Kokoro

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Part One: The Teacher and I

I

I always called that person "Sensei." So here too I shall simply write "Sensei" and not reveal his real name. This is less out of consideration for the world's scrutiny than because it is natural for me. Every time I summon his memory, I immediately want to say "Sensei." Even when I take up the brush, my feelings are the same. Stiff initials or such are quite impossible for me to use.

I became acquainted with Sensei in Kamakura. At the time I was still a fresh-faced student. I received a postcard from a friend who had gone there for sea bathing, urging me to come at once, so I scraped together some money and set out. It took me two or three days to scrape the money together. But before three days had passed since my arrival in Kamakura, the friend who had summoned me received a telegram ordering him home at once. The telegram said his mother was ill, but my friend did not believe it. My friend had long been pressed by his parents back home into a marriage he disapproved of. By modern custom he was far too young to marry. Besides, the person in question was not to his liking. So, though he should naturally have gone home for the summer break, he deliberately avoided it and was amusing himself near Tokyo. He showed me the telegram and consulted me on what to do. I did not know what to advise. But if his mother truly was ill, he ought of course to return. So in the end he went home. I, who had come with such trouble, was left behind alone.

Since there were still many days before school classes resumed, and I was in a position where I could either stay in Kamakura or go back, I resolved to remain at the original lodging for the time being. My friend was the son of a wealthy man in China and knew no want of money, but being a student and of student age, his standard of living did not differ much from mine. Thus, left all alone, I had no bother of seeking out a more suitable lodging.

The lodging was in a remote quarter even of Kamakura. To reach such fashionable things as billiards or ice cream, one had to cross a long causeway. Even by rickshaw it cost twenty sen. But private villas were built here and there in numbers. Moreover, being very close to the sea, it occupied an extremely convenient position for sea bathing.

Every day I went out to bathe in the sea. Passing through old, soot-blackened thatched roofs and descending to the shore, the sand teemed with men and women come for the summer, so much so that one might think such a urban breed dwelled in these parts. At times the sea within was crowded with black heads like a public bathhouse. Though I knew not a single soul among them, wrapped in such a lively scene, it was pleasant to lie sprawled on the sand, or let the waves strike my knees as I splashed about.

It was indeed in this throng that I found Sensei. At that time there were two beach teahouses on the shore. By chance I had grown accustomed to going to one of them. Unlike those who built large villas around Hase, the summer visitors hereabout, having no private changing rooms of their own, stood in dire need of something like a common changing place. Besides drinking tea and resting there, they had their swimsuits washed, rinsed the salty stickiness from their bodies, and left hats and umbrellas in custody. Even I, who owned no swimsuit, feared my belongings might be stolen, so each time I entered the sea I made a habit of stripping off everything at that teahouse.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”