The Moon Over the Mountain
Li Zheng from Longxi was erudite and intelligent.
In the last year of Tianbao, he was appointed an official in Jiangnan at a young age after passing the Imperial Examination.
However, he was stubborn and over-confident and couldn't be content to live as an official.
He resigned soon after and spent his time in his hometown.
He devoted himself to writing poetry without any contact with others.
Rather than bowing to vulgar high officials for a long period of time as a junior official, he tried to become a poet who would be remembered for a hundred years after his death.
But his fame as a poet was not easy to attain, and his life became more and more difficult by the day.
Li Zheng was finally becoming impatient.
The appearance of his face had deteriorated.
Its flesh had fallen off and its bones stood out.
The plump, beautiful boy he had once been when he passed the Examination had disappeared completely.
A few years later, impoverished and in need of a wife and children to support, he finally turned his back on his faith and went east again to serve as a provincial official.
In fact, he was also half despairing of his own poetry.
His former colleagues had already risen quite far up the ranks, and he had to obey the orders of those he had long ago mocked and brushed aside.
It's not hard to imagine how much this must have hurt the self-esteem of Li Zheng, a brilliant man of yesteryear.
He spent his days in depression and discomfort, and was finally unable to follow good sense and maintain normalcy.
A year later, when he went on an official trip and stayed on the banks of the Rushui, he finally went mad.
One middle of the night, he suddenly changed his color and got up from his bed and, shouting something incomprehensible, jumped down and ran off into the darkness, never to return.
He never came back.
A search of the nearby mountains and fields yielded no clues.
No one knew what happened to Li Zheng after that.
The following year, the JianchaYushi, Yuan Zan went to Lingnan by order of the Emperor, and stayed at Shangyu on his way there.
The next morning, when he was about to leave before it was still dark, the official at his lodgings said,
"From here on, there will be a man-eating tiger on the road, so travelers can only pass in the daytime.
It is still early in the morning now, so it would be better for you to wait a little longer."
However, Yuan Zan thought it was safe since he had many followers, so he didn't follow the advice and set off.
Following the lingering moonlight, they passed through a meadow in the woods, and sure enough, a fierce tiger leaped out of the grass.
The tiger tried to attack Yuan Zan in a hurry, but he quickly turned himself around and hid in the grass where he had come from.
A human voice could be heard repeatedly muttering, "That was a close call" from inside the grass.
The voice sounded familiar to Yuan Zan.
Surprised, he suddenly thought of it and shouted.
"Isn't that voice my friend, Li Zheng?"
Yuan Zan passed the Imperial Examination in the same year as Li Zheng, and he was the closest friend to Li Zheng, who had few friends.
This was probably because the mild-mannered character of Yuan Zan did not clash with the proud and strict character of Li Zheng.
There was no reply from the grass for a while.
A faint voice that could be thought to be a stealthy cry could only be heard leaking out from time to time.
After a little while, a low voice answered.
"Indeed, I am Li Zheng from Longxi."
Forgetting his fears, Yuan Zan dismounted from his horse and approached the grass, nostalgically greeting his old friend that it had been a long time since he had seen him.
He then asked why he hadn't come out of the grass.
Li Zheng's voice answered and said,
"I am now a beast.
I can't show off my shallow appearance in front of my old friend.
If I were to appear, I'm sure that I would frighten you and make you hate me.
But now, by chance, I miss my old friend so much that I forget my feelings of embarrassment.
Please, just for a while, don't hate my ugly current appearance and talk to this person who was once your friend, Li Zheng.
In hindsight, it was strange, but at that moment, Yuan Zan really accepted this supernatural monstrosity with an open mind and did not try to be suspicious in the slightest.
He ordered his subordinates to stop the procession, and he himself stood beside the grass and conferred with an invisible voice.
Rumors of the city, the news of old friends, Yuan Zan's current position, and Li Zheng's congratulations on that.
After all these things were spoken in that tone of the close companionship of those who were close to him in his youth, Yuan Zan asked how Li Zheng had come to be one he was today.
The voice in the grass spoke as follows.
"About a year ago, when I was on a journey and stayed by the banks of the Rushui, I fell asleep and woke up after a night's sleep, and when I woke up, I saw someone outside calling my name.
I went outside to look at the voice, and the voice kept inviting me in from the darkness.
Without thinking, I started to run after the voice.
I was running after the voice, and before I knew it, I was running into a forest and grabbing the ground with my left and right hands.
It was as if my body was filled with some kind of power, and I jumped over the rocks with ease.
I noticed that I seemed to have hair around my fingers and elbows.
After it got a little brighter, I looked at my reflection in the riverbank and saw that I was already a tiger.
At first I couldn't believe my eyes.
Next, I thought that this must be a dream.
I had had dreams before, dreams that I knew were dreams, and I knew that this was a dream.
But when I had to understand that this was not a dream, I was stunned.
And I was afraid.
I was deeply afraid that anything at all could happen.
But why did this happen?
I don't know.
We don't know anything about anything at all.
It is our duty as creatures to accept things that are forced upon us without knowing the reason, and to live our lives without knowing the reason.
I thought I would die.
But then, as soon as I saw a rabbit running in front of me, my inner man immediately disappeared.
When the human inside of me woke up again, my mouth was covered in rabbit blood and rabbit hair was scattered around me.
This was my first experience as a tiger.
I can't tell you what kind of deeds I've been doing ever since.
However, there are always a few hours in a day when the human mind returns.
At such times, I can speak human language, think complex thoughts, and recite chapters and verses from the classic Confucian books, just as I used to do in the past.
It is most pitiable, horrible, and infuriating when I look at my own atrocities as a tiger in that human mind and reflect on my fate.
But those few hours of returning to that human being also become shorter and shorter as the days pass.
I used to wonder how I became a tiger, but the other day I suddenly found myself wondering how I used to be a human being.
This is a scary thing.
In a little while, the human mind in me will be completely buried in the habit of being a beast and will disappear.
Just as the foundations of an old palace are gradually buried in the sand.
In the end, I would forget my past and go crazy as a tiger, and if I met you on the street today, I would not recognize you as an old friend, and I would feel no regret for tearing you apart and eating you.
What in the world, beast or man, was it something else in the first place?
At first they remember it, but then they forget it, and they believe it was in its present form all along.
No, it doesn't matter.
Perhaps I would be happier if the human inside of me would just disappear completely.
And yet the human inside of me feels the most horrible about it.
Oh, how utterly, utterly horrible, how sad and wistful I feel!
The memory of me being human is gone.
No one will ever know how I feel.
No one will know, unless they've been through what I've been through.
And by the way, yes.
Before I completely cease to be a human, I need to ask you to do one thing for me."
Yuan Zan and his group gasped and listened to the mysterious story told by the voice in the grass.
The voice continued.
"I originally intended to make a name for myself as a poet.
I have failed to do so, and have come to this fate.
The hundreds of poems I once wrote are still unpublished.
The whereabouts of the manuscripts may no longer be known.
Among them, there are dozens that I still remember.
I'd like you to record these for me.
Not because I want this to make me look like a full-fledged poet.
Regardless of the skill of my compositions, I can't die even if I die, without passing on to future generations, even in part, the things I have been attached to all my life, even if I have to resign my job and lose my mind."
Yuan Zan ordered his subordinates to take up the brush and write it down according to the voice in the grass.
Li Zheng's voice rang out loudly from the grass.
The thirty long and short poems, all of which were of high quality and outstanding style, reminded the author of his extraordinary talent in a single reading.
However, despite his admiration, Yuan Zan thought vaguely,
"I see, there is no doubt that the author's qualities are first-rate.
But in order for it to be a first-rate work, it would be lacking in some (very subtle) respects.
Having finished reciting the old poems, Li Zheng's voice suddenly changed in tone, as if mocking himself.
"I'm ashamed to say that even now, after having become such a shallow one, I still dream of my poetry book on the desks of people who love the poems in Chang'an.
I dream lying in a cave.
Woe to the poor man who failed to become a poet and became a tiger.
(Yuan Zan listened sadly, remembering the old young man Li Zheng's habit of self-mockery.)
Oh! This is a great funny opportunity. Let me turn my current thoughts into an impromptu poem.
For a sign that in this tiger, there is still the former Li Zheng alive."
Again, Yuan Zan ordered his subordinates to write this down.
The poem read.
'I happened to be sick at heart and became a beast. Woe to me, and I could not escape.
Today, who would come against these claws and fangs? In those days, you and I both had a high reputation.
I am the beast in the grass. You're in the car, you're on the rise and your momentum is thriving.
In this dusk, I only bark at the moon that shines on the mountains and valleys without reciting a poem.'
At times, the light of the lingering moon was cool and the white dew grew on the ground, and the cold wind that blew across the trees told them that dawn was near.
People forgot about the strangeness of the situation and solemnly lamented the poet's sadness.
Li Zheng's voice continued again,
"As I said earlier, I don't know how I came to this fate, but there are some things I can think of.
When I was human, I tried my best to avoid contact with people.
People said I was arrogant.
In fact, they didn't know that it was almost like a sense of shame.
Of course, it's not that I didn't have a sense of self-respect, as people in my hometown called me a genius.
But it was what I would call a cowardly self-esteem.
I didn't seek out masters to teach me, nor did I seek out poetic friends to exchange and improve my poetry, even though I hoped to make a name for myself through poetry.
But I didn't allow myself to join the ranks of the snobs.
I blame both my cowardly self-esteem and my pompous sense of shame.
Because I feared that I was not a jewel, I didn't dare to polish it, and because I half believed that I was a jewel, I couldn't even stand alongside the roof tiles.
Gradually I became distant from the world and people, and my resentment, shame and anger let my inner cowardly self-esteem fatter and fatter.
Some people say that every human being is a beast-master.
The beast means each one's nature.
In my case, this arrogant sense of shame was the beast of prey.
It was a tiger.
This damaged me, tormented my wife and children, hurt my friends, and ended up turning my external appearance into this way of being worthy of my inner feelings.
When I think about it now, I've squandered what little talent I had.
While I gave glib warnings that life is too long to do nothing and too short to do something, the truth is that I was just a cowardly person who feared of exposing my lack of talent and disliked making effort because of my laziness.
There are plenty of people who have been far less talented than I am, but who have become magnificent poets because they have honed it single-mindedly.
Now that I've become a tiger, I finally realize that.
When I think of it, I still feel a searing regret.
I can no longer live as a human being.
Even if I write a poem of any excellence in my head now, by what means can I publish it?
And moreover, my head is getting closer to the tiger every day.
What am I to do with my empty past? I can't stand it.
In those moments, I climb up the rocks on the mountain tops over there and bark at the empty valley.
I want to tell someone about this sorrow that burns in my heart.
I barked at the moon last evening there, too.
Would someone understand this pain.
But the beasts hear my voice and they are afraid and bow down.
The mountains, the trees, the moon and the dew all thought that a tiger was roaring with rage.
Though I leapt to the heavens and fell to the ground, no one understood my feelings.
Just as when I was human, no one understood my vulnerable heart.
It's not just the night dew that makes my fur wet."
Finally, the darkness in the area faded.
From somewhere through the trees a horn began to sound mournfully as it announced the dawn.
"We must now say goodbye.
For the time when I must get drunk (the time when I must return to the tiger) is at hand", said Li Zheng's voice.
"But before we part, I have one more request to make.
It is about my wife and children, still back home.
They are not supposed to know about my fate.
When you return from the south, will you tell them that I am already dead?
Never reveal just what happened today.
I ask you, with all my heart, to pity them for having no relatives, and to prevent them from dying of hunger and freezing to death.
If you will do so, I could not feel more indebted to you."
After he finished saying that, a wailing voice could be heard from the grass.
With tears in his eyes again, Yuan Zan replied that he would gladly go along with Li Zheng's intentions.
However, Li Zheng's voice quickly returned to its earlier self-mocking tone and said,
"In truth, I should have asked for this matter first, if I were human.
I'm the kind of one who cares more about my meagre poetry business than about my wife and children, who are about to starve and freeze, and so he degrades himself to such a beast."
Then he added and said,
"I hope you will never pass this way on your way back from Lingnan.
For by that time I may be drunk and attack you without recognizing you as an old friend.
You go up that hill a hundred paces in front of you after we part now, then I want you to look back at me and see me.
I shall show you again my appearance now.
It's not to boast of my courage.
It's to show you my ugly form and to make you not to want to pass through here again to meet me."
Yuan Zan said a polite goodbye to the grass and climbed onto his horse.
From the grass, again, a voice cried out in grief, as if it was unbearable.
Even Yuan Zan looked back at the grass several times and departed with tears streaming down his face.
When the group reached the top of the hill, they did as they were told.
They turned around and looked at the grassy area in the woods ahead.
Instantly they saw a tiger leap out of the grass and onto the path.
The tiger looked up at the moon, which had already lost its white light, and roared two or three times.
Then he leapt back into the grass, never to be seen again.
(I translated The Moon Over the Mountain (山月記, Sangetsuki) by Atsushi Nakajima.)
- To read this article in Japanese
- To return to Japanese short stories translated into English
In the last year of Tianbao, he was appointed an official in Jiangnan at a young age after passing the Imperial Examination.
However, he was stubborn and over-confident and couldn't be content to live as an official.
He resigned soon after and spent his time in his hometown.
He devoted himself to writing poetry without any contact with others.
Rather than bowing to vulgar high officials for a long period of time as a junior official, he tried to become a poet who would be remembered for a hundred years after his death.
But his fame as a poet was not easy to attain, and his life became more and more difficult by the day.
Li Zheng was finally becoming impatient.
The appearance of his face had deteriorated.
Its flesh had fallen off and its bones stood out.
The plump, beautiful boy he had once been when he passed the Examination had disappeared completely.
A few years later, impoverished and in need of a wife and children to support, he finally turned his back on his faith and went east again to serve as a provincial official.
In fact, he was also half despairing of his own poetry.
His former colleagues had already risen quite far up the ranks, and he had to obey the orders of those he had long ago mocked and brushed aside.
It's not hard to imagine how much this must have hurt the self-esteem of Li Zheng, a brilliant man of yesteryear.
He spent his days in depression and discomfort, and was finally unable to follow good sense and maintain normalcy.
A year later, when he went on an official trip and stayed on the banks of the Rushui, he finally went mad.
One middle of the night, he suddenly changed his color and got up from his bed and, shouting something incomprehensible, jumped down and ran off into the darkness, never to return.
He never came back.
A search of the nearby mountains and fields yielded no clues.
No one knew what happened to Li Zheng after that.
The following year, the JianchaYushi, Yuan Zan went to Lingnan by order of the Emperor, and stayed at Shangyu on his way there.
The next morning, when he was about to leave before it was still dark, the official at his lodgings said,
"From here on, there will be a man-eating tiger on the road, so travelers can only pass in the daytime.
It is still early in the morning now, so it would be better for you to wait a little longer."
However, Yuan Zan thought it was safe since he had many followers, so he didn't follow the advice and set off.
Following the lingering moonlight, they passed through a meadow in the woods, and sure enough, a fierce tiger leaped out of the grass.
The tiger tried to attack Yuan Zan in a hurry, but he quickly turned himself around and hid in the grass where he had come from.
A human voice could be heard repeatedly muttering, "That was a close call" from inside the grass.
The voice sounded familiar to Yuan Zan.
Surprised, he suddenly thought of it and shouted.
"Isn't that voice my friend, Li Zheng?"
Yuan Zan passed the Imperial Examination in the same year as Li Zheng, and he was the closest friend to Li Zheng, who had few friends.
This was probably because the mild-mannered character of Yuan Zan did not clash with the proud and strict character of Li Zheng.
There was no reply from the grass for a while.
A faint voice that could be thought to be a stealthy cry could only be heard leaking out from time to time.
After a little while, a low voice answered.
"Indeed, I am Li Zheng from Longxi."
Forgetting his fears, Yuan Zan dismounted from his horse and approached the grass, nostalgically greeting his old friend that it had been a long time since he had seen him.
He then asked why he hadn't come out of the grass.
Li Zheng's voice answered and said,
"I am now a beast.
I can't show off my shallow appearance in front of my old friend.
If I were to appear, I'm sure that I would frighten you and make you hate me.
But now, by chance, I miss my old friend so much that I forget my feelings of embarrassment.
Please, just for a while, don't hate my ugly current appearance and talk to this person who was once your friend, Li Zheng.
In hindsight, it was strange, but at that moment, Yuan Zan really accepted this supernatural monstrosity with an open mind and did not try to be suspicious in the slightest.
He ordered his subordinates to stop the procession, and he himself stood beside the grass and conferred with an invisible voice.
Rumors of the city, the news of old friends, Yuan Zan's current position, and Li Zheng's congratulations on that.
After all these things were spoken in that tone of the close companionship of those who were close to him in his youth, Yuan Zan asked how Li Zheng had come to be one he was today.
The voice in the grass spoke as follows.
"About a year ago, when I was on a journey and stayed by the banks of the Rushui, I fell asleep and woke up after a night's sleep, and when I woke up, I saw someone outside calling my name.
I went outside to look at the voice, and the voice kept inviting me in from the darkness.
Without thinking, I started to run after the voice.
I was running after the voice, and before I knew it, I was running into a forest and grabbing the ground with my left and right hands.
It was as if my body was filled with some kind of power, and I jumped over the rocks with ease.
I noticed that I seemed to have hair around my fingers and elbows.
After it got a little brighter, I looked at my reflection in the riverbank and saw that I was already a tiger.
At first I couldn't believe my eyes.
Next, I thought that this must be a dream.
I had had dreams before, dreams that I knew were dreams, and I knew that this was a dream.
But when I had to understand that this was not a dream, I was stunned.
And I was afraid.
I was deeply afraid that anything at all could happen.
But why did this happen?
I don't know.
We don't know anything about anything at all.
It is our duty as creatures to accept things that are forced upon us without knowing the reason, and to live our lives without knowing the reason.
I thought I would die.
But then, as soon as I saw a rabbit running in front of me, my inner man immediately disappeared.
When the human inside of me woke up again, my mouth was covered in rabbit blood and rabbit hair was scattered around me.
This was my first experience as a tiger.
I can't tell you what kind of deeds I've been doing ever since.
However, there are always a few hours in a day when the human mind returns.
At such times, I can speak human language, think complex thoughts, and recite chapters and verses from the classic Confucian books, just as I used to do in the past.
It is most pitiable, horrible, and infuriating when I look at my own atrocities as a tiger in that human mind and reflect on my fate.
But those few hours of returning to that human being also become shorter and shorter as the days pass.
I used to wonder how I became a tiger, but the other day I suddenly found myself wondering how I used to be a human being.
This is a scary thing.
In a little while, the human mind in me will be completely buried in the habit of being a beast and will disappear.
Just as the foundations of an old palace are gradually buried in the sand.
In the end, I would forget my past and go crazy as a tiger, and if I met you on the street today, I would not recognize you as an old friend, and I would feel no regret for tearing you apart and eating you.
What in the world, beast or man, was it something else in the first place?
At first they remember it, but then they forget it, and they believe it was in its present form all along.
No, it doesn't matter.
Perhaps I would be happier if the human inside of me would just disappear completely.
And yet the human inside of me feels the most horrible about it.
Oh, how utterly, utterly horrible, how sad and wistful I feel!
The memory of me being human is gone.
No one will ever know how I feel.
No one will know, unless they've been through what I've been through.
And by the way, yes.
Before I completely cease to be a human, I need to ask you to do one thing for me."
Yuan Zan and his group gasped and listened to the mysterious story told by the voice in the grass.
The voice continued.
"I originally intended to make a name for myself as a poet.
I have failed to do so, and have come to this fate.
The hundreds of poems I once wrote are still unpublished.
The whereabouts of the manuscripts may no longer be known.
Among them, there are dozens that I still remember.
I'd like you to record these for me.
Not because I want this to make me look like a full-fledged poet.
Regardless of the skill of my compositions, I can't die even if I die, without passing on to future generations, even in part, the things I have been attached to all my life, even if I have to resign my job and lose my mind."
Yuan Zan ordered his subordinates to take up the brush and write it down according to the voice in the grass.
Li Zheng's voice rang out loudly from the grass.
The thirty long and short poems, all of which were of high quality and outstanding style, reminded the author of his extraordinary talent in a single reading.
However, despite his admiration, Yuan Zan thought vaguely,
"I see, there is no doubt that the author's qualities are first-rate.
But in order for it to be a first-rate work, it would be lacking in some (very subtle) respects.
Having finished reciting the old poems, Li Zheng's voice suddenly changed in tone, as if mocking himself.
"I'm ashamed to say that even now, after having become such a shallow one, I still dream of my poetry book on the desks of people who love the poems in Chang'an.
I dream lying in a cave.
Woe to the poor man who failed to become a poet and became a tiger.
(Yuan Zan listened sadly, remembering the old young man Li Zheng's habit of self-mockery.)
Oh! This is a great funny opportunity. Let me turn my current thoughts into an impromptu poem.
For a sign that in this tiger, there is still the former Li Zheng alive."
Again, Yuan Zan ordered his subordinates to write this down.
The poem read.
'I happened to be sick at heart and became a beast. Woe to me, and I could not escape.
Today, who would come against these claws and fangs? In those days, you and I both had a high reputation.
I am the beast in the grass. You're in the car, you're on the rise and your momentum is thriving.
In this dusk, I only bark at the moon that shines on the mountains and valleys without reciting a poem.'
At times, the light of the lingering moon was cool and the white dew grew on the ground, and the cold wind that blew across the trees told them that dawn was near.
People forgot about the strangeness of the situation and solemnly lamented the poet's sadness.
Li Zheng's voice continued again,
"As I said earlier, I don't know how I came to this fate, but there are some things I can think of.
When I was human, I tried my best to avoid contact with people.
People said I was arrogant.
In fact, they didn't know that it was almost like a sense of shame.
Of course, it's not that I didn't have a sense of self-respect, as people in my hometown called me a genius.
But it was what I would call a cowardly self-esteem.
I didn't seek out masters to teach me, nor did I seek out poetic friends to exchange and improve my poetry, even though I hoped to make a name for myself through poetry.
But I didn't allow myself to join the ranks of the snobs.
I blame both my cowardly self-esteem and my pompous sense of shame.
Because I feared that I was not a jewel, I didn't dare to polish it, and because I half believed that I was a jewel, I couldn't even stand alongside the roof tiles.
Gradually I became distant from the world and people, and my resentment, shame and anger let my inner cowardly self-esteem fatter and fatter.
Some people say that every human being is a beast-master.
The beast means each one's nature.
In my case, this arrogant sense of shame was the beast of prey.
It was a tiger.
This damaged me, tormented my wife and children, hurt my friends, and ended up turning my external appearance into this way of being worthy of my inner feelings.
When I think about it now, I've squandered what little talent I had.
While I gave glib warnings that life is too long to do nothing and too short to do something, the truth is that I was just a cowardly person who feared of exposing my lack of talent and disliked making effort because of my laziness.
There are plenty of people who have been far less talented than I am, but who have become magnificent poets because they have honed it single-mindedly.
Now that I've become a tiger, I finally realize that.
When I think of it, I still feel a searing regret.
I can no longer live as a human being.
Even if I write a poem of any excellence in my head now, by what means can I publish it?
And moreover, my head is getting closer to the tiger every day.
What am I to do with my empty past? I can't stand it.
In those moments, I climb up the rocks on the mountain tops over there and bark at the empty valley.
I want to tell someone about this sorrow that burns in my heart.
I barked at the moon last evening there, too.
Would someone understand this pain.
But the beasts hear my voice and they are afraid and bow down.
The mountains, the trees, the moon and the dew all thought that a tiger was roaring with rage.
Though I leapt to the heavens and fell to the ground, no one understood my feelings.
Just as when I was human, no one understood my vulnerable heart.
It's not just the night dew that makes my fur wet."
Finally, the darkness in the area faded.
From somewhere through the trees a horn began to sound mournfully as it announced the dawn.
"We must now say goodbye.
For the time when I must get drunk (the time when I must return to the tiger) is at hand", said Li Zheng's voice.
"But before we part, I have one more request to make.
It is about my wife and children, still back home.
They are not supposed to know about my fate.
When you return from the south, will you tell them that I am already dead?
Never reveal just what happened today.
I ask you, with all my heart, to pity them for having no relatives, and to prevent them from dying of hunger and freezing to death.
If you will do so, I could not feel more indebted to you."
After he finished saying that, a wailing voice could be heard from the grass.
With tears in his eyes again, Yuan Zan replied that he would gladly go along with Li Zheng's intentions.
However, Li Zheng's voice quickly returned to its earlier self-mocking tone and said,
"In truth, I should have asked for this matter first, if I were human.
I'm the kind of one who cares more about my meagre poetry business than about my wife and children, who are about to starve and freeze, and so he degrades himself to such a beast."
Then he added and said,
"I hope you will never pass this way on your way back from Lingnan.
For by that time I may be drunk and attack you without recognizing you as an old friend.
You go up that hill a hundred paces in front of you after we part now, then I want you to look back at me and see me.
I shall show you again my appearance now.
It's not to boast of my courage.
It's to show you my ugly form and to make you not to want to pass through here again to meet me."
Yuan Zan said a polite goodbye to the grass and climbed onto his horse.
From the grass, again, a voice cried out in grief, as if it was unbearable.
Even Yuan Zan looked back at the grass several times and departed with tears streaming down his face.
When the group reached the top of the hill, they did as they were told.
They turned around and looked at the grassy area in the woods ahead.
Instantly they saw a tiger leap out of the grass and onto the path.
The tiger looked up at the moon, which had already lost its white light, and roared two or three times.
Then he leapt back into the grass, never to be seen again.
(I translated The Moon Over the Mountain (山月記, Sangetsuki) by Atsushi Nakajima.)
- To read this article in Japanese
- To return to Japanese short stories translated into English