Part 7

Kōchiyama Sōshun sourly watched the other attendants vying with one another each to get a silver pipe from Narihiro. Especially when he saw Ryōtetsu overjoyed at getting one when Narihiro went to the castle on the first of the eighth month, he went so far as to abuse him roundly and call him a fool in his usual sharp and peevish voice. It was by no means that he was not covetous of a silver pipe, but he felt his dignity too much to run after one with the other attendants. Troubled by the conflict between his pride and his avarice, he kept his eye on Narihiro’s pipe constantly, pretending indifference, the while he was saying to himself, “Wait and see. I’ll soon put their noses out of joint.”

Then one day he noticed that Narihiro was calmly puffing away at a pure gold pipe again. But it seemed that not an attendant was going to ask for it. So he stopped Ryōtetsu, who was just then passing, and slyly pointing in Narihiro’s direction with his chin, whispered,

“He’s got a pure gold one again, hasn’t he?”

When Ryōtetsu heard this, he looked at Sōshun with an amazed expression on his face.

“You’d better show some moderation in your greed. When, even with silver pipes, he’s importuned so much, why would he want to carry a pure gold pipe again?”

“Then what is it?”

“Brass, I should say.”

Sōshun shrugged his shoulders. He looked all about him carefully and did not raise his voice in laughter.

“All right, if it’s brass, let it be brass. I’m going to get it.”

“Why do you think it’s gold again?” asked Ryōtetsu, his assurance seeming to weaken.

“He knows your minds. Pretending that it’s brass, he’s brought a pure gold one. To begin with, a lord with a million _koku_ of rice wouldn’t meekly carry a brass pipe.”

Sōshun said this rapidly and went in alone to Narihiro, leaving the astonished Ryōtetsu outside that golden sliding door on which was the picture of Seiōbo.

An hour later, Ryōtetsu met Kōchiyama in the matted corridor and asked,

“What happened, Sōshun, in that matter?”

“What do you mean, that matter?”

Ryōtetsu, sticking out his lower lip, stared into his face and said,

“Don’t sham. The matter of the pipe, of course.”

“Oh, the pipe? If it’s the pipe you mean, I’ll give it to you.”

Kōchiyama took a shiny yellow pipe out of the bosom of his kimono and, throwing it into Ryōtetsu’s face before he had more than caught a glimpse of it, walked hastily away.

Ryōtetsu, rubbing the place where the pipe had hit him, grumblingly picked it up from where it had fallen and, looking at it, found it to be an elegant piece of workmanship with the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it and made of--brass! With a gesture of detestation, he threw it down on the mats again and, lifting a foot inclosed in a one-toed shoe of white cloth, went with exaggeration through the motion of stamping on it.

VIII

After that the attendants’ begging of pipes from Narihiro came to an abrupt end. This was because Sōshun and Ryōtetsu proved to them that the pipe he carried was made of brass.

Then Narihiro’s three faithful retainers, who had temporarily deceived him with a brass pipe made to look like gold, after conferring together again, commanded Sumiyoshiya Shichibei to make a pure gold pipe. It had the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it and did not differ in the least from the one Kōchiyama had received in the beginning. In his heart looking forward to the importunities of the attendants, Narihiro went triumphantly to the castle with the pipe.

But not a single attendant came to ask him for it. Even Kōchiyama, who had already begged two of them out of him, took but a single glance at this one and, with a slight bow, went away. The other daimyō present maintained silence and, of course, never asked to see it. This seemed strange to Narihiro.

No, it was not just strange. In the end, it made him vaguely uneasy. So when he saw Kōchiyama coming again, he spoke first himself this time.

“Sōshun, don’t you want me to give you a pipe?”

“No, thank you, I’ve already had one.”

Sōshun probably thought to make sport of Narihiro. There was a sharpness in the way these polite words were spoken.

When Narihiro heard them, his face clouded with displeasure. The flavor of his Nagasaki tobacco was no longer sweet in his mouth. For suddenly he felt that the power of his million _koku_, of which he had been sensible up to this time, was vanishing away utterly like the smoke rising from the end of his pure gold pipe.

According to men now grown old, in the Maeda family, after Narihiro, both Nariyasu and Noriyasu used only brass pipes, and this may well have been the result of a death-bed warning left to his descendants by Narihiro, whose pure gold pipe had taught him a lesson.

MŌRI SENSEI

One evening in December, I was walking with a critic friend of mine under the bare willows along the so-called Koshiben Kaidō (Lunch-on-Hip Highway) toward Kanda Bridge. To right and left of us staggered through the light still lingering in the gloaming men who seemed to be those petty officials to whom Shimazaki Tōson long ago said in patriotic indignation, “Walk with your heads held higher.” Perhaps it was because we ourselves, try as we might, could not quickly shake off a similar melancholy feeling that, walking so near together that the shoulders of our overcoats touched and quickening our steps a thought, we said hardly a word till we were passing the Ote Machi car stop. Then my friend the critic glanced at a group of chilly-looking people waiting for a car by a red post there and, suddenly giving a shiver, mumbled as if to himself,

“They remind me of Mōri Sensei.”

“Who’s Mōri Sensei?”

“He was a teacher of mine in middle school. Haven’t I ever told you about him?”

In place of a negative answer, I silently pulled down the brim of my hat. What here follows is the story of Mōri Sensei then told me by that friend.

* * * * *

It was about ten years ago, when I was yet in the third year class of a certain prefectural middle school. During the winter vacation, Adachi Sensei, a young teacher who taught our class English, died of acute pneumonia brought on by influenza. It all happened so suddenly that there was no time to choose a suitable successor to take his place, so it must have been as a last expedient. At any rate, for the time being, our middle school gave the work Adachi Sensei had been doing to an old man called Mōri Sensei, who was at that time teaching English in a certain private middle school.

It was on the afternoon of the day he took up his work that I saw him for the first time. We students of the third year class were overcome with curiosity at the prospect of meeting the new teacher and, from the time his steps resounded in the hall, awaited the beginning of the lesson in unwonted silence. But when they stopped outside the cold and sunless class-room and the door finally opened,--ah, even in these surroundings, the scene at that moment stands clearly before my eyes. Mōri Sensei, who opened the door and entered, first of all reminded me by his shortness of the spider men often seen in side-shows at festivals. But what took the gloom out of the feeling he inspired was his smooth and shining bald head, which might almost be called beautiful, and on the back of which there barely clung some slight wisps of grizzled hair, but which for the most part looked just like such ostrich eggs as are pictured in text books on natural history. And finally, that which gave him a mien distinct from that of ordinary men was his strange morning coat, which was literally so green and rusty as almost to make one doubt that it had ever been black. And I have even a surprising recollection of an extremely gay purple necktie showily tied just like a moth with outspread wings in his slightly soiled turn-down collar. Wherefore it was of course not surprising that, the minute he entered, sounds of suppressed laughter suddenly arose here and there all over the room.

However, with a reader and the roll book clasped in his arms and with an air of perfect composure, as if not having the least regard for us students, he stepped up on to the low platform, returned our bow and, with an amiable smile on his very good-natured, sallow round face, began in a shrill voice,

“Gentlemen.”

We had never once during the past three years been addressed as gentlemen by the teachers of that school. So Mōri Sensei’s “Gentlemen” naturally made us all involuntarily open eyes of wonder. And at the same time, expecting that, now that he had already begun with “Gentlemen,” there would instantly follow a great speech on teaching methods or something, we waited with bated breath.

However, Mōri Sensei, having said “Gentlemen,” looked round the room and spoke not another word for some time. In spite of the calm smile on his flaccid face, the corners of his mouth twitched nervously. At the same time an uneasy light continually came and went in his eyes, which were clear and somehow like the eyes of a domestic animal. Although he did not express it in words, it seemed that he had something that he wished to beg of us, but unfortunately could not himself tell clearly what it was.

“Gentlemen,” he finally repeated in the same tone. And then this time, afterwards, as if he would catch the echo of the voice in which he said it, he added greatly flustered,

“I am hereafter to teach you the ‘Choice Reader’.”

Feeling our curiosity grow more and more intense, we became absolutely still and fastened our eyes on his face. But as he said this, he looked round the room again with that pleading expression in his eyes, and without another word, sat down suddenly in the chair, as if a spring had given way in him. And he began to look at the roll, which he opened beside the “Choice Reader,” already lying open. I probably need not tell you how this abrupt way of ending his greetings disappointed us, or rather how it went further and impressed us with a sense of its ridiculousness.

But fortunately, before we had begun to laugh, he lifted those eyes like a domestic animal’s from the roll and called the name of one of us, adding to it the title, “San.” Of course this was the signal to stand up and translate from the reader. So the student stood up and translated a paragraph of “Robinson Crusoe” or something, in the smart tone peculiar to Tōkyō Middle School boys. And as he read, Mōri Sensei, putting his hand now and then to his purple necktie, went along carefully correcting his every wrong translation, of course, and even his slightest mispronunciation. There was something strangely affected in his pronunciation, but it was for the most part accurate and distinct, and he seemed in his own heart to have special confidence in himself in this direction.

But after the student had taken his seat and Mōri Sensei began his own translation of the passage, laughter arose again here and there among us. For this teacher, who was such a master in pronunciation, when he came to translate, knew so few Japanese words as hardly to seem like a Japanese. Or it may have been that, even if he did know them, he was not able to find them on the spur of the moment. For instance, to translate only one line, he said, “So at last Robinson Crusoe decided to keep it. As for why he decided to keep it, it was one of these queer animals--there are many of them at the zoo--what do you call them? Er--they’re clever at tricks--you all must know what I mean, don’t you? You know, they have red faces--what? Monkeys? Yes, yes, it was one of those monkeys. He decided to keep one of those monkeys.”

Of course, since he had that much trouble with the word “monkey,” when it came to any word that was a little difficult, he could not strike upon a suitable translation till he had gone all around it many times. Besides, he was at such times greatly flustered, and putting his hand to his throat so frequently that it seemed he must tear off his purple necktie, he lifted his anxious face and looked at us with panic-stricken eyes. And then, pressing his bald head in his two hands, he would put his face down on the desk and come to an abashed stop. At such times his naturally small body shrank up timidly exactly like a deflated rubber balloon, and even his legs, hanging down from the chair, seemed to float danglingly in space. And again, we students found that funny and tittered. Then while he was repeating his translation two or three times, the laughing voices gradually became audacious and, at last, even from the front row, welled up openly. As for how much this laughter of ours hurt the good Mōri Sensei,--the truth is that of late years even I have many times involuntarily wished to cover my ears at the recollection of that pitiless sound.

Yet Mōri Sensei went bravely on with his translation till the bugle announced recess. And when he had finished the last paragraph, he again assumed his original air of composure and, returning our bow, went out of the room with a show of calmness, as if he had forgotten entirely the dismal struggle he had had up to that minute. Scarcely had he gone out when there arose in our midst a great burst of laughter like a tempest and the noise of deliberately opening and shutting the lids of desks, and then one student jumped up on the platform and quickly mimicked his gestures and voice,--ah, must I remember even the fact that I, decorated with the monitor’s mark and surrounded by five or six students, proudly pointed out his mistakes in translation. And what of those mistakes? To tell the truth, I was showing off, even then not knowing in the least whether they were really mistakes or not.

* * * * *

It was a noon hour three or four days later. Gathered in the sand pit by the turning bars, five or six of us students were chatting glibly about such things as the coming terminal examinations, as we exposed the backs of our serge uniforms to the warm winter sun. Then Tamba Sensei, who weighed a hundred and fifty pounds and had up to that moment been hanging to the horizontal bar with a student, dropped down into the sand with a loud, “One, two!” and appearing among us in his vest and athletic cap, said,

“How’s the new teacher, Mōri Sensei?”

Tamba Sensei also taught us English, but being a famous lover of athletics, and, at the same time, being credited with ability in the reciting of Chinese poems, he seemed to be very popular even with those stalwarts, the jujitsu and single-sticking champions, who hated English itself. So when he said this, one of those stalwarts, fingering a mitt, replied with a shyness unnatural to him,

“Er--he’s not too--what shall I say? Everybody says he’s not too good.”

Then Tamba Sensei, dusting the sand off his trousers with his handkerchief, smiled proudly and said,

“Is he worse than you are?”

“Of course he’s better than I am.”

“Then you have nothing to complain of, have you?”

The stalwart, scratching his head with his mitted hand, withdrew weakly. But the English genius of our class, adjusting his strong myopic spectacles, protested in a pert tone, unbecoming his years,

“But Sensei, as most of us mean to take the entrance examinations to higher schools, we want to be taught by the very best teachers.”

But Tamba Sensei, laughing spiritedly as always, said,

“Nonsense! it’s all the same whoever teaches you only for a term or so.”

“Then is Mōri Sensei to teach us only one term?”

This question seemed to touch Tamba Sensei a little near home. But this worldly-wise teacher, purposely giving no reply, took off his athletic cap, and energetically knocking the dust out of his closely cropped hair, suddenly looked all around at us and, cleverly changing the subject, said,

“Of course, Mōri Sensei’s a very old man, so he’s a little different from us. This morning when I got on a car he was seated in the very middle of it, and when we got near the place to change, he called out, ‘Conductor, conductor!’ It was so funny I nearly died laughing. Anyhow, he’s certainly different.”

But when it came to things of that sort about Mōri Sensei, there were more than enough that had astonished us without our waiting to be told about them by Tamba Sensei.

“And they say Mōri Sensei, when it rains, comes to school in his foreign clothes with wooden clogs on his feet!”

“Isn’t that his lunch that always hangs from his belt wrapped in a white cloth wrapper?”

“Somebody said that when he saw him hanging to a strap in a car, his woolen gloves were full of holes.”

Gathering about Tamba Sensei, we chattered such nonsense noisily from every side. Then, perhaps drawn in by these remarks, when our voices became louder, Tamba Sensei finally spoke up gaily, and twirling his athletic cap on his finger, said thoughtlessly,

“Better yet, that hat’s an antique.”

Just at that moment, Mōri Sensei, thinking I know not what, made his appearance composedly with his small body, that antique derby hat on his head and his hand gravely fingering that same old purple necktie, at the door of the two-storied school building facing the turning bar but ten paces away. In front of the door six or seven boys, probably of the first year class, were playing pickaback or something, and when they saw him, they all scrambled to be first and saluted him politely. Mōri Sensei, standing in the sunshine on the stone steps before the door, seemed to be lifting his derby and returning their bows with a smile. When we saw this, naturally feeling a sort of shame, we all suspended our merry laughter and were silent for a moment. But with Tamba Sensei, this was probably because of a combination of shame and confusion that was more than enough to shut his mouth. Slightly sticking out the tongue that was just saying, “That hat’s an antique,” and suddenly putting his cap on his head, he swung himself round quickly and, with a loud “One!” threw his fat body in its vest at the horizontal bar. And then when he had stretched his legs up into space for a “lobster snap” and shouted “Two!”, he cut neatly through the blue winter sky and was up on the bar without effort. It was natural that his funny covering of his shame should make us all titter. We students around him, who had restrained ourselves for a moment, looking up at Tamba Sensei on the bar, clapped our hands and yelled exactly as if we were rooting at a baseball game.

Of course I myself joined in the applause with the rest. While I was applauding, however, I began, half instinctively, to hate Tamba Sensei up on the bar. But this does not mean that I sympathized with Mōri Sensei. For the applause we gave Tamba Sensei then had, at the same time, the indirect object of showing our bad will toward Mōri Sensei. Analyzing it to-day, my feeling at that moment is susceptible of explanation as scorn for Tamba Sensei morally, combined with scorn for Mōri Sensei intellectually. Or I may think of my scorn as having had added to it an impertinence from its having been given proper indorsement by Tamba Sensei’s words, “That hat’s an antique.” So while applauding him, I looked triumphantly across my elevated shoulders at the entrance of the school-house. There stood our Mōri Sensei yet motionless on the stone steps like a winter fly or something that covets the sunshine, watching with absorption the innocent play of the first year students. That derby hat and that purple necktie,--why now can I never forget that scene which I then, rather as an object of derision, took in at a glance?

* * * * *

The feeling of scorn aroused in us by Mōri Sensei’s costume and attainments on the day he took up his work grew stronger and stronger throughout all the class after Tamba Sensei’s slip. Then came a certain morning less than a week later. Snow had been falling since the night before, and the roof of the drill-shed stretching out below the windows was covered so deep that no shade of the tiles showed through, but in the class-room a coal fire blazed red in the stove, and even the snow that fell on the window panes melted away before it had time to throw in its pale blue reflected light. Sitting in a chair in front of the stove, Mōri Sensei was squeezing out his shrill voice as usual, earnestly teaching us the “Psalm of Life” from the “Choice Reader,” but of course not a single student was seriously listening. Worse yet, a certain jujitsu champion seated beside me had all along been reading a story of adventure by Oshikawa Shunro in the “Chivalrous World” spread out under his reader.

This went on for probably twenty or thirty minutes. Then Mōri Sensei, suddenly getting up from his chair, began to discuss the question of life in connection with the Longfellow poem he was reading. I do not remember the gist of his talk at all, but I think that, rather than an argument, it was something impressionistic built around his own life. For I faintly remember that he said something like this as he babbled on in an agitated tone, lifting and lowering his arms constantly just like a plucked bird:

“You don’t understand life yet. Do you? Even if you want to, you can’t. That itself doubtless makes you happy. When you get like me, you know life perfectly. You know it, but it’s mostly hardships. Understand? It’s mostly hardships. I myself have two children. Well, I must send them to school. When I send them,--er--when I send them--tuition? Yes, that’s it. Tuition is necessary. Isn’t it? So it’s mostly hardships all right.”

But of course we could not be expected to understand the feelings of this teacher who, whether he intended to or not, actually appealed against the troubles of life even to us unsophisticated middle school students. Rather, we who saw only the ridiculous side of the fact that he was making the appeal as he went on speaking, all began to snicker. Only our laughter did not turn into its usual guffaw, which was perhaps due to the fact that his shabby clothes and his expression as he ran shrilly on aroused in us a certain amount of sympathy, as if they were the hardships of life themselves. But though our laughter did not grow louder, after a moment the jujitsu champion sitting beside me suddenly put aside his “Chivalrous World” and stood up with the fierceness of a tiger. And as I wondered what he was going to do, he said,

“Sensei, we attend this class to be taught English. So if you don’t teach it to us, there’s no need of our staying in this class-room. If you go on talking like that, I shall go at once to the gymnasium.”

With that, he made as sour a face as he could and took his seat again most fiercely. I have never seen a man look so strange as Mōri Sensei did then. With his mouth still half open as if he had been struck by lightning, he simply stood like a poker by the stove for a minute or two gazing into that impetuous student’s face. But finally that imploring expression rushed into his animalish eyes and set them alight, and he suddenly put his hand to that purple necktie of his and lowering his bald head two or three times, said,

“Yes, I’m at fault. I’ve done wrong, so I apologize sincerely. To be sure, you’re all here to study English. I did wrong not to teach you English. Since I’ve done wrong, I apologize sincerely. You understand, don’t you? I apologize sincerely.”

And he repeated the same sort of thing over and over again, smiling such a smile that he seemed almost to be weeping. Through the door of the stove, the fire cast a red light aslant across his figure, making the worn places on his coat at the shoulders and waist stand out more clearly. At the same time, his bald head, every time he ducked it, shone with a fine coppery gloss and looked even more like an ostrich egg.