My thesis, it seemed, did not appear as good in the professor's eyes as I had judged it to be. Even so, I passed as scheduled. On the day of the graduation ceremony, I took out my mildewed old winter clothes from my trunk and put them on. When I lined up in the ceremony hall, every face around me looked hot and uncomfortable. I did not know what to do with my own body, sealed beneath the windless, heavy wool. Standing there a while, the handkerchief in my hand became soaked through.
As soon as the ceremony was over, I went home and stripped naked. I opened the window on the second floor of my boarding house and, through the hole of my graduation certificate rolled up tight like a telescope, gazed out at as much of the world as could be seen. Then I flung the certificate onto the desk. And stretching out in the shape of a large character, I sprawled in the middle of the room. Lying there, I looked back upon my past. I also imagined my future. Then this graduation certificate, standing between them and marking a dividing line, seemed a strange piece of paper—meaningful, and yet meaningless.
That evening I was invited to the teacher's house for a feast. It had been a prior arrangement that if I graduated, I would not dine elsewhere on the evening of that day, but would take my meal at the teacher's table.
The table was set, as agreed, near the veranda of the sitting room. The thick, stiffly starched tablecloth, with its woven pattern, beautifully and purely reflected the electric light. When eating at the teacher's house, chopsticks and rice bowls were always placed upon white linen like that seen in a Western restaurant. And they were invariably limited to freshly washed, pure white ones.
"It's the same as collars and cuffs. Rather than use dirty ones, it is better to use colored ones from the start. If it's white, it must be pure white."
Hearing this, I thought indeed the teacher was fastidious. His study too was arranged with real orderliness. To indifferent me, such traits of his would occasionally stand out sharply.
When I once said to his wife, "The teacher is rather irritable, isn't he," she answered, "But he doesn't seem to care so much about clothes and such." The teacher, overhearing this from the side, laughed and said, "To tell the truth, I am mentally irritable. That's why I'm constantly suffering. Thinking about it, it's truly a foolish disposition." Whether "mentally irritable" meant what is commonly called nervous, or ethically fastidious, I could not tell. His wife too did not seem to fully understand.
That evening I sat facing the teacher across the familiar white tablecloth. His wife took her seat with the two of us to her left and right, alone facing the garden.
"Congratulations," the teacher said, raising a cup for me. I did not feel so very happy toward this cup. Of course, one source was that my own heart did not resonate with these words, lacking any soaring joy. But the teacher's way of speaking, too, bore no flippant tone to provoke my happiness. The teacher smiled and raised the cup. In that smile I recognized not the slightest malicious irony. At the same time, I could not perceive any true feeling of congratulation. The teacher's smile told me, "The world does so like to say congratulations on such occasions."
His wife said to me, "Splendid. Your father and mother must be so pleased." I suddenly thought of my sick father. I wanted to hurry and take that graduation certificate to show him.
"What became of the teacher's graduation certificate?" I asked.
"What became of it, I wonder.—Is it still put away somewhere?" the teacher asked his wife.
"Yes, it should certainly be put away."
Neither of them knew well where the graduation certificate was.
