Hell Screen

I

Among the accomplishments of the Lord of Horikawa, there was not one that did not exceed all ordinary human measure. Indeed, people said that even before his birth the Wisdom King of Great Awe had appeared in his mother's dream and promised to protect him. From the moment he came into the world, therefore, His Lordship's grandeur seemed almost miraculous. His undertakings were conceived on a scale beyond the reach of common men, yet at heart he was generous and open-handed, moved always by a magnificent ambition. There were ignorant people who compared him with the First Emperor of Qin or the Emperor Yang of Sui; but such judgments were no better than blind men feeling an elephant and mistaking one part for the whole.

His Lordship was not in the least disturbed when the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons was said to have crossed his path. Even the ghost of the Minister of the Left, Toru, appeared before him and respectfully withdrew. Small wonder, then, that everyone from the highest noble to the lowest servant revered him as though he were the very incarnation of a mighty divinity. Once, so the story goes, an old man was struck by the ox drawing His Lordship's carriage. Instead of complaining, the old fellow clasped his hands and declared himself grateful that the ox of so august a person had deigned to touch him.

There were many other stories: the thirty white horses presented to His Lordship; the handsome page whom he caused to be buried beneath the pillar of a bridge; the Chinese priest who cured a malignant swelling by cutting it open. Yet of all His Lordship's exploits, none was so dreadful as the affair that gave rise to the Hell Screen. I had served in his household for twenty years by then, and even I had never witnessed, before or since, a spectacle so appalling.

Before I can tell that story, however, I must first speak of the painter Yoshihide, the man who painted the Hell Screen.

II

There may still be some who remember Yoshihide. In those days he was so famous that people said no living man could surpass him with the brush. By the time of the event I am about to relate, he must have been approaching fifty. To look at, he was a short, emaciated, ill-favored old man, little more than skin and bone. When he came to His Lordship's mansion he commonly wore a clove-dyed hunting robe and a soft-folded court cap. There was something exceedingly mean about his appearance; and, oddly for a man of his age, his conspicuously red lips lent him an unpleasant, almost bestial air. Some said the color came from licking his paintbrushes—whether that was true, I do not know. Those with sharper tongues declared that his every movement resembled a monkey's and even gave him the nickname Monkey Yoshihide.

Speaking of that name reminds me of another story. At the time, Yoshihide's only daughter, a girl of fifteen, served in the mansion as a junior lady-in-waiting. She was as charming as her father was repellent. Perhaps because she had lost her mother at an early age, she was compassionate, sensible beyond her years, and quick to notice the needs of others. The mistress of the house and all the other ladies were very fond of her.

Now, on some occasion, a tame monkey was presented to His Lordship from the province of Tamba. The young master, who was then at the height of his mischievous years, named it Yoshihide. The creature was comical enough even without such a name, and there was not a person in the household who failed to laugh. If they had stopped at laughter, no harm would have been done. Instead, whenever it climbed a pine in the garden or soiled the matting in one of the rooms, everyone would shout, “Yoshihide! Yoshihide!” and torment it for sport.

One day Yoshihide's daughter was walking down a long corridor carrying a branch of winter-blooming red plum to which a letter had been tied. From beyond a sliding door in the distance came the little monkey Yoshihide at full flight. It must have sprained a leg, for it had none of its usual strength to scramble up a pillar, but limped along as fast as it could. Behind it ran the young master, brandishing a switch and crying, “Stop, you orange thief! Stop!” The girl hesitated for a moment. Just then the fleeing monkey clung to the hem of her trousers and gave a pitiful cry, and she could no longer restrain her compassion. Holding the plum branch aloft in one hand, she lightly opened the sleeve of her violet robe with the other, gathered the monkey gently into her arms, bowed before the young master, and said in her clear voice, “Forgive my presumption, my lord, but it is only a dumb animal. I beg you to pardon it.”

The young master had worked himself into a fine excitement during the chase. He frowned and stamped his foot two or three times.

“Why are you protecting it? That monkey is an orange thief.”

“Because it is only a dumb animal, my lord…”

The girl repeated herself. Then, with a melancholy smile, she added as though summoning all her courage:

“And whenever I hear someone call it Yoshihide, it feels as though my own father were being punished. It is more than I can endure to stand by and watch.” Even the young master relented at that.

“Is that so? If you are pleading for your father's life, I shall make an exception and spare him.”

He spoke with obvious reluctance, threw down the switch, and went straight back through the sliding door from which he had come.

III

From that day Yoshihide's daughter and the little monkey became inseparable. She hung a golden bell, a gift from the princess, on a beautiful scarlet cord and fastened it around the monkey's neck. For its part, the creature hardly ever left her side. Once, when the girl caught cold and took to her bed, it planted itself at her pillow and sat there biting its nails, looking—unless imagination deceived us—quite forlorn.

Strangely enough, after this no one tormented the monkey as before. On the contrary, the whole household gradually grew fond of it. In the end even the young master would toss it persimmons and chestnuts; and when one of the warriors kicked it, he was said to have flown into a great rage. Later His Lordship expressly commanded Yoshihide's daughter to appear before him carrying the monkey. This was reportedly after he had heard of the young master's anger, and in the course of the telling he must naturally have learned why the girl had befriended the creature.

“You are a dutiful child,” His Lordship said. “You shall be rewarded.”

He gave her a crimson underrobe. The monkey, imitating what it had seen others do, raised the robe reverently to its forehead, and this put His Lordship in even better humor. Thus His Lordship's favor toward Yoshihide's daughter sprang entirely from his admiration for the filial tenderness she had shown the monkey. It was certainly not, as the vulgar rumor had it, because he had conceived a desire for her. There was, I admit, some appearance of cause for that rumor, but I shall explain it in due course. For now it is enough to say that His Lordship was not a man to set his heart upon the daughter of a mere painter, however beautiful she might be.

Yoshihide's daughter withdrew from his presence with increased honor. Sensible as she was, she gave the coarser ladies no occasion for jealousy. Instead, she and the monkey were cherished all the more, and she remained constantly at the princess's side, never failing even to accompany her lady's carriage on an outing.

But let us leave the daughter for the moment and return to her father. The monkey, as I have said, soon became everyone's favorite. The real Yoshihide, however, remained universally detested, and behind his back people continued to call him Monkey Yoshihide. Nor was this confined to His Lordship's mansion. The Abbot of Yokawa himself would change color at the mere mention of the painter, as though confronted by some demonic obstacle. It was said that Yoshihide had once made a caricature of the abbot's conduct, though that was only common gossip and cannot be affirmed as fact. Wherever one inquired, the painter's reputation was equally bad. If anyone spoke well of him, it was one of two or three fellow painters, or else someone who knew his pictures but did not know the man.

In truth, it was not only his wretched appearance that made people dislike him. He possessed far uglier habits, and one can only say that the hatred he inspired was the fruit of his own conduct.

IV

He was miserly, grasping, shameless, lazy, and greedy. Worst of all, he was overbearing and arrogant, forever parading the claim that he was the foremost painter in the realm. Had his pride been confined to art, it might have been tolerable; but his spiteful contempt extended to every custom and convention of society. A man who had long studied under him told me that, when the celebrated medium Higaki was possessed by a spirit at a certain nobleman's mansion and uttered a terrifying oracle, Yoshihide merely pricked up his ears and carefully sketched the woman's dreadful face with whatever brush and ink happened to be at hand. To his eyes, apparently, even the curse of an angry spirit was no more than a child's trick.

Such being his nature, when he painted the goddess Kichijōten he used the face of a lowly puppet woman, and when he portrayed the Immovable Wisdom King he modeled the figure on a lawless guard. He committed one impious outrage after another. Yet if anyone reproached him, he would say with a derisive air, “What a curious notion—that the gods and Buddhas painted by Yoshihide could punish Yoshihide!” Even his disciples were appalled, and not a few hastily left his service for fear of what awaited them in the next world. His sin, one might say, was pride piled upon pride. At any rate, he believed there was no greater man beneath heaven than himself.

It goes without saying how loftily he carried himself in matters of painting. His use of the brush and color was wholly unlike that of other artists, and hostile members of the profession often denounced him as a charlatan. They pointed out that works by the old masters—Kawanari, Kanaoka, and the rest—were attended by elegant legends: plum blossoms painted on a wooden door were said to give fragrance every moonlit night, and courtiers on a screen could be heard playing their flutes. Yoshihide's paintings, by contrast, inspired only sinister and uncanny tales. Of the picture of birth and death in the Five Paths that he painted on the gate of Ryūgaiji Temple, it was said that those who passed beneath it late at night heard heavenly beings sighing and voices sobbing. Some even claimed to smell corpses rotting. Then there were the portraits of ladies painted at His Lordship's command: every woman whose likeness appeared in them, people said, fell ill as though her soul had been drawn out and died within three years. His detractors called this the clearest proof that Yoshihide's art had fallen into heresy.

But, as I have already said, opposition only increased his pride. Once His Lordship joked, “It seems that you are uncommonly fond of ugly things.” Yoshihide grinned unpleasantly with those red lips, so strange in a man of his age, and answered, “Indeed, my lord. Ordinary daubers could hardly be expected to understand the beauty of ugliness.” Foremost painter in the realm or not, it was astonishing that he dared speak so boastfully before His Lordship. The disciple I mentioned secretly called his master Chira Eiju in mockery of his swollen pride. As you may know, Chira Eiju was the name of a tengu that came long ago from China.

Yet even Yoshihide—even that perverse and indescribable creature—possessed one trace of human affection.

V

It was the mad devotion he bore his only daughter, the young lady-in-waiting. As I have said, the girl herself was gentle and deeply devoted to her father, but his love for her was no less intense. When it came to her clothes and ornaments, the man who had never contributed a coin to any temple appeal spent money without the slightest reluctance. It scarcely seemed possible.

Yet for all his adoration, Yoshihide never dreamed of finding her a suitable husband. Indeed, if any man made dishonorable advances to her, he was quite capable of gathering a band of street ruffians and having the fellow ambushed in the dark. He was therefore furious when, at His Lordship's word, she entered the mansion as a junior lady. For some time afterward he appeared before His Lordship with a face black with resentment. The rumor that His Lordship had been captivated by the girl's beauty and taken her into service against her father's wishes probably arose from the idle guesses of those who observed this behavior.

The rumor was false, but it is true that Yoshihide, driven by his infatuation with his child, ceaselessly begged to have her returned to him. Once he painted, at His Lordship's command, the Bodhisattva Manjusri as a child, using as his model a boy whom His Lordship particularly favored. The work was splendid, and His Lordship was exceedingly pleased.

“As your reward, I shall give you whatever you desire. Ask without reserve.”

Yoshihide bowed low. We wondered what he would request, but he answered without the least hesitation:

“Then I beg Your Lordship to release my daughter from service and return her to me.” Whatever might have been tolerated in another house, who in all the land would so rudely ask that a servant be dismissed from the side of the Lord of Horikawa merely because her father doted upon her?

Even His Lordship, magnanimous as he was, seemed somewhat displeased. For a while he said nothing, merely gazing at Yoshihide's face. At length he spat out, “That cannot be,” and abruptly rose and left. This same thing happened four or five times, I believe. Looking back now, it seems to me that His Lordship's eyes grew colder each time they rested upon Yoshihide. The daughter, meanwhile, perhaps out of anxiety for her father, would often bite the sleeve of her robe and weep quietly when she had retired to her room. So the rumor that His Lordship desired her spread still further. Some even say that the Hell Screen came about because the girl refused to yield to him, but of course no such thing could possibly have been true.

As we saw it, His Lordship refused to dismiss Yoshihide's daughter solely out of compassion for the girl. Rather than send her back to so obstinate a father, he kindly intended to keep her in the mansion, where she could live without want. There is no doubt that he favored the gentle-hearted girl. But to claim that his favor arose from lust is surely a forced interpretation—indeed, one might better call it an utter falsehood.

Be that as it may, Yoshihide had fallen considerably in His Lordship's estimation on account of these repeated requests concerning his daughter. Then, for reasons known only to himself, His Lordship suddenly summoned the painter and commanded him to paint a screen depicting the torments of hell.

VI

Whenever the Hell Screen is mentioned, the dreadful scene painted upon it rises before my eyes as vividly as though it were still here.

Although it portrayed hell like many another screen, Yoshihide's work differed from those of all other painters in its very composition. In one corner he placed the Ten Kings of Hell and their attendants, small figures almost lost in the design. Across the rest of the screen, the raging fires of the Crimson Lotus and Great Crimson Lotus Hells whirled so fiercely that even the mountains of swords and trees of blades seemed about to melt. Apart from the scattered yellow and indigo of the Chinese-style robes worn by the infernal magistrates, every part of the picture blazed with flame. Through it all, black smoke flew like splashed ink and sparks like showers of gold dust, wheeling madly in the shape of great swastikas.

That alone displayed a force of brushwork sufficient to astonish anyone. Yet the sinners writhing in the flames were unlike almost every figure ordinarily found in paintings of hell. Yoshihide had modeled that multitude upon people of every station, from the loftiest court noble to the lowest beggar and outcast: an imposing courtier in full ceremonial dress, a graceful lady in five-layered robes, a chanting priest with beads around his neck, a warrior-scholar in high clogs, a little girl in a long tunic, an astrologer raising a sacred wand—the list would be endless. Men and women of every kind fled in all directions through billowing fire and smoke as the ox-headed and horse-headed wardens tormented them, scattered like autumn leaves in a gale. Was the woman whose hair had caught in an iron fork, her limbs drawn up like a spider's, perhaps a shrine medium? The man hanging upside down like a bat, a spear driven through his chest, must surely have been some newly appointed provincial governor. Others were beaten with iron rods, crushed beneath boulders that a thousand men could not move, torn by the beaks of monstrous birds, or bitten by the jaws of venomous dragons. There were as many forms of punishment as there were sinners.

Most terrible and conspicuous of all was a single ox carriage falling through the air, half grazing the crown of a tree of swords whose blades, like an animal's fangs, had already pierced innumerable damned souls. The blinds of the carriage streamed upward in the winds of hell. Within sat a lady dressed with all the splendor of an imperial consort. Her long black hair flew amid the flames, and she arched her white neck in agony. Both the woman and the burning carriage embodied every torment of the Inferno of Scorching Heat. One might say that all the horror of the vast composition gathered in that single figure. So consummate was the work that whoever looked upon it seemed naturally to hear dreadful screams sounding in the depths of his ears.

Yes—that was it. It was to paint that carriage that the appalling event occurred. Without it, even Yoshihide could never have rendered the sufferings of the abyss with such living force. In completing the screen, he met with a cruel fate for which he paid with life itself. The hell in that painting was, so to speak, the very hell into which Yoshihide, foremost painter in the realm, was one day to fall.

In my haste to describe that extraordinary screen, I may have put my story out of order. Let me return, then, to Yoshihide after he received His Lordship's command to paint it.

VII

For the next five or six months Yoshihide scarcely appeared at the mansion, devoting himself entirely to the screen. Strange, is it not, that a man so besotted with his daughter should forget even to see her once he took up his brush? According to the disciple I mentioned earlier, whenever Yoshihide began a work it was as though a fox spirit had possessed him. Indeed, people said that he had won fame as a painter by making a vow to the god of fortune. As proof they claimed that, if one secretly watched him paint from behind some concealment, the shadowy forms of spirit foxes could always be seen crowding around him on every side. When he lifted his brush, he forgot everything except bringing the picture to completion. Shut up in one room day and night, he seldom saw the sun. While painting the Hell Screen, this obsession was more violent than ever.

I do not refer merely to his mixing secret pigments beneath a lamp in a room whose shutters remained closed even at noon, nor to his dressing his disciples in hunting robes and other costumes and painstakingly sketching them one by one. He was capable of such eccentricities whenever he worked, whether the subject was the Hell Screen or anything else. While painting the Five Paths at Ryūgaiji Temple, for example, he had calmly seated himself before a corpse in the road—the sort from which any ordinary person would avert his eyes—and copied its half-rotted face and limbs without omitting a single hair. What, then, do I mean by the extremity of his obsession? I have no time to relate every detail, but the principal incidents were as follows.

One day a disciple—the same man I have already mentioned—was grinding pigments when Yoshihide suddenly entered.

“I think I shall take a nap,” he said. “But lately my dreams have been bad.” There was nothing particularly unusual in this, so the disciple continued working and merely replied:

“Indeed, Master?” Yoshihide, however, wore an unaccustomedly forlorn expression.

“While I sleep, would you sit beside my pillow?” he asked, almost apologetically. The disciple wondered that his master, of all men, should be troubled by dreams, but the request was easy enough.

“Certainly,” he answered. Yoshihide still looked uneasy.

“Then come into the inner room at once. And if any of the others arrive, do not let them enter while I am asleep.” The inner room was his studio. Its doors were closed so tightly that it was dark as night, and a dim lamp burned among the screen panels arranged around the room, on which only the charcoal outlines had yet been drawn. Yoshihide lay down with his elbow for a pillow and soon slept as peacefully as a man exhausted beyond endurance. Less than an hour later, however, a voice of indescribable horror began to reach the ears of the disciple seated beside him.

VIII

At first it was no more than a sound. Gradually it broke into fragments of speech, like the groaning of a drowning man beneath the water.

“What? You tell me to come? Where—where do you bid me come? Into the abyss? Into the Inferno of Scorching Heat? Who are you to command me? Who are you—who can you be—?”

The disciple stopped grinding his pigments and fearfully peered at his master's face. Yoshihide's wrinkled features had gone white and were beaded with great drops of sweat. His dry-lipped mouth, with its sparse teeth, gaped wide as though he were gasping for air. Something inside it moved so rapidly that it seemed to be jerked by a string. It was the painter's tongue, and from it came those broken words.

“Who can you be—ah, it is you. I thought it would be. What? You have come to fetch me? Then come. Come into the abyss. In the abyss—in the abyss my daughter is waiting.”

The disciple said that at those words he felt so great a horror that he seemed to see a vague, monstrous shadow sweep across the screen and descend in a gathering mass. He seized Yoshihide and shook him with all his strength, but the painter continued muttering between sleep and waking and showed no sign of opening his eyes. At last the disciple snatched up the water used for washing brushes and dashed it into his face.

“She is waiting, so climb into this carriage—ride this carriage into the abyss—” The words turned at once into a strangled groan. Yoshihide finally opened his eyes and sprang upright as violently as if stabbed by a needle. The monstrous beings of his dream still seemed to linger behind his eyelids. For some moments he stared into space, mouth open, terror in his eyes. Then he appeared to recover himself.

“That will do. Go away,” he ordered with sudden coldness. The disciple knew that disobedience at such a time would bring a furious scolding, so he hurried from the studio. He later said that when he saw the bright daylight outside, he felt as relieved as though he himself had awakened from a nightmare.

IX

Yet that was one of the milder incidents. About a month later, another disciple was specially summoned to the inner room. Yoshihide sat biting his brush in the dim light of an oil lamp. Abruptly he turned to the young man.

“I am sorry to trouble you, but will you strip again?” This was something Yoshihide had occasionally required before, so the disciple at once removed his clothes and stood naked. The painter twisted his face into a peculiar grimace.

“I want to see a man bound in chains. I regret the discomfort, but for a little while will you submit to whatever I do?” He spoke coldly, without the least appearance of regret. This disciple was a burly young fellow who looked better suited to wielding a sword than a brush, yet even he was startled. Whenever he told the story afterward, he would repeat, “I thought the master had gone mad and meant to kill me.” Yoshihide soon lost patience with his hesitation. Drawing from somewhere a thin iron chain that rattled through his hands, he all but leaped upon the disciple's back, twisted both arms behind him, and wound the chain round and round without allowing any protest. Then he gave its end a vicious pull. The disciple toppled sideways and struck the floor with a crash.

He looked, one might say, like a wine jar rolled onto its side. His arms and legs were cruelly bent, and only his head could move. The chain stopped the blood from circulating through his heavy body, so that the skin of his face and trunk alike gradually flushed scarlet. Yoshihide seemed not to care. He walked around the jar-like body, inspecting it from every angle and making sketch after sketch of the same pose. There is no need for me to dwell upon how the bound disciple suffered meanwhile.

Had nothing intervened, the torment would probably have continued much longer. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—a thin stream of something like black oil presently began to coil out from behind a jar in the corner. At first it moved slowly, as though extremely viscous, then slid more smoothly over the floor. When it had glided, glittering, almost to the disciple's nose, he sharply drew in his breath.

“A snake! A snake!” he screamed. He said that all the blood in his body seemed to freeze at once, and small wonder: the creature was on the point of touching its cold tongue to the flesh where the chain cut into his neck. Even the perverse Yoshihide started at this unexpected occurrence. He flung down his brush, stooped instantly, seized the snake by the tail, and held it dangling upside down. The snake raised its head and wound itself tightly about its own body, but could not reach the painter's hand.

“Because of you, I have spoiled a perfectly good stroke,” Yoshihide muttered bitterly.

He threw the snake back into the jar in the corner, then reluctantly unfastened the chain from his disciple. That was all: he did not offer the unfortunate young man so much as one kindly word. The spoiled line, it seems, angered him more than the danger that his disciple might have been bitten. I learned afterward that Yoshihide kept the snake expressly so that he could sketch it.

By now you will understand something of the mad and sinister absorption with which he worked. Yet there was one final incident, in which a disciple of only thirteen or fourteen very nearly lost his life on account of the Hell Screen. The boy was pale by nature and looked almost like a girl. One night Yoshihide summoned him casually into the studio. There beneath the lamp the painter held a piece of raw, foul-smelling flesh in his palm and was feeding an unfamiliar bird. It was about the size of an ordinary cat. With tufts of feathers protruding on either side like ears and enormous round eyes the color of amber, the creature even looked rather like one.

X

Yoshihide detested anyone meddling in his affairs. Just as with the snake I have mentioned, he never allowed his disciples to know what objects he kept in his room. At one time a skull might appear on his desk; at another, silver bowls or lacquered serving stands would be set out, depending on the picture he was painting. Yet no one knew where he ordinarily hid these unexpected things. The rumor that he enjoyed the secret aid of the god of fortune undoubtedly arose in part from this mystery.

The disciple assumed that the strange bird on the desk must also be required for the Hell Screen. Kneeling respectfully before his master, he asked, “Did you have some task for me?” Yoshihide behaved as though he had not heard, merely licking those red lips.

“Well? Is it not remarkably tame?” he said, nodding toward the bird.

“What kind of creature is it? I have never seen one before.”

The boy gazed uneasily at the catlike bird with ears. Yoshihide replied in his usual mocking tone:

“Never seen one? That is the trouble with people raised in the capital. It is an eagle owl. A hunter from Mount Kurama gave it to me two or three days ago. There cannot be many as tame as this.”

As he spoke, Yoshihide slowly raised his hand and stroked upward along the back of the owl, which had just finished its food. At that instant the bird gave one short, piercing cry, sprang from the desk, spread the claws of both feet, and flew straight at the disciple's face. Had the boy not thrown up his sleeve and hastily covered his eyes, he would surely have suffered a wound or two. Crying out, he waved the sleeve to drive it away. The owl pressed its advantage, snapping its beak and striking again. Forgetting that he stood before his master, the boy leaped up to defend himself, crouched to ward it off, and fled blindly about the narrow room. The monstrous bird pursued him high and low, darting at his eyes whenever it saw an opening. Each terrible beat of its wings stirred some uncanny presence—perhaps the smell of fallen leaves, the spray of a waterfall, or the sour reek of fermented monkey wine. Nothing could have been more eerie. The disciple later said that even the dim oil lamp seemed to him like hazy moonlight, and the studio like a remote mountain ravine sealed in malignant enchantment.

But the assault of the owl was not what frightened him most. Far more chilling was the sight of Yoshihide calmly watching the confusion, slowly spreading out paper and moistening his brush while he sketched the ghastly figure of an effeminate boy tormented by a monstrous bird. One glance at the painter filled the disciple with indescribable terror. For a moment, he truly believed that his master intended to kill him.

XI

Indeed, it was by no means impossible that the master might kill him. The very reason Yoshihide had summoned the boy that night appears to have been his intention to set the eagle owl upon him and sketch him as he fled. The moment the disciple saw his master's expression, therefore, he hid his head in both sleeves, uttered a scream whose words he himself could not afterward recall, and cowered at the foot of a sliding door in the corner of the room. At that instant Yoshihide too cried out as though startled and seemed to spring to his feet. The owl's wings suddenly beat more furiously than before, and the room rang with the violent crash of something falling and something tearing. Twice bewildered by this new commotion, the boy raised the head he had hidden. The room had somehow gone completely dark, and through the darkness came his master's impatient voice calling for the other disciples.

Presently one of them answered from a distance and hurried in holding up a lamp. In its sooty light they saw that a lampstand had toppled, spilling oil across the floor and mats. In the midst of it the eagle owl rolled about, painfully beating only one wing. Yoshihide had half risen behind his desk and stared in genuine astonishment, muttering words no one could understand. Nor was his amazement surprising. A pitch-black snake had wound itself tightly around the owl's body from neck to wing.

The disciple who had frozen in terror had probably knocked over the jar beside him. The snake escaped from it, and the owl, rashly trying to seize the creature, brought this uproar upon itself. The two disciples looked at one another and for a time merely stared at the strange spectacle. At last they bowed silently to their master and crept back to their room. No one knows what afterward became of the snake or the eagle owl.

There were countless other incidents of the same kind. I neglected to say earlier that His Lordship ordered the Hell Screen at the beginning of autumn. From then until the end of winter, Yoshihide's disciples lived in continual fear of their master's uncanny conduct. Late that winter, however, something in the painting apparently refused to yield to him. He grew gloomier than ever and markedly harsher in speech. At the same time the screen ceased to advance. Though the preliminary drawing was perhaps eight-tenths complete, it made no further progress; indeed, Yoshihide sometimes looked capable of obliterating even what he had already painted.

What part of the screen defeated him, no one knew. Nor, I imagine, did anyone try to discover it. Chastened by all that had happened, the disciples felt as though they shared a cage with tigers and wolves, and took every possible care to keep away from their master.

XII

For that reason there is little worth relating about this interval. If I must mention anything, it would be that the obstinate old man somehow became strangely prone to tears and was sometimes seen weeping alone. One day a disciple came into the garden on an errand and found his master standing in the corridor, gazing blankly at the sky with spring already near, his eyes brimming with tears. The disciple felt almost ashamed on his behalf and quietly stole away. Was it not extraordinary that this proud man, who was said to have copied even roadside corpses for his painting of the Five Paths of Birth and Death, should cry like a child merely because the screen would not come out as he wished?

While Yoshihide thus painted with an obsession hardly compatible with sanity, his daughter for some reason grew steadily more despondent. Even we could plainly see her fighting back tears. She had always been pale, modest, and touched by melancholy; now her lashes seemed heavier, shadows gathered around her eyes, and she looked lonelier than before. At first people offered all manner of guesses—that she was anxious for her father, or suffering from unrequited love. Later, however, a rumor began to spread that His Lordship was trying to force her to submit to his wishes. From that time everyone suddenly stopped speaking of her, as though they had forgotten the girl existed.

It must have been about then that, late one night, I was walking alone down a corridor when the monkey Yoshihide sprang from somewhere and began tugging insistently at the hem of my trousers. It was a warm night, I remember, with thin moonlight in which one could almost smell the plum blossoms. By that light I saw the monkey baring its white teeth, wrinkling its nose, and shrieking frantically as though driven mad. At first I was three parts uneasy and seven parts angry at having my new trousers pulled about, and thought of kicking it away and continuing on. Then I recalled the guard who had incurred the young master's displeasure by striking the animal. Besides, its behavior was plainly no ordinary mischief. At last I made up my mind and followed it some five or six paces in the direction it pulled.

We rounded a bend in the corridor. Beyond a gracefully spreading pine, the pale water of the pond lay broad under the night sky. Just there, from a nearby chamber, I heard the sounds of what seemed to be a struggle—hurried, yet strangely muffled. Everywhere else was utterly still. In the uncertain veil of moonlight or mist, not a voice could be heard, only the occasional splash of a fish. Against such silence, the noise inside startled me. I stopped and, resolving to teach any intruder a lesson, crept up to the sliding door and held my breath.

XIII

The monkey evidently found me too slow. It raced around my legs two or three times in obvious frustration, uttering a cry like a creature being strangled, then leaped in a single bound toward my shoulder. I jerked back my neck to escape its claws while it bit into the sleeve of my hunting robe to keep from sliding down. In the commotion I staggered back two or three steps and struck the sliding door hard with my body.

There was no longer time to hesitate. I flung the door open and was about to leap into the moonless depths of the room. But what stopped me—or rather, what astonished me even more—was a woman who at that same instant came rushing out as though released from a spring. She almost collided with me, stumbled outside, and fell to her knees. Panting, she looked up at my face with a tremor, as though I were some terrifying apparition.

I need hardly tell you that it was Yoshihide's daughter. Yet that night she appeared so vividly before me that she seemed another person altogether. Her eyes shone wide; her cheeks were burning red. Her disordered trousers and robe lent her a sensuality wholly unlike her usual childishness. Could this really be the same frail, retiring girl? Supporting myself against the door, I stared at her beautiful figure in the moonlight. Then, pointing toward the hurried footsteps of another person receding in the distance, I silently asked with my eyes who it was.

She bit her lip and shook her head without speaking. Her whole manner showed bitter mortification.

I bent down until my mouth was almost at her ear and whispered, “Who was it?” Again she only shook her head and said nothing. At the same time her long lashes filled with tears, and she bit her lip even harder than before.

By nature I am a simple man. Except for things so obvious that they scarcely require understanding, I am unfortunately slow to grasp anything. Not knowing what words to offer, I stood motionless for a while, feeling as though I listened to the pounding of her heart. Perhaps, too, some shame warned me that it would be wrong to question her further.

I do not know how long we remained so. At last I closed the open door, looked back at the girl, whose flush had somewhat subsided, and said as gently as I could, “You should return to your room.” Then I myself walked softly back the way I had come, oppressed by the uneasy feeling that I had witnessed something forbidden and ashamed without knowing before whom. I had not gone ten paces when someone timidly tugged once more at the hem of my trousers. I turned in surprise. What do you suppose I saw?

At my feet sat the monkey Yoshihide. With both hands on the floor like a human being, it rang its golden bell and bowed its head to me again and again with elaborate gratitude.

XIV

About half a month after the events of that night, Yoshihide suddenly came to the mansion and requested a personal audience with His Lordship. Though a man of low station, he had long enjoyed particular favor. His Lordship, who seldom consented to see anyone so readily, graciously agreed and had him brought near at once.

The painter wore his usual clove-dyed hunting robe and wilted court cap. Looking even more ill-tempered than usual, he prostrated himself respectfully before His Lordship and said in a hoarse voice:

“Concerning the Hell Screen Your Lordship commanded me to paint: through the devotion with which I have labored day and night, it is now for the most part as good as finished.”

“Excellent. I am pleased.”

Yet for some reason His Lordship's voice sounded strangely weak and lacking in spirit.

“No, there is nothing excellent in it.” Yoshihide kept his eyes fixed on the floor, his manner almost resentful. “The greater part is complete, but there remains one thing that even now lies beyond my brush.”

“What? There is something you cannot paint?”

“There is, my lord. As a rule, I am unable to paint what I have not seen. Even if I manage it, the result does not satisfy me. And is that not the same as being unable to paint it at all?”

At this His Lordship's face assumed a mocking smile.

“Then if you wished to paint a screen of hell, you would have to see hell itself.”

“Indeed, my lord. But when the great fire occurred some years ago, I beheld with my own eyes flames like the raging fire of the Hell of Burning Heat. It was because I passed through that conflagration that I could paint my Writhing Fudo. Your Lordship will remember that picture.”

“And the sinners? The wardens? You can hardly have seen them.” His Lordship pressed the question as though Yoshihide had not spoken.

“I have seen men bound in iron chains. I have carefully sketched a man tormented by a monstrous bird. Thus no one can say I know nothing of sinners suffering punishment. As for the wardens—” Yoshihide gave a sinister, bitter smile. “The wardens have appeared before me countless times, somewhere between dream and waking. Ox-headed, horse-headed, or demons with three faces and six arms, they come to torment me, clapping soundless hands and opening voiceless mouths. It happens nearly every day and every night. Those are not the things I wish to paint but am unable to.”

Even His Lordship must have been startled by this. For a while he merely glared at Yoshihide in irritation. Then, drawing his brows sharply together, he said as though casting the words away:

“Then what is it you cannot paint?”

XV

“At the very center of the screen, I intend to paint a palm-leaf carriage falling from the sky.” Yoshihide spoke these words and for the first time fixed His Lordship with a piercing stare. I had heard that the man became like a lunatic whenever painting was concerned, and the look in his eyes then certainly held that kind of terror.

“Inside the carriage there will be a single beautiful court lady, her black hair streaming as she writhes in the raging flames. Choked by smoke, she will knit her brows and look upward toward the roof of the carriage. Perhaps her hands will tear apart the lower blinds as she tries to shield herself from the rain of sparks. Around her, ten or twenty strange birds will wheel in confusion, snapping their beaks. Ah—but that court lady inside the carriage is the one thing beyond my power to paint.”

“And so—what do you ask?”

For some reason His Lordship looked strangely delighted as he urged Yoshihide on. The painter's red lips trembled as though with fever. In the voice of a man speaking in a dream, he repeated:

“I am unable to paint her.” Then suddenly, with the force of someone about to bite, he cried, “I beg Your Lordship to have a palm-leaf carriage set on fire before my eyes. And if it might be possible—”

His Lordship's face darkened. Then without warning he burst into shrill laughter. Choking upon it, he declared:

“Very well. Everything shall be done exactly as you say. Whether it can or cannot be done is no matter for debate.”

At those words, some premonition filled me with horror. His Lordship's appearance itself was far from ordinary: white foam gathered at the corners of his mouth, and a twitch like lightning ran through his brows. He seemed infected by Yoshihide's madness. Pausing only briefly, he again laughed without end, his throat rattling as though something had burst within him.

“The palm-leaf carriage shall be burned. And inside it I shall place a beautiful woman dressed as a court lady. A woman in the carriage, beset by flames and black smoke, writhing until she dies—that thought is worthy indeed of the foremost painter in the realm. I commend you. Yes, I commend you!”

At His Lordship's words Yoshihide suddenly lost all color. He gasped, moving only his lips. Then, as though every sinew in his body had gone slack, he dropped both hands flat upon the mats.

“I am deeply grateful for this honor,” he said, bowing with painstaking courtesy in a voice so low it was scarcely audible.

Perhaps His Lordship's words had caused the horror of his own design to rise vividly before him. Only once in my life did I ever feel pity for Yoshihide, and it was at that moment.

XVI

Two or three nights later, His Lordship summoned Yoshihide as promised and allowed him to witness the burning of the palm-leaf carriage at close quarters. This did not take place at the Horikawa mansion. The carriage was burned at a villa outside the capital, formerly occupied by His Lordship's younger sister and commonly called the Melting-Snow Palace.

No one had lived at the Melting-Snow Palace for a long time, and its broad garden had been abandoned to utter ruin. Perhaps it was merely a conjecture inspired by the desolation of the place, but many strange rumors circulated about the fate of His Lordship's sister, who had died there. Some people said that even now, on every moonless night, the mysterious scarlet of her divided skirt could be seen moving along the corridors without ever touching the floor. Such stories were understandable. Lonely even by day, after sunset the palace became so eerie that the sound of the garden stream echoed with peculiar gloom, and a night heron flying in the starlight might be mistaken for some monstrous apparition.

That night too was moonless and utterly dark. In the glow of the great oil lamps, His Lordship sat near the veranda in a pale-blue court robe and deep-purple trousers patterned in damask, enthroned cross-legged upon a round mat edged with white brocade. Five or six attendants were arrayed respectfully before, behind, and beside him. One among them looked especially ominous: a warrior of prodigious strength, said to have acquired the power to split a living deer's antlers after once eating human flesh when starving during the war in Mutsu. He wore armor beneath his robes, carried his sword thrust up at the back in the gull-tail fashion, and crouched grimly below the veranda. As the lamplight wavered in the night wind, all these figures emerged by turns into brightness and shadow, looking so uncanny that one could hardly distinguish dream from waking.

In the garden stood the palm-leaf carriage. Its tall roof pressed massively upon the darkness; no ox was harnessed to it, and its long black shafts slanted down upon the stand. The gilt fittings glittered here and there like stars. Though it was spring, the sight sent a chill over my skin. Heavy blue blinds edged with figured silk sealed the carriage tightly, so that no one could see what was inside. Around it stood menials holding blazing torches, each trying to keep the smoke from drifting toward the veranda while waiting with an air of solemn purpose.

Yoshihide knelt some distance away, directly opposite the veranda. He wore, as usual, what seemed to be his clove-dyed hunting robe and limp court cap, but beneath the weight of the star-filled sky he looked smaller and shabbier than ever. Behind him crouched another man in a similar cap and robe, probably one of the disciples he had brought with him. Both were so far within the dimness that, from my place below the veranda, I could not even make out the colors of their robes.

XVII

It must have been nearly midnight. The darkness enclosing the garden seemed to hold its breath and listen to the breathing of everyone assembled. Only a faint night wind could be heard, carrying the sooty smell of torch smoke each time it passed. His Lordship silently surveyed this strange scene for a while. Then he leaned forward.

“Yoshihide,” he called sharply.

The painter appeared to answer, but only a groan reached my ears.

“Yoshihide. Tonight, as you desired, I shall set the carriage on fire before your eyes.”

His Lordship spoke while casting a sidelong glance at his attendants. I thought I saw a meaningful smile pass between him and one or another of them, though perhaps it was only my imagination. Yoshihide timidly raised his head toward the veranda, but remained silent.

“Look well. This is the carriage in which I customarily ride. You will remember it. I intend now to set it ablaze and bring the Hell of Scorching Heat before your very eyes.”

Again His Lordship paused and signaled to his attendants. Then, in a voice suddenly filled with bitterness, he continued:

“Inside sits a sinful woman, bound fast. When the carriage burns, her flesh will roast, her bones will char, and she will die in every torment. No better model could be found for the completion of your screen. Do not miss the sight of her snow-white skin blistering in the flames. Observe carefully how her black hair becomes sparks and whirls into the air.”

His Lordship fell silent for the third time. Then, for whatever reason, he shook his shoulders and laughed soundlessly.

“It will be a spectacle unmatched for generations. I shall watch it here myself. Come, raise the blind and let Yoshihide see the woman inside.”

At the command, one of the menials strode to the carriage, holding his torch high in one hand, and abruptly swept up the blind with the other. The torch crackled violently; its flame swayed red for an instant and then brightly illuminated the narrow interior. Cruelly chained upon the seat was a lady—ah, who could possibly have mistaken her? She wore a cherry-colored Chinese jacket glittering with embroidery. Her sleek black hair fell lustrously behind her, and a golden hair ornament, tilted to one side, shone beautifully. Her clothes were different, but that small figure, the pale curve of her neck, and the modest profile so subdued as to seem melancholy could belong to no one but Yoshihide's daughter. I almost cried out.

At that instant the warrior facing me sprang up, gripped the hilt of his sword, and glared at Yoshihide. Following his gaze, I saw that the painter had half lost his senses. He leaped from the crouch in which he had remained until then and, both arms outstretched, made as if to run blindly toward the carriage. Unfortunately, as I have said, he had been kneeling in deep shadow, so at first I could not clearly see his face. But this lasted only an instant. Yoshihide's bloodless face—indeed his whole body, as though hoisted into the air by some invisible power—suddenly stood out with appalling clarity from the dimness. For at His Lordship's command, “Set it alight,” the menials had hurled their torches, and the palm-leaf carriage containing his daughter roared into flame.

XVIII

In the blink of an eye the fire enveloped the carriage roof. The purple tassels hanging from the eaves streamed out as though whipped by a gale. Beneath them, clouds of smoke, white even against the night, coiled upward. Sparks poured down like rain, as if the blinds, sleeves, and metal roof fittings had all shattered and flown apart at once. The horror of it was beyond words. Yet still more terrible was the color of the raging flames. They thrust out writhing tongues, clung to the latticed sides, and climbed halfway to the sky—as though the sun itself had fallen upon the earth and heavenly fire were bursting from it. I, who moments before had almost cried out, now stood with my soul extinguished, mouth agape, able only to stare at the dreadful spectacle. But Yoshihide, the father—

I shall never forget Yoshihide's face at that moment. He had started toward the carriage without knowing what he did, but the instant the flames rose, he stopped. His hands remained outstretched as he stared so fiercely at the fire and smoke enveloping the carriage that he seemed drawn bodily into them. The glare bathed him from head to foot, showing every detail of his ugly, wrinkled face, down to the tips of his beard. In his wide-open eyes, his twisted lips, and the ceaseless convulsions of his cheeks were plainly written all the fear, grief, and amazement surging through his heart. No thief awaiting decapitation, no sinner guilty of the Ten Evils and Five Mortal Sins dragged before the Judges of Hell, could have worn a look of such agony. Even that mighty warrior turned pale and timidly looked up at His Lordship.

His Lordship, however, kept his lips tightly bitten and stared at the carriage without once looking away, now and then smiling in a ghastly fashion. And within that carriage—ah, I doubt I shall ever have courage enough to describe in detail the form in which I saw the girl. The pallor of her face as she threw back her head, choking in the smoke; the length of her hair as she tossed it wildly against the flames; the beauty of the cherry-colored jacket turning before our eyes into fire—what a pitiless sight it was. Above all, when a gust of night wind carried the smoke aside, she emerged from flames that looked as though gold dust had been scattered over scarlet. Biting her hair between her teeth, she writhed so violently that the chains seemed ready to snap. The torments of hell themselves appeared before us, and every hair on my body—and even on the warrior's—stood on end.

Then there came what we all took to be another rush of wind through the treetops. A sound raced through the dark sky from nowhere in particular; suddenly something black, neither touching earth nor truly flying, bounded like a ball from the palace roof straight into the burning carriage. As the vermilion-lacquered latticework collapsed in pieces, it clung to the girl's arched shoulder and sent a long, agonized scream, sharp as tearing silk, out beyond the smoke. Then came a second scream and a third. All of us cried out as one. For, outlined against the curtain of flame and clinging to the girl's shoulder, was the monkey kept at the Horikawa mansion—the little creature nicknamed Yoshihide. How it had slipped away and followed her all the way to this palace no one could say. Surely it had entered the fire because the girl had always treated it with such affection.

XIX

The monkey was visible for only an instant. A great burst of sparks, bright as gold-lacquer dust, flew into the air; then both monkey and girl vanished beneath the black smoke. In the center of the garden nothing remained but a single blazing carriage, seething and roaring with dreadful force. Yet “carriage of fire” hardly describes it. A pillar of fire would be more fitting for those terrible flames, boiling upward to pierce the starry sky.

Before that pillar stood Yoshihide, rigid as stone—and what a strange transformation had come over him. A moment earlier he had seemed to suffer all the tortures of hell. Now an indescribable radiance, almost the rapture of religious ecstasy, spread across his wrinkled face. Forgetful even of His Lordship's presence, he stood with both arms tightly folded over his breast. It seemed that he no longer saw his only daughter writhing to death. The beautiful color of the flames and the figure of a woman suffering within them appeared to fill his heart with limitless delight.

Nor was the wonder merely that he gazed with apparent joy upon his daughter's death agony. At that moment Yoshihide possessed a mysterious majesty scarcely human, like the wrath of the lion king seen in a dream. Even the countless night birds, startled by the sudden blaze and flying about with wild cries, seemed unwilling to approach his soft-folded court cap. Perhaps their innocent eyes too perceived the unearthly dignity hanging like a halo above his head.

If even the birds felt it, how much more did we. Down to the humblest menial, we all held our breath, trembling through our entire bodies, filled with a strange and solemn exaltation. We stared at Yoshihide without blinking, as though witnessing a Buddha at the instant its eyes were opened. The carriage fire thundered across the whole sky, and Yoshihide stood transfixed, his soul stolen by it—what awful grandeur, what terrible joy! Yet amid us all there was one exception. His Lordship alone, seated on the veranda, looked like a different man. His face had turned deathly pale; foam gathered at his lips. Gripping the knees of his purple trousers with both hands, he panted without end like a beast tormented by thirst.

XX

The story that His Lordship had burned a carriage at the Melting-Snow Palace that night somehow leaked to the world, and people offered all manner of judgments upon it. The first question, naturally, was why His Lordship had burned Yoshihide's daughter to death. The most common rumor said that he had acted from resentment over unrequited love. But His Lordship's true intention was undoubtedly to punish the painter's perverse willingness to sacrifice even a human life for the sake of a picture. I myself once heard His Lordship say as much with his own lips.

Yoshihide's stony determination to paint his screen even while his daughter was burned before him was also much criticized. Some reviled him as a monster with a human face and a beast's heart, a man who had forgotten the love between parent and child for the sake of his art. The Abbot of Yokawa was among those who took this view. He often said, “However excellent a man may be in one art or skill, if he lacks the Five Constant Virtues of humanity, nothing awaits him but hell.”

About a month later, however, the Hell Screen was at last completed. Yoshihide immediately carried it to the mansion and respectfully presented it for His Lordship's inspection. The Abbot happened to be present. The moment he saw the painting, even he was overwhelmed by the terror of the fiery tempest raging across that small painted world. Until then he had been glaring bitterly at Yoshihide; now, before he knew what he was doing, he struck his knee and exclaimed, “Magnificent!” I can still remember the wry smile that crossed His Lordship's face when he heard the word.

After that, at least within the mansion, scarcely anyone spoke ill of Yoshihide. Perhaps it was because everyone who looked upon the screen, however much he had hated the painter before, felt himself seized by a mysterious solemnity and experienced as reality the supreme anguish of the Hell of Scorching Heat.

By then, however, Yoshihide was no longer among the living. On the night after the screen was finished, he threw a rope over a beam in his room and hanged himself. Having lost his only daughter, he could not have borne to go on living in peace. His body lies buried even now on the site where his house once stood. The little stone that marked the grave, exposed for decades to wind and rain, must long ago have become so thick with moss that no one can tell whose grave it is.

—April 1918—