Japanese
The Restaurant of Many Orders|
|
Japanese The Restaurant of Many Orders |
|
City-dwelling hunters getting caught in a wordy trap
|
Kenji seemed to hate hunters who traveled from the city to shoot animals just for fun. In the story "The Restaurant of Many Orders" it is the hunters who get hurt, caught in a wordy trap by a wildcat.
|
| Hunters lost their way in the frightening forest | Two young gentlemen, who came from the city to go hunting, were walking along in the mountains with two white dogs as huge as bears. By afternoon, the two young gentlemen had failed to get any game birds.  Worse still, they had strayed from their guide in the middle of a forest. The forest was so frightening that their two dogs howled for a while, then foamed at the mouth and suddenly fell dead. Scared, the two young men decided to turn back, saying, "We can drop in at yesterday's inn and buy a few game birds to take home with us." The citymen seemed to think they could buy anything with money. |
|
| "Restaurant Wildcat House" in western style | Unfortunately, they had lost their way. A sudden gust of wind sprang up and the grass stirred, making them feel even more uneasy. Just then, one of the young men happened to look around and saw a fine brick building with a notice on it saying "Restaurant Wildcat House." Though finding a fine restaurant deep in the mountains seemed funny, the two were so hungry they went up to the entrance. There they found a glass door with writing on it in gold letters. "Please come in. No one need have a moment's hesitation." | |
| Many strange notes | Inside the restaurant there were many corridors and doors. Each door had a strange note on it for the guests:
"Plump parties and young parties especially welcome." "We hope you will appreciate that this is a restaurant of many orders." "Please leave your guns and cartridges here." "Please remove your tie pins, cuff links, spectacles, purses, and anything else with metal in it, especially anything pointed." "Please spread cream from the jar all over your face, hands, and feet." "You must be tired of all these orders, you poor things. This is the last one, so be good enough to take some salt from the pot and rub it in well all over you." |
|
| Hunters' terror | At this point the two young gentlemen finally realized that they were the ones who were to be cooked. They tried to run out of the room, but the doors won't open. What's more, they could see two blue eyeballs ogling them through the keyhole. Their faces crumpled in terror. @Just then, the guide's two dogs like big, white bears came bursting into the room and saved them. But their faces, which had crumpled like wastepaper from fear, never return to normal again even after they went back home to Tokyo. |
| |
Material in quotation marks is from Once and FOREVER, the tales of kenji miyazawa, translated by John Bester, published by Kodansha International. |
||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||
