Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [256]
“Wait,” Kojirō said, then went to Seijūrō’s side and spoke directly to him. “What happened?” he asked, but did not wait for an answer. “Musashi got the better of you, didn’t he? Where did he hit you? Right shoulder? … Oh, this is bad. The bone’s shattered. Your arm’s like a sack of gravel. You shouldn’t be lying on your back, being bounced along on the shutter. The blood might go to your brain.”
Turning to the others, he commanded arrogantly, “Put him down! Go ahead, put him down! … What are you waiting for? Do as I say!”
Seijūrō seemed on the verge of death, but Kojirō ordered him to stand up. “You can if you try. The wound isn’t all that serious. It’s only your right arm. If you try walking, you can do it. You’ve still got the use of your left arm. Forget about yourself! Think of your dead father. You owe him more respect than you’re showing now, a lot more. Being carried through the streets of Kyoto—what a sight that would be. Think what it would do to your father’s good name!”
Seijūrō stared at him, his eyes white and bloodless. Then with one quick motion, he lifted himself to his feet. His useless right arm looked a foot longer than his left.
“Miike!” cried Seijūrō.
“Yes, sir.”
“Cut it off!”
“Huh-h-h!”
“Don’t just stand there! Cut off my arm!”
“But …”
“You gutless idiot! Here, Ueda, cut it off! Right now!”
“Y-y-yes, sir.”
But before Ueda moved, Kojirō said, “I’ll do it if you want.”
“Please!” said Seijūrō.
Kojirō went to his side. Grasping Seijūrō’s hand firmly, he lifted the arm high, at the same time unsheathing his small sword. With a quick, startling sound, the arm fell to the ground, and blood spurted from the stump.
When Seijūrō staggered, his students rushed to his support and covered the wound with cloth to stop the blood.
“From now on I’ll walk,” said Seijūrō. “I’ll walk home on my own two feet.” His face waxen, he took ten steps. Behind him, the blood dripping from the wound oozed blackly into the ground.
“Young Master, be careful!”
His disciples clung to him like hoops to a barrel, their voices filled with solicitude, which turned rapidly to anger.
One of them cursed Kojirō, saying, “Why did that conceited ass have to butt in? You’d have been better off the way you were.”
But Seijūrō, shamed by Kojirō’s words, said, “I said I’ll walk, and walk I will!” After a short pause, he proceeded another twenty paces, carried more by his willpower than by his legs. But he could not hold on for long; after fifty or sixty yards, he collapsed.
“Quick! We’ve got to get him to the doctor.”
They picked him up and made quickly for Shijō Avenue. Seijūrō no longer had the strength to object.
Kojirō stood for a time under a tree, watching grimly. Then, turning to Akemi, he said with a smirk, “Did you see that? I imagine it made you feel good, didn’t it?” Her face deadly white, Akemi regarded his sneer with loathing, but he went on. “You’ve done nothing but talk about how you’d like to get back at him. Are you satisfied now? Is this enough revenge for your lost virginity?”
Akemi was too confused to speak. Kojirō seemed at this moment more frightening, more hateful, more evil than Seijūrō. Though Seijūrō was the cause of her troubles, he was not a wicked man. He was not blackhearted, not a real villain. Kojirō, on the other hand, was genuinely evil—not the type of sinner most people envisioned but a twisted, perverse fiend, who, far from rejoicing in the happiness of others, delighted in standing by and watching them suffer. He would never steal or cheat, yet he was more dangerous by far than the ordinary crook.
“Let’s go home,” he said, putting the monkey back on his shoulder. Akemi longed to flee but could not muster the courage. “It won’t do you any good to go on looking for Musashi,” mumbled Kojirō, talking to himself as much as to her. “There’s no reason for him to linger around here.”
Akemi asked herself why she did not take this opportunity to make a dash for freedom, why she seemed unable to leave this brute. But even as she cursed