I shall refer to that friend here as K. K and I had been close since childhood. Since I say since childhood, you will understand without my explaining that we shared a bond of being from the same province. K was the son of a Shin sect Buddhist priest. He was not the eldest son, however; he was the second son. And so he was given up for adoption to a doctor's household. The region where I was born was a place where the Honganji sect's influence was exceedingly strong, and so the Shin sect priests seem to have been comparatively better off in material terms than others. To give one example, if a priest had a daughter who came of marriageable age, the parishioners would confer and arrange to marry her off to some suitable family. Needless to say, the expense did not come from the priest's own pocket. For such reasons, Shin sect temples were generally well-to-do.
The household K was born into was likewise living in moderate comfort. Whether they had the surplus means to send their second son to Tokyo to study, I do not know. Nor do I know whether the adoption arrangement was concluded because there was convenient opportunity for him to be sent away to study—that too is unclear to me. At any rate, K went to live as an adopted son in a doctor's family. This was while we were still in middle school. I still remember how startled I was in the classroom when the teacher called the roll and K's surname had suddenly changed.
K's adoptive family was fairly wealthy as well. K received his schooling expenses from them and came up to Tokyo. Though we did not come up together, once in Tokyo we immediately took lodgings at the same boarding house. In those days it was common for two or three of us to set up desks and sleep in one room. K and I were together in the same room. We must have been like wild animals captured in the mountains, glaring outward from within the cage, clinging to one another. The two of us feared Tokyo and the people of Tokyo. And yet, within that six-mat room, we spoke as though casting a scornful eye over all the world.
But we were earnest. We truly intended to become great men. K in particular was intense. Born in a temple, he constantly used the word *shōjin*—devotion, striving. And it appeared to me that all his actions and movements could be described by that single word, *shōjin*. In my heart I always revered and respected K.
From his middle school days, K troubled me with difficult questions of religion and philosophy. Whether this was the influence of his father, or the effect of the peculiar atmosphere belonging to the special kind of building he was born in—the temple—I cannot say. At any rate, he seemed to possess a character far more priestlike than an ordinary priest. Originally, K's adoptive family had sent him to Tokyo intending to make him a doctor. Yet stubborn as he was, he came to Tokyo with the resolve not to become a doctor. I pressed him, saying, is this not the same as deceiving your adoptive parents? Bold as he was, he answered yes. For the sake of the Way, he said, such a thing did not matter. The word Way that he used then was probably not well understood even by himself. I of course cannot claim I understood it. But to us, young as we were, this vague word rang with dignity. Even if we did not understand it, ruled by a lofty spirit, there could be nothing base in the resolve to be drawn toward it. I agreed with K's view. How much weight my agreement carried for K, I do not know. Knowing his single-minded nature, I can surmise that even had I opposed him ever so much, he would surely have pressed on as he wished. Yet I, child though I was, was well aware that should the need arise, the fact that I had lent my voice of approval would lay some measure of responsibility upon me. Even if I had not then the resolve for so much, I gave my assent in a tone that, when the need came to look back upon the past with the eyes of a grown man, would make it only right that I bear the share of responsibility allotted to me.
