Thirty-one to thirty-three

by Natsume Sōseki

The conversation that day ended up making no progress at all. Rather, I was overwhelmed by the teacher's attitude and felt no desire to move forward.

The two of them boarded the train from the outskirts of the city, but hardly exchanged any words inside. When they got off the train, they had to part ways immediately. At the moment of parting, the teacher said in a brighter tone than usual, "From now until June is the most carefree time, isn't it? It might be the most carefree time of your life. Go ahead and have fun." I took off my hat while laughing. At that moment, I stared at the teacher's face and wondered if he truly harbored a hatred for ordinary people somewhere in his heart. In those eyes, in that smile, there was not a trace of misanthropy at all.

I cannot help but acknowledge that I have received many benefits from the teacher regarding ideas. However, I must confess that there were times when I tried to receive benefits on the same issues but could not. The teacher's talks sometimes lacked clarity. The conversation exchanged between the two of them that day in the suburbs remained in my heart as one such unclear example.

Being indiscreet, I finally revealed this to the teacher one day. The teacher was laughing. I said this.

“It’s fine if my mind is dull and lacks clarity, but it’s troubling when you understand properly yet won’t say it clearly.”

“I am not hiding anything.”

“You are hiding something.”

“Aren't you confusing my thoughts and opinions with my past? I am a poor thinker, but I have no need to recklessly hide the thoughts I have organized in my own head. However, if I have to tell you everything about my past, that is a different matter.”

“I don’t think it’s a different matter. Since the thoughts born from your past are important to me, I value them. If you separate the two, it becomes something of little value to me. I cannot be satisfied with a doll that lacks a soul.”

The teacher stared at my face as if surprised, and the hand holding the rolled tobacco trembled slightly.

“You are bold.”

“I am just serious. I want to learn lessons from life seriously.”

“Even if it means exposing my past?”

The word “expose” suddenly echoed in my ears with a terrifying resonance. I felt that the person sitting in front of me was not the teacher I always respected, but a sinner. The teacher's face was pale.

“Are you really serious?” the teacher pressed. “I doubt people because of the karma of my past. So, in fact, I doubt you too. However, for some reason, I don’t want to doubt you. You seem too simple to be doubted. Before I die, I want to trust at least one person and die. Can you be that one person? Will you be? Are you truly serious from the bottom of your heart?”

“If my life is serious, then what I just said is serious too.”

My voice was trembling.

“Very well,” the teacher said. “Let’s talk. I will tell you everything about my past. In return… No, that’s fine. However, my past may not be very beneficial to you. It might be better not to listen. Also, I cannot talk about it now, so keep that in mind. I will not speak unless the right moment comes.”

Even after returning to my lodging, I felt a kind of pressure.

It seemed that my thesis did not impress the professor as much as I thought. Still, I passed as scheduled. On the day of the graduation ceremony, I took out my musty old winter clothes from the trunk and wore them. As I lined up at the venue, everyone around looked hot. Under the thick wool, which did not allow any air to pass through, I felt trapped in my sealed body. After standing for a while, the handkerchief I was holding became soaked.

As soon as the ceremony was over, I went home and stripped off my clothes. I opened the window on the second floor of the boarding house and looked out at the world as far as I could see through the hole in the rolled-up diploma, which was like a telescope. Then I tossed that diploma onto the desk and lay down in the middle of the room in a star shape. While lying there, I reflected on my past and imagined my future. In that moment, the diploma, which stood there marking a division, seemed to be a strange piece of paper that was both meaningful and meaningless.

That night, I was invited to dinner at my teacher's house. This was a promise made beforehand that after graduation, I would have my dinner at the teacher's table instead of elsewhere.

The dining table was set up near the edge of the tatami mat as promised. The thick, stiff tablecloth with a patterned weave beautifully and purely reflected the light of the electric lamp. When having a meal at the teacher's house, chopsticks and rice bowls were always placed on this white linen, resembling a Western restaurant. And they had to be freshly washed and pure white.

“It’s better to use colored items from the start than to use dirty ones,” the teacher said. When I heard that, I realized that the teacher was indeed a fastidious person. The study was also very neatly organized. Occasionally, the teacher's such characteristics caught my attention, which was often indifferent.

Once, when I told his wife, “The teacher is quite nervous,” she replied, “But he doesn’t seem to care much about things like kimonos.” The teacher, who was listening nearby, laughed and said, “To tell the truth, I am mentally nervous. That’s why I’m always suffering. When I think about it, it’s really a foolish disposition.” I couldn’t understand whether being mentally nervous meant the same as being neurotic in common terms or if it meant being ethically fastidious. It seemed that his wife didn’t quite grasp it either.

That night, I sat facing the teacher in front of the aforementioned white tablecloth. His wife occupied a seat in front of the garden, placing the two of us on either side.

“Congratulations,” the teacher said, raising a cup for me. I did not feel any special joy towards that cup. Of course, one reason was that my heart did not have the kind of soaring happiness that resonates with those words. However, the way the teacher spoke was also not in a light-hearted tone that would enhance my happiness. The teacher raised the cup while laughing. In that smile, I did not feel even a hint of malicious irony, and at the same time, I could not grasp the sincerity of the “congratulations.” The teacher’s laughter seemed to be saying to me, “People often want to say ‘congratulations’ at times like this, don’t they?”

My wife said to me, “That’s nice. I’m sure your father and mother are very pleased.” The moment I heard those words, I remembered my sick father. I wanted to quickly take the diploma to him and show it to him.

“What happened to the teacher’s diploma?” I asked.

“I wonder what happened to it. Was it still stored somewhere?” the teacher asked his wife.

“Yes, it should be stored somewhere,” the wife replied.

Neither of them knew well where the diploma was.

When it was time for the meal, the wife had the maid standing next to her serve, and she began to serve herself. This seemed to be the custom of the teacher’s household towards uninvited guests. At first, I felt a bit embarrassed, but as the number of times increased, it became nothing to place the bowl in front of the wife.

“Tea? Rice? You eat quite well,” the wife said. Sometimes, she would boldly say things without hesitation. However, that day, due to the season, I did not have much of an appetite.

“That’s enough. You’ve become quite a picky eater lately,” the wife said.

"It's not that I've become a picky eater. I just can't eat because it's hot," I replied.

After calling the maid to clear the table, the lady had ice cream and fruit brought out again.

"This was made at home," the lady said.

It seemed that the lady had the luxury to serve homemade ice cream to her guests. I had two more servings of it.

"Now that you've graduated, what do you plan to do next?" the teacher asked. He shifted his seat halfway onto the porch, leaning his back against the shoji at the threshold.

I only had the awareness that I had graduated, but I had no purpose for what I wanted to do next. When the lady saw me hesitating to respond, she asked, "A teacher?" When I remained silent, she then asked, "Then a government official?" Both the teacher and I burst out laughing.

"To be honest, I have no idea what I want to do yet. In fact, I've never really thought about a profession at all. I can't know which is good or bad until I try it myself, so I'm troubled by the choice," I said.

"That's true. But you can say such carefree things because you have wealth in the end. If it were someone in trouble, they wouldn't be able to remain as calm as you," the lady said.

Among my friends, there were those who had been looking for a junior high school teaching job even before graduating. I acknowledged the truth of what the lady said in my heart, but I said, "You've been influenced by the teacher a bit, haven't you?"

"I haven't been influenced much," the teacher said with a wry smile.

"It doesn't matter if you are influenced, but instead, as I said the other day, make sure to get a considerable amount of wealth while your father is still alive. Without that, you must never let your guard down," the teacher continued.

I remembered the beginning of May when the azaleas were blooming, talking with the teacher deep in the spacious garden of the suburban nursery. At that time, I repeated the strong words that the teacher had excitedly told me on the way back, deep in my ears once again. They were not only strong but also rather terrifying words. However, to me, who did not know the truth, they were simultaneously words that did not fully resonate.

“Ma'am, do you have a considerable fortune?” I asked.

“Why would you ask such a thing?” the lady was surprised.

“Because the teacher wouldn’t tell me,” I replied.

The lady laughed and looked at the teacher's face. “It’s probably because there’s not enough to tell you.”

“But please tell me, as a reference for when I go home and consult my father about how much one needs to live like the teacher,” I said.

The teacher was facing the garden, smoking a cigarette. The other party must have been the lady.

“It’s not like there’s a lot. Well, I can just manage to get by like this, you know. —That aside, you really need to do something from now on. You can’t just lounge around like the teacher…”

“I’m not lounging around,” the teacher slightly turned his face back and denied the lady's words.