Botchan | Page 3

my thumb slant-wise. Fortunately the knife was small and
the bone of the thumb hard enough, so the thumb is still there, but the
scar will be there until my death.

About twenty steps to the east edge of our garden, there was a
moderate-sized vegetable yard, rising toward the south, and in the
centre of which stood a chestnut tree which was dearer to me than life.
In the season when the chestnuts were ripe, I used to slip out of the
house from the back door early in the morning to pick up the chestnuts
which had fallen during the night, and eat them at the school. On the
west side of the vegetable yard was the adjoining garden of a pawn
shop called Yamashiro-ya. This shopkeeper's son was a boy about 13 or
14 years old named Kantaro. Kantaro was, it happens, a mollycoddle.
Nevertheless he had the temerity to come over the fence to our yard and
steal my chestnuts.
One certain evening I hid myself behind a folding-gate of the fence and
caught him in the act. Having his retreat cut off he grappled with me in
desperation. He was about two years older than I, and, though
weak-kneed, was physically the stronger. While I wallopped him, he
pushed his head against my breast and by chance it slipped inside my
sleeve. As this hindered the free action of my arm, I tried to shake him
loose, though, his head dangled the further inside, and being no longer
able to stand the stifling combat, he bit my bare arm. It was painful. I
held him fast against the fence, and by a dexterous foot twist sent him
down flat on his back. Kantaro broke the fence and as the ground
belonging to Yamashiro-ya was about six feet lower than the vegetable
yard, he fell headlong to his own territory with a thud. As he rolled off
he tore away the sleeve in which his head had been enwrapped, and my
arm recovered a sudden freedom of movement. That night when my
mother went to Yamashiro-ya to apologize, she brought back that
sleeve.
Besides the above, I did many other mischiefs. With Kaneko of a
carpenter shop and Kaku of a fishmarket, I once ruined a carrot patch
of one Mosaku. The sprouts were just shooting out and the patch was
covered with straws to ensure their even healthy growth. Upon this
straw-covered patch, we three wrestled for fully half a day, and
consequently thoroughly smashed all the sprouts. Also I once filled up
a well which watered some rice fields owned by one Furukawa, and he
followed me with kicks. The well was so devised that from a large

bamboo pole, sunk deep into the ground, the water issued and irrigated
the rice fields. Ignorant of the mechanical side of this irrigating method
at that time, I stuffed the bamboo pole with stones and sticks, and
satisfied that no more water came up, I returned home and was eating
supper when Furukawa, fiery red with anger, burst into our house with
howling protests. I believe the affair was settled on our paying for the
damage.
Father did not like me in the least, and mother always sided with my
big brother. This brother's face was palish white, and he had a fondness
for taking the part of an actress at the theatre.
"This fellow will never amount to much," father used to remark when
he saw me.
"He's so reckless that I worry about his future," I often heard mother
say of me. Exactly; I have never amounted to much. I am just as you
see me; no wonder my future used to cause anxiety to my mother. I am
living without becoming but a jailbird.
Two or three days previous to my mother's death, I took it into my head
to turn a somersault in the kitchen, and painfully hit my ribs against the
corner of the stove. Mother was very angry at this and told me not to
show my face again, so I went to a relative to stay with. While there, I
received the news that my mother's illness had become very serious,
and that after all efforts for her recovery, she was dead. I came home
thinking that I should have behaved better if I had known the
conditions were so serious as that. Then that big brother of mine
denounced me as wanting in filial piety, and that I had caused her
untimely death. Mortified at this, I slapped his face, and thereupon
received a sound scolding from father.
After the death of mother, I lived with father and brother. Father did
nothing, and always said "You're no good" to my face. What he meant
by "no good" I am yet