Botchan | Page 7

myself, but there
being no reason for complaint, I passed out.
Eight days after my graduation, the principal of the school asked me to
come over and see him. I wondered what he wanted, and went. A
middle school in Shikoku was in need of a teacher of mathematics for
forty yen a month, and he sounded me to see if I would take it. I had
studied for three years, but to tell the truth, I had no intention of either
teaching or going to the country. Having nothing in sight, however,
except teaching, I readily accepted the offer. This too was a blunder
due to hereditary recklessness.
I accepted the position, and so must go there. The three years of my
school life I had seen confined in a small room, but with no kick
coming or having no rough house. It was a comparatively easy going
period in my life. But now I had to pack up. Once I went to Kamakura
on a picnic with my classmates while I was in the grammar school, and
that was the first and last, so far, that I stepped outside of Tokyo since I
could remember. This time I must go darn far away, that it beats
Kamakura by a mile. The prospective town is situated on the coast, and
looked the size of a needle-point on the map. It would not be much to
look at anyway. I knew nothing about the place or the people there. It
did not worry me or cause any anxiety. I had simply to travel there and
that was the annoying part.
Once in a while, since our house was no more, I went to Kiyo's
nephew's to see her. Her nephew was unusually good-natured, and
whenever I called upon her, he treated me well if he happened to be at

home. Kiyo would boost me sky-high to her nephew right to my face.
She went so far once as to say that when I had graduated from school, I
would purchase a house somewhere in Kojimachi-ku and get a position
in a government office. She decided everything in her own way, and
talked of it aloud, and I was made an unwilling and bashful listener. I
do not know how her nephew weighed her tales of self-indulgence on
me. Kiyo was a woman of the old type, and seemed, as if it was still the
days of Feudal Lords, to regard her nephew equally under obligation to
me even as she was herself.
After settling about my new position, I called upon her three days
previous to my departure. She was sick abed in a small room, but, on
seeing me she got up and immediately inquired;
"Master Darling, when do you begin housekeeping?"
She evidently thought as soon as a fellow finishes school, money
comes to his pocket by itself. But then how absurd to call such a "great
man" "Darling." I told her simply that I should let the house proposition
go for some time, as I had to go to the country. She looked greatly
disappointed, and blankly smoothed her gray-haired sidelocks. I felt
sorry for her, and said comfortingly; "I am going away but will come
back soon. I'll return in the vacation next summer, sure." Still as she
appeared not fully satisfied, I added;
"Will bring you back a surprise. What do you like?"
She wished to eat "sasa-ame"[1] of Echigo province. I had never heard
of "sasa-ame" of Echigo. To begin with, the location is entirely
different.
[Footnote 1: Sasa-ame is a kind of rice-jelly wrapped with sasa, or the
bamboo leaves, well-known as a product of Echigo province.]
"There seems to be no 'sasa-ame' in the country where I'm going," I
explained, and she rejoined; "Then, in what direction?" I answered
"westward" and she came back with "Is it on the other side of
Hakone?" This give-and-take conversation proved too much for me.

On the day of my departure, she came to my room early in the morning
and helped me to pack up. She put into my carpet-bag tooth powder,
tooth-brush and towels which she said she had bought at a dry goods
store on her way. I protested that I did not want them, but she was
insistent.[A] We rode in rikishas to the station. Coming up the platform,
she gazed at me from outside the car, and said in a low voice;
"This may be our last good-by. Take care of yourself."
Her eyes were full of tears. I did not cry, but was almost going to. After
the train had run some distance, thinking it would be all right now, I
poked my head out of the window and looked back. She was still there.
She looked very small.

CHAPTER II.