Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
← Back
| Original Title | 遂に「知らん」文六（三場） |
|---|---|
| Author | 岸田 国士 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | On a frigid Taishō-era night, baker Bunroku Kawazu and his wife Osei huddle by a hearth, awaiting Earth’s prophesied collision with a comet. Shadows of revelers dance on their walls as distant music swells—a chaotic counterpoint to their dread. Their son Renta vanishes into the apocalyptic frenzy outside, while daughter Ochika clings to her lover upstairs. When midnight passes without catastrophe, relief curdles into disorientation: authorities dismiss the crisis as a hoax, demanding citizens resume “orderly lives.” But normalcy fractures further when Renta returns with a mysterious woman, pleading to marry her, while Bunroku slips into a surreal bureaucratic afterlife populated by demons tallying the dead. As familial tensions erupt—Ochika’s betrothal, Renta’s recklessness, Osei’s quiet despair—Bunroku unravels, his final anguished cries (“I don’t know!”) echoing humanity’s collapse into chaos and rebirth. Kishida’s haunting triptych merges existential dread with dark satire, probing how fragile order shatters when confronted with the unknown. |
← Return to List← Return to TOP