蠅横光利一Upper intermediate · JLPT N2
蠅Hae — A Fly at the Coach Station
- JLPT N2
- 3,503 characters
- 3 parts
- about 29 minutes
Yokomitsu Riichi's 蠅 is a very short modernist story set at a sleepy country coach station on a scorching midsummer day. A farm woman whose son is dying in town, a pair of young runaways, a mother with a little boy, and a gentleman who has just made money in the silkworm trade all wait for the single horse-drawn coach. The hunchbacked driver will not leave until his steamed buns are ready. Watching all of this is a fly that has just escaped a spider's web. The story is told in brief numbered scenes that cut from one character to the next almost like a film, and the cool, detached narrator observes everyone with dry irony. For a learner, the narration is compact and precise, with sentences built from chains of continuative forms and classical-flavoured endings such as 〜ず and 〜まい. The dialogue is rural speech, with regional and old-fashioned forms. Each scene is short enough to finish in one sitting, and the dense imagery is worth reading slowly.
Contents
Before you read
- Learn the setting vocabulary before you start, because it carries the whole story: 宿場 (post station), 馭者 (coachman/driver), 馬車 (horse-drawn coach), 蜘蛛 (spider), 饅頭 (steamed bun), 崖 (cliff). Most scenes are built around these words.
- The narration links actions in long chains using 〜たまま, 〜つつ, 〜ず and compound verbs such as 〜かける, 〜かかる and 〜通す. When a sentence feels long, find the final verb first, then work backwards through the linked clauses.
- Watch for classical or literary endings in the narration: 〜かろう (conjecture from an い-adjective), 〜まい (negative intention or conjecture), 〜得る (can). The pattern なぜかといえば〜から introduces the narrator's ironic explanations.
- The dialogue is rural and old-fashioned. じゃ = だ, やろ ≈ だろう, ござんしょう ≈ ございましょう/でしょう, のう is a sentence-final particle like ね, おくれ ≈ ください, and 悴 (せがれ) means 'my son'. The child's 馬々 is baby talk ('horsie').
- Each numbered scene switches to a different character or place. Before reading each section, note whose point of view it follows, and keep track of the fly, which reappears at key moments.
Words to know
The most useful words from the notes across the story.
| Word | Meaning | JLPT |
|---|---|---|
| 馭者ぎょしゃ | coachman, driver of a horse carriageAlso written 御者. | — |
| 悴せがれ | my son (humble, colloquial)Usually written 倅; used about one's own son. | N1 |
| 宿場しゅくば | post station; staging town on a highwayHere it is the stop where the horse-drawn coach departs. | — |
| 猫背ねこぜ | stooped back, hunched postureLiterally 'cat back'. | — |
| 電報でんぽう | telegram | N4 |
| 容子ようす | appearance, air, mannerOlder spelling of 様子. | N3 |
| 居眠りいねむり | dozing off (while sitting or working)居眠り運転 is 'falling asleep at the wheel'. | N3 |
| 将棋しょうぎ | shogi (Japanese chess)Games are counted with 番; 桂馬 is the knight and 歩 the pawn, and 打つ means to drop a piece onto the board. | N2 |
| 漸くようやく | at last; finally (after some time)Usually written in hiragana today. | N2 |
| 悠々ゆうゆう | calmly; leisurely; unhurriedOften used ironically for calm amid disaster. | N2 |
| 幽かかすか | faint, dimNow usually written 微か. | N1 |
| 尽くことごとく | every last one; entirelyLiterary; also written 悉く. | N1 |
| 墜落ついらく | falling; plunging (from a height)Today used mostly of aircraft crashes. | N1 |
| 空虚くうきょ | empty, hollow, desertedA literary word; it often suggests emptiness of meaning as well as of space. | — |
| 厩うまや | stable (for horses)Also written 馬屋. | — |
Plot summary
Show the full summary (contains spoilers)
On a hot midsummer morning, a fly breaks free of a spider's web in the stable of a country post station and settles on a horse's back. The old coachman plays shogi and brushes off a frantic farm woman whose son is dying in town. A young couple who appear to be eloping arrive, along with a mother and her small boy, who is delighted by the horse, and a country gentleman flush with eight hundred yen from silkworm trading. The hunchbacked driver refuses to set off until he has had the first freshly steamed bun of the day. The coach finally departs with the fly riding on its roof. In the midday heat, the driver, full of buns, dozes off. At the top of a cliff the horse turns too sharply, a wheel leaves the road, and coach, horse and passengers plunge to the riverbed. The rested fly flies off calmly into the blue sky.
About the author
Yokomitsu Riichi was a Japanese novelist and short-story writer. With Kawabata Yasunari, he led the Shinkankaku-ha (New Sensationalist school) of the 1920s, which tried to renew Japanese prose with startling imagery, fragmented scenes and techniques influenced by European modernism and film. 蠅 is one of his best-known early stories. He was regarded as one of the most influential writers of his generation in Japan.