The Horse's Legs

The protagonist of this story is a man named Hanzaburo Oshino. Unfortunately, he is not much of a man. He is an office worker, around thirty, employed by Mitsubishi in Peking. After graduating from the College of Commerce, Hanzaburo came to Peking two months later. Among his coworkers and superiors, he was not thought especially well of. But neither was he thought especially ill of. In short, his utter ordinariness matched his appearance exactly. And, to add one more thing in passing, it matched his domestic life as well.

Two years earlier Hanzaburo had married a certain young lady. Her name was Tsuneko. This too, unfortunately, was not a love match. It was an arranged marriage, brokered through an elderly married couple related to one of the families. Tsuneko was not what one would call beautiful. Then again, she was not ugly either. She simply had plump, round cheeks on which a smile was always floating. Except when she was bitten by bedbugs in the sleeping car on the way from Mukden to Peking, she was always smiling. And now there was no fear that bedbugs would ever bite her again. For in the living room of their company house in XX Hutong there were two full cans of Bat-brand pyrethrum insect powder properly set out.

I said that Hanzaburo's home life was the very essence of dull normality. That was indeed the truth. He merely ate meals with Tsuneko, played the gramophone, went to see movies, and otherwise lived the same sort of life as every other office employee in all of Peking. But even their lives could not escape the rule of fate. One afternoon at high noon, fate shattered the monotony of this humdrum domestic existence with a single blow. Hanzaburo Oshino, Mitsubishi office worker, dropped dead of a cerebral hemorrhage.

That afternoon as usual Hanzaburo had been diligently going through documents at his desk in the office at Dongdan Pailou. Apparently even the coworker facing him across the desks noticed nothing particularly wrong. But just when he seemed to have reached a pause, and with a cigarette still between his lips, he bent to strike a match and suddenly pitched forward and died. It was a death almost absurdly abrupt. Still, the world, fortunately enough, does not criticize the manner in which a man dies. It criticizes only the way he lives. Thanks to that, Hanzaburo escaped any particular blame. Indeed, far from blame, his superiors and coworkers all expressed deep sympathy to his widow, Tsuneko.

According to the diagnosis of Dr. Yamai, director of Tongren Hospital, the cause of Hanzaburo's death was cerebral hemorrhage. But Hanzaburo himself, unfortunately, did not think it was cerebral hemorrhage. To begin with, he did not even think he was dead. He was only astonished to find himself in an office he had never seen before.

The curtains in the office were stirring slowly in the sunlight. Outside the window, however, nothing could be seen. At a large desk in the middle of the room sat two Chinese men in white gowns, facing each other and examining ledgers. One looked to be around twenty. The other wore a long mustache and had a complexion beginning to yellow slightly with age.

After a while, the younger Chinese man, moving his pen across the ledger, spoke to him without even raising his eyes.

"Are you Mister Henry Barrett, aren't you?"

Hanzaburo was startled. But as calmly as he could, he replied in the Peking dialect: "I am Oshino Hanzaburo of the Mitsubishi Company of Japan."

"Oh? So you're Japanese?"

The Chinese man, finally raising his eyes, said this with evident surprise. The older one, who had been in the middle of writing something in the ledger, was also staring blankly at Hanzaburo.

"What shall we do? It's the wrong man."

"This is bad. Extremely bad. Why, nothing like this has happened once since the Revolution."

The older Chinese man seemed angry; the pen in his hand was trembling violently.

"At any rate, send him back at once."

"You are... yes, Mr. Oshino, aren't you? Just a moment, please."

The younger Chinese man opened a thick ledger afresh and began reading something under his breath. Then, just as he snapped the ledger shut, he turned to the older man looking even more astonished than before.

"No good. Mr. Oshino Hanzaburo died three days ago."

"Three days ago?"

"And his legs are rotting. Both of them are rotting from the thighs down."

Hanzaburo was startled all over again. If their exchange was to be believed, then first of all he was dead. Second, he had been dead for three days. Third, his legs were rotting. Such utter nonsense could not possibly be true. Why, his legs were plainly right there— The moment he tried to move them, however, he let out a loud cry. And little wonder. The legs in neatly creased white trousers and white shoes were both slanting sideways in the breeze from the window. At that sight he could hardly believe his own eyes. But when he reached down with both hands, he found that from the thighs down, both legs were no different from grasping empty air. At last Hanzaburo collapsed backward onto the floor. At the same time his legs—or rather his trousers—wilted down onto the floor like a deflated rubber balloon.

"All right, all right. We'll manage something for you."

After saying this, the older Chinese man turned to the younger clerk, still apparently smoldering with irritation.

"This is your responsibility. Do you understand? Your responsibility. We'll have to submit a report immediately. So then, where has Henry Barrett gone at present?"

"According to what I've just checked, he seems to have suddenly left for Hankou."

"Then send a telegram to Hankou and have Henry Barrett's legs sent here."

"No, that won't do. Before the legs arrive from Hankou, Mr. Oshino's torso will rot away."

"This is bad. Extremely bad."

The older Chinese man sighed. Even his mustache seemed somehow to droop lower at once.

"This is your responsibility. We'll have to submit a report immediately. Unfortunately, there aren't any passengers left, are there?"

"No, they left about an hour ago. Though there is one horse."

"Whose horse?"

"A horse from the horse market outside Desheng Gate. It died just a little while ago."

"Then let's attach that horse's legs. Horse's legs are better than none. Bring just the legs at once."

The Chinese man of about twenty stepped away from the desk and glided out somewhere. Hanzaburo was startled for the third time. From what he had just heard, it seemed they were going to attach horse's legs to him. That would be catastrophic. Sitting there on the floor, he pleaded with the older Chinese man.

"Please, not horse's legs. Spare me that. I hate horses. Please, I beg you for mercy, for pity's sake—give me human legs. Henry What's-his-name's legs would be fine. Even if they're hairy, as long as they're human I can endure it."

The older Chinese man looked down at him with pity and nodded several times.

"If there were any, we'd give you some. But there are no human legs. So you must resign yourself to your bad luck. Still, horse's legs are sturdy. If you have the shoes changed from time to time, you'll manage any mountain road without trouble..."

Just then the young clerk came floating back from somewhere, carrying two horse's legs dangling from his hands. It was exactly like a hotel servant bringing a pair of boots. Hanzaburo tried to run, but with no legs he could scarcely even lift himself off the floor. The clerk came up beside him and began removing his white shoes and socks.

"You can't do this. Please, not horse's legs. To begin with, there is no law that permits repairing my legs without my consent..."

While Hanzaburo was still shouting, the clerk thrust one horse's leg into the right leg of his trousers. The horse's leg bit into his right thigh as if it had teeth. Then he thrust the other one into the left trouser leg. That too fastened itself on with a snap.

"There, that's all right now."

The Chinese man of about twenty rubbed his long-nailed hands together with a satisfied smile. Hanzaburo stared blankly at his legs. Before he knew it, two thick chestnut horse's legs were protruding from the ends of his white trousers, standing neatly side by side on their hooves.

That is as much as Hanzaburo remembers. At least, what came after has not remained in his memory with anything like the same clarity. He seems to recall quarreling with the two Chinese men. He also seems to recall tumbling down a steep staircase. But he cannot be sure of either. In any case, after wandering through some indescribable hallucination, when he finally recovered consciousness he found himself lying in a funeral coffin set up in the company house in XX Hutong. And, what was more, directly before the coffin a young missionary of the Honganji sect was reciting something like a final admonition.

Naturally, Hanzaburo's revival caused a tremendous sensation. The Shuntian Times printed a large photograph of him and ran a three-column article. According to that article, Tsuneko, dressed in mourning, had been smiling even more than usual. Some of his superiors and coworkers, it said, used the condolence money that had gone to waste to hold a revival celebration instead. Most likely only Dr. Yamai's professional reputation came close to danger. But the doctor, calmly blowing cigar smoke into rings, skillfully restored it. He did so by expounding on the mysteries of nature that transcend medicine. In other words, he saved his own reputation by abandoning the reputation of medicine.

Yet Hanzaburo himself, even when he attended the celebration of his return to life, never once looked cheerful. This too was hardly strange. Since his revival, his legs had somehow become horse's legs. They had become chestnut horse's legs with hooves instead of toes. Every time he looked at them he felt a wretchedness beyond words. If those legs were ever discovered, the company would surely dismiss him at once. His coworkers, too, would certainly refuse any future association with him. And Tsuneko too—ah, "Frailty, thy name is woman"—Tsuneko too would doubtless prove no exception, and would not wish to have as her husband a man who had turned into horse's legs. Whenever Hanzaburo thought such thoughts, he resolved that at all costs he must hide his legs. That was why he abandoned Japanese dress. That was why he wore long boots. That was why he took great care to fasten the windows and doors of the bathroom securely. Yet even so he was constantly uneasy. And he had good reason to be uneasy. For—

The first thing Hanzaburo guarded against was arousing his coworkers' suspicions. This may have been the easier part of his struggle. Still, judging from his diary, he seems to have had to battle one danger after another.

"July x. That young Chinese bastard attached some outrageous legs to me. Both my legs might as well be called nests of fleas. Today too, while doing office work, I itched so badly I nearly went mad. For the time being I must devote all my energy to figuring out how to exterminate the fleas..."

"August x. Today I went to speak with the manager about business. During the whole conversation he kept sniffling. It seems the smell of my legs escapes even through my boots..."

"September x. Controlling horse's legs freely is surely harder than horsemanship itself. Just before the lunch break today I was given an urgent errand, so I ran down the stairs at a trot. At moments like that, anyone thinks only of the errand. Because of that, I must have forgotten my horse's legs before I knew it. In an instant my legs smashed through the seventh step of the staircase..."

"October x. I am gradually learning to control the horse's legs more freely. Having finally grasped it, it seems in the end to be a matter of balance at the waist. But today I failed. Though today's failure was not entirely my fault. Around nine this morning I took a rickshaw to the office. The puller insisted that instead of the proper fare of twelve sen, I must give him twenty. On top of that he grabbed me and tried to keep me from entering the company gate. I became furious and kicked him away on impulse. The way the puller flew up into the air was like something out of football. Of course I regretted it. At the same time, I could not help bursting out laughing. In any case, when I move my legs I must be even more careful..."

But harder by far than deceiving his coworkers was avoiding Tsuneko's suspicions. In his diary Hanzaburo laments this difficulty again and again.

"July x. My great enemy is Tsuneko. Using the necessity of civilized living as my shield, I have at last turned our one and only Japanese-style room into a Western-style room. That way I can remain in my shoes even before her eyes. Tsuneko seems to resent the loss of the tatami greatly. But even if I wore tabi with shoes, it would be impossible for me to walk in a Japanese room with these legs..."

"September x. Today I sold off the double bed to a secondhand dealer. I had bought that bed at an auction held by some American. On the way back from that auction I walked beneath the rows of trees in the concession. The pagoda trees were in full bloom. The waterlight on the canal was beautiful. But this is no time to dwell sentimentally on such things. Last night I very nearly kicked Tsuneko in the side..."

"November x. Today I took my laundry to the laundry shop myself. Not the one that regularly comes to the house, of course, but a laundry beside the Dong'an Market. This is something I must continue doing from now on. Horsehair is always clinging to my loincloths, drawers, and socks..."

"December x. The speed at which my socks wear out is astonishing. In fact, merely contriving sock money without Tsuneko finding out is trouble enough..."

"February x. Naturally I have never once taken off my socks or drawers even when sleeping. On top of that, hiding the ends of my legs beneath the blanket so Tsuneko will not see them is always a perilous undertaking. Last night before going to sleep Tsuneko said, 'You really are terribly sensitive to the cold. Are you wrapping fur around your waist too?' It may be that the day has come when my horse's legs will be exposed..."

Besides these, Hanzaburo encountered countless other dangers. To enumerate them one by one is far more than I can bear to do. But the incident in his diary that surprised me most is the one recorded below.

"February x. Today at the lunch break I stopped by the old-book shops at Ryufukuji. In the patch of sunlight before one of the shops a carriage was standing. Not a Western carriage, of course, but a Chinese carriage with a blue hood stretched over it. The driver was doubtless resting up on the box as well. I paid no particular attention and was just about to step into the bookshop. Then, at that very moment, the driver cracked his whip and called out, 'Suo, suo.' 'Suo, suo' is what Chinese say when backing a horse up. Before the words had even finished, the carriage began clattering backward. And at the same instant—would you believe it?—I too, while still facing the bookshop, began moving backward step by step. What I felt then—call it terror, call it shock—cannot possibly be described. I struggled vainly to step forward even once, yet under some dreadful irresistible force I kept retreating backward. Still, the fact that the driver said only 'Suo-o' was fortunate enough for me. When the carriage stopped, I too was at last able to stop retreating. But the strangest part was yet to come. Breathing a sigh of relief, I turned my eyes toward the carriage. And the horse—the gray horse drawing the carriage—neighed in a way beyond words. Beyond words? No, not beyond words. In that shrill, tense cry I distinctly felt the horse laughing. Nor was it only the horse: I felt something like a neigh rising in my own throat as well. It would have been disastrous to let that sound out. The instant I clapped my hands over my ears, I fled from the place at top speed..."

But fate had prepared one final blow for Hanzaburo. What happened was this. Around noon one day at the end of March, he suddenly discovered that his legs were beginning to prance and leap of their own accord. Why did his horse's legs suddenly become unruly at that moment? To answer that question one would have to consult Hanzaburo's diary. But unfortunately his diary ends exactly one day before he received this final blow. Still, from the circumstances before and after, some rough inference is possible. On the basis of various works such as Baseiki, Baki, Genko Ryo Gyu Ba Da Shu, and Hakuraku's Classic of Horse Appraisal, I am convinced that the excitement of his legs came about for the following reason.

That day there was a fierce yellow dust storm. This yellow dust was the sand the spring winds of Mongolia carried into Peking. According to an article in the Shuntian Times, the storm that day was the worst seen in more than ten years; "even when one looked up at Zhengyang Gate from a mere five paces away, the gate tower could no longer be seen." It must therefore have been extremely violent. Now, the horse's legs attached to Hanzaburo had belonged to a dead horse from the horse market outside Desheng Gate, and that dead horse was clearly a Mongolian Kulun horse that had come by way of Zhangjiakou and Jinzhou. If so, was it not only natural that the moment Hanzaburo's horse's legs sensed the air of Mongolia, they should begin at once to prance and leap? Moreover, that season was precisely the time when horses beyond the frontier, desperately seeking to mate, race wildly about in all directions. If so, one must say that his horse's legs could hardly be blamed for being unable to remain still.

Whatever the merits of this interpretation, it seems that even while Hanzaburo was in the office that day, he had been continually springing about as if dancing. And on the way home to the company house, in the span of only three cho or so, he apparently crushed seven rickshaws underfoot. Even after he finally got home—according to Tsuneko, he came staggering into the sitting room panting like a dog. Then, dropping onto the sofa, he ordered his astonished wife to bring him a cord. Tsuneko naturally realized that something dreadful must have happened to her husband. To begin with, his complexion was terrible. On top of that, he kept restlessly moving the booted legs as if unable to bear his agitation. For once she forgot even to smile and pleaded with him to tell her what he intended to do with the cord. But he, wiping the sweat from his brow with evident distress, only kept repeating:

"Quickly. Hurry. If you don't hurry, it'll be terrible."

Having no choice, Tsuneko handed him a bundle of packing cord. He immediately began tying the two booted legs together with it. It was at that moment that the fear entered her heart that he might have gone mad. Still staring at her husband, she urged in a trembling voice that they send for Dr. Yamai at once. But he, busily winding the cord around his legs, stubbornly refused.

"What could a quack like that possibly understand? He's a thief! A great fraud! Rather than that, you—come here and hold my body down."

They sat rigid on the long bench, locked in each other’s arms.

The yellow dust that had covered Beijing must have been growing fiercer and fiercer. By now even the setting sun beyond the window no longer seemed like light at all, only a muddy crimson glow hanging in the air. All the while, of course, Hansaburo’s legs were by no means still. Bound round and round with thin cord, they kept moving incessantly, as though treading on invisible pedals. Tsuneko, as if tending her husband and at the same time trying to encourage him, kept talking to him about one thing and another.

"You, dear, why are you trembling so?"

"It’s nothing. Really, it’s nothing."

"But you’re sweating like this. This summer let’s go back home to Japan. Please, dear, let’s go back home for the first time in so long."

"Yes, let’s go back home. Let’s go back and live there."

Five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes... Time moved with slow steps over the two of them. Tsuneko later told a reporter from the Junten Times that at that moment she felt exactly like a prisoner chained up. Yet after some thirty minutes, at last the time came for the chain to break. To be sure, it was not the moment when Tsuneko’s so-called chain was broken. It was the moment when the human chain binding Hansaburo to his household snapped. The window, stained with that muddy crimson light, perhaps struck by a gust of wind, suddenly rattled violently. At the same instant Hansaburo let out some great cry, and before anyone knew it he had leaped nearly three feet into the air. Tsuneko later said she saw the cord snap loose all at once. Hansaburo then... though this is not Tsuneko’s account. She saw only her husband spring upward and then fainted on the bench. But the Chinese boy employed at the company residence told the same reporter the following: Hansaburo burst out through the entrance of the residence as though something were chasing him. Then for the briefest instant he stood there beyond the doorway. But after a single shudder, leaving behind a dreadful cry like the neighing of a horse, he ran headlong into the yellow dust that veiled the street....

What became of Hansaburo after that? Even today it remains a mystery. A reporter for the Junten Times did report that at around eight o’clock that evening, in moonlight dimmed by yellow dust, a bareheaded man was seen running along the railway line below Badaling, famous as a place from which to view the Great Wall. But this report does not seem to have been altogether reliable. Indeed, another reporter for the same newspaper reported that, also around eight that evening, a bareheaded man was seen running through rain dampened with yellow dust along the broad avenue of the Thirteen Tombs, lined with stone men and stone horses. If so, then after Hansaburo ran out of the entrance of the company residence in XX Hutong, it must be said that no one knew clearly where he went or what became of him.

Naturally Hansaburo’s disappearance, like his revival before it, became the talk of the town. But Tsuneko, the manager, his colleagues, Dr. Yamanoi, and the editor in chief of the Junten Times all interpreted his disappearance as the result of insanity. No doubt it was easier to explain it as madness than to explain it by horse’s legs. To leave the difficult aside and choose the easy is always the common way of the world. Representing this public road, Mr. Mutaguchi, editor in chief of the Junten Times, flourished his rafter-sized pen and published the following editorial the day after Hansaburo disappeared:

"Mr. Oshino Hansaburo, an employee of Mitsubishi, at 5:15 yesterday evening suddenly, as if driven mad, disregarded the attempts of his wife Tsuneko to stop him and vanished alone to some unknown destination. According to Dr. Yamanoi, director of Dojin Hospital, Mr. Oshino suffered a cerebral hemorrhage last summer and remained unconscious for three days, and it may be that since that time he has shown some mental abnormality. Moreover, judging from the diary of Mr. Oshino discovered by Mrs. Tsuneko, he appears always to have been possessed by bizarre persecutory delusions. Yet what we wish to ask is not what the name of Mr. Oshino’s illness may be. What we wish to ask is what responsibility falls upon Mr. Oshino as the husband of Mrs. Tsuneko.

"For our nation, perfect and without flaw in its sacred polity, is founded upon the principle of the family. And if it is founded upon familyism, then it needs no saying how grave the responsibility of the head of a household must be. Does the master of a household have the right to go mad at whim? Before such a question we answer with absolute firmness: no. Suppose, for argument’s sake, that husbands throughout the land were granted the right to go mad. Then every one of them might abandon his family behind him, chanting verse along the roadside, or wandering at leisure in mountain and marsh, or else enjoying the comforts of plentiful food and warm clothing inside a lunatic asylum. Yet the familyism of two thousand years, of which we may boast to the world, would be unable to escape utter collapse. There is a saying: hate the crime, but not the man. We do not of course intend to be harsh toward Mr. Oshino himself. Nevertheless, the sin of having gone mad so lightly must be denounced with drums beating. No, nor is it Mr. Oshino’s sin alone. We must also, in place of Heaven, condemn the maladministration of successive governments which have treated the prohibition of madness with neglect.

"According to Mrs. Tsuneko, she intends to remain for at least one year in the company residence in XX Hutong and wait for Mr. Oshino’s return. While expressing our heartfelt sympathy for this virtuous and devoted lady, we earnestly hope that the wise authorities of Mitsubishi will not begrudge her every consideration for her convenience...."

And yet after some six months, Tsuneko alone encountered a new fact that would not let her rest in such a misunderstanding. It was one evening in October, when the willows and pagoda trees of Beijing had begun to shed their yellowing leaves. Tsuneko sat absentmindedly on the bench in the sitting room, sunk in memories. Her lips no longer held that eternal smile. At some point her cheeks too had grown completely hollow. She went on thinking about her vanished husband, about the double bed she had sold off, about bedbugs, and other such things. Then someone pressed the bell at the entrance to the company residence, hesitantly. Even so, she paid no attention, leaving it to the boy to answer. But wherever he had gone, he did not appear. Before long the bell rang again. At last Tsuneko rose from the bench and quietly walked to the entrance.

In the entryway strewn with fallen leaves stood a bareheaded man, motionless in the dusk. Bareheaded... no, not merely bareheaded. The man was certainly wearing a ragged coat covered with dust. At the sight of him Tsuneko felt something very close to fear.

"What business do you have?"

The man said nothing, only hung his long-haired head. Looking intently at him, Tsuneko repeated herself once more, timidly.

"Is there... is there something you want?"

At last the man raised his head.

"Tsuneko..."

It was only a single word. But it was a word that, like moonlight, instantly made this man... this man’s true identity plain before her eyes. Tsuneko, catching her breath, stared at his face for a time as though she had lost the power of speech. The man had grown a beard, and he was so gaunt he looked like another person altogether. Yet the eyes fixed on her were unmistakably the eyes she had waited and waited for.

"You!"

With that cry Tsuneko tried to fling herself against her husband’s chest. But the moment she took a step she recoiled at once, as though she had trodden on hot iron. Beneath the torn trousers her husband exposed hairy horse’s legs. In the dim light she could even see the chestnut color of those horse’s legs.

"You!"

At the sight of those horse’s legs Tsuneko felt an indescribable disgust. And yet she also felt that if she let this moment slip, she would never see her husband again. He was still gazing sadly at her face. Once more Tsuneko tried to throw herself against his chest. But once again disgust crushed her courage.

"You!"

When she said it a third time, her husband suddenly turned on his heel and quietly went down from the entrance. Mustering the last of her courage, Tsuneko desperately tried to run after him. But before she had taken even a single step, what entered her ears was the sharp clatter of hooves. Pale-faced, as though she had lost even the courage to call out to him, Tsuneko stood staring at her husband’s retreating back. Then... there among the fallen leaves at the entrance, she collapsed and lost consciousness....

Since that incident, Tsuneko came to believe her husband’s diary. But the manager, his colleagues, Dr. Yamanoi, Mr. Mutaguchi, and the rest still do not believe that Oshino Hansaburo had turned into horse’s legs. Not only that, they believe Tsuneko’s having seen the horse’s legs was itself a hallucination. During my stay in Beijing, I met Dr. Yamanoi and Mr. Mutaguchi and tried many times to shatter their delusion. But I was always met with mocking laughter instead. Even afterward... no, quite recently the novelist Okada Saburo, having apparently heard this story from someone, sent me a letter saying that he simply could not believe the business about horse’s legs. If it were true, he wrote, "I imagine they were probably horse’s forelegs attached to him; but unless they were extraordinarily fine legs capable of performing the fancy gait known as the Spanish trot, I do not know whether even such a trick as kicking things with the forelegs could really be managed by the horse itself, unless perhaps some fellow like Major Yuasa were riding it." On that point I too cannot help entertaining some doubts. Yet merely for that reason, would it not be somewhat rash to deny not only Hansaburo’s diary but Tsuneko’s story as well? In fact, according to my own investigation, the Junten Times, which reported his revival, also carried a small article two or three columns below on the same page, which read as follows:

"Mr. Henry Barrett, president of the American-Chinese Temperance Society, died suddenly aboard a train on the Jinghan Railway. As he died holding a medicine bottle in his hand, suspicions of suicide arose; but analysis revealed that the liquid in the bottle was alcohol."

(January, 1925)