THE HUMAN CHAIR

Edogawa Ranpo (1925)

Translation by Finlay Cameron

Every morning, Yoshiko saw her husband off to his office, a ritual that never ended until past ten. Only then did she finally have time to herself. It was her custom to retreat to the Western-style study she shared with him and shut herself inside. There she now worked on a long story for the summer supplement of K Magazine.

She had become famous. As a writer of refined standing, she overshadowed her husband, an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so completely that he seemed to fade beside her. Letters arrived at her home almost daily; countless letters from unknown admirers.

This morning, too, she sat down at her study desk. Before starting her work, she needed to glance through the letters from these strangers.

They all said the same tiresome things, every last one of them. Nevertheless, she was conscientious. She had made it a rule: any letter addressed to her, no matter what kind, she would at least read through.

She began with the simpler ones: two sealed letters and a postcard. That left a single bulky envelope, one that appeared to contain a manuscript. There had been no prior notice, though such unsolicited submissions came often. Usually they turned out to be long and excruciatingly tedious. Still, she decided she would at least glance at the title. She opened the envelope and pulled out a bundle of papers.

Just as she had guessed: a stack of manuscript paper, bound together. Oddly, no title. No signature. Instead, it began abruptly with a salutation: Madam.

Ah, I see. A letter, then.

She let her eyes drift casually over the first two or three lines. Then she felt it: something vaguely abnormal, a strange and unsettling quality. Her innate curiosity seized her, and she found herself reading on, page after page, unable to stop.

Madam.

Please forgive me. A thousand times over, forgive me. I am a man you do not know, and yet I send you this rude and impertinent letter.

I realize this will come as a shock. I am about to confess to you a most extraordinary sin.

For months, I have hidden from the human world entirely. I have led a life truly akin to that of a demon. Of course, not a single soul in this vast world knows what I have done. Had nothing happened, I might never have returned to the human world.

Recently, however, a strange change has come over my heart. I find myself unable to bear another day without confessing this tragic fate of mine.

I know you will have your doubts. Still, I implore you: read this letter to the very end. Then it will become perfectly clear why I have come to feel this way, and why I must make this confession to you, madam, and to no one else.

Now, where should I begin? The facts are so inhuman, so impossibly bizarre, that I feel strangely embarrassed to convey them through so ordinary a thing as a letter. My pen hesitates. There is no point in dithering. I shall proceed, in order, from the very beginning.

I was born with an extraordinarily ugly face. Please bear this clearly in mind. Otherwise, should you grant my impertinent request and agree to meet me, it would be unbearable for you: my already ugly face, made hideous by years of unhealthy living, would appear before you without warning.

What a tragic fate is mine. With such a hideous face, deep in my heart, unknown to anyone, I burn with a passion of the most intense and fiery kind. I forget my reality: a craftsman with a monster’s face, utterly destitute. I yearn for dreams, sweet and extravagant dreams, far beyond my station.

Had I been born into wealth, I might have used money to indulge my every whim, to distract myself from the frustration of my ugliness. Had I been blessed with greater artistic talent, I might have lost myself in beautiful poetry and forgotten the dreariness of this world. I was blessed with neither. The son of a humble furniture maker, I eke out a living day by day through the trade passed down from my father.

My specialty is chairs. I make all kinds. The chairs I make please even the most demanding clients, so a trading company takes a special interest in me. They entrust me with only their finest work.

Such pieces come with difficult requests: intricate carvings on backrests and armrests, subtle preferences for cushion softness, exact dimensions. For a craftsman, this requires effort a layperson could scarcely imagine. The greater the effort, the greater the joy upon completion. It may sound presumptuous, but I believe that feeling rivals the joy of an artist completing a magnificent work.

When I finish a chair, I sit on it myself to test the feel. Even in the mundane life of a craftsman, at that moment alone, I feel an inexpressible pride. I wonder: what kind of noble person will sit here? What kind of beautiful lady? A residence grand enough to commission such a splendid chair must surely contain a room luxurious enough to match it. No doubt an oil painting by a famous artist hangs on the wall. A chandelier, like a magnificent jewel, hangs from the ceiling. Expensive carpets cover the floor. And on the table before the chair, dazzling Western flowers bloom in full, releasing their sweet fragrance.

Lost in such fantasies, I feel, for a moment, like the master of that magnificent room myself. Only for a fleeting moment. In that moment, an indescribable pleasure washes over me.

My fleeting delusions grow unchecked. I, poor and ugly, a lowly craftsman, become a noble prince in the world of my imagination. I sit upon the magnificent chair I have crafted. By my side, the beautiful lover who appears in my dreams listens to my words, smiling sweetly. That is not all. In my delusions, I even take her hand and whisper sweet words of love.

Then this ethereal purple dream, the color of nobility, shatters. The shrill chatter of the neighborhood matriarch. The hysterical wailing of sick children nearby. My ugly reality bares its gray, lifeless form before me once again.

Returning to reality, I find the pitifully ugly version of myself, bearing no resemblance to the noble prince of my dreams. What of that beautiful person who smiled at me just now? Where on earth could such a being exist? Even the filthy nursemaid, covered in dust and playing nearby, would not deign to look my way. Only the chair I made remains. It stands alone, like a remnant of that dream. But will it not soon be carried away to some unknown world, a world entirely different from mine?

Every time I finish a chair, an indescribable emptiness overcomes me. That indescribable, dreadful, dreadful feeling grows with each passing day, month, year. It has become something I can no longer bear.

If I must keep living this maggot-like existence, I would be better off dead.

I truly think this way. In the workshop, as I work my chisel, hammer nails, mix pungent paint, I think the same thoughts over and over, obsessively. Wait, though. If I am determined enough to die, surely other options exist. For example, I can...

These thoughts were still churning in my mind when a commission came: a set of four large, leather upholstered armchairs, something I had never attempted before. They were destined for a hotel run by a foreigner in this very city. Normally, such pieces would have been imported directly from the manufacturer’s home country. The trading company that employed me lobbied hard, arguing that Japan had chairmakers whose work matched any imported goods. They secured the order.

For this reason, I devoted myself utterly to their creation. I forgot to eat. I forgot to sleep. I poured my soul into them. I worked with complete absorption.

When I looked at the finished chairs, I felt a satisfaction I had never known. They were, even by my own standards, a masterpiece. I gazed at them, awestruck.

As usual, I carried one of the chairs out to the sunny wooden floor and settled into it. What a wonderful seat. The plump cushioning, neither too hard nor too soft, with just the right resilience. The texture of the tanned leather, left in its natural color, deliberately undyed. The full backrest that supports me gently with its perfect angle. The armrests on either side, swelling in delicate curves, weighty and rounded. All these elements achieve a mysterious harmony. They blend seamlessly, as if giving tangible form to the very word “comfort.”

I sank deeply into the chair. I caressed the rounded armrests with both hands. I lost myself in rapture.

Then, as always, my unstoppable fantasies began to well up, one after another, like a rainbow of dazzling colors. Is this what they call an illusion? Everything that came to mind floated so clearly before my eyes that I wondered if I might be losing my mind.

As I sat there, a brilliant idea suddenly rose in my mind. Is this what they mean by the devil’s whisper? The idea was preposterous, like a dream. Deeply unsettling. Yet that very unsettling quality became an inexplicable charm. It tempted me.

At first, my desire was simple. I did not want to part with the beautiful chair into which I had poured my heart and soul. I wanted to follow it to its destination. Then, as my mind drifted and my delusions spread their wings, before I knew it, this wish intertwined with a terrifying thought that had been fermenting in my mind all along.

What a madman I am. I resolved to put that utterly bizarre delusion into practice.

I hurried. I tore apart the armchair I considered the finest of the four. Then I rebuilt it, shaping it to suit my peculiar plan.

The armchair was extremely large. The seat was upholstered in leather all the way down to the floor. The backrest, armrests, and sides were all very thickly constructed. Inside, a hollow cavity existed, so large that even if a person were hiding within, no one could tell from the outside. Of course, a sturdy wooden frame and numerous springs were fitted inside. I made the necessary modifications. I tucked my knees into the seat. I placed my head and torso into the backrest. I sat in the exact shape of the chair. I created enough space to hide inside.

Such work came naturally to me. I worked quickly and skillfully, adapting the chair perfectly for my purpose.

I cut a slit in the hide, invisible from the outside, so I could breathe and listen. Inside, right beside my head, I attached a small shelf for storing things. I stocked it with a canteen and hard army rations. I fitted a large rubber bag for when I needed to relieve myself and devised various other solutions. As long as I had food, I could stay inside for two or three days without the slightest inconvenience. In a sense, the chair had become a room for one person.

Stripping down to just my shirt, I opened the hatch at the bottom and slipped inside.

The feeling was indescribable. Pitch black, stifling, akin to crawling into a grave. Come to think of it, it was a grave. The moment I crawled inside, I vanished from the human world, as if I had donned a cloak of invisibility.

It was not long before a messenger from the trading company arrived with a large cart to collect the chairs. My apprentice, the only person I lived with, attended to him, suspecting nothing.

As they loaded the chairs onto the cart, one of the porters shouted, “This thing is ridiculously heavy!” Inside the chair, my heart missed a beat. But the armchairs themselves were heavy enough that no one grew suspicious. Soon, the rattling vibrations of the cart sent a strange sensation through my entire body.

I was terrified, but nothing happened. By that afternoon, the armchair I had crawled into sat firmly in a room at the hotel.

I later learned it was not a private room but a lounge. People came and went constantly, meeting, reading, smoking.

My plan was simple. I would wait for a moment when no one was around, slip out from inside the chair, roam the hotel, and plunder.

Who could imagine such a preposterous thing? A human being hiding inside a chair.

I could move freely from room to room, like a shadow, ransacking at will. Then back to my hiding place to watch their frantic search.

You know the hermit crab, the kind found along the shoreline. It looks like a large spider. When no one is around, it struts about as if it owns the place. The moment it senses the slightest disturbance, it dashes into its shell with terrifying speed. Then it peeks its hairy front legs out just a little, watching the enemy’s movements.

That was me. Instead of a shell, I had my chair. Instead of the shore, I strutted about the hotel as if I owned the place.

My outlandish plan was working because it was so outlandish. No one could conceive of such a thing. By the third day, I had already made a considerable haul.

The terror and exhilaration of the act. The indescribable joy of a successful theft. The amusement of watching people make a great commotion right under my nose, running this way and that. These things captivated me with their strange charm.

I have no time to recount that in detail now, for I discovered a pleasure far stranger, one that delighted me ten, twenty times more than petty theft. I must confess, this is the true purpose of my letter.

Let me take you back to the moment my chair was placed in the hotel lounge.

The hotel staff tried the chairs, then left. Silence. Not a sound. No one remained in the room.

Having just arrived, I was too terrified to venture out. I concentrated all my senses on my ears, listening to my surroundings, determined not to miss the slightest sound. This lasted for what felt like an eternity.

After a while, footsteps echoed from the hallway. Heavy footsteps. They drew closer. Two or three rooms away, the carpet dampened them until they were barely audible.

Then I heard it: the rough breathing of a man.

Before I knew it, a large figure dropped onto my lap. He bounced once, twice. A Westerner, I presumed, from the sheer presence of him: the weight, the sound, the scent. My thighs and his sturdy, imposing buttocks pressed together, separated only by a thin layer of leather. I could feel his warmth. His broad shoulders rested against my chest. His heavy hands overlapped with mine through the leather.

He must have been puffing on a cigar. A rich, masculine scent drifted through the seams.

Madam, imagine for a moment that you are the one in the chair. What a strange and bewildering sensation.

I was terrified; I pressed myself tighter into the darkness of the chair. Cold sweat poured from my armpits. My mind went blank. I simply sat there in a daze.

He was my first. All day long, people took turns sitting on my lap. Not one of them realized I was there. They were convinced they were sinking into a soft cushion, but it was my own flesh and blood thigh beneath them.

It was a world of pitch darkness, confined inside leather, unable to move a muscle. What a strange, alluring world.

Human beings became mysterious creatures, entirely different from what I had seen with my eyes. They were nothing more than voices, breath, footsteps, the rustle of clothing, and a few generous, supple masses of flesh.

I could distinguish each of them not by their appearance, but by the feel of their bodies. Some were plump and fat, giving the sensation of rotten fish. Others were stiff and emaciated, feeling like skeletons. Then there were the curves of their spines, the width of their shoulder blades, the length of their arms, the thickness of their thighs, the length of their tailbones. I discovered that even those with strikingly similar builds have distinguishing features. The body, I found, carries its own distinct mark.

Women, too, were no exception. In ordinary life, I had judged them by their faces. Inside this chair, such things did not matter. There was only a naked body, a voice, a scent.

Madam, do not take offense at my bluntness. It was there that I felt a primal attachment to a woman’s body. She was the first to sit in my chair.

From her voice, I guessed she was a young foreign woman. The room was empty when she entered. She seemed to be in high spirits. She was humming a strange song in a soft voice, her step light and dancing. When she reached the armchair, she threw herself onto me. Her body was full, yet incredibly supple. For some reason, she found it amusing and burst into laughter, flapping her arms and legs, wriggling like a fish caught in a net.

For nearly half an hour, she remained on my lap. She sang to herself from time to time, moving her full body as if keeping time with the music.

This was, for me, an earth-shattering event. I had always regarded women as sacred. No, as something to be feared. I had barely dared to look them in the face. Yet here I was, in the same room, on the same chair, with a foreign woman I had never met. Closer still: separated only by a thin layer of leather, close enough to feel the warmth of her skin.

She showed no anxiety, entrusting her whole body to me. Alone in that room, she moved with carefree abandon.

From inside the chair, I could embrace her. I could kiss her neck through the leather. I could do whatever I pleased.

After this astonishing discovery, I forgot my original purpose; petty theft became secondary. I lost myself in this world of wondrous sensations.

I thought: perhaps this is my true refuge. A man as ugly and timid as I am can only live a shameful, miserable life in the bright world, always feeling inferior; but in the cramped, confined world inside this chair, I could interact with the beautiful people I was never allowed to speak to in the outside world. I could hear their voices. I could touch their skin.

Love inside a chair. No one can understand its mysterious, intoxicating charm without crawling inside.

It is a love based only on touch, on sound, on the faintest hint of scent. It is a love of darkness. It does not belong to this world. Is this not the lust of hell itself? When I think of it, I realize that grotesque, terrifying things, beyond all imagination, take place in the unseen corners of this world.

My original plan was to flee the hotel as soon as I had stolen what I could. Instead, I became absorbed in a joy so strange it defies description. Far from fleeing, I made the chair my permanent dwelling. I stayed on.

During my nightly outings, I took the utmost care. I made no sound. I avoided being seen.

Even so, I am astonished at myself. I lived inside that chair for months without ever being discovered.

I spent nearly every waking hour in that cramped space, my arms bent, my knees folded. At times, my entire body grew numb. I could no longer stand upright. Eventually, I crawled back and forth to the kitchen and the bathroom like a cripple.

What a madman I had become. In spite of such suffering, I could not prize myself away from that intoxicating world of sensations.

Some guests stayed for a month or two, treating the hotel as their home. Still, it was a hotel. Guests came and went constantly. Consequently, I could do nothing to prevent my strange romances from changing partners as time passed. The memories of those many mysterious lovers are etched in my mind not by their faces, as is usually the case, but by the shape of their bodies.

Some were spirited as foals, with slender, toned bodies. Some were alluring as snakes, with bodies that twisted and turned with ease. Some were plump as rubber balls, with bodies rich in fat and elasticity. Others were sturdy and powerful as Greek sculpture, well-proportioned and strong. Every woman’s body possessed its own unique characteristics and charm.

As I moved from one woman to the next, I experienced another strange sensation as well.

One such instance occurred when the ambassador of a powerful European nation placed his imposing frame upon my lap. I learned who he was from the gossip of a Japanese bellboy. He was celebrated more as a world-renowned poet than as a politician. For that very reason, I felt a thrilling sense of pride at having touched the skin of such a great man. He spoke for about ten minutes to two or three of his compatriots while sitting on my lap, then simply stood up and left. I had no idea what he said. But with every gesture he made, the ticklish sensation of his flesh, warmer than that of an ordinary person and quivering with each movement, sent a strange thrill through me.

At that moment, a thought suddenly came to me. What if I were to stab him through the leather with a sharp knife, aiming straight for his heart? What would happen then? It would certainly be fatal. It would throw not only his home country but the entire Japanese political world into an uproar. The newspapers would publish the most inflammatory articles. Diplomatic relations between Japan and his country would be severely strained. From an artistic standpoint, his death would be a great loss to the world. Such a major incident could be caused so easily, by a single move of my hand. The thought filled me with a strange sense of pride.

The other incident occurred when a famous dancer from a certain country visited Japan. By chance, she was staying at the hotel. On one occasion, only once, she sat down in my chair. I was deeply moved, much as I had been by the ambassador. But beyond that, she possessed a physical beauty more ideal than any I had ever known. Her beauty was so overwhelming that it left no room for base thoughts. I simply admired her with the same reverent feeling one might have before a work of art.

Apart from that, I had various other experiences. Some were strange. Some were mysterious. Some were rather unsettling. Detailing them here is not the purpose of this letter, and it has already become quite lengthy. I shall hasten to the crux of the matter.

Several months after I arrived at the hotel, a change occurred. The hotel owner had to return to his home country for personal reasons. He sold the entire business to a Japanese company. The new owners abandoned the hotel’s former luxury. Their goal was profitability, and they converted it into a more modest establishment. To that end, they sent the surplus furnishings to a large furniture dealer for auction. My chair was included in that auction catalog.

When I learned this, my heart sank. For a moment, I even considered using this as an opportunity to return to the outside world and start a new life. By that time, the money I had stolen had grown into a considerable sum. Even if I returned to the world, I would not have to live as miserably as I had before.

Still, I had to admit that while leaving the foreigner’s hotel came as a great disappointment, it also gave new hope. Though I had loved so many different women over the course of several months, they were all foreigners. No matter how splendid or attractive their bodies might be, I could not help but feel a strange hollowness. Perhaps a Japanese person cannot truly feel love unless it is for another Japanese person. Such was the thought growing in my mind.

Just then, my chair was put up for auction. This time, perhaps a Japanese person might buy it. Perhaps it might find a home in a Japanese household. That became my new hope. In any case, I decided to continue living inside the chair a little while longer.

I spent two or three days in front of the furniture shop, suffering terribly. When the auction began, as luck would have it, my chair found a buyer right away. Even though it was old, it was still a fine chair, striking enough to catch the eye.

The buyer was a government official living in a large city not far from Y City. I was transported from the shopfront to his residence, a journey of several miles, in a truck over terribly bumpy roads. I suffered agonizing pain inside the chair. But the discomfort was nothing compared to the joy of knowing the buyer was Japanese, just as I had hoped.

The official owned a rather splendid residence. My chair was placed in a spacious Western-style study. What gave me great satisfaction was that the study was used not so much by the master of the house as by the young and beautiful lady of the house. From then on, for about a month, I was constantly in her company. Her supple body was always upon me except for mealtimes and when she went to bed. During the hours we spent together, she was absorbed in writing a book.

There is no need to go into tedious detail about how much I loved her; how much I love her. She was the first Japanese woman I had ever been with, and she possessed a truly beautiful body. I felt true love for the first time. Compared to this, my numerous experiences at the hotel could not be called love. I had never felt such a thing before. I was no longer content to merely enjoy secret caresses. I went to great lengths to make her aware of my existence.

I wanted her to sense my presence inside the chair. Though it may sound presumptuous, I wanted her to love me. How could I signal this to her? If I openly revealed that I was hiding there, she would surely be startled. She would undoubtedly tell her husband and the servants. Not only would that ruin everything, but I would also face a terrible punishment.

I tried my best to make my chair feel comfortable to her, to make her grow attached to it. As an artist, she must surely possess a more refined sensibility than the average person. If she sensed a life within my chair, if she grew attached to it not merely as an object but as a living being, that alone would be enough to satisfy me.

Whenever she threw herself onto me, I made a point of catching her as softly and gently as possible. When she grew tired while sitting on me, I moved my knees ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly, to adjust her position. Whenever she began to doze off, I rocked my knees ever so faintly, serving as a cradle to lull her to sleep.

Whether this thoughtfulness has been rewarded, or whether it is merely a figment of my imagination, I cannot say. Of late, however, she seems to have grown somewhat fond of my chair, sinking into it with a sweet tenderness, like a baby held in its mother’s arms, or a maiden responding to her lover’s embrace. Even the way she moves her body on my lap seems familiar and comforting.

My passion burns more fiercely with each passing day. Oh Madam, finally, I come to harbor a presumptuous wish, one entirely beyond my station. I have become so consumed that I would be content to die just to catch a single glimpse of my beloved’s face and exchange a few words with her.

Madam, please forgive my extreme impertinence. As you now surely know, the one I call my beloved is, in fact, you. It is you. Ever since your husband purchased my chair at that shop in Y City, I have been a pitiful man, offering you a love I know can never be returned.

Madam, is there no way you could grant me a momentary meeting? Could you not offer even a single word of comfort to this pitiful, ugly man? I ask for nothing more than that. I am far too ugly and utterly tainted to hope for anything beyond that. Please, please, grant this desperate wish of a man who is the most unfortunate in the world.

Last night, I slipped out of your residence to write this letter. To ask you for such a favor face to face would be far too perilous, and something I simply cannot bring myself to do.

By the time you read this letter, I will be pacing anxiously around the grounds, my face pale with worry.

If you would grant this most impertinent of requests, please hang your handkerchief over the pot of dianthus by the window of your study. Taking that as a signal, I shall approach the entrance of your residence as an ordinary visitor.

The strange letter concluded with words of desperate pleading, but Yoshiko had pressed it shut long before that. Overcome by a terrible foreboding, she had fled from the study, with its eerie armchair, and made her way to the Japanese-style living room. She considered not reading the rest, simply tearing it up. Unable to shake her unease, she found herself reading on at the small table in the living room.

Her premonition had been correct.

What a terrifying revelation. Could it be that a stranger had been hiding inside that armchair where she sat every day?

A chill ran down her spine, as if cold water had been poured over her back. No matter how much time passed, the strange shivering would not subside.

She was too stunned to think. What could she do? Check the chair? How could she possibly bring herself to do that? Even if the man himself was gone, food and other foul traces of him surely remained.

“Madam, you have a letter.”

Startled, she turned. A maid held out a sealed envelope that had just arrived.

Yoshiko took it without thinking and glanced at the handwriting on the envelope. She nearly dropped it. The script was identical to that of the eerie letter she had just received. Her own name stared back at her.

For a long time, she hesitated, turning it over in her hands. To open it or not. Finally, she tore it open and, trembling, read the contents. The letter was very short, yet its words made her gasp.

Please forgive me a thousand times over for the impertinence of writing to you unannounced. I am an avid reader of your works. Enclosed in a separate envelope is a humble piece of my own writing. I would be overjoyed if you would take the time to read it and offer your critique. For certain reasons, I mailed the manuscript before writing this letter, so I assume you have already seen it. What did you think of it? If my work were to make even the slightest impression on you, I could not be happier.

Although I deliberately omitted it from the manuscript, I intend to title it “The Human Chair.”

Well then, without further ado, I humbly ask for your consideration.

Sincerely,