A story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa,
translated by Sam Malissa

Dreams
by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
translated by Sam Malissa

I was utterly exhausted. My neck and shoulders were in knots, and I was hardly sleeping at all. On the rare occasions that I managed to drift off, I had all kinds of dreams. Someone once told me that dreaming in color is a sign of degeneracy. Nearly all of my dreams are in color, but that may be because I make my living as a painter.
A friend and I stepped through a glass door into some sort of cafe in a rundown part of town. Just outside the dust-streaked door was a railroad crossing overhung with willows bursting into leaf. We sat at a corner table and ate something served in bowls. When I finished eating and looked into the bowl, I saw an object an inch or so long on the bottom—it was the head of a snake. Another dream in vivid color.
My lodgings were in a suburb of Tokyo where it can get bitter cold. Whenever I was feeling depressed, I would climb the embankment behind my boarding house and gaze down at the train tracks. The rails gleamed against gravel stained with oil and rust. On the opposite side of the tracks, a tree that looked like a chestnut stretched its branches out over the tracks. It would not be a reach to say that the view struck me as melancholy itself. But it was a better match for how I felt than the bright lights of Ginza or Asakusa. “Treat poison with poison”—the old saying floated around inside my head as I squatted on top of the embankment smoking a cigarette, alone.
It was not as though I had no friends. There was this one young fellow, a Western-style painter with wealthy parents. When he noticed my malaise, he suggested that I take a trip somewhere, even offering to help pay for it. But I knew full well that even if I were to travel, it would do nothing to lift my spirits. I had been caught in a similar depression three or four years earlier and, thinking a trip might dispel the gloom, I went all the way to Nagasaki. When I arrived, though, I could not find a single place to stay that felt right. Then when I did finally settle on lodgings, I was beset by huge tiger moths that kept fluttering in through the window during the night. I was completely miserable and decided to head back to Tokyo, having been gone less than a week.
On an afternoon when frost still clung to the ground, on my way back from picking up a money order, I was suddenly seized with the desire to paint. No doubt it had something to do with the fact that I now had the cash to hire a model. But it was more than that—I am quite certain I felt a swell of creativity. Rather than head back to my boarding house, I went to Salon M, my mind set on hiring a model to pose for a midsize portrait. This decision drew me out of my melancholy—something that hadn’t happened in a long while. I thought, I would give my life to make this painting. And I truly felt that way.
The model I got from Salon M didn’t have a very pretty face, but there was no denying that she had quite a body, her bosom in particular. Her hair, too, was full and rich, swept straight back. I was well satisfied with her, and after I sat her down on the rattan chair to have a look, I got right to work. She posed naked, gripping a rolled-up English-language newspaper instead of a bouquet, her legs slightly crossed and her head tilted to one side. But when I faced the canvas, I was again overwhelmed with fatigue. My north-facing room had only one brazier. I filled it so high with charcoal that flames scorched the rim, but still the room did not get quite warm enough. As she sat still in the rattan chair, there was an involuntary trembling from time to time in the muscles of her thighs. I pushed my brush around the canvas, feeling a flash of anger every time she shivered. But greater than any feelings directed at her was frustration at not being able to afford a kerosene heater. At the same time, I was angry with myself for getting worked up about such trivialities.
“Where do you live?” I asked.
“Where do I live? My place is in the Sansaki-cho neighborhood of Yanaka.”
“Do you live alone?”
“No, I rent with a friend.”
While carrying on this sort of small talk, I took my time spreading pigment on top of an old canvas that I had used for a still life. As she sat there with her head tilted to one side, her face never showed anything that remotely resembled an expression. Both her words and her voice were monotonous. I had to conclude that this was her natural temperament. I found her easy enough to get along with, and sometimes asked her to sit longer than we had agreed. But at times I felt curiously intimidated by the way she held perfectly still—no movement at all, even in her eyes.
The painting was not going well. Most days when I finished working, I would sprawl out on the rug, kneading my neck and scalp, staring vacantly about the room. Aside from the easel, the only furniture was the rattan chair. Its woven canes would creak now and again even when no one was sitting in it, perhaps due to a change in humidity. Whenever this happened I felt unsettled and would immediately go out for a walk. But there was nowhere to go, walking along the embankment behind the boarding house, which led down to a lonesome place, full of small temples and shabby houses.
Nonetheless, I took my place in front of the easel every day, and the model showed up every day as well. Before long, I began to feel intimidated by her body—no doubt this had partly to do with my jealousy at her healthy constitution. She lay down on the faded red carpet, her face expressionless as she kept her eyes on the corners of the room. From time to time as I swept my brush across the canvas, I thought to myself that she was more an animal than a human being.
One afternoon, a tepid wind was blowing as I stood in my regular spot before the easel, busily pushing my brush about the canvas. The model was more sullen than usual. I became aware of a savage energy emanating from her body. What’s more, I could smell her armpits and other body odors. It was somehow reminiscent of the stench of a more primitive time.
“Where were you born?”
“In a town called X, in Gunma.”
“That town has a lot of textile mills, isn’t that right?
“Yes.”
“Did you do any loom work?”
“I did when I was a child.”
As we were talking, I noticed that her nipples had started to swell. They looked almost like cabbage buds. Of course, I continued intently moving my brush as usual. But somehow I could not stop myself from fixating on those nipples—they had a certain grotesque beauty.
The wind continued blowing that night. I awoke with a start and made my way to the toilet down the corridor. When I shook off the sleep, however, I realized that although I had slid open the door, all I was doing was walking around and around my own room. I stopped in my tracks and gazed blankly about, my eye settling on the faded red carpet beneath my feet. I began to run my bare toes lightly over the carpet. The feel of the fibers was uncannily like an animal pelt. A worrying thought took hold—what was the color of the carpet’s reverse side? But the idea of turning it over was inexplicably terrifying. After I went to the toilet, I hurried back to bed.
When I finished working the next day, I was even more dejected than usual. I could not bear the thought of being in my room. I decided to go out to the embankment behind the boarding house. Dusk was already falling, but despite the fading light the trees and utility poles stood out in sharp relief. As I walked along the embankment, I felt the urge to cry out at the top of my lungs, but I knew I could not give in to this temptation. I descended from the embankment into the shabby neighborhood that ran alongside, feeling like all this walking was taking place nowhere but in my head.
The streets were nearly deserted, as always. There was, however, a Korean cow tied to a utility pole on the side of the road. It stretched its neck and fixed me with oddly feminine, dewy eyes. Its expression seemed to suggest that it was waiting for my arrival—I sensed a placid challenge. “I bet it’ll flash the same look at the butcher,” I thought, which only unsettled me further. My mood slid deeper into melancholy, and at length I turned down an alley to avoid passing the cow again.
One afternoon a few days later, I took my place in front of the canvas once more, diligently wielding my brush. The model lay on the faded red carpet, motionless as always, not even twitching an eyebrow. The painting was still not coming together, after nearly half a month of looking at her. In that time we had not developed even the slightest rapport. On the contrary, all I felt was her oppressive aura growing steadily stronger. When we took breaks, she never once put on her chemise, and when I tried talking to her she gave only lukewarm responses. Today, though, with her back to me (I discovered that she had a birthmark on her right shoulder) and her legs stretched out on the carpet, for some reason she began talking.
“Sir, you know the small stones that line the walkway leading to this house?”
“Yes…”
“Those are afterbirth stones.” 
“Afterbirth stones?”
“Yes—stones they set down to show where placenta’s been buried.”
“How do you know?”
“Because some of the stones have writing on them.” She looked at me over her shoulder, a look on her face that was almost mocking. “Everyone is born with a placenta, right?”
“Well, so what?”
“And when I think about having been born with a placenta…”
“…?”
“It makes me feel like a baby dog.”
I resumed moving my brush, which seemed impotent in her presence. Impotent? It was not for lack of effort on my part. I was constantly aware of something wild within her that demanded expression. But expressing that wildness was beyond my abilities. What’s more, part of me did not want to give it expression. Or it may have been that I did not want to express it using brush and paint. In which case, what should I use? As I moved my brush around, I kept remembering things I had seen in some museum: clubs and swords made of stone.
After she left, I sat in the dim light of my room and leafed through a large bound collection of Gauguin’s paintings. At some point I realized that I had been repeating a phrase in flowery old-fashioned language under my breath: “I judged it must be thus.” Of course I had no idea why I would have been repeating such words, but it gave me an eerie feeling. After I had the housemaid lay out my futon, I took a sleeping draught.
It was nearly ten in the morning when I opened my eyes. Perhaps I had grown hot in the night, for I had rolled out of my bedding onto the carpet. But what concerned me more was the dream I had just before waking. I was standing in the middle of the room strangling her with one hand (although as it was happening I knew with great certainty that it was a dream). Her face was turned slightly upwards, expressionless as always, and she gradually closed her eyes. At the same time, her breasts were expanding with an appealing plumpness. The breasts were so pale they seemed to glow, the veins inside showing faintly. I felt no compunction whatsoever about strangling her to death—in fact I felt something like the satisfaction one feels at completing an important task. With her eyes still closed, she appeared to expire ever so quietly.
I woke up from the dream and washed my face, after which I drank a few cups of strong tea. Yet all I felt was an even greater sense of melancholy. I genuinely had no desire to kill her. But unconsciously— 
As I smoked my cigarettes, I waited for the model to arrive, doing my best to keep in check the strange thrill I was feeling. She had still not arrived by one o’clock. Waiting for her was extremely taxing, and I felt an increasing urge to go out, rather than sit waiting. But even the thought of going for a walk was terrifying. My nerves could not face up to the simple act of stepping beyond the sliding door of my room. 
Dusk was falling. I paced around my room, spending the rest of the day waiting for the model, who would surely never come. At one point I remembered something that had happened some dozen years earlier. On a dusk just like this one I—or rather my younger self—had lit some sparklers. I wasn’t in Tokyo then, but on the veranda of my family home in the countryside. Then I heard someone shouting, “Hey, snap out of it!” and felt my shoulders being shaken. I had thought I was sitting on the veranda, but when I came to my senses, I realized that at some point I had crouched down by the onion patch behind the house and was setting fire to the plants. My box of matches was almost empty.
As I smoked my cigarettes, I had to acknowledge that there were times in my life of which I myself had absolutely no awareness. More than just making me feel uneasy, the thought made my skin crawl. In my dream the night before, I had strangled her with my own hand. But what if it had not been a dream.…
The model did not come the next day either. At length I went to Salon M to ask after her, but the proprietor had not heard anything. Feeling more and more unsettled, I found out where she lived—she had told me that she lived in the Sansaki-cho neighborhood of Yanaka, but according to the proprietor, the model had a place in Hongo Higashikata-machi. I arrived at the address I was given just as the streetlamps were coming on. It was on a narrow side lane, a European-style laundry with fading red paint on the exterior. On the other side of the glass door, two employees in shirtsleeves were busily ironing. I went to open the door, not in any particular rush, but I somehow smacked my head on the glass. The sound startled me just as much as it did the people inside.
I entered the store nervously and addressed one of the workers.
“Is Miss M here?”
“Miss M hasn’t been around since the day before yesterday.”
These words filled me with anxiety, but I was hesitant to inquire further. In case something had actually happened to her, I did not want to draw any suspicion to myself.
“Sometimes she doesn’t come back for a week at a time,” added the other sallow-faced worker, without pausing in his ironing. I could sense in his words something like scorn, and I left the shop as fast as I could, angry with myself. But it didn’t end there: as I made my way through the byways of Higashikata-machi, crowded with residences and fewer business than I would have expected, I had the sudden recollection that I had encountered all of it before, in a dream. The painted exterior of the European laundry, the sallow-faced worker, the steaming iron—even the fact that I was there asking about the girl—it was all exactly the same as it had been in my dream from months (or was it years?) before. After I left the laundry in the dream, I’m sure I was walking alone along a deserted street just like this one. And then—but I had no recollection of what came next in the dream. Yet I felt certain that no matter what was about to happen, that too would be just as I had dreamt it.

Translator’s note: Akutagawa wrote this story in November 1926, less than a year before he took his own life at the age of thirty-five. Obsessed with the fear that he would inherit his mother’s mental illness, he was tormented by insomnia and dream-like hallucinations.

Translator: Sam Malissa

Sam Malissa (b. 1981) holds a PhD in Japanese literature from Yale University. His translations include Bullet Train by Kōtaro Isaka (Harvill Secker, 2021), The End of the Moment We Had by Toshiki Okada (Pushkin Press, 2018), and short fiction by Shun Medoruma, Hideo Furukawa, and Masatsugu Ono. His translations of stories by Kyōhei Sakaguchi appear in vols. 1–3 of MONKEY.

Author: Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1892–1927) remains one of the most widely read writers in Japan. A collection of his work can be found in Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories, selected and translated by Jay Rubin. “General Kim” appeared in vol. 3 of Monkey Business.

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