三

The next day I went to the beach at the same hour and saw the teacher's face. The day after that I repeated the same thing. But no opportunity arose between us to exchange words, nor even to greet each other. Moreover, the teacher's manner was rather unsociable. He would arrive aloof at a fixed hour, and leave again aloof. No matter how lively the surroundings, he scarcely seemed to pay them any attention. The foreigner who had first come with him never showed his face again after that. The teacher was always alone.

Once, when the teacher had come up from the sea as usual and briskly, and was about to put on the yukata he had discarded at his usual spot, for some reason it was covered all over with sand. To shake it off, the teacher turned his back and flapped the yukata two or three times. Then the glasses he had placed beneath his clothes fell through a crack in the planks. After tying a heko obi over his white striped cotton, the teacher noticed, it seemed, that his glasses were gone, and suddenly began searching around. I immediately thrust my head and hand under the bench and picked up the glasses. The teacher said thank you, and took them from my hand.

The next day I dove into the sea following behind the teacher. And I swam in the same direction as the teacher. When we had gone about two chō out, the teacher turned and spoke to me. Upon the broad blue surface of the sea, there was no one floating nearby besides the two of us. And the strong sunlight illuminated the water and hills as far as the eye could see. Filled with free and joyful muscles, I frolicked wildly in the sea. The teacher again abruptly stopped moving his hands and feet, and lay on his back floating on the waves. I mimicked him. The color of the blue sky flung a piercing light at my face, as if stabbing my eyes. "It's wonderful," I cried in a loud voice.

After a while the teacher changed his posture as if rising in the sea, and urged me, "Shall we head back?" I, who had a relatively strong constitution, wanted to play in the sea longer. But when invited by the teacher, I readily answered, "Yes, let's go back." And the two of us retraced our path to the shore.

From then I became close with the teacher. But I still did not know where he was staying.

Then, I think it was exactly the afternoon of the third day, with two days in between. When I met the teacher at a tea house, the teacher suddenly asked me, "Do you intend to stay here a good while longer?" Having no forethought, I had not stored in my head any preparation to answer such a question. So I answered, "I don't know." But when I saw the teacher's smiling face, I suddenly felt awkward. "And you, sir?" I could not help but ask in return. This was the first time the word "sir" left my mouth toward the teacher.

That evening I visited the teacher's lodgings. Though called lodgings, it was unlike an ordinary inn, being a villa-like building within the grounds of a large temple. I also learned that the people living there were not the teacher's family. Since I kept calling out "teacher, teacher," the teacher gave a wry smile. I explained that it was a habit of mine toward my elders. I asked about the foreigner from before. The teacher spoke of his eccentricities, that he was no longer in Kamakura, and various other things, and finally said it was strange that though he hardly associated even with Japanese, he had become friendly with such a foreigner. At the end I said to the teacher that I thought I had seen him somewhere, but no matter what could not recall where. Young as I was, I secretly suspected that the other might feel the same way. And I braced myself inwardly for the teacher's reply. But after a moment's contemplation, the teacher said, "I don't seem to recall your face at all. Aren't you mistaken?" — and I felt a strange sort of disappointment.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”