Mr. Haruo Sato
In this compact, wry portrait, Akutagawa catalogs five ways in which his friend and fellow writer Haruo Sato has misunderstood him—only to turn each correction into a joke at his own expense or Sato’s.
Haruo Sato, unhappily, is forever misunderstanding me. When I wrote “To Mr. Arishima Ikuma,” Sato said to me, “You ought always to speak your mind that way. It is good because it makes your position perfectly clear.” My position is always perfectly clear. Never once have I told a gentleman whom I thought a fool, “How wise you are! How discerning!” I merely refrain from calling him a fool. If Sato takes that for a failure to show my colors, it can only be called a misunderstanding on his part.
Again, when I wrote “Yasokichi’s Notebook,” Sato said to me, “Yes, that is good. If I may say so, though, I think it a pity for your sake that you do not recognize the beauty of the unfinished.” This too is a misunderstanding. I am not indifferent to the beauty of the unfinished. Otherwise I should hardly have the nerve to publish, with such perfect composure, nothing but unfinished works of my own.
Again, once when I happened to say, “I should like to write a comedy,” Sato told me, “A comedy is something you could write at once.” My temperament is solemn. Unless I summon up my whole spirit, I can scarcely even make a joke. Yet Sato, along with the public at large, mistakes it for an easy feat.
Again, when a certain rising hero praised Sato and disparaged me, Sato sent me a letter saying, “I find it extremely disagreeable to be compared with you.” This, too, must be called a misunderstanding. I have never regarded the author of so much as a single koto song as the possessor of an intellect on the same level as that rising hero. Naturally, I was grateful for Sato’s kindness in saying so.
Again, when we met after the earthquake, Sato said to me, “By the time Ginza has recovered, I suppose we shall both have gone gray.” This is the greatest misunderstanding Sato has ever entertained about me. Once, when I happened to see him naked, I found that Sato possessed a magnificent physique quite unbecoming a poet. There is no prospect whatever of my living out my natural span alongside him. To greet an ugly old age is plainly a destiny bestowed by the gods upon Haruo Sato alone.