The Chain Factory

The Chain Factory Ōsugi Sakae The Chain Factory1 Ōsugi Sakae Translated2 by Adam Goodwin Late one night I awoke with a start and found myself in a strange place. As far as I could see there were countless people busily working away at something. They are fashioning chains. The fellow beside me wrapped a rather long length of chain around himself and passed one end of it to the chap beside him. The second fellow lengthened the chain further, wrapped it around himself and, once again, passed it to another chap sitting diagonally from him. While this is happening,3 the first chap takes the end of another chain from the fellow beside him, and, as before, lengthens it and wraps it once around himself, and then passes the end to the chap sitting diagonally from him. This goes on and on, with everyone doing the same thing, and at a dizzying pace. All of them have chains wrapped around their midsections ten to twenty times, and at first glance it seems that they are completely immobilized, but their hands and feet are free enough to forge the chain and wrap it around their bodies. They work so intently. There isn’t a sign of bother on any of their faces. They actually look happy as they work. But all is not what it seems. Ten places from me a chap shouted something as he tossed away the end of a chain. But then, another fellow, who was standing near, but also with chains wrapped around his body, gruffly approached him and clubbed him three or four times with the large truncheon he was carrying. Everyone near the clubbed chap cried out in glee. The clubbed chap, crying, picks up the end of the chain, fashions a small link and joins it, forges another link, and joins that one. And after a while, the tears on his face had all dried away. In places there are slightly more refined men – standing, once again, with chains wrapped around their midsections – talking incessantly in shrill voices, like what one would hear from a phonograph. They speak at length with difficult words and complicated reasoning, saying something to the effect