Country Teacher 9780824887841

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Country Teacher

"Autumn turned colder with each passing day."

Country Teacher a novel by

Tayama Katai TRANSLATED BY KENNETH

HENSHALL

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS Honolulu

Originally published as Inaka Kyoshi by Sakura Shobo, 1909 English translation ©1984 University of Hawaii Press All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Frontispiece by Okamoto Tanga Photographs reproduced by permission of Chikuma Shobo Publication of this book has been assisted by a grant from the Japan Foundation

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Tayama, Katai, 1871-1930. Country teacher. Translation of: Inaka kyoshi. PL817.A8I713 1984 895.6'34 ISRN 0 - 8 2 4 8 - 0 8 6 9 - X

83-24322

Contents

Preface

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"Country Teacher," an essay from Katai's memoirs Country Teacher Glossary

209

1

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Preface

Country Teacher is the essentially true story of a young man attempting to make his way in the adult world, and of his frustration and despair as he is forced to compromise his youthful ideals in the face of reality. He dreams of leaving his hometown of Gyoda (Saitama Prefecture) to study in Tokyo, and aspires further to achieve success as a writer. However, as the only child of a poor family he is morally obliged to support his aging parents, and takes a job as a teacher at a nearby elementary school, watching with envy as his more fortunate friends set off on a path very like the one he himself wanted to follow. His acceptance of his destiny is by no means graceful, and he tries unsuccessfully on several occasions to realize his dream. Particularly painful is the discovery that, even if he had been materially able to study in Tokyo, he would not have had the necessary ability to establish himself as a scholar or writer. Then, tragically, just as he reconciles himself to his limitations and seems to be on the verge of a happiness of sorts, he is stricken with tuberculosis and dies a miserable death. Ironically, the extinction of his unhappy life comes just as Japan is celebrating the capture of Liaoyang in the 1904-1905 war with Russia. In contrast to his pitiful end, the newspapers are full of reports of heroic deaths. The story is based on the diaries of Kobayashi Shuzo (18841904, Hayashi Seizo in the novel) as well as on-the-spot research by Katai. There are a number of discrepancies with actual fact, and several passages of acknowledged conjecture on Katai's part, but in general Country Teacher has great impact because it is an uncomplicated story of a real person. It was well received from the start by the reading public, and soon achieved even greater

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popularity than Katai's epoch-making confessional novel of two years before, The Quilt (Futon, Sept. 1907). Unlike The Quilt its popularity was—and still is—due not to the raising of any profound social issues, but to its simple depiction of the life of a common man, one of the vast legions of nobodies who are the stuff of real life. The interest lies not so much in the initial clash between individual aspirations and traditional morality, which is one of the main characteristics of The Quilt, but rather in the protagonist's realization of the limits imposed by his own inabilities. The work is still praised for its pathos and for the poignant universality of its theme, as well as for its lyric evocation of a rural atmosphere. In later years Katai himself stated that it was one of his most satisfying works, and, although in specific detail it is in parts somewhat dated, in its significance and appeal it is timeless. Every young man seems to need his heroes. One of Kobayashi's heroes was the writer Shimazaki loson (1872-1943), who in those days was known as a poet rather than a novelist as in later years, loson led what would have seemed to Kobayashi a very appealing life—a respected and talented man of letters, a one-time university lecturer, a man who had already achieved a certain notoriety for his romantic affairs, and a man of rural birth who had tasted to the full the glamor of life in the metropolis. The fact that from April 1899 on loson had himself been working as a country teacher in not-too-distant Komoro should not be seen as paradoxical: first and foremost, loson had success and experience of life in the capital behind him, whereas for Kobayashi they were still untasted fruits; moreover, it must have served to establish some degree of common ground between Kobayashi and his hero and to make that hero seem all the more readily identifiable and emulatable. In this respect, for example, it is not insignificant that Kobayashi attempted to enter the music college in Ueno, where T&son himself once studied, or that he tried to emulate "rural" works of Toson's such as his study of clouds. There are other persons who appear or are referred to in the novel who seem to symbolize desirable achievements for Kobayashi. They include Katai himself (Hara Kyoka in the novel), Katai's brother-in-law priest and former poet Ota Gyokumei (18711927, Yamagata Kojo), the critic Hasegawa Tenkei (1876-1940, Aibara Kenji), the writer and publisher Ohashi Otowa (1869-

1901, Ojima Kogetsu), and the poetess Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) and her husband, Tekkan (1873-1935). Akiko in particular was a conspicuous personality, and was known for the powerful passions which she expressed in her poetry and for the way in which she attacked old conventions of thought as well as style. The Yosanos' romantic, Western-influenced poetry was mostly published in the magazine Myojo (Venus), which Tekkan had founded in April 1900 and which was itself considered fresh and impactive in its format and illustrations. (Katai, though in the main opposed to romanticism, was full of praise for the magazine in these respects.) It is sometimes overlooked that in general the role played by such literary figures was very different from that of present-day writers. In the first place, obviously, there was no television or radio and so the written word—and consequently writers—inevitably played a relatively greater role in people's lives than today. Naturally some of these writers played an important part in intellectual circles and in the development of cultural traditions. However, from the point of view of many young people, writers—particularly young writers associated with new trends—filled the same role as the present-day stars of the worlds of pop, sports, and cinema. It is perhaps similarly overlooked that these worlds simply did not exist in those days, and that to find their idols the young people had to look to the military or to politics or to literature. The status of writers was also similar to that of present-day stars in that theirs was not the sort of career that most parents would wish their offspring to pursue. At the same time, however, the young people themselves, particularly those in the provinces, considered such a career an ideal path to fame and fortune. Just as in today's worlds of pop and sport and cinema, trends within the literary world changed frequently, and careers were made—and often broken—with great rapidity. In his main memoirs, Thirty Years in Tokyo (Tokyo no Sanjunen, 1917), Katai amply illustrates the superstar status of some of the writers, such as Ozaki Koyo (1867-1903) and Koda Rohan (1867-1947), and describes how young people continually gossiped about the private lives of these stars—what they were doing, who their friends were, which geisha they were last seen with, and so on and so forth. While writers like Toson and Yosano Akiko were the subjects of academic dissertations and weighty literary and ideological discussions, it should

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always be borne in mind that for young people like Kobayashi they had a rather different image. Country Teacher is a work which is meant to be felt rather than analyzed. I therefore do not propose in this introduction to discuss aspects such as how exactly it relates to Katai's literary theories, or to delve into each specific point of deviation from actual fact. Most necessary background information can be learned from Katai's essay "Country Teacher," which was included in his Thirty Years in Tokyo memoirs and which I have appended to this introduction. I have intervened in the essay to identify, in square brackets, other persons and places mentioned there. The only other point arising from it which I think it necessary to mention is that the date of the fall of Liaoyang and the date of Kobayashi's death were not quite as close as Katai suggests. Liaoyang fell on September 4 (1904), whereas the records of the Kenpukuji—the Hanyu temple appearing in the work as the Jôgan Temple—reveal that Kobayashi died on the twenty-second. It is possible that Katai simply did not know this, and was misled by Ôta Gyokumei's vagueness, but it is most probable that he deliberately used poetic license to bring the two events closer together. He has done the same thing in other works, and it is important to appreciate that his literature was mostly based on truth, but by no means slavishly so as is often believed. Similarly, in order to let the story flow, I have refrained from using notes to the novel itself. Such matters as the various events of the Russo-Japanese War, for example, are not especially obscure and the interested reader would have little difficulty in finding out details from other texts. Katai's impressionistic approach —known as heimen byôsha (single-plane depiction)—has resulted in a number of imprécisions and non sequiturs, but rather than indicate these with notes I have taken the liberty of silently correcting a few disruptively blatant inconsistencies, such as mathematical errors attributable to Katai rather than the diarist, while in general I have simply avoided interfering and have let the imprécisions and non sequiturs stand. Imprecision is after all an important aspect of Katai's literature: he was not concerned with clinical detail, but with overall impression in any given scene. He felt rather than thought, and expressed rather than described.

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The style of the diary entries themselves varies from the tersely informal to the convolutedly antique, at times becoming intensely personal and apostrophic in a manner perhaps surprisingly oldfashioned for such an apparently forward-looking young man, even allowing for his rustic upbringing. It is the erratic and sometimes almost embarrassingly naive nature of the entries which testifies to their authenticity and gives them a certain impact. Unfortunately the diaries themselves appear to be no longer extant, having been used to repair sliding doors during the Second World War. I should perhaps add that the education system of the late Meiji period (1868-1912) was rather different from today. Elementary schools generally contained two courses, ordinary and upper. The former, which was compulsory, usually spanned ages six to ten, the latter eleven to fourteen. Middle schools were relatively few and closer to present-day high schools, with the average age range being fourteen to seventeen. High schools were quite scarce and very difficult to gain admission to, having the same status as leading universities nowadays. Normal schools (the accepted though perhaps somewhat confusing term) were rather similar to presentday teacher training colleges, and were not quite as difficult to enter as high schools. The ages of normal-school students ranged from sixteen to twenty-one for men, and fourteen to nineteen for women, and it seems that whereas men went there from middle school, women could go there directly from upper elementary. In addition there were a number of specialist colleges, such as for aspiring musicians and military officers, and a very small number of universities, which were elite institutions well beyond the reach of most hopefuls. The specialist colleges generally ranked somewhere between normal schools and high schools. To avoid unnecessary awkwardnesses in translation I have retained certain Japanese terms—largely related to everyday items for which no simple English equivalents exist—and have appended a basic glossary of these.

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"Country Teacher" from Katai's memoirs, Tokyo no Sanjunen (Thirty Years in Tokyo),

1917

Shortly after returning from the [Russo-Japanese] war I visited O [Ota Gyokumei] at his country temple. Passing through the temple cemetery I happened to notice a fresh grave marker, with the words "Here lies Kobayashi Shuzo." There were lots of flowers placed at the graveside, so it looked as if the burial had only very recently taken place. I went on up to the temple, met O, and we talked about the war. Then I suddenly remembered the grave I had seen and asked him about it. "There's a grave out there of somebody called Kobayashi Shuzo, and I'm sure I've heard that name before. He wouldn't by any chance be that young man who used to lodge here a year or so ago, would he?" "That's him, yes." "When did he die?" "Only just recently. It was the day after the fall of Liaoyang, or thereabouts." "That's sad. What was it—illness?" "His lungs." "That really is a shame." I had met him a couple of times and could vaguely remember him. My immediate thought was that on the day of the fall of Liaoyang—the most glorious day in Japan's international history, a day when tens of thousands of people were filled with tremen-

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dous joy—there was a young man dying such a lonely death, dying without achieving anything and without even going off to the war. The thought filled me with profound sadness over the hopes of this young man buried here in the countryside. I went on to picture the graveyard scene in [Turgenev's] Fathers and Sons. He was very different from Bazarov, but nonetheless . . . I thought I'd try writing something dealing with the young men of Japan during the period 1901/02 to 1904/05. I also decided to relate it to that glorious day in Japan's international history. It was most fortunate that three of Kobayashi Shuzo's diaries—from his middle school student days, his elementary school teaching days, and the year prior to his death—had come into O's hands. I at once borrowed them and started reading. I would probably have written Country Teacher even without those diaries, but nevertheless it is certainly true that they were excellent material, especially the diary of the year prior to his death. Those diaries may well represent Kobayashi's lifework. Within their pages I discovered not just one, but many young men buried in the countryside along with their hopes, many lonely souls passing into oblivion without being able to achieve anything. I felt I had grasped the essence of Country Teacher. The final diary continued until the day before his death. He appears, of course, to have written it lying in bed suffering, and the writing is weak, the characters large and clumsy. The sight made me feel like crying. After all, wasn't his Japanese spirit, as he lay small and wretched on his deathbed thinking of the result of the capture of Liaoyang, a part nonetheless of the Japanese spirit in its entirety, the spirit that was able to achieve this international glory? Furthermore, the setting was close to my own hometown, and I feel this enabled me to understand his young spirit all the better. After I had looked through his diaries, Kobayashi Shuzo was no longer simply Kobayashi Shuzo. He was my Kobayashi Shuzo. Wherever I went, I felt that he was alive beside me. The scenes and sights he had witnessed, his feelings, all were mine now. The paths by the hedges, the temple garden, the thawing roads, the inside of the horse coach—everywhere I saw a living Kobayashi.

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Whenever I went to the town of H [Hanyu], I always made a point of visiting his grave. His friends had already had a large headstone of natural rock erected there. Here there was love, there were tears, there was an undying spirit, and here his tragically pathetic patriotism as a citizen of Japan lived on, risen from the dead. I picked some of the flowers blooming in the fields and made an offering of them. One autumn day I gazed out from the main building of the temple over the broad expanse of fields. As I watched the yellowing rice plants, the bright late afternoon sun shining through them, and the scanty shadows of the alders, and as I listened to the distant sound of a passing cart, I imagined that Kobayashi was there with me, watching like me the sunset fields, and listening like me to the rattle of laden carts. "Life is a vast and varied tapestry." Such were the sorrowful comments I found myself making. For me, having heard the terrible sound of gunfire at the front and having seen the hellish arena of battle and brutally slain corpses, these quiet scenes of nature were particularly moving. The contrast made me think very deeply about nature and human life. "What about taking me to Miroku?" I asked O one day. We chose a quiet autumn day. We went quietly along that seven-mile road that Kobayashi had traveled every day. The sun shone brightly over the fields, the autumn flowers bloomed, the little stream flowed quietly on its way, and at the noodle shop on the corner the proprietress was busy rolling out noodles. First of all I visited the school where he had taught. I was shown the duty room he had stayed in, introduced to his colleagues, to the principal, and even taken to see the organ. After school was over some teachers and students quietly played ball in the school garden, just as they had done in Kobayashi's time there. Nowadays the village of Miroku has changed and become a busy place, but in those days it was a quiet, out-of-the-way little village with white smoke rising lazily from the bathhouse chimney and smoke from the farmers' fires drifting across the fields beyond the Ogawa Inn, standing at the water's edge. There at the Ogawa Inn we now drank sake, and had a side dish of boiled vegetables.

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We laughed about how the principal had been afraid that my visit for a mere talk might in fact be some sort of detective investigation. I also paid a visit to Kobayashi's parents' place. I couldn't bring myself to tell them that I was planning a novel about their son, so I pretended that I'd come to talk about paintings. I met, then, his gentle mother and happy-go-lucky father. It was indeed the house where Kobayashi's deathbed had been laid. After visiting the house my plans for Country Teacher gradually started to take shape. I could visualize clearly everything that was mentioned in the diaries. I now decided to travel again his daily route to Miroku, this time from Gyoda. I thought things over carefully. I had come to a good understanding of Kobayashi as he was during his stay at the temple, but I found it difficult to grasp things to do with his friends. His middle school diary was full of fantasies, and I couldn't tell what was true and what was untrue. Much of it was written in fun, as a joke. I had planned to depict the youth of the period 1901/02 to 1904/05, but this meant that I would have a lot of researching to do. The young men of that period were very different in type and character from the young men of my youth. They were young men who were captivated by the magazine Myojo [Venus], young men who were half-romantic, fanciful, who had still not arrived at the new way of thinking, and it was very difficult for me to depict their group. I couldn't understand his first love affair during his middle school days, nor the love affairs that followed, and so for a long time I couldn't write anything. Two years went by, three years. I had conceived the idea for the work before works like Futon [The Quilt, 1907], but even after finishing writing Sei [Life, 1908] and Tsuma [Wife, 1908] I still couldn't get down to writing it. I felt the material was getting older and older and gradually mouldering away. Furthermore, in an age full of new ideology, its tone was too inclined to romanticism and sentimentalism. The tone of my writing was already slipping toward a certain sugariness with Sei and Tsuma, and I felt that such a sentimental work would certainly not help matters. And so another year or so passed by. And yet, on looking through the diaries again I felt I simply had to write it. Those pages contained, as clear as could be, the tragedy of a modern young man of an age just past. And so I resolved xvi

A selection of covers from the Myôjô (Venus) magazine.

A contemporary scene.

From the left, Hagiwara Kisaburô (Ogyû), Niijima Momosuke (Obata), and Kobayashi Shûzô (Hayashi).

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Gyôda street

to write, ignoring any worldly considerations. I would write it regardless of the fact that it was romantic and sentimental and out of touch with the new way of thinking. Having made my decision I called on K [Kano Masuji, the Kató Ikuji of the novel]—Kobayashi's friend K—in Ózuka, and borrowed some letters from him, and presently I also called on Ishijima [Ishijima IkutarO, the Ishikawa Kizan of the novel] in Gyóda. Though he was a very busy man, Ishijima was kind enough to show me all sorts of things. He took me to the former samurai residences, and he took me to the ruins of the house Kobayashi used to live in. On that occasion I also took a ricksha to Kumagaya. It was then that I was able to obtain details for the depiction of the route along the watercourse. I also called on Hagiwara [Hagiwara Kisaburó, the Ogyü of the novel, who at various times worked both in the Kumagaya and Hanyü post offices] in the post office in the main street of the town. He was busy just at that moment, so I waited for him at his family's place, a restaurant called Senshü. Hagiwara is the second or third son of the family, and is nowadays head of the post office in H. That he is a very kind-hearted, responsible man is made clear in the diaries. We had a marvelous meal at his place, and he told me all sorts of things about Kobayashi. I was also able to make observations on his own personality. I did want to find out a bit more about the girls in Kobayashi's life, but everyone was reserved in this respect and no one would talk to me about the matter. Nor did I get an opportunity to meet the girls. This was very unfortunate, but there was nothing I could do about it so I had to start writing leaving it at that. I began writing on the second or third of June. It was very relaxing writing beside the window with the early summer rain falling outside, and the words flowed in harmony with the gentle mood of the work. Nevertheless, there was much about my life at that time that was not in tune with the writing of Country Teacher. I was full of anxieties and worries, and ill into the bargain, and I frequently had to rest from my writing. Nonetheless, by the end of August I was able to complete about two-thirds of the work. I sent the manuscript off to Seki [Seki Yosaburó, a leading figure at the Sakura Press], and heaved a sigh of relief. After that I had a good half of my time taken up with proofxviii

reading as I carried on writing. Seki and Shibata Ryusei [another Sakura Press editor] came what seemed like every day with their pressing demands. Nor could I take every day off from my job just like that. The lamplight shone on the trees out in the garden till late at night. Reaction to the work was quite considerable. There was a lot of the sort of criticism I had expected—that it left much to be desired as a work of the modern times. It was also felt that the psychological aspect of my depiction of young men was not quite accurate. The parts which I myself had not fully grasped were, after all, rather weak. I had a map put in at the front of the book to help people picture the life of a young man who generally went no further afield than the limited area of Hanyu, Miroku, Gyoda, Kumagaya, and his birthplace of Ashikaga. Here and there I have encountered people from the Kanto region carrying a copy of Country Teacher. Amongst others I've seen a young woman—who looked like a teacher—reading it inside a coach, and I've also seen it left lying on the lobby desk in the most unlikely of inns. I've also heard remarks like, "It seems this business about visiting the brothel district in Nakada isn't true. Novelists do write some terrible things, don't they." The bit about the licensed quarters in Nakada is indeed conjecture. However, I believed that, at some point in a young man's life, there surely had to be an episode like that, even if the actual form might be a bit different. There was a break of a year in the diaries, and this gave me the opportunity for the conjecture. That part reflects to some extent the considerable intertwining of author and protagonist. I relied on my imagination to depict the scenery of the lower Tone, from Ogoe to Nakada, and when I later visited the area I found to my great regret that it was in fact quite different. This convinced me that you really can't beat on-the-spot depiction. In contrast, my depiction of the pines on the banks near Hotto was based upon actual observations, and consequently was much praised by people who visited the area. The section in which I listed all the flowers on the Tone embankment might give the impression that the author is well versed in botany, but in fact I simply put down what was written in the diaries. xix

Anyway, all things considered, I was happy to have depicted the aims of this one young man. I was far happier with it than with the depiction of my mother in Sei, perhaps because I wasn't overly attached. I felt I had dealt with the human soul, that I had resurrected a young man from the grave. Even now, whenever I visit the temple in H, I go without fail to stand before that grave with the headstone of natural rock. I have also offered flowers there. The grave is no longer for me the grave of some unknown person. Nowadays the cypress tree planted by his friends provides shade there. On my most recent visit, I also found that the surrounding fence had fallen into disrepair and that his grave was no longer clearly separated from the other graves.

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Country Teacher

A man of about fifty who looked like the caretaker emerged from a room at the back. "Is the assistant official not here?" "Iwano-san?" asked the caretaker, blinking. "Yes, that's the man." The caretaker withdrew with Seizo's name card and his letter from the school inspector. Presently Seizo was shown into the reception room. Reception room it may have been, but it had no table or chairs and was a commonplace six-mat room, empty except for a simple earthenware hibachi which had been set in the very center. The assistant official was a short, fat man wearing a striped haori. He looked at the letter from the inspector. "So you're Hayashi-san? Kato-san mentioned this business to me recently. I'll write you a letter of introduction." So saying he brought out a dirty inkstone case and, after a long and pensive silence, wrote a letter which he addressed to Ishino Eizo-sama, Village Head, Mitagaya Village. "Please take this to the Miroku office."

2 I t was still the best part of a mile to Miroku. Mitagaya may well have been called a village, but that didn't necessarily mean that it was a single cluster of houses. There was a house here, a house there, a few houses over by some cryptomerias, another house over beyond the fields, and so on and so on. Having come from a town Seizo had doubts as to whether there was any sort of communal existence here that really amounted to a village. However, as he went on a bit further, houses started to appear on both sides of the road, along with a dirty-looking barber's shop, a disreputable-looking cafe, and a cheap sweet shop with a crowd of children around. Suddenly he caught sight of the single-storied elementary school over to the right, with an old sign

6

at the entrance saying, Mitagaya Village, Miroku Upper and Ordinary Elementary School. It was class time and mixed in among the students' recitations was the occasional sharp voice of a teacher. The sun shone on the dirty windows, and here and there he could just make out rows of students, a blackboard, a table, a figure in Western clothes. The area around the shoe cupboards, which would be crowded with children at the start and finish of the day, was now peaceful, and a white dappled dog searched lazily for scraps of food in the schoolyard. The faint sound of an organ came from what appeared to be the hall. The ricksha was passing in front of the entrance. There was an umbrella stall there. It was full of a jumble of oiled paper and bowls of tanning agents and threads and tools, and in the very middle of it all an old man of about fifty was busy making umbrellas. Round about were numerous oiled umbrellas that had been set out to dry. Seizo stopped the ricksha and asked the old man where the village office was. The office was not in the cluster of houses alongside the road. Beyond the houses was an embankment with a moat, possibly the vestiges of some former castle. The bank was thick with bamboo grass and weeds, and the dirty, stagnant water of the moat was covered with the shadows of huge oaks, making it appear all the darker and colder. Seizo was told that if he followed the moat and then turned off he would come to the office about a hundred yards further on. He paid the thirty sen for the ricksha fare and continued on foot. Suddenly he noticed, beside a thicket of bamboo grass, a miscanthus-thatched house with Ogawa Inn—Soba and Udon written on its old Yamato-style shoji. There were fields around the inn, and larks chirped softly and sweetly above green wheat. He had heard that there was an inn in Miroku called Ogawa and that the teachers from the school ate and drank and held parties there. He'd also heard that the place offered temporary board and even hired out bedding. There was also said to be a very pretty and much-talked-of girl there named Otane. Seizo was glad there was no one around. He stopped to have a look over the low hedge into the garden. Several pines and leafy cherry trees and the blackness of the shoji caught his eye. The thick green leaves of a camellia and a coral tree stood

7

bathed in sunlight over in a corner. There were still several flowers left on the camellia. The wind from Mount Akagi, for which the area was famous, had stopped blowing in April, and now the fields were beautifully colored with greens and yellows and reds. The narrow road threading through the wheat fields headed into the rows of spindly alders beyond, and here he could make out, as if it was all part of a watercolor painting, the straw-thatched roof of what appeared to be the village office. The reception room was nicer than that in the village office in Izumi. From it Seizo could clearly see, through a glass window, a room where the officials were going about their duties. A collection of documents—census registers, tax registers, applications, and the like—had been arranged neatly on a table. A thinnish man in his mid-twenties with a parting in his hair was busy writing something, as was a bald-headed old man of about fifty. A whiskered middle-aged man, who looked like the assistant official, was laughing and talking away with a fat farmer, who looked like a man of influence in the community. There was the occasional sound of a tobacco pipe being tapped. The village head was about forty-five, with a pockmarked face and greying hair. He was a type frequently met in the area and occasionally mixed local Bushu dialect into his speech. He read the letter from the assistant official in Izumi Village and then folded it up again, head held at a skeptical angle, with the remark, "I haven't heard anything about this, either from the school inspector or the assistant official." Seizo was dumbfounded. He felt as if he'd somehow been tricked. He also felt that both the inspector and Iwano must have been extremely irresponsible. The village head thought for a while, then said, "Well, it could be that some confidential arrangement about a transfer has been decided on. There's a teacher here at the moment called Hirata, who hasn't got a very good reputation, and I did hear some talk about replacing him. It'd be best if you tried going to the school and talking with the principal." His patronizing manner wounded Seizo's youthful pride. He's just a vulgar farmer with a bit of money, an impudent lout, thought Seizo. He had never imagined that his first teaching post, his first entry into the real world, would entail such a callous scene. 8

An hour later found Seizo at the school ready to meet the principal. It was class time and he had to wait some thirty minutes in the staff room. The room was untidily littered with wall maps and large abacuses and books and botanical specimens and whatnot. A female teacher was busy checking something over in a corner. She vaguely acknowledged him when he came in but said nothing. Eventually a bell rang, and hordes of children came streaming down the long corridor to scatter into the school yard like so many threads from a broken spider's web. The previous silence was broken, and in its place the noise of the children, of feet and shouts, now filled the school. The principal had white chalk on his suit. He was tall and thin faced, of a rather lean build, and his manner had about it the characteristic affectation of a normal-school graduate. Seizo couldn't at that point tell whether he really was unaware of what was going on, or whether he was simply pretending to be unaware. "I don't know the faintest thing about it. But, if Kato-san says so, and if Iwano-san also knows about it, then there must have been some order given, I suppose. I wonder if you'd mind waiting a while." He said it would be best to send off a messenger as quickly as possible and find out what was going on, and for Seizo to spend the night in the village office, uncomfortable as that might unfortunately be. Teachers were coming and going in the staff room. A decrepit old man of about fifty—Hirata—and a young assistant teacher called Seki, who wore a suit, were standing by a pillar in the corridor talking about something. They cast occasional glances toward Seizo. The bell rang again. The principal and the teachers all went out. The students came flooding in again. The female teacher cast a searching glance at Seizo as she left the staff room. It seemed to be the choral hour, for the students gathered in the hall. Presently the gentle sound of the organ could be heard through the quiet of the school.

9

3 I t was a lonely night in the village office. It was arranged that he should sleep in the caretaker's room. As the sun went down he went out from the kitchen to the wellside, and as he gazed at the darkening form of the distant mountains encircling the plain he too felt a vague, engulfing sadness. He was full of thoughts about his parents. When he was younger he had had several brothers. At that time his father ran a drapery business in Ashikaga. They had been quite wealthy. He still remembered, albeit vaguely, how the business had gone bankrupt when he was seven, and how they had moved to Kumagaya. He remembered being upset at his mother's crying. And now, now that his brothers had died and he was left the only child, he could not enjoy the same freedom as his friends did in relation to their own families. With an easygoing father and a soft, doting mother, Seizo was born to an unfortunate destiny. At these thoughts he was overcome by his usual sentimentalism, and tears welled in his eyes. Though the nearby woods and roads and fields were all deep in twilight, the peaks of the distant mountains were still bright. From Mount Asama mist fluttered into the evening air as if swept by a brush, its edges fading delicately in spreading. Here and there a frog croaked. Lights started to come on in the farmhouses round about, and somewhere afar someone was singing. Seizo remained standing there for some time. Suddenly he thought he could make out someone approaching by the row of alders in front of him. He could hear cheerful laughter and the sound of hurrying feet. He realized it must be the caretaker coming back with the food and bedding he had gone to fetch from the Ogawa Inn. A large black shape detached itself from the dusk carrying a pile of bedding. It was followed by the mincing form of a woman. The caretaker dumped the bedding down in the middle of the room, puffing and blowing as if it had been heavy, and then he lit the medium-wicked lamp that had been cleaned up earlier that day. The surroundings suddenly grew bright. "Thanks for all your trouble," said Seizo, entering the room. 10

He looked at the pale-complexioned face of the girl standing there. She put down the meal she had brought and blinked as she looked around the suddenly brightened room. "Hey, Otane, what about staying for a while?" the caretaker said to her. She grinned. Her looks weren't really anything to make a fuss about, but she was very attractive about the eyebrows and noticeably fleshy in the cheeks and arms. "I heard Ma was ill. How is she now? Any better?" the caretaker asked her. "Hm." "A cold, is it?" "The thing is, I'm always telling her to be careful not to catch cold, and then she goes and falls asleep and catches one." "That's because she never worries about anything." "What a nuisance!" "But you're such a hard-working girl, Otane, that's why Ma can take things so easy." The girl laughed but said nothing. "Will you be bringing our guest his meals tomorrow too?" the caretaker asked presently. "Yes, I will." She then made ready to leave with a "Well, good-night then." "Hey, what about staying for a while?" "I can't stay—I've got some clearing up to do. Good-night then." She went out. The meal turned out to be fried eggs and pickles. The caretaker poured some watery lukewarm tea. Then presently the old man went off to get on with some straw weaving, which he did as a side job. The night was quiet and still. Seizo felt as if he himself and the house were engulfed in the croaking of the frogs. His mind was worn out, but he hadn't brought along any magazines to read. So he took out his notebook of Western-style paper bound oblong and started pencilling in his diary entry. He wrote "April twenty-fifth" to follow straight on from the previous day but then, at a sudden thought, turned the pencil round and rubbed it out with the eraser. Today was the first day of his new life, a new chapter as it were. So, leaving the back of the page largely blank, Seizo started writing afresh on the next page.

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"April twenty-fifth (at Miroku) . . ." He wrote a quick page and then tried working out his expenses for the day. Cigarettes bought at Shingo, 10 sen; ricksha fare, 30 sen; "Pure Heart" pills, 5 sen; the meal he'd had at the school, 4 sen 5 rin; total 49 sen 5 rin, leaving him with 70 sen 5 rin in his purse from the 1 yen 20 sen he'd brought with him. Next he tried working out the other expenses incurred in getting him to his present situation. Personal seal Name cards Toothbrush and toothpicks Two writing brushes Inkstone Hat Haori Obi Geta

25 sen 22 sen 3 sen 8 sen 14 sen 1 yen 15 sen 1 yen 75 sen 30 sen 14 sen

Orin Orin 5 rin 5 rin Orin Orin Orin Orin 5 rin

4 yen

5 rin

07sen

Together with the previous 49 sen 5 rin this made a grand total of 4 yen 57 sen, which figure he wrote down. He imagined the hardship his parents had suffered to raise this sum. It upset him to think of the lamentable situation of his family, for whom it was no easy matter to raise even a single yen. The edge of the bedding was dirty. The gentle sorrow of travel evoked sweet tears. Presently he was snoring softly. The next day he was asked to copy out the school's budget sheet, and spent the whole day in the office. After finishing he wrote off a letter to his parents. That evening he was called to the principal's house. It wasn't far to the house. The green fields of wheat were laced with occasional ridges of yellow rape flowers. It was a miscanthus-thatch detached, built like any other farmhouse with a large entrance and a little garden in front of connected six- and eightmat rooms. Anyone approaching from the front could clearly see the unprepossessing figure of his wife, the tear-stained faces of the children, and the worn, dirty mats and oblong hibachi in the par12

lor. In the principal's study the red covers of reviews on education, psychology, and school administration could be seen. "I'm so sorry this has happened to you. In fact, it was all just at the planning stage and nothing official had been done." The principal poured out the tea which his wife had brought in. "I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but that old man Hirata is getting just too far along. I was talking about transferring him or getting him to resign when Iwano-kun told me about what Kato-san had said. I did decide to make a request to him, but I must say, you've arrived a little earlier than I expected." He broke off with a laugh. "Oh, really? I didn't know anything about it." "No, there's no reason why you should have. It would've been better if Iwano-san had been a bit more careful, but he's like that —never worries about anything." "But this teacher—Hirata—is still at the school, isn't he?" "Yes." "Then, doesn't he know about it yet?" "He probably knows unofficially, but there's been no official announcement yet. I'll clear the matter up with the village council in the next few days, and I think we'll be able to have you with us after next week." The flow of his speech fell away a little. "They're all a good bunch at the school and everything goes pretty smoothly, so it's a good place for a newcomer to start work. I'd like you to make an effort too. In the meantime we'll get something done about your pay." He puffed at a cigarette, then gave it a tap. "You don't have a formal teaching license yet, do you?" "No." "Well, it would be better to get one—it makes everything a lot easier. If you've got a middle school certificate, and then you do a bit of practical work, there'll be nothing to it. Have you read up at all on the methodology of teaching?" "I did try reading a bit, but I found it too dull." "Teaching methodology is dull unless you try putting it into practice. Once you actually try it you'll find it quite interesting." The man with the interest in applied teaching methodology and the youth with the aspirations toward poetry and verse sat togeth13

er in this way for a considerable time. A tray of cakes and half a dozen large salted crackers was brought in. As the principal's wife greeted the visitor she noticed his pallid features, his high nose, and the broad space between his eyebrows, and thought to herself what a weak-looking person he was. While they were talking a child—born that year—was crying incessantly in the next room, but the principal didn't seem to find this disturbing. There were diapers scattered all around them, and the kettle boiled noisily on the hibachi. They talked about middle school. They talked about normal school. They talked about teaching experiences. They talked about the people who would be Seizo's colleagues. Without realizing it Seizo became rather carried away, and talked frankly about his ideals, about how he was sacrificing for the family's sake, and even hinted that he did not want to spend his life as an elementary school teacher. Unlike the previous day's meeting at the school, Seizo now discovered an unexpected goodness of character in the principal. According to the principal the Mitagaya area was one in which the village head and the parents' association were very authoritative, and the situation was very difficult to handle. Into the bargain times were fairly hard and, because there was a lot of casual Aojima weaving work over in the villages by the Tone River such as Hotto, Kamimuragimi, and Shimomuragimi, the young people frequently came and went and morality was not at all good. Children of seven and eight picked up extremely lewd songs and sang them openly in the school. "It was three years ago that I came here," said the principal, "and at that time the manners of the children were really very bad. Things were so bad that at first I felt I didn't want to work here. But they've improved a lot since then." As he was about to leave Seizo asked, "Tomorrow's Saturday, and I thought I might go back to Gyoda till Sunday—would that be all right?" "Yes, of course. As long as you're here to start work next week." Seizo spent that night too in the caretaker's room at the village office.

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4 he awoke the next morning a gentle spring rain was falling. In the wet, the green of the wheat and the yellow of the rape flowers gave the fields an even prettier coloration than normal. A bull's-eye-design umbrella was moving along the road through the village. Seizo had borrowed the oil-paper umbrella and set off through the rain just after eight o'clock. The words Mitagaya Village Office were written on it black and bold. Raindrops fell heavily onto his umbrella from the thicket at the water's edge beside the Ogawa Inn. In the stagnant black water a newt flashed its red belly. Suddenly, from the nearest house along the road, the light-skinned girl from the Ogawa Inn, Otane, dashed out. With a white towel wrapped round her hair and with no umbrella, she came hurrying toward him under the dripping trees. A few paces away she exchanged glances with him, gave him a casual greeting, and went on past with a smile on her face. Classes had not yet commenced at the school, so there was a long row of umbrellas as the students made their way from the gate to the area around the shoe cupboards. Most of the children, boys and girls alike, were walking along with their bags by their hips and their lower clothes tucked up. Some of the sillier ones were twirling their umbrellas around on the ground like cartwheels and getting soaked in the pouring rain in the process. Meanwhile one of the girls, who looked around twelve or thirteen, was walking along knitting, her umbrella handle gripped between her neck and shoulders. Thinking to himself that from next week he would be teaching these students, Seizo walked on past. The rain had only been falling since daybreak so the road still wasn't too bad. It was messy where carts and horses had passed, but it was still possible to avoid the mud by treading carefully. The drier ground at the edge of the road was as yet only slightly dampened by the rain. At the Izumi village office he tried asking for the assistant official, but he had not yet arrived at work. 15

In the long and dirty ditch that ran along the road water plantain and duckweed and new shoots of reeds and rushes grew in great profusion. Above them were rain-soaked thickets of longstemmed bamboo, from which the drips fell heavily. Beside the road was a small farmhouse with sloping eaves, its walls festooned with plowshares and hoes and old straw raincoats and whatnot. A fat woman with dishevelled hair leaned against a pillar as she breast-fed a newborn child. An unshaven man of about forty—no doubt her husband—stretched and gave a big yawn, bored by the rain which prevented his work. The old miscanthus-thatch main building of the village's Hachiman shrine was visible from the road. Beside the torii were written the names, new and old alike, of those families who had contributed to the shrine repair fund along with the amount they had each given. New buds had already started to appear on the huge surrounding zelkovas. In front of the offertory box two nursemaids, hair wrapped in towels, were sweetly singing lullabies. There was a shop selling tasteless-looking steamed potatoes left over from the previous day. The rain swept in narrow streamers over its low eaves. In the fields he could see mulberry that had just started to bud, the dazzling yellow of rape flowers, and ridges of grass and vetch and violets, while in the distance was a prosperous-looking whitewalled farmhouse surrounded by oaks and cryptomerias. Here and there he could hear the sound of Aojima cloth being woven. The busy clattering sound seemed to go on and on. Sometimes there was no likely-looking house nearby, and it was a wonder just where the weaving was taking place. Sometimes too a youthful voice could be heard singing. At the junction of the road to Hotto stood a noodle shop famous in the district. Water had been boiling there all morning in a huge cauldron, and the proprietor had spread flour over a large board and was busily rolling out the noodles. A young waitress, sleeves tied up with red cord, was laughing and talking with a farmer who appeared to be a regular customer. An old stone had been erected at a bend in the road. It was a boundary marker from before the Restoration, indicating that one was now entering Hanyu Fief. The row of slender alders on one side of the road now continued

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for a while between some paddy fields. A narrow stream ran with them, and little fish darted about in the shadows of the sprouting water plants. The horse-drawn coach running between Hanyu and Ogoe sped past spraying mud. Seizo passed a dirty-looking unlicensed brothel, two-storied with a shingle roof. When he had passed before, on his way to Miroku, quilts with stained edges had been put out on the roof to air in the gentle midday sun, and a pale-looking woman had been busily at work below fulling cloth; but now the shutters were firmly closed, and unsightly green moss grew in the parts that never caught the sun. The road grew steadily worse. Even walking carefully it was now impossible to avoid the wet. However carefully he tried to place his feet, Seizo could not stop the mud spattering from his worn-down geta, which were of the low komageta type. A wind sprang up and the rain now came down sideways, drenching his sleeves as well. The town of Hanyu was quiet and cheerless. Occasionally an umbrella or two passed by, but otherwise the main road, with its rows of extended eaves, was largely deserted. There was a young woman standing outside the post office, having come to collect a money order. In the draper's shop the chief clerk and the shop boys were chatting together, and in the tabi shop a man was busily sewing tabi amid piles of Aojima and Unsai cloth. In front of the modern-style glass door of the foreign-goods shop a bicycle stood getting half-soaked by the drips from the eaves. At the crossroads stood a tall fire-bell tower. From here the road to Gyoda branched off. Going past a tobacconist's, a noodle shop, a doctor's large porch, interestingly shaped pines towering over a wall, and a prosperous-looking house where an artesian well bubbled up clear, fresh water, Seizo came to a grassy ditch and a gate of flaking white paint with a board affixed saying Hanyu Police Station. A policeman chanced to come out into the pouring rain, short sword rattling. Next there were more rows of back street houses. They were mostly old and poor with shingled roofs. A coach stood ready to depart in front of the coach house, and several passengers were already aboard. Seizo stopped to ask if there was room for him too, but unfortunately it was full.

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Seizo continued on his way for a while among the rows of old back street houses, then suddenly he opened the Yamato-style shoji of one little house and entered. There was a middle-aged woman inside. "I'd like to hire a pair of geta—I've gotten soaked coming from Miroku and I can't go on like this." "Well, I have this cheap pair here." She gave him a pair of raised ashida rain clogs. The teeth of the rain clogs were worn and twisted and walking on them was not at all easy. They were better than his komageta, but they still didn't stop the mud spattering. From Shingo he finally continued by ricksha for fifteen sen.

5 C k^eizo's house was in a side street off the main road of Gyoda, in the direction of the old castle ruins. There was a bathhouse called Yanagi no Yu on the corner, and opposite this was the entrance to a restaurant where a pretty waitress worked. The house was low built, and looked like it had been detached from a tenement row. The rain slanted like narrow streamers onto its Yamato-style shoji, which were blackened from exposure to the weather. The nextdoor neighbor was a silkworm broker, and when the season came along his house would be full of white cocoons from the little living room to the kitchen and from the parlor to the entrance, and a horde of people would be coming and going from morning till night. Now, however, his shoji were firmly shut, and all was quiet round about. Seizo noisily slid back the Yamato shoji of his own house and stepped inside. An elegant-looking lady of about forty with her hair in the rounded chignon style was sitting facing a cutting board, busy with some piecework and surrounded by a confusion of scissors and bobbins and needle boxes and the like. When the door opened

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Seizo continued on his way for a while among the rows of old back street houses, then suddenly he opened the Yamato-style shoji of one little house and entered. There was a middle-aged woman inside. "I'd like to hire a pair of geta—I've gotten soaked coming from Miroku and I can't go on like this." "Well, I have this cheap pair here." She gave him a pair of raised ashida rain clogs. The teeth of the rain clogs were worn and twisted and walking on them was not at all easy. They were better than his komageta, but they still didn't stop the mud spattering. From Shingo he finally continued by ricksha for fifteen sen.

5 C k^eizo's house was in a side street off the main road of Gyoda, in the direction of the old castle ruins. There was a bathhouse called Yanagi no Yu on the corner, and opposite this was the entrance to a restaurant where a pretty waitress worked. The house was low built, and looked like it had been detached from a tenement row. The rain slanted like narrow streamers onto its Yamato-style shoji, which were blackened from exposure to the weather. The nextdoor neighbor was a silkworm broker, and when the season came along his house would be full of white cocoons from the little living room to the kitchen and from the parlor to the entrance, and a horde of people would be coming and going from morning till night. Now, however, his shoji were firmly shut, and all was quiet round about. Seizo noisily slid back the Yamato shoji of his own house and stepped inside. An elegant-looking lady of about forty with her hair in the rounded chignon style was sitting facing a cutting board, busy with some piecework and surrounded by a confusion of scissors and bobbins and needle boxes and the like. When the door opened

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and she saw her son's face there she called out "Oh! Seizol" and came over to him. "What a business for you to come in all this rain." She noticed straightaway his drenched sleeves and mud-spattered hakama and took his wet clothes from him. "You've had bad luck with the weather, I must say. I just didn't think it would turn out like it has, judging from yesterday. Did you walk all the way here?" "I intended to, but there was a ricksha on its way back from Shingo so I managed to get a cheap ride." She noticed that he was wearing unfamiliar rain clogs. "Where did you hire those rain clogs then?" "In Mineda." "So, you got them in Mineda? This rain really is a nuisance." She was about to fetch a cloth from the kitchen, but Seizo stopped her. "A cloth's no good, Mother. It'd be better to fill a bucket with water, if you wouldn't mind." "Are they that dirty then?" She brought a half-filled bucket from the kitchen and got him a dry towel as well. Seizo washed his feet, dried them with the towel, and then went inside the house. His mother, meanwhile, laid out for him some padded cotton clothes and a haori she had remade from one of her own old garments, and quickly draped his discarded haori and hakama over a drying hanger. They were soon seated in front of the hibachi. "Well, how was it?" As she attended to the flames under the kettle his mother asked the question that was uppermost in her mind. Seizo outlined what had happened. "Yes, that's what we understood from your letter that arrived this morning. I wonder why things have turned out so awkwardly?" "It's just that I arrived a bit too soon." "So what was finally decided?" "I'm due to start from next week." "Oh, good." A look of relief spread across his mother's face. 19

The talk then turned to all sorts of things. What kind of person was the principal? Was he a kind man? What was Miroku like? Was there anywhere decent for Seizo to stay? His mother had all sorts of questions, and Seizo gave a detailed reply to each of them. "Where's Father?" asked Seizo after a while. "He said he was just off to Shimo-oshi, and that he simply had to do something to make some money. What with all this rain, I told him to put it off till tomorrow, but he wouldn't listen." Seizo said nothing. He was reminded once again of the poverty of his family. His father's lack of real resourcefulness was vexing, and while his father was on the one hand a basically decent person with a weak and naive and rather slow-witted character, the fact that he was making a living by getting people to buy fake pictures was not at all pleasing to Seizo. To his honest mind his father's profession never quite seemed the respectable sort of calling that a man should rightly follow. If only his father hadn't been swindled, he would still be running a decent drapery. The thought filled Seizo with sympathy for his innocent mother and pity too for his aging father who, disreputable as his profession might be, had nevertheless to trudge miles through the rain to make a mere fifty sen or so. The kettle started to boil. His mother took out a tea caddy and little teapot from an old cabinet where the tea things were kept. The tea had turned powdery. Just two salted crackers were left in a paper bag in the drawer of the hibachi. Seizo spent all afternoon beside his mother, who was working by a rather gloomy window, reading the newspapers and writing a letter to a former school friend in Kumagaya. The letter was several pages long on ruled paper, and was full of thoughts on love, on poetry, on the romantic verses of the Myojo—Venus—School, and things that even he thought were a little immature. The rain cleared up about four o'clock, though the roads were still sludgy. Seizo's father came back having had no luck, and the atmosphere in the house was rather solemn. The three of them were sitting having their evening meal in silence when a voice called, "Is anyone at home?" and someone started to slide back the ill-fitting Yamato shoji. Seizo's mother went to see who it was. 20

"Oh, please, do come in." "No, really, I just dropped in on my way back from the bathhouse. Ikuji asked me to see if Seizo-san had come back, seeing as it's Saturday. I really must apologize for not having come to see you for so long . . ." "Anyway, please do come in and sit down. Oh! Yuki-san's with you too. Well, Yuki-san, you come on in as well." The women started chatting away. Ikuji's younger sister Yukiko was a fine girl of a slim and delicate build unusual in the countryside, and her freshly bathed, lightly powdered face contrasted sharply with the deepening gloom of the evening. She stood there holding a damp towel which was wrapped around a soap container. "You'll have to take us as you find us, but . . ." "No, really, we won't come in . . ." "Well, just come in for a short while." Seizo knew who it was from the conversation. He put down his chopsticks and went to the door. He glanced at Yukiko, standing beyond the two chattering mothers, and then quickly looked away again. Ikuji's mother turned to him. "Welcome back. Ikuji's been waiting." "I was intending to come and see him tonight." "Yes, please do. He seems rather lonely now that you've suddenly stopped coming over every day. And he hasn't got any other close friends either." Ikuji's mother finally returned home, and Seizo and his mother went back to the tea table. Seizo's father carried on eating in silence. As they were drinking their hot water his mother suddenly said, to no one in particular, "That Yuki-san's really very pretty." No one took up the comment. His father noisily mixed rice in with his tea. Seizo crunched a pickled radish. The evening set in, and the rain started to fall again.

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6

TX he Katos' house was no more than a few hundred yards away. To get there you turned left from about half way along the park road, went on a short way through the back streets, and came out at a spot with wheat fields on one side and a hedge on the other. In summer red and white roses would be in bloom there, and cucumbers and pumpkins would be growing. Seizo had often chased Yukiko and Shigeko through the swarms of fireflies in the twilight as it thickened with green shadows, and there was also many a cold winter's night that he had spent at their house playing cards, returning home late, the hollow sound of his clogs ringing loudly through the night air. For Seizo, the tiled roof and that gate set back in the cedar hedge along that narrow lane held many memories. Today a lamp cast its rain-soaked, sparkling light through the leaves of a cherry tree. Even before he called at the house Seizo could clearly picture the fair, somewhat self-contented features of Yukiko, the innocent smile and cheerful greeting from Shigeko, and the jovial talk from Ikuji's father, slightly merry after his evening sake. More than occasionally he had felt envious of his friend's happy household, where the laughter seemed endless. In the countryside, district school inspectors were often pompous, hard to get on with, argumentative, and unsociable, but Ikuji's father was very understanding, amiable, kind, and highly respected for his skill with words, too. His moustache was greying, as was his hair, but he was still young at heart, and could talk to young people about educational matters and such without boredom. He would also come into the room where Seizo and Ikuji chatted together and talk about various things with the pair of them. A bell tinkled as Seizo opened the gate. He crossed the steppingstones of the path and stood in front of the lattice door at the entrance. As he did so the smiling face of Shigeko, who came out to welcome him carrying a lamp, appeared in sharp relief against the darkness in which he stood.

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"Hayashi-san?" She peered at him as she spoke. "Ikuji, Hayashi-san's here," she called out in her simple, unaffected way. Ikuji's father had gone off to Kumagaya that day and was not at home. There being no young children in the house, it was neat and tidy. It was, moreover, scrupulously clean, and the lamp in the parlor shone with sparkling clarity. Ikuji's mother sat in front of the oblong hibachi, a cheerful expression on her face. Yukiko had been clearing up in the kitchen, but finished just at that very moment and came into the parlor drying her hands on her white apron. As they were exchanging greetings Ikuji came out from a room at the back and led Seizo into his study. The study was a four-and-a-half-mat room. It was piled high with old paulownia bookcases, each with an appropriate white label stuck on to indicate the contents—various histories of China, the tenets of Confucianism, selections from the famous Eight Poets of T'ang and Sung, and so on. In the three-foot alcove hung a scroll painting of orchids by Soun dimly visible at the edge of the light from the lamp. On the large magnolia-wood desk on which the lamp stood there were also scattered copies of the Myojo and Bungei Kurabu—"Literary Club"—magazines, a copy of the Manydshu, the complete works of Higuchi Ichiyo, and suchlike. The two chatted away as if they hadn't seen each other for a year. They talked about all sorts of things, hardly pausing for breath. "What've you decided on?" Seizo asked after a while. "I've decided to try for higher normal school next spring. Till then there's not much I can do, so I thought I might help out at the school here, and get a bit of studying done too." "I heard the same from Obata over in Kumagaya. He said he was going to try for higher normal too." "Oh, so you also heard from him, did you? He told me too." "He said that Kojima and Sugitani have already gone off to Tokyo." "Yes, that's what he wrote all right." "Where are they trying for, do you think?" "It seems that Kojima's set his sights on the First High School." "And Sugitani?"

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"I wonder . . . But then, he doesn't have any problems when it comes to things like tuition fees, so I dare say he can do whatever he wants." "Is anyone going off to Tokyo from here in Gyoda?" "Well . . ." Ikuji thought for a while. "Sato did say he was." "Where exactly?" "I think he intends to enroll in an industrial college." They talked on and on about their old schoolmates. Seizo was thoroughly envious of these friends, who could decide their future aims in life and then set off accordingly along their respective chosen paths. It wasn't that, while at middle school, he hadn't himself given thought to what would happen after graduation, it was just that school days were school days, and he had contented himself with the thought that fate might turn up something unexpected for him. That was a daydream, however. His family's poverty brought him daily closer to the realities of life. He had, moreover, inherited the tender, warm nature of his mother. From an early age he read Uncle Sazanami's children's stories, and his young heart went out to novels, to verse, to haiku. As he grew older he had his share of emotional ups and downs. He grew to understand the look in the eyes of the local girls. He learned too the taste of love. Unknown to others, he also performed unclean acts on himself, driven on by certain desires. There were times when he thought the world offered things exciting and enjoyable, and other times when he thought it revealed things ugly, dirty, and not at all attractive. When he thought of those wishes of his that were so hard to achieve, that beautiful flowerlike world, and his own unknown future, his heart was invariably filled with a gloomy misery that was hard to endure. The talk changed from the topic of their Kumagaya friends' love affairs to the topic of Miss Art. "I can't stand it I" "I'm sure there's a way." These were the sort of comments they made. "I met her yesterday, you know, in the park. She said she'd just popped back briefly from Urawa. She's putting on weight, all over the place." Ikuji laughed as he made this remark. "I like that—'putting on weight all over the place.' " 24

Seizo laughed too, then continued, "Well, your sister's a friend of hers, and then there's her elder brother too, so I'm sure there's a way." "Let's drop it, please. I can't stand to think about it." Ikuji's expression revealed the torment of undeclared love contained within his young heart. As he had often said himself, he was not the most handsome of men. He had a certain manly openness about him, but he lacked those features which women find attractive, such as a big frame, "angrily" set shoulders, piercing eyes, and prominent cheekbones. In his heart he also felt the painful anxiety particular to a young man. Compared with Seizo his circumstances weren't at all bad, and neither was his family situation. His father was prepared to finance him for a few years' study in Tokyo even if he couldn't get into higher normal school. He was sound in mind and body and had none of Seizo's sentimentalism. His character could be partly understood from his reply to Seizo's despairing comment that his present move to Miroku was the first step in a journey into irredeemable oblivion in the countryside. "Oh, come on now, it's not like that at all. I do admit that there are occasions when man is governed by circumstance, but if you really want to, you can get yourself out of any situation." Seizo replied, "That's what you say, but then you don't appreciate the terrible restrictions imposed by circumstance. In other words, your comment merely reflects the good fortune of your family situation." "That's not true at all!" "It's really what I think. This is a crucial step in my being swallowed up in the countryside." "All right then, even if, for the sake of argument, I accept for the moment that man is that sort of creature, I still can't simply give in to such a negative idea." "So you're saying that, whatever the circumstances, man can get himself out by the power of his mind?" "That's right." "Then you believe in the omnipotence of man, and that there's nothing he can't do?" "Well, you're taking it right to extremes. There are exceptions, of course."

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Their usual simplistic idealism then emerged. Positive ideas and negative ideas came confusedly together and ended up being inconclusive. Since the time when they were at school their group had often argued about literature and about life. They had written newstyle waka, haiku, and lyric pieces, and had shown them to one another. When one of the group had given himself the pseudonym the Philosopher, using characters that also had a literal meaning of "enchanted bones," they had all decided to give themselves names using the same character for "bones," and for a time, both in their letters and their conversations, they had used amusing names such as Broken Bones, Funny Bone, Bare Bones, Heavenly Bones, and Old Bones. The one with the name Old Bones was one of that group who, including Ikuji and Seizo, had trudged the seven miles early each morning to the school in Kumagaya. His real name was Kizan, the son of a prominent Aojima cloth dealer in their town. Normally he wore the stiff obi characteristic of merchants, and invariably, on his pale-complexioned face, wore silver-rimmed spectacles to counteract his shortsightedness. Like a lot of young men in the countryside he was extremely fond of literature, and subscribed to just about every magazine worthy of the name. At first he had made various literary contributions to these magazines, enjoying seeing his name in print, but lately, rather than actually contributing, he gave free criticism to his friends of the novels and verses that appeared each month in the magazines. He also enjoyed socializing with other contributors, and frequently exchanged letters with the chief writers of the small-scale magazines on the provincial literary scene, with the result that he often got a mention in regional literary news. He was also acquainted with several authors of some fame in contemporary literary circles. Another of those who had used a "bone" name was one who, although not particularly appreciative of literature, had joined the group through friendship. His elder brother ran the only printing business in Gyoda. It had a large ink-stained sign at its glass door saying "Gyoda Press," and from there one could also see the repetitive winding movement of the large blades of the oldfashioned handpress. The business mostly dealt with name cards and advertising handbills, and on very rare occasions it was also

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asked to print things like simple reports from the district office and the police station. Its shelves held numerous type trays. The boss did all the type picking, typesetting, and printing by himself, though on Sundays his younger brother could also be found standing in front of the press, wearing a dirty tight-sleeved top and looking after the printed sheets. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that he was a rich man's son and had plenty of money to spend, but at the beginning of April Kizan had gone over to the printery and spent a long time in discussion with the brothers. He had left with the comment, "So, if it's a question of being seven or eight yen a month short then there's no problem. Even without a manuscript fee there'll be plenty of writers, and it should sell twenty or thirty copies." His face wore an expression of delight over a new project. It was just afterward that the establishing of a small-scale magazine to be known as Gyoda Bungaku—"Gyoda Literature"—had been raised among the group. Kizan had led the discussion: "And then, Yamagata Kojo is at the Jogan Temple in Hanyu. He's quite well known in the literary world, especially for his newstyle poetry, and so I think our first job is to get his support. And we might even get him to ask Hara Kyoka for a manuscript." "Doesn't that Kojo belong to a former samurai family from these parts?" "That's right. That's why it'll be easy to get his support." This had all taken place just as Seizo was about to leave for Miroku, and the group had given him the prime task of approaching Kojo at the Jogan Temple. That evening, as the talk turned to Gyoda Bungaku, Ikuji asked him, "Well, did you call in?" "Unfortunately I couldn't, what with all the rain." "Ah, yes, of course." "I'll call in when I go back." "That reminds me, Ogyu-kun went to Hanyu today. Didn't you see him?" "Ogyu-kun?" Seizo seemed a bit puzzled. Ogyu was another friend, the son of a local restaurant owner, who had gone to work in the post office in Kumagaya. He was 27

now transferring to the Hanyu office, and Ikuji had met him just as he was heading off out of town on his way there in a ricksha. "I wonder if he'll be there for long?" "I'd say that's pretty certain. The man in charge of the Hanyu office is a relative of his." "That's good." "Yes, I thought it was good too, for you to have someone to talk to." "We're not really all that close, but . . ." "Oh, I'm sure you'll soon get to know each other really well. He's a very friendly person." Just at that moment Shigeko came into the room bringing tea and rice dumplings. "I made them earlier today, so they'll probably taste a bit off by now." She then sat down next to her brother and was saying something in her innocent, unaffected way when the tall figure of her elder sister Yukiko appeared. "Ikuji, it's Ishikawa-san," said Yukiko. Ishikawa came into the room shortly afterward. Seeing Seizo there, he remarked, "I've just been to your place, you know." "Oh?" "Your mother said you were here," he said as he sat down. "So, are you suited to your job, Teacher Sir?" Seizo laughed. "We don't know if he is or not—he hasn't got down to it yet," cut in Ikuji. Shigeko and Yukiko looked at Ishikawa, exchanged greetings with him, and then left the room. When Ikuji and Seizo were talking together their conversation was very open, so the girls would often stay with them for quite a while, but they usually left when anyone else joined them. This was a measure of the closeness between Seizo and Ikuji, and between Seizo and the Kato family in general. The style of conversation between Ikuji and Seizo also changed markedly now that Ishikawa had come. "Well, we're hoping to get the first issue out on the fifteenth of next month." "Is it all fixed then?" "From Tokyo, we're expecting Reisui and Tenzui to write for us

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—those are the big names. Then we've also got a lot of manuscripts from the provinces, so I think everything'll be all right." So saying, Ishikawa produced half-a-dozen-or-so different literary magazines, some provincial and some from Tokyo, and drew particular attention to an octavo-style, twenty-four-page magazine called Shobungaku—"Little Literature"—from the Okayama region. "This is more or less the sort of thing I had in mind. I brought it up with Sawada, the printer, and he seemed to think it would be all right. At the same time, I'm not too keen on the format inside, so I'm thinking of having a different style of type composition." The other two agreed as they looked through the magazine that the inside wasn't particularly attractive. "What do you think of this?" asked Ishikawa, showing them a format of a page divided into upper and lower blocks, eighteen columns in each block, with twenty-four characters per column. "Not bad at all." The three of them flicked through various styles of magazines. Those Ikuji had were also brought out for reference. The lamp shone brightly on the scattered magazines and the three young men huddled over them. Eventually they more or less settled on one of the magazines. Among the magazines that Ishikawa had brought along was the April issue of Myojo. Seizo picked it up, and was initially attracted by the colorful prints by Fujishima Takeji and Nakazawa Hiromitsu, but soon he was absorbed in the poetry of Yosano Akiko. The new Myojo School trend seemed like a spring to Seizo's thirsting heart. Ishikawa noticed this and laughed, "Look at him! Aren't they weird, these devotees!" "Come on now, it really is quite good, you know." "Just what's good about it exactly? The language is incoherent and though the ideology may well be new, just grouping together obscure phrases and believing that to be poetry—I don't know, I'm just at a loss to understand those Myojo people." The three of them started up yet again a discussion of the pros and cons of the Myojo School.

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7 I t was now past midnight. Rain was still pattering down, with the occasional sound of a heavier passing fall. From the marsh near the castle ruins came the cheerless cry of a grebe. Three beds had been laid out in the room. A figure with a little head and hair in the rounded chignon style lay next to a figure with a balding head. Seizo's mother had been awake until just a short while ago, and had repeatedly told her son, "You should go to sleep at once, or you'll be tired in the morning." She had also warned him, "Don't fall asleep with that lamp left on right next to your pillow—it's dangerous." Then she had fallen asleep, and her gentle, rather sibilant breathing mingled with her husband's snores. And as if she hadn't been worried enough already, unknown to her the wick had been extended too far inside the old paper lamp shade, making the shade blacken and the light take on an unhealthy dim redness. Seizo was completely engrossed in the issue of Myojo he had borrowed. The camellia, the plum, Do not accuse my Little white sins; Their color is A fleshy pink. " D o not accuse my little white sins; their color is a fleshy pink." A fleshy pink. A red, fleshy pink. The verse struck a chord deep within him. It seemed odd, even unnatural. And yet, he felt that in this oddness, this unnaturalness, a new spring was welling up. He felt there was some indescribable flavor about those fourth and fifth lines—"Their color is a fleshy pink." After each verse, each page, he found himself putting down the magazine to savor to the full the feelings welling up within him. In these moments he completely forgot the misery of the previous night spent in the village office, and the unpleasantness of getting drenched to the skin from Miroku to Hanyu. Suddenly he remembered the discussion with Ishikawa earlier that evening. He couldn't understand why Ishi-

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kawa should want to get involved with literature when he had such insensitive feelings. On the other hand, Seizo was thankful that he himself had feelings that allowed him such sensitive appreciation of the new school of thought. He could picture the humble dwelling of that poetic married couple, the Yosanos, in the lonely heart of Shibuya. He was sad for them, yet at the same time envious. He stopped reading the verses and lost himself in admiration of the magazine, whose everything—its format, its style of type, its cover picture—was so replete with a new flavor. He was still wide awake in his bed when the clock struck two. A mouse could be heard scurrying above the ceiling. The rain fell in fits and starts. At times it fell with a passing sadness that seemed to beckon mortal hearts to another world, while at other times it could be heard streaming down the guttering. Seizo couldn't go on fantasizing like this forever. "I must get some sleep now," he thought to himself, and got up to go to the toilet, picking up the dim lamp and treading carefully past the edges of his parents' bedding. Opening the outside door as he went to wash his hands, he saw how, out on the verandah, the lamp made a sharp contrast with the darkness, and how the wet nandin leaves sparkled in the rain. His mother awoke at the sound of the shoji being closed. "Seizo? Is that you?" "Yes." "Still not asleep?" "I'm just settling down now." "Well, get to sleep quickly then—you'll be tired tomorrow, you know." She turned over, then asked: "What time is it?" "It's just past two o'clock." "Two o'clock! It's almost dawn. Do get to sleep." "Right." With that he slipped into bed and blew out the light.

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8

T

JL he next day at around one in the afternoon found Seizo and his father walking together on the outskirts of Gyoda. Seizo was wearing a white-striped hakama and carrying the rain clogs he had borrowed, while his balding father was dressed in a threadbare striped haori of soft silk. The rain had just stopped and the sky was rather cloudy with an occasional fitful ray of weak sunshine. Along the river which marked the boundary between town and village, reeds and rushes and willows were now putting forth green shoots, and some half-dozen ducks were quacking noisily. Various types of umbrellas—some of coarse oiled paper, some with a bull's-eye design—were laid out on the bank to dry. A local farmer who had come to town to do some shopping was sitting eating away busily at some noodles. Father and son walked on quietly together through rows of low eaves, roofs of locally made tiles, overhangs with diapers hung out to dry, and past a stonemason's yard, a blacksmith's, a house where girls were weaving Aojima cloth, and a cheap sweet shop with a crowd of children around it. A rice-jelly vendor came toward them carrying a tray on his head with lots of little flags fluttering above it, beating a pleasant rhythm on a drum. Several days ago Seizo's father had left five or six scroll paintings with some of the wealthier houses in the nearby town of Shingo, and, feeling that today he had to go and make something out of this, he had set out with Seizo, who was returning that afternoon to Miroku. While they had been walking along they had encountered two local people with whom Seizo's father was acquainted. One was an unconstrained colleague, a middle-aged man who had said in a hearty booming voice, "Where are you off to? Oh, Shingo? Well, you won't do any good at all there, they're all skinflints." The other was a wealthy local art connoisseur, and as he approached, Seizo's father had stopped and greeted him politely. "That last one just doesn't seem right. There's something a bit funny about it," said the connoisseur, to which Seizo's father had replied, most assertively, "No, that can't be. It's from a very reliable source, and

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it's guaranteed genuine." Seizo had walked on a few yards, and when he looked back he saw his father bowing profusely, head held low. The weak sun shone brightly on his bald brow. On the edge of town the road branched off to Kazo on the one hand and Tatebayashi on the other. Ahead lay a broad expanse of fields. Here and there were thick clusters of trees, with whitewalled storehouses and the like visible among them. In the stilluntilled fields the milk vetch bloomed beautifully like a spreading red carpet. A young man who looked to be from a merchant family came riding gently along the flat road on a squeaking bicycle. The road went from fields to village, then from village to fields again. There were opulent houses with encircling hedges of tall oaks, but then again there were also tumbledown houses with rough plaster walls fronted by a dirty-looking, stagnant ditch. Here and there chickens clucked peacefully. A confectionery wholesaler laid his wares down by the roadside, and a woman came out from her village sweet shop, hair in a mess and obi undone, to order "bean" sweets, "bullet" sweets, and the like. The road off to Shingo came nearer. "When will you be coming back again?" asked Seizo's father. "Next Saturday." "And I don't suppose you'd be able to give us a little something by then?" "I'm not really sure how things stand, but seeing as it's the end of the month I dare say they'll give me something." "Even a little would be a great help." Seizo didn't reply. They came to the fork. Shingo lay just across the fields. "Well, look after yourself." "Okay." At that spot stood a roadside stone dedicated to the Blue Warrior. And on the roads through the fields one could make out for quite some time the figures of Seizo, with brown hat and whitestriped hakama, and his father, bald headed and walking with a stoop.

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9 H e spent that night in the village office. He called on the principal but the latter was not at home. In his diary he wrote: "I wonder if I'll be able to bear up after all. Am I really about to end up as a country teacher? Tomorrow—tomorrow should see everything settled. And tonight, the meeting of the village council. Oh dear, one word could put everything off till later." He thought about recording his feelings in detail, but then felt that he just couldn't fully express them and decided to keep them in his head instead. At nine the next morning he went to the school. However, Hirata was still there, so for the time being he went back to the village office. An hour or so later and he was off again. Hirata was no longer there. Classes had already begun. The teachers' voices could be heard distinctly in the various classrooms, including the clear voice of a woman. Seizo's heartbeat raced. When he went into the staff room he found the principal sitting at a table looking through some papers. "Ah, come in." The principal waited for him to come up and offered him a nearby chair. "I'm so sorry about all this waiting. Anyway, it looks as if we've finally settled everything. It was quite a business. And all sorts of things came out at last night's discussion." He laughed. "You know, this village is only little, and it's got a troublesome school committee that can make life pretty tough." The principal then went on to ask, "Well, what do you plan on doing about accommodation? I don't suppose you'll be commuting every day from Gyoda. Of course, you could stay for a while at the school, but . . . Do you have anything in mind?" "Is there any suitable place I could board?" asked Seizo. "This is the countryside, you know, and there's nowhere really smart . . ." "It doesn't have to be right here. I don't mind if it's a little way away." "I see. Well, let's think the matter over. There might be somewhere." Two hours later Seizo was introduced to his future colleagues.

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Seki was an assistant teacher, full of smiles and with something open and frank about him. Deputy principal Oshima looked to be in his mid-forties. He had greying hair, and at first seemed a rather stiff and strait-laced man, but when he laughed his expression was kind and gentle, and he seemed very much at home when it came to elementary education. There was even something worldly wise in the way he said, "Ah, so you're Hayashi-san? I'm Oshima. Very pleased to meet you." Next he was introduced to a licensed teacher named Kano, who had a mole on his face, and then to a fat normal-school graduate called Sugita. The latter greeted him rather curtly. The female teacher beamed, looking to the floor. Before the next classes got underway the principal assembled the students in classroom number one and, standing at the desk, introduced the new teacher to them. "A new teacher, Hayashi-sensei, has come to join us, and he will be teaching you all. Our new teacher comes from Gyoda. He's studied at middle school and is a very capable teacher, so I want you all to pay attention to what he tells you and study hard." Standing beside the principal, with a red face rather inclined to the floor, the new teacher seemed to the students to be somewhat distressed and embarrassed. They listened in silence to the principal's words of introduction. The next class found the new teacher ready to take his place at the desk of classroom number three. The children were upper first-formers, twelve and thirteen years of age, and they were neatly lined up in the room in their rows chattering away; however, when the teacher came in they all stopped talking and looked toward him. The new teacher came up to the desk and sat down in the chair, his face red. He had brought a reader with him and spent some moments simply flicking through the pages, head bent over the desk. An occasional whisper could be heard from the back of the class. The glass door of the classroom was covered with dust and was a dirty greyish color. The sun was playing on it, its yellow rays shining through. Outside sparrows were chirping, and a cart rattled noisily along the road.

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The shrill, sharp voice of the female teacher could be heard in the neighboring classroom. Eventually, and as if with some desperation, the new teacher looked up. On his long-haired, broad-foreheaded, bush-browed face was an expression of effort. "What chapter do we start from?" His voice rang through the large classroom. "What chapter do we start from?" he asked again. "How far have you studied?" By now his face had lost its redness. Disordered replies came from around the class. Seizo opened the reader at the page indicated by the students. He had by now overcome much of his discomfort at his first experience of teaching. He had to teach. He could only do his best after all. It was not a time for worrying about what others might say or think. It cheered him up to think like this. "Well, I'm about to start then." The new teacher began reading chapter six. The students listened to his voice, flowing fast but smoothly. It was quite a difference from the dull, low, droning voice of the previous old man of a teacher. However, it was just a little too fast, and there were quite a few parts which escaped the students' ears. They simply looked at the teacher's face instead of at their books. "Well, does everyone understand?" "Could you read a bit slower, please?" The request came from various parts of the room. The second time, he made an effort to read more slowly. "Well, does everyone understand now?" He spoke in a friendly tone, with a smile on his face. "Yes, sir, we understood much better the second time." "We don't mind if you read just a little faster," said some of the students. "How many times did the previous teacher read to you? Was it twice, or three times?" "Twice." "He used to read twice." Again, answers came from all quarters. "In that case, we can leave it at that, can't we?" Seizo took

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heart from the students' unexpectedly straightforward manner. "On the other hand, I did read too fast the first time, so I'll read it once again. Please listen carefully." This time his reading was much clearer, and neither too fast nor too slow. He asked those who could manage the reading to put up their hands, and then tried getting an angelic-looking little girl in the front row to read. There were those who could manage the reading, and those who couldn't. Seizo picked out the difficult characters from the text, wrote them on the blackboard, and got the students to learn them in order. He put little circles for emphasis beside the particularly difficult characters, and then wrote the readings next to them in katakana. He had completely overcome his initial discomfort, and he was pleased to think that, once he had given teaching a try, he had in fact been able to cope. Eventually a bell rang to signal the end of the class. His lunch was brought over from the Ogawa Inn for him. During the lunchtime recess the children all went out to play in the yard. Some of them went on the swings, some played tag. The girls formed their own groups away from the boys and played cat's cradle, ball games, and the like. The willows bordering the playground were thinly leaved, and through the spaces one could see the open, green fields beyond. Seizo was leaning against a pillar in the corridor, watching the innocent playing of the children. Seki came up to him. His kindly expression and smiling, affable face had given Seizo the impression, from the time they had first met, that he was a decent fellow. He felt too that he could speak openly to him. "How was it? Did your first class go all right?" "Yes . . ." "It always seems awkward to start off with. I've only been here three months myself, and I was terrible at first." "It's just that it takes some getting used to." Seizo was grateful for the sympathy. "What was my predecessor like?" "He was getting on in years, and there'd been talk for some time about getting him to retire. He was from Imaizumi. Apparently he'd been teaching for quite a few years. But then, there are a lot

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of young people coming along . . . And anyway, he wasn't the sort of person you could say would be in difficulties if he gave up teaching." "Is he well-off then?" "Not exactly well-off, but his son runs a general store." "Oh, really?" This chatty sort of conversation drew the two young men together. They stood there talking till the bell rang. In the afternoon he taught science and writing. That night he stayed in the night-duty room. It was a six-mat room, next to the caretaker's room. There was a nice fire going in the large fireplace in the caretaker's room, and a kettle was always on the boil there, hanging from the pot hanger. There was a sink opposite, with teacups and chopsticks put down beside a bucket. Another bucket and a bowl lay upside down on a shelf. Oshima was on duty that night, and they talked frankly about various things. He was from Tochigi Prefecture and had taught for a long time in Utsunomiya. He'd come to Saitama Prefecture the year before last, and had gone briefly to Urawa before taking up his present appointment here. His house was in the outskirts of Ogoe, and he had a fifteen-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son. As they talked openly together he seemed completely different from when Seizo had first met him. Hirning bright red after half a pint of sake, Oshima talked rather pompously of his teaching experiences, and gave Seizo advice on what a young man ought to do, and so on. The bathhouse was along the road. Seizo had seen the bluish black smoke rising from its narrow chimney. A lattice door led into separate male and female sections, and the attendant's seat was just inside. Amid the dense white steam a box lantern gave off a vague, dim light, and the water flowing through the pipes was very noisy. The bath wasn't cleaned very thoroughly and had an unpleasant greasy feel. As he soaked in the warm water, Seizo thought about his new life.

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10 morning before starting class, Seizo stood by the desk and spoke to the students in a serious tone of voice. "Today I have something nice to tell you all. On the twentyninth of last month Imperial Princess Sadako gave birth, without complications, to a new imperial prince. This has been reported in the newspapers so I think you will have heard about it already from your parents. The prosperity of the imperial family is indeed a source of boundless joy to the nation, for ever and always, just as in the words of the anthem you all sing every day—"till a little pebble becomes a moss-covered rock." The day before yesterday there was a naming ceremony for the prince, and he was given the name Imperial Prince Michinomiya Hirohito. Then, turning to the board, he picked up the chalk and wrote in large script the six characters for Imperial Prince Michinomiya Hirohito.

"T JL was wondering if you'd mind becoming an honorary supporting member. And perhaps, if you could also let us have a manuscript. It doesn't matter how short." As he spoke Seizo looked at the face of the man sitting opposite him, the chief priest of the Jogan Temple. Seizo found him even less prepossessing in appearance than he had already been given to believe. He was considerably well known in Tokyo literary circles for his novels and new-style poetry. Seizo had once read with much enjoyment a collection of his poetry. He had also read his novels, published in the magazines. He had heard too a rumor that when he had taken up his present position as chief priest the year before last, through an inescapable connection with the pre-

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10 morning before starting class, Seizo stood by the desk and spoke to the students in a serious tone of voice. "Today I have something nice to tell you all. On the twentyninth of last month Imperial Princess Sadako gave birth, without complications, to a new imperial prince. This has been reported in the newspapers so I think you will have heard about it already from your parents. The prosperity of the imperial family is indeed a source of boundless joy to the nation, for ever and always, just as in the words of the anthem you all sing every day—"till a little pebble becomes a moss-covered rock." The day before yesterday there was a naming ceremony for the prince, and he was given the name Imperial Prince Michinomiya Hirohito. Then, turning to the board, he picked up the chalk and wrote in large script the six characters for Imperial Prince Michinomiya Hirohito.

"T JL was wondering if you'd mind becoming an honorary supporting member. And perhaps, if you could also let us have a manuscript. It doesn't matter how short." As he spoke Seizo looked at the face of the man sitting opposite him, the chief priest of the Jogan Temple. Seizo found him even less prepossessing in appearance than he had already been given to believe. He was considerably well known in Tokyo literary circles for his novels and new-style poetry. Seizo had once read with much enjoyment a collection of his poetry. He had also read his novels, published in the magazines. He had heard too a rumor that when he had taken up his present position as chief priest the year before last, through an inescapable connection with the pre-

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vious incumbent, it was considered unfortunate that he should have had to come to such a country temple, although it was highly regarded in Hanyu. Seizo would never have dreamt that that was the same man as this short, small-framed, frail-looking man sitting before him. On his way back home that Saturday Seizo had called on Ogyu Hidenosuke in the Hanyu post office; Hidenosuke had said that he just happened to know Yamagata Kojo up at the Jogan Temple, and so they had come together to visit him. "Very interesting . . . Yes, very interesting." The chief priest repeated himself. The three of them were talking about Gydda Bungaku. "Of course, I'll do whatever I can. To start with, I could let you have some poetry. And then I could also tell Hara in Tokyo . . ." The priest responded readily enough. "We'd be most grateful." Seizo pushed home his request. "Is Ogyu-kun one of your group too?" "Oh, not me—I don't know anything about literature," laughed Ogyu, scratching his head and sounding very much like a businessman's son. Even when they'd been at middle school together he had differed from Seizo and Kato and Ishikawa in that he hadn't really concerned himself with things like literature or religion. Accordingly, there was nothing of the daydreamer about him. Straight after leaving school he had gone off to work in the post office, where he had already been helping out, and had taken his place in the world without complaint or grievance. The priest's room was a ten-mat one with a high ceiling. In front of it lay the garden, dotted with aloes and pines and azaleas and olives, and running along the edge of this was the long corridor leading to the main building—they could see its tiled roof and the blackened shoji of its outhouse, a six-mat room. The bookcase was full of Western books. The priest talked with a rare enthusiasm about the flippancy of the present-day literary circles and the evils of factionalism. "You just can't get down to any studying in Tokyo. No wonder you hear people talking about a life in the countryside." He may not have been very prepossessing in appearance, but his words had a certain zeal in them, and they stirred the feelings of the young men.

40

From poetry the talk turned to novels and then to drama, and showed no sign of letting up. They talked too about the poetry of the Myojo School. The priest rather admired Akiko's poetry. "That's right, there's no need to make a fuss about the words. And in order to serve up new ideology there is a need, after all, for new verbal arrangement." He agreed with Seizo's theory. They then chanced to start talking about ideals, and at this the priest's expression suddenly livened. When he had been a student at Waseda University it had been the era of the writers Koyo and Rohan. He had also been acquainted with the so-called sentimentalists of the Bungakukai—"World of Literature"—magazine. He had been friendly too with students who were fond of Heine's poetry. Having gone from a college run by the Soto Sect in Azabu to the liberal literary society of Waseda he felt as if he'd gone from bleak wintry hills to fresh, green fields. Now that he'd gone back to the sort of life he was leading at present he'd calmed down a lot, but still, given the opportunity, his old enthusiasm burst through. "Man must have ideals. Religion too lays great store by ideals. There are no ideals in things like mere conformity or indulgence. To desire truly wonderful love—that too is an ideal really. There's a strength in not allowing yourself to be led along blindly by desire for the other sex as so many people do. That is what the Buddha himself called "wholeheartedness," when he preached about the unity of body and soul. One understands that one must act in accord with nature's power, but the significance for man is that there is therein idealism, aspiration." Seizo felt himself drawn to the words and attitude of this enthusiastic priest, whose shoulders were now hunched even more than usual and whose pasty face had taken on a flush of color. His words struck a chord in Seizo's heart. In poetry and books Seizo had read before of such ideology, of aspiration, but it had all still been a daydream for him. When he looked around him, he found no one who actually talked about such things. People talked rather about things connected with their daily existence, about silkworms, making money, and their salaries. Mention something like idealism to them and they dismissed it in a word, as if he were a babe at the breast who still knew nothing of life. There was a meaning to the priest's words, to the effect: "There is no value, with respect to the human character, in success or the

41

lack of it. Many people do attach importance to such a criterion, but I believe it is more accurate to evaluate people in terms of their ideals, and their interests in life. Even a beggar may have a marvelous character." Seizo felt he had found a great comforter in his lonely life. Two earthenware hand warmers had been set down between the priest and his guests, and there were comfits in the cake bowl. The tea poured by his wife—who, totally unlike her husband, was swarthy and sturdily built—was cold and a thick yellow. An hour later found the two friends walking down the long paved path that led from the main building to the gate. Next to the bell tower was a little hall, its doors firmly closed, and several nursemaids, their hair bound in towels, were playing about on its raised verandah. There were some five or six large zelkovas nearby, and in among their trunks the priest's wife—a woman in her mid-twenties with her hair fastened with a comb—had set up a loom and was busy preparing to weave Aojima cloth. "He's an interesting man, isn't he," said Seizo, glancing round at his friend. "And very nice too." "I didn't expect to find a man like that here in the countryside. I'd heard that it was unfortunate for him being here at a country temple, and it really does seem that way." "He said he wanted someone to talk to." "I'm sure of it. There's no one here in the countryside but farmers and merchants." They passed through the gate and along the lane of alders, coming out on the main road. There was a dirty ditch on one side of the road, and as they walked along countless frogs jumped from the grass into the water, on which blackish green algae and weeds were floating. Through a half-opened Yamato shoji they could make out the pale-complexioned profile of a young girl weaving Aojima cloth. As they passed by, Seizo asked his friend: "Do you think there's anywhere to stay in the main building of the temple?" "Yes, there's a six-mat room there." "What do you think? Do you suppose they'd put me up there?" "Yes, they probably would. There was a policeman renting it till recently, catering for himself." 42

"And he's not there now?" "No, I heard he's just been transferred to Iwase." "Since you know them, how about asking for me? I don't mind if I have to see to my own meals, as long as I can just have the room." "Yes, that's a good idea," agreed Ogyu. "From here it's only about five miles to Miroku, and it's not too far either for you to go back to Gyoda on weekends." "And I can learn all sorts of things too. You can't imagine how much better it'd be than boarding at some wretched place near Miroku." "That's right. And I would have someone to talk to as well." Having arranged that Ogyu would ask about the matter before the Monday of the following week, the two friends parted at the corner where the police station stood.

T

X he previous afternoon Seizo had received a fortnight's pay. His purse jingled with silver and copper coin. That old, dirty, frayed purse! It had never held so much money before. And there was a special significance in the fact that it was the first money he'd ever earned. He called to his mother just as she was about to go into the kitchen, took the purse from his pocket, and set out the three yen eighty sen in notes and coin. His mother stared at him clearly overcome with joy, and said, with much feeling, "I'm so happy that you've gone out and earned this for us." Seizo told her that he expected the other half of his month's pay in another four or five days' time, and added, "Unfortunately that's the way it is in the countryside. Everything seems to come in dribs and drabs. It's because they're so stingy." Seizo's mother took the money with a great show of reverence, then made an offering at the household altar. There was a little vase there, with azaleas and yellow roses arranged in it. From 43

"And he's not there now?" "No, I heard he's just been transferred to Iwase." "Since you know them, how about asking for me? I don't mind if I have to see to my own meals, as long as I can just have the room." "Yes, that's a good idea," agreed Ogyu. "From here it's only about five miles to Miroku, and it's not too far either for you to go back to Gyoda on weekends." "And I can learn all sorts of things too. You can't imagine how much better it'd be than boarding at some wretched place near Miroku." "That's right. And I would have someone to talk to as well." Having arranged that Ogyu would ask about the matter before the Monday of the following week, the two friends parted at the corner where the police station stood.

T

X he previous afternoon Seizo had received a fortnight's pay. His purse jingled with silver and copper coin. That old, dirty, frayed purse! It had never held so much money before. And there was a special significance in the fact that it was the first money he'd ever earned. He called to his mother just as she was about to go into the kitchen, took the purse from his pocket, and set out the three yen eighty sen in notes and coin. His mother stared at him clearly overcome with joy, and said, with much feeling, "I'm so happy that you've gone out and earned this for us." Seizo told her that he expected the other half of his month's pay in another four or five days' time, and added, "Unfortunately that's the way it is in the countryside. Everything seems to come in dribs and drabs. It's because they're so stingy." Seizo's mother took the money with a great show of reverence, then made an offering at the household altar. There was a little vase there, with azaleas and yellow roses arranged in it. From 43

behind, Seizo stared at her little head with its hair in the rounded chignon style; the number of grey hairs had increased of late, and he felt sorry for her to think that her kind heart had been so cruelly treated by life's adversity. It was typical of his parents to make such a happy fuss over so small an amount of money. He couldn't help thinking about the feelings of jealousy that had raged within him toward his friends when he heard of them going straight from middle school to Tokyo, and about the lot in life of a son bound in affection to parents as poor as his. That Saturday passed very pleasantly. His mother went out and bought some of his favorite country-style bean-jam buns, which she served with tea. For a long time they sat facing each other by the hibachi, Seizo's face pale, delicate, melancholy, and smiling, and his mother's wrinkled and beaming. Seizo talked about how, all being well, he hoped to board at the Jogan Temple from the following week on, about the young and erudite priest, and about the kind-hearted Ogyu-kun. His mother talked about how she wanted to wash his clothes and bedding before then, as well as making him a lined kimono. She went on to talk about his father's lack of success with his business. She also talked about how well-off they had been when Seizo was young. That evening he bought some cakes and went off to Ikuji's house. Yukiko greeted him with a smile. The talk in the study went on and on. The two young men were so friendly with each other that even when they repeated themselves they weren't conscious of it being a repetition. More than anything else, they enjoyed each other's company. They talked about Gydda Bungaku, and about Yamagata Kojo. By good fortune Ikuji's father happened to have returned home the previous day, and he came in to ask Seizo how he was finding things at the school. "There's no friction at that school so it should be all right. The head graduated in '94, so he's a fairly understanding man. He also gets on well with the villagers." Such were the comments of the district school inspector. When Yukiko came in to pour some tea she produced a picture postcard from her sleeve and showed it to the two friends. "This just came for me, from Mihoko-san in Urawa." Mihoko was none other than Miss Art. Yukiko still didn't know the secret in her brother's heart.

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The postcard, which had been attached to the magazine Jogaku Sekai—"Girls' World"—and was entitled "Early Summer," showed a sophisticated girl holding a fashionable slender parasol in the shade of fresh greenery. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the message: "How are you, Yukiko-san? I've now been here for two months. You simply can't imagine what it's like living in a hostel. I sometimes think about the fun we had together in spring. Sorry about not writing for so long. From Mihoko." Seizo put the card down on the floor. "And you'll be the next one to go off to Urawa, I suppose?" "Not me, I'd never make it," laughed Yukiko. Seizo pictured her smiling face as he walked back through the evening darkness. They had only been together for a brief moment. The lamp had lit up her profile. He felt that at that moment she was particularly attractive. He had always disliked her prim and stand-offish manner, but tonight it had seemed to him actually rather elegant. Next he pictured Mihoko's face. Yukiko's face and Mihoko's face merged and became one face . . . Frogs croaked in the fields, and light spilled from the upstairs' windows of the local hospital. At the back of the town was a little temple. As you went in through the gate you could see the thatched roof and black, weatherbeaten rain shutters of the priest's quarters. The Buddha image in the main building stood out black and bold, and the wooden drum had been set down on a mat of red muslin. The cemetery to the rear of the temple was divided off from the neighboring ground by a grove of bamboo, and the gravestones bore clear traces of the crawling passage of slugs. Among the many headstones was the grave of Seizo's younger brother. He had died in the spring two years ago, aged fifteen. His illness had been protracted. He had grown gradually thinner and weaker, and the color drained from his face with each passing day. The doctor's certificate stated pulmonary tuberculosis, but his parents wouldn't believe it, and said there was no history of such an illness in the family. Seizo sometimes thought about his young brother. Rather than the sadness of his death, he thought about how nice it would have been if his brother had lived, so that they could have

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had each other for company. The thought always prompted him to take flowers along to his brother's grave. On Sunday morning he set out carrying anise and roses. He borrowed a bucket from the priest's quarters and, filling it with water, carried it round to the cemetery at the rear. A stone was still to be erected over his brother's grave, and the blackened, weatherbeaten grave marker stood forlorn over the earthen mound. It looked as though his parents hadn't visited for some time either, for the flower vase was cracked. Pouring water in was just a waste of time. Seizo stood there for a long time. The greenery of May now made the surroundings fresh and vivid, and a nightingale sang in the bamboo grove. That afternoon he went to the printing shop, and also called on Ishikawa. He knew that if he didn't go back to Miroku today he would have to set out at the latest at four o'clock the next morning to be in time for classes, but he simply didn't want to leave. He didn't want to forsake the pleasure of talking with old friends to head back to a place where there was no one with whom he would find such easy conversation. Without his really being aware of it, the time just slipped by. After his evening meal he went off to the bathhouse, and called on Ikuji again on his way back. They went for a walk across the still-bright evening fields. The ruined castle had lost so much of its original appearance that at a casual glance it would not have been recognized for what it was. In the little meadow of the dairy some half-dozen cows were lowing, and from the adjoining long and narrow building of the Aojima Cloth Weaving Company came, mingled with the sound of the looms, the clearly audible singing voices of the female workers. The evening sun shone brightly and picturesquely from where the old castle gate used to be across to the marsh, which was reclaimed increasingly each year for paddy fields and was now reduced in appearance to a narrow stream. Reeds and rushes and miscanthus were putting forth new buds there, the water was rich and still, and some parts lay in darkness while others were bathed in light. Beyond the wooden bridge over the marsh a narrow little road wound its way through the fields. A farmer was approaching pulling a cart, his face colored red in the evening sun.

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The two young men threaded their way through the fields of wheat and mulberry. Their conversation flowed on and on, showing no sign of stopping. Eventually the road came out near some former samurai residences. The houses were scattered here and there. Nowadays there were not many old samurai families still holding their own. In olden times they had occupied row upon row of houses, but now their houses were reduced to just a few, scattered thinly among the fields like stars in the morning sky. The old-style black weather boarding and white walls, the tall chestnut and persimmon trees, the distinctively shaped wells—these could be seen clearly, as too, through the sparse hedges, could the low eaves on the old verandahs and the fusuma with the artistic pictures on them. The summer sun would, as it passed, reveal dazzling red roses in bloom in the hedges and fresh green bamboo screens hanging at the verandahs, while the wind-bells would chime soothingly cool. On a thickly misted autumn morning there would be the swooshing sound of the well-bucket, and there would be yellow litchi nuts in the hedges. There would also be the occasional sound of the harp. In such residences, then, lived members of former samurai families, fallen behind the times. Some worked in village offices, others worked as elementary school teachers. Some had wealth and spent their days at ease, others made a living by running small-scale silkworm businesses. There were others still who lent out money. Among the samurai residences there was, beside the road, one particular house that belonged to a rich man. The coral-tree hedge was thick and it was not easy to see inside, but nonetheless one could make out the white-walled storehouse and high-roofed main building. Looking in through the gate one could see a splendid porch and chickens foraging for food beside a little outhouse. The two friends walked on past the hedge. At the end of it was a broad, smooth-flowing river swollen with water. Willows dipped their leaves in from its banks making little ripples. A narrow wooden bridge crossed the river at a bend. Mihoko's house was not far from here. "Shall we stop by? Kitagawa will probably be there today," suggested Seizo. The house was across a big country road, facing the open fields.

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It had an old black gate. It was a low-eaved, thatch-roofed house, and its foundations were a little crooked. Pine and cypress and camellia trees grew thick in the garden. That year from January to March a group of young people had often gathered there to play verse cards. There had been Mihoko's elder sister Iyoko, her younger sister Sadako, and a beautiful girl called Tomoko, the younger sister of a man named Kofu. These girls, along with Ikuji, Seizo, Ishikawa, Sawada, and Mihoko's elder brother Kitagawa, had crammed into the eight-mat room under the light of the largewicked, bamboo-base lamp, and had happily become engrossed in the card playing. Mihoko's greying, elegant-looking mother had put on her spectacles and kindly and patiently called out the cards for the youngsters in a loud and penetrating Kuwana accent. How their faces had lit up when refreshments had been brought in— mikan, specially prepared "five-colored" rice, and ginger. They never went home before eleven. Then the young men and women would troop back, laughing cheerfully, along that dark, lonely road through the bamboo thickets by the former samurai residences. Kitagawa had gone off to the bathhouse and was not at home. His mother greeted them cheerfully: "It's so nice to see you. He won't be very long, I'm sure." Her smiling face reminded Seizo of the smiling face of Mihoko. Her voice was very similar too. They were shown through into Kitagawa's study, which faced onto the garden. They couldn't see his father, who must have gone out somewhere. Kitagawa's mother stayed with them for a while making conversation. "I hear you've gone off to Miroku, Hayashi-san. That must be very nice. Your mother must be very pleased for you." She also talked about Mihoko, who had gone to Urawa. "Her father says that he doesn't like the idea at all of a woman doing something like that, but she just won't listen. She does realize that it won't be easy for her, being a woman, but . . ." "And how is she?" asked Seizo. "Just having fun, so I understand," laughed her mother. She then turned to Ikuji. "And how is Yuki-san?" "Loafing around as usual." "She must come over some time. Sada's very bored too." 48

While they were making such small talk Kitagawa returned from the bathhouse. He was a tall man with prominent cheekbones and wore a splash-patterned haori over a hand-woven padded underjacket. He had a habit of suddenly bursting into raucous laughter in the middle of a conversation. Unlike Ishikawa, Seizo, and the others, he had little interest in literature. At school he had been well known as an athlete, and there was no one in the class who could equal him when it came to things like baseball. He hoped to join the army, and had studied hard after leaving school and sat the examination for the officers' college in April, only to fail in mathematics and English. And yet he wasn't too dispirited. He said he was going off to Tokyo for the September term to enter an appropriate intensive school where he could prepare himself properly for another try at the examination. The three young men talked frankly with one another. However, the conversation between them was very different from the conversation between just Seizo and Ikuji alone. Intimate as the three were, it was merely the intimacy of schoolmates. And although they spoke frankly, they did not reveal their truly innermost feelings. The conversation between them largely concerned matters such as school, hopes for the future, and preparations for examinations. Kitagawa told them about the officers' college examination that he had taken in Tokyo. "There just wasn't much margin for error in the exam, and it was pretty tough going. They only read the English dictation passage out once, which didn't help matters. And the exam hall was too big, so I couldn't hear properly. It was hopeless. On top of everything the algebra was ridiculously difficult." He'd written the algebra questions—quadratic equations— down in his notebook. After rummaging around in his desk drawers and cupboards and bookcases he finally found the notebook and showed it to them. The questions really were difficult. Even Ikuji, who was good at math, couldn't do them. Kitagawa was good at Chinese classics. His father was one of the leading Sinologists in the district and had often written Chinese-style poetry. Nowadays he was working at the town office and had given it up, but up until three years ago he had taught the Nine Chinese Confucian Classics to the children of the wealthier

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local families. From three in the afternoon till sunset his reciting would always drone forth from the hedge-encircled house. In those days Mihoko, with a red muslin obi and her hair let down, would play outside the gate with her friends from the neighborhood. Seizo had been aware of the beauty of Mihoko's eyes from that point on. It was after nine that evening when Ikuji and Seizo took their leave. The young men had found all sorts of things to talk about. Now, after leaving the house, they walked along for a while in silence. The road through the rustling bamboo groves was dark. Both Ikuji and Seizo were thinking about Mihoko, who was now at school in Urawa. "Why, when Ikuji was talking so openly, didn't I bring myself to say that I too loved her?" Seizo asked himself. However, it was by no means certain that Mihoko knew of his friend's love for her, and Seizo was in the position of knowing his friend's feelings toward Mihoko before she herself knew of them. It was this that caused him such trouble. And it was this that prevented him from coming to grips with the problem. Sometimes he would think to himself: "The matter's by no means settled. Who knows what would happen if I were to bring things into the open? There's no reason at all to assume that my chances have all been ruined." Of course, he was prepared to sacrifice himself for his friend's sake. He also wanted his friend's love to be successful. From the point of view of his own personality, and of his family circumstances, and of the present state of the affair, Seizo himself was still far from feeling really serious in his designs. And yet, that night they both had a strange stirring in their breasts. Even though they walked in silence, their hearts were speaking. Just where they came out onto the fields the road had deteriorated badly as a result of the previous day's rain. Their low clogs sank into the ground. "What a terrible road!" They exchanged comments about the road. However, in their hearts they were both thinking about Mihoko. As for Ikuji, he felt that he wanted to tell his friend absolutely everything about his anguished feelings for the girl, and that this would give him a certain peace of mind. And yet, for some reason, he just could not bring himself to do so. And so, they continued walking in silence.

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The woods by the castle ruins looked starkly black. The marsh sparkled in places with the light of the evening stars. The reeds and rushes swayed and murmured in the evening breeze. Here and there the lights of the town could be seen. They went from the park into the town. They were no longer silent. In a low voice Ikuji had started reciting Chinese verse, a forte of his. His tone revealed that he was still affected by the strong emotions in his heart. They came to the coiner where they had to part, but somehow felt that they couldn't just part as they were. "How about coming over to my place and having some tea?" suggested Seizo, and Ikuji went with him. Seizo's mother was still at her cutting board hard at work. She made some tea for the two young men, who continued to talk for another hour or so. No matter how much they talked, they still had things to say. When the clock struck twelve and Ikuji finally resolved to leave, Seizo went back again with him as far as the corner by the bathhouse. The main street of the town was quite silent by now. The next day both Seizo and his mother overslept. The clock showed past seven. In a fluster Seizo had a hasty breakfast of rice and tea and then set off. He hurried as best he could, but the tenmile road was long, and it was well past ten when he arrived at Miroku. The sun was already shining on the glass windows of the school, and the voice of the principal, teaching moral science, could be heard loud and clear all around. He hurried in, to find his class restless and noisy.

13 I n Kumagaya too there were a lot of his old school friends— Obata, Sakurai, Kojima. He and Ikuji had been on particularly good terms with Obata. After graduation had split them up they would exchange letters, full of jokes and discussions, on an almost daily basis. Seizo went to see him at least once or twice a month. 51

The woods by the castle ruins looked starkly black. The marsh sparkled in places with the light of the evening stars. The reeds and rushes swayed and murmured in the evening breeze. Here and there the lights of the town could be seen. They went from the park into the town. They were no longer silent. In a low voice Ikuji had started reciting Chinese verse, a forte of his. His tone revealed that he was still affected by the strong emotions in his heart. They came to the coiner where they had to part, but somehow felt that they couldn't just part as they were. "How about coming over to my place and having some tea?" suggested Seizo, and Ikuji went with him. Seizo's mother was still at her cutting board hard at work. She made some tea for the two young men, who continued to talk for another hour or so. No matter how much they talked, they still had things to say. When the clock struck twelve and Ikuji finally resolved to leave, Seizo went back again with him as far as the corner by the bathhouse. The main street of the town was quite silent by now. The next day both Seizo and his mother overslept. The clock showed past seven. In a fluster Seizo had a hasty breakfast of rice and tea and then set off. He hurried as best he could, but the tenmile road was long, and it was well past ten when he arrived at Miroku. The sun was already shining on the glass windows of the school, and the voice of the principal, teaching moral science, could be heard loud and clear all around. He hurried in, to find his class restless and noisy.

13 I n Kumagaya too there were a lot of his old school friends— Obata, Sakurai, Kojima. He and Ikuji had been on particularly good terms with Obata. After graduation had split them up they would exchange letters, full of jokes and discussions, on an almost daily basis. Seizo went to see him at least once or twice a month. 51

It was some six or seven miles from Gyoda to Kumagaya, and the road ran along the edge of a watercourse full of nice, clear water. Fields and villages alternated, and there was a succession of farmsteads, where wheat was threshed in the yards under the summer sun, fields of nicely ripening pumpkins, and white-walled storehouses belonging to the wealthier farmers. On fine autumn days carts piled high with rice creaked their way along from the fields to the villages, and in the ripe yellow fields country girls with towels wrapped round their heads put down their scythes to stare at groups of passersby on the road. All manner of people and things passed by. There was the horse-drawn coach running between Kumagaya and Gyoda, there were carts going the rounds of the Aojima weaving sheds, bicycles—very fashionable at the time among young men of wealthy families—and all manner of people in rickshas. There might be a ricksha carrying a couple of country wives going shopping in town, pulled with great difficulty by a tottering old rickshaman. Next might come a splendid vehicle pulled by a uniformed rickshaman, carrying an important-looking whiskered gentleman such as the local doctor. In the rice-planting season the rain streamed down, and countless wicker-hatted heads would be bent down to the mud of the drenched fields. There would be fine renditions of the rice-planting songs. After the planting, the fields were a beautiful green. Sometimes surplus bundles of seedlings would be abandoned on the roadside, or on the ridges between the fields. And on the fine days during the early summer rains one would always see, under the eaves and on the roofs of the village houses, white cocoons laid out to dry. Beside the watercourse was a cool, inviting teahouse under a huge spreading elm. Inside, locally grown muskmelons lay soaking in a bucket of water, and there was also a shallow tub of gelidium jelly. Seizo well remembered how he used to walk here along the hot, shadeless road, ridding himself of his sweat-drenched high-collared school uniform and treating himself to a melon. He also knew that the proprietress had a daughter who had gone off to Tokyo as a servant in Akasaka. Also unforgettable was the beautiful view of the mountains fringing the Kanto Plain. The mountains were especially beautiful from late autumn—that time when leaves would come tumbling from out of nowhere along the road—to around February and

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March, when the spring mists lay like a thin veil. There were the peaks of Nikko, sparkling and snow clad; the fleecy, white mists of Mount Asama; and the rays of the evening sun flooding the intricate folds of the peaks around Ashikaga, as pretty as a picture, from nearby Mount Akagi to distant Mount Haruna. The group of middle school students would laugh and frolic their way to and fro along this road between Gyoda and Kumagaya. The town of Kumagaya eventually presented to view, at the end of a broad expanse of fields, its tiled roofs and chimneys and white-walled houses. Kumagaya was a much livelier town than Gyoda. There were neat rows of houses, numerous rich families, a population of over ten thousand, a middle school, an agricultural college, a court, a tax office, and so on and so on. Each time a train arrived at the station the horse-drawn coaches for Gyoda and Menuma collected their respective passengers and then rattled noisily off along the main street, filling the air with the sound of their horns. At night electric lights came on in the stores, the haberdashers', Western-goods dealers', drapers', and so on looked bright and attractive, and the lively, cheerful sound of the shamisen could be heard coming from the restaurants. The town was a second home to Seizo. When he was seven his family, having fallen on hard times, had left Ashikaga and settled here at the end of a little street that lay across from the post office on the main road. That street held all sorts of memories for him. There were some casual workers living there who were employed as messengers for the post office. There was also a spirited old lady, who had drifted from place to place but had still not lost the accent of her native Yamagata. He had lived there in that little house with its six-, eight-, and three-mat rooms from the age of seven to the age of fifteen, from elementary school through to second-year middle school. The elementary school was in a back street of the town. To get there you turned right at the Myojin Shrine gates, went along a little lane—which took you over a ditch covered with boards that rattled as you trod on them—turned left at the corner by the sweet shop, went on a little further, and then came upon a large two-storied building and a playground with swings and a vaulting horse. The noise of the children filled the air. Seizo could still clearly picture the fat face of the principal, the

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stern face of the deputy principal, the jovial face of the gamesmaster, and so on. Among the group of girl pupils who had arrived dressed in their best at the graduation ceremony there were several of whom he was fond. He particularly remembered one girl who wore a maroon hakama over a purple feather-patterned outfit. She came from a district at the edge of town. He had heard that her father was the principal of the agricultural college. During Seizo's first year at middle school her family had moved to Nagano, so he hadn't been able to see her sparkling eyes about town any more. Nevertheless, he still sometimes thought about her even now. Another of the girls was now in a geisha house and was known as Kotaki. She had achieved her geisha status the year before last, and was very popular in the area. Occasionally he would encounter her around town, elaborately dressed and on her way to some engagement. She would pass with a cheerful, breezy greeting such as, "Must dash, Hayashi-san." She had come along to their middle school graduation party, and had sung sweetly and played the shamisen for them. Obata had been sitting next to her and had said, drawing a somewhat drink-reddened face close to hers, "Kotaki's our own little geisha, aren't you Kotaki?" She had made as if to hit him, with the comment, "Really, Obata-san! I haven't forgotten how you always used to bully me, you know!" The question had then chanced to come up as to who was her favorite among her old school friends. Quite a few of her old elementary school classmates happened to be present at the time, gathered around her. Without the least hesitation Kotaki had answered, "Who's my favorite? Why, Hayashi-san, of course." She too was drunk. A loud cheer went up. From that time on, whenever Seizo met Obata or Sakurai or Kojima, Kotaki would frequently come up in the conversation. Eventually Seizo's friends even sent him postcards with comments like, "How are you, 'Kotaki'-kun? Alive and well?" He had been labeled with the nickname Kotaki. Seizo himself, playing along, had changed the name Kotaki, meaning "little cascade," to Shirataki, which meant not only "white cascade" but also a type of noodle, and then used this as a pseudonym for signing letters and putting on the cover of his diary. He also composed a new-style five-versed quatrain in the five-seven meter, entitled "The Song of the Singing Geisha Shirataki," and sent this off to Obata.

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Sometimes Seizo would think seriously about geisha. He would then always link himself in his mind with Kotaki. He even tried making up romantic little episodes. Sometimes he also imagined the ill-fated life of a geisha, unable to preserve her own chastity and body, and would weep tears of sympathy. He still didn't understand about such things as geisha. He also remembered clearly the time his family had moved from Kumagaya to Gyoda. His father had come home suddenly and said that they were moving that night. His mother had asked if they couldn't put it off till the following day, but there was good reason for their not being able to make the move openly in daylight. Their eight years in Kumagaya had simply resulted in his family falling heavily into debt. And so, while his father went out jingling just enough money to hire a couple of carts for the move, Seizo and his mother did the packing by themselves so that the neighbors wouldn't realize what was going on. The winter moon had shone on the long road to Gyoda. The shadows of the two carts and of the four members of the family showed black and forlorn on the ground. Seizo was unbearably sad at the thought that this was a cameo, as it were, of a family's decline. It was close to midnight when they finally arrived at their new home in Gyoda. As he stood outside the gloomy, unlit Yamato shoji, tears had streamed down Seizo's cheeks. But somehow or other life had to go on. Three years had now passed since then. And their little house in Gyoda wasn't, once they had gotten used to it, such a bad place. From time to time Seizo would think about their present house in Gyoda, their house in Kumagaya, and their house in Ashikaga. The house in Kumagaya was still there. An old couple were living in it. The old bathhouse that he had gone to so often had now been renovated; it looked so splendid he could have mistaken it for another. In the general store along the street the friendly proprietress was sitting as usual dealing with the customers. The seed dealer's daughter was parading about, proud of her fashionable low pompadour hairdo. The old chemist was, as usual, shaking his bald head as he scolded the shop boys. At the money-order window of the post office a woman with a muslin-lined black satin obi was waiting impatiently for an order to be made out, tapping noisily on the concrete floor with her clogs. Beside her a familiar

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white dog was sleeping peacefully, its head resting on the ground. A mailman came in carrying his mailbag. Obata's father was an official at the district office; Kojima's father was a prominent draper well known in the town; Sakurai's father was a wealthy man, a former retainer in Gyoda who had bought property in the Kumagaya area and moved there in the early years of the Meiji era; many of Seizo's other friends from school had fathers who were brewers, rice dealers, stationers, magistrates, and the like. He had generally known these friends since his days at elementary school, so in that sense he was closer to them than he was even to most of his friends in Gyoda. Obata's house was next to the land belonging to the station, and from it one could see the flowers of the famous Kumagaya embankment. Sakurai's house was near the Rensho Temple, and all day long there one could hear the sound of the gong being struck by temple visitors. Whenever Seizo went to Kumagaya he always called on these two friends. At both houses he knew everyone well and could openly speak his mind. If he was at either house at meal times and said nothing to the contrary it was taken for granted that he would be staying for the meal, and if it got too late at night then he would spend the night with his friend. "What's up? You're looking really depressed." "Is anything wrong?" "You're still a bit too young to go senile, you know." "Have you had bad news or something?" "You look a bit off-color, you know." When he came to Kumagaya he would be met with such breezy comments. In their lively faces his friends still had something about them of their time at middle school, and they frequently used words and phrases that they had used in their school talk. The following would be typical of their conversations: "What's L doing?" "Still around? Really, still around?" "Old Enchanted Bones is mad about her—it's just too funny for words." "He's wearing a beard nowadays, you know, and goes round with a walking stick." "Sugi's turned into a real ladies' man, you know." It was a style of conversation that was by no means easy to fol-

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low for anyone not directly involved, but it did eventually come to mean something. Kumagaya was a bustling town in comparison with Gyoda and Hanyu, and commerce flourished there. It was therefore not surprising that few of Seizo's old school friends there had gone into elementary school teaching or the like. Some donned the stiff merchant's obi and took their places as heirs to merchant houses, and many others busied themselves preparing for high school entrance examinations. There was a dynamism about these young men. By contrast, Seizo always felt aware of his own negativeness. He felt that, as he went from Kumagaya to Gyoda then Gyoda to Hanyu then Hanyu to Miroku, his vitality was gradually ebbing away, and he would always be wrapped in cheerless thought as he walked back on the long road from Kumagaya. Moreover, people were different in their types, their looks, and their conversation. Even when discussing the same question of making money, in the Miroku area they always emerged as petty and penny-pinching country folk. The school principal there was considered locally to be a man of considerable standing. The principal himself was proud of his position, and satisfied with it. Seizo inevitably compared the friends he met in Kumagaya with the people he knew in Gyoda, and again with his colleagues in Miroku. When he thought about his present situation he felt terribly sad and miserable that his ideals were, upon coming in contact with reality, gradually crumbling away. One Sunday morning he went with Obata and Sakurai to their old middle school. It was on the edge of town, a large two-storied building, and had a vaulting horse, gymnastic bars, and swings. There were just a few boarding students wandering around the yard in their high-collared uniforms, and all the classrooms were quiet. In the canteen, wearing his usual grumpy expression, was the caretaker, whom they'd nicknamed Demon. The dormitory master, Slumber King, was there too. There was also a math teacher there, on after-hours duty. The stairs, the long corridors, the blackboards in the classrooms, the Chinese parasol tree whose top could be seen from the upstairs windows—there was nothing that did not hold memories for them. They wandered about here and there talking about their school days. They spent an hour talking in the duty room and told all that 57

they had heard about their classmates. Ten had gone off to Tokyo, fifteen were still in the area, eight had become elementary school teachers, and it was not known what had become of the other five. The three friends went to the hall and played the organ, then went into the yard and threw a ball about. Before parting they went into a noodle shop in the town. It was called the Seiryuan, and they often went there. The room at the rear faced onto a neat little garden, and here their faces seemed as if tinted green by the new leaves of a maple tree. They made a happy feast of noodles and raw egg and a bottle of sake. "I met Kotaki the other day, you know," said Obata as he watched Seizo's expression. "Apparently she's pretty much in demand nowadays—probably the most popular in the district. It was in that little lane by the bathhouse. She seemed to be on her way to some engagement or other and was grinning her head off as she went along." "Didn't you ask her about Hayashi-san?" cut in Sakurai with a laugh. Seizo laughed too, then went on to ask, "How are things withY?" "Still on the boil, as usual." "Have they got engaged yet?" "Well, they seem pretty keen themselves, but both families are acting up and making it difficult, so I hear." "It's turning out interestingly," said Seizo, looking thoughtful. "No doubt Y and V were once lovers. And when things happen like that, you can never tell how it'll work out in the end." "And what about V?" Sakurai asked Obata. "Gone off to Ashikaga." "To a company?" "Some textile company or other, so I hear." They ordered some more noodles, this time with fried fish. "And how about Miss Art?" asked Obata. "She's gone to Urawa." "I know that! I didn't mean the question in that sense." "Oh, really? . . . " Seizo nooded. "Things are still as before." "That's because Kato's such a ditherer too!" laughed Obata. Their faces were red after the bottle of sake. Obata paid the bill, jingling the coins in his purse. A sweet-looking girl brought the change together with some barley water and toothpicks. 58

Just after four o'clock that afternoon found Seizo walking back along that country road between Gyoda and Hanyu, heading back to Miroku. The fields lay in bright sunlight, and the new leaves of the trees in the village beyond sparkled with a dazzling beauty. Seizo's heart, however, was in despair. He compared the road he had walked to Kumagaya, full of hope, with this present road that took him back to Miroku, gloom in his heart. How he envied his dynamic young friends.

14 "T J une sixth: Today's the day for moving to the Jogan Temple," ran the entry in his diary. Ogyu-kun had made the necessary arrangements for him with the priest, and the matter was settled without any difficulty. The priest told Seizo that they were too shorthanded at the temple to be able to provide his meals, but that he was free to use whatever he needed from the house. He also provided him with such things as a desk, a hibachi, cushions, and tea utensils. There were six-mat rooms to the right and left of the main building. The room on the right caught the sun and was fine in winter but insufferably hot in summer. Seizo therefore decided to rent the room on the left. The priest changed the shoji, finally finding some that fitted. His wife brought a bucket into the corridor and scrubbed the matting. The desk was set in the middle of the room, with a bookcase that Seizo had brought along beside it, and when the tea things had been set out on the square hibachi the room looked like a wonderfully cosy study. Business happened to be slack at the post office at the time, so Ogyu-kun left things in the hands of his colleagues and came over and helped by pulling up the weeds in the garden and suchlike. By the time Seizo returned from school everything was neat and tidy, and the priest and Ogyu-kun were sitting around the tea things laughing and gossiping and looking very pleased with how attractive the room had become. 59

Just after four o'clock that afternoon found Seizo walking back along that country road between Gyoda and Hanyu, heading back to Miroku. The fields lay in bright sunlight, and the new leaves of the trees in the village beyond sparkled with a dazzling beauty. Seizo's heart, however, was in despair. He compared the road he had walked to Kumagaya, full of hope, with this present road that took him back to Miroku, gloom in his heart. How he envied his dynamic young friends.

14 "T J une sixth: Today's the day for moving to the Jogan Temple," ran the entry in his diary. Ogyu-kun had made the necessary arrangements for him with the priest, and the matter was settled without any difficulty. The priest told Seizo that they were too shorthanded at the temple to be able to provide his meals, but that he was free to use whatever he needed from the house. He also provided him with such things as a desk, a hibachi, cushions, and tea utensils. There were six-mat rooms to the right and left of the main building. The room on the right caught the sun and was fine in winter but insufferably hot in summer. Seizo therefore decided to rent the room on the left. The priest changed the shoji, finally finding some that fitted. His wife brought a bucket into the corridor and scrubbed the matting. The desk was set in the middle of the room, with a bookcase that Seizo had brought along beside it, and when the tea things had been set out on the square hibachi the room looked like a wonderfully cosy study. Business happened to be slack at the post office at the time, so Ogyu-kun left things in the hands of his colleagues and came over and helped by pulling up the weeds in the garden and suchlike. By the time Seizo returned from school everything was neat and tidy, and the priest and Ogyu-kun were sitting around the tea things laughing and gossiping and looking very pleased with how attractive the room had become. 59

"Well, this really is nice. It's just like a new room," said Seizo, grinning. "And Ogyu-san's done the weeding too," laughed the priest. "Ogyu-kun did it? I'm sorry for all the trouble that must have been." "Oh, don't apologize. I actually like doing a bit of gardening," said Ogyu-kun. There were some rice cakes there, still wrapped in bamboo leaves. They were a little present from Ogyu-kun. "What a treat," said Seizo, munching no fewer than three of them. He was feeling pretty hungry, having had only a packed lunch and then the long walk back. That day Seizo and Ogyu-kun had their meal prepared for them at the temple—boiled taro and bamboo shoot, and a stock containing asparagus. The priest took his meal with them too, as well as providing a couple of bottles of beer, and the three of them talked convivially about literature, life's problems, the neighborhood, the school, and the priest's speciality, Zen. As he leaned against a pillar by the garden, the priest's face stood out pale against the evening air. They could see the young novitiate hurrying down the long corridor toward them, and when he arrived he handed over a telegram to the priest. The priest opened it hurriedly, and his expression changed as he read it. "Ojima Kogetsu's dead!" "Kogetsu-sanl?" The two young men were also wide-eyed with surprise. Most people who had an interest in literature knew the name Ojima Kogetsu. He had married into a certain book house and was, as its manager, a powerful man, even more so than as a writer. The previous autumn he had gone on a tour of Europe and had returned about a month ago. The newspapers had been full of reports of his farewell party and welcome-back party. The magazines also gave him a lot of coverage. When the priest had still been in Tokyo he had been particularly indebted to this man, who had bought manuscripts from him and put him up in his home. "I can't really go today, can I?" "No, not really. There are no more coaches, and it would be too

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far to go by ricksha. And even if you went by train, it'd be difficult when you arrived at the other end." The priest thought the matter over. "Well, I suppose I'd better go tomorrow then." "Tomorrow you could get the morning coach as far as Kuki and then get on the second train on the Ou Line." "Wouldn't Fukiage be easier from Gyoda?" "No, Kuki would be the best," said Ogyu-kun. The priest appeared to settle for this. "Man never knows when he's going to die," he presently lamented. "I'd heard he was ill in the hospital, but I never dreamt he would die there. And to think that he was happy, and successful, and on the point of getting what he wanted out of life . . ." The priest was depressed thinking about his own feelings at being in an obscure country temple. "Life is so full of petty disputes. I got thoroughly sick of it when I was in Tokyo, you know. Exploiting others' weaknesses, forming little cliques, trapping people, trying to get one step ahead of everyone else—it really disgusted me. In life, good isn't necessarily good, nor bad bad, nor happiness happiness. After all, people are people whoever they might be. And in that, there is some measure of comfort and joy, and something worthwhile too. It has nothing at all to do with the frantic lifelong pursuit of fame. How much greater it is for a man to live a life of ideals. In that, there is meaning, however ruinous the circumstances in which a man might die." "That's very true." Seizo felt drawn by the priest's words. "He was actually an unhappy man!" the priest muttered to himself with great feeling. It was precisely because he appreciated Ojima's successful position that the priest felt his background to be so sad. Ojima was always joking and being mildly cynical with people. He was still in his early to mid-thirties, but he had been so knocked about by life's hardships that his attitude was closer to that of a man of around forty. The priest also thought about how sad and lonely he must have been as an adopted heir. "Whatever happens, we all die, each and every one of us. That's what makes it so useless." He spoke in a tone that revealed how deeply he had been moved. Under the circumstances the atmosphere in the room that night 61

was one of profound sadness. The priest presently withdrew to his quarters, and the conversation between Seizo and Ogyu-kun was hopelessly serious, unable to regain its usual lighthearted tone. They sat for a long time in silence facing the dim lamp. The next day the priest left early. In the days that followed Seizo saw many newspaper articles concerning Ojima Kogetsu's death and funeral. Each article filled him with thought. He didn't particularly admire Ojima's works, but he could imagine how his power as a publisher must have affected the literary world. He also thought about this in comparison with the ill fortunes of the Myojo School that he worshiped. Sometimes he would think to himself, "At any rate, even if he might have been unhappy, to be written up in the papers like this upon your death is a real honor," and he would compare this with the vast majority of ordinary people, who were born, lived, and died without causing the smallest ripple. Meanwhile the rain fell and the winds blew. On the rainy days the greenery surrounding the main building was especially dazzling, and he would watch the raindrops dripping down the iron guttering high on the roof of the priest's quarters. On windy days the woods behind the temple rustled and roared, and made him feel almost as if he were living beside the sea. In the mornings and evenings he had a packed meal from a little cafe called Komezushi, next to the coach relay station, and these were brought to him by a girl of about thirteen or fourteen wearing a red muslin obi. Eventually his own bedding, desk, other bookcases, and suchlike were sent over from Gyoda for him. From the temple Seizo always went straight out onto the town's main road, into the back streets to a corner where there was a dirty little eating house with Tape Noodles written on its door, along past the cocoonery of one of the factories of the Usui Company with wispy white smoke rising from its narrow chimneys, past a disreputable-looking restaurant with a gas lamp outside, and came out at the approach to the bridge across the watercourse. Sometimes the coach to Ogoe happened to pass by, and he managed to get a cheap ride. Five or six days later the priest came back from Tokyo. Seizo already knew the general nature of the funeral from the newspapers, but he felt he could picture it that much better by hearing

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about it in detail. The big names—and the not-so-big names—of the literary world had all followed in the funeral procession through the rain. The rain had really streamed down, and the various colors of the flowers, artificial and real alike, had made a picturesque contrast with the fresh greenery round about. The main building of the temple there was small, and those who could not get inside had stood under the dripping eaves, their bull's-eye and silk umbrellas raised. The service had been a long one. Afterward the customary incense was burned, and then the coffin was carried out to the cemetery at the rear. Fresh straw had been spread on the path to the cemetery, and along that path people came and went, their silk kimono and haori and hakama getting soaked in the rain. A well-known novelist had leaned against a pillar looking very depressed. A certain artist, a life-long friend of the deceased, had wandered about in the rain ruining his haori, acting on his late friend's behalf. "I was really very moved, you know," said the young priest. "He went through all that hardship, finally got to a successful position, and then just when he was about to realize his hopes what should greet him but death." "It was hopeless for him to chase fame and get smeared with the dirt of the city. It doesn't matter how successful you become, once death comes calling you're nothing but tears in people's eyes. And once you're dead it doesn't matter how many tears they weep for you." The priest's eyebrows were raised as he spoke. Seizo was full of thought late into that night. He tried to picture "fame" and "a successful position." It was exactly what his young heart yearned for. However, he felt that tonight he had somehow found a new explanation for the question of aspiration and ambition. He took out his battered copy of Toson's Young Leaves poetry anthology and lost himself in its pages. In the main building the Buddha image stood starkly alone.

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15 I n the woods to the rear of the temple was a patch of reed-covered, marshy ground where water from what had once been a pond sparkled black with age. In late June singing reed warblers appeared there out of nowhere. The priest and his wife reared silkworms as a side interest. The eight-mat room of the priest's quarters was full of racks and straw, and a thermometer was fixed on a pillar to keep a check on the temperature. Every morning and evening the priest's wife, a white hand towel wrapped around her head, went out to the fields to gather mulberry. On rainy days in the breaks between showers, the priest would also help with the gathering. The wet, green leaves were piled on the large wooden floor of the kitchen. The novitiate then dried each leaf carefully, and beside him the priest chopped them up carefully with a cleaver. When the time arrived for the silkworms to start spinning, the town suddenly took on a bustling air. Even in the normally very quiet back streets notices were stuck up saying "Cocoons bought here," and people flocked in from round about to sell their wares. Whiskered middle-aged brokers in their stiff merchant's obis weighed the pretty white cocoons and then tipped them onto straw. The market changed daily. Jingling silver and copper coins were paid over with a flourish of prosperity. The sound of the shamisen could be heard coming from the restaurants from lunchtime on. It was a Sunday. Ikuji had been staying at the temple since Saturday night. He had brought with him the first copy of Gydda Bungaku, and they had been talking avidly about literature since that previous evening. And then, just after ten o'clock, a ricksha rattled up along the flagstone path from the temple gate. This was the first time Seizo had known a ricksha actually to come in through the gate, and out of curiosity he opened the shoji of the main building to take a look. A plumpish man in a white woolen suit and Italian straw boater and a tall man in a pale summer coat were just about to get out of the ricksha at the entrance to the priest's quarters. The novitiate came out to meet them, and then

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the figure of the priest also appeared. His tone, his words, and the look on his face clearly revealed his happiness at being visited by old friends. It presently became clear to Seizo and Ikuji that the visitors were both well-known literary figures from Tokyo, Hara Kyoka and the celebrated Taiyo—"Sun"—magazine writer Aibara Kenji. Both were friends of the priest from his days in Tokyo. Seizo's room faced the main room of the priest's quarters across the trees of the inner garden, and so he could clearly see the priest chatting with his visitors. The white woolen summer suit flashed between the green of the leaves, and from time to time there were loud and animated laughs. How envious the young Seizo was of that suit, that laughter. "Hara's the fat one, isn't he? You wouldn't think he was the same man who writes such sweet stuff," laughed Ikuji. In the kitchen the priest's wife and the novitiate were busy preparing food. The priest himself came in from time to time to give instructions. A youngster came from the Komezushi cafe bringing crimped raw carp in a wooden carrying box. The sake dealer from the main road brought a little sake pourer. The novitiate lit the fire under the oven and the boiler of the wooden bath. The normally quiet kitchen brimmed over with a rare bustle of activity. Soon they started drinking. Their voices grew gradually louder. The priest was laughing merrily with a rare cheerfulness. By noon they seemed quite drunk, and the laughter was endless. The visitors' faces, as they went along the verandah to the toilet, were red as flame. Presently it sounded as if the priest was reciting poetry, and rather poorly at that, and then came a clearer voice reciting what seemed to be a minstrel song. The two young friends went out to the town. They had no money in their pockets but if they went to the Komezushi cafe, where accounts were settled at the end of the month, they could always have a bottle or two of sake. The cafe was situated at the edge of town, and the six-mat room at the back was littered with clothing and babies' diapers and suchlike, which the proprietress cleared away for them. Sitting beside an old chest of drawers and various boxes, facing the narrow strip of garden, they drank sake and ate rice with hard-boiled bonito. On the way back they decided to visit Ogyu-kun at the post

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office. With faces as red as theirs they couldn't go walking along the main street of the town, however, so they decided to go a back way that took them through half-cropped fields of mulberry. Ogyu wasn't in, having gone to Kumagaya. The two friends went back through the fields. Green weeds floated in the stream, and little fish darted about. When they got back to the temple they found that the drinking was still going on in the priest's quarters. It was now quite rowdy. The taller of the two visitors had grabbed the priest by the hand and was trying to lead him off somewhere. The suited Hara was pushing from behind. The priest had already had his formal robes put on for him. "All right! All right! If you really want me to that badly, I will read the sutras for you—but only if you beat the drum!" The priest too was quite drunk. "Okay. Fine. I'll beat the drum," said the magazine writer. The three of them tottered unsteadily down the long corridor to the main building, leaning on each other for support. The priest's wife and the novitiate watched this drunken scene from the priest's quarters, laughing. At the steps leading from the corridor into the main building the trio tripped and collapsed in an untidy heap amid roars of laughter. The magazine writer picked up the drumstick and beat the drum. Poku . . . poku . . . poku . . .—the rhythm wasn't at all bad. The priest and Hara, the literary man, both stared, and one of them said with a laugh, "I say, this is good stuff! You must have been practicing." The magazine writer replied, still beating the drum, "That's right—I spent three years as a temple novitiate, you know." He then mimicked a sutra-reading tone. "Come on then, priest, get on with the sutras!" He carried on beating the drum for all he was worth. The priest and Hara stood talking in front of the Buddha image and the ancient memorial tablets. In the middle of the large tablets commemorating the successive generations of temple priests was a stern-faced wooden statue of the restorer of the temple. The eyes stared frighteningly. The priest talked about this man, about how he had had the main building rebuilt after it had been burned down during his predecessor's tenure, and about a disciple who had gone off to the Eihei Temple in Echizen. There was a bell

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on top of the muslin floor covering and beside it the bald-headed image of one of the Buddhist apostles. Hara struck the bell noisily. Having come to the main building only because the magazine writer had pressed him to read the sutras, the priest took advantage of an opportunity to slip out back to his quarters. The two drunken visitors struck wildly on the drum and bell, laughing away. Eventually they too clumped their way noisily back along the corridor to the priest's quarters. Behind them, in the six-mat room in the main building, Seizó and Ikuji were laughing. "A literary man is a surprisingly carefree and simple creature," said Seizó. "Nothing at all like I imagined," replied Ikuji. The young pair had never dreamt that this author and this magazine writer, whose names they had so often heard mentioned, could get up to such childish things. And yet, incompletely as they understood a life and attitude that could entail such acts, they were envious. The visitors from Tokyo stayed the night and set off back at noon the following day, heading by coach for Kuki through the incessant rain. When Seizó came back from school, his hakama soaked, and went into the priest's quarters to borrow some kindling, he found the priest sitting alone and sad at his desk looking at some documents. The reed warblers sang busily. And even during this rainy season there were fine days when a clear blue sky showed through from behind grey clouds. When the beautiful sunshine came flooding into the woods behind the temple the leaves seemed reborn, spreading fresh color around them. The broad leaves of the banana plants swayed in the breeze, and lizards darted about, gleaming in the sun, on the walls at the temple gate. Washing lines were hung between the fences of the tenement houses out front, and rows of dirty rags dried there. Most of the flowers had fallen from the chestnut trees and had been trampled into the mud by passersby. By now the mosquitos had gathered humming under the eaves at sunset, and at night smoke to keep them at bay could be seen drifting from the houses. Seizó had bought himself a cotton mosquito net for one yen fifty sen and had put his desk inside it, with a lamp standing outside the net, and would sit here read-

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ing till late each night. Around him were the letters that he received every day from his friends, and there was not one that did not tell of plans for future study. Several, including his good friend Ikuji, were hoping to get into higher normal school; Kojima was busy with preparations for the high school entrance examination; Kitagawa was going off to Tokyo in September to prepare for entry into officers' college; there was no one who was idle. Seizo was inspired by all this himself and did a considerable amount of reading. He got the priest to teach him English, and borrowed from him books on logic and philosophy and the like. Around his desk lay not only literary magazines such as Bungei Kurabu, Myojo, and Taiyd, but also books on teaching methodology, popular psychology, geography, algebra, and geometry. He also had works which the priest had read at Waseda, such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Tennyson's Enoch Arden. His young, yearning heart was insatiable. It often changed from moment to moment. When he read Myojo he would think about those poets in Shibuya; when he read Bungei Kurabu he would think about the prominent writer whose long novel was lead-story in the magazine; and when he read his friends' letters he would want to make plans for getting into some appropriate government school. Sometimes he would ask the priest about Plato's concept of the Idea and would think about such things as platonic love. There at his desk, in the flickering light of the lamp standing outside the mosquito net which surrounded him and made his position cramped and stuffy, he would also write new-style poetry for Gyoda Bungaku. The principal was always urging him to take the examination for his teacher's license. "Your salary will go up once you're qualified. What about it then, Hayashi-san? There's no reason not to." Recently there were times when he didn't go back to Gyoda for a fortnight. He realized his mother would probably be expecting him, but his purse was empty, and the prospect of the six-mile walk was daunting. He thought it better to try and get a bit of studying done instead. He would spend Saturday and Sunday in his room at the temple with this in mind, but he still didn't really succeed in getting down to his studies. One Saturday Obata came over from Kumagaya. On another occasion Ikuji had stayed for three days. Also, Ogyu-kun came almost every day. Sometimes

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when Seizo came back from school he would find the windows wide open and Ogyu-kun, with a fan over his face, taking a pleasant nap. He would often come up to the temple when things were slack at the post office. The two young men would often buy cakes to have with a cup of tea. They were fond of, among others, arrowroot cakes, beanjam dumplings, and sugared rice cakes, and whenever Seizo got his monthly pay he would always call on Ogyu-kun at the post office and go off with him to buy something from the cake shop on the corner. About one time in three he would also call at the priest's quarters to ask if the priest wanted any cakes. When Seizo had no money Ogyu-kun would do the buying. When neither of them had any money Seizo would borrow from the priest: "I'm sorry to have to trouble you, but could you lend me fifty sen or so? I'll pay it back in a day or two." Once when the priest had gone into Seizo's room in his absence, he had found several left-over bamboo-wrapped rice cakes completely covered with ants. During the rainy season the five-mile road to Miroku was a dreadful quagmire. And on windy days the rain seemed almost to fall upside down as it streamed across the open fields, drenching Seizo's new summer haori and hakama. Afterward Seizo would generally time his trips to enable him to get on the coach with a ten sen discount. One day he found himself sharing the coach with a certain woman as far as the corner off to Hotto. During the last month or so he had frequently encountered her at the crossroads on the edge of town, where the stone image dedicated to the Blue Warrior stood. She too seemed to be a school teacher. She had a low pompadour hairstyle, wore a violet hakama, and carried a parcel wrapped in maroon muslin. Seizo had encountered her, as usual, on one recent occasion when Ikuji had accompanied him to Miroku. "I really can't understand what her game is, you know," said Seizo with a laugh. Ikuji laughed in reply, raising his voice as he spoke, "Now you must keep a firm grip on yourself, young man." At the time he had wondered whereabouts she was teaching, but upon traveling in the same coach he learned that she was at Izumi Village Elementary, in the Hotto area. She was about nineteen, with a light complexion and proud, high nose. When the rain was really bad he would sometimes spend the night in the duty room at the school. It was now three months

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since he had started teaching and he was becoming quite accomplished at it. He had overcome the sort of inexperience that might make him blush at a visit from the district inspector, and he was no longer made fun of by the senior students. He had heard that in the elementary schools in Gyoda and Kumagaya there was quite a bit of friction behind the scenes between principal and staff, but there was nothing unpleasant like that in a country school like Miroku. The smug self-importance of Sugita, the normal school graduate, did get on his nerves a bit, but he felt that unlike people like Sugita he himself had no single aim of getting to be principal and spending his whole life in an elementary school, and so there was really no need for him to feel jealous in any way. The principal was inclined to be just a bit too timid and touchy, but he was basically a decent enough gentleman and had nothing malicious about him. Seki-san had been a nice chap from the start, and Oshima was very easy to talk to. All in all, as far as Seizo was concerned the school was not that unpleasant a place. Seizo often played the organ alone. It was a small, cheap organ and its tone was not particularly good, but Seizo made up his own little songs and, despite a questionable knowledge of music, put his own notes to them. He was particularly fond of a musical version of Toson's poem "Song of the Seashore." He also tried putting to music some of his favorite verses from Toson's Young Leaves collection. On rainy evenings such songs would spill endlessly from the windows of the deserted little school out onto the country road, with no passerby to lend them an ear. From SeizO's classroom windows he could see the road from Hanyu to Ogoe. Occasionally the coach rattled by sounding its horn, and on rainy days it would be covered all round with a dirty tarpaulin cloth. Country girls in their muslin obis and red petticoats also passed by under oil-paper umbrellas. On fine days there might be a wheat-gluten vendor carrying his tray of wares on his head and beating a big drum, or a man-and-wife team of street singers wearing leggings and braided hats, or an old man selling multicolored balloons, or perhaps from time to time there might be the beautifully dressed daughter of a wealthy local family. On one occasion some half-dozen carriages had passed in a procession carrying officials from the prefectural office, and teacher and pupils alike had called a temporary halt to the class to stare in fascination at the display of pomp. 70

On a number of occasions Seizo's father had happened to come to the area on business. He would come in quietly from the caretaker's room, with no hat on his balding head and wearing an old light haori of thin silk over striped unlined summer clothes, and ask "Is Seizo here?" At first Seizo had naturally been ashamed at having his father seen by his colleagues, but he had eventually come to live with the situation and not to feel too bad about it. Sometimes his father would be obliged to stay in the area overnight, and Seizo would, instead of going back to the temple, spend the night with him in the duty room, sharing the thin, uncomfortable bedding. On such occasions they would always go off together to the bathhouse carrying their towels. The same girl from the Ogawa Inn would bring them a prepared meal. After their meal father and son would talk easily to one another like friends. They would talk about things such as the family's difficulties. Sometimes his father would borrow fifty sen before he left, money which Seizo didn't really have to spare. The rains continued into July. The sun blazed down between showers, and blue sky appeared through breaks in the grey clouds. Out in the fields the taro leaves grew large, and the broad leaves of the corn plants rustled as they swayed in the breeze. Kojima left Kumagaya for Tokyo to take the entrance examination for the First High School, and sent back the occasional informative postcard. He wrote about how he found the English difficult, and so on. Every day the postman would come in through the temple gate and up to the main building, soaked in the rain. Young people always find something interesting to discuss, and without fail there would be three or four letters and cards for him to deliver. Seizo would get cards that just had one word on them—"Hurray!" —and he would get impromptu joint letters from his friends in Kumagaya, written over a bottle of sake at a noodle shop. From Ishikawa he would invariably receive criticism of the Myojo School, and his friend had even made a point of sending him a copy of a pamphlet, entitled Secret Mirror of the Literary World, which exposed the private life of that poetic couple in Shibuya. Most of the letters he received, however, came from Ikuji. Ikuji was constantly plagued by the torments of love. He would be full of hope one moment, tormented by despair the next, chasing shadows in his own heart, thinking this way then that. Seizo's own 71

heart too inevitably suffered the repercussions. To conceal his own unhappy feelings of disappointment in love, Seizo's words of consolation to his friend were necessarily somewhat overstated. "The sweetness of lonely sorrow—I cannot but weep for you," he would write in deliberately flowery Japanese, and end with the verse, "This child is a dove ensnared by its innocence of the trap of the fetters of sin." Seizo kept a photograph of Mihoko, now at school in Urawa, in the back of his desk drawer. It was a card-size photograph of her with Yukiko and another school friend called Kiyoko, and she was sitting holding some flowers. Yukiko had given it to him from her album, albeit reluctantly since she felt that, as she put it, "It's come out a bit funny." Yukiko wore a topcoat in the photograph and had a sort of wild expression of surprise on her face. Mihoko, on the other hand, looked very composed and attractive around those bright eyes of hers and had an affectionate smile playing on her lips. Seizo would sometimes take the photograph out when he was fed up with reading. He had tried comparing Yukiko and Mihoko. He had been thinking quite a lot about Yukiko of late. Then he would always find himself thinking, "Why on earth does she have to put on that air of aloofness all the time? Why couldn't she just try being a bit more open?" As for Ikuji's letters, he kept them in a little box. The previous Saturday he had gone back to Gyoda, his first visit in some time. Obata had said he would come over from Kumagaya, but unfortunately on that Sunday there was a terrible storm, and he and Ikuji had spent the day inside in the gloom, just the two of them, watching the rain stream down in torrents from the eaves. The following Saturday, in the morning, there was a seminar at the elementary school in Hanyu. The principal, Oshima, Seki, and Seizo attended as a foursome. A great number of local elementary school principals and teachers assembled in the large hall there, and a professor from the normal school in Urawa, a fat man with a red necktie, gave a lecture on the basics of child psychology as well as a practical first-form lesson. The teachers were seated in rows listening attentively. A principal from Shitami—a veteran teacher well known in prefectural educational circles—asked a few questions as if he felt it his duty, speaking in particularly formal language and smoothing his silvery white hair with his hand.

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The fat professor answered each question politely, always with a smile. Around eleven, when this part finished, Ikuji's father and another district inspector—a notoriously difficult man called Mizutani—gave their views on teaching methodology as well as a few teaching tips. The rains had cleared up a few days before, and the sun blazed hot and dazzling on the school garden. Fans could be heard flapping around the hall. The violet hakama and white summer clothes of a female teacher stood out conspicuously, as did the sweat on her brow. It was the time of year when the reeds in the woods behind the Jogan Temple were as high as a man's shoulder, and when the reed warblers sang loud and triumphant. It was almost twelve o'clock when the seminar ended. The teachers flocked through the garden toward the gate in their stiffcollared suits and white-striped hakama and silk haori. The garden was planted here and there with various trees and flowers that had been donated as specimens, and each bore a tag recording the name of the shrub and the name of the donor. Everyone noticed a pomegranate tree whose flowers bloomed red as flame. The trees included a box tree, a pasania, and a cypress, while among the flowers were China pinks, morning glories, pansies, lespedeza, and patrinias. Cicadas sang in the woods by the temple. "There's supposed to be a bathhouse here where you can relax all day long, isn't there, Hayashi-san? Have you been there?" asked the principal as they came out of the gate. "That's right—I've seen the advertisements all over the place," added Oshima. "They're supposed to have ballad recitals there, aren't they?" Seizo had also heard that that sort of entertainment was available at the Tsuru bathhouse in the town. In the summer it was possible to spend the whole day bathing and dozing upstairs there where it was cool and airy. They also sold ice, cakes, beer, and noodles, and it was possible to get a light lunch there too. There was a ballad recital once during the day and once at night. He had heard that the place had been extremely busy during the last few days, what with the rains clearing up and the weather turning hot. The priest had spent half a day there only yesterday, and had mentioned to a neighbor, "Of course, being rural it's a bit unsophisticated, but nonetheless it's a good place to go for a bit of entertainment. Teiko's come up with a real moneymaker in it."

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"Well, Hayashi-san, what about taking us there? It's lunchtime and I'm feeling a bit hungry." They all agreed with the principal's suggestion. Things were very busy at the Tsuru bathhouse. Country girls in red muslin obis were coming and going. Well-wishers' notices were everywhere, with Tei-san in large letters. There were seven or eight people at the ice counter, where the proprietress was busy shaving ice, sleeves rolled up and sweating profusely. The teachers went upstairs. Fortunately there were still not all that many clients there yet. A group of local old women were loafing about in loincloths in one of the rooms looking as if they'd come to a hot spring. In the center of the main eight-mat room a dais had been put up for the ballad recital, and here too fluttered well-wishers' notices of paper and cloth. The place was nicely airy. The woven straw flooring in the four-and-a-half-mat room to the rear was dirty, but the view of the fields from there was particularly good, so that was where the four installed themselves. By the time they had been for an initial dip to remove their sweat their lunch was ready. A girl with red sleeve cords brought it along on a tea tray. There was boiled bonito, seasoned cucumber, and egg with cowpea sauce. This was a fine feast for them. The principal took off his jacket, waistcoat, and tie, and sat crosslegged with his dirty undershirt showing, looking very relaxed. "Come on everyone, make yourselves comfortable. Seki-kun, how can you sit in tight clothes like that?" he said with a laugh. "I'll treat us to a beer. It's good to have a relaxed chat once in a while." The beer was ordered. "Bring us some crushed ice too, would you?" the waitress was asked. She went off obediently downstairs to fetch the order. The principal was about to pour some beer in Seki's glass, but Seki covered it with his hand. "Come on, have a drink! One drink won't do you any harm." "No, really, I'm fine like this. If I drink alcohol I really suffer afterward," he said putting his glass to one side. "Seki-kun really is hopeless, you know," said Oshima, downing his own full glass in one go. "Lament the faint-hearted!" said the principal, pouring a generous amount into his own glass. The froth welled up and started 74

to spill, so he hurriedly started drinking. The girl brought the ice along in a little bowl, and they dipped their hands in to put pieces in their beer. The nondrinking Seki also took a large piece and put it in his mouth. Presently both the principal and Oshima had brick red faces. "Seminars are a waste of time." The principal had started talking bombastically. Oshima chimed in too. They started talking about the reputations of the various elementary schools, and about the long-service allowance and so on. They all laughed at how out of touch with reality the district inspectors were. And yet in spirit Seizo was miles away from all this talk. The difference in their ages was one thing, but he just couldn't understand the attitude of people who content themselves with such a position in life. He thought about the huge gap there was between these people and his dynamic friends, for whom ambition was everything. "If I'm not careful, I could end up like this myself." The thought had already much plagued him. It always made him feel upset and unsettled. He felt loath to make his thirsting young spirit a sacrifice to the encumbrances of his little family. He had recently had a conversation with Ikuji in which he had criticized his friend's ambitiousness—"So let great people become great. In this life there are farmers and there are postmen. There are policemen and there are clog menders. One can't not live simply because one isn't great. Life isn't as urgent and pressurizing as we might imagine. It's easier going, more relaxed. If you don't believe me, just look around. Look at life . . ." And yet behind those words lurked feelings that were completely the opposite. This was what really upset him. He had felt like crying. He now remembered this incident. "Am I too, then, going to pass my life with idle words, like so many people in the world?" he thought to himself, and stared at the reddened, commonplace face of the principal. He ended up drinking five or six beers. Someone was walking along through the green fields under a parasol. It was the back part of town, and a little stream ran alongside the road, thickly willowed. The cicadas were singing noisily among the trees. An hour later the three drinkers were in a state of collapse. The principal was snoring away with his legs tucked up and his head 75

on his arms; Oshima was sprawled out face upward; Seizo rested his head on the mat, his face red. The bored Seki was looking at the notices in the next room all by himself. When Seizo returned to the temple just after three o'clock, he found Ogyu-kun sleeping peacefully on the floorboards of the airy main building. The reed warblers sang noisily in the afternoon sun.

16 o ne hot afternoon found Seizo walking back from school through the long-eaved streets of Hanyu. He was wearing a hakama and a white splash-patterned top. He had just received his full monthly pay, and his purse was heavy. A short while before he had called at the post office to pay Ogyu-kun back fifty sen he had borrowed, and they had enjoyed tea and some arrowroot cakes that Seizo had bought on the way. "And thanks a lot for this too," Seizo had said, handing back a casual hat that he had borrowed some two months before. "You can still keep it, if you like." "It's okay, I'm buying a summer hat today." "Well, you might as well wear it till you do." "But I'm getting it right now." "If they see you without any hat at all they'll take advantage of you and charge you quite a price, you know." "Oh, I'll be all right." And so it was that Seizo was walking bareheaded through the streets under the blazing sun. Along the main road was a Westerngoods store, its glass door wide open, where wool and straw hats and whatnot were on display. Seizo tried a number of the hats. A size sixteen fitted him perfectly. He bought one marked one yen ninety sen and got a discount of sixty sen. A new straw hat then paraded conspicuously through the sunlit streets.

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on his arms; Oshima was sprawled out face upward; Seizo rested his head on the mat, his face red. The bored Seki was looking at the notices in the next room all by himself. When Seizo returned to the temple just after three o'clock, he found Ogyu-kun sleeping peacefully on the floorboards of the airy main building. The reed warblers sang noisily in the afternoon sun.

16 o ne hot afternoon found Seizo walking back from school through the long-eaved streets of Hanyu. He was wearing a hakama and a white splash-patterned top. He had just received his full monthly pay, and his purse was heavy. A short while before he had called at the post office to pay Ogyu-kun back fifty sen he had borrowed, and they had enjoyed tea and some arrowroot cakes that Seizo had bought on the way. "And thanks a lot for this too," Seizo had said, handing back a casual hat that he had borrowed some two months before. "You can still keep it, if you like." "It's okay, I'm buying a summer hat today." "Well, you might as well wear it till you do." "But I'm getting it right now." "If they see you without any hat at all they'll take advantage of you and charge you quite a price, you know." "Oh, I'll be all right." And so it was that Seizo was walking bareheaded through the streets under the blazing sun. Along the main road was a Westerngoods store, its glass door wide open, where wool and straw hats and whatnot were on display. Seizo tried a number of the hats. A size sixteen fitted him perfectly. He bought one marked one yen ninety sen and got a discount of sixty sen. A new straw hat then paraded conspicuously through the sunlit streets.

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17 M

ihoko came back for the summer vacation. The summer grass grew thick and tall along the road to her house. The water in the stream flowed full and blue-green. The sun shone on the green leaves of the reeds. An assortment of underwear and yukata hung on the washing line at the entrance to her house, where Ikuji and Seizo presently arrived. Mihoko was wearing a white splash-patterned kimono. Her obi was light brown lined with greenish brown. She was a little full in the face, and her cheeks were quite plump. She had her hair done up in her usual low pompadour style with nicely matching white ribbons. An old beer bottle filled with barley water was cooling in the well, hanging at the end of a thin rope. Broad-leaved grass was thick around the old well. Iris and miscanthus grew all over the sluice, getting splashed each time the well bucket spilled. Until a few days ago her old mother had gone out there every evening to empty the rice slops, but since Mihoko had returned it was her daughter's pale features that now appeared there, standing out clearly in the evening air. At this hour her father could often be heard reciting a Noh text inside the house. Mihoko wound up the well rope. The beer bottle presently came to hand. Untying the rope she took the bottle into the kitchen, emptied its contents into a jug, then placed this on a tray with three glasses and a sugar bowl and took it through to the living room, where her elder brother was talking to Seizo and Ikuji. "I'm afraid we can't offer you much, but at least this has been cooling in the well all day and might not be too bad if you add a little sugar." The barley water was ice-cold. Both Ikuji and Seizo had several refills. Mihoko sat beside her brother and didn't hesitate to join in the conversation. "I dare say it's quite a thing, dormitory life," remarked Seizo. "Yes, that's right. It is pretty lively. Unlike other girls' schools the supervision is quite a problem, but, even so . . ."

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"A girls' school dormitory is quite a place, all right—quite disgusting, from what I hear," laughed Kitagawa. "I guess it's not so different from a male dormitory." "Now that's impossible!" retorted Mihoko with a laugh. The evening sun slanted into the room. The shadow of the pine in the garden reached onto the verandah. A cart could be heard passing on the other side of the hedge. Just as they had that spring, the two friends walked back along the road home in silence. They both had many things they wanted to say, but they avoided saying them. The red evening sun shone on the old marsh by the castle ruins, and some dragonflies were settled on the tops of the reeds. A young boy waded through the paddy fields carrying a long limed stick in an attempt to catch them. When they reached the stone bridge Ikuji suddenly asked: "What are you going to do this summer vacation? Will you be going anywhere?" "I haven't really thought about it yet, but I may go to Nikko or Myogi—it depends. What about you?" "I haven't got the time for that sort of thing. This summer I must get a bit more English study done." For no real reason Seizo remembered that Mihoko would also be spending her vacation here at home, and he felt unhappily jealous. He had intended to spend the night at his parents' house and return to Hanyu early the following morning. In fact, he had even told this to Ikuji. However, when he parted from Ikuji at the corner, he suddenly felt an overwhelming dislike of being in Gyoda, and to his mother's surprise he abruptly set off back to Hanyu. As he walked along that long sunset road his feelings were a mixture of a sort of vengeful pleasure at the surprise Ikuji would no doubt get when he called round the following morning, a sense of having escaped from some binding force, and a lonely depression that defied description. It was about an hour after sunset when he arrived back at the temple. The priest was sitting by the hibachi in the six-mat room in his quarters drinking sake, and in an unusually cheerful mood he offered Seizo a drink as well as a plate of iced bean curd. He started talking about his younger days, telling stories that Seizo

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had not heard before. At the age of nine he had been sent to the Jogan Temple as a novitiate, and had endured seven or eight years of considerable hardship. In his little two-mat room by the porch he had dreamed of becoming the head priest here. Even today one could still find, if one looked carefully, scribblings he had made then to try and make his wish come true. The priest, now quite drunk, was reciting a new-style verse he had recently composed, entitled "The Walls of the Temple Pavilion." "What about you trying to write something too?" he suggested. That particular evening Seizo was so upset that it didn't take much more than this to persuade him, and he decided to have a go at writing. He remembered how Goethe had forgotten his own sorrows by writing Werther. Seizo knew that he had no real talent and no real education. Unlike his friends he was not in a position to further his studies properly. He couldn't be like most people. He felt that the only path to fame for him was to give vent to his feelings in poetry. "I'll give it a try. This summer vacation I'll try really hard. I'll find out just what talent I do have." He arranged to borrow all sorts of poetry anthologies and novels from the priest. The next day when Seizo returned from school, the priest brought him all the books he had accumulated during his days in the Tokyo literary scene. In one red-covered, duodecimo-sized book called Kokumin Novels there were three stories— "Earthquake," "Waves of the Floating World," and "Evil Destiny" —which the priest told him to read as they were interesting. The short story collection Musashi Plain was also there. He lost himself in its pages. July gradually drew to a close. It grew hotter with each passing day. A couple of times he again encountered, at the usual spot at the crossroads where the stone to the Blue Warrior stood, the female teacher from Hotto. He had not encountered her for some time before. She looked very cool dressed in her white summer kimono and white ribbons, and she gave him a smile as she passed. Seizo failed to understand the meaning of the smile. At the school everyone was simply waiting for the summer vacation to arrive. Some said they would spend the hot days dozing under the grape trellis. Some were going off to a course at Urawa, keen to get their qualifications. Others said they were going on trips. Still others

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planned to go to Tokyo on business. Since the beginning of the month classes had finished at noon, but the teachers would stay on in the staff room for another hour or so checking earlier marks. Those with nothing to do would avoid going home through the midday heat and would wait till it got cooler, playing the organ, chatting, or dozing in the duty room. When Seizo got fed up with checking marks he took Musashi Plain out of his cloth-wrapped bundle and read it with the keenness of one thirsting for something new. He felt a strong personal appreciation of the emotions expressed by the author in the story "Unforgettable People," the autumn shower passing through the woods on the edge of the Musashi Plain, and the young teacher lodging near a bridge where a waterwheel glistened in the moonlight. From time to time he simply had to lay the book down and give himself over to the thoughts that came flooding into his mind. On the thirtieth, classes lasted for only one hour. Seizo gave a parting speech to his assembled students: "You must all spend your summer vacation profitably. If you do nothing but play around you'll forget all the things you've gone to such trouble to learn. So please make sure you spend some time with a book every day, doing a bit of revision. Don't bother your parents all the time. Don't eat too many peaches and pears and watermelons. If you play out in the heat and then eat too much of those sorts of things then you won't just get stomachache, you'll get seriously ill and be unable to return to school after the vacation however much you might want to. Play hard, study hard, work hard. That's what the books tell you. When we meet again at the beginning of September, I shall know who has best paid attention to what I've just been telling you." He then dismissed the students, who dashed off in a mad throng toward the shoe cupboards, girls with their hair down and boys with runny noses. The same sort of words were being spoken in all the classrooms. The female teacher came out into the corridor, conspicuous in her violet hakama, to make sure her class went off in an orderly manner. Out in the garden the vetch bloomed red in the sunlight. There were hydrangeas there too.

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JL he summer vacation came to naught. Seizo's test of his own talent ended in complete failure. Even if he had the inspiration his pen could not capture it. After five days he gave up writing. He was bored at the temple. On the other hand, it was hot and uncomfortable back at his parents' little house in Gyoda. It also bothered him being there in Gyoda at the same time as Mihoko. He went off by himself to the area around Akagi and Myogi. It was the end of August when he got back from his trip. By that time Mihoko had already returned to her dormitory in Urawa. His mundane lifestyle, from Gyoda to Hanyu and Hanyu to Miroku, began again.

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JL he school had a new organ. The first day back was a Sunday, and neither the principal nor Oshima came. Seizo spent that night alone in the duty room. The nights were beautifully clear after the Bon Festival and the Milky Way lay bright in the sky. Crickets sang in the hedges, and here, there, and everywhere one could see the lanterns of the village children out looking for them. The days were hot, but at night the dew fell on the grass and voices seemed to carry from nowhere. For the first ten days classes went from eight o'clock till ten, for the next ten days till twelve, then presently dismissal was at two in the afternoon. By this time an air of autumn was all around, and rainy days were too chilly for unlined summer clothes. For Seizo, full of thoughts, the days passed quickly. He had heard a rumor that Kojima, having taken the high school entrance examination, had qualified for the Fourth High School and had gone off to Kanazawa at the beginning of the 81

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JL he summer vacation came to naught. Seizo's test of his own talent ended in complete failure. Even if he had the inspiration his pen could not capture it. After five days he gave up writing. He was bored at the temple. On the other hand, it was hot and uncomfortable back at his parents' little house in Gyoda. It also bothered him being there in Gyoda at the same time as Mihoko. He went off by himself to the area around Akagi and Myogi. It was the end of August when he got back from his trip. By that time Mihoko had already returned to her dormitory in Urawa. His mundane lifestyle, from Gyoda to Hanyu and Hanyu to Miroku, began again.

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JL he school had a new organ. The first day back was a Sunday, and neither the principal nor Oshima came. Seizo spent that night alone in the duty room. The nights were beautifully clear after the Bon Festival and the Milky Way lay bright in the sky. Crickets sang in the hedges, and here, there, and everywhere one could see the lanterns of the village children out looking for them. The days were hot, but at night the dew fell on the grass and voices seemed to carry from nowhere. For the first ten days classes went from eight o'clock till ten, for the next ten days till twelve, then presently dismissal was at two in the afternoon. By this time an air of autumn was all around, and rainy days were too chilly for unlined summer clothes. For Seizo, full of thoughts, the days passed quickly. He had heard a rumor that Kojima, having taken the high school entrance examination, had qualified for the Fourth High School and had gone off to Kanazawa at the beginning of the 81

month. Presently he received a picture postcard from there in which his friend confirmed his good news. The very sight even of Kanazawa's Kenroku Park was enough to whet Seizo's appetite. As he wrote off a letter to his friend congratulating him on his success, he slumped over his desk, unable to hold back the tears over his own lack of fortune. On Seizo's desk in his room in the main building of the temple lay Tangled Hair, Fallen Plum Blossoms, Musashi Plain, and a thin copy of Enoch Arden, which the priest had read in his Waseda days. Seizo particularly liked to recite the poem "Tinkling Bells," which told of parting from one's hometown. Its rhythm had an indescribable sadness about it. Outside the entrance to the priest's quarters was a little flower bed where peonies bloomed in spring, and recently begonias had been in flower there, a picturesque and delicate red. The lespedeza in the inner garden was right at the peak of its bloom. Every night the moon grew clearer. The rows of alders bordering the cemetery and fields stood black against the sky, and the broad leaves of the taro plants glistened in the dew. After his evening meal Seizo would sometimes walk about the cemetery. Red and white hibiscus bloomed around the new graves, and little red dragonflies swarmed. Here and there new graveside tablets could be seen, written out with the priest's wornout old brush. Some grave mounds had bowls full of water on them, and conspicuous white ash left over from incense burning. Purple loosestrife and patrinias had been placed in the flower stands. There were quite a lot of old graves, anonymous ones too. There was also, in one corner, a piece of ground where beggars and unknown passing strangers had been buried. Out of curiosity Seizo read the inscriptions in the cemetery. There was one man buried there who had been born up in Sendai, been involved with affairs of state at the time of the Restoration, and then afterward had come to the Hanyu area, where he had set up a hospital and been looked upon as a father of charity by the local people. The stone of the first silk mill manager's grave was a tall and splendid one of granite, with the names of the various contributing families inscribed on it in gold letters. Then there was the grave of a private first-class who had gone off to the front during the SinoJapanese War and been killed at Port Arthur.

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Away from the cemetery, in the woods to the rear, were a large number of rounded gravestones. They were the graves of the generations of priests at the temple. Bamboo grass and Japanese oaks grew there in the shade of ancient cryptomerias, and the ground was always damp. On clear days the sun slanted in through the trees, and one could glimpse the sky over the fields. On wet days the rain dripped down heavily from the branches, making the moss-covered gravestones, which looked like so many priests' heads, appear to weep. Seizo thought to himself that the present priest would one day end up here too. A strange feeling came over him at the thought of how this erudite priest—sadly wasted by being literally buried here in this country temple—and his big, fat wife were living out such a lonely and mundane existence. He suddenly smiled at the memory of an incident that had taken place several days ago. He remembered having written in his diary, in a lighthearted way: "Was most embarrassed this evening to chance upon the priest and his wife 'being friendly together' in their little bath." Entry to the bathroom was through the entrance to the priest's quarters. Just a few months previously the priest had gotten a carpenter to make the bathroom out of some poles and planks that had been intended for use in burials and piled in the main building. He had then installed a round wooden tub in the bathroom. When the water was being heated smoke drifted about from the kitchen to the priest's quarters. On the day in question Seizo had gone to the living room to borrow some kindling, but had found no one there. He could hear laughter coming from the bathroom, however, and casually went in, only to find the priest and his wife jostling about with one another in the little bath. The priest had given a nonchalant laugh and remarked, "A fine time to be seen!" To Seizo this humorous incident was more than just a humorous incident; he felt that it gave him a clear insight into the state of the priest's life and his relationship with his wife. To live so pointlessly, abandoning the hopes of his youth, simply following the fate immediately before him and passing the years until he took his place in the priests' burial ground . . . Seizo compared this with his own lot in life. At times he studied the author of the poetry collection Little Leaf Boat, and thought about doing his own version of "Clouds." He could not of course observe complex cloud changes such as 83

those seen over the plateau of Shinano, but there were some fascinatingly colored clouds over the peaks fringing the Kanto Plain. The back of the temple faced directly out toward misty Asama, while to the left Myogi just showed its crown, and from there the Arafune Range, the Kitakanra Range, and the Chichibu Range stretched away like a billowing sea. There were always clouds rising from the shoulder of Mount Futakami—which looked like a ruined castle—as the evening sun fell on it. To the right, the Nikko Range stretched all the way round from Akagi. Unlike the mostly bright-colored clouds over Chichibu, the clouds over Nikko were generally sombre. Seizo would walk through the green fields as far as the line of alders. The farmers returning from their labors would invariably encounter this long-haired teacher from the Jogan Temple, who always wandered around in white summer clothes with a notebook in his hand, and would greet him as they passed. Sometimes they would see him standing on a ridge busily writing something in the notebook. Recorded in great detail in that notebook were the date and time, the shape and color of the clouds, and the changes that took place in them during the evening. He had started to write a work entitied "A Study of the Clouds of the Plain." By the equinox his manuscript was more or less finished. That day candles were lit for the Buddha in the main building—an unusual event—and for about an hour that morning the priest chanted the sutras, dressed in purple robes with a silver brocade surplice. The olives in the garden filled the old temple rooms with their familiar fragrance carried in on the breeze. Visitors to the temple had been arriving since early in the morning, their clogs rattling on the flagstone path. Those who were visiting graves would first pay their respects to the Buddha in the main building, then go to the priest's quarters to light their incense sticks at the hibachi there, then draw water from the grass-grown well and take this round to the cemetery in a bucket. Casual help had been hired some days before to help clean up the temple, and now the cemetery looked very neat, no longer littered with dead anise leaves or dog muck. Among the visitors to the temple were, on the one hand, beautiful girls from wealthy houses, and on the other country girls with blotchy makeup and their hair done up in the shimada style of an unmarried woman. Seizo dozed in the cool

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breeze, his stomach full of the bean-jam cakes he had received from the priest's wife. Into his dreams drifted the endless sounds of bells and clogs and people talking. Presently, from the day when vows expired, drizzle started to set in. Sad autumn had arrived. His diary around this time contained the following sorts of entries: October first: The newspaper, which hasn't been delivered since the twenty-eighth last month, finally arrived today. In the evening taught some arithmetic to Zenko, the novitiate. Read up to page twenty of Enoch Arden. The days have been getting shorter recently, and the sun was set when I got back to Hanyu at fivethirty after leaving school just after four. Went for a bath at nine. In the autumn night my friend's tears grow cold in the temple second: Weather fine. The familiar smell of the olives is getting gradually weaker, and shrikes are calling among the chestnut trees out back. From today classes start at nine. Bought some lamp-oil from the Komezushi. third: Red dragonflies swarming in the evening sun over the corn fields. Sent a letter to Obata in Kumagaya. Added a drawing of evening waves. fourth: Weather fine. Unusually clear sky turned to rain in the evening. Can hear the autumn rain falling gently on the trees out back. Been dreaming about home.

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fifth, Saturday: Went back to Gyoda in the rain. sixth: Spent a pleasant day at home. Sent letters off to Obata and Kojima. Rain eased in the evening. seventh: Left early morning. Rice plants yellow, rain slanting across the fields. Spending the night at school. eighth: Rain fell heavily, making a mess of the willows by the well. Spending tonight at the school too. ninth: Came back early. Rain finally cleared up. Evening clouds driven by the wind, gold of evening weak. Still a faint lingering smell of olives. This evening, read the newspaper, wrapped up a parcel for Gyoda. Stars hidden. Lots of gingko nuts falling. Autumn wind blowing through the chestnut trees, leaves falling sadly in the garden by the priest's quarters, and the song of the crickets sounding chilly in the wind. tenth: This morning, sent mosquito net off to Gyoda. Received clothes this evening. Received sympathetic letter from Obata, first in some time. He wrote: "I can imagine your feelings this autumn. I do remember the past. I was filled with thoughts by your words, 'Last year's winter, this year's spring,' and my heart is there with you in far-off Jogan Temple," and so on and so on. Stars very clear this evening, and two shooting stars low in the south. Wrote a reply to Obata: "I've stopped moaning. I won't talk about it, I'll just weep and suffer alone." Seizo couldn't help noticing how much the tone of his diary had changed compared with last winter or the spring. Last winter he still did not know the world for what it was. Beautiful, glorious hopes lay before him. He had fun playing verse cards, playing

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ball. Neither his eyes nor his mind had been open enough to perceive the sad shade of self-interest in his close friends. His happiness at graduation, his hopes at setting out in the world—these bright lights had been abruptly extinguished. Autumn, bleak autumn had arrived. The chestnut burrs had ripened and split in the woods to the rear, and on clear nights a bleak autumn wind blew there. The long corridor was cold to the feet, and raindrops fell like tears from the tall parasol tree beside the main building.

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X he group of boys and girls, some thirty in all, made their way along the narrow lane through the fields. When they had set out from school they had been singing the tortoise song, but they had grown weary of it and were now walking along each in their own particular way. There were girls chatting away, and boys turning round pulling faces. There were those who lagged behind, stopping to pick red wildflowers, and others who went off into the fields chasing dragonflies. They were second- and third-formers, aged nine and ten and at the height of mischievousness, but Seizo was always fond of their generally innocent and endearing behavior, seeing this as a comfort to his own brooding. The children would often come after him calling "Sensei, Hayashi-sensei . . ." After leaving the school they went through the village and off to Hotto. The sound of Aojima weaving was everywhere. Some of the weaving girls came to the windows to watch the fair young teacher. Seizo walked at the head of the group, wearing a hakama and his straw hat, while Seki was mixed in among the children, wearing his customary white summer suit that was rather stained around the collar. The female teacher too followed on behind, mopping her sweat with a handkerchief. Even though it was midway through autumn it was still hot. When they reached the Hachiman Shrine on the outskirts of Hotto the children dashed off, racing up the embankment behind it. The first one to reach

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ball. Neither his eyes nor his mind had been open enough to perceive the sad shade of self-interest in his close friends. His happiness at graduation, his hopes at setting out in the world—these bright lights had been abruptly extinguished. Autumn, bleak autumn had arrived. The chestnut burrs had ripened and split in the woods to the rear, and on clear nights a bleak autumn wind blew there. The long corridor was cold to the feet, and raindrops fell like tears from the tall parasol tree beside the main building.

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X he group of boys and girls, some thirty in all, made their way along the narrow lane through the fields. When they had set out from school they had been singing the tortoise song, but they had grown weary of it and were now walking along each in their own particular way. There were girls chatting away, and boys turning round pulling faces. There were those who lagged behind, stopping to pick red wildflowers, and others who went off into the fields chasing dragonflies. They were second- and third-formers, aged nine and ten and at the height of mischievousness, but Seizo was always fond of their generally innocent and endearing behavior, seeing this as a comfort to his own brooding. The children would often come after him calling "Sensei, Hayashi-sensei . . ." After leaving the school they went through the village and off to Hotto. The sound of Aojima weaving was everywhere. Some of the weaving girls came to the windows to watch the fair young teacher. Seizo walked at the head of the group, wearing a hakama and his straw hat, while Seki was mixed in among the children, wearing his customary white summer suit that was rather stained around the collar. The female teacher too followed on behind, mopping her sweat with a handkerchief. Even though it was midway through autumn it was still hot. When they reached the Hachiman Shrine on the outskirts of Hotto the children dashed off, racing up the embankment behind it. The first one to reach

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the top gave a loud yell, arm raised. All the other students could be seen flocking after him up the embankment, between the pines there, all similarly raising their arms. The autumn air was clear, and from the pines the broad expanse of the Tone River looked like a beautiful picture. The Miroku teachers often brought the children here for exercise. While the children wrestled on the sand, chased grasshoppers in the bushes, or splashed around at the water's edge, the teachers would relax in the cool shade of the pines chatting or reading the latest magazines or dozing on the grass. This remarkably beautiful area of pines stretched for about half a mile along the otherwise relatively featureless banks of the Tone. There were slender pines, young pines. The ground was fine sand, just like that seen at the seaside, and here and there among the gentle dunes were picturesque shady pines with deep green grass at their feet. In summer richjy colored wild pinks bloomed there. White sails passed by just out in front. Seizo always played here with the children. He would join in the games of tag, getting caught by the girls and taking his turn at hiding his eyes behind an apron. Sometimes he would get the children together for a sing-song. At such times he had no complaints, no grievances. Nor did he feel the need to bemoan his ill fortune. When he played with the children he would always put himself into the same frame of mind as their own. And yet, for some reason, today he could not find that light mentality. He was feeling depressed even as he watched the children playing around him. He was ashamed of himself for seeking a temporary solace of sorts from these young children. He sat in the shade of the pines gazing out at the broad river as it flowed majestically past. One day he was walking back alone from school. The sky was clear, the evening air rich in shadows, and out in the fields the white tops of the pampas grass swayed in the breeze. Suddenly, at the crossroads, he saw coming toward him a weary-looking traveler with dust-covered straw sandals, old blue leggings, and carrying a large pack. "Is it far to Hanyu?" asked the traveler. "No, not far at all. That's it over there, where those trees are." The traveler walked along with him asking all sorts of questions. He said he wanted to head on from here to Hachioji, via Kawagoe. He looked like an itinerant merchant from distant parts, and spoke with a Tohoku accent. 88

"Is there a place around here called Mori?" "I'm afraid I don't know." "Well, what about a place called Takaki?" "I think I've heard the name, but . . ." Seizo didn't really know. The traveler said he was spending the night in Hanyu, at an inn called Umezawa. As they came into the town Seizo directed him to the inn, then headed off down a side road through the fields to his right. He turned to look at the traveler, who was plodding on his way into the town looking just like a weary bird seeking a roost. For no real reason Seizo felt acutely aware of being in a land that was not his home. He himself was just like the traveler, a stranger in these parts. At this thought the tears rolled down his cheeks.

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JL X.utumn drew daily on. The afternoon sun shone brightly at times across the fields of ripe yellow rice that lay beyond the slender alders at the edge of the temple grounds. Toward evening empty carriages could be heard rattling noisily along the prefectural road leading to Konosu. Also passing by were great numbers of infantrymen, who had recently arrived on maneuvers, and similarly columns of gun carriages and cavalry. The infantrymen could be seen lining up in skirmish formation by the woods, and then came the terrible sound of small-arms fire. Seven or eight soldiers were billeted at the temple, both in the priest's quarters and in the main building. Some twenty or thirty horses were tethered in the woods out to the rear, and numerous twenty-gallon buckets for their water were set out in the garden in front of the main building. What with the rattle of sabers, the clumping of boots, and the whinnying of horses the area had suddenly become very noisy. On the gates of the finer houses in the town, cloth signs with Such-and-such Company Headquarters written on them showed white through the darkness of the night, and officers and sergeant majors came and went with their swords rattling. 89

"Is there a place around here called Mori?" "I'm afraid I don't know." "Well, what about a place called Takaki?" "I think I've heard the name, but . . ." Seizo didn't really know. The traveler said he was spending the night in Hanyu, at an inn called Umezawa. As they came into the town Seizo directed him to the inn, then headed off down a side road through the fields to his right. He turned to look at the traveler, who was plodding on his way into the town looking just like a weary bird seeking a roost. For no real reason Seizo felt acutely aware of being in a land that was not his home. He himself was just like the traveler, a stranger in these parts. At this thought the tears rolled down his cheeks.

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JL X.utumn drew daily on. The afternoon sun shone brightly at times across the fields of ripe yellow rice that lay beyond the slender alders at the edge of the temple grounds. Toward evening empty carriages could be heard rattling noisily along the prefectural road leading to Konosu. Also passing by were great numbers of infantrymen, who had recently arrived on maneuvers, and similarly columns of gun carriages and cavalry. The infantrymen could be seen lining up in skirmish formation by the woods, and then came the terrible sound of small-arms fire. Seven or eight soldiers were billeted at the temple, both in the priest's quarters and in the main building. Some twenty or thirty horses were tethered in the woods out to the rear, and numerous twenty-gallon buckets for their water were set out in the garden in front of the main building. What with the rattle of sabers, the clumping of boots, and the whinnying of horses the area had suddenly become very noisy. On the gates of the finer houses in the town, cloth signs with Such-and-such Company Headquarters written on them showed white through the darkness of the night, and officers and sergeant majors came and went with their swords rattling. 89

This went on for several days, and then the town returned to its former tranquillity. A few days before, on Saturday, Seizo had gone back to Gyoda as usual, and on his return to the temple had written in his diary: "Mother tries hard to avoid actually saying it, but if only father would do some work our family wouldn't be in such difficulties. This thought always bothers me when I go back." He was extremely annoyed with his father, who was inclined to drift idly through life and leave his mother to do all the worrying. Seizo felt sorry for her, with her poor health and constant concern for others. When he heard her complaints as she toiled late at night over her piecework with medicinal plasters on her temples, he resolved to endure whatever self-sacrifice was necessary for her. Sometimes he would turn out his purse to leave a few coins for her, unbeknown to his father. However, his father would end up getting the money from her. On his return to Gyoda those few days ago he had again heard from his mother that they had various debts here and there of a yen or so, which they were at pains to honor. There was talk of winding up Gyoda Bungaku with the fourth issue. Ishikawa said that having gone to all the trouble of starting the magazine he would like to see it continue for another year or two, but costs were rising and debts were starting to mount at the printery. Ikuji agreed that it was better to abandon the magazine, feeling that it was all rather insubstantial and merely a frivolous indulgence. Seizo felt it a pity to give up after four issues, and proposed a more enthusiastic recruiting drive for subscribing members to keep it going, but his proposal was to no avail. On the Sunday he waited for Ogyu-kun to arrive from Kumagaya, and then walked back with him to Hanyu. Ogyu looked free of worry, and chatted pleasantly as they walked along. He performed a little trick of blowing his nose with his fingers, and did it so skillfully that Seizo was doubled up with laughter. How Seizo envied him his carefree, easygoing attitude. On some mornings the mist was thick. On other days Seizo would write in his diary that while the autumn was passing, out in the fields there were still times when it was warm, with the persimmons red and the mikan green. The autumn rains turned gradually colder, the lacquer trees in the woods to the rear turned red, and the gingkos out front shed both nuts and leaves. However

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much one swept them away there were still yellow gingko leaves everywhere. Seizo remembered how, when he was young, he and his playmates would wait for a windy morning and then go gathering gingko nuts at the local temple. He could still picture it as if it were only yesterday. He could imagine himself still gathering nuts there among a group of children. He also thought how strange it was that time should pass without his really realizing it and that he should now be thinking back over the past. Of late he had been interested in trying out new tunes on the organ at school, and had tried his hand with pieces such as "The Six Stage Variation for the Harp" and "The Shizuhata Ballad." He put Tekkan's "Afterglow" to a nice 4/4 B-flat rhythm. He would stay up late copying out musical scores. At the beginning of the month he had used part of his pay to buy an alarm clock, so now he woke without fail at seven. He could always hear the second hand ticking, and somehow this seemed like a friendly companion to him. Whenever he came back alone the clock would be there waiting for him. If he woke in the middle of the night it would be there, ticking away. He felt it gave rhythm to his thoughts. He drew a picture of the clock on a card he sent to Obata and wrote: "I have started to think of this clock as a friend and wife to me. Please think of your friend in his loneliness, as he spends the autumn shut away in this temple." As he walked back from school the late afternoon sun shone weakly on the miscanthus at the roadside, and colorful clouds were reflected in the stream that was white with knotweed. He was once again strongly reminded of Doppo's Musashi Plain. On the raised verandah of the little hall in front of the temple there were always three or four old nursemaids singing lullabies to the beat of clapping hands. At that time of day the sun would be shining on the woods behind the temple, lighting up the white wall behind the temple gate with its final glow. Ogyu-san was always visiting him. They would go off into town together for bean soup and rice cakes. "Well, as for me, it's not that I never worry about anything, it's just that it's no use brooding about things you can't do anything about. Just let things take their course." Ogyu would say things like this when he saw how Seizo was always tending to be depressed. In fact, he was worried about Seizo's being depressed all the time.

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The following month was a bit brighter. Seizo would sit drinking sake with the priest on the verandah of his living room listening to the autumn wind blowing through the trees out to the rear. The nights were now cold. The cries of the crickets in the withered branches also sounded cold. Autumn turned colder with each passing day. Seizo received winter clothes and socks from Gyoda.

22 e received a letter from Obata. "According to what a certain person (mentioning no names) tells me, there's something between you and Kato's sister. Is this true? "When I met Kato the other day I happened to mention it to him, and he said he didn't know anything about it. But he also added, with a laugh, that just because he, the elder brother, didn't know, it didn't mean that there was no possibility of truth to the matter. It's most unlike you. With you things are normally so clear-cut. I'm by no means unwilling to help out if I can, but please do let me know what's going on. "Kato's high spirits defy description. He told me he'd had a letter from Urawa, and when I got him to show me what was in it, it turned out that things seem 'hotter' than I'd imagined. "Well, let me know how you're getting on during this chilly autumn." H

He had another letter from him. "Thanks for your reply. "How harsh you were, replying to my question by asking back whether I thought you were capable of something like that. I appreciate your feelings. But I think you were really a bit too harsh in your comment that you 'didn't like the way she puffed herself up.' There are people about, you know, who find that tall

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The following month was a bit brighter. Seizo would sit drinking sake with the priest on the verandah of his living room listening to the autumn wind blowing through the trees out to the rear. The nights were now cold. The cries of the crickets in the withered branches also sounded cold. Autumn turned colder with each passing day. Seizo received winter clothes and socks from Gyoda.

22 e received a letter from Obata. "According to what a certain person (mentioning no names) tells me, there's something between you and Kato's sister. Is this true? "When I met Kato the other day I happened to mention it to him, and he said he didn't know anything about it. But he also added, with a laugh, that just because he, the elder brother, didn't know, it didn't mean that there was no possibility of truth to the matter. It's most unlike you. With you things are normally so clear-cut. I'm by no means unwilling to help out if I can, but please do let me know what's going on. "Kato's high spirits defy description. He told me he'd had a letter from Urawa, and when I got him to show me what was in it, it turned out that things seem 'hotter' than I'd imagined. "Well, let me know how you're getting on during this chilly autumn." H

He had another letter from him. "Thanks for your reply. "How harsh you were, replying to my question by asking back whether I thought you were capable of something like that. I appreciate your feelings. But I think you were really a bit too harsh in your comment that you 'didn't like the way she puffed herself up.' There are people about, you know, who find that tall

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figure of hers very attractive. And what would you do if it turned out that you were the only man for her, that tall girl you so dislike? "I can't accept that you've never liked her just because you now say so. You may well say I'm mistaken, but I've heard from a reliable source that there's too much to it for me simply to accept that I am in fact mistaken. "Why not get a ricksha over here from Gyoda next Sunday? 'Shirataki' was asking after you when I met her the other day. We could have a beer at the usual place, the noodle shop, and talk things over. I heard from Kojima recently. It seems that Sugiyama's going to Tokyo, to Waseda. "Thanks for the verse. When you refer to 'thinking of the hills of Shimotsuke, some twenty miles north of the Plain of Musashi,' aren't you referring to Ashikaga? That's where you were born, isn't it? Isn't it a reminiscence of your first love affair, the one I once heard about?" He received a third letter. "It seems there is something on your mind. At least, that's what I interpreted from your reply. You may say my interpretation is wrong, but that can't be helped. "Kato says he's just given himself a new nickname. Haven't you been surprised yet to hear from Humble Mio? I dare say you already know about Mio. Of course, it relates to Mihoko. " 'If you ask me which of Kato's two sisters I prefer I would say Shigeko, gentle, affectionate Shigeko.'—I must say I have to smile at the thought of an elementary school teacher in love with a young pupil. I am also reminded of your customary lack of pretentiousness." He received a fourth letter. "That pleasant day spent chatting together after so long has reminded me of last winter. How late it was that day. I think I can safely say that I was largely able to understand your feelings. Love isn't everything in life. Indeed, I really do sympathize with your unfortunate situation. When I think of your going out into the world with such hopes and then spending your first autumn in such a lonely way, I realize that people like me have no cause for complaint."

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He received a fifth letter, a postcard. "So fate has once knocked you down. But it won't always keep you down. I'm sure there will come a time when you will rise up again— A spirited youth, alone on an autumn night, Surrounded by the fragrance of olive, And feeling depressed" Seizo gathered these letters together on his desk and fell to thinking. He carefully considered his replies and the feelings which those replies had evoked in his friend. He also considered how much his own real feelings differed from what was expressed in those letters. He thought about Mihoko, and then Yukiko and Shigeko. Life was forever being interpreted merely by what was on the outside. Unless he revealed frankly—no, even if he revealed frankly what was at the bottom of his heart, people would not easily grasp the truth. That was even true of his close friends. He felt a terrible loneliness. He felt acutely the loneliness of one whom no one understood. A sudden wintry blast swept through the trees out to the rear of the temple.

23 o n the emperor's birthday there was a ceremony at the school. The members of the school board, the village headman, local patrons, and the parents and guardians of the students all came along. The box with the imperial edict was placed ceremoniously on a table, with vases of white and yellow chrysanthemums beside it. Some of the girls had on their best new clothes of muslin, and some had maroon hakama. Some of the boys wore crested coats. To the accompaniment of the organ they sang the anthem, "Kimigayo," and "This Happy Day," their voices spilling from the broken glass windows of the hall. Afterward the teachers stood at the

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He received a fifth letter, a postcard. "So fate has once knocked you down. But it won't always keep you down. I'm sure there will come a time when you will rise up again— A spirited youth, alone on an autumn night, Surrounded by the fragrance of olive, And feeling depressed" Seizo gathered these letters together on his desk and fell to thinking. He carefully considered his replies and the feelings which those replies had evoked in his friend. He also considered how much his own real feelings differed from what was expressed in those letters. He thought about Mihoko, and then Yukiko and Shigeko. Life was forever being interpreted merely by what was on the outside. Unless he revealed frankly—no, even if he revealed frankly what was at the bottom of his heart, people would not easily grasp the truth. That was even true of his close friends. He felt a terrible loneliness. He felt acutely the loneliness of one whom no one understood. A sudden wintry blast swept through the trees out to the rear of the temple.

23 o n the emperor's birthday there was a ceremony at the school. The members of the school board, the village headman, local patrons, and the parents and guardians of the students all came along. The box with the imperial edict was placed ceremoniously on a table, with vases of white and yellow chrysanthemums beside it. Some of the girls had on their best new clothes of muslin, and some had maroon hakama. Some of the boys wore crested coats. To the accompaniment of the organ they sang the anthem, "Kimigayo," and "This Happy Day," their voices spilling from the broken glass windows of the hall. Afterward the teachers stood at the

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exit and handed out paper-wrapped cakes to each of the children. The children took them with a smile and a bow. Some put them away politely in their pockets, while others opened the wrapping to look inside. Some of the badly behaved ones were already munching away by the time they reached the gate. Then the teachers got together with the members of the school board, the village headman, and the others to put tables together in the large hall. They spread over the joined tables a white cotton cloth that had been brought from the village office, and drew up an appropriate number of chairs. Rice cakes and crackers were put out between the vases of chrysanthemums. The caretaker brought round a huge kettle, pouring tea into the cups which everyone had been given. The celebration of the emperor's birthday did not end with the tea party. Someone suggested they should go off to the Ogawa Inn for a beer, and presently the group set off through the fields to the restaurant. The principal brought up the rear. The girl at the Ogawa Inn had her hair done up neatly and looked exceptionally pretty as she brought out the hors d'oeuvres of fried egg. Everyone put in an obligatory fifty sen, and with further voluntary contributions of five or six yen as well the beer flowed liberally. The village headman and the principal chatted pleasantly about that year's bumper crop, while the younger ones chatted about things that concerned them, such as qualifying examinations and seminars. The female teacher stopped Óshima-san from pouring a beer into her glass, which she put to one side. Óshima said with a laugh that it was tough on women if they couldn't even manage one glass. The afternoon sun shone warmly on the verandah, and in the little garden large chrysanthemums bloomed yellow and white. Most of the fields, both dry and paddy, had by now been harvested, and from over by the little woods in the distance there arose occasional columns of smoke from fires burning away the dead grass. The Ógoe coach passed along the nearby road blowing its horn. Seizó spent that night at the school. It rained the following afternoon. The raindrops pattered down from the yellowing oaks out in the fields. When he got back to the temple he found that his shóji had been completely repapered, and that his room looked bright and cheerful. Apparently Ogyü-san had come over on the

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afternoon of the emperor's birthday, and had spent the rest of the day there working industriously to do the repapering. Seizo was moved by this show of friendship and thanked Ogyu when he next saw him. "Well, it was just that they were getting a bit mucky," said his friend, as if it had been no trouble at all to him. "You clean up for me when I'm out, you buy food for me, and you repaper the shoji. It's just as if you were my wife," laughed Seizo. The priest had also joked, "Ogyu-kun's really hardworking and kindhearted. It's just a pity he's not a woman—he'd have made a fine wife." On the fine days, winnowing went on in the farmyards. Carts came in from the fields laden heavily with harvested rice. The farmers all wanted to get in the late rice, gather the buckwheat, and sow the barley before the cold set in, and so they all worked feverishly. During late October and early November a wintry wind of a type peculiar to the Kanto Plain gradually started to develop. Every morning the frost lay white on the straw-thatched roofs. Rice rents were gradually brought along to the yard at the entrance to the priest's quarters. Even in good years it was quite normal for the tenant farmers to rack their brains to come up with some means of calculation whereby the measures could be reduced for one reason or other. Moreover they always chose the busy evening hour to bring along their laden horses and carts. The priest would go out to the entrance, greet them, and then draw a scoopful of rice out of the bags, taking it outside to check it in the light. He would make complaints such as that the rice was no good, that he didn't expect such poor rice to be produced in such and such a spot, but the tenant farmers would typically produce all sorts of excuses and one way or another manage to get him to accept it. Those who grew beans brought along beans. Those who grew buckwheat brought buckwheat flour. Everyone would come with comments like, "Next year's lot'll be really good, so please try to put up with this stuff this year." "Tenant farmers are absolutely hopeless!" the priest remarked to Seizo. When the harvest was completed the town and the local villages somehow seemed more lively and prosperous. Shamisen could be heard playing in the restaurants till late at night, and on market day farmers would take their red-petticoated daughters along to the drapers' stores and foreign-goods stores. Knowing that a

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teacher was staying the night in the duty room at the school, some would bring Seizo boxes full of bean-jam rice cakes, while others would bring him a cooked chicken. Over at the temple, on the Festival of Ebisu, the god of wealth, the priest's wife made buckwheat noodles, which she served to Seizo with a bottle of sake. On a morning after a night when the wintry wind had raged, the ground in front of the main building would be strewn with windblown leaves of oak and chestnut. The gingkos had by this stage completely lost their leaves, and the bell tower seemed somehow rather lonely. At the end of November the water in the hand basin had a thin covering of ice. Seizo had found recently that there had been quite a change in his friends in Gyoda. Ishikawa had, after giving up the magazine, moved gradually further away from literature. On one occasion Seizo had paid him a visit, but Ishikawa had been ill and unable to see him. Rumor had it that he had recently taken to frequenting restaurants and drinking with women. Then last Saturday Seizo had gone with Ikuji, Ishikawa, and Sawada, at their invitation, to see a play which was then being staged starring Tokyo actors, and on that occasion his friend's manner had been startlingly coarse. He came out bluntly with the sort of jokes he would never have brought himself to tell earlier that year in the spring. Ikuji's behavior also seemed to have dropped a level. Among this group of boisterous friends Seizo sat with sad and lonely heart, silent and with eyes fixed on the stage. At the end of the second act he stood up. "I'm off." "Going?" They all looked at him in surprise. They thought at first that he might be joking, but his face showed no suggestion of a smile. "Is anything the matter?" asked Ikuji. "It's just that I don't feel too well." His friends stared after him in disbelief as he hurried off. Then he heard Ishikawa laugh. He felt very upset, and once outside breathed a sigh of relief. After that he did continue to associate with Ikuji, but things weren't the same as before between them. One night Seizo wrote a letter to Ishikawa. At first he tried to write seriously, but then felt this to be too restricting and rewrote it in verse:

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The words stirring spirit and blood have faded; And, as the frost settles on the fields, Your words are still. What!? Intoxicated by a flirtatious foolishness I? Distraught in the arena of vulgar delights!? Oh, will it end, and with it your recent indignity? Will it finally end, your foolishness? He added the single word "Tut!" and then put it in an envelope, but felt that it was too frivolous to make his friend take note. After some thought he tore it up, telling himself it was too petty and a waste of time. The relatively warm days of early winter grew gradually fewer, and a bitter westerly wind started blowing across the fields. Until recently flies had been buzzing around the school windows, which caught the sun, but they too now disappeared. There were days when the frost lingered in the cropped fields till the afternoon. The red and yellow leaves of the oaks and alders and chestnut trees fell crackling in the face of the relentless westerly wind, and the local children could often be seen out in the fields gathering them to light bonfires. The mountain ranges of the Shimotsuke region, crowned by the peaks of Nikko, could be seen particularly clearly from the spot where the Ogoe road entered the town of Hanyu, and Seizo would always stop here to gaze at the hills. His hometown of Ashikaga lay among the folds of those billowing mountains. One day he saw that those peaks around his hometown were now white with a covering of snow. The priest too would get bored during the long evenings, and often came over to the main building for a chat. On other occasions he would send the novitiate to fetch Seizo with the message that he'd just made some tea. In the six-mat room at the back of the priest's quarters the kettle would boil on the hibachi. The priest's wife would sit with her sewing spread out under the bright bamboo-base lamp, and the priest would sit beside her at his little desk reading the latest magazines. The room was so bright and cheerful it didn't seem at all like a lonely temple. With the tea they would eat salted crackers or bean-jam rice cakes from the religious services, and they inevitably talked about things like the literary scene, the recent character of authors, magazine writers, and so forth. One night the conversation chanced to turn to travel. The 98

priest talked enthusiastically about Ise, where he had once spent some time. He had gone there some six months after leaving Waseda, and for two years had taught English and Japanese at the Senshu Temple Middle School in Isshinden. He told Seizo about the Great Shrines, Futamigaura, about how the pilgrims crossing Uji Bridge would throw down coins that would be collected underneath in a net, and how the women balladeers at Ainoyama would catch coins with their shamisen plectrums. How Seizo's imaginative young heart was stirred by talk of such things as the view from Mount Asama, and in particular the whole valley of Tsukigase white with plum blossom. He was similarly stirred by talk of Kyoto and Nara. The priest had gone there during the April vacation, just when the cherry blossoms of Gion and Arashiyama were at their best. Quoting K5yo's line, "A misty moon, and the face of a passing geisha," the priest talked enthusiastically about the busy nights around Shinkyogoku and the Sanjo Bridge. At the time he had been very lighthearted, and had bought himself some leathersoled sandals in which he had shuffled along noisily through the busy, cheerful spring streets. At Nara he had seen all the sights— the Daibutsu, Mount Wakagusa, an unusual bronze statue of the Buddha, and two-thousand-year-old temples. As Seizo listened to this talk his sad and lonely heart was fascinated by these places, scenes, and life-styles that he had yet to see. "Some time in my life I'd like to go and see these things," he thought to himself, and pictured his own vague future. The end of the year grew gradually closer. Seizo heard from his mother in Gyoda that she would be grateful if he took care not to spend money unnecessarily, since they had a lot of debts to settle before the year was out. His quilt was thin and his feet stayed cold all night, however much he curled up in a ball. He knew it would be pointless to tell this to his parents, and since the money couldn't be spared even to buy a second-hand quilt he resolved to make do for the winter by covering his feet with clothing. However, the cold grew worse with each passing night and became just too much to endure. He was obliged to borrow a four-ply quilt from the Komezushi. That day he wrote in his diary, "From tonight at least I'll be able to sleep in warmth." The westerly wind swept so fiercely across the plain that, on the road from Gyoda to Hanyu, it was impossible to face into it. Late 99

one Sunday afternoon Seizo was making his way back from Gyoda, with the sun shining coldly on the plain and with Mount Fuji clearly visible, a pale charcoal grey above the Chichibu Range. The sun went down as he was still walking along, a solitary figure on the lonely road through the fields. Suddenly someone passed him from the opposite direction. "There's a fire up on Mount Akagi!" the passerby remarked. Seizo turned and through the gloom he saw, sure enough, the bright glow of a fire over in the area of Mount Akagi. A fire I A fire on Mount Akagi! It was a sure sign that winter had arrived in all its chill force on the Kanto Plain. Seizo walked on thinking about how sad and lonely this winter would be.

24 "H X Xayashi-san, do you know about my brother and Mihokosan?" asked Yukiko with a grin. "Well, partly." Seizo blushed a little as he looked at her. "And do you know about the latest?" "The latest? Do you mean since the start of this winter vacation?" "Yes." Yukiko was laughing. "No, then in that case I don't know." "I see . . ." Yukiko gave another laugh but said nothing further. It was the winter vacation. The previous day Seizo had come back to Gyoda to see in the New Year. He had heard that a few days before Mihoko had also returned from Urawa. When he had called at the Katos' house that morning Ikuji had not been at home. He had been about to go straight back when Ikuji's mother and sister had asked him to stay, telling him that they expected Ikuji back shortly. 100

one Sunday afternoon Seizo was making his way back from Gyoda, with the sun shining coldly on the plain and with Mount Fuji clearly visible, a pale charcoal grey above the Chichibu Range. The sun went down as he was still walking along, a solitary figure on the lonely road through the fields. Suddenly someone passed him from the opposite direction. "There's a fire up on Mount Akagi!" the passerby remarked. Seizo turned and through the gloom he saw, sure enough, the bright glow of a fire over in the area of Mount Akagi. A fire I A fire on Mount Akagi! It was a sure sign that winter had arrived in all its chill force on the Kanto Plain. Seizo walked on thinking about how sad and lonely this winter would be.

24 "H X Xayashi-san, do you know about my brother and Mihokosan?" asked Yukiko with a grin. "Well, partly." Seizo blushed a little as he looked at her. "And do you know about the latest?" "The latest? Do you mean since the start of this winter vacation?" "Yes." Yukiko was laughing. "No, then in that case I don't know." "I see . . ." Yukiko gave another laugh but said nothing further. It was the winter vacation. The previous day Seizo had come back to Gyoda to see in the New Year. He had heard that a few days before Mihoko had also returned from Urawa. When he had called at the Katos' house that morning Ikuji had not been at home. He had been about to go straight back when Ikuji's mother and sister had asked him to stay, telling him that they expected Ikuji back shortly. 100

Seizo wanted to ask Yukiko what exactly she meant, but he couldn't find the courage to do so. Instead he just let his heart pound. However, Yukiko kept on grinning, so he finally did ask. "What's the matter then?" "It's not that anything's the matter exactly, but . . ." She continued to grin as before, then presently said: "You'll probably think this is a strange thing to ask, but haven't you been forming ideas about my brother and Mihoko-san?" "No." "Well, haven't you ever gotten involved in their relationship or anything like that?" "Not to my knowledge." "I see." Yukiko lapsed into silence again. A short while later she spoke again. "It's just that I heard something strange from Obata-san." "Something strange? What exactly?" "Oh, it's nothing important." The conversation got nowhere. That afternoon, thinking he would go to the Kitagawas' anyway, Seizo was walking along past the marsh when Ikuji approached from the opposite direction. "Hi there!" "Where've you been?" "Just over to the Kitagawas' place." "I was just thinking of going there myself," Seizo spoke with a deliberate airiness. "I hear Miss Art's back." "Uh-huh." They walked for a while in silence. "What's going on?" asked Seizo presently. "What?" "There's no need to pretend. I've heard, you know." "Heard what?" "That things have been happening." "Who's been talking to you?" "It's true, isn't it?" "No one can know anything," said Ikuji, then asked after a moment's thought, "Really, who's been talking to you?"

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"The story's out, you can take it from me." "Who was it?" "Have a guess." Ikuji thought for a while. "I've no idea." "Didn't Obata say something to your sister then? Something about me?" "Oh, my sister's been gossiping, has she? That fool!" "Never mind that, how about answering my question?" "About what?" "Did Obata say anything to your sister?" "I don't know." "That can't be true! Apparently I'm supposed to have gotten involved between you and Miss Art." "Oh, that," Ikuji seemed to have remembered something. "It's just that he thought there must be something behind your visiting the Kitagawas' place so often." "And didn't he say something about your sister as well?" "Oh, he may have made some joke or other, but I can't really remember anything specific." They walked on in silence.

25 C ^ J e i z ó found out various details about the "new developments" between Ikuji and Mihoko. About a month earlier Ikuji had enclosed a long letter in a letter Yukiko was sending to Mihoko. He had presently received a lengthy reply, addressed to himself. That evening, over sake at a restaurant, he showed that reply to Seizo. It was sprinkled with sweet words of love. She wrote how she had read Ikuji's letter over and over again under the dim lamp in her dormitory. She wrote too how she agreed that, since they were both still studying, they should keep their relationship firm but proper until they had achieved their aims in life. To judge from this it seemed clear that Ikuji had made a similar suggestion. Seizó didn't have the chance to read the long letter in detail. But though 102

"The story's out, you can take it from me." "Who was it?" "Have a guess." Ikuji thought for a while. "I've no idea." "Didn't Obata say something to your sister then? Something about me?" "Oh, my sister's been gossiping, has she? That fool!" "Never mind that, how about answering my question?" "About what?" "Did Obata say anything to your sister?" "I don't know." "That can't be true! Apparently I'm supposed to have gotten involved between you and Miss Art." "Oh, that," Ikuji seemed to have remembered something. "It's just that he thought there must be something behind your visiting the Kitagawas' place so often." "And didn't he say something about your sister as well?" "Oh, he may have made some joke or other, but I can't really remember anything specific." They walked on in silence.

25 C ^ J e i z ó found out various details about the "new developments" between Ikuji and Mihoko. About a month earlier Ikuji had enclosed a long letter in a letter Yukiko was sending to Mihoko. He had presently received a lengthy reply, addressed to himself. That evening, over sake at a restaurant, he showed that reply to Seizo. It was sprinkled with sweet words of love. She wrote how she had read Ikuji's letter over and over again under the dim lamp in her dormitory. She wrote too how she agreed that, since they were both still studying, they should keep their relationship firm but proper until they had achieved their aims in life. To judge from this it seemed clear that Ikuji had made a similar suggestion. Seizó didn't have the chance to read the long letter in detail. But though 102

he only skimmed through it, the honey-sweet words he encountered here and there flashed before his sad, lonely eyes like so many garlands of colorful flowers. Ikuji's attitude, as he got drunk and casually boasted about the affair, unmindful of his friend's loneliness, was painful and provocative and irritating to Seizo, who just listened with the occasional grunt. "And now I'll do my best to help you," said Ikuji again and again. "Obata was saying the same thing too. I do appreciate how you feel," he also said. Ikuji also talked about Ishikawa's recent infatuation with a geisha in Kazo. "He's really keen lately, you know. He's bought a bicycle, as you may know, and he goes there almost every day, saying he's off for a ride. She's from Tokyo, name of Kocho, and he treasures her photograph. A rich man's son has a very different outlook on life from the likes of us, doesn't he. No need for them to study to get on in life!" Seizo fully realized that when Ikuji talked about doing his best to help him he was referring to Yukiko. However, Seizo was not at all happy about this. The prim and stuck-up Yukiko passed before his mind's eye and then disappeared again. His thoughts dwelled instead, rather more than he had expected, upon the far stronger image of Mihoko. He had known for some time that things would turn out as they had. He had even prayed that they would for his friend's sake. And yet, there was a great difference between how he felt when he thought such things and how he felt when they were actually happening. Seizo was extremely depressed. His situation was becoming increasingly negative in terms of real life and love and learning, and he felt hopelessly trapped. The sake, which at first had had no effect on him, now had a very noticeable effect, and on the w a y back he surprised Ikuji by singing songs and reciting verse. However, he was not without a sense of acceptance that things had been brought to some sort of conclusion. It was a hard blow to lose out in romance, but on the other hand it pleased him not to have had his freedom snatched away from him by love. His thoughts now shifted from his friend to focus instead on himself. Seizo had seven yen in his pocket. He had intended to give something to help his parents out, but at the same time he wanted to go traveling, and ended up putting the money aside. The end of the year was now fast approaching. Almost every day the westerly 103

wind howled through the little town on the Kanto Plain. Herring roe was piled up in the grocers' shops, and salmon were ranged on display on the tables in the fishmongers'. It was the local custom to celebrate New Year's Day according to the old calendar, and so the town was quiet as always, and not even country girls in red petticoats were to be seen. The only noticeable things were the decorative straw festoons hung outside the district office and the police station and the more prominent of the houses of the well-to-do. There was a foot warmer in the six-mat room, and Seizo mostly spent the days there reading magazines, novels, and occasionally perusing books on psychology. Beside him his mother, in the breaks from her piecework, sewed some padded clothes for him. In the afternoons she often went into the town and brought back some rice cakes to serve with tea. One night the wintry wind howled and brought sleet with it. Seizo and his parents were huddled around the foot warmer listening to the terrible sounds of winter raging outside. His mother, who was inclined to grumble about the family fortunes at such times, talked endlessly about their debts. "Things are in a bad way, all right," sighed Seizo. "It wouldn't be so bad if business was a little better, but these are hard times. It doesn't matter what you do, it's all a struggle," said his father. "I'm really sorry to have to ask you, but if we don't get a little more help from you every month . . ." said his mother, looking at her son. "Well, I am trying to economize, you know," said Seizo, "and I don't treat myself to cigarettes or anything." "It's really hard on you, I know, but . . ." "Father will have to make a little more too." Seizo turned to his father. His father remained silent. His mother kept harping, going into the details of the finances. Seizo felt really sorry for her. He explained in earnest how it was a bad policy to get into debt, and how they would just have to live as frugally as possible. Finally he ended up handing over three yen of the money he had put aside. He no longer took the same pleasure in visiting his friends. Ikuji often came over, but Seizo himself rarely paid a visit. Whenever they got together they ended up talking about Mihoko, which 104

Seizo really disliked. He sometimes thought about going to the Kitagawas', but couldn't bring himself to do so and gave up the idea. It was a bit too cold for a walk through the fields, and anyway there was nothing to see. When he got fed up he went to one of the nearby houses and played tiddleywinks on the cheerful, bright verandah there with some little girls of about seven or eight. One of the girls had long hair and pretty eyebrows. She was the daughter of a police inspector who had been transferred there, and although she hadn't yet started elementary school she knew her alphabet and sums well. She could also recite the one hundred verses of the verse cards after a fashion, and innocently sang love songs that held no meaning for her. Seizo tried testing her with sums from one to sixteen, and she answered easily and with few mistakes. Ever the sentimentalist, Seizo could not help wondering what the future would hold for her when she grew up. "I hope you'll be happy. I hope love will be kind to you," he thought to himself and was filled with an infinite melancholy. It was on the thirtieth that he set off to Kumagaya, and the westerly wind was blowing hard. Kojima and Sakurai had come back from Tokyo. Obata in particular greeted him warmly. However, Seizo did not feel his liveliness of old. His friends were all concerned over his lack of color, his depressed manner, and his negative words. Next to his friends, who had grown even more buoyant, Seizo felt exceedingly small. Kumagaya was very busy. Here straw festoons hung on the eaves of all the trading houses, and an end-of-year market was held at the corner of the main road. Festival oranges, straw festoons, kelp, and shrimps all caught the attention of passersby. All the shops had up bow-handled paper lanterns; in the fishmongers' there were salmon and dried sardines and herring roe, while in the foreign-goods shops there were piles of woolen goods, shirts, and pants. At night people crowded the streets window-shopping. On the morning of New Year's Eve Seizo plodded down that long road back to Gyoda, heavy in heart and battered by the westerly wind. His thoughts now dwelt upon how people's feelings changed with their circumstances. This time last year he had never dreamt that he would now be in the situation that he was. He had not known that his relationships with his old friends would break up as they had. Not long ago he had read in a book that man 105

was a creature formed by circumstance. At the time he hadn't really paid much heed to the idea. However, it was a fact. When he got back home he found debt collectors from all over the place there. He couldn't bring himself to watch his mother bowing her head before each one of them in turn. Toward evening his father returned, a dejected figure, having been unable to recover his accounts. "Oh, it's hopeless!" he sighed and handed Seizo's mother a purse that contained not enough even to meet half their needs. Seizo couldn't bear to watch any longer, and handed over a further two yen. That night Seizo's mother went into town, jingling the few coins left in her purse, to buy something for at least a pretense of a New Year's Eve celebration. She came back presently—complaining about the weight—with a cloth-wrapped bundle containing three flat cakes, a bag of dried sardines, five slices of salmon, and a few pounds of potatoes for the next day's meal. In the meantime his father lit tapers in the household shrine, the kitchen, and the toilet, and stoked up the fire in the hibachi. Presently the delicacies for the celebration were laid out. Seizo's father bowed his bald head and prayed earnestly to the shrine; then, turning to the food, he took up his chopsticks with the remark, "Well, let us at least be thankful that we can see the year out together, the three of us." The delicacies included salmon and bean curd, and two sardines each. It was not uncheerful in the room. Seizo's mother had some sewing that she simply had to finish that night, and so she worked busily with her needle till late. Seizo sat beside her and wrote out some fifteen New Year cards, then took out his diary, as he did every day, and started to write the entry in pen: thirty-first: Another year passes. 1901 passes with my thoughts in turmoil. I shall be unable to forget this year's end, however much I try. I have made my final resolutions. SILENCE, RETICENCE, ACTION. I must follow my destiny. Life being the way it is, there is no need for me to say very much. The Myojo and Shinsei magazines have arrived. 106

Well, 1901 has finally passed. There is much I shall not forget about this year in my life. Keep silent. That is one thing I have resolved—that, life being the way it is, I shall think alone, in silence. Ah well. He closed his diary, put it to one side, and started reading the recently arrived copy of Myojo.

26 J a n u a r y first (1902): Three years ago I planned, with Obata, to write down good verses, so I put this booklet together, but I've done nothing about the idea since then. This year I intend to use those blank pages for my diary. Last year, that is to say only yesterday, I came to a conclusion about life, but my thoughts are again in turmoil, and I do not know how to explain my feelings properly. Nothing can beat living alone in an out-of-the-way village, trying to better oneself. My friends may laugh at my lack of spirit, but my destiny is my destiny, and although I don't by any means lack the desire to fight against it, I dare say it won't be too hard on my dear old, long-suffering mother if I let things stay like this for another two or three years. Well, diary of this new year, just let me be wise in the world, let me have peace, and let me be silent. Love is a painful thing after all, and I can well do without it. As for Kato, I do realize there is something unpleasant about the way he's acting, but naturally I do not wish to get into a dispute with him. I think it is wiser just to forget about him and others like him. Today I wrote my first letter of the year to Obata in Kumagaya. second: Last night I spent the evening with Suzuki talking about when we were children. 107

Well, 1901 has finally passed. There is much I shall not forget about this year in my life. Keep silent. That is one thing I have resolved—that, life being the way it is, I shall think alone, in silence. Ah well. He closed his diary, put it to one side, and started reading the recently arrived copy of Myojo.

26 J a n u a r y first (1902): Three years ago I planned, with Obata, to write down good verses, so I put this booklet together, but I've done nothing about the idea since then. This year I intend to use those blank pages for my diary. Last year, that is to say only yesterday, I came to a conclusion about life, but my thoughts are again in turmoil, and I do not know how to explain my feelings properly. Nothing can beat living alone in an out-of-the-way village, trying to better oneself. My friends may laugh at my lack of spirit, but my destiny is my destiny, and although I don't by any means lack the desire to fight against it, I dare say it won't be too hard on my dear old, long-suffering mother if I let things stay like this for another two or three years. Well, diary of this new year, just let me be wise in the world, let me have peace, and let me be silent. Love is a painful thing after all, and I can well do without it. As for Kato, I do realize there is something unpleasant about the way he's acting, but naturally I do not wish to get into a dispute with him. I think it is wiser just to forget about him and others like him. Today I wrote my first letter of the year to Obata in Kumagaya. second: Last night I spent the evening with Suzuki talking about when we were children. 107

Let me be fond of children. In this world God has granted happiness only to children. Let me be fond of them. Miss Art! What does it all mean? Though I try not to concern myself with such a miserable thing as love, at times my composure is shattered. Why do I have such undesirable thoughts? How pathetic! Still, that's how things are. In the evening thin red clouds formed in the western sky, turning from purple to grey as they rose up high, while beneath them the mountains of Chichibu were black and beautiful. But these winter clouds were not bright and strong, but cold and lonely—like, as it were, the icy heart of one broken in love and abandoned by the world. third: A wind sprang up during the day and the trees roared. The winter fields are so cold, the raging wind so fearsome. If I also find human society so cold, and seek to avoid it, then where can I go? I feel like asking for divine help in the darkness of the night. fourth: Sawada came this evening. At Kato's prompting we went off to the Kitagawas' to play verse cards. Is Kato then a person who knows no friendship, who abuses his friends for his own profit? Again he told me, "Let me know what you want, and I'll do whatever I can for you." I told him, "Nothing." Did he really mean what he said? fifth: Happened to be invited to an alumni meeting, which I attended. Stood up and spoke about the need to be punctual at meetings. This was the first time I had spoken at a meeting and I was a little nervous, but it went better than I expected and I kept my composure through to the end. As entertainment there was a narration of a story by Koenrin. sixth: Played verse cards with Kato and Yukiko and Suzuki-kun's younger sister. This evening the westerly wind blew cold outside. Alas, 108

must I, who am barely capable of helping myself along, now also support my mother and father? Ah well, let things be as they may, let the chill and stormy winds of destiny blow their hardest. Why should I plunge recklessly into their raging midst? The pine stands proud, Its will unbroken. Blow, storm, blow! Its boughs may break, But not its roots. (by Shojiki Shodayu) During this recent wind I wonder how it goes with the frail corpse of my brother over by the woods to the south? He is in my thoughts, though today again I do not visit him. Well, tomorrow I shall head east. seventh: Returned to the temple in Hanyu. Though my thoughts are now resolved, the bleak wintry fields are still depressing to me. I wonder how things are with you, ko? Is it ridiculous that I still love you? Ah well, the world being the way it is, I should love alone, weep alone, and why should I trouble you? Had a friendly chat with the priest, and we ate grated yam together. Cold tonight. ninth: This morning we had the first snow fall of the year—of the winter, in fact. This evening Ogyu-kun came, bringing me some charcoal and some cakes. How the warmth of his heart stands out in the cold world of mankind. Let me always be sincere to him. (Written at ten-thirty at night.) tenth-twentieth: During these ten days my thoughts were in such turmoil that I did not return to the temple. It's not that I particularly want to grow old like this, but, even though I think I have forsaken 109

worldly desires, I don't seem to know what to do. I'm confused. I haven't even the strength to cling to God. I have decided not to say much to others or talk with them, and I feel very listless. I don't want to write to my old friends, and although I don't actually dislike the idea of going back to Gyoda, I haven't got the energy to do so. And so I have spent these ten days alone, not even writing poetry or painting. On Saturday Ogyu-kun came and we spent the evening talking. He has such warm feelings, but such a timid spirit. Kato is intoxicated with love, Obata is letting himself become vulgar. He said in a recent letter, "Don't choose to become a poet, and don't choose to become vulgar." Well, I can't become a poet even if I wanted to, and neither can I become vulgar. I just ask that my confusion, and my love, abruptly disappear so I may pass from despair to reticence to coolheadedness and eventually to a state where I can smile sardonically at life—at least for a while, which wouldn't be too bad. This evening as the cold wind rages and I think of my many fortunate friends, this place seems very bleak. But let it all be. Though I am not without thoughts of making an effort, I think rather to follow my destiny quietly and to let things be as they are for a while. My troubled heart will find comfort in children and painting and verse and music. For the present I shall say little, and keep my thoughts to myself . . . This, then, was the vein in which Seizo's diary continued, and he himself realized that it was extremely negative in tone and feeling compared with the previous spring. Occasionally he would glance through his previous year's diary, which contained jokes and witticisms. It was full of happiness. In contrast with the present it was cheerful in ignorance of the realities of life. His heart was so wounded that he wanted, negatively, to shut himself off from everything—from love, from life, from friendship, from his family. His room in the main building of the temple was too depressing for him. And the five-mile-or-so walk every morning and night was a nuisance. Like a vagrant he stayed some nights in the school duty room, some nights at a sake bar in the village, and sometimes returned to the temple. Catering for himself was a bother, so he ate packed meals wherever he happened to be. 110

Sometimes he made do with cheap sweets for his lunch. Whenever Ogyu called at the room in the main building he usually found its occupant out, the desk covered with dust, and old copies of Shinsei and Mydfo scattered all about. The priest asked, "What's happened to Hayashi-kun? It's ages since he's been back. I suppose he's busy with something at school." Ogyu was most concerned, and on one occasion took time off from his many duties at the post office to go all the way to Miroku, where he found Seizo smiling and looking as though nothing at all was the matter. Even his usually untidy hair was neatly trimmed. Seizo explained: "It's just that on these cold mornings getting up so early to get here on time is a real nuisance. If I stay here the night with the caretaker I can sleep in till the children arrive." Hanging on hooks along the crossbeams of the eight-mat room there were old hakama, obi, and the like. On the desk were students' compositions marked in red and a watercolor he had recently begun. When classes were over and the principal and his colleagues had gone home, Seizo went out and bought cakes for himself and Ogyu. Over tea he showed his friend several rather poor watercolors he had done not long before. There was one of the school gate, one of the evening sun on the hedge, one of Mount Fuji looming vaguely through the evening mist, and one portrait of a student. Ogyu held them up, looked at them closely, and remarked admiringly, "You have quite a talent." Seizo also played for him on the organ some songs he had recently composed. Winter grew ever colder. The rain of day turned to the sleet of night, and the next morning the school garden was covered in snow. The students who arrived early frolicked around making snowmen and having snowball fights. The sparrows gathered on the sparkling eaves, chattering noisily. After the arrival of the snow the muddy roads were never dry, and even high rain clogs sometimes sank under. The coaches sprayed mud as high as the roofs as they passed by. The winter sunshine lingering on the window in front of his desk did at least give him some comfort. His attitude changed from one of "what will be will be" to one of "do what you can, and follow destiny with good grace." After the sighs and tears came a quiet calm, which was sad but at the same time sweet. Late at night when the sleet was falling, he thought about his mother back home with a little verse: "Awake in the cold night, a 111

myriad sounds round about—and how is Mother?" He also comforted himself by writing in his diary: "The bed during the cold, lonely night, when the heart is at peace, is not at all too hard to bear." Another time he wrote: "If I could but live with no thoughts at all, it would mean that the yesterday of my life was neither happy nor unhappy." On yet another occasion he wrote: "Last night an old mouse was caught in a trap. Poor thing. Was it too an unfortunate being unable to escape the scourge of fate? If anyone should have quietly let it go it should have been me, but better for it to end its days in the trap than to worry about finding food every night. Poor thing." One Sunday he went neither to the temple in Hanyu nor his home in Gyoda, but spent the time in the duty room, writing "Today is Sunday, and if I spend the whole day here then I'll be able to sleep in late in the morning." He heard that Ikuji, Sakurai, and Obata had all gone off to Urawa for the normal school entrance examination. When, for the first time in ages, he returned to Gyoda on the day of the commemoration of the death of Emperor Komyo, he found not a single friend to talk to. Yukiko answered the door with her usual stuck-up air. He would have preferred the cheerful, unpretentious Shigeko. When he set off back to Hanyu his mother gave him a box containing sweet-boiled carp which she had gone to some trouble to cook the previous day. Nowadays he lived very much away from the world, keeping himself to himself. He rarely read the newspapers either. Every day there were reports, in large type on the first and second pages, of incidents such as the Fifth Division's misappropriation of silver bullion, the freezing to death of men in the Third Aomori Regiment during a march through snow, and copper pollution resulting from mining. Normally he followed the papers closely and would have made such incidents into points for discussion or for entry in his diary, but lately he just couldn't be bothered with such things. Even if other people raised them with him he would just say "Oh, really?" and avoid being drawn into conversation. He also stopped following, midway through, Ruiko's serialized translation of The Count of Monte Cristo, which he had previously enjoyed reading. Rehind the school garden was a bamboo grove, some fifteen yards square, through which the late afternoon sun would, slant onto the duty room, and one night, from a farm beyond this grove, he heard an old man's voice call out, "Good 112

fortune come in, devils get out!" "Ah, so today must be the old passing of the seasons," thought Seizo to himself, and he took out the newspaper's pictorial New Year calendar to check. He was indeed out of touch with the world. Every day, just after four, the sound of the wooden thwacking boards of the bathhouse out front would echo through the quiet, cold, country streets, lined with their many miscanthus-thatched roofs. When drinking sake with the priest he would think to say something like, "Well, I'm going to try doing something or other that'll take the world by storm—I don't care what," but then he would also think, "Whatever I do, be it reforming society or redeeming the intellectual world or whatever, I have to have the wherewithal to live as a human being, and I ought to obtain this as far as possible by way of reward for work rendered to society. So should I perhaps advance myself gradually from elementary school teacher to middle school teacher? Or should I rather content myself with this fine and noble life as an elementary school teacher?" On the one hand he wanted to make a dazzling debut in the world like so many of his friends, but on the other he also felt there was value and dignity in being an elementary school teacher, and that it was an ideal life to spend one's days a simple companion of children. There was also a spirit of defiance in him that prompted him to want to live alone, away from his friends, away from love, away from society. One day the principal suggested to him: "If you're so keen on spending every night in the duty room, why don't you bring your things over from the temple and arrange to cater for yourself here? That way, not only would I not have to bother arranging nightduty rosters, but you'd save money by not having to pay rent. And, most important of all, you wouldn't have the bother of that five-mile walk here and back every day." The priest also said to him on one recent occasion when he returned to the temple, "I don't know what your plans are, but I feel a bit guilty taking rent off you when you're hardly here like this. And it must be a real nuisance having to travel such a long way in winter." Seizo realized that his own attitude had changed considerably from when he had first taken up lodgings at the temple. His hopes, his aims, his emotions had completely changed. In addition, Gydda Bungaku had ceased publication. His group of literary friends had bro113

ken up. He himself now collected music books and played the organ and painted rather than reading literary works. Furthermore, he had lost the desire to go back to Gyoda so often. Around the middle of the month he brought his bedding and bookcases over from the temple in Hanyu.

"P I—ixtraordinary business about Kihei-san, isn't it ?" "It certainly is. I met him on the road this morning, you know. He had his net with him and I said to him, 'Rather you than me, fishing on a cold day like today.' I just had no idea." "How on earth could it have happened?" "And in a miserable place like that canal too!" "Just where was it exactly?" "In that canal over to the west, in Kanzo-san's fields. They found his body half sunk in the mud there, head slumped like this. Dead.' "Terrible business!" "And today a religious holiday too! It's as if he was fated." "I'm tempted now not to go fishing myself next spring." The villagers were in the steamy little bathhouse talking about the incident. Kihei was an old man of about fifty who lived in a hut on the edge of the village and made a scanty day-to-day living from the loaches and other small fish that he caught. Every day, or so it seemed, he could be seen shouldering his patched-up old net and heading for a nearby river or canal, a rather scruffy figure. He would always bow politely if he met one of the teachers or village officials on the road. Today his frozen body had been found in a canal. Seizo listened to the villagers' talk as he lay soaking in the bath. He inevitably went on to think about these villagers, who were talking like this about the life and death of the old man. He also thought about the old man himself, his frozen body stuck upright in the mud with his old net spread out. Through the cloud of steam came the sound of water splashing into a bucket.

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ken up. He himself now collected music books and played the organ and painted rather than reading literary works. Furthermore, he had lost the desire to go back to Gyoda so often. Around the middle of the month he brought his bedding and bookcases over from the temple in Hanyu.

"P I—ixtraordinary business about Kihei-san, isn't it ?" "It certainly is. I met him on the road this morning, you know. He had his net with him and I said to him, 'Rather you than me, fishing on a cold day like today.' I just had no idea." "How on earth could it have happened?" "And in a miserable place like that canal too!" "Just where was it exactly?" "In that canal over to the west, in Kanzo-san's fields. They found his body half sunk in the mud there, head slumped like this. Dead.' "Terrible business!" "And today a religious holiday too! It's as if he was fated." "I'm tempted now not to go fishing myself next spring." The villagers were in the steamy little bathhouse talking about the incident. Kihei was an old man of about fifty who lived in a hut on the edge of the village and made a scanty day-to-day living from the loaches and other small fish that he caught. Every day, or so it seemed, he could be seen shouldering his patched-up old net and heading for a nearby river or canal, a rather scruffy figure. He would always bow politely if he met one of the teachers or village officials on the road. Today his frozen body had been found in a canal. Seizo listened to the villagers' talk as he lay soaking in the bath. He inevitably went on to think about these villagers, who were talking like this about the life and death of the old man. He also thought about the old man himself, his frozen body stuck upright in the mud with his old net spread out. Through the cloud of steam came the sound of water splashing into a bucket.

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V ^ lasses were over for the day. Most of Seizo's colleagues had gone home, and he was talking to the principal in the duty room when someone came along selling fish. "Hallo in there! Won't you buy some nice, cheap carp?" They slid open the shoji and saw an old man standing outside smiling, his creels beside him. "I don't think we need any carp." "But I'm offering them very cheaply, so please do buy some." The principal looked at Seizo. "Don't you want any? If they're cheap we could get some and sweet-boil them. They're good done like that." They went out onto the verandah. Both the creels contained wriggling little carp from three to five inches long with their bellies flashing gold. "They're a bit on the small side," said the principal. "Far from it. They're just the right size for sweet-boiling. And into the bargain I got them at Itakura so the bones are soft." The principal could tell at a glance that they were good-quality fish. Itakura Marsh was a couple of miles across the Tone River. A shrine dedicated to the gods of thunder and lightning stood at its edge. The area was one of wet ground, at a lower level even than the bottom of the Tone, and it was covered with marshes. It was well known locally how tasty the fish were from this Kozuke region. "How much?" "Well, I don't think seventy percent of the shop price would be too much to ask, do you?" "Yes, I think it's too much!" "Look, I'll give you a good measure, so why won't you pay that for them?" "Fifty percent would be more reasonable." "Fifty's out of the question. But we can split the difference, I suppose." Seizo looked on with a smile at the principal's clever bargaining. A price of sixty percent was agreed upon, and the caretaker brought out a bucket and a bowl. The carp—a really good bar115

gain—feebly flapped their gills. The old man took his money and went off, his creels now lighter. "I got those cheaply! You know, if you boil them up there's enough for ten days." The principal took hold of one of the larger fish and showed it to Seizo. "Kozuke carp really are good. The scales are completely different from the fish caught around here." They divided the fish into halves and the caretaker took a bucketful off to the principal's house. Seizo cooked his carp that evening. He scaled them on a chopping board, then skewered and grilled them over a fire in the hearth. The caretaker sat beside the fire busily making straw sandals. Several of the fish were big enough to cover a whole skewer each. After a light grilling the skewered fish were put for storage in some straw. "There are a lot here, aren't there," said Seizo, and added, after a quick count, "I've used nineteen skewers." "They really were cheap. Our principal's a great one when it comes to haggling. It's amazing, getting fish like this for forty percent off!" the caretaker remarked. Seizo tried sweet-boiling some of the fish, putting five skewered ones into a little pot and heating this on the cooker. Just before going to bed he gave them a trial tasting, but the bones were still hard. For Seizo, catering for himself was, after all, both convenient and economical. He mostly lived off bean curd—sometimes fried —and dried salmon. He was able to make a success of the sweetboiled carp after a second attempt at boiling them. He used too much sugar, though, and the caretaker, who received a share, remarked, "Hayashi-san's sweet-boiled carp seem more like confectionery than anything else." The students would sometimes bring him things like rice cakes and bean-jam cakes, and cakes made of corn and glutinous rice. He did want to study. Whether one studied in the countryside or studied in Tokyo, it was still study. He did not want to be surpassed in scholarship by those of his friends who had had their tuition paid by their parents, and he painstakingly read up on psychology and ethics and so on. However, he found himself obliged to agree to a request for him to teach English to a senior student, and following this more and more students came flocking to him with their national readers, till eventually, reluctant as he was to have his free time taken up 116

like this, he ended up spending most nights with a crowd of students around him in the duty room. The plum started to blossom at the end of February. When Seizo opened the shoji he could see blossoms too in the bamboo grove, and the wind brought a pleasant scent with it. One day he sat at his desk and wrote a verse in his notebook: Here in this lonely country village, Are pale blossoms of plum; And a lone figure clutching a branch, Softly reciting a song of spring. A succession of sad thoughts filled his heart. He then chanced to find, in an old copy of Chugaku Sekai—"Middle School World"— that lay beside him, a picture postcard showing a country girl against a background of plum blossoms. He picked it out and wrote his poem on it, with the words "A country maiden who knows not the capital." He considered sending it to Mihoko in Urawa, but abandoned the idea at the thought of the strict supervision in the dormitory. Mihoko had a music-loving elder sister named Ikuko, with whom he had in fact exchanged letters on several occasions, and suddenly remembering her, Seizo decided to put the verse to music and to send it to her instead. He would quietly sing this self-composed song as he walked around the school garden in the evenings. At the words "Softly reciting a song of spring" he would visualize with particular clarity his own lonely, empty situation, and tears would fill his eyes. Of late he had received but few letters from his friends. He had even grown considerably apart from Obata over in Kumagaya, having had a serious discussion with him on his last visit there over their differing views on life. The letters from Ikuji invariably referred to Mihoko, and Seizo could not bring himself to reply. In contrast to this, he had grown a lot friendlier with the people in Miroku. Nowadays, no matter which house he went to, he was always highly regarded in his capacity as a teacher. And as far as his colleagues went, the arrogant and unpleasant normal school graduate had gone off to Kazo, and now that there was no one with whom he felt ill at ease, he found the atmosphere at the school very much to his liking. Even on holidays and Sundays he generally stayed in the duty 117

room. A couple of miles across on the far side of the Tone was a place called Takatori, where there was a shrine dedicated to Sugawara Michizane, the venerable sage of literary scholarship. During the great festival in early March the grounds would be packed with local visitors. Seizo himself had also gone there on one occasion in the past. There were sideshows and stalls, and the gong was never silent. Parents often took their children there in the hope that their learning would be enhanced as a result, so each year on that day the schools closed. On that afternoon too, as groups of students went off to the shrine, Seizo stayed in the duty room writing letters.

29 I n Hotto there were many weavers, and at least seven or eight houses managed to take more than a hundred rolls of cloth along to each market. Of course, these weaving houses by no means formed a distinct community. At a casual glance they didn't seem particularly different from the usual farmhouses. They were surrounded by fields of broad beans and peas, and in summer eggplants and cucumbers would be all around, with the wide leaves of corn rustling in the breeze. However, in the interiors of the houses things looked very different. Inside the entrances stood countless pots of indigo where dyers were busily dyeing threads. Other workers were occupied with sorting out huge piles of white threads. One could also see large cupboards where the cloth was stored. Tall drying racks were systematically arranged in the open front gardens, and deep blue threads would be hung out there each morning to dry. From here, there, and everywhere came the constant sound of hand reels winding threads. All around the weaving houses one could hear the busy sound of piecework weaving. Here all was lively and active, in contrast to the quiet of the 118

room. A couple of miles across on the far side of the Tone was a place called Takatori, where there was a shrine dedicated to Sugawara Michizane, the venerable sage of literary scholarship. During the great festival in early March the grounds would be packed with local visitors. Seizo himself had also gone there on one occasion in the past. There were sideshows and stalls, and the gong was never silent. Parents often took their children there in the hope that their learning would be enhanced as a result, so each year on that day the schools closed. On that afternoon too, as groups of students went off to the shrine, Seizo stayed in the duty room writing letters.

29 I n Hotto there were many weavers, and at least seven or eight houses managed to take more than a hundred rolls of cloth along to each market. Of course, these weaving houses by no means formed a distinct community. At a casual glance they didn't seem particularly different from the usual farmhouses. They were surrounded by fields of broad beans and peas, and in summer eggplants and cucumbers would be all around, with the wide leaves of corn rustling in the breeze. However, in the interiors of the houses things looked very different. Inside the entrances stood countless pots of indigo where dyers were busily dyeing threads. Other workers were occupied with sorting out huge piles of white threads. One could also see large cupboards where the cloth was stored. Tall drying racks were systematically arranged in the open front gardens, and deep blue threads would be hung out there each morning to dry. From here, there, and everywhere came the constant sound of hand reels winding threads. All around the weaving houses one could hear the busy sound of piecework weaving. Here all was lively and active, in contrast to the quiet of the 118

neighboring villages. There were many wealthy men here and many young men and women who came in from other villages. It was said locally that Hotto was a village of loose morals. The police news on page three of the Saitama newspaper invariably carried a couple of articles about the village each month. Either some weaving house owner had seduced his female employees one after the other and been put in prison, or else some man from Kozuke and some woman from Echigo had committed love suicide by jumping from a cliff overlooking the Tone River. Alongside the road there were also several unlicensed brothels. August always saw the start of nightly Bon dancing in the village, a lively affair. Anyone on night duty at the school could hear the noise of the dancing very clearly as it reverberated from the windows of the hall. It would go on till well past eleven. In September the previous year, a time of clear moonlit nights when insects sang noisily in the hedges, Seizo had been on duty. Sugita, the licensed teacher, had remarked to him with a grin, "The Bon dancing over at Hotto's in full swing now, Hayashi-san. Haven't you been there yet? You really should go over there sometime. But then, a handsome chap like you will have to take real care—you're bound to get your sleeves ripped off with all the tugging!" And yet, Seizo hadn't really felt like going. He simply listened to the sounds of merriment going on into the night. Seizo had heard quite a few other things about Hotto. Apparently, up until a few years ago, if a good-looking male teacher happened to be on night duty a group of girls from Hotto would sometimes just march in unannounced through the school garden and brazenly start chatting with him. One could also tell how lax morals were in Hotto simply by watching the students. Even in the same sort of bad behavior the students from that village stood out from the others. Some would habitually sing lewd songs in the classroom and end up being punished by being made to stand holding a cup brimful of water. In spring, when the violets started to bloom in the fields, Seizo started to go on walks. His thin frame, topped by a worn old brown hat, appeared here and there. The farmers would spot the young school teacher standing on a bridge gazing vacantly at the clouds at sunset, or encounter him early in the morning walking along the road beyond the village office. Sometimes he would be

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standing chatting with the caretaker of the village office, while at other times he would be exchanging pleasantries with the people in the fields. Occasionally he would also take two or three of the girl students into the woods and get them to pick flowers to make up into posies. On one occasion, when he was doing a painting of the evening sky near Miroku where the fields ran into the woods, he suddenly found himself surrounded by a group of the children. "Hey! It's Sensei! It's Sensei!" "He's painting something!" "He's painting a picture!" "He's painting those clouds!" "He's very good, isn't he!" "Of course—he's a teacher!" "See! That's that cloud over there!" "And that's that house beneath it!" Seizo wielded his brush in silence as this free criticism was offered. Some of the children stared hard at him as if they couldn't quite understand how he could paint so well. At school the next day the same children were telling the others all about it, acting as if they had witnessed some great event. "Sir, please show us the picture you were painting yesterday," they then asked. Seizo was gradually finding out all sorts of things about the area. He knew, among other things, that there was a house deep in the woods in a totally unexpected spot. He knew too that beyond the oak hedge of a wealthy farmer's house was a little stream thick with willows, and that here was the house of the most capable of the senior second-year students, a girl. The house had a well that was thickly grown with grass, with a bucket hanging there. Seizo had been passing by once when the girl came out. "Ah, so this is your house," he remarked, and continued on his way. The girl called out to her mother: "Mother, Sensei's passing!" Her mother was down at the stream, facing away, busy doing some washing. Along the road to Kazo there were fields, there were woods, and there were rows of black alders. On one occasion Seizo found some richly colored violets blooming in a wood of oaks. He dug them out by the roots, and on his return transplanted them into a pot which he then put on his desk. On the outskirts of the village the road ran through a flat stretch of paddy fields, and

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here its dust would swirl up at even the gentlest of breezes. From time to time weary travelers and carts going the round of the weaving houses would pass by. One night the fire bell in front of the school rang furiously. A vague red glow could be seen in the sky beyond the bamboo grove. Presently it was learned that the fire was over in Teko Woods. Two days later on one of his walks Seizo suddenly found himself standing in front of a burned-down house there. "Ah, so this is the house that recently burned," he thought to himself. The site stood beside the road to the village, and a little thatched hut had now been erected in one corner. Ashes and half-burned posts lay scattered among the fire-ravaged ruins, and at the half-burned well sluice a woman with her sleeves rolled up was busy washing food bowls. Villagers were coming and going at the hut. Seizo walked on, contemplating this abrupt incident in the peaceful countryside. He found himself thinking that the carelessness of one night had resulted in a great setback in the fortunes of the family concerned. In the countryside, where money was precious, rebuilding a house meant for some a lifetime of hard labor. He compared his friends in Kumagaya and Gyoda, who concerned themselves only with achieving fame and erudition, with people like these unfortunates, who led such a hard life. He went on to imagine the life of those great men who appeared every day in the newspapers. He did want to become a great man, and he did want to lead a splendid life. And yet, there were any number of people who led a mundane life. There was no absolute need for him to pursue fame to the point of sacrificing the happiness of his family, the happiness of his helpless mother. He would rather content himself with a mundane existence. Such were his thoughts as he walked along. He also went to look at the canal where, on that cold day, the old man had frozen to death with his body stuck in the mud. The reeds and miscanthus were putting out new buds, and frogs jumped with a splash into the water. There was a ruined old shrine in the woods, Fuji could be seen clearly from the edge of the trees, and beautiful blooms of milk vetch spread out across the fields. Living as he did Seizo also got to hear all sorts of local stories, even without particularly listening for them. There was the story of the woman who, worried about family matters, threw herself into the watercourse; there was the tale of the local nurse-

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maid who was lured into the woods by a traveler and raped; he heard the story of the gang of three robbers who, armed with swords, broke into a wealthy farmer's house, tied up the farmer and his wife, and stole his money; then there was the tale of the cocoon dealer who committed love suicide with a barmaid. The more Seizo heard stories like these, the more he discovered sadness and bitterness in the life of the village that he had believed to be so peaceful. What with the relationship between landowner and tenant, the great gap between rich and poor, and so on, he gradually came to realize that even the countryside, which he had thought to be a place where one could live a life of pure ideals embraced in the gentle bosom of nature, was after all an arena of strife, a world of greed. He also came to understand that the countryside was unexpectedly lewd, immoral, and dirty. This sort of thing was frequently encountered in local gossip. Seizo was forever hearing about what some girl had been up to, or about some married woman having an affair with someone, or about someone somewhere keeping a mistress on the quiet, or about endless quarrels between husband and wife over some woman. Moreover, he sometimes found proof with his own eyes that these rumors were not entirely without foundation. One day he took the children along once again to the banks of the Tone River, and that evening he wrote the following new-style verse in his diary: The sun sets away over the pine grove: This lonely village, By the gently flowing Tone, Has been my new abode for a year. Abandoning fleeting love and the world, Living alone free from worldly desire, Would that my sad song Might be heard. From time to time he fell into this sort of sentimentality, but this was not all that he felt in his heart. He also listened with interest to the stories of the young men of the village who, late at night, went

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off to the licensed brothels in Nakada, some ten miles away across the river from Kurihashi. The old teacher who commuted from Ogoe would talk very freely after a drink of sake and had told him about this red-light district that was relatively close to Ogoe. The two prefectures of Gunma and Saitama had traditionally been strongly in favor of abolishing prostitution, so there were no licensed quarters in their areas of jurisdiction and only unlicensed brothels to be found there. The Fukui district in Ashikaga was a long way away, while the Aramachi district in Sano was awkward to get to, so when the young men of the village wanted to visit licensed quarters they had no alternative but the towns of Koga and Nakada in Ibaraki Prefecture. To get to Nakada one could take the coach as far as Ogoe, from where one followed the banks of the Tone for some five miles before crossing over the river almost directly into Nakada. "I suppose there'd be some five or six establishments there. In the past, when the Oshu road was in its heyday, it was a pretty lively place, but it's not much nowadays. I used to go there a lot when I was younger. I'd always cross the Tone in the evening, and it was really nice seeing the clouds of the sunset reflected in the water." The old teacher grinned as he spoke. At times he also made remarks like: "Young men nowadays are just too serious. Perhaps it's because they study such a lot that they think this sort of thing's a bit too silly for them. And when they do get involved with a girl, they get really hopelessly involved and even end up destroying themselves. You know, it's not necessarily a good thing for a young man just to shut himself away reading. Isn't it a fact that that is what leads to nervous debility, and to suicides like that recent one at the Kegon Falls? What good is it to churn out just a whole lot of anemic young men with lofty ideas and scholastic ability? Young men've got to have enough vitality at least to enjoy themselves." When Seizo was in the duty room looking lonely and miserable and simply reading books, the old teacher cheerily remarked: "Too much study's not good for your lungs, you know. You should get out and enjoy yourself a bit. School teachers are only human after all. You can't live life properly when you're too bound up in morals and ethics." It was this same teacher who told him how the principal had gotten involved with some dreadful barmaid in Kawagoe just when he had graduated from normal school and

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before meeting his wife. He had changed schools when the story came out. He also told how another normal school graduate, who had been teaching at the school till recently, had fallen for the girl at the Ogawa Inn and had gone chasing after her every night. After moving to the duty room Seizo saw and heard all sorts of aspects of real life. He gradually came to learn things that he could not possibly have learned when he'd been at middle school, or at his parents' house, or among his circle of friends, or at his lodgings at the isolated temple. It was about the time that the rice-planting songs echoed through the fields that he first went walking over to Hotto. The blossoms had fallen, and young leaves filled the village with fresh color. The young men of the village stood on the corner talking to the girls working at their looms. The girls carried on plying their loom reeds and pretended they weren't interested. A couple of carts stood in front of the weaving house, and the deep blue threads that were hung out on the drying racks were bathed in the glorious sunshine of early summer. There was a smell of indigo in the air. The sweet sound of singing came faintly from beyond a bamboo grove. Seizo got a completely different impression here from that of the road to Kazo. There, all was quiet. Very little was going on, and there were few girls about. In contrast to that general quietness, here every house was noisy with the nonstop sound of weaving. Out among the fields some way away from the village itself stood a little cafe, and in the evenings there were always several young men in there drinking. They would be chatting idly with the proprietor, who looked to be a fairly rough sort. His wife would be yelling at a dirty, runny-nosed child. To the right of Hotto were a number of little hamlets, namely, Shimomuragimi, Tsutsumi, and Namura. They were really only straggles of straw-thatched cottages. Just at this point the Tone River curved a little to the north, so it was some considerable distance to get right to its banks. Along those banks grew red pines, just as at the embankment in Hotto. Bamboo also grew thickly there. Thistles and wild pinks flowered in its dewy fields. The locals often saw Seizo strolling leisurely along the embankment there. They also saw him sitting on the grass among the pines, gazing vacantly at the white sails moving gently past before

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him. "The teacher looks terribly miserable—he probably needs a woman," said one spirited old lady who lived close by the embankment. Some of the weaving girls too made much of Seizo's good looks, and waited eagerly for the chance to watch him pass by. Just at the edge of the hamlet of Shimomuragimi was a house with half-opened Yamato shoji, and here a young woman worked busily at her loom all day. She was a round-faced, bright-eyed girl of about eighteen or nineteen, with shapely eyebrows. Seizo always went out of his way to make a point of passing her house. She would return his look. On one occasion an incident took place. Seizo was making his way back down toward Hotto from the pines on the embankment, when a group of three weaving girls approached him from the opposite direction. They giggled as he drew nearer. One of the girls nudged one of the others, who in turn nudged the other. Seizo simply continued on his way, using his walking stick with a flourish, and merely thought to himself how strange their behavior was. On both sides of the road down the slope of the embankment the fresh leaves on the oaks sparkled beautifully in the light of the evening sun. As Seizo passed the girls they stood to one side and watched him, looking as if they could barely hold back from laughing. He now realized they were making fun of him, but he didn't feel particularly upset about it. Nor did he feel insulted or embarrassed. Rather, he felt in fact like teasing them back, such was his lighthearted mood. A few yards further on the girls burst out in giggles. When Seizo turned round the eldest of them was looking at him suggestively, a smile on her face. When he smiled back they boldly came a few steps toward him. "It's the school teacher!" said one. "It's Hayashi-san!" "It's that nice boy Hayashi-san!" Seizo was surprised that they knew his name as well. And to be called a nice boy too—he was amazed. When he looked round again from the corner of the road he saw the girls standing together at the top of the slope staring after him. Seizo remembered having heard that across the river in the Kozuke region, in the town of Akaiwa, the behavior of the girls was so bad that it was impossible for single male teachers to work there. Apparently, if a bachelor boarded there, on summer eve-

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nings half a dozen girls would descend on him and drag him off somewhere. There was nothing for it but to keep the doors locked. So Seizo had been told by someone who'd taught there. He smiled to himself as he walked on. There were a couple of unlicensed brothels there in Hotto too. During the day the girls could be seen around, looking horribly pale and slovenly, but when night came they put on their makeup and, looking very pretty and like entirely different women, gave the customers a lively time. In summer a bench was set out beneath the trellis in front of the establishments, and the moonflowers stood out clearly in the evening light. "Where've you been lately?" "I've just been too busy." "I know what's been going onl All that talk!" "So tell me then." "Damn you, you womanizer!" There was the sound of the girl hitting the man on the shoulder. "Hey, that hurts, you fool!" The man tried to hit back. The girl tried to avoid his blows. They grappled with each other. The girl's body was at an angle, and her legs stuck out from the bench, revealing a red underskirt and white thighs. Seizo walked past trying not to notice. The nights in particular held surprises for him. Groups of men and girls stood talking along the roadside. White yukata appeared here, there, and everywhere through the dusk. The sound of laughter was pervasive. The summer holidays arrived. Obata and Ikuji had successfully passed the entrance examination for normal school and were due to go up to Tokyo in September. Sakurai had gotten into the industrial college in Asakusa. Seizo had heard of these successes around May, and trying as much as possible not to reveal the anguish in his heart, he had sent them all very calm and restrained standard letters of congratulation. In June, when he had gone back to Gyoda, he had briefly met Ikuji, but the intimacy of old was no longer there. Naturally, they still spoke very openly to each other when they did meet, but they simply didn't seem to have much to talk over and consequently met only occasionally. Seizo also met Mihoko on one occasion. Her cheeks had grown

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plumper, and she had a gentle look in her eyes. But this now had little effect on Seizo, whose thoughts no longer dwelled so strongly upon her. He simply greeted her as he would any female acquaintance and passed on his way. The middle of August came along, and Ikuji went to Tokyo. Ishikawa had been ill of late and he too had gone away, to Kamakura. Of Seizo's friends in Kumagaya, all that were left were those with whom, at school, he had not been particularly close. Seizo too felt a bit restless and gave some thought to taking a trip somewhere, but, unable to stand by and look upon his mother's financial difficulties with the housekeeping, he had handed over five yen and now had very little money left. He didn't even think he could manage a trip to the nearby mountains. And so, on the twentieth of the month, thinking that the well-ventilated duty room at the school would be easier to sleep in than the small and stuffy house in Gyoda, he went back to Miroku. On the way he called at the Jogan Temple for the first time in ages, and found the priest taking a midday nap. They talked in the ten-mat room, which was nice and airy. The priest brought out some beer and made a real fuss of him. Then suddenly a beautiful girl of about sixteen appeared, light complexioned with a low pompadour hairstyle and wearing a purple silk feather-patterned kimono and white tabi. On the way back he met Ogyu-san and asked him about the girl. "Oh, that's the priest's niece. She's over from Tokyo for the summer holidays. She's certainly a bit different from the girls raised out here in the cloddish old countryside, isn't she. There's something very sophisticated about her." Ogyu-san laughed as he spoke. He was still the same old Ogyusan. He went off to buy some rice cakes from the cake shop in town for a little treat. Through all the heat he was going about his many duties at the post office without a holiday and without complaint. Nor was he jealous of those of their friends who were heading off to Tokyo. In Seizo's opinion there would be few who could match Ogyu when it came to resigning oneself with good grace to one's lot in life, yet he also felt something frustrating about him. He was amazed that his friend could live like he did, with no pleasures or indulgences. That day Seizo remarked to him, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm getting a bit bored. How about

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going off to an inn somewhere for a drink, perhaps even with some girls?" His friend declined with the reply, "It's drinking that's boring." Seizo returned to the school along that hot and dusty shadeless road with a feeling of dissatisfaction.

30

T

X he Bon dancing was very lively. The sky was clear, and the nights of watery moonlight continued one after the other. The singing was accompanied by the beat of a sake barrel used as a drum, and it seemed close enough to touch. There was no way Seizo could sit alone in the duty room listening to such merriment. He gave in to its lure and set off there at once. The dancing was taking place in a square in the center of the village. People flocked there from far and near. When the drumming on the barrel started, men and women, their heads wrapped in white towels, joined hands in a circle and started dancing in tune with the beat. With the rhythm so ably led, everyone was keen to join in. The ranks swelled noticeably from nine o'clock on. When any of the dancers grew tired, there was no lack of replacements. The circle grew larger and larger. The drumming grew louder and louder. The now-high moon shone right across to the village square from the open fields beyond, and dancers flitted in and out of the shadows cast by the trees. The village was a mass of people. Seizo was put in mind of the dancing parties depicted in the Manydshu. The men all had partners as they strolled about. They were openly saying the lewdest things. The atmosphere was one of forgetting the cares of the world to make the most of a night of freedom. From the party came the light of lanterns, the sound of laughter. A group of several girls approached, and Seizo suddenly felt his sleeve being pulled. "It's the school teacher!" 128

going off to an inn somewhere for a drink, perhaps even with some girls?" His friend declined with the reply, "It's drinking that's boring." Seizo returned to the school along that hot and dusty shadeless road with a feeling of dissatisfaction.

30

T

X he Bon dancing was very lively. The sky was clear, and the nights of watery moonlight continued one after the other. The singing was accompanied by the beat of a sake barrel used as a drum, and it seemed close enough to touch. There was no way Seizo could sit alone in the duty room listening to such merriment. He gave in to its lure and set off there at once. The dancing was taking place in a square in the center of the village. People flocked there from far and near. When the drumming on the barrel started, men and women, their heads wrapped in white towels, joined hands in a circle and started dancing in tune with the beat. With the rhythm so ably led, everyone was keen to join in. The ranks swelled noticeably from nine o'clock on. When any of the dancers grew tired, there was no lack of replacements. The circle grew larger and larger. The drumming grew louder and louder. The now-high moon shone right across to the village square from the open fields beyond, and dancers flitted in and out of the shadows cast by the trees. The village was a mass of people. Seizo was put in mind of the dancing parties depicted in the Manydshu. The men all had partners as they strolled about. They were openly saying the lewdest things. The atmosphere was one of forgetting the cares of the world to make the most of a night of freedom. From the party came the light of lanterns, the sound of laughter. A group of several girls approached, and Seizo suddenly felt his sleeve being pulled. "It's the school teacher!" 128

"It's Hayashi-san!" "It's nice boy Hayashi-san!" "It's Hayashi-sensei!" The voices surrounded him, and then a mere second later he had both his hands grabbed and found himself pushed from behind into a circle of locked white arms, which dragged him off as he struggled. "What're you doing, you idiots?" But his protests were to no avail. The moon shone down clearly on this struggling group. A cacophony of girls' voices filled the air. "Hey, the girls have got the school teacher!" laughed a passerby. The drumming on the barrel was in tune with the singing, growing livelier and livelier.

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TX he Autumn Imperial Remembrance Day fell on a Saturday, so the school was closed for two days in a row. The weather was fine on the first morning of the holiday. That day Seizo went over to Ogoe, to the old teacher's house, and drank beer there. It was after four o'clock when he set out on the way back. The coach from Hanyu, bathed in the late afternoon sun, had just deposited its passengers in the street out front, which, with its old and dirty low eaves, did not differ greatly from the scene in Miroku. Next to a grimy-looking cafe with a display of lemonade bottles stood a large old building that sold plowshares and horse gear and the like. The fields beyond were swarming with red dragonflies. The banks of the Tone River were very close at this point, no more than two or three hundred yards away. Something suddenly seemed to have come to Seizo's mind; he turned off down a narrow road to the right, heading toward the embankment. The next day was Sunday. He did have things to attend to in Gyoda, but 129

"It's Hayashi-san!" "It's nice boy Hayashi-san!" "It's Hayashi-sensei!" The voices surrounded him, and then a mere second later he had both his hands grabbed and found himself pushed from behind into a circle of locked white arms, which dragged him off as he struggled. "What're you doing, you idiots?" But his protests were to no avail. The moon shone down clearly on this struggling group. A cacophony of girls' voices filled the air. "Hey, the girls have got the school teacher!" laughed a passerby. The drumming on the barrel was in tune with the singing, growing livelier and livelier.

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TX he Autumn Imperial Remembrance Day fell on a Saturday, so the school was closed for two days in a row. The weather was fine on the first morning of the holiday. That day Seizo went over to Ogoe, to the old teacher's house, and drank beer there. It was after four o'clock when he set out on the way back. The coach from Hanyu, bathed in the late afternoon sun, had just deposited its passengers in the street out front, which, with its old and dirty low eaves, did not differ greatly from the scene in Miroku. Next to a grimy-looking cafe with a display of lemonade bottles stood a large old building that sold plowshares and horse gear and the like. The fields beyond were swarming with red dragonflies. The banks of the Tone River were very close at this point, no more than two or three hundred yards away. Something suddenly seemed to have come to Seizo's mind; he turned off down a narrow road to the right, heading toward the embankment. The next day was Sunday. He did have things to attend to in Gyoda, but 129

there was nothing that meant he absolutely had to go. He had told both the old teacher and the principal that he would be away today and the next day. In his pocket he had his recently received fortnight's pay. Now was a good moment, he thought, trembling in spite of himself at the prospect of a certain new plan he had in mind. He climbed the embankment and saw the Tone sparkling beautifully in the late afternoon sun. Perhaps it was because he was excited over this new plan, but somehow the sparkle of the waves, their coloration, and the rich shadows round about all seemed to him to match perfectly his own palpitating heart. Half-filled sails, bright in the sunlight, went past slowly and gently on their way down the broad and truly majestic river, while floating overhead were huge white clouds such as could only be seen in early autumn. On the far side were houses and white-walled sheds and trees and the other embankment, all standing out sharply in the richness of the air. Grasshoppers sang in the grass at the water's edge. Here and there on the embankment stood groves of pine and oak and straw-thatched farmhouses, and there was also the shed for the ferryboat. On the ferryboat itself were two carts such as one often saw in the district going round the weaving houses, a bicycle, a couple of parasols, and a man of about fifty—probably a merchant—who was using his hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the late afternoon sun. Just downriver from where the ferry crossed was a shoal, its ripples sparkling beautifully. The road was long. At each change in the clouds overhead and in the gentle currents in the water the whole atmosphere of the river seemed to change. The sun sank gradually lower, the water gradually turned a purplish grey, and the shadows in the air took on a richness and depth that seemed to penetrate the very body. As he watched his own shadow stretching away over the grass Seizo kept hesitating, stopping to rebuke himself and to criticize his own degeneracy. He thought about his home in Gyoda and his friends in Tokyo. And then he took out from his pocket his sweat-stained purse, and smiled to himself as he checked that his fortnight's pay was definitely there. He'd heard somewhere that two yen was more than enough. He also knew that the Seiyoro was the biggest establishment in Nakada, and that the girls there were pretty.

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Something powerful within him was telling him to stop, but something even more powerful was urging him on. Even as heart and mind fought one another within him, and emotion grappled with reason, ideals with desire, he carried on ahead as though his body were being dragged forward by this great force. Where the Tone and Watarase rivers met the waterway was truly vast, and worthy indeed of its nickname, King of the Kanto Region. The late afternoon sun had set leaving just a vague light on the far bank, while the earlier clouds were now floating indistinctly overhead, mere scattered patches with reddened edges. White sails were gliding languidly over the deep green of the river. Wearing a white splash-patterned outfit with a thin silk haori and his cheap straw hat, Seizo hurried along the grassy road of the embankment where bell insects chirped and grasshoppers sang and jumped. In the early evening air his lone, slender figure was conspicuous against the broad and majestic river beyond. Beans and sorghum grew thickly in the constantly wet flatland between the embankment and the river. He suddenly heard a vague rumbling spreading over the river, and saw ahead of him a train crossing the huge steel Kurihashi Bridge, sending clouds of white steam into the air. By the time he had descended from the embankment and entered the little hamlet of Hatai it was quite dark, and lights had started to come on. In one farmhouse the young wife had brought the bathtub out into the garden and was splashing about in it, revealing her full white breasts in the darkness and muttering something to herself about how exceptionally summerlike the evening seemed. As Seizo crossed the railway track at the level crossing the watchman held out his white flag, then shortly after he'd crossed, the uptrain came noisily through. Several times along the road he asked the way to the ferry across to Nakada. He drew courage from the darkness, and now had no misgivings. Suddenly he spotted a dirty-looking cafe on the side of the road and stopped for a beer and several bowls of noodles. The proprietor's wife was kind enough to go out into the street with him and show him the way to the ferry. The light of the ten-day-old moon shone from over the trees on the far bank, and broke into beautiful fragments where the ripples of the river met the side of the boat at the ferry wharf. From time 131

to time a chill wind blew, and the boat's sculling oar creaked softly as it moved through the water. The two-storied houses on the bank stood out stark and black against the moonlight. In spite of himself Seizo's heart raced at the sound of the music and singing which came echoing across the river. The faces of the other people on board all seemed pale in the moonlight. The light of the captain's pipe glowed a lone red as he bent over his sculling oar. Ten minutes later Seizo was standing outside the latticework front of an establishment where heavily madeup girls in gaudy red attire stood on display. He walked about outside, going from one establishment to another. Venturing beyond the lattice meant getting his sleeves almost torn from his haori. He shrugged his shoulders as he drew a mental comparison between these unfortunate girls, who nightly greeted their clients, and his own wretched self, come here to assuage his thirsting flesh and hungering heart. The streets of the licensed district were full of casual visitors. There were shouts of "Hey! Hallo there!" when a familiar visitor was spotted. There were those who were chatting away about something, lounging against the latticework. There were those who entered resolutely and clumped up the stairs. And from upstairs came the lively sound of the shamisen and hand drum. He soon came to the end of the half-dozen brothels. In the last one, set slightly back from the road and with a bowl of sweet rush next to its lattice front, there were two or three girls of decidedly rustic appearance, round and plump with their makeup thickly and clumsily applied. Beyond this establishment were half a dozen low-built, straw-thatched residential houses and then the dark fields. At this point Seizo turned back. He pictured the various girls he had seen as he passed and had a couple in mind as possible choices if and when he went into one of the establishments. And yet, somehow he could not bring himself to go in. However much he made up his mind to do so, and however much he censured himself for his timidity, he could not actually bring himself, with it being his first time, to take that step inside. He now walked back down the street with a deliberate, purposeful step such as to suggest that he was not one of those casual customers. Nevertheless, he took note of those girls on display who had taken his fancy. He reached the riverbank, by the ferry wharf, and stood there

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for a while. The moonlight scattered beautifully on the wharf, where a load of passengers were disembarking from the boat that had just arrived. He thought about simply returning straightaway again on the ferry, but then felt that it would be defeatist to retreat like that, without achieving his aim. It would be absurd to go back now after all the trouble he'd gone to to get here, after that long and hot five-mile walk along the embankment. He didn't want simply to go straight back again. He dillied and dallied there on the bank, walking around one moment, sitting down the next, while the ferry went off and came back once again. Then he stood up and set off with an air of resolution. A couple of brothel touts were standing outside one of the establishments. A large lantern there shone brightly on him. The eyes of the girls on display were all turned on him. The voices calling from inside were also somehow focused on him. He was presently led through into an empty room and was asked, "Which one?" He somehow managed to get out the words, "Second from the right." The girl second from the right was called Shizue. She was rather slight in build with a light complexion and thick hair and was a money-maker for the establishment. The space between her eyebrows somehow reminded him of Mihoko. This was a new and fascinating world for Seizo. The reception room was interesting, the way the girl came straight in and sat down right next to the client was extraordinary, and it seemed funny that the food merely consisted of a few sushi brought in on a huge plate. So that the girl wouldn't realize it was his first time, Seizo cracked jokes that he didn't really appreciate and tried to make out that he was a man of the world in such matters. But the middle-aged woman who supervised the brothel knew straightaway that he was inexperienced by the way he sat, simply drinking sake. The toilet was at the foot of the stairs. There was a bowl of sweet rush there and a hanging fern. A medium-wicked lamp shone brightly inside its glass casing. The red-strapped straw sandals placed there were not exactly wet, but somehow they seemed damp. The toilet pan was large and splendid; it was of porcelain with a blue pattern on it. Mixed in with the smell of Arbos disinfectant was a stench which struck the nose and eyes. The girl's room was a six-mat one upstairs at the back. There 133

was an old chest of drawers there. The hibachi had an ash pan of tin, and there was a cheap locally made kettle on it. Beside it was a copy of the girls' magazine Jogaku Sekai. Seizo picked it up and found it to be the previous year's June issue. "Do you read this sort of thing then? Most commendable," said Seizo, at which the girl smiled sweetly. Seizo thought she was beautiful when she smiled. Out through the back of the room was a drying area, on which the moonlight slanted down. From next door came the lively sound of shamisen and drum.

32 H e stayed until the following afternoon. As he left, the girl came to see him off, and said to him, almost in a whisper, "You must come again soon, really." He was full of the story of her misfortune, which she had told him in bed the previous night. He was worried about crossing on the ferry over to Kurihashi and going back along the same road as yesterday. He couldn't be sure that he wouldn't meet an acquaintance along the embankment. It would be considered most odd that after he had said he was going to Gyoda he was now seen walking from the opposite direction. And so he took instead the road toward Torikui, which he had asked about the previous night. The girl had told him, with a frankness not at all to be expected in a first encounter, all about her parents, who lived just outside Koga. Apparently Torikui was on the route to her parents' house. It lay on the banks of the Watarase River, and from it there was a ferry across to Hongo in Kozuke. From there it was some five miles to Otakashima, so it might well be quicker than going via Kurihashi anyway. And so Seizo's straw-hatted figure could be seen walking through the fields of reddening mulberry on that treeless expanse of low-lying land that was inundated every year when the river was in flood. Ahead of him lay paddy fields and dry fields. Grasshoppers sang in the clumps of grass on the river flats.

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was an old chest of drawers there. The hibachi had an ash pan of tin, and there was a cheap locally made kettle on it. Beside it was a copy of the girls' magazine Jogaku Sekai. Seizo picked it up and found it to be the previous year's June issue. "Do you read this sort of thing then? Most commendable," said Seizo, at which the girl smiled sweetly. Seizo thought she was beautiful when she smiled. Out through the back of the room was a drying area, on which the moonlight slanted down. From next door came the lively sound of shamisen and drum.

32 H e stayed until the following afternoon. As he left, the girl came to see him off, and said to him, almost in a whisper, "You must come again soon, really." He was full of the story of her misfortune, which she had told him in bed the previous night. He was worried about crossing on the ferry over to Kurihashi and going back along the same road as yesterday. He couldn't be sure that he wouldn't meet an acquaintance along the embankment. It would be considered most odd that after he had said he was going to Gyoda he was now seen walking from the opposite direction. And so he took instead the road toward Torikui, which he had asked about the previous night. The girl had told him, with a frankness not at all to be expected in a first encounter, all about her parents, who lived just outside Koga. Apparently Torikui was on the route to her parents' house. It lay on the banks of the Watarase River, and from it there was a ferry across to Hongo in Kozuke. From there it was some five miles to Otakashima, so it might well be quicker than going via Kurihashi anyway. And so Seizo's straw-hatted figure could be seen walking through the fields of reddening mulberry on that treeless expanse of low-lying land that was inundated every year when the river was in flood. Ahead of him lay paddy fields and dry fields. Grasshoppers sang in the clumps of grass on the river flats.

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At the Watarase River ferry crossing red clouds were softly reflected in the river. On the far bank was a figure dressed in a traveler's coat and dust-covered blue leggings—no doubt an itinerant merchant—trudging wearily along carrying a great pack. From here the confluence of the two great rivers, the Tone and the Watarase, could be seen particularly clearly. Beyond the steel Kurihashi Bridge Seizo could also make out the roofs of the Nakada brothels. He stood there for a while thinking about the girl he had just left. The road passed through the little village of Hongo and came out atop the embankment again. Yesterday he had followed the river downstream along one bank, and today he was following it upstream along the other. He compared his present feelings with his feelings of that previous day. Sharp, racy feelings then, and calmed, tired feelings now. There was only the difference of a single day, but whereas the river still flowed on in the same way and with the same colors, he felt that he himself had now crossed, in that interval of time, a deep and previously unexperienced divide. He also felt a certain sense of regret that he had now fallen into degeneracy. On the riverbank at Mugikura there was a cool-looking tea shop. Tall horse chestnut trees gave it shade, and bottles of lemonade stood there in cold water. Seizo had some lemonade and two pears, which he peeled himself, and then laid himself out for a nap on a shady bench that was covered with a flower-patterned mat. He was quite worn out, having hardly slept the previous night, and he felt a little dizzy. A cool and pleasant breeze came up from the river, and the blue sky peeped through the leaves overhead. He soon drifted off to sleep as he gazed up at it. While he lay there asleep all sorts of things went on at the local Tone River ferry crossing. The old lady from the tea shop chased off in alarm a cat that was just about to pounce on one of the chickens, and the cat then went off into the mulberry fields and yowled. The ferryboat came and went, depositing and collecting all manner of people. There were wealthy young men with bicycles and laborers pulling carts laden with cloth. Several boats carrying bricks for the town of Akaiwa further upstream were poled laboriously against the current, poles bent like bows, and they were passed by numerous sailing craft cleaving their way

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through the water. After an hour or so the old lady had gone out back to throw out some rubbish, and at that stage her customer had been sleeping peacefully on the bench with his feet dangling to the ground, his face upturned and his mouth slightly open; but by the time some local young men who had gone off fishing returned with their creels hanging heavy, he had both his legs curled up on the bench and was snoring loudly, his head resting on his arms. The afternoon sun shone brightly on the side of his face, sweat stood out on his brow, and his purse was revealed next to his exposed chest. It was after five o'clock when he woke up. The river was bathed in the colors of the approaching sunset. Seizo took out his silver watch and was surprised at how long he had slept. His purse had almost fallen out, and with a start he opened it and counted the contents. He had had six yen yesterday, but this was now reduced to two yen fifty sen. After a moment's pause for thought he took out a silver twenty-sen coin, paid the old lady his bill of seven sen for two bottles of lemonade and three sen for two pears, and left as a tip one of the two five-sen copper coins he received as change. The sun was very low in the sky by the time he crossed on the ferry at Otakashima. He returned to the school in Miroku not by the main Ogoe road but by a circuitous and obscure route through the fields so as to avoid as far as possible being seen by anyone. As soon as he caught sight of Seizo on his return, the caretaker remarked: "Ogyu-san came for you. Did you meet up with him?" "No . . ." "He said that if you were going to Gyoda you were sure to call in and see him at Hanyu, and he thought it was a bit odd that you hadn't. And now you say you didn't bump into him on the way back either?" "No, I didn't . . ." "He waited for you for a while, and then went back at about three o'clock, thinking you might perhaps be waiting for him in Hanyu." "Oh, I see. Well, the thing is, I didn't call at his place in Hanyu." With this remark Seizo took off his haori.

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33 H e went again the following Saturday. On that day too Ogyusan paid him a visit and found once again that he was out. His parents back in Gyoda had also been writing asking him to come over, saying that there were things to attend to there. However, since he didn't show up, the next time his father went over to Kazo he went out of his way to call on Seizo. His father found that nothing appeared to have greatly changed. Seizo said that he had been busy marking grades of late. He also excused himself for not having sent his usual monthly amount the previous month on the grounds that he had just bought some books, and showed his father a book that lay on the desk. Seizo's father hung on the crossbeam a landscape by Buncho, which he said he had been requested to sell on behalf of a certain client, and casually remarked as he looked at it, "There's certainly something a bit odd about it, but . . . I dare say that with something like this there should be no real problem." According to his mother's letters the family finances were in a really critical state, but his father's manner didn't seem to suggest this. However, he did ask to borrow fifty sen on his departure. Seizo had only sixty sen in his purse. He had to have enough at least for a bath till the end of the month, so he kept twenty sen for himself and gave all the rest to his father. His father took up his pack on his shoulders and set off out through the school gate, the late afternoon sun glinting on his balding head. It was difficult for Seizo to get through those remaining days without money, but at least he was not lonely in his heart. Morning, noon, and night he thought about the girl, with her long red robe and widely spaced eyebrows and light complexion. At each memory of her he was filled with tender words and feelings. From their first meeting she had shown herself to be very responsive to Seizo's outstanding looks and kindly manner, and each time he went there her feelings intensified. Seizo could hardly wait for the end of the month. He was particularly upset that he couldn't eat his fill of cakes. He always kept rice cakes and biscuits and bean jelly and suchlike in the drawer of his desk, but now there was nothing in there but a

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few remnants of red and blue powder. He was obliged to make do with a few sens' worth of peanuts, and with calling on his nearby colleagues to enjoy a treat of cakes at their houses. Finally he persuaded the old lady at the cake shop to let him have credit till the end of the month. He carried on enthusiastically with his music. He had put quite a few scores together. The singing sessions at the school were his favorite periods, and he would stand at the organ setting the beat as if he were some great musician, and would get the children to sing some new verse which he had set to music. Even alone in his room he would sing to himself out of habit. He could recall one recent occasion when, drunk in the girl's room, he had given a rendition of "Tinkling Bells." The girl had listened intently in silence. Presently she had asked, "Is that a ballad?" That verse, recounting the youthful sorrows of the Nagano poet, was one which Seizo rendered at gatherings of young men as well as when he was out walking alone through the fields. He had even set it to the organ in front of the innocent young children. Now he also rendered it in the girl's little room. He explained the meaning of the verse to her and then recited it once again in a low voice. He remembered how it had inspired a gentle yet powerful sort of affection between them. Autumn visited the fields of Miroku again. A cheerless light filtered through the bamboo grove out front. The caretaker spent a whole day cleaning the classroom windows, and then the atmosphere seemed a lot fresher and richer. On fine days carts laden with harvested rice passed noisily along the roads through the fields. Every month he received some half-dozen letters from his friends now in Tokyo. From their various schools came verses pining for the autumn hills of home. They also wrote about how they thought of the feelings of their lonely friend, there in the quiet fields of Miroku, young children for his companions, gazing at the red clouds of sunset. Yet it was the feelings of Seizo, reaching out from the fields of Miroku to the capital, which were the stronger. He wrote back how he longed much more for the sunset clouds as seen from their schools and the rows of bright night-lights in the city. He had spent the previous autumn in the fields around Hanyu, 138

on the road to Gyoda, and eating noodles of fresh buckwheat in Kumagaya. Now, this year, he tasted the quiet of autumn on the road between Miroku and the banks of the Tone. He was now quite removed from the greenery of Mounts Akagi and Haruna, the haze on the peak of Asama, and the hills of Chichibu, all of which he had gazed upon from the rear of the main building of the temple in Hanyu, and now he watched instead, from the banks of the Tone, the late afternoon sun setting on the Ryomo Range that dominated Nikko. One day Ogyu-san came to see him. It was the day before Saturday. "You wouldn't happen to have any money on you, would you?" asked Seizo. Ogyu had only three yen. "I'm sorry to have to ask, but there's something I have to get for home, and I absolutely have to take it with me when I go back tomorrow. I still haven't had my pay yet, and I'm a bit stuck, so do you think you could see your way to helping me out with a little loan? I'll pay you right back as soon as I get my salary." Ogyu looked a little put out. "How much do you need?" "Just three yen." "That's all I've got here, and I've got to get something myself too." "In that case two yen would do." Ogyu ended up lending him one yen fifty sen. The next morning, with the same sort of approach, Seizo asked the old teacher for a loan of one yen fifty sen. "I'm down to this myself," the old man laughed and jingled his purse, which contained just a few coppers. Seki had no money either. After some hesitation Seizo ended up asking the principal. He got his loan. No one knew that the previous morning, along with his newspaper from Gyoda, Seizo had received a sealed communication postmarked Nakada, written in an unfamiliar male hand. In the afternoon he set off for—so he said—his home in Gyoda, but before reaching Izumi he turned to the right and headed off through the woods and fields. Presently his old trilby hat could be seen among the pines on the banks of the Tone. He was one of those on the ferry across to Otakashima. 139

34 H e made the trip over the Watarase at least twice a month. Autumn gradually wore on and the leaves fell, scattered from the oaks. The clumps of reeds where the insects had sung gradually withered, and the white heads of the pampas grass sparkled like silver. White herons came down on the sand banks exposed on the river flats, and a cold wind blew across the now purplish grey river. The bench was no longer left outside the old lady's tea shop in Mugikura. The roof of the little place was almost buried in the yellow leaves fallen from the horse chestnuts. The sound of busy winnowing no longer came from the farmyards, and the wind that came blowing over the embankment was cold. The frequency with which Seizo walked that long road was a reflection of the developing intensity of his feelings for the girl. The memories were gradually accumulating. He remembered how he had once, on his way back, sought shelter from the rain in a handy farmhouse in Hongo Village. He remembered too crossing back over to Kurihashi late one night and walking back along the embankment to Ogoe. It was not just a few times either that he had been tormented by her hard-to-fathom female heart. He eventually came to experience for the first time the jealousy of one who visits the licensed quarters and the unhappiness at the girl's being rotated among the clients. He would wait and wait, yet she would not come to him. Others were having their way with the girl he loved. She had said she belonged entirely to him, but he had doubts as to whether this was really true. He gradually came to appreciate all of the doubts a man has toward a woman. And she, being a woman, would from time to time reveal profound and special feelings in proportion to his suspicions and skillfully win his heart. "That's the last time I go! They're making a business out of flattering a man's feelings. They have hearts that are able to perform at will. All the emotions and laughter and flattery I receive are given in exactly the same way to the man in the next room. I won't go back, whatever happens. I only wish I hadn't spent all that money!" He would sometimes come back indignant

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like this, but it was an oversimplistic and hasty interpretation of complex feelings, and he gradually came to realize that there was something more serious and intriguing in the girl's heart. Amid laughter and tears and vexation their relationship grew richer in color and memories. Seizo learned of at least three other clients that the girl had. One was the son of a shipping agent in Kurihashi—of a wealthy family by all accounts—and he often turned up in his stiff merchant's obi and spectacles and deerstalker. He was a good-looking man, light in complexion and slim built. Another was a clerk of the law court in Koga. He was in his mid-thirties and had a wife and children at home, but he was a hard-drinking pleasure seeker at heart and never went more than three days without a visit. The girl seemed greatly put out by his persistence, and would make up to Seizo with remarks like, "He is a client so there's not much I can do about it, but it upsets me to think that my job means that I have to put up with people like him. You must get me out of here, and quickly!" At such times Seizo would reply with an out-ofcharacter comment like, "What if I asked our friend from Kurihashi to get you away?" At which she would invariably give him a sharp slap on the knee and put on her usual offended expression. The third man was the son of a wealthy farmer in Tsukazaki. Country brothels being far from perfectly constructed, his visits could be observed with ease. He had a round face that was somehow boyish and endearing. "He's a nice, kind man. I can't help thinking of him as a sort of younger brother," the girl remarked. There seemed to be other clients as well, but Seizo didn't know much about them. Apparently there was a middle-aged, whiskered man for one. Seizo tried to fathom who held pride of place in the girl's heart, but it was impossible to tell. At times he would think that it was he himself, then at other times he would feel he had just been tricked into thinking this. On one occasion the girl broke into tears and told him very earnestly about her unfortunate circumstances. The tears streamed from those dark eyes of hers. At the time Seizo thought hard about his own circumstances and his relationship with the girl. He was an elementary school teacher. It was a position that would be untenable if this sort of story got out. His family, moreover, was a poor one that barely struggled along in life. He knew from the start that it would be impossible for him

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and the girl to make a future together. It would be better for her sake if she were redeemed by someone, or went back home after seeing out her term of service. Seizo felt there was something extraordinary, something profoundly significant about the way in which this chance relationship had formed between the two of them. He went on to think about what would happen if he were to abandon both his present job and his poor family, abandon his poor mother who had no one to look to for support but himself, and take off with the girl. But just as he had been unable to abandon his mother for the sake of achieving fame and fortune and his youthful ambitions, so too was he now unable to consider such a thing seriously. The afternoon, as he made his way back, was a mixture of autumn showers and sunshine. He crossed the Watarase as usual and, as he reached the top of the other embankment, he spotted ahead of him a white-painted cargo boat heading down the Tone, filthy smoke pouring from its funnel and a white wake spreading out from its propeller. He could see a couple of crew members working on deck, dressed in dirty white uniforms. He stood there staring. The dirty, whitish smoke rose up in a smooth, thin column, and then the piercing blast of the steam whistle swept across the greyish water. The Tone flowed slowly and inexorably on, and Seizo was struck by the feeling—as written in the Analects—that it was rather like death.

35 w * , arrived, and the year drew to an end without anyone finding out about Seizo's visits to Nakada. There had, however, been several close calls in the meantime. One had been when he had caught sight of an acquaintance, one of the young men from Miroku, outside the brothel. On another occasion he had found himself on board the Otakashima ferry with a member of the Miroku school board. And yet another time, while walking along 142

and the girl to make a future together. It would be better for her sake if she were redeemed by someone, or went back home after seeing out her term of service. Seizo felt there was something extraordinary, something profoundly significant about the way in which this chance relationship had formed between the two of them. He went on to think about what would happen if he were to abandon both his present job and his poor family, abandon his poor mother who had no one to look to for support but himself, and take off with the girl. But just as he had been unable to abandon his mother for the sake of achieving fame and fortune and his youthful ambitions, so too was he now unable to consider such a thing seriously. The afternoon, as he made his way back, was a mixture of autumn showers and sunshine. He crossed the Watarase as usual and, as he reached the top of the other embankment, he spotted ahead of him a white-painted cargo boat heading down the Tone, filthy smoke pouring from its funnel and a white wake spreading out from its propeller. He could see a couple of crew members working on deck, dressed in dirty white uniforms. He stood there staring. The dirty, whitish smoke rose up in a smooth, thin column, and then the piercing blast of the steam whistle swept across the greyish water. The Tone flowed slowly and inexorably on, and Seizo was struck by the feeling—as written in the Analects—that it was rather like death.

35 w * , arrived, and the year drew to an end without anyone finding out about Seizo's visits to Nakada. There had, however, been several close calls in the meantime. One had been when he had caught sight of an acquaintance, one of the young men from Miroku, outside the brothel. On another occasion he had found himself on board the Otakashima ferry with a member of the Miroku school board. And yet another time, while walking along 142

the embankment at Ogoe, he had happened to bump into his colleague Seki-san. On that occasion he had really thought that his secret was out, and his heart had missed a beat. But Seki, aware of Seizo's fondness for walks, had not seemed particularly suspicious. However, his debts had started to pile up at places like the cake shop, the fishmonger's, the rice shop, and the Ogawa Inn. "What's the matter with Hayashi-san? He just hasn't been paying his way lately, and his bill's getting to be quite a problem," the manageress of the Ogawa Inn had remarked to the girl there. The old lady at the cake shop had also asked the school caretaker to remind Seizo about paying her without fail when he got his month's pay. And the caretaker, being the man he was, had started grumbling to himself about no longer getting leftover tidbits— "What's going on? Hayashi-san used to have a bit of money, but lately he hasn't bought any nice treats at all. All he ever has is tea and pickles and rice, and it's ages since he had any meat." And nowadays, when Seizo was visited by his colleague Seki-san, or by Ogyu-san from Hanyu, he no longer produced the customary beer. The first one to notice that something was the matter was, perhaps not surprisingly, his mother back in Gyoda. It wasn't just that when he did take the trouble to come the seven or so miles to see her, Seizo was always on edge. When his friends were back from Tokyo he showed no inclination to visit them, and even when someone tried to get a conversation going with him, as in the old days, he merely looked bored and didn't respond. He also gave excuses for not leaving his monthly contribution to the family finances. He didn't buy the magazines that he used to be so keen on, and he abandoned his account with the bookstore in town, where he had once been a regular customer. His mother had suspected that something was the matter with him of late, and in an attempt to read his feelings, she had been giving him some long, hard looks. On one occasion she remarked: "I hear tell that there's a certain very eligible girl around. Now that you've settled in a job, don't you feel like getting married?" Seizo stared at his mother. "What? I can hardly manage to feed myself even!" "That may be so, but there are any number of people who

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maintain a family on your level of income. There's no reason why we couldn't manage like everyone else, if we all moved in near the school and were careful with the money." "It's still too soon." "But living apart like this I can't tell what you're getting up to," she laughed. "And it can't be very nice for you either, living cooped up in the school all the time." "Mother, it's all very well for you to talk like that, but I do still have plans. I want to carry on studying for a while and at least get my license for teaching at middle school. I don't want a wife yet." "Well now, that sort of thing's really a bit ambitious, isn't it?" "Look, I don't want to be the only one to be left here in the nothingness of the countryside. I can't do anything about it for a year or two, but some day, some way, I'd like to go to Tokyo to study. I've been doing a fair bit of music recently, so I'm thinking about taking an exam in it next year. Getting married would just tie me down in the countryside." "And if you got into a college, what would you do about the fees?" "There are government scholarships for music school." "And what about us, your family?" "Well, then you'd just have to live by yourselves, just you and Father. It would only be for about three years, but it would be necessary." "I suppose that wouldn't be impossible, but you know what your father's like, and it would mean me doing all the work by myself." Seizo said nothing. On another occasion she remarked: "Haven't you ever thought about getting married to the Katos' Yuki-san?" "Yuki-san? Why do you mention her?" "Her mother just seemed to drop a hint that they wouldn't mind a match like that." "How come?" "Oh, it was nothing specific. I just got the impression that if you did want to marry her then it would by no means be impossible." "I don't fancy that idea at all. She's too stuck-up." "What? But surely Ikuji-san's like a brother to you, and surely she's an ideal girl?" 144

"No! I don't fancy the idea!" "What's the matter with you lately? You hardly even go over to the Katôs' any more." "I don't fancy the idea of mutual benefits!" With this Seizô abruptly got up and walked off. His mother failed to understand what he meant. In January both Ikuji and Mihoko came back. SeizO met Ikuji on several occasions, and they did have a talk. The talk was no longer about Mihoko. Ikuji preferred to talk negatively about the meaninglessness of love. "I really don't myself understand why I got so worked up. I suppose I must just have been in rut," he laughed. Nevertheless Ikuji and Mihoko often went for walks arm in arm. Ikuji would wear his college hat, and she would have her hair done up in the latest low pompadour style with a large, gaudy ribbon. According to Obata's letters the relationship between the couple was more than just one between lovers. SeizO wasn't at all happy. Just at that time the newspaper carried a story about Kotaki from Kumagaya. With the headline "Kotaki Redeemed," the article told, in a tone as if to make fun of her, how she had been bought by a business tycoon in Isezaki. Apparently Kotaki had had a boyfriend, the son of a wealthy Fukaya family who was now in his first year at university. She had been extraordinarily fond of him, but he already had a fiancée, who was at the Atomi Girls' College in Tokyo, and so Kotaki's hopes had been doomed to come to grief. After many tears she had finally been redeemed. The tycoon in question was in his mid-forties with a wife and children. The article had been very sarcastic: "After a couple of years of paying bitter tribute she will no doubt come dancing back for a second term, and her familiar charming voice—'Hi there'—will be heard again, and her regulars are said to be waiting for this day." SeizO didn't know the full story, but he found himself thinking about the lot in life of a girl brought up in such a society. He thought with much feeling about the ups and downs of a person in a situation over which they had little personal control, in a world over which they had little control. While Kotaki was there, with her beautiful figure and charming voice, Kumagaya was for him a town dear to his heart, an unforgettable town, despite his friends all scattering and his childhood memories growing dim. But now she too had left. However much he walked along those narrow, 145

enchantingly lantern-lit streets, he would no longer see that constantly smiling, cheerful face of his ever-friendly schoolmate of old, "Our Kotaki." After seeing in the first three days of the New Year Seizo shook himself free from his mother, who was trying to get him to stay, and set off back through the blustering westerly wind along the seven-mile road to Miroku with a heart lonelier than ever before. But he did have, in his pocket, three yen left for a trip to Nakada.

36 I t was a cold day in March. A bitter evening wind howled between the Watarase ferry crossing and Nakada. Ashen clouds obscured the sky, and even the sails that occasionally passed by were gloomy. He arrived at Nakada just as the lights were coming on and went upstairs as usual. A female attendant he had not seen before came up to him, however, and with a serious expression led him through to a different room from normal. Shizue, who invariably showed her face when he arrived even if she had another client with her, did not appear. While he was pondering this a familiar female attendant came up to him after a while and told him: "Shizue-san's been very fortunate—she was redeemed on the fifteenth." Seizo felt as if he'd been hit on the head with a hammer. "She did say she wanted to see you again before she left, but . . . you didn't show up for a while, and it all happened so suddenly she didn't even have time to write to you about it. So although she was very sorry about it there was nothing she could do, and she went away simply asking to be remembered to you if you came. She also asked me to give you this." She handed him a little cloth-wrapped bundle. It contained a letter and something square wrapped in ordinary writing paper. In the letter were a 146

enchantingly lantern-lit streets, he would no longer see that constantly smiling, cheerful face of his ever-friendly schoolmate of old, "Our Kotaki." After seeing in the first three days of the New Year Seizo shook himself free from his mother, who was trying to get him to stay, and set off back through the blustering westerly wind along the seven-mile road to Miroku with a heart lonelier than ever before. But he did have, in his pocket, three yen left for a trip to Nakada.

36 I t was a cold day in March. A bitter evening wind howled between the Watarase ferry crossing and Nakada. Ashen clouds obscured the sky, and even the sails that occasionally passed by were gloomy. He arrived at Nakada just as the lights were coming on and went upstairs as usual. A female attendant he had not seen before came up to him, however, and with a serious expression led him through to a different room from normal. Shizue, who invariably showed her face when he arrived even if she had another client with her, did not appear. While he was pondering this a familiar female attendant came up to him after a while and told him: "Shizue-san's been very fortunate—she was redeemed on the fifteenth." Seizo felt as if he'd been hit on the head with a hammer. "She did say she wanted to see you again before she left, but . . . you didn't show up for a while, and it all happened so suddenly she didn't even have time to write to you about it. So although she was very sorry about it there was nothing she could do, and she went away simply asking to be remembered to you if you came. She also asked me to give you this." She handed him a little cloth-wrapped bundle. It contained a letter and something square wrapped in ordinary writing paper. In the letter were a 146

few vague and stereotyped words of parting written in scrawled characters. He noticed that the word "sorry" was used repeatedly. However, there was no mention of her new whereabouts following her redemption. The thing wrapped in writing paper turned out to be a photograph. The attendant grabbed it, and said with a laugh: "Shizue-san does do cruel things!" There was no talk about her new whereabouts. Seizo's new partner was a novice, with whom he was already acquainted. She was a round-faced, plumpish girl. Seizo drank sake without saying a word. He slept with the girl without saying a word. The girl talked about Shizue. Seizo listened without saying a word. He set off back early the next day. He was surprisingly calm. "Well, that was the way it was fated to be," he told himself. "It's nothing, only something to be expected," he also said to himself. But the fact that he was so calm was in itself an indication of the extent of the blow he had suffered. He climbed the embankment. "What a wretch she is! I must get revenge! Revenge! Revenge!" he yelled to himself. And yet, he was not really all that worked up. As he sat drinking tea in the tea shop at Mugikura he told himself that it was the last time that he would be sitting there. Crossing over on the ferry at Otakashima, he was about to take his usual secret route when he had a change of mind: "What does it matter now if I'm found out?" He went into Ogoe and made a point of calling on the old teacher. The old teacher was puzzled over Seizo's extraordinary, extremely high-spirited behavior. Seizo kept gulping down the beer put before him. He also made remarks like: "I'd like to do something really big, something—anything— that'll really make the world sit up in surprise." Seizo remembered having said the same sort of thing to the priest in Hanyu the previous year. He felt terribly depressed.

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37 I t was in September of that year. A crowd of people poured out from the gates of the music school at Ueno Park, bathed in the lingering warmth of the afternoon sun. They had just taken the entrance examination. There were some dressed in haori and hakama, and others in Western clothes. There were girl students too with low pompadour hairdos and violet hakama. From inside the school came the gentle sound of the piano. Among the crowd was a man plodding along by the wall wearing a closed-collared suit and an old straw hat. His shoes were covered with dust and his sateen parasol was faded to a dull rust color. It was Seizo, come up from the country specially to take the exam. Just going into that high-ceilinged room had been enough to make him nervous, and then there had been the fat, imposing, bewhiskered examination official and, seated facing a large piano producing a nonstop string of exquisite notes, a middle-aged woman in a hakama. Seizo soon learned that all his studying on the little school organ stood him in no stead at all. Those musical scores he had so laboriously put together were all a waste of effort. He failed the preliminary examination. He could still picture himself, red faced and pathetic, being laughed at mockingly by the examiner. "Hopeless! Hopeless!" he said to himself shaking his head. The park bench was in the cool shade of a tree. A pleasant breeze blew every now and then. He lay down there to calm himself. Facing him was another row of benches with red blankets spread out on them. He could see the red-patterned obi of a young woman. There was also an older middle-aged woman. A flag was fluttering, with the character for "ice" in white on a red background. Outside the zoo a carriage stood waiting. The driver, dressed in white livery, was lounging about. A rustic-looking couple was buying tickets at the ticket office, taking the coins out from huge purses. It was the first time Seizo had been up to Tokyo. He had come with the intention—after taking the examination—of having a look at the zoo, going to the museum, sightseeing around the city,

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and calling on Obata and Ikuji at their lodgings in Ochanomizu. He had been brimming with a spirit of youthful vitality, such as he had had upon leaving middle school, at the thought that he was escaping from his old life, a life stale with the country air, and was about to embark upon a new life in the city. When he had set out from Fukiage Station the previous day he had been filled for the first time in ages with all sorts of hopes. As he lay out on the bench he thought about the scenes that had occurred in the interval between those hopes of yesterday and his present despair. It was well over an hour before he managed to stir himself from the bench. The carriage was no longer there. An elegant society lady looking like the wife of some aristocrat had come out of the zoo with several cute Western-dressed children in tow; they had climbed happily into the carriage, the driver had used his whip, and the carriage had rattled off leaving a trail of dust behind it. Seizo remembered how he had stared at that dust. "Ah well, I might at least have a look round the zoo," he thought to himself and got up. With an expression on his face as if to suggest they were nothing particularly unusual, he walked past red-crested cranes, huge elephants with curled trunks, and other creatures from distant lands such as kangaroos and camels and asses and deer and sheep. However, he did pause for some time in front of the lions' cage. In the dark, tunnel-like aquarium bright rays of light streamed through the water, and the goldfish and snapper and suchlike seemed very vivid as they swam around. He sat down once again, on a bench in front of the sea gulls and mandarin ducks and various other types of waterfowl. All manner of people passed by in crowds making various remarks to each other. The children were fascinated by the lively flapping and squawking of the birds and clung to the railings watching them. After a while he got up again and walked on. He walked past the hawks and foxes and raccoons, past the monkeys that were baring their teeth and shaking their red posteriors, and past the polar bears and huge Hokkaido bears. Even the splendid plumage of the peacocks failed to arouse much interest in him. He went out in exactly the same mood as he had gone in. In front of the T&sho Shrine a girl student was walking along under a gaudy parasol. There were old motion pictures of the

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Sino-Japanese War at the Panorama, and the ticket clerk was yawning and looking bored. He came to Takenodai Hill and sat down yet again on a bench. The big city lay under his gaze, roof tiles upon roof tiles. Horrible black smoke was rising from the chimneys. The various sounds which Seizo could hear seemed to him somehow to come together into one terrible cry, the cry of the big city. Here there was crime and there was enterprise. There was fame and there was wealth. There was destitution and there was despair. He thought with feeling of the court reports which appeared almost every day in the newspapers. He came down from the hill, and the main road stretched away before him in all its hustle and bustle. There were endless rows of horse trams. A street waterer was nonchalantly sprinkling water among them. Rickshamen were dashing past shouting. Presently Seizo went into a little noodle shop along the road. "Hallo there!" shouted the young waitress in a shrill voice. "One helping of buckwheat noodles," came the reply. As he waited for his order to come Seizo sat in a corner of the room, bathed in the afternoon sun, and watched a burly-looking man opening and closing the lid of a huge cooking pot. Every time he opened the lid a cloud of white steam gushed out. He gave the noodles a stir with some long bamboo chopsticks, then a quick rinse, and served them by hand onto a bamboo dish. The waitress put this on a tray and brought it out with an apology—"Sorry to have kept you waiting." The soles of her feet were black. Seizo had two bowls of noodles and one of tempura and a bottle of beer. He perked up a little as the alcohol started to take effect. "I might as well go back. Why bother to visit Obata and Kato?" He took out his purse and paid the bill. Presently he hurried off through the crowds to the station.

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38 gyu-san called on the priest, and they talked things over. "Things have reached a fine pass," said Ogyu in his usual easygoing tone, but with a worried expression. "Indeed they have," agreed the priest. "It's not working out as expected, so I suppose it could just come to that." "Did you hear it from the principal?" "No, not directly from the principal, but . . . It seems Seizokun's got a pile of debts, and then there's the fact that when he's in the duty room hordes of girls keep coming along." "It really is a corrupt place." "Apparently it's quite amusing. If Seizo-kun's on his own there, they shout out to him from the hedge behind the school and throw clods of earth. And if there's no one about at all, then they come right in through the garden." "And does he have any one particular girl friend among them?" "I'm not really sure, but that's what they say." "A weaving girl?" "Yes." "What a business! Having an affair with a girl like that," lamented the priest. A short while passed, then the priest spoke again. "What about finding him a wife as soon as possible?" "When I went to Gyoda the other day I called at his house, and that's what his mother was saying too." "What about Kato-kun's sister?" "He says he doesn't fancy her." "What? I thought he used to be in love with her." "Well, Seizo-kun doesn't talk about it much, but it seems that he's had some sort of falling-out with Kato-kun." "That seems most unlikely." "Nevertheless, it appears to be true." Ogyu paused for a moment, then continued: "Seizo-kun was saying only recently how he couldn't do anything about his destiny, and that he wasn't bothered about staying a bachelor all his life with children for his companions." o

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"Well, it's one thing to be a bachelor, but not along those lines." "Yes, that's for sure." Ogyü seemed very worried about his friend. "The principal's kindly disposed toward him so that's one good thing, but it'll be awful if the district inspector gets to hear about what's going on. And the countryside's such a narrow place that the whole thing'll blow right up. When you next see Seizo-kun, could you possibly have a word with him somehow?" "Yes, I'll certainly tell him," replied the priest. "And into the bargain, Seizo-kun's not got the strongest of bodies either," Ogyü added. "Stomach trouble, is it?" "That's right. He just goes on eating sweet things. He always used to say that sweet things and music and painting were the three comforts in his lonely life, but recently . . . After failing the exam this summer he put all his music scores away in the back of a cupboard, and he's stopped playing the organ except during music periods." "He's really lost heart then?" "Yes, he has. He'd been so keyed up about the exam. He spoke about nothing else for the two months leading up to it." "In other words, that's what's to blame for this present business." The priest looked pensive. "It really is a shame. His life's so lonely. And it's all the worse for him because he's so serious." "It'd be better for him if he were happy-go-lucky like me." "Yes, you two really are different," laughed the priest.

39 C ^•eizQ's debts were quite considerable. For the last two months he hadn't felt like cooking for himself and had had all his meals sent over from the Ogawa Inn, where his bill had now risen to some seven or eight yen. He owed three yen at the sake shop, three yen at the cake shop, five yen at the general store. He still owed 152

"Well, it's one thing to be a bachelor, but not along those lines." "Yes, that's for sure." Ogyü seemed very worried about his friend. "The principal's kindly disposed toward him so that's one good thing, but it'll be awful if the district inspector gets to hear about what's going on. And the countryside's such a narrow place that the whole thing'll blow right up. When you next see Seizo-kun, could you possibly have a word with him somehow?" "Yes, I'll certainly tell him," replied the priest. "And into the bargain, Seizo-kun's not got the strongest of bodies either," Ogyü added. "Stomach trouble, is it?" "That's right. He just goes on eating sweet things. He always used to say that sweet things and music and painting were the three comforts in his lonely life, but recently . . . After failing the exam this summer he put all his music scores away in the back of a cupboard, and he's stopped playing the organ except during music periods." "He's really lost heart then?" "Yes, he has. He'd been so keyed up about the exam. He spoke about nothing else for the two months leading up to it." "In other words, that's what's to blame for this present business." The priest looked pensive. "It really is a shame. His life's so lonely. And it's all the worse for him because he's so serious." "It'd be better for him if he were happy-go-lucky like me." "Yes, you two really are different," laughed the priest.

39 C ^•eizQ's debts were quite considerable. For the last two months he hadn't felt like cooking for himself and had had all his meals sent over from the Ogawa Inn, where his bill had now risen to some seven or eight yen. He owed three yen at the sake shop, three yen at the cake shop, five yen at the general store. He still owed 152

three yen at the rice shop, and on top of all that he frequently borrowed a yen or two from his colleagues. He owed Ogyu-san four yen. Nor had he paid back the two yen he had borrowed from the priest during his Nakada days. In the countryside, where money was precious, more than anything else it was these debts that destroyed people's trust in him.

40 H owever, Seizo did suddenly pull himself together somehow. Naturally, the principal had spoken to him. The priest had also given him a warning of sorts. However, those were not the only reasons. He had suddenly felt a new awakening in his mind. He had finally become aware of his own unsteadiness, and now felt that he had to haul himself, without the least delay, up from the deep trough into which he had fallen. He had, through the despair and emptiness and loneliness in his life, neglected his health, and of late he had lost the will to do anything. He no longer went for walks, did not read magazines, did not talk with his colleagues, and got through each day's teaching seemingly only because he had to. He constantly looked ill and offcolor. His body appeared somehow worn out, and at times he felt as though he had a fever. His chronic stomach trouble got worse, and he always had a dry mouth. His frivolous life-style had brought with it, through the ill health of his body, a poignant remorse. He pictured his life of a year or so before, which, if lackluster, had at least been pure. Lead a sincere life, that will enable you to endure despair and sadness and loneliness. Be a brave man, one who can endure despair and sadness and loneliness. It is a brave man who follows his destiny.

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three yen at the rice shop, and on top of all that he frequently borrowed a yen or two from his colleagues. He owed Ogyu-san four yen. Nor had he paid back the two yen he had borrowed from the priest during his Nakada days. In the countryside, where money was precious, more than anything else it was these debts that destroyed people's trust in him.

40 H owever, Seizo did suddenly pull himself together somehow. Naturally, the principal had spoken to him. The priest had also given him a warning of sorts. However, those were not the only reasons. He had suddenly felt a new awakening in his mind. He had finally become aware of his own unsteadiness, and now felt that he had to haul himself, without the least delay, up from the deep trough into which he had fallen. He had, through the despair and emptiness and loneliness in his life, neglected his health, and of late he had lost the will to do anything. He no longer went for walks, did not read magazines, did not talk with his colleagues, and got through each day's teaching seemingly only because he had to. He constantly looked ill and offcolor. His body appeared somehow worn out, and at times he felt as though he had a fever. His chronic stomach trouble got worse, and he always had a dry mouth. His frivolous life-style had brought with it, through the ill health of his body, a poignant remorse. He pictured his life of a year or so before, which, if lackluster, had at least been pure. Lead a sincere life, that will enable you to endure despair and sadness and loneliness. Be a brave man, one who can endure despair and sadness and loneliness. It is a brave man who follows his destiny.

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I have been weak, frivolous, immature, and an idle dreamer. But from now on I shall be a brave man. From today on I shall return to my old life-style. First, I must look after my body. Second, I must act responsibly. Third, I have a mother to consider. As he wrote "I have a mother to consider" he looked up, pen still in hand. He felt a rush of emotion, and tears flowed down his pale cheeks. Since he had started going to Nakada he had neglected his diary. He had been afraid of writing something rash and someone chancing to see it. He opened his wicker trunk and took out his diary from that time. "September twenty-fourth—Autumn Imperial Remembrance Day!" He had underlined the characters in red. In the space for the following Saturday he had written how he had crossed the river from Otakashima. The diary had continued, though falteringly, up until the end of October of that year. He had written about late autumn along the Tone, and about the falling leaves and bare trees. In the space for October twenty-third he had written, "Cold and rainy today," and then the rest was blank. He remembered how he had stopped writing with the thought that, "A diary's a waste of time. It's something you write conscious of the possibility of other people getting to see it. And if I can't write down fully everything that I've done, and everything that I feel, then I might as well give it up. How on earth can I go on with a diary when I can't write a single sentence about the girl who occupies so much of my heart?" Seizo found himself reflecting on the ensuing period of just over a year. It was a gloomy period for him, a period in which he had come into contact with life in all its complexity. Though he had once told himself that he would not keep a diary if he could not fully record in it his experiences and feelings, he now came to consider the opposite point of view, namely, that the real value of keeping a diary lay in the fact that one should not do things which one could not record in it. Intending to start his diary again he put together a little booklet of fifty or sixty sheets of lined paper and set down, boldly and on the first page, that very point that he had just considered. "November fifteenth, 1903." He began writing. 154

41 "T 1—*et me bury the past as dead history." "Let me have love for the young boys and girls who are my daily companions in life." "Life's capital is both health and money." "Let me lead a pure life." Brief comments of this nature appeared regularly in his diary. One day, he wrote the following: "Does not my success in life lie in abandoning ambition and looking after my parents, giving them contentment in their final years? Mother is expecting to live with me." On another occasion he wrote: "It was silly of me to abandon my dear friends of old. I was weak spirited. Let me restore that warm friendship of old. After all, circumstances are circumstances, and destiny is destiny. It was petty of me to get jealous of them and turn my back on them. How nice that would be, a revival of friendship! Two days ago I had a very frank letter from Obata. And today I had a very warm letter from Kato. Obata said that in the near future he was going to send me some books on plants which he'd read. I'm looking forward to getting them." The principal and Seizo's colleagues too noticed his sudden change of attitude. He started putting in order some specimens of flora and fauna which he had gathered together two years before. He began meticulously classifying, in such a way that anyone and everyone could understand, some specimens which he had brought in from the fields and had left still spread out on paper. During the summer holiday he had gone off for three days to Mount Mitsumine, in Chichibu, with Seki-san, and among the specimens they had gathered there were some that were very unusual. Seki was busy studying flora and fauna for the Education Department's examination for the middle school teacher's license, and on the trip he had enthused about this interest to Seizo. The books from Obata presently arrived. Seizo's interests, which until that autumn had been inclined toward music, now turned increasingly toward botany. He asked Seki-san about any points which he didn't understand. 155

The local farmers once again started seeing the young teacher out strolling through the fields. Children gathered around him as he did his painting. He made picture postcards of early winter scenes of the trees and fields around Miroku and sent them to Obata and Kato. For the third time he experienced the end of year in this lonely part of the countryside where the cold wind raged. A watery afternoon sun shone through the bamboo grove out front, and the greenfinches and thrushes could be heard singing around the hedges. From the twenty-second on he was busy with marking. He also had to help organize items for an exhibition of students' work that was due to be held in Hanyu on the old calendar's New Year's Day. There were drawings and copies and designs and paintings and models, and then compositions and essays, and insect and plant specimens. It was no easy task to select from all of the students' work. And the principal was saying that he wanted really good results for next year. For some reason, Seizo frequently had a cold of late. He'd go for a walk and develop a cough, or go for a bath and get a temperature. Smoking gave him a headache. He also experienced a slight dizziness, something he'd not had before. As they were about to leave after classes on the twenty-fourth Seki-san remarked to him, "You look as though something's wrong with you. You should see a doctor, you know." He called on Ogyu-san in Hanyu, and he didn't feel too bad at the time. But when he tried to pay a long overdue visit to the priest up at the Jogan Temple, he only got as far as the police station before he was obliged to abandon the idea. His temperature was at least 101 degrees. He also had a cough. Just at that moment a ricksha which was due to go back to Gyoda was waiting around, and he managed to get a reduced fare. As the sun was setting on the cold road he finally arrived back home. He finished the year confined to his bed. His mother was very concerned and tried her best to comfort him. Fortunately his temperature went down. On New Year's Eve he was able to pay a visit to Kato, who had just gotten back the previous day. Ikuji noticed how pale and drawn Seizo's face was. He also felt that Seizo's conversational manner had become somehow passive. He was amazed at how much of a change there was compared with three 156

years ago, when they had made lively and lengthy discussions out of the least thing and, on that New Year's Eve, had gotten so carried away that they had wandered around the town and the park talking till three in the morning. The two young men now talked about things like the competitions that had recently been organized by a Tokyo newspaper, namely, a treasure hunt and guessing the number of grains of unhulled rice in a half-gallon measure. They talked with interest about how the Yorozu Morning Bulletin's treasure had been found by a junior student who'd gone digging in the Kuzeyama area of Koishikawa. They went on to talk about the gravity of the negotiations between Japan and Russia. "Feelings are running very very high in Tokyo at the moment. You can tell just by the tone of the newspapers. This time it seems really serious. War may well break out before too long," said Ikuji. Seizo had also recently been reading in the papers, with great interest, about this problem facing the nation. He always wondered to himself, "What on earth will happen if we get into a war of that scale?" The two young men talked on about the situation. Ikuji remarked that the Japanese army stood a good chance on land, but at sea the Russian navy was stronger and had more battleships. On the morning of New Year's Day Seizo arranged some flowers in the vase in the alcove, which was quite an unusual thing for him. The early-blooming camellias had only just started to display their red flowers, and their rich, dark green leaves made a very tasteful contrast with the delicate yellow of the winter chrysanthemums. He then added some weeping holly with its clusters of red berries, and his mother remarked as she passed by, "I love holly. When I see it I feel that New Year has arrived." That morning his father had been pottering about on a little strip of land out by the fields, scrunching the frosty soil as he moved about and getting mud all over his white hands. Eventually he succeeded in transplanting into a bowl some pheasant's-eye that had just started to bud, and placed this decoratively in the alcove. The morning sun shone weakly onto the shoji. Parents and son sat happily together and ate their New Year's breakfast of rice cakes boiled with vegetables. Seizo's diary ran as follows:

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1904: January first: New Year has arrived, bringing with it new hardship and success, new happiness and sorrow, new life and change. The New Year is a good opportunity for improvement. Let me lead a pure and happy life. The New Year's alcove, And there in a flower vase Of celadon green, To my mother's great delight, The holly reigns supreme. Sent a letter to Obata telling him that I plan to study for a few more years and then take the exam for my teacher's license, specializing in botany. If my cold will only clear up a bit I hope to get outdoors tomorrow to do some painting, and I've got my painting board ready. Second: There's a place I'd like to paint near Tatazunomon, but the wind's been up all day so I've had to give up the idea. Kikuko counted the rice grains in a measure of one-twentieth of a gallon, and there are 7,256. Third: My cold's as bad as ever. It must be because of the bath I took last night. I've given up hoping to get any outdoor painting done this holiday. Fourth: The result of the Yorozu Morning Bulletin's rice grain competition—there are, in one half-gallon measure of unhulled rice, 73,250 grains. Have decided to economize this year. The eternal void in my purse is not a heartwarming phenomenon. After all, one only needs money to the extent that one has needs in life. Fifth: I'm not bothering with New Year's greeting cards this year.

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Sixth: Makino Yukiko—who at the end of last year married a magistrate from Maebashi—sent me a beautiful New Year's card. I've started coming out in boils again. Have put off going back to the school due to the boils and need for recuperation. Seventh: Started reading Winter Peonies, the joint work by Koyo and Shuto, but gave it up. There's vice in it right from the start. Bought and read the Chugaku Sekai magazine. Kato's gone back to Tokyo. Eighth: I do want to get my health back, I do, I do. Ninth: Read Winter Peonies late into the night and finished it noting the tragic suffering that accompanies vice, the devoted attachment of the heroine Louisa, and a denouement after four hundred pages that ends in a triumph for love. Thanks to my cold I've greatly cut down on my smoking, to the point where I smoke if I have a cigarette to hand, otherwise not. I only wish I could continue like that all the time. Tomorrow I shall once again become a man of the Tone region—I shall return to Miroku. The newspapers are all saying that the crisis between Japan and Russia is about to pass from the diplomats to the military. Are we then, after all, unable to avoid war, which I so detest? Presently he once again resumed his lonely life in the cold duty room. Since November the previous year he had been economizing diligently and started paying back his debts, so his purse was always bare. His stomach was giving him trouble and he didn't get to feel any better so, thinking he should get as much exercise as possible, he often played tennis with the students. His thin, pale, long-haired figure was always conspicuous in the late afternoon air. In his diary entry for the Saturday he wrote: "Finished my half-day's teaching with sincerity, did my duties satisfactorily, had a warming evening meal, and then read the papers. No complaints about today at all. When I think about tomorrow and being able to take it easy, I'm completely at peace with the world,

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except for the trembling in my right hand when I write. Perhaps this is due to the tennis." He also wrote: "If all were fine with M I'd like to go back home, but I've abandoned the idea. Thanks to my economizing I've made three sen's worth of tobacco last four days." He had, however, been unable to sleep at night. Even when it did seem as if he would manage to get to sleep, he was straightaway troubled by bad dreams. He usually dreamed that he was being chased by some fiend and being cut down with a sword, and when he awoke he would be bathed in sweat. His distress was indescribable. Twice a year he received a bulletin from his middle school alumni association. By this means, vague as it was, he learned what was happening to his old school friends. One had gone off to America, another to Hokkaido. In the latest bulletin there was a report on the suicide of a hostel student named Matsumoto. It was described in detail how there had been a pistol shot heard late at night, and how people had rushed to the scene in alarm. Seizo now thought about the idea of death, something he had not done before. That night he had a dream about it. There was a bright light in the hostel window and a hubbub of voices. A succession of pistol shots rang out. The youth who had killed himself came flying out of the window. There was a white frost every morning. The leaves of the bamboo were also white from time to time with sleet that had fallen during the night. Seizo's thin figure could invariably be seen wielding a racquet in the school grounds. Greenfinches flew over the frozen streams, thrushes sang in the fields of bare mulberry, and startled moorhens flapped noisily out of the dead grass and weeds at the foot of the alders. The leaves had all fallen from the oaks and chestnuts, and the Tone River embankment was, with its dead vegetation, just a strip of red ochre. The fields were full of the discarded leaves of the giant radish. Around the middle of the month Seizo received a parcel from his mother containing a woolen shirt. In her letter she wrote: "Now that it's midwinter, you should avoid hot baths when it gets really cold. Try to avoid catching cold. Take care of yourself, you're all I've got to depend on, come what may." Recently he had come to feel very strongly toward his mother, and one Saturday, on the way back home, he had been moved to tears by the sight of

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a couple carrying a young child, a family fallen on hard times. His mother was pleased that Seizo had recently become noticeably kinder in his attitude, but she was still not free of concern over him. She suspected that his sudden weakness was due to illness. When he came back she stopped her piecework for the afternoon and fussed over him with red-bean soup and rice-flour dumplings. When she heard about his sweating at night she looked very worried, and asked him: "Are you really doing the right thing by not seeing a doctor?" Sometimes Seizo asked Ogyu-san over from Hanyu, and put him up for the night in the duty room. Ogyu would laugh merrily and joke about his becoming the adopted son of a certain family, a matter which had recently been raised. "They're said to be pretty wealthy, you know, and if and when I get to be the master there, then I'll lay on tremendous feasts. I could even find you your keep there." No sooner did Ogyu go to bed than he was sound asleep snoring gently. Seizo envied those who could pass so peacefully through life. Seki-san pointed out to him plants like honeysuckle and snake's beard and wild rhubarb among the dead grass and weeds. Amid the cold of winter there were also noticeably warm and springlike days. The reaped fields looked calm and peaceful, open and quiet, and very pleasant, and the bare, slender trunks of the alders looked as if they were impressed against the blue of the sky. Seizo always got up at seven, and while watching the sun rise like a ball of flame over the frosty haze, he made a point of taking four or five deep breaths. Sometimes he would tell himself to take some sort of action: "Why don't I seem to be getting any better? I really must do something about it." His stomach was not at all well. And there was the sweating at night too.

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42 o ne warm Sunday, accompanied by Seki-san, Seizo went to Hanyu to see a doctor named Hara. The surgery was in a side street, with a black crossbarred gate and a garden of dark green pines. Inside the consulting room was a couch with a white blanket spread over it, and the warm midmorning winter sun shone through the windows of the adjoining dispensary to reveal there all sizes of bottles, containing various drugs, lined up on the shelves. The doctor was a polite and unassuming man in his mid to late thirties with long hair. With his stethoscope to his ears he listened first to Seizo's chest and stomach. Next he listened to his bare back, giving it a number of light taps. "Yes, your stomach and bowels seem in bad shape." With this he gave Seizo some standard-looking medicine. It was a springlike day. The weather had been fine for several days, the thawed roads had largely dried out, and on the main road there was even the odd patch of dust. With the mistshrouded, snowy peaks of the Ryomo Range faintly visible behind them, Seki-san and Seizo chatted as they walked slowly along. At the edge of town a stoop-shouldered old lady was sitting basking in the sun, her spinning wheel humming. Several customers were sitting in the renowned noodle shop on the corner, and white steam rose from a large pot over to one side. In some of the sunnier spots in the fields plants were already starting to bud, and the shepherd's purses were particularly green. From time to time Seki stopped and picked some of the plants that were just coming into bud. He showed them to Seizo. The warm sun over the fields shone on Seizo's unwrapped medicine bottle.

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43 k^ensei," came a soft voice. The shoji opened to reveal, standing outside with a smile on her face, a girl student named Tahara Hideko, an extremely maturelooking girl with a low pompadour hairstyle. She had graduated last year with good marks and a fine reputation, and had gone straight to the normal school in Urawa. Seizo had had her under his care since she had been a senior second year, and she had fond memories of him. When she had been in her senior fourth year she had composed new-style poetry and written various compositions, which she had shown to Seizo. She lived in a modest farmhouse, and Seizo had occasionally called there on his walks. As a result of his familiarity with her the other students had sometimes made remarks like, "Hayashi-sensei's making a favorite out of Taharasan." She was a round-faced, light-complexioned girl with a sort of high-class refinement rare in the countryside. She was also fond of music and often sang, to the accompaniment of the organ, newstyle verses which Seizo had taught her. After going off to the normal school dormitory she sent him letters, about nature and fate and emotion. She would also send him letters typical of those from a former pupil to a fondly remembered teacher. And at times she would ask him to write poetry for her. "Tahara-san!" Seizo stood up with a start. "How come you're here?" he then asked. "I had some business to attend to today and had to visit home, so I just thought I'd pay you a visit too." Seizo was surprised at how much more mature she now seemed, and more high-class than ever both in speech and appearance. "The thing is, Sensei, I'd heard you were ill." "From whom?" "From Seki-sensei." "Where did you meet Seki-san then?" "At the edge of the village, just briefly." "Oh, it's nothing very serious, you know," laughed Seizo, "just my old stomach trouble. It's all those sweet things I keep eating." Hidekolaughed too.

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Teacher and student chatted together for a while there in that room bright with Sunday afternoon sunshine. They talked about dormitory life. They talked too about Mihoko, the Gyoda girl who was due to graduate that year. Seizo and Hideko were still friendly, as in earlier days, but somehow there was a distance of sorts due to the girl's maturing into a young woman. It was, as far as Seizo was concerned, this feeling that she was now a woman and no longer a pupil that prevented him from being as unconstrained in his conversation with her as in the past. On the desk his half-empty medicine bottle sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. He showed Hideko a magazine which he had received that morning from a friend, entitled Music Lover. The frontispiece consisted of a picture of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music who lived around A.D. 200. She was staring at a vision of angels and flowers formed from the exquisite notes of an organ. Seizo talked about how she had been born into a noble Roman family, how she was a devout believer in Jehovah, and how she was the mother of the organ. He also talked about how she was like a beautiful flower. Presently the sound of the organ could be heard. When the caretaker went to investigate he found the young teacher engrossed in playing, fingers dancing over the keys, while Hideko, dressed in her maroon hakama, stood smiling beside him. The school garden lay peaceful. Sparrows were chirping in the afternoon sun. The line markings on the tennis court were clearly visible, and in a corner of the long verandah of the duty room lay racquets and balls and the net. One section of the garden had been planted with trees and plants used for teaching purposes. Seizo took Hideko there. He noticed that the roses had come into bud and showed them to her. "Look! The buds are out already. It'll soon be spring." "Heavens, yes! Out already," said Hideko, plucking one of them. Eventually a figure in a maroon hakama could be seen hurrying back along the road outside the school.

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44

TJL he news of the outbreak of hostilities with Russia, with the

Port Arthur Incident on the eighth and the Inchon Incident on the ninth, came with a surprising swiftness. On Empire Day a flag of the Rising Sun was hoisted at the school gate, and the organ could be heard playing in the hall. The fuss that was going on in Tokyo could be surmised from the daily papers. The rapid developments in the political situation over the last month could be anxiously appreciated even in the countryside. The call-up had been issued. Local military secretaries worked night and day to deliver the order to every house, after which the able bodied had twenty-four hours in which to assemble as required. Everywhere—along the twilight country roads, on coaches to the stations, along oak-lined lanes—pack-carrying figures were hurrying off to answer the nation's call without even proper time to make their farewells to their families. There were more than three hundred conscripts from the one subdistrict of Minami Saitama, and since the Tobu Line had not yet been built, they largely assembled at the Shinetsu Line stations of Fukiage, Konosu, and Okegawa, and the Ou Line stations of Kurihashi, Hasuda, and Kuki. In the towns that were now transportation centers national flags were rapidly hoisted and the soldiers given a good send-off. Mayors and military secretaries and school students and friends and relatives gathered in the stations and gave rousing cheers when the trains set off. On the way back from Gyoda to Miroku Seizo encountered numerous groups of conscripts. After the naval engagements at Port Arthur and Inchon even the quiet countryside was buzzing with talk. The bells of the newspaper delivery boys rang busily from town to town, village to village. The papers were full of bold type, and there were reports of all manner of plans and rumors. The twelfth was a cold day, cloudy from the morning on, and that day there came a report that, as expected, the enemy's Vladivostock Fleet had entered the Tsugaru Strait and had sunk the merchant vessel Nagonouramaru. In order to check where exactly in the Tsugaru Strait Cape

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Henashi was, the principal put up a huge school map of Japan in the staff room. The old teacher, and Seki-san, and the female teacher all gathered round it too. "Oh, so that's where it is," said the old teacher. Seizo stood in front of the wall map for some time thinking about the enemy fleet that had left Vladivostock in a straight line and about the Japanese merchant vessel that had been sunk. In the bathhouse, at the barber's—talk about the war was everywhere. Some of the old men hated the Russians and wanted to teach them a lesson, while some of the other old-timers were worried about Japan's chances of victory against such a big country. The children made flags and played at war. Generally speaking, however, the countryside was still peaceful, and at night the lights could be seen as usual from the thatched houses beyond the bamboo grove. It was right at the time of the New Year according to the old calendar, and drunken laughter and singing could be heard from the houses along the road. Recently Seizo had been getting up at six every morning and going to bed at nine in the evening. He was afraid of upsetting his stomach on New Year's rice cakes and noodles, but he experienced no real problems. His stringent economy drive was gradually succeeding, his debts were now reduced, and he had even been able to put fifty sen a month into the mutual-financing fund that the principal had helped to start. The newspapers always came at around two o'clock in the afternoon. After the war had started it had been arranged that they should each take a separate newspaper and circulate them around. There was the People, the Yorozu Morning Bulletin, the Tokyo Daily, and the Times, as well as the reports from the barber's shop. Seizo's life of late largely consisted of reading these many newspapers, keeping up his diary, taking exercise, economizing, guarding against catching cold, giving up smoking, and looking forward to going back home on Saturdays. Giving up smoking, and cakes too, was by no means an easy task however. Whenever his stomach improved and he felt better, his desk would be littered with empty rice-cake wrappers and sweet bags. He also busied himself with painting. On fine days he would often set off to the fields carrying his painting board and paints. 166

He painted rice-drying racks, alders, dead reeds in the canals, snowy fields. One day he tried painting the pink blossoms of plum, but his colors were poor and seemed more like peach if anything. He also copied the greens of starwort and sagebrush and shepherd's purse and the like. At the end of the month he received a letter from Obata. Obata had been a bit ill and had decided to spend the spring holidays at home. He wanted to meet Seizo again, as they hadn't seen each other for some time, and wanted to fix a date when he could call on him. It was the day the newspapers reported the first blockade of Port Arthur. Seizo replied happily. By return post he received a reply stating that Obata was coming that Friday. Seizo urged Ogyu-san to come along too. On the eve of Obata's visit the moon was bright. Seizo watched it thinking for the first time in ages about his friend.

45 o bata was noticeably fatter. He had also grown a thin moustache and had his hair parted neatly. The normal school uniform suited him well. He made remarks like, "This is an interesting life too," in his usual lighthearted manner. Ogyu-san sat on the steps leading down from the verandah and watched Seizo and Obata and some other teachers, who'd taken a ball out into the garden. The ball flew strongly from Obata. In contrast, Seizo's efforts were weak. After two or three games Seizo's forehead was bathed in sweat. His heart was pounding. Obata noticed Seizo's difficulty in getting his breath, as well as the lack of color in his face, and asked: "Is anything wrong?" "I'm a bit out of sorts, that's all." "What's the problem?" "It's my old stomach trouble—nothing serious."

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He painted rice-drying racks, alders, dead reeds in the canals, snowy fields. One day he tried painting the pink blossoms of plum, but his colors were poor and seemed more like peach if anything. He also copied the greens of starwort and sagebrush and shepherd's purse and the like. At the end of the month he received a letter from Obata. Obata had been a bit ill and had decided to spend the spring holidays at home. He wanted to meet Seizo again, as they hadn't seen each other for some time, and wanted to fix a date when he could call on him. It was the day the newspapers reported the first blockade of Port Arthur. Seizo replied happily. By return post he received a reply stating that Obata was coming that Friday. Seizo urged Ogyu-san to come along too. On the eve of Obata's visit the moon was bright. Seizo watched it thinking for the first time in ages about his friend.

45 o bata was noticeably fatter. He had also grown a thin moustache and had his hair parted neatly. The normal school uniform suited him well. He made remarks like, "This is an interesting life too," in his usual lighthearted manner. Ogyu-san sat on the steps leading down from the verandah and watched Seizo and Obata and some other teachers, who'd taken a ball out into the garden. The ball flew strongly from Obata. In contrast, Seizo's efforts were weak. After two or three games Seizo's forehead was bathed in sweat. His heart was pounding. Obata noticed Seizo's difficulty in getting his breath, as well as the lack of color in his face, and asked: "Is anything wrong?" "I'm a bit out of sorts, that's all." "What's the problem?" "It's my old stomach trouble—nothing serious."

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"Well, you should take care, you know." Obata looked at his friend's face again. The three young men had a pleasant chat. They gave their studied opinions of each of the paintings which Seizo showed them. Ogyu-san also contributed a few rather poor jokes. Seki-san joined them and talked about insect and plant collecting. He showed them the specimens gathered at Mitsumine. Obata talked about the unusual specimens in the school and a collecting trip he had made last autumn. The usually quiet duty room overflowed with animated voices. The went to the Ogawa Inn for their evening meal. The late afternoon sun shone brightly on the shoji despite the threat of rain, and even the nondrinking Ogyu's face was red. Obata tried as far as possible to avoid talking about Mihoko and Yukiko. He noticed how, even amid all the lighthearted bantering, Seizo had lost much of his liveliness. When Seizo temporarily left the room Ogyu remarked to Obata, "He was a pretty lively spark all right last year though," and told him about how girls had gone up to the school and so on. Obata was greatly surprised. That night they brought some extra bedding from the Ogawa Inn. It was still cold, so Ogyu went off to the caretaker's room with the hibachi and brought it back full of embers. By the time they had finished the cakes and the tea and the talking and had settled down to get some sleep, it was past eleven. Obata went out to the toilet, and said quietly on his return that it was raining. "Rain!" exclaimed Ogyu, who was worried as he was expecting to go back early the next morning. Seizo remarked to him, "Tomorrow's Saturday, and the next day's Sunday. I'm not intending to go back to Gyoda this week so the rain doesn't bother me in the least. And you could take it easy here tomorrow as well—it's not often the three of us get together like this." Then presently, as he listened to the rain falling outside, he added, "It's really very pleasant, isn't it. I don't think it's a bad thing at all that it should rain on our get-together. Heaven has sent us this rain to tell us to spend tonight talking quietly about old times." He seemed very excited. Both he and Obata had lots of memories of their middle school days. Whenever it got too late to go 168

back Seizo would spend the night in Kumagaya, in Obata's room, in a similar fashion to tonight, huddled in bed. Facing each other they would then talk away until one of them grew sleepy and could only reply with an "Mm, mm." "I can well remember those days," said Obata as he lay in bed. It was Ogyu who was the first to start snoring. "He's already asleep. That was quick," said Obata. Obata himself was tired out, and he too was soon fast asleep. Seizo remained awake, unable to get to sleep at all. He listened to the rain falling outside. His mind was filled with a whole succession of thoughts. Particularly strong was the thought that he wanted to live a long time in a world where there were such kind friends. At the same time, tears rolled down his pale cheeks. He went on to think about the girl in Nakada. He could clearly picture his own figure, just as if it belonged to someone else, walking through the late afternoon sun along that long embankment. He could not stem the flow of tears, however much he wiped them away with the sleeve of his nightclothes. The next day Obata asked him, "You got up again last night, didn't you?" "I just couldn't sleep, so I got up and read the paper." "I heard a rustling going on, and when I opened my eyes I saw that you were up and by the lamp. I can still see it now—your face was really standing out, it was so pale." He looked at Seizo's face. "So you can't sleep at night?" "No, I can't, and it's really getting me down." "It sounds to me like nervous debility." There were classes on Saturday morning. Ogyu-san went back early through the rain. Obata spent the time watching the principal and Seizo teaching, looking at the specimens which Seki-san had assembled in the staff room, and watching the hourly exodus of students and teachers from the classrooms. The female teacher shouted at the students in her shrill voice. Red camellias bloomed in the bamboo grove, while at its edge wilting plum blossoms seemed to weep as the rain fell on them. Seizo was teaching geography to the senior second years, his pale face and thin hakamaclad figure seeming as if embossed against the classroom desk at which he stood. In the afternoon the two young men had another chat in the duty room. At three o'clock the coach from Hanyu

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arrived sounding its horn, and the driver virtually tossed into the caretaker's room a newspaper-wrapped parcel of pork, which Obata and Seizo had that morning asked Ogyu-san to send. Inside the parcel there were also some leeks and a letter. In the letter Ogyu had written, "Come to Hanyu tomorrow afternoon—I'm expecting you." The rain did not let up all day. The pork, tough as country pork was, was enough to send them into raptures. They talked on with unflagging enthusiasm about normal school, about old friends, about the war, and so on, and so on. "This year it's out of the question but next year I definitely intend to try for my teacher's license," said Seizo. On the Sunday they set off in the coach for Hanyu. Everywhere there was talk that Port Arthur had fallen. There were at the same time those who felt that it was still too soon for it to be taken. A newsboy selling extras dashed along the road, bell ringing. Ogyusan welcomed them to his lodgings, which were over the bank. They had a real feast, with soy-broiled fowl, chicken soup, pork casserole, and rice cakes with sweet-boiled beans. "Today it's rice that's the side dish," laughed Seizo. When Seizo left the room Obata remarked to Ogyu: "Something's the matter with Hayashi-kun. There seems to be something wrong with his health, doesn't there?" "Yes, in fact I'm very worried about him." "Do you think it might be anything serious?" "Well, I couldn't say . . ." "He should get something done about it as soon as possible. It's no good delaying." "That's for sure." "He says it's just his old stomach trouble, but I wonder." "The local doctor here says that it's his bowels." "I think he should see a reliable doctor, don't you?" "I agree." The following morning the three of them parted company there above the bank. Obata told Seizo: "Look after yourself—I really do mean that!"

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TX he war was steadily progressing. People now started to realize in earnest its significance and its effects, through incidents like the cavalry clash at Ting-chou, the good fortune of the war-bond subscribers, the Japanese fleet's attack on Vladivostock, the heavy fighting outside Port Arthur, the emergency sessions in the Diet, the movement for a second blockade, the valiant death of Lieutenant Colonel Hirose, and the formation of the Second Army following the departure of the First. It grew gradually warmer in the fields, and the rape came into flower, as did the violets, and the dandelions, and the peach trees, and the cherry trees. Every time the newspaper extras arrived the eaves of the country towns would be bedecked with Rising Sun flags, there would be cheering in the stations, and around the straw-thatched houses out among the fields there would be children playing war games and waving little homemade national flags. At the school they were busy with end-of-school-year marking, which was followed by fairly simple exams and then, when all that was over, there was the ceremony for conferring graduation certificates. The district headman stood at the table and gave a speech of congratulation to the graduates, a speech which contained frequent reference to the fact that the nation was at war: "You have graduated in a very memorable year, 1904. It is a most significant and decisive time in Japan's history, and you must never forget that you have graduated at such a point in time. You must always be fully aware that you are the citizens of a new Japan." His words, mundane though they were, contained a certain strength and zeal that reflected the times, and the listeners were moved. Seizo's artist's book contained paintings such as plum blossoms in a vase, daffodils, the school gate, and the cherry blossoms of Ogoe. When it came to sweet-smelling daphne he could manage the flowers rather well, but never quite succeeded with the shading of the leaves. He also collected admiral butterflies and whitecrested butterflies and suchlike. On his desk lay Doctor Oka's work Lectures on Evolution, which Obata had sent him. It had a violet inserted about half-way through in lieu of a bookmarker.

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For cakes he ate his favorite green-powdered bean-jam buns, for vegetables he ate asparagus and parsley and arrowhead, while his pickles were of soft greens. The children also often brought him herbal rice cakes and rice cakes covered with bean jam. There were all sorts of flowers on the Tone embankment. One day Seizo walked with Seki-san between Ogoe and Hotto, and carefully wrote down in his notebook the various names of all the flowers—triple fork, nipplewort, "Devil's cauldron lid," "Buddha's seat," sparrow vetch, crow vetch, "flea's counterpane," violets, pitcher violets, pansies, milk vetch, dandelions, nasturtiums, moss gentians, common chickweed, red-stemmed chickweed, ground ivy, heron moss, butterburs, shepherd's purses, long-leaved grass, rosebay, camellias, meadowsweet, peach, heath roses, daisies, snake strawberry, devilwort, cudweed, fox peonies, broad bean.

47 I n the newly made flower garden at the school there was also an interesting collection of plants. In the hedges around the farmhouses there were pear blossoms and double blossoms of cherry, and in the fields there were peas and broad beans. Occasionally an oat pipe could be heard being blown, and swallows would skim across the road. There were ants and bees and beetles, and at night unknown insects would sing their noisy songs, as the frogs also did. Seizo brought in from the fields akebias, silver berries, heron moss, buttercups, bugle flowers, bamboo grass, peacock straw, nandin clover, and suchlike, and planted them in the flower garden. Presently, when the yellow roses withered, the herbaceous peonies, common peonies, and azaleas started to bloom. He spent the spring completely absorbed in flowers. The sunlight came flooding through the fresh greenery into his room. Here he wrote letters to Tahara Hideko, enclosing various rare flowers.

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For cakes he ate his favorite green-powdered bean-jam buns, for vegetables he ate asparagus and parsley and arrowhead, while his pickles were of soft greens. The children also often brought him herbal rice cakes and rice cakes covered with bean jam. There were all sorts of flowers on the Tone embankment. One day Seizo walked with Seki-san between Ogoe and Hotto, and carefully wrote down in his notebook the various names of all the flowers—triple fork, nipplewort, "Devil's cauldron lid," "Buddha's seat," sparrow vetch, crow vetch, "flea's counterpane," violets, pitcher violets, pansies, milk vetch, dandelions, nasturtiums, moss gentians, common chickweed, red-stemmed chickweed, ground ivy, heron moss, butterburs, shepherd's purses, long-leaved grass, rosebay, camellias, meadowsweet, peach, heath roses, daisies, snake strawberry, devilwort, cudweed, fox peonies, broad bean.

47 I n the newly made flower garden at the school there was also an interesting collection of plants. In the hedges around the farmhouses there were pear blossoms and double blossoms of cherry, and in the fields there were peas and broad beans. Occasionally an oat pipe could be heard being blown, and swallows would skim across the road. There were ants and bees and beetles, and at night unknown insects would sing their noisy songs, as the frogs also did. Seizo brought in from the fields akebias, silver berries, heron moss, buttercups, bugle flowers, bamboo grass, peacock straw, nandin clover, and suchlike, and planted them in the flower garden. Presently, when the yellow roses withered, the herbaceous peonies, common peonies, and azaleas started to bloom. He spent the spring completely absorbed in flowers. The sunlight came flooding through the fresh greenery into his room. Here he wrote letters to Tahara Hideko, enclosing various rare flowers.

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And he always received letters back from her at least once a week. Songs and new-style poems were written. He would write to her as his dear, cherished pupil, and she would write to him as her dear, sweet teacher.

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