Botchan 1

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I

Thanks to the reckless courage I inherited from my father, I've been nothing but a loser since I was a child. When I was in elementary school, I jumped from the second floor of the school building and was paralyzed in the hips for about a week. Someone might ask why I did such a foolish thing. There was no deep reason. I was sticking my head out from the newly built second floor when one of my classmates joked, "No matter how big you talk, you can't jump from there. Crybaby!" and taunted me. When the janitor carried me home on his back, my father glared with big eyes and said, "What fool paralyzes his hips jumping from just the second floor?" so I answered, "Next time I'll jump without paralyzing them and show you."

I got a Western-made knife from a relative, and was showing it to my friends, holding the beautiful blade up to the sunlight. One said, "It shines, but it doesn't look like it'd cut." I took him on: "As if it can't cut—I'll cut anything." He ordered, "Then cut your own finger." I said, "What, a finger? Like this," and slashed diagonally across the back of my right thumb. Luckily the knife was small and my thumb bone was hard, so the thumb is still attached to my hand. But the scar will never disappear till I die.

If you go twenty steps east through the garden, there is a small vegetable patch facing south, with a single chestnut tree standing in the middle. This chestnut is more precious than life. When the nuts ripen, I slip out the back gate first thing in the morning and pick up the fallen ones to eat at school. The west side of the garden borders the yard of a pawnshop called Yamashiroya, and Yamashiroya had a son named Kantaro, about thirteen or fourteen. Kantaro was of course a coward. Though a coward, he climbed over the four-eyed bamboo fence to steal chestnuts. One evening I hid in the shadow of the folding door and finally caught Kantaro. Having lost his escape, Kantaro desperately lunged at me. He was two years older. A coward but strong. As his open crown pressed and shoved against my chest, Kantaro's head slipped and went into the sleeve of my lined kimono. It got in the way and I couldn't use my hand, so I swung wildly; the head inside the sleeve wobbled left and right. Finally, in pain, he bit into my upper arm from inside the sleeve. It hurt, so I pinned Kantaro against the fence and tripped him, toppling him over. Yamashiroya's ground was about six feet lower than the garden. Kantaro half-collapsed the four-eyed fence and fell headfirst into his own domain, going "guh." When Kantaro fell, one sleeve of my lined kimono tore off and my hand was suddenly free. That evening my mother went to apologize at Yamashiroya and took the chance to get the torn sleeve back.

Besides this I played a good many pranks. I took Ken-kun the carpenter and Kaku the fishmonger and ruined Mossaku's carrot field. The carrots had just sprouted and straw was laid all over, so the three of us wrestled on it for half a day straight, and all the carrots were crushed. I also got in trouble for filling in the well in Furukawa's paddy. A scheme where water welled up from deep underground through a thick bamboo node hollowed out, watering the surrounding rice. Not knowing how it worked then, I jammed stones and broken sticks into the well until no water came, then went home to eat. Furukawa came roaring, red-faced. I think we settled it by paying a fine.

My father never doted on me. Mother favored only my brother. This brother was pale, and liked to mimic the theater and play female roles. Every time he saw me, Father said, "This one will never amount to anything." Mother said, "He's so violent, I worry about his future." Indeed he didn't amount to anything. As you see. No wonder they worried about his future. He just lives without going to prison.

A few days before Mother died of illness, I was doing a somersault in the kitchen and bruised a rib on the edge of the stove, which hurt badly. Mother was furious and said, "I don't want to see your face," so I stayed at a relative's. Then word came that she had died. I didn't think she'd die so soon. Thinking if it was such a grave illness I should've been quieter, I came home. Then that brother said I was unfilial, that because of me Mother died early. It rankled, so I slapped his cheek and got scolded badly.

After Mother died, the three of us—Father, brother, and I—lived together. Father was a man who did nothing, and whenever he saw anyone would say as a habit, "You're no good, no good." What's no good I still don't know. Strange father. Brother said he'd be a businessman and studied English busily. Naturally womanish and sly, we didn't get along. We fought about once every ten days. Once playing shogi he made a cowardly waiting move and mocked happily when I was stuck. I got so mad I threw the rook in my hand at his brow. His brow split and bled a little. Brother told Father. Father said he'd disown me.

Then I resigned myself, ready to be disowned as he said, when Kiyo, a maid employed for ten years, cried and apologized to Father, and his anger finally cooled. Even so I didn't find Father scary. Rather I pitied this maid Kiyo. She was said to be of good stock, but fell in the upheaval and ended up in service—so she was an old woman. For some reason this old woman doted on me terribly. Strange. Mother gave up on me three days before dying—Father was at a loss with me all year—the neighborhood shunned me as the violent bad boy—yet she prized me absurdly. Having resigned myself to not being likable, I didn't mind being treated like a chip of wood; rather I found Kiyo's fussing suspicious. Kiyo would sometimes praise in the kitchen when no one was around: "You have a straight, good nature." But I didn't get it. If it were good, others besides Kiyo would treat me better. Each time she said such things I'd answer I hate flattery. Then the old woman would say, "That's why you have a good nature," and gaze at my face happily. She seemed to manufacture and pride me by her own power. Slightly creepy.

After Mother died Kiyo doted on me more. Sometimes childlike I wondered why she doted so; thought it pointless, she should stop; felt sorry. Still she doted. Sometimes with her own allowance she bought karinto or kohbai-yaki. On cold nights she'd secretly stock buckwheat flour and somehow bring broth to my pillow as I slept. Sometimes even pot-cooked udon. Not just food. I got tabi socks, pencils, notebooks. Much later she even lent me about three yen. I never asked to borrow. She brought it to my room: "You've no spending money and must be troubled; please use." I naturally refused, but she insisted, so I borrowed. Honestly delighted. I put the three yen in a toad-mouth pouch, kept it in my chest, went to the toilet, and plop it dropped into the cesspool. Helpless, I slunk out and told Kiyo. She quickly found a bamboo stick: "I'll get it." Soon splashing at the well—I went and saw her washing the pouch's string on the bamboo tip in water. She opened it and checked the one-yen bills: browned, patterns fading. She dried them by the brazier: "This'll do." I sniffed: "Smells." She said, "Then give here, I'll exchange," and brought three yen in silver somewhere, somehow. What I used the three yen for I forgot. Said "I'll return" but never did. Now I'd return tenfold but can't.

Kiyo gave things only when Father and brother were away. I hate nothing more than hiding from others to profit alone. Though I got on with brother poorly, I didn't want sweets or colored pencils from Kiyo behind his back. I'd ask why only me, not brother. She'd say coolly, "Brother gets from Father, no worry." Unfair. Father was stubborn but no favoriter. But through Kiyo's eyes, so it seemed. She was drowned in love, surely. Formerly of rank but uneducated old woman, helpless. Not just this. Favoritism is fearsome. Kiyo was convinced I'd rise and become great. Yet studious brother was just pale, useless, decided alone. Against such old woman, no use. She believed her liked ones must be great, disliked ones must fall. I then had no plan to be anything. But Kiyo said I would, so thought I might. Now, ridiculous. Once I asked what I'd become. Then

“Stories of the world, in your language.”