Frosty Night
First published in 1924, this brief memoir captures a single midnight in Akutagawa's household. The familiar ritual of ending work—closing a book, arranging manuscript paper, and extinguishing charcoal in a bottle—brings him an emotion that is at once pleasant and fleeting. On his quiet way downstairs, he finds his sixty-eight-year-old aunt still awake, patiently teasing apart old silk wadding. A dark privy, motionless bamboo, and the sealed cold of the night complete the scene. The final haiku gathers these modest details into an image of age, labor, and winter stillness. The translation preserves the prose recollection, its dialogue, and the closing verse.
One memory of a frosty night.
I was sitting at my desk as usual when, before I knew it, the clock struck twelve. I make a rule of going to bed at midnight. That night too, I first closed my book, then tidied the desk so that the moment I sat down the next day I could begin work at once. Tidying it was no great undertaking. I merely stacked the manuscript paper and the books I would need in a single pile. Last of all, I saw to the fire in the brazier. I poured hot water from the iron kettle into a Nanban-ware jar and dropped the coals into it one by one. They blackened before my eyes. The charcoal crackled loudly, and clouds of steam rose. It gave me a feeling of pleasure, and somehow a feeling of transience as well. My bedding had been laid out in the adjoining room. Both that room and my study were upstairs. Before sleeping I always went downstairs and relieved myself, comfortably and alone. That night too, I stole quietly down the stairs—as quietly as possible, so as not to wake the family. A light was burning in the room beside the parlor. Someone was still awake, I thought, and wondered who it might be. As I passed outside the room, I saw my sixty-eight-year-old aunt sitting alone, teasing apart old wadding. It was silk floss with a faint sheen.
“Auntie,” I said. “Are you still up?” She answered, “Yes. I thought I would just finish this much. You are going to bed now, aren't you?” The light in the privy would not come on at all. With no other choice, I relieved myself in the dark. Bamboo grew outside its window. On windy nights its leaves rustled. That night there was no sound at all. Everything was sealed within the cold night.
Silk wadding—
too hard for her to tease apart
on this frosty night.