三

A discussion arose between my father and mother about cooking red rice for me and entertaining guests. From the very day I returned home, I had vaguely feared that something like this might happen, and my heart had secretly dreaded it. I refused at once.

"Please don't make such a fuss."

I disliked country guests. They came with eating and drinking as their ultimate purpose, and every one of them seemed the sort who would be pleased if something were to happen. Ever since childhood, I had felt ill at ease serving them at their gatherings. Much more so when they were coming on my account—I imagined my discomfort would be even greater. Yet, out of consideration for my father and mother, I could not quite bring myself to say, "Stop inviting such rustic people to make a commotion." So I merely insisted that it was all too extravagant.

"You keep saying it's extravagant, but it's not extravagant in the least. It's not something that happens twice in a lifetime, so of course we should entertain a little. No need to be so modest."

Mother seemed to regard my graduating from the university with about the same weight as if I had taken a bride.

"We needn't invite them, but if we don't, they'll say something again."

This was father's words. Father was concerned about their gossip behind his back. Indeed, in such cases, they were the kind of people who, if things did not go as they expected, would immediately want to say something.

"Unlike Tokyo, the countryside is vulgar," father also said.

"It's also a matter of your father's face," mother added again.

I could not very well have my own way. I thought I might as well let the two of them do as suited them.

"If it is for my sake, I only ask that you stop. But if your kind consideration is that you dislike being spoken of behind your backs, that is another matter. It is no use for me to insist on something disadvantageous to you."

"You put it so logically, it puts me in a difficult position," father said with a bitter face.

"Father does not mean it is not for your sake at all, but you too should know your obligations to the world."

When it came to this, mother, being a woman, spoke in a flustered, incoherent way. But in terms of sheer number of words, even father and I combined could not begin to match her.

"When you give a man learning, he becomes fussily logical and good for nothing."

Father said only this. Yet in that single simple phrase, I saw the whole of the discontent father had always borne toward me. At the time, unaware of the angularity of my own manner of speech, I thought father's discontent unreasonable.

That night father cheered up again and asked me, if we were to invite guests, on what day it would suit me. For me, who was merely lounging about, sleeping and waking in the old house with no particular plans, such a question meant father had given in. Before this gentle father, I lowered my unencumbered head. I consulted with father and fixed the date of the invitation.

Before that date arrived, a great event occurred. It was the news of Emperor Meiji's illness. This event, which spread at once throughout Japan by newspaper, blew away like dust my graduation celebration, which had with some twists and turns finally been coming together in the one country house.

"Well, we had best decline," said father, who had been reading the newspaper with his glasses on. Father seemed also silently thinking of his own illness. I recalled His Majesty, who had honored the university with his presence at the graduation ceremony just recently, as in past years.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”