Duck Hunting
This brief reminiscence by Akutagawa Ryunosuke mixes affectionate portraiture, irony, and understated comedy. Recalling a duck-hunting outing in the Taisho era, the narrator sketches a group of supposedly formidable sportsmen who prove utterly incapable of shooting anything at all. The central figure, Professor Keigetsu, emerges as both boisterous and endearing: drunk, loudly amused by the birds’ good fortune, and finally reduced to buying two ducks from a shop in order to keep a promise to his children. Akutagawa’s wit lies in the contrast between the grand masculine ritual of the hunt and its ridiculous outcome. The passage also carries a light satirical edge, exposing vanity, self-deception, and human absurdity without malice.
The last time I saw Professor Omachi was in January of 1924, when I went duck hunting off Shinagawa with Messrs. Kosugi Misei, Kumashiro Taneryo, and Ishikawa Torakichi. As I recall, we met early in the morning at a boathouse near Ichinohashi in Honjo, and from there had a motor launch hired to take us down the Sumida River. Both Mr. Kosugi and Mr. Kumashiro were celebrated hunters. What is more, one of the two boatmen on our vessel was also said to be an expert marksman. Yet, for all that, though we had no fewer than three acknowledged masters of the bloody trade of killing birds and beasts among us, not a single duck was taken that day. Indeed, whether duck or cormorant, any bird resting off Shinagawa seemed to catch sight of our boat and instantly rise all at once into the air. Seeing that not a duck could be had, Professor Keigetsu appeared greatly delighted, clapping his hands and laughing as he said things like, “Remarkable! Ducks nowadays can read, so they all fly straight into the no-hunting zone.” And then, wearing a suspiciously fox-colored cap that looked rather like a hood, and laughing with drops of sake clinging to his mustache in the most unabashed fashion, he was enough by himself to make the ducks flee.
That was how things went, and so that day we did nothing but spend some ten hours buffeted by the sea wind, without taking a single duck. However, when Professor Keigetsu, who had been so delighted that no ducks were shot, came ashore once more at the Ichinohashi landing, his drunkenness seemed to have worn off a little, and he said, “I promised my children I’d bring home two ducks. I wonder if something can’t be done about it. Apparently they mean to give the ducks to their schoolteacher.” So it was decided to have two ducks caught with birdlime bought from a nearby poultry shop. At this, Mr. Kosugi said, “They ought to have gunshot marks on them, shouldn’t they? Shall I put a hole in each one here with a shot?”
But Professor Keigetsu, shaking his head like a child, said, “No, this is more than enough,” and, repeating himself, wrapped the two ducks, sticky all over with birdlime, in old newspaper and carried them home.