Botchan/Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI.
The next morning on awakening I felt pains all over my body, due, I thought, to having had no fight for a long time. This is not creditable to my fame as regards fighting, so I thought while in bed, when the old lady brought me a copy of the Shikoku Shimbun. I felt so weak as to need some effort even reaching for the paper. But what should be man so easily upset by such a trifling affair,–so I forced myself to turn in bed, and, opening its second page, I was surprised. There was the whole story of the fight of yesterday in print. Not that I was surprised by the news of the fight having been published, but it said that one teacher Hotta of the Middle School and one certain saucy Somebody, recently from Tokyo, of the same institution, not only started this trouble by inciting the students, but were actually present at the scene of the trouble, directing the students and engaged themselves against the students of the Normal School. On top of this, something of the following effect was added.
“The Middle School in this prefecture has been an object of admiration by all other schools for its good and ideal behavior. But since this long-cherished honor has been sullied by these two irresponsible persons, and this city made to suffer the consequent indignity, we have to bring the perpetrators to full account. We trust that before we take any step in this matter, the authorities will have those ‘toughs’ properly punished, barring them forever from our educational circles.”
All the types were italicized, as if they meant to administer typographical chastisement upon us. “What the devil do I care!” I shouted, and up I jumped out of bed. Strange to say, the pain in my joints became tolerable.
I rolled up the newspaper and threw it into the garden. Not satisfied, I took that paper to the cesspool and dumped it there. Newspapers tell such reckless lies. There is nothing so adept, I believe, as the newspaper in circulating lies. It has said what I should have said. And what does it mean by “one saucy Somebody who is recently from Tokyo?” Is there any one in this wide world with the name of Somebody? Don’t forget, I have a family and personal name of my own which I am proud of. If they want to look at my family-record, they will bow before every one of my ancestors from Mitsunaka Tada down. Having washed my face, my cheek began suddenly smarting. I asked the old lady for a mirror, and she asked if I had read the paper of this morning. “Yes,” I said, “and dumped it in the cesspool; go and pick it up if you want it,”–and she withdrew with a startled look. Looking in the mirror, I saw bruises on my cheek. Mine is a precious face to me. I get my face bruised, and am called a saucy Somebody as if I were nobody. That is enough.
It will be a reflection on my honor to the end of my days if it is said that I shunned the public gaze and kept out of the school on account of the write-up in the paper. So, after the breakfast, I attended the school ahead of all. One after the other, all coming to the school would grin at my face. What is there to laugh about! This face is my own, gotten up, I am sure, without the least obligation on their part. By and by, Clown appeared.
“Ha, heroic action yesterday. Wounds of honor, eh?”
He made this sarcastic remark, I suppose, in revenge for the knock he received on his head from me at the farewell dinner.
“Cut out nonsense; you get back there and suck your old drawing brushes!” Then he answered “that was going some,” and enquired if it pained much?
“Pain or no pain, this is my face. That’s none of your business,” I snapped back in a furious temper. Then Clown took his seat on the other side, and still keeping his eye on me, whispered and laughed with the teacher of history next to him.
Then came Porcupine. His nose had swollen and was purple,–it was a tempting object for a surgeon’s knife. His face showed far worse (is it my conceit that make this comparison?) than mine. I and Porcupine are chums with desks next to each other, and moreover, as ill-luck would have it, the desks are placed right facing the door. Thus were two strange faces placed together. The other fellows, when in want of something to divert them, would gaze our way with regularity. They say “too bad,” but they are surely laughing in their minds as “ha, these fools!” If that is not so, there is no reason for their whispering together and grinning like that. In the class room, the boys clapped their hands when I entered; two or three of them banzaied. I could not tell whether it was an enthusiastic approval or open insult. While I and Porcupine were thus being made the cynosures of the whole school, Red Shirt came to me as usual.
“Too bad, my friend; I am very sorry indeed for you gentlemen,” he said in a semi-apologetic manner. “I’ve talked with the principal in regard to the story in the paper, and have arranged to demand that the paper retract the report, so you needn’t worry on that score. You were plunged into the trouble because my brother invited Mr. Hotta, and I don’t know how I can apologize you! I’m going to do my level best in this matter; you gentlemen please depend on that.” At the third hour recess the principal came out of his room, and seemed more or less perturbed, saying, “The paper made a bad mess of it, didn’t it? I hope the matter will not become serious.”
As to anxiety, I have none. If they propose to relieve me, I intend to tender my resignation before I get fired,–that’s all. However, if I resign with no fault on my part, I would be simply giving the paper advantage. I thought it proper to make the paper take back what it had said, and stick to my position. I was going to the newspaper office to give them a piece of my mind on my way back but having been told that the school had already taken steps to have the story retracted, I did not.
Porcupine and I saw the principal and Red Shirt at a convenient hour, giving them a faithful version of the incident. The principal and Red Shirt agreed that the incident must have been as we said and that the paper bore some grudge against the school and purposely published such a story. Red Shirt made a round of personal visits on each teacher in the room, defending and explaining our action in the affair. Particularly he dwelt upon the fact that his brother invited Porcupine and it was his fault. All teachers denounced the paper as infamous and agreed that we two deserved sympathy.
On our way home, Porcupine warned me that Red Shirt smelt suspicious, and we would be done unless we looked out. I said he had been smelling some anyway,–it was not necessarily so just from to-day. Then he said that it was his trick to have us invited and mixed in the fight yesterday,–“Aren’t you on to that yet?” Well, I was not. Porcupine was quite a Grobian but he was endowed, I was impressed, with a better brain than I.
“He made us mix into the trouble, and slipped behind and contrived to have the paper publish the story. What a devil!”
“Even the newspaper in the band wagon of Red Shirt? That surprises me. But would the paper listen to Red Shirt so easily?”
“Wouldn’t it, though. Darn easy thing if one has friends in the paper.”
“Has he any?”
“Suppose he hasn’t, still that’s easy. Just tell lies and say such and such are facts, and the paper will take it up.”
“A startling revelation, this. If that was really a trick of Red Shirt, we’re likely to be discharged on account of this affair.”
“Quite likely we may be discharged.”
“Then I’ll tender my resignation tomorrow, and back to Tokyo I go. I am sick of staying in such a wretched hole.”
“Your resignation wouldn’t make Red Shirt squeal.”
“That’s so. How can he be made to squeal?”
“A wily guy like him always plots not to leave any trace behind, and it would be difficult to follow his track.”
“What a bore! Then we have to stand in a false light, eh? Damn it! I call all kinds of god to witness if this is just and right!”
“Let’s wait for two or three days and see how it turns out. And if we can’t do anything else, we will have to catch him at the hot springs town.”
“Leaving this fight affair a separate case?”
“Yes. We’ll have to his hit weak spot with our own weapon.”
“That may be good. I haven’t much to say in planning it out; I leave it to you and will do anything at your bidding.”
I parted from Porcupine then. If Red Shirt was really instrumental in bringing us two into the trouble as Porcupine supposed, he certainly deserves to be called down. Red Shirt outranks us in brainy work. And there is no other course open but to appeal to physical force. No wonder we never see the end of war in the world. Among individuals, it is, after all, the question of superiority of the fist.
Next day I impatiently glanced over the paper, the arrival of which I had been waiting with eagerness, but not a correction of the news or even a line of retraction could be found. I pressed the matter on Badger when I went to the school, and he said it might probably appear tomorrow. On that “tomorrow” a line of retraction was printed in tiny types. But the paper did not make any correction of the story. I called the attention of Badger to the fact, and he replied that that was about all that could be done under the circumstance. The principal, with the face like a badger and always swaggering, is surprisingly wanting in influence. He has not even as much power as to bring down a country newspaper, which had printed a false story. I was so thoroughly indignant that I declared I would go alone to the office and see the editor-in-chief on the subject, but Badger said no.
“If you go there and have a blowup with the editor,” he continued, “it would only mean of your being handed out worse stuff in the paper again. Whatever is published in a paper, right or wrong, nothing can be done with it.” And he wound up with a remark that sounded like a piece of sermon by a Buddhist bonze that “We must be contented by speedily despatching the matter from our minds and forgetting it.”
If newspapers are of that character, it would be beneficial for us all to have them suspended,–the sooner the better. The similarity of the unpleasant sensation of being written-up in a paper and being bitten-down by a turtle became plain for the first time by the explanation of Badger.
About three days afterward, Porcupine came to me excited, and said that the time has now come, that he proposes to execute that thing we had planned out. Then I will do so, I said, and readily agreed to join him. But Porcupine jerked his head, saying that I had better not. I asked him why, and he asked if I had been requested by the principal to tender my resignation. No, I said, and asked if he had. He told me that he was called by the principal who was very, very sorry for him but under the circumstance requested him to decide to resign.
“That isn’t fair. Badger probably had been pounding his belly-drum too much and his stomach is upside down,” I said, “you and I went to the celebration, looked at the glittering sword dance together, and jumped into the fight together to stop it. Wasn’t it so? If he wants you to tender your resignation, he should be impartial and should have asked me to also. What makes everything in the country school so dull-head. This is irritating!”
“That’s wire-pulling by Red Shirt,” he said. “I and Red Shirt cannot go along together, but they think you can be left as harmless.”
“I wouldn’t get along with that Red Shirt either. Consider me harmless, eh? They’re getting too gay with me.”
“You’re so simple and straight that they think they can handle you in any old way.”
“Worse still. I wouldn’t get along with him, I tell you.”
“Besides, since the departure of Koga, his successor has not arrived. Furthermore, if they fire me and you together, there will be blank spots in the schedule hours at the school.”
“Then they expect me to play their game. Darn the fellow! See if they can make me.”
On going to the school next day I made straightway for the room of the principal and started firing.
“Why don’t you ask me to put in my resignation?” I said.
“Eh?” Badger stared blankly.
“You requested Hotta to resign, but not me. Is that right?”
“That is on account of the condition of the school….”
“That condition is wrong, I dare say. If I don’t have to resign, there should be no necessity for Hotta to resign either.”
“I can’t offer a detailed explanation about that… as to Hotta, it cannot be helped if he goes… we see no need of your resigning.”
Indeed, he is a badger. He jabbers something, dodging the point, but appears complacent. So I had to say:
“Then, I will tender my resignation. You might have thought that I would remain peacefully while Mr. Hotta is forced to resign, but I cannot do it.”
“That leaves us in a bad fix. If Hotta goes away and you follow him, we can’t teach mathematics here.”
“None of my business if you can’t.”
“Say, don’t be so selfish. You ought to consider the condition of the school. Besides, if it is said that you resigned within one month of starting a new job, it would affect your record in the future. You should consider that point also.”
“What do I care about my record. Obligation is more important than record.”
“That’s right. What you say is right, but be good enough to take our position into consideration. If you insist on resigning, then resign, but please stay until we get some one to take your place. At any rate, think the matter over once more, please.”
The reason was so plain as to discourage any attempt to think it over, but as I took some pity on Badger whose face reddened or paled alternately as he spoke, I withdrew on the condition that I would think the matter over. I did not talk with Red Shirt. If I have to land him one, it was better, I thought, to have it bunched together and make it hot and strong.
I acquainted Porcupine with the details of my meeting with Badger. He said he had expected it to be about so, and added that the matter of resignation can be left alone without causing me any embarrassment until the time comes. So I followed his advice. Porcupine appears somewhat smarter than I, and I have decided to accept whatever advices he may give.
Porcupine finally tendered his resignation, and having bidden farewell of all the fellow teachers, went down to Minato-ya on the beach. But he stealthily returned to the hot springs town, and having rented a front room upstairs of Masuya, started peeping through the hole he fingered out in the shoji. I am the only person who knows of this. If Red Shirt comes round, it would be night anyway, and as he is liable to be seen by students or some others during the early part in the evening, it would surely be after nine. For the first two nights, I was on the watch till about 11 o’clock, but no sight of Red Shirt was seen. On the third night, I kept peeping through from nine to ten thirty, but he did not come. Nothing made me feel more like a fool than returning to the boarding house at midnight after a fruitless watch. In four or five days, our old lady began worrying about me and advised me to quit night prowling,–being married. My night prowling is different from that kind of night prowling. Mine is that of administering a deserved chastisement. But then, when no encouragement is in sight after one week, it becomes tiresome. I am quick tempered, and get at it with all zeal when my interest is aroused, and would sit up all night to work it out, but I have never shone in endurance. However loyal a member of the heavenly-chastisement league I may be, I cannot escape monotony. On the sixth night I was a little tired, and on the seventh thought I would quit. Porcupine, however, stuck to it with bull-dog tenacity. From early in the evening up to past twelve, he would glue his eye to the shoji and keep steadily watching under the gas globe of Kadoya. He would surprise me, when I come into the room, with figures showing how many patrons there were to-day, how many stop-overs and how many women, etc. Red Shirt seems never to be coming, I said, and he would fold his arms, audibly sighing, “Well, he ought to.” If Red Shirt would not come just for once, Porcupine would be deprived of the chance of handing out a deserved and just punishment.
I left my boarding house about 7 o’clock on the eighth night and after having enjoyed my bath, I bought eight raw eggs. This would counteract the attack of sweet potatoes by the old lady. I put the eggs into my right and left pockets, four in each, with the same old red towel hung over my shoulder, my hands inside my coat, went to Masuya. I opened the shoji of the room and Porcupine greeted me with his Idaten-like face suddenly radiant, saying:
“Say, there’s hope! There’s hope!” Up to last night, he had been downcast, and even I felt gloomy. But at his cheerful countenance, I too became cheerful, and before hearing anything, I cried, “Hooray! Hooray!”
“About half past seven this evening,” he said, “that geisha named Kosuzu has gone into Kadoya.”
“With Red Shirt?”
“No.”
“That’s no good then.”
“There were two geishas… seems to me somewhat hopeful.”
“How?”
“How? Why, the sly old fox is likely to send his girls shead, and sneak round behind later.”
“That may be the case. About nine now, isn’t it?”
“About twelve minutes past nine,” said he, pulling out a watch with a nickel case, “and, say put out the light. It would be funny to have two silhouettes of bonze heads on the shoji. The fox is too ready to suspect.”
I blew out the lamp which stood upon the lacquer-enameled table. The shoji alone was dimly plain by the star light. The moon has not come up yet. I and Porcupine put our faces close to the shoji, watching almost breathless. A wall clock somewhere rang half past nine.
“Say, will he come to-night, do you think? If he doesn’t show up, I quit.”
“I’m going to keep this up while my money lasts.”
“Money? How much have you?”
“I’ve paid five yen and sixty sen up to to-day for eight days. I pay my bill every night, so I can jump out anytime.”
“That’s well arranged. The people of this hotel must have been rather put out, I suppose.”
“That’s all right with the hotel; only I can't take my mind off the house.”
“But you take some sleep in daytime.”
“Yes, I take a nap, but it’s nuisance because I can’t go out.”
“Heavenly chastisement is a hard job, I’m sure,” I said. “If he gives us the slip after giving us such trouble, it would have been a thankless task.”
“Well, I'm sure he will come to-night…–… Look, look!” His voice changed to whisper and I was alert in a moment. A fellow with a black hat looked up at the gas light of Kadoya and passed on into the darkness. No, it was not Red Shirt. Disappointing, this! Meanwhile the clock at the office below merrily tinkled off ten. It seems to be another bum watch to-night.
The streets everywhere had become quiet. The drum playing in the tenderloin reached our ears distinctively. The moon had risen from behind the hills of the hot springs. It is very light outside. Then voices were heard below. We could not poke our heads out of the window, so were unable to see the owners of the voices, but they were evidently coming nearer. The dragging of komageta (a kind of wooden footwear) was heard. They approached so near we could see their shadows.
“Everything is all right now. We’ve got rid of the stumbling block.” It was undoubtedly the voice of Clown.
“He only glories in bullying but has no tact.” This from Red Shirt.
“He is like that young tough, isn’t he? Why, as to that young tough, he is a winsome, sporty Master Darling.”
“I don’t want my salary raised, he says, or I want to tender resignation,–I’m sure something is wrong with his nerves.”
I was greatly inclined to open the window, jump out of the second story and make them see more stars than they cared to, but I restrained myself with some effort. The two laughed, and passed below the gas light, and into Kadoya.
“Say.”
“Well.”
“He’s here.”
“Yes, he has come at last.”
“I feel quite easy now.”
“Damned Clown called me a sporty Master Darling.”
“The stumblieg block means me. Hell!”
I and Porcupine had to waylay them on their return. But we knew no more than the man in the moon when they would come out. Porcupine went down to the hotel office, notifying them to the probability of our going out at midnight, and requesting them to leave the door unfastened so we could get out anytime. As I think about it now, it is wonderful how the hotel people complied with our request. In most cases, we would have been taken for burglars.
It was trying to wait for the coming of Red Shirt, but it was still more trying to wait for his coming out again. We could not go to sleep, nor could we remain with our faces stuck to the shoji all the time our minds constantly in a state of feverish agitation. In all my life, I never passed such fretful, mortifying hours. I suggested that we had better go right into his room and catch him but Porcupine rejected the proposal outright. If we get in there at this time of night, we are likely to be prevented from preceding much further, he said, and if we ask to see him, they will either answer that he is not there or will take us into a different room. Supposing we do break into a room, we cannot tell of all those many rooms, where we can find him. There is no other way but to wait for him to come out, however tiresome it may be. So we sat up till five in the morning.
The moment we saw them emerging from Kadoya, I and Porcupine followed them. It was some time before the first train started and they had to walk up to town. Beyond the limit of the hot springs town, there is a road for about one block running through the rice fields, both sides of which are lined with cedar trees. Farther on are thatch-roofed farm houses here and there, and then one comes upon a dyke leading straight to the town through the fields. We can catch them anywhere outside the town, but thinking it would be better to get them, if possible, on the road lined with cedar trees where we may not be seen by others, we followed them cautiously. Once out of the town limit, we darted on a double-quick time, and caught up with them. Wondering what was coming after them, they turned back, and we grabbed their shoulders. We cried, “Wait!” Clown, greatly rattled, attempted to escape, but I stepped in front of him to cut off his retreat.
“What makes one holding the job of a head teacher stay over night at Kadoya!” Porcupine diirectly fired the opening gun.
“Is there any rule that a head teacher should not stay over night at Kadoya?” Red Shirt met the attack in a polite manner. He looked a little pale.
“Why the one who is so strict as to forbid others from going even to noodle house or dango shop as unbecoming to instructors, stayed over night at a hotel with a geisha!”
Clown was inclined to run at the first opportunity; so kept I before him.
“What’s that Master Darling of a young tough!” I roared.
“I didn’t mean you. Sir. No, Sir, I didn’t mean you, sure.” He insisted on this brazen excuse. I happened to notice at that moment that I had held my pockets with both hands. The eggs in both pockets jerked so when I ran, that I had been holding them, I thrust my hand into the pocket, took out two and dashed them on the face of Clown. The eggs crushed, and from the tip of his nose the yellow streamed down. Clown was taken completely surprised, and uttering a hideous cry, he fell down on the ground and begged for mercy. I had bought those eggs to eat, but had not carried them for the purpose of making “Irish Confetti” of them. Thoroughly roused, in the moment of passion, I had dashed them at him before I knew what I was doing. But seeing Clown down and finding my hand grenade successful, I banged the rest of the eggs on him, intermingled with “Darn you, you sonovagun!” The face of Clown was soaked in yellow.
While I was bombarding Clown with the eggs, Porcupine was firing at Rad Shirt.
“Is there any evidence that I stayed there over night with a geisha?”
“I saw your favorite old chicken go there early in the evening, and am telling you so. You can’t fool me!”
“No need for us of fooling anybody. I stayed there with Mr. Yoshikawa, and whether any geisha had gone there early in the evening or not, that’s none of my business.”
“Shut up!” Porcupine wallopped him one. Red Shirt tottered.
“This is outrageous! It is rough to resort to force before deciding the right or wrong of it!”
“Outrageous indeed!” Another clout. “Nothing but wallopping will be effective on you scheming guys.” The remark was followed by a shower of blows. I soaked Clown at the same time, and made him think he saw the way to the Kingdom-Come. Finally the two crawled and crouched at the foot of a cedar tree, and either from inability to move or to see, because their eyes had become hazy, they did not even attempt to break away.
“Want more? If so, here goes some more!” With that we gave him more until he cried enough. “Want more? You?” we turned to Clown, and he answered “Enough, of course.”
“This is the punishment of heaven on you grovelling wretches. Keep this in your head and be more careful hereafter. You can never talk down justice.”
The two said nothing. They were so thoroughly cowed that they could not speak.
“I’m going to neither run away nor hide. You’ll find me at Minato-ya on the beach up to five this evening. Bring police officers or any old thing you want,” said Porcupine.
“I’m not going to run away or hide either. Will wait for you at the same place with Hotta. Take the case to the police station if you like, or do as you damn please,” I said, and we two walked our own way.
It was a little before seven when I returned to my room. I started packing as soon as I was in the room, and the astonished old lady asked me what I was trying to do. I’m going to Tokyo to fetch my Madam, I said, and paid my bill. I boarded a train and came to Minato-ya on the beach and found Porcupine asleep upstairs. I thought of writing my resignation, but not knowing how, just scribbled off that “because of personal affairs, I have to resign and return, to Tokyo. Yours truly,” and addressed and mailed it to the principal.
The steamer leaves the harbor at six in the evening. Porcupine and I, tired out, slept like logs, and when we awoke it was two o’clock. We asked the maid if the police had called on us, and she said no. Red Shirt and Clown had not taken it to the police, eh? We laughed.
That night I and Porcupine left the town. The farther the vessel steamed away from the shore, the more refreshed we felt. From Kobe to Tokyo we boarded a through train and when we made Shimbashi, we breathed as if we were once more in congenial human society. I parted from Porcupine at the station, and have not had the chance of meeting him since.
I forgot to tell you about Kiyo. On my arrival at Tokyo, I rushed into her house swinging my valise, before going to a hotel, with “Hello, Kiyo, I’m back!”
“How good of you to return so soon!” she cried and hot tears streamed down her cheeks. I was overjoyed, and declared that I would not go to the country any more but would start housekeeping with Kiyo in Tokyo.
Some time afterward, some one helped me to a job as assistant engineer at the tram car office. The salary was 25 yen a month, and the house rent six. Although the house had not a magnificent front entrance, Kiyo seemed quite satisfied, but, I am sorry to say, she was a victim of pneumonia and died in February this year. On the day preceding her death, she asked me to bedside, and said, “Please, Master Darling, if Kiyo is dead, bury me in the temple yard of Master Darling. I will be glad to wait in the grave for my Master Darling.”
So Kiyo’s grave is in the Yogen temple at Kobinata.
—(THE END)—