“K and I entered the same faculty. K put on a calm face, and with the money sent from his adoptive family, set out upon the path he himself desired. One can only conclude that K’s heart held both the ease of thinking no one would ever find out, and the nerve of thinking it would not matter even if they did. K was more composed than I was.
During the first summer break, K did not return to the country. He said he would rent a room at a certain temple in Komagome and study there. I came back in early September, and sure enough, he was shut away in a shabby temple by the great Kannon. His room was a narrow chamber right beside the main hall, yet he seemed glad to be able to study there exactly as he pleased. I felt then that I could perceive his life gradually taking on the air of a monk. He wore a rosary around his wrist. When I asked him what it was for, he mimed counting with his thumb, one bead, two beads. It seemed he counted the rosary’s ring many times a day like this. I did not, however, understand its meaning. A round ring, counted bead by bead, has no end no matter how far you go. In what place, with what feeling, did K stop his turning hand? It is a trifling thing, but I often think of it.
I also saw a Bible in his room. I had often heard the names of sutras from his lips before then, but as for Christianity, since neither had I been asked nor had I answered anything of the sort, I was rather surprised. I could not help asking him the reason. K said there was no reason. He also said that if a book was so revered by people, it was only natural to read it. Moreover, he said that given the chance, he intended to read the Koran as well. He seemed to take a great interest in the words Mohammed and the sword.
In the second summer, urged by his family in the country, he at last went home. Even after returning, he appears to have said nothing at all about his specialization. And his family, too, noticed nothing. As one who has received a school education, you will understand such matters well, but the world is astonishingly ignorant regarding students’ lives and school regulations. Things that mean nothing to us never reach the outside at all. And since we breathe only the air within, we are too prone to suppose that every detail of what goes on in school is known throughout the world. In this respect, K knew the world better than I; with a calm face he came back again. I left the country with him, so as soon as we boarded the train I asked K at once how it had been. K answered that it had been nothing in particular.
The third summer was precisely the year I resolved to leave the land of my parents’ graves forever. I urged K then to return home, but he would not. He said, what is the point of going home every year like this? He seemed inclined to stay and study again. With no other choice, I decided to leave Tokyo alone. How eventful those two months I spent in my native place were for my fate, I have already written, so I shall not repeat it. Holding in my breast together a sense of grievance, gloom, and the loneliness of isolation, I met K again in September. And then his fate, too, like mine, showed a change. Without my knowing, he had written to his adoptive family and confessed his own deception. He said he had been prepared for this from the start. Perhaps he meant to let them say, since it cannot be helped now, there is no course but to let you have what you like. At any rate, he seems to have had no intention of deceiving his adoptive parents all the way through university. Or perhaps he saw through that even if he tried to deceive, it could not last long.
