At last I started going to school. When I first stepped into the classroom and mounted the raised platform, it felt rather strange. As I began my lecture, I thought to myself, can a fellow like me really pass for a teacher? The students were rowdy. Every now and then some shrill voice would call out, "Teacher!" I answered to "Teacher." Up till then, at the Physics School I had been calling everyone "Teacher, teacher" every day, but there's a world of difference between calling someone teacher and being called it yourself. My soles started to itch somehow. I'm no coward. I'm not a timid man either, but unfortunately I lack nerve. When they called out "Teacher!" in those big voices, it felt like hearing the noon cannon in Marunouchi on an empty stomach. The first hour I somehow got through in a rather slapdash way. But luckily no difficult questions were thrown at me. When I came back to the teachers' room, the Roughneck asked how it went. I gave him a short answer, and he seemed relieved.
When I took up the chalk and left the teachers' room for the second hour, I felt like I was marching into enemy territory. Once in the classroom, this group was made up of bigger fellows than the last. Being an Edokko, I'm slight of build and small-made, so no matter how high I stand, I can't project any force. In a fight I'd show even a sumo wrestler a thing or two, but with forty of these big monks lined up before me, I've no trick to subdue them with just the clack of a single tongue. Still, I thought if I showed weakness to these country bumpkins it would become a habit, so I raised my voice as much as possible and lectured with a bit of a rolled tongue. At first the students were befuddled and sat blankly in the smoke I'd thrown them, so I thought, see there, and grew all the more pleased with myself, using full Berlinmai dialect, when the toughest-looking guy, sitting right in the middle of the front row, suddenly stood up and called, "Teacher!" Thinking here it comes, I asked what, and he said, "It's too fast, can't follow, could y'maybe go a bit slower, please." That "could y'maybe, please" was a lukewarm way of putting it. If it's too fast, I'll speak slower, but I'm an Edokko so I can't use your language; if you don't understand, just wait till you do, I answered. In this vein the second hour went better than I'd thought. Only as I was leaving, one student came right up with an impossible geometry problem and said, "Could y'maybe explain this one, please," and I broke out in a cold sweat. With no choice, I said I didn't really get it, I'll teach you next time, and beat a hasty retreat, whereupon the students whooped and hollered. Among it I heard voices saying, "Can't do it, can't do it." Damn fools, even a teacher has a right not to know. What's so strange about saying you can't do what you can't? If I could do stuff like that, I wouldn't be in this backwater for forty yen, I thought as I returned to the teachers' room. The Roughneck asked again how it went this time. I said yeah, but just yeah wasn't enough to satisfy me, so I told him the students at this school are a clueless lot. The Roughneck made a queer face.
The third hour, the fourth, and the post-noon hour were much the same. The classes I took on the first day all failed in one small way or another. I thought teaching isn't as easy as it looks from the sidelines. Classes were more or less done, but I still couldn't go home; I had to sit idle till three. At three, the students of my assigned class clean their own classroom and come report, and I'm to inspect it. After that, I check the attendance book once, and only then am I free to leave. Even if my body's bought with a monthly salary, what right is there to tie me to the school till closing time and make me stare down a desk? But the rest all quietly follow the rules, and as the new guy it wouldn't do to throw a fit, so I put up with it. On my way out I complained to the Roughneck, "It's stupid to keep us at school till past three for any little thing," and he laughed, "Sure is, ha ha ha," but then turned serious and said, warning-like, "Don't go complaining about the school too much, it won't do. If you must talk, talk to me alone; there are some strange people around." We parted at the crossroads, so I had no time to hear more.
Then when I got home, the landlord came saying, "Shall I pour some tea?" Thinking he meant he'd treat me, it turned out he freely poured my tea and drank it himself. For all I know he may be performing "shall I pour tea" solo even in my absence. The landlord said, "I'm fond of calligraphy, painting, and antiques, and ended up starting this trade on the side. From your looks you seem quite the man of refinement yourself. Why not take up a hobby?"—a most unexpected pitch. Two years ago, when I went to the Imperial Hotel on an errand for someone, I was mistaken for a locksmith. When I wore a blanket and went sightseeing at the Great Buddha of Kamakura, the rickshaw man called me "boss." Besides that I've been misjudged plenty in my time, but none yet has cornered me and said, "You seem quite the man of refinement." Usually they can tell at a glance. A man of refinement, when you see him look at a painting, wears a hood or holds a strip of poetry paper. For anyone to seriously call me a man of refinement, he's no ordinary character. I said I hate the sort of lazy retired-gentleman pursuits, and the landlord went "heh heh heh," smiling, "Well, none who take it up at first like it, but once you enter this path you can't easily leave," and poured himself tea alone, drinking with a queer flourish. Fact is, last night I'd asked him to buy tea, but this bitter, strong stuff I can't stand. One cup and it feels like it answers back in my stomach. I told him next time buy something less bitter, and he said, "Very well," and poured another cup and drank. The fellow drinks another's tea like it's nothing. After the master withdrew, I previewed tomorrow's reading and went straight to bed.
After that, every day I went to school and worked by the rules; every day on return the landlord came with "Shall I pour tea?" After about a week I'd more or less grasped the school's ways, and roughly sized up the lodging-house couple. Asking other teachers, I heard that in the week to month after receiving orders, one worries greatly whether one's reputation is good or bad, but I felt none of that. In class when I occasionally botched things, only then did I feel foul, but in some thirty minutes it clean vanished. I'm a man who, try as I might, can't worry long about anything. I was wholly indifferent to what effect a classroom blunder would have on students, and what reaction that would draw from principal or head teacher. As I said before, I'm not a man of great grit, but I'm quite the one for cutting ties. Had this school been no good, I was set to leave at once, so neither the badger nor the red-shirt scared me a bit. Much less could I bring myself to charm or flatter the little monks in class. The school was fine, but the lodging was not. If the landlord only came to drink tea I'd bear it, but he brings all manner of goods. First he brought what he said were stone seals, lined up about ten, saying, "All for three yen is cheap, do buy." I'm no country-touring hack painter; I said I'd no use, so next he brought a hanging scroll of flowers-and-birds by some man named Kazan or other. He hung it in the alcove himself, said, "Fine work, isn't it?" and when I vaguely answered "Suppose so," he gave a useless lecture: "There are two Kazans, one is So-and-so Kazan, the other Such-and-such Kazan, but this scroll is by the Such-and-such Kazan," then pressed, "Well? For you I'll make it fifteen yen. Do buy." I declined, no money, and he stubbornly said, "Money's no object, anytime." I told him even if I had it I wouldn't buy, and saw him off then. Next he lugged in a inkstone big as a demon roof-tile. "This is Duanxi, Duanxi," he said Duanxi two, three times over, so half in fun I asked what's this Duanxi, and he launched right into lecture. "Duanxi has upper, middle, lower strata; nowadays all are upper, but this is surely middle; look at this eye. Three eyes is rare. The ink-grinding feel is superb, try it," and shoved the big stone before me. I asked the price, and he said, "The owner brought it from China and is eager to sell, so I'll make it cheap, thirty yen." The man's a fool, no doubt. The school side might just about scrape by safely, but caught in this antique squeeze, I can't last long.
Meanwhile I grew tired of the school too. One evening, strolling through a place called Oomachi, I saw a sign reading "Soba" with "Tokyo" added beneath. I'm very fond of soba. Even in Tokyo, passing a soba stand and catching the scent of condiments, I'd have to duck through the curtain. Till today math and antiques had made me forget soba, but seeing the sign I couldn't pass by. Thinking might as well eat a bowl, I stepped in. It was less than the sign promised. Having declared "Tokyo," they might dress it up more, but whether they know not Tokyo or have no money, it was foul. The mats discolored and gritty with sand. Walls black with soot. Ceiling not only smoked by lamp oil but so low I shrank my neck unwitting. Only the price list, boldly lettered "Soba" and pasted up, was quite new. They'd surely bought an old place and opened in the last day or two. Top of the list: tempura. "Oi, bring tempura!" I called loud. Then the three gathered in the corner till then, slurping something, all turned to me. The room dim, I'd not noticed, but face to face they were all school students. They greeted, so I greeted back. That night, having soba for the first time in long, it tasted good, and I polished off four cups of tempura.
Next day, with no thought, I entered class, and on the board, in letters near filling it, was written "Tempura Teacher." Seeing my face they all burst laughing. I, finding it silly, asked, is it funny to eat tempura? Then one student said, "But four cups is a bit much, please." Four or five cups, it's my money—
