Tales grotesque and curious
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