The Artist
by Shiga Naoya
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Set in a small Japanese harbour town, this story tells of Seibei, a twelve-year-old boy with an intense, single-minded passion for collecting and polishing gourds. He performs a careful ritual on each gourd he buys, and treasures a beautiful five-inch gourd bought for ten sen. When his rigid ethics teacher, who prefers boys to sing Naniwabushi ballads, catches him polishing it in class, he confiscates it and complains to his parents. Seibei's carpenter father beats him and smashes his entire collection with a hammer while the boy watches in pale silence. In a bitter twist of irony, the confiscated gourd, dismissed as worthless, is sold by the school porter to a curio-dealer for fifty yen (a year's wages), and the dealer resells it to a rich collector for six hundred yen. Meanwhile Seibei, cut off from gourds, has quietly turned to painting pictures, a new passion his father has already begun to scold him for.
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Seibei's passion for gourds
The story centres on Seibei, a twelve-year-old boy still attending primary school in a bustling harbour town so compact that one can walk from end to end in about twenty minutes. Seibei is characterized by his intense, single-minded passion for collecting and polishing gourds. While other children play games, he wanders the streets, curio-shops, groceries and fruit stalls in search of the perfect gourd.
When he brings a gourd home, he performs a neat, systematic ritual: he bores a hole in the top, extracts the seeds, applies tea-leaves to remove the unpleasant smell, pours in a little sake (Japanese rice wine) saved from his father's cup, and meticulously polishes the surface.
The ethics class incident
One day, strolling along an unfamiliar back-street, Seibei buys a beautiful, symmetrical five-inch gourd from an old woman at a fruit stall for ten sen. This becomes his most treasured possession, and he carries it everywhere, even to school. During a dull ethics class he sits quietly at his desk, completely absorbed in polishing the new gourd, and is caught red-handed by his ethics teacher, a rigid, unyielding man from another part of Japan.
The teacher detests children indulging in what he calls 'effeminate pastimes' like collecting gourds, preferring that students sing traditional Naniwabushi ballads. Furious, he confiscates Seibei's gourd and follows him home to complain directly to his parents.
The father's fury and the smashed gourds
At Seibei's home the teacher delivers a stern lecture to the boy's mother, declaring that it is the parents' responsibility to prevent such useless distractions. Seibei's father, a carpenter, returns home shortly after the teacher leaves. On hearing what happened, he flies into a rage, grabs Seibei by the collar and gives him a sound beating, yelling that he will never get anywhere in the world with such an attitude.
To break the 'bad habit' permanently, the father fetches his carpenter's hammer and systematically smashes Seibei's entire collection of polished gourds hanging on the wall into tiny pieces, while Seibei watches in silent, pale resignation.
The ironic fate of the gourd
The story concludes with a magnificent twist of economic irony. The next day the schoolteacher hands Seibei's confiscated gourd to an old porter at the school, dismissing it as an unclean object. Two months later, short of cash, the porter takes it to a local curio-dealer hoping for a few coppers. The dealer, pretending to be uninterested, offers five yen; the astonished porter stands his ground and, after bargaining, sells it for fifty yen, equivalent to a year's wages for him.
The curio-dealer then sells this very same gourd to a wealthy collector in the district for a staggering six hundred yen. Meanwhile Seibei, completely cut off from his gourds, has quietly moved on to a new passion, painting pictures, though his father has already begun to scold him for this new hobby as well.