文庫BunkoJapanese classics, made readable with AI
Cover of 猫町 (Nekomachi)

Upper intermediate · JLPT N2

猫町Nekomachi — The Cats' Town

by Hagiwara Sakutarō (萩原朔太郎, 1886–1942)

  • JLPT N2
  • 10,337 characters
  • 8 parts
  • about 86 minutes

"The Cats' Town" is a short prose work by the poet Hagiwara Sakutarō, part essay and part strange tale. The first-person narrator, tired of ordinary travel, looks for ways to escape the dull everyday world. His real interest is how a familiar place can suddenly look completely unfamiliar. He begins with small experiences of getting lost near his home in Tōkyō. Then he tells of one autumn day in the mountains of Hokuetsu when he lost his way and walked into a town he did not recognise. The tone is calm and reflective, but it becomes uneasy as the story goes on. The narrator often stops to think about perception, dreams and the limits of reason. For a learner, the plot is easy to follow, and much of the pleasure comes from the slow build of atmosphere. The language is the main challenge. The plain だ/である style is full of Sino-Japanese compounds, katakana loanwords such as メタフィジック and older spellings. Some sentences are long and philosophical. The text is short and divided into eight parts, so you can read it in manageable sections.

Start reading →

Contents

  1. Journeys Without Leaving Home （１）Bored by ordinary travel, which only shows the same dull life everywhere, the narrator has been taking 'journeys' into dream worlds with morphine and cocaine, until his health gives way. On a doctor's advice he starts taking daily walks, and one day, taking an unfamiliar side street, he loses his way completely. He reflects on his poor sense of direction, which once left him circling his own house unable to find the gate, as if bewitched by a fox.
  2. A Familiar Town Seen in Reverse （１（つづき））Lost on a walk, the narrator suddenly finds himself in a beautiful, unknown town. Then his memory returns, and he sees it is only the dull suburb near his home, made strange because his sense of direction had flipped. He compares this to waking on a night train that seems to run backwards, and to his childhood wish to know what lay behind a framed painting.
  3. A Story That May Be Real （１（つづき））The narrator introduces the story he is about to tell as a key to the riddle he has been describing. If readers can imagine a hidden fourth-dimensional world behind appearances, the story is true; if not, it is only the hallucination of a morphine-addicted poet. He is no novelist, so he promises simply to report the facts as he experienced them.
  4. Possessed Villages in the Northern Mountains （２）In late September the narrator is staying at the hot-spring resort of K in Hokuetsu and often rides a small light railway to the nearby town of U. One day he gets off partway to walk over a mountain pass, thinking about local legends of 'possessed villages' whose people are said to be haunted by dog-spirits or cat-spirits. He suspects rational explanations for these taboos, but he also believes the universe holds secrets that only a poet's intuition can grasp.
  5. Lost on the Mountain, Found a Town （２（つづき））Absorbed in his thoughts, the narrator loses the railway line he was following and becomes hopelessly lost in the autumn mountains. After hours of anxious wandering, he follows a trail of footprints down to the foot of the mountain. There, instead of a poor village, he finds a beautiful, bustling old town of narrow winding lanes, flowering trees and wells, with shops such as a barbershop and a photographer's studio.
  6. A Town Held Together by Glass （２（つづき））The narrator walks through the strange town, which is crowded yet almost silent, with graceful people who speak softly. He realises that its whole atmosphere is a fragile aesthetic balance, kept up with great care because a single false move could make everything collapse. His wonder turns to dread, and his heightened senses convince him that something terrible is about to happen.
  7. A Street Full of Cats （２（つづき））The narrator's dread builds until a small black creature dashes across the street, and in the next instant the town is filled with cats, with cat faces staring from every window. Terrified that he has gone mad, he steadies himself and looks again, and the cats are gone. He is standing in the ordinary, dusty town of U, and he realises that his lost sense of direction had turned the familiar town inside out, as if he had been bewitched by a fox.
  8. Butterfly, Dream, and the Cats' Town （３）The narrator ends his story and turns to the questions it leaves behind. He recalls Zhuangzi's butterfly dream and asks whether the true world lies behind the visible scenery or on its surface. People mock his tale as a poet's delusion, but he insists that he really saw the town of cats and still firmly believes that it exists somewhere in the universe.

Before you read

  • Learn the words for direction and confusion before you start, because the whole story depends on them: 方角 (direction), 迷う (to get lost), 錯覚 (illusion), 散歩 (walk), 狐に化かされる (to be bewitched by a fox) and 憑き (possession by a spirit, as in 猫憑き and 犬神憑き).
  • The narrator often states his conclusions with expressions of certainty and limitation. Watch for 〜にちがいない (must be), 〜にすぎない (is nothing more than), 〜であろう (probably) and 〜得る (can). They show how far he believes his own experience.
  • Katakana loanwords use older spellings, such as ショウペンハウエル for Schopenhauer and シベリヤ for Siberia. Abstract words like メタフィジック (metaphysics) and アトモスフィア (atmosphere) also appear. If a katakana word looks strange, read it aloud and try to match it to the English or German original.
  • The narrator sometimes speaks directly to the reader with 諸君 (you, my readers) and the old command form 見給え (look!). These lines are not part of the events. They are the essay voice stepping forward, so treat them as signposts for his argument.
  • Parts 1–3 are mostly reflection, and Parts 4–7 contain the actual story. If the early philosophy feels heavy, read Parts 4–7 first for the plot, then go back to the framing sections. They are easier to follow once you know what the narrator is explaining.

Words to know

The most useful words from the notes across the story.

WordMeaningJLPT
謎なぞriddle, mysteryN3
化かされたばかすto bewitch, trick (of foxes, badgers)dictionary form: 化かすIn Japanese folklore, foxes and tanuki trick people into getting lost.—
錯覚さっかくto misperceive; an illusionThis is a key word of the story.N1
往来おうらいstreet, roadOlder word for a street with passing traffic; also means 'coming and going'.—
耽るふけるto be absorbed in, indulge inUsually takes に: 瞑想に耽る 'be lost in meditation'.—
口碑こうひoral tradition, folk taleLiterally 'a monument of the mouth', meaning a story passed on by word of mouth.—
焦燥しょうそうfretting, impatient anxietyLiterary; here used as a verb with する.—
雑鬧ざっとうbustle, crowdingOld spelling; now written 雑踏.—
詰らないつまらないdull, boringdictionary form: つまらないToday this is normally written in kana.N5
迷児まいごlost person; getting lostdictionary form: 迷子Older spelling of 迷子. 迷子になる = to get lost.N3
醒めてさめるto wake up (from a dream)dictionary form: 醒めるUsually written 覚める today; 醒 also suggests sobering up.N3
欠伸あくびa yawn欠伸をする means 'to yawn'. Here the goods themselves are pictured as yawning.N2
引返してひきかえすto turn back, to retrace one's stepsdictionary form: 引き返すOlder spelling without the okurigana き.N2
麓ふもとfoot (base) of a mountainN2
骨牌かるたplaying cardsAn old ateji spelling. Today it is written カルタ, from Portuguese 'carta'.N2

Plot summary

Show the full summary (contains spoilers)

The narrator has used morphine and cocaine to take 'journeys' into dream worlds, but his health breaks down and he starts taking daily walks instead. His poor sense of direction sometimes makes his own dull suburb look like a beautiful unknown town. He offers one experience as the key to this riddle. In late September, staying at a hot spring in Hokuetsu, he walks over a mountain pass while thinking about local legends of villages possessed by cat-spirits. He gets lost and comes down into an elegant, crowded, strangely silent town. He feels that its fragile harmony is about to break. A black creature runs across the street, and suddenly cats fill every window and lane. When he looks again, he is standing in the ordinary town of U, turned inside out by his lost sense of direction. Others laugh at his story, but he still believes the cats' town exists somewhere in the universe.

About the author

Hagiwara Sakutarō was a Japanese poet from Maebashi in Gunma Prefecture. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of modern free verse in colloquial Japanese. His collections 月に吠える (Howling at the Moon) and 青猫 (Blue Cat) are known for their musical language and their moods of loneliness, unease and dreamlike perception. He was associated with the poet Murō Saisei and admired Kitahara Hakushū. He also wrote essays, aphorisms and criticism on poetry. "The Cats' Town" is one of his best-known prose works, and it shows the same interest in strange inner experience found in his poems.

More stories by Hagiwara Sakutarō →