八

When early September came, I was at last about to set out again for Tokyo. I asked my father to keep sending me my school expenses as before, for the time being.

"Even if I stay here like this, I won't be able to obtain the position you speak of."

I said something to the effect that I was going to Tokyo in order to obtain the position my father desired.

I also said, "Of course, only until I find a post."

In my heart, I thought that such a post would never fall upon my head. But my father, ignorant of the circumstances, believed firmly to the contrary.

"It'll only be for a short while, so I'll manage somehow. But you mustn't make it long. As soon as you get a proper position, you must become independent. After all, once you've graduated, you shouldn't be depending on others the very next day. Young people nowadays only know how to spend money, and seem to give no thought at all to how to earn it."

Besides this, my father grumbled various other things. Among them was the remark, "In the old days parents were supported by their children, but nowadays parents are only eaten up by them." I just listened to all this in silence.

When the scolding seemed to be over, I quietly tried to leave my seat. My father asked me when I was going. The sooner the better, as far as I was concerned.

"Have your mother pick a day."

"I will."

At that moment I was surprisingly meek before my father. I tried to leave the country town without going against my father's humor as much as possible. But my father detained me again.

"When you go to Tokyo, the house will be lonely again. After all, it's just me and your mother. And if only I were in good health it would be fine, but the way things are, who knows when something sudden might happen."

I comforted my father as best I could, and went back to where my desk stood. I sat among my scattered books, and looked again and again at my father's helpless attitude and words. Then I heard the cicadas again. Their voices were different from those I had heard all this time—they were the cries of the *tsukutsuku hōshi*. That summer, when I returned to my hometown and sat still in the boiling cries of the cicadas, I had often been overcome with a strange sadness. My melancholy always seemed to sink into the depths of my heart along with the fierce sound of those insects. At such times I would sit motionless, gazing at myself alone.

My melancholy, since returning home that summer, had gradually changed its tone. Just as the voices of the *aburazemi* give way to those of the *tsukutsuku hōshi*, the fates of those around me seemed to be slowly turning within a great cycle. As I repeated my father's lonely attitude and words in my mind, I again recalled the teacher who had not replied to my letters. The teacher and my father, in that they gave me completely opposite impressions, were easily brought together in my mind, whether by comparison or by association.

I knew almost everything about my father. If I were to leave him, there would only be the parental regret in our affection. Much of the teacher was still unknown to me. The past of that man, promised to be told, I had not yet had the chance to hear. In short, the teacher was dim to me. I absolutely had to get past that and reach the bright place, or I would not be satisfied. For my connection with the teacher to be cut off was a great pain to me. I had my mother choose a day, and fixed the date of my departure for Tokyo.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”