“I understand. You’ve grown tired of me. You’re sick of this old woman. I get it. So, where did your visitor go? She’s hiding somewhere? I know I heard the voice of a young woman. With someone like that to talk to it must be unbearable to have to discuss anything with an old woman like me. You can sit there looking enlightened and talking about desirelessness, but when it’s a young woman you’re talking to you start babbling like an excited little boy. Even your voice changes. You disgust me.”
“Fine, if that’s the way you feel.”
“It is not fine. Where is your guest? It would be rude for me not to greet her. I may not be much to look at, but I’m still the lady of the house here. Let me greet her. You mustn’t keep stepping all over me.”
Ojii-san jerks his chin toward the sparrow on his desk and says, “That’s her.”
“What? Stop your joking. Sparrows can’t talk.”
“This one does. Says some very perceptive things too.”
“You’re just mean enough to keep on teasing me like that, aren’t you? All right, then.” She reaches out abruptly and snatches the bird from the desk. “I’ll pluck out her tongue so she can’t say such witty things! You always have been a little too sweet on this bird. It’s sickening to watch, and this is the perfect chance to put an end to it! You’ve let your young visitor escape, and now the sparrow will pay with her tongue. Serves you right.” And with that she pries open the sparrow’s beak and plucks her little petal-like tongue right out. The sparrow flutters frantically and flies away, disappearing high into the pale blue sky.
Ojii-san stares silently after her.
And the following morning, as we all know, he begins combing the bamboo forest.
“Where dwells the sparrow who lost her tongue?
Where dwells the sparrow who lost her tongue?”
Snow falls day after day. But each day Ojii-san takes his search deeper into the bamboo forest. He’s like a man possessed. Thousands and tens of thousands of sparrows inhabit the forest. One would think it nearly impossible to find, among such numbers, one whose tongue is missing, but Ojii-san forges ahead with an extreme sort of fervor, day after day.
“Where dwells the sparrow who lost her tongue?
Where dwells the sparrow who lost her tongue?”
He has never before in his life acted with such reckless passion. Something that has lain dormant inside him would seem now, for the first time, to have raised its head, but what that something is, no one knows, not even the author (I, Dazai). A man who has always felt like a guest in his own home, constrained and ill-at-ease, suddenly finds the state of being that suits him best and chases after it. We could call that state “love” and have done with it, but the psychology expressed by the word “love” as it is commonly and casually used in daily life may perhaps be far from the wretched melancholy in this Ojii-san’s heart. He searches on relentlessly. For the first time in his life he’s taking decisive action and will not be deterred.
“Where dwells the sparrow who lost her tongue?
Where dwells the sparrow who lost her tongue?”
Not that he actually vocalizes these words as he wanders about in search of her, of course. But the wind seems to whisper in his ears, and at some point, as he tramps through the deep snow of the bamboo forest, this queer little ditty-not quite a song and not quite a chant-wells up in his heart in harmony with that whispering wind.
One night there descends a snowfall unusual in its scale even for the Sendai region. The following day the weather clears, and the sun rises upon a silver world of almost blinding brilliance. Ojii-san gets up before dawn, pulls his straw boots on, and makes his way to a new part of the snowy forest.
“Where dwells the sparrow who lost her tongue?
Where dwells the sparrow who lost her tongue?”
An enormous accumulation of snow that has settled on the canopy of bamboo suddenly breaks through, falling directly on top of Ojii-san. It catches him just right and he falls face down in the snow, unconscious. Crossing the borderline to a dream-like, phantasmal world, he hears a number of whispering voices.
“Poor man! Dead-after all that.”
“He’s not dead. He’s just been knocked for a loop.”
“He’ll freeze to death for sure, though, lying out here in the snow.”
“True. We’ll have to help him somehow. What a mess. If that child had just gone to meet him right from the start, this never would have happened. What’s wrong with her, anyway?”
“O-Teru-san?”
“Yes. I understand that she hurt her mouth, but she hasn’t shown herself since.”
“She’s in bed. Her tongue was plucked out. She can’t speak, just weeps silently day and night.”
“They plucked out her
“I know. And it was this one’s wife who did it. She’s not a bad old girl normally, but she must’ve been in a nasty mood that day. Suddenly grabbed O-Teru-san and ripped her tongue right out.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes. It was horrible. Human beings are like that, though. They’ll do the most unbelievably cruel things when you least expect it.”
“I’ll bet it was jealousy. I know that house pretty well myself, and this old man is awfully hard on his wife- treats her with absolute contempt. Nobody likes to see a man fuss over his woman, but this fellow’s just too damn hard on his. And O-Teru, taking advantage of that antagonism, got much too friendly with the man. Hey, no one’s innocent here. Let it go.”
“Oh? Maybe
“I’m not the vulgar sort of man who gets jealous of anybody. But she did have a good voice-better than yours, at least-and she’s good-looking to boot.”
“You’re mean.”
“Now, now, you two, don’t be fighting. Nobody needs that. What are we going to do about this man? If we leave the poor fellow here, he’ll die. Think how badly he wanted to see O-Teru-san! Tramping through the snowy forest looking for her day after day, and then, to have it end like this-you have to feel sorry for him. He has a sincere heart, at least. I can tell that much.”
“What? A damn fool, is what he is. A man his age chasing a sparrow around? Hopeless.”
“Don’t say such things. Let’s bring him to her. O-Teru-san seems to want to see him too. She can’t speak, of course, without her tongue, but when we told her he was looking for her she just lay there shedding tears. I feel sorry for both of them. What do you say we join forces and try to help them out?”
“Not me. I’m not one who has any sympathy for affairs of the heart.”
“It’s not an affair of the heart. You just don’t understand. We want to help them, don’t we, everyone? This sort of thing isn’t about logic or reasoning.”
“Precisely, precisely. Allow me to take charge of the operation. There’s nothing to it. We’ll just ask the gods. Whenever you’re desperate to help someone else, against all reason, it’s best to ask the gods. My own father taught me that. He said that in such a situation the gods will grant you any wish you make. So just wait here for a bit, everyone, and I’ll go ask the god of the forest shrine.”
When Ojii-san suddenly opens his eyes, he finds himself in a pretty little room with bamboo pillars. He sits up and looks around just as a door slides open and a doll the size of an adult walks in.
“Oh! You’re awake!”
“Ah.” Ojii-san smiles good-naturedly. “But where am I?”
“The Sparrows Inn,” says the pretty, doll-like girl, kneeling politely in front of Ojii-san and blinking up at him with big, round eyes.
“I see.” Ojii-san nods serenely. “And you, then, are the sparrow who lost her tongue?”
“No, O-Teru-san is in bed in the inner chamber. My name is O-Suzu. I’m O-Teru-san’s best friend.”
“Is that so? Then the sparrow who had her tongue plucked out is named O-Teru?”
