Part 6 (2/2)
”Teachers of the middle school belong to the upper cla.s.s of society and they should not be looking after material pleasures only, for it would eventually have effect upon their personal character. But we are human, and it would be intolerable in a small town like this to live without any means of affording some pleasure to ourselves, such as fis.h.i.+ng, reading literary products, composing new style poems, or haiku (17-syllable poem). We should seek mental consolation of higher order.”
There seemed no prospect that he would quit the hot air. If it was a mental consolation to fish fertilisers on the sea, have goruki for Russian literature, or to pose a favorite geisha beneath pine tree, it would be quite as much a mental consolation to eat dempura noodle and swallow dango. Instead of dwelling on such sham consolations, he would find his time better spent by was.h.i.+ng his red s.h.i.+rts. I became so exasperated that I asked; ”Is it also a mental consolation to meet the Madonna?” No one laughed this time and looked at each other with queer faces, and Red s.h.i.+rt himself hung his head, apparently embarra.s.sed. Look at that! A good shot, eh? Only I was sorry for Hubbard Squash who, having heard the remark, became still paler.
CHAPTER VII.
That very night I left the boarding house. While I was packing up, the boss came to me and asked if there was anything wrong in the way I was treated. He said he would be pleased to correct it and suit me if I was sore at anything. This beats me, sure. How is it possible for so many boneheads to be in this world! I could not tell whether they wanted me to stay or get out. They're crazy. It would be disgrace for a Yedo kid to fuss about with such a fellow; so I hired a rikishaman and speedily left the house.
I got out of the house all right, but had no place to go. The rikishaman asked me where I was going. I told him to follow me with his mouth shut, then he shall see and I kept on walking. I thought of going to Yamas.h.i.+ro-ya to avoid the trouble of hunting up a new boarding house, but as I had no prospect of being able to stay there long, I would have to renew the hunt sooner or later, so I gave up the idea. If I continued walking this way, I thought I might strike a house with the sign of ”boarders taken” or something similar, and I would consider the first house with the sign the one provided for me by Heaven. I kept on going round and round through the quiet, decent part of the town when I found myself at Kajimachi. This used to be former samurai quarters where one had the least chance of finding any boarding house, and I was going to retreat to a more lively part of the town when a good idea occurred to me. Hubbard Squash whom I respected lived in this part of the town. He is a native of the town, and has lived in the house inherited from his great grandfather. He must be, I thought, well informed about nearly everything in this town. If I call on him for his help, he will perhaps find me a good boarding house. Fortunately, I called at his house once before, and there was no trouble in finding it out. I knocked at the door of a house, which I knew must be his, and a woman about fifty years old with an old fas.h.i.+oned paper-lantern in hand, appeared at the door. I do not despise young women, but when I see an aged woman, I feel much more solicitous. This is probably because I am so fond of Kiyo. This aged lady, who looked well-refined, was certainly mother of Hubbard Squash whom she resembled. She invited me inside, but I asked her to call him out for me. When he came I told him all the circ.u.mstances, and asked him if he knew any who would take me for a boarder. Hubbard Squash thought for a moment in a sympathetic mood, then said there was an old couple called Hagino, living in the rear of the street, who had asked him sometime ago to get some boarders for them as there are only two in the house and they had some vacant rooms. Hubbard Squash was kind enough to go along with me and find out if the rooms were vacant. They were.
From that night I boarded at the house of the Haginos. What surprised me was that on the day after I left the house of Ikagin, Clown stepped in and took the room I had been occupying. Well used to all sorts of tricks and crooks as I might have been, this audacity fairly knocked me off my feet. It was sickening.
I saw that I would be an easy mark for such people unless I brace up and try to come up, or down, to their level. It would be a high time indeed for me to be alive if it were settled that I would not get three meals a day without living on the spoils of pick pockets. Nevertheless, to hang myself,--healthy and vigorous as I am,--would be not only inexcusable before my ancestors but a disgrace before the public. Now I think it over, it would have been better for me to have started something like a milk delivery route with that six hundred yen as capital, instead of learning such a useless stunt as mathematics at the School of Physics. If I had done so, Kiyo could have stayed with me, and I could have lived without worrying about her so far a distance away. While I was with her I did not notice it, but separated thus I appreciated Kiyo as a good-natured old woman. One could not find a n.o.ble natured woman like Kiyo everywhere. She was suffering from a slight cold when I left Tokyo and I wondered how she was getting on now? Kiyo must have been pleased when she received the letter from me the other day. By the way, I thought it was the time I was in receipt of answer from her. I spent two or three days with things like this in my mind. I was anxious about the answer, and asked the old lady of the house if any letter came from Tokyo for me, and each time she would appear sympathetic and say no. The couple here, being formerly of samurai cla.s.s, unlike the Ikagin couple, were both refined. The old man's recital of ”utai” in a queer voice at night was somewhat telling on my nerves, but it was much easier on me as he did not frequent my room like Ikagin with the remark of ”let me serve you tea.”
The old lady once in a while would come to my room and chat on many things. She questioned me why I had not brought my wife with me. I asked her if I looked like one married, reminding her that I was only twenty four yet. Saying ”it is proper for one to get married at twenty four” as a beginning, she recited that Mr. Blank married when he was twenty, that Mr. So-and-So has already two children at twenty two, and marshalled altogether about half a dozen examples,--quite a damper on my youthful theory. I will then get marred at twenty four, I said, and requested her to find me a good wife, and she asked me if I really meant it.
”Really? You bet! I can't help wanting to get married.”
”I should suppose so. Everybody is just like that when young.” This remark was a knocker; I could not say anything to that.
”But I'm sure you have a Madam already. I have seen to that with my own eyes.”
”Well, they are sharp eyes. How have you seen it?”
”How? Aren't you often worried to death, asking if there's no letter from Tokyo?”
”By Jupiter! This beats me!”
”Hit the mark, haven't I?”
”Well, you probably have.”
”But the girls of these days are different from what they used to be and you need a sharp look-out on them. So you'd better be careful.”
”Do you mean that my Madam in Tokyo is behaving badly?”
”No, your Madam is all right.”
”That makes me feel safe. Then about what shall I be careful?”
”Yours is all right. Though yours is all right.......”
”Where is one not all right?”
”Rather many right in this town. You know the daughter of the Toyamas?
”No, I do not.”
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