A doctor had somehow appeared in the sickroom. With the intention of making the patient as comfortable as possible, he was about to try an enema again. The nurse was sleeping in another room to rest from the fatigue of the previous night. My unaccustomed brother got up and flustered about. When he saw my face, he said, "Give me a hand," and then took his seat. In my brother's place, I slipped oilpaper beneath Father's buttocks.
Father's condition had eased a little. The doctor, who had sat by the pillow for some thirty minutes, having observed the result of the enema, said he would come again and went home. On leaving, he specially asked that he be called at once should anything happen.
I withdrew from the sickroom, where a change might come at any moment, and tried to read the teacher's letter again. But I could not feel at all at ease. No sooner had I sat at the desk than I was sure I would be called out in a loud voice by my brother. And the dread that if I were called this time, it would be the last, made my hands tremble. I merely turned the pages of the teacher's letter meaninglessly. My eyes saw the strokes of the characters neatly set within their frames. But I had no composure to read them. I had not even the composure to read here and there. I opened the pages in order up to the very last, and was about to fold it back as it was and place it on the desk. Then a phrase near the end caught my eye.
"By the time this letter falls into your hands, I shall no longer be in this world. I shall most likely be dead."
I started. My breast, which had been restlessly stirring until then, felt as if it had suddenly frozen solid. I turned the pages back the reverse way. And reading backward at the rate of about one phrase per page, I tried, in that instant, to learn what I must know, piercing the flickering characters with my eyes. What I wanted to know then was only the teacher's safety. The teacher's past—that dim past he had promised to tell me—such a thing was utterly useless to me. Turning the pages backward, I folded up this long letter, vexed that it would not readily give me the knowledge I needed.
I went again to the doorway of the sickroom to see Father's state. The bedside of the patient was unexpectedly quiet. I beckoned to my mother, who sat there with a weary, helpless look on her face, and asked, "How is he?" Mother answered, "He seems to be holding on a little better now." I brought my face before Father's eyes and asked, "How is it? After the enema, do you feel a bit better?" Father nodded. Father clearly said, "Thank you." His mind was unexpectedly not clouded.
I withdrew from the sickroom again and returned to my own room. There I looked at the clock and checked the train timetable. I suddenly stood up, retied my sash, and thrust the teacher's letter into my sleeve. Then I went out the back door to the street. I ran frantically to the doctor's house. I meant to ask the doctor plainly whether Father might last two or three more days, and to beg him to give an injection or do whatever it took to make him last. The doctor was unfortunately out. I had no time to sit and wait for his return. Nor any peace of mind. I immediately had a rickshaw hurry me to the station.
At the station, I pressed a scrap of paper against the wall and wrote a letter in pencil upon it, addressed to Mother and Brother. The letter was very brief, but I thought it better than running off without a word, and hurriedly entrusted it to the puller to deliver home. Then, with a desperate resolve, I leapt aboard the train for Tokyo. In the roaring third-class carriage, I took the teacher's letter from my sleeve again, and at last read it through from beginning to end.
Postscript: The Teacher and His Last Letter
