The Christ of Nanking

by Ryunosuke Akutagawa
translated by Yoshiko Dykstra
(1)
It was an autumn evening. A young Chinese girl was sitting at an old
table in a room of the house on the Rare Hope Street in Nanking. Resting
her chin on her hands, she was listlessly chewing watermelon seeds*
from a tray.
There was an old lamp on the table. The dim light from the lamp created
a dismal effect. The wallpaper was peeled in a corner where a dusty
curtain hid a rattan bed from which the skirt of a blanket was hanging.
An old chair was casually placed, as if abandoned, beyond the table. The
room was meagerly furnished.
In these bleak surroundings the girl cast her cool eyes from time to time
on a wall by the table as she stopped chewing the watermelon seeds. A
small brass cross was hanging from a nail on the wall. On the cross a
cheaply carved wooden Christ spreading his arms high in passion looked
worn out in a shadowy outline. Every time the girl looked at the Christ on
the cross, the sad color behind her long eyelashes changed into a lively
radiance with innocent hope. However, as soon as she looked away, she
sighed and resumed chewing the seeds as her shoulders drooped under
her faded black satin dress.
The girl was fifteen years old and called Chinhua, Gold Blossom. Night
after night, as a prostitute she received her customers in her room to
help her poor father. One might see numbers of girls with her looks in
the private brothels of the area, but would have difficulty in finding
anyone as sweet and gentle as Gold Blossom who, unlike other
prostitutes, never lied, nor complained, but always cheerfully
entertained her guests in her dreadful room. When she earned a little
more than usual, she was most delighted to treat her father to a cup of
wine. Gold Blossom's goodness must have been natural, but it also owed
much to her faith in the Catholic teachings introduced to her by her
deceased mother.
One day the previous spring, a young Japanese traveler, who was
sightseeing in southern China, happened to spend a night at Gold
Blossom's room. Holding her on his lap, a cigar in his mouth, the
Japanese man casually glanced at the cross on the wall and curiously
asked her in his awkward Chinese, "Are you a Christian?"
"Yes. I was baptized at five."
"And you are doing a business like this?" At that moment his voice
sounded satirical. However, Gold Blossom, still leaning her head against
his arms, replied with her usual happy smile, "Unless I work at this job,
both my father and I will starve."
"Is your father old?"
"Yes, he cannot walk anymore."

"But, don't you think that you may not be able to go to Heaven if you
work in this kind of business?"
"No," Gold Blossom had said, looking at the cross reflectively, and
continued, "I believe that Christ in the Heaven will understand my heart.
Otherwise he would be no different from the police officers of Yao-chiahsiang."
The young Japanese smiled, and taking a pair of jade earrings out of his
jacket pocket he gave them to her, saying, "I bought these to take as a
souvenir to Japan, but I give them to you as a token for tonight." In such
cases, Gold Blossom was always confident of herself from the time when
she took her first customer.
A month later, however, this devout prostitute unfortunately contracted
syphilis. Hearing her sad news, her colleagues, including her friend
Mountain Tea, suggested that she take opium tea; while another friend,
Welcome Spring, kindly brought her left-over Koran pills and Karo rice
which she had taken when she had had the same trouble. However,
these treatments proved ineffective for Gold Blossom, who by then had
taken no customers for a month.
One day Mountain Tea visited Gold Blossom and suggested another
remedy, saying, "Since you have gotten the disease from a customer,
you should give it back to another customer. Only then will you be
cured." Still resting her chin on her hands, Gold Blossom looked
uninterested in the beginning, but began to feel curious as she asked,
"Really?"
"Yes, it's true. My older sister also suffered from the same trouble for a
long time. But as soon as she gave it to one of her customers, she
became better."
"What about the customer?"
"Oh, terrible. He eventually lost his eyesight."
After her friend left, Gold Blossom knelt before the cross on the wall and
began to pray, "Jesus Christ in Heaven, I am engaging in this debased
business to feed my father. However, I have not troubled anyone except
myself so far. So I believe that I can go to Heaven if I die now. But
according to my friend, unless I give this disease to a customer, I cannot
continue this job. So, even if I die of starvation and only my death
relieves me from my present disease, I must never share a bed with any
customers. Otherwise, I will cause others to be unhappy to make myself
happy. However, being a woman I may be exposed to any kind of
temptation at any time. Oh, Christ in Heaven, please help and protect
me. You are the only one on whom I can rely."
With her firm resolution, Gold Blossom refused to take any customers, no
matter how much her colleagues urged her to resume her job. When
some of her old customers visited her, she only smoked together with
them, but never complied with their wishes as she repeated, "Since I
have a bad disease, you may catch it if you come closer to me." When

the drunken customers persisted, she even went so far as to expose

herself as proof. So eventually no customers visited her, and her
economic situation became worse day by day.
This evening, also, she was sitting at the table doing nothing for a long
time. No customers appeared in her room. As night deepened, the only
sounds she heard were crickets chirping. The cold in the fireless room
attacked her like water seeping through the stone floor to her little feet
in gray satin slippers. While gazing at the dim lamp light, Gold Blossom
shivered as she touched her jade earrings and swallowed a yawn.
Just at that instant, the painted door to her room opened suddenly, and a
strange foreigner came staggering into the room. The bursting wind was
so strong that the lamplight flared up for a second to fill the small room
with its strange red lights. Bathed in the light, the customer first leaned
against the table, but stood up straight, and stepped backwards to rest
his back against the painted door.
Flabbergasted, Gold Blossom stood up, and stared at the foreigner who
appeared about thirty-five or -six years of age. Dressed in a brown suit
and a deerstalker hat of the same color, the man had large eyes, a
tanned complexion, high cheek bones, and a beard. The only thing she
could not tell was whether he was a Caucasian or an Asian. But he
looked like no one but a street drunkard with a pipe on his mouth, and
the disheveled dark hair hung below his hat. He was barely holding
himself up against the door.
"What do you want?" asked Gold Blossom, almost blaming him for
crashing in. Shaking his head, the foreigner tried to tell her that he did
not understand Chinese. Taking the pipe out of his mouth, he began to
speak a few words in a fluent foreign language which she could not
fathom. Now she could do nothing but shake her head as her dangling
earrings gleamed in the dim light of the table lamp.
Seeing her beautiful troubled and knitted eyebrows, the visitor broke into
laughter, staggered a few steps towards the table as he casually took off
his hat, and sat down with a thud in the chair across the table. At that
moment, she thought his face familiar. She felt that she had seen the
face before, though she could not remember where. Now the foreigner
was aimlessly handling the watermelon seeds in the tray as he stared at
her, and began to speak with his hands. She did not understand his
words, but vaguely guessed that he knew something of her business.
It was not rare that she spent nights with foreigners whose languages
she did not understand. As usual, the sitting Gold Blossom began to
smile amicably, and told a few jokes not understood by the visitor at all.
However, the foreigner, as if he understood her, nodded at her every few
words, and moved his hands rapidly, raising his laughing voice.
His breath smelled of liquor, but his red animated face brightened and
filled the dismal room with manly energy which appeared to her more

splendid than that of any men in Nanking including the Chinese and
foreigners she had met so far. However, she still could not overcome the
belief that she had seen his face before. Gazing at the dark curly hair on
his forehead, she intently tried to recall her memories with an engaging
smile.
"Was he the one who was riding a boat with his fat wife the other day?
No his hair was more reddish. Or, might he be the one who was taking a
picture at the Confucian mausoleum? No, no, he was much older. Well,
another day, by the restaurant near the bridge, I saw a foreigner hitting
a rickshaw man with his thick stick. But his eyes were bluer."
While Gold Blossom was thinking and wondering, the foreigner began to
tap tobacco into his pipe and lighted it. Immediately, the fragrant smoke
filled the air. The foreigner became quiet for a moment, and stuck his
two fingers before her face as he grinned, and gestured to invite her
agreement. It was quite obvious that the two fingers meant two dollars.
With her firm conviction that she would not let anyone stay overnight at
her place, the smiling Gold Blossom shook her head two times as she
skillfully split watermelon seeds. Now insolently resting his elbows on the
table, the foreigner brought his drunken face closer to her, stared at her
in the dim light, and finally lifted three fingers, and waited for her
answer.
Slightly moving her chair, and holding some seeds in her mouth, Gold
Blossom looked perplexed. Now she knew that her visitor thought his two
dollars were not enough to have her. However, it seemed almost
impossible for her to explain her complex situation in his language. Now
regretting her frivolous behavior, she coolly looked away from him, and
shook her head negatively.
The foreign customer, still grinning, hesitated for a second, but stuck his
four fingers toward her as he spoke something in his language. The
confused Gold Blossom, now holding her cheeks in her hands, did not
feel like smiling any more, and determined that she had no choice but to
shake her head until he would give up. Meanwhile, the customer raised
five fingers as if to catch something invisible.
For a long while, the two continued their argument with their hands and
gestures during which time the number of the customer's fingers
increased to ten, reflecting his strong wish to have her even at any cost.
Even ten dollars would not change her determination. Now she was
leaving the table and standing by the wall. At the sight of the ten fingers,
the irritated Gold Blossom frantically shook her head, stamping her feet
so hard that the cross on the wall fell with a slight metallic sound on the
stone floor by her feet. Hastily stretching out one of her arms, she picked
up her precious cross, and casually glanced at the face of the Christ
which strangely resembled that of the foreigner across the table. "So this
is the face I have been trying to recall." She pressed the cross to her
bosom, and cast her surprised glance at the customer across the table.

Reflecting the lamplight, the customer, still with a grin on his hot and red
face while emitting the pipe smoke from his mouth, was now constantly
looking at her figure -- probably gazing at her white neck and the ears
from which the jade earrings were dangling. The customer's attitude now
impressed her as solemnly gentle.
Soon the customer stopped smoking, and began to speak with a smile on
his slanting face. Whatever he said sounded to her like a hypnotist's
whispering. Gold Blossom, completely forgetting her commendable
resolution, now shyly walked to the customer as she lowered her smiling
eyes while handling the cross. The customer, putting his hands in his
pockets and jingling the silver coins, continued watching her with smiling
eyes. As soon as his slight grin changed into a passionate gleam, he
suddenly jumped up from the chair, and held her tightly in his arms. His
sleeves smelled of liquor. Almost in a trance, Gold Blossom, resting her
head with the dangling jade earrings on his arms, was now ecstatic with
blushing cheeks to which his face was coming closer. Whether she would
let this strange foreigner have her body, or refuse his kissing to avoid
giving him her disease was not a question for her at that moment.
Burying her lips in his beard, she only felt the surging pleasure of making
love and her first burning desire filling her bosom.
(2)
Several hours later, in the room where the lamplight was extinguished,
only the sound of crickets was heard and added a lonely bleakness to the
breathing of the two lovers in the bed. Meanwhile, the dream of Gold
Blossom rose from the dusty curtain by the bed to the roof, and
ascended high into the sky above the roof.
Gold Blossom was now sitting on a sandalwood chair at a table on which
various kinds of gourmet dishes were spread. Now she was tasting them
one by one -- the swallow's nest, shark fins, steamed eggs, smoked carp,
a whole roast pig, and so on. It was impossible to count the number of
dishes on the table. And the containers were most elegant with their
designs of blue lotus flowers and gold phoenixes.
Behind her were windows covered by thick brocade draperies, and the
warbling sounds suggested a stream beyond the windows. She felt as if
she was back at her hometown in the countryside. But she knew she
must actually be in the house of Christ in a town of Heaven. From time to
time, she rested her chopsticks and looked about her. She saw no one
but herself and pillars with curved, coiled dragons and huge vases
containing great chrysanthemums in the steaming vapor from the dishes
on the table. As soon as she finished one of the dishes, another one was
brought in with a delicious smell. And before she picked up her
chopsticks again, the pheasant on another dish suddenly flew to the
ceiling, knocking down the liquor flask on the table.
After a while she felt someone approaching behind her. Still holding her
chopsticks, she turned her head around and saw, instead of the

windows, a foreigner with a brass water pipe in his mouth, sitting on a

heavily brocaded chair. Immediately she recognized the foreigner as the
same one who had come to her room that night. The only difference was
that the one behind her now had a halo suspended a foot above his
head. At that instant, a large dish with steaming food appeared on the
table before her. When she was about to pick up the delicious food in the
dish, she remembered the foreigner behind her, and asked him over her
shoulder, "Won't you come here and join me?"
"Only you will eat. If you take that food, you will be cured within the
night," replied the haloed foreigner with a smile of transcendent love.
"Then, aren't you going to eat these foods?"
"Me? I don't like Chinese food. Don't you know that? Jesus Christ has
never tasted any Chinese food yet." And saying this, the Christ of
Nanking slowly approached her sandalwood chair and gave a gentle kiss
to the cheek of the speechless Gold Blossom.
When Gold Blossom woke up from her heavenly dream, the autumn light
of early morning was already spreading into her small and cold room.
The warm darkness still remained in the small, boat-like bed by the dusty
curtain. Gold Blossom's face with her eyes still closed seemed to be
floating in the faint shadows with her round chin partly hidden by an old
faded blanket. Strands of her oily disheveled hair were stuck to her
colorless cheeks with the perspiration from the previous night, and her
teeth as tiny as rice grains appeared between her parted lips.
Even after waking up, her mind was still wandering among the dreamy
memories of chrysanthemums, watery sounds, baked pheasant, and
Jesus Christ. As her bed was gradually brightened by the morning sun,
the crude reality, the fact of climbing into the bed with a strange
foreigner clearly came back to her hazy head. "I wonder if I have given
my disease to him?" Suddenly she became depressed and began to feel
it unbearable to see him again. However, being unable to see his familiar
sun-tanned face was even more unbearable. Finally she slowly opened
her eyes to look around her bed. She saw neither the foreigner who
resembled her Christ on the cross, nor his shadow, but only herself
covered by the blanket.
"So, was it also a dream?" Kicking off the soiled blanket, she jumped up
on the bed. Rubbing her sleepy eyes, she opened the curtain and looked
around her room which cruelly exposed the scanty features in the reality
of the cold morning air; the old table, the unlighted lamp, one chair
fallen over on the floor, and another facing the wall. Everything was just
as it had been since last night. Moreover, she saw the small brass cross
with a dull gleam among the scattered watermelon seeds on the table.
Still blinking her sleepy eyes, the yawning Gold Blossom sat on the
messy bed, and gazed around her room for a while.
"No, it was not a dream, after all," Gold Blossom murmured to herself,
thinking of all kinds of possibilities for her foreigner. Needless to say, he

must have left her while she was still asleep. But how could he leave her
without saying a word of farewell after such passionate love-making?
Besides she had forgotten the ten dollars from him! "I wonder if he has
really left here." With a heavy heart, she started to put on her black
jacket which had been thrown over the bed. Just at that moment her
hands stopped as her cheeks suddenly became red with fresh blood
spreading under her skin. Was that because she thought she heard the
footsteps of her foreign lover? Or was it because his sweaty smell
permeating the old pillow and blanket suddenly reminded her of the
shameful moments of their last love-making? No, that wasn't it at all. At
that instant she realized that the miracle happening to her overnight had
completely cured her formidable disease. "So he was the Christ after all."
Crawling out from her bed, Gold Blossom knelt on the cold stone floor,
and exchanged words with her resurrected Master, just like the beautiful
Maria of Magdalene.
(3)
Later, on another spring night, the young Japanese traveler was sitting
again in Gold Blossom's room under the dim lamplight.
"So, you still have the cross on the wall." At the Japanese man's slight
ridicule, Gold Blossom seriously began to tell him the miraculous story of
her Christ who had descended on Nanking to cure her disease.
While listening to her story the Japanese thought to himself, "I know that
foreigner who is a half-American and half-Japanese. His name is
something like George Murray. He boasted to one of my colleagues that
he had once bought a Christian prostitute in Nanking, and stealthily left
her without paying while she was sleeping. When I was in Shanghai last,
I happened to stay at the same hotel with Murray. He said that he was a
journalist of a certain English paper. Though good-looking, he seemed to
be a mean person. Later he became insane from syphilis. Maybe he had
contracted the disease from this girl. However, even today this girl still
believes in such a half-breed rascal as her Jesus Christ. Should I awaken
and enlighten her or let her continue to dream the old Western legend?"
After Gold Blossom finished talking, the Japanese man lighted his
fragrant cigar, and asked her with deliberate sincerity, "Indeed, it is a
wonderful story. And, you, haven't you ever had any trouble after that?"
Without any hesitation the radiant Gold Blossom happily replied, "No, not
even once," while chewing her watermelon seeds.
~~~ The End ~~~