and I don’t care if you do it roughly.” He then came and stood directly in front of one of the mirrors, and biting his lower lip, put out his chin, and stroked it repeatedly with his fingers. He spoke smartly, but his tone was decidedly rustic. His knotted fingers and his rough brown face showed that he was employed in some hard labor by day.
“Send for Kane-ko at once!” cried the barber’s wife.
“No, that is not at all necessary, I can shave him myself,” said the barber.
“But today your hands are shaky, my dear.”
“All the same, I shall do it,” insisted Yoshisaburo flatly interrupting his wife.
“You are beside yourself!” she cried angrily.
“Bring me my working clothes!”
“Your everyday clothes will do, won’t they? They are quite good enough to give anyone a shave in,” said O-Ume-san, who did not like her sick husband to take off his hanten-coat.
The young man was looking from the wife to the husband, and after a short pause he said, “You aren’t sick, I hope?” And he winked his small narrow eyes propitiatingly.
“Yes, sir. I’ve taken a slight cold.”
“Well, you must take great care of yourself, because a rather bad kind of influenza is prevalent at the present time.”
“Thanks,” murmured Yoshisaburo in his throat.
Part III
When a piece of white linen had been placed over the youth’s neck and chest by the barber, the youth said again, “Just pass the razor over my face, for I’m in rather a hurry.” And he smiled faintly at the barber. Yoshisaburo was silent and did not seem to notice his remark. He was softening the blade of the razor which he had just been whetting, against the inner side of his left elbow.”
“Between half past ten and eleven I shall be able to get there,” murmured the young man to himself. He was evidently expecting to receive an answer of some kind from the barber.
Yoshisaburo at once began to recollect a rather strange girl who was employed in a certain house of ill-fame not far away. She had a curious voice, a mixture of male and female in tone. He was thinking that this vulgar little man might be going to visit her, and in his weak and nervous brain, he pictured one scene after another that might be enacted after this young fellow had left his shop, and the thought of it made him feel sick. Lathering the soap with the coldest water, he rubbed the young man’s chin and cheeks desperately. While he was doing this the youth was trying to peep into the mirror. Yoshisaburo was so disgusted with this vulgar young man that he was almost tempted to vent some abusive language upon him.
Sharpening the razor once more upon the strop, the barber began shaving the youth’s chin and throat. But his razor had no edge on it, his hand shook, and while he was bending his head over his customer, he could not stop sniffing. In bed his nose had not run in this way, and it annoyed him. He was often obliged to stop his work to wipe his nose, but as soon as he started again, the intense itching of his nostrils caused him to sniff and snivel again worse than ever.
Then the baby began to cry in the inner room, and O-Ume-san left the husband to go to her lonely child. The young man, though being shaved roughly with a blunt razor, remained cool and unconcerned, and his strange insensibility to the roughness of the shave now irritated the barber’s nerves to quite an unbearable extent.
Yoshisaburo had another sharp razor, which he was accustomed to use, but somehow he did not feel inclined to take it out. Whether his razor was sharp or not he did not care very much. But unconsciously he soon became sensitive, and when he found any small rough spot on the young man’s face, he began to feel impatient. The more impatient he became, the more his irritation increased. His body was feeling fatigued, his spirits were falling again, and he seemed to be getting very feverish.
The young man, who at first had been rather talkative, now became silent, for he noticed Yoshisaburo’s sullenness. By the time the barber was shaving the youth’s brows, his customer had fallen into a doze, perhaps caused by his hard day’s work. The apprentice Kin-ko was also dozing near the window. In the inner room O-Ume-san’s lullaby was no longer heard, and the night seemed to be very silent. The only sound now was the swishing of the razor.
The irritation of the barber now changed into a sentimental mood, and his body and soul seemed tired out. His feverish eyes became as hot as molten iron.
He continued to shave on from throat to chin, from chin to cheek, and from cheek to brow, but he could not make the soft part of the youth’s throat as smooth as he wanted. After going over it again he lost patience, and had a wish to tear off that part of the skin altogether. As he looked at the rough face of the youth, with the pores of the skin full of grease, this mad feeling increased more and more in his heart. The young man was now asleep, his head hanging languidly behind, and his loose mouth was open showing his yellow, uneven teeth.
The exhausted Yoshisaburo could no longer bear to continue his shaving. He felt as if every joint of his body had been poisoned, and a sensation of weakness came over him as if he would fall there and then.
Several times he thought to himself, “Now I shall stop.” But somehow a feeling of inertia prevented him from stopping his work. The blade of the razor was caught a little by the roughness of the youth’s skin. The young man’s throat quivered in his sleep. Yoshisaburo felt some strange and unknown sensation run swiftly through his body from head to toe. This feeling seemed suddenly to take away all his former fatigue and weariness.
The cut which he had made on the rough skin of the youth’s chin was barely half an inch in length. He stood staring at it. The spot left by the thinly stripped skin was at first a milky white, but gradually it began to change into pink, and then to crimson, and soon the blood was oozing from the small cut. Yoshisaburo still gazed. The blood now came out rather freely in dark-red drops, swelling like rubies, and then bursting and falling down his chin in streaks.
Then a feeling of cruelty came over him. To barber Yoshisaburo, who had never till that moment hurt any customer’s face, this feeling came with surprising force. His breathing became quicker and quicker. His whole body and soul seemed to be intent on the cut he had made, and he could no longer overcome the strong feeling of satisfaction which had taken hold of his brain.
Grasping the razor with the point downwards, he suddenly dug it into the youth’s throat. He did it with such strength that the blade sank completely into the flesh. The youth did not even move, for he did not feel any pain. Then the blood began to splash, and the face of the youth suddenly began to change.
Yoshisaburo almost fainted, and fell back into a chair which was standing near him. This nervous strain suddenly came over him again, and at the same time a terrible feeling of fatigue oppressed him. With closed eyes and collapsed body he looked like one dead. The moments seemed to stand still. All life seemed to be asleep. Only the huge mirrors on the walls were calmly watching the scene from three directions.
The End