Tales grotesque and curious
deprived of water. So, urged on by his interest in teaching English,
he deliberately came alone to this café every evening to sip a cup of
coffee. Of course his was no such leisure as to deserve being taken
for time-killing by the head waiter. More, our mistaking him long
before and deriding him for working only for a living, now was proven
a shameful blunder. How he must have been tormented by the vulgar
construction put upon his actions by the world, which credited him only
with killing time or making a living! Of course, even in such torment,
always assuming an attitude of serenity and caparisoned in that purple
necktie and derby hat, he went on translating unflinchingly, braver
than Don Quixote. But still in his eyes was there not sometimes
that sorrowful gleam entreating the sympathy of the students he was
teaching,--nay, the sympathy of all the world he was facing?
Thinking such thoughts momentarily and deeply moved till I did not know
whether I should laugh or cry, I buried my face in my overcoat collar
and hurried out of the café. And still Mōri Sensei, taking advantage of
the absence of customers, raised his shrill voice and went on teaching
English to the eager waiters under the cold and over-bright electric
lights.
“As it’s a word that stands for a name, it’s called a pronoun. Isn’t
it? A pronoun. You see that, don’t you?”
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Some clear typographical and spelling errors have been corrected.
- Text between _underscores_ represents italics.
- There was a half-titlepage before each story. They were removed to
avoid having the title twice in a row.