Tales grotesque and curious

so good to him as it had when he smoked it in his pure gold pipe. But the changing of the metal of which the pipe was made did not affect only Narihiro. As the three loyal retainers had expected, it had an effect on the attendants as well. However, in the end, this effect utterly betrayed their expectation. For when the attendants saw that the gold had been replaced with silver, even those of them who had up to this time stood back because of the pure gold raced to ask for a pipe. Moreover, Narihiro, who begrudged not even a pure gold pipe, naturally was not averse to giving away a silver pipe. Whenever he was asked for one, he promptly tossed it away ungrudgingly. Finally even he himself could not say whether he gave away a pipe when he went to the castle or went to the castle to give away a pipe,--at least, he hardly could. At this, Yamazaki, Iwata and Ueki knit their brows and conferred again. Now at last there was nothing for it but to make brass pipes as Ueki had proposed. Then when they were just on the verge of sending an order to Sumiyoshiya Shichibei as usual, a personal attendant came to them with a message from Narihiro. “Our liege lord says that when he carries a silver pipe, he’s tormented by the attendants’ importunities. Henceforward you are to make his pipes of gold as heretofore.” The three were struck dumb and knew not what to do. VII 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