Pathway to Japanese Literature

Takahashi Junsuke—that was Mr. Nekomata's real name.

Mr. Nekomata was a teacher of National Language and Grammar at T Middle School who had been newly appointed in April of the year we advanced to the fourth year. Moreover, Mr. Sugiyama—the history teacher who had naturally been expected to become our homeroom teacher—had resigned due to worsening tuberculosis, and so it was decided that Mr. Nekomata would instead take charge of our class. Though Mr. Sugiyama was young, he possessed a personality of rare warmth among middle school teachers, and despite his profound knowledge, his calm demeanor had become the object of everyone’s respect and affection. Even when we learned that the reason for his resignation was lung disease, we did not consider parting with our teacher to be a blessing. And we were all so bitterly disappointed it verged on pitifulness. Mr. Nekomata was ushered into this climate of disappointment.

At the new term opening ceremony held in the auditorium, after the Vice Principal introduced three new teachers, Mr. Nekomata appeared last on the podium and gave his greetings while blushing.
Mr. Nekomata’s height was average for a Japanese man, but with his red, curly hair and deeply sunken eyes, he looked every bit the nervous type.
Having heard that he was to be our homeroom teacher, we listened to Mr. Nekomata’s words with special expectations and curiosity.
But no sooner had we, watching from afar, caught sight of Mr. Nekomata’s purplish lips opening and closing like a puckered sea anemone, his stiff straight mustache—flung out to either side—flapping up and down like a hawk’s wings, than he had already descended from the podium.
It wasn’t only I who was left dumbfounded.
Everyone exchanged blank stares and smirked slyly.
We retreated to our assigned classroom and, thinking *This time, surely—*, waited for the teacher’s arrival.

“Hey, that teacher kinda looks like a Russian,” said Takagi, the class joker, being the first to speak up.

“A Russian… Nah, I thought he looked more like a cat—eyes shining all weird-like, mustache sticking out stiff sideways…” said one student with a laugh.

“Anyway, he’s a shabby-looking teacher,” shouted another.

“But watching how he gave that greeting, he seems like a decent sort,” said Tokunou, turning around.

“Seems like a decent sort? I’m not so sure about that,” Vice Class Representative Matsukawa retorted.

“But he was blushing and fidgeting—didn’t seem composed at all.”

“You’re wrong. You can’t call someone likable just for that. Anyone gets shy their first time.” Matsukawa objected again.

“Shy…” Tokunou murmured.

“Anyway, he’s no match for Mr. Sugiyama,” interjected Shudo, cutting between the two.

The impression formed from the teacher’s appearance seemed to leave everyone with a mild sense of disappointment.
But regardless, all their mouths buzzed with appraisals of the new teacher—whispers becoming mutters becoming laughter—until the room’s atmosphere crackled with commotion.

“He’s here! He’s here!” a student pricked up his ears and shouted.

The moment he did, the teacher’s footsteps became clearly audible from the hallway.
Everyone fell silent in unison and exchanged glances.
The classroom abruptly sank into valley-deep stillness, a leaden silence spreading through the space.
The monotonous reverberation from those shoe soles prickled their hearing like an insistent itch.
Moreover, as it drew nearer, that dull clanging—metal scraping against wood—could only mean heavy iron fittings hammered into both soles of his shoes.

The door handle clanged, and in those few seconds before we saw Mr. Nekomata standing at the podium, his movements seemed far calmer than what we'd witnessed in the auditorium—likely either because our solemnity at facing our new homeroom teacher dulled our sharp observational skills, or because his determination to maintain dignity before students had made him vigilantly self-controlled. When he stood rigidly upright before the blackboard, we followed Class Representative Tani's command and bowed with formal decorum.

Mr. Nekomata's face colored faintly at this—clearly a gratified flush acknowledging our respect—and though his black frock coat worn for this inaugural greeting appeared antiquated even then, it still conveyed a teacher's dignity that commanded reverence.

Having completed our greeting, we took seats with nervous anticipation and fixed quiet gazes on his face.

“I have now been assigned to take charge of your class.
You must never neglect your duties as students...”
Mr. Nekomata slowly settled into his seat and, upon completing the attendance roll, began speaking in this manner.
The students maintained an obedient facade and listened attentively.

Viewed up close, Mr. Nekomata’s face—with its narrow forehead, angular cheekbones, and emaciated features—appeared increasingly wretched and profoundly suggestive of nervous disposition.
Though his voice remained low as before, unfamiliar discordant tones occasionally began creeping into it.
Initially, no one seemed aware, but as these aberrant notes accumulated, his intonation started resonating oddly in places.
Yet the unexpectedly fluid delivery of his words and the students’ sustained restraint left them no opening to exploit.

“In general, you all have a tendency to look down upon National Language Studies."
"But that is a grave mistake. As long as you are Japanese people, you must not neglect National Language Studies for even a single moment..."
Encouraged by our silence, the teacher began showing a faint flush of excitement on his face and launched into his self-serving arguments about National Language Studies.
The teacher’s thin, almost feminine voice even took on a somewhat agitated tone.

“That’s right—you cannot be separated from National Language Studies for even a single moment.”
“For example, even when writing compositions—”
Mr. Nekomata began self-importantly expounding his points with animated gestures, but by this stage, I could no longer ignore how utterly hackneyed his arguments were.
Not only that—as we grew accustomed to his increasingly agitated demeanor during his lecture—his appearance began to seem unbearably shabby and vulgar.
The students’ restraint could not help but gradually crumble.
And as a sense of ease took hold, their characteristically middle school mischief began to stir—spitefully seeking out any opening.

“—For even a single moment, you all—” Just as those words burst from Mr. Nekomata’s mouth for the second time, someone in the back row whispered in a small voice, mimicking, “Fer even a *shin*gle moment, y’all—”
One person snickered; then another snickered.
Hidden within the teacher’s words were a peculiar rural accent suggestive of Tohoku origins and the bizarre intonation arising from it.
As the true nature of the oddness in his tone became apparent, that oddness began shifting from one listener to the next until a hushed murmur swelled through the classroom.
And we, who had been staring intently at Mr. Nekomata’s face, began lowering our heads one by one; rather than listening to his words, we now had to sustain a breath-catching strenuous effort to suppress the absurdity welling up from the depths of our stomachs.

“… .”
“Therefore, there is nothing as important for you as National Language Studies.”
Mr. Nekomata fiddled with the greasy gold chain caught in his waistcoat button while growing increasingly animated in his speech.
Looking at his unbearably earnest, utterly convincing demeanor, even we found ourselves struggling to suppress laughter.
But when Yoshida—always quick to laugh—finally burst out with a strangled-chicken screech he could no longer contain, everyone’s laughter erupted like a breached dam.
In the springlit classroom, waves of mirth collided and intertwined, surging upward in a single roaring tide.

“Wh-wh-why are you laughing?”
“What’s so funny…?”
The teacher, who had faintly sensed the commotion building in the classroom since earlier, flew into a rage the moment our laughter erupted.
And as the flat planes of his face suddenly collapsed—the moment his facial muscles began twitching like rippling waves—a flush of anger flashed across his entire countenance.

“Outrageous! Why is it funny that National Language Studies is important..."
Mr. Nekomata stamped his shoe soles against the podium’s wooden boards, stood up, and shouted furiously.

Poor Mr. Nekomata had completely misunderstood the cause of our laughter.
When I realized this misunderstanding stemmed from his excessively sincere nature, I couldn’t have been alone in finding his enraged expression pitiful.
Moreover, that teacher possessed no tactics beyond his teaching methods to skillfully navigate middle schoolers’ psychology.
Even while pitying him, seeing Mr. Nekomata consumed by such unrestrained anger somehow made the absurdity overwhelm me, and I too burst out laughing.
One student pounded their desk; another whistled sharply; yet another hissed “Cheerio!” under their breath.
The classroom plunged into utter chaos.

“Are you all insulting me…?”
Having said this and trying to continue, the teacher suddenly stiffened his lips from agitation and choked on his words.
Then he stood frozen in place, the long tails of his frock coat twitching spasmodically.

Several minutes passed in the uproar.
In Mr. Nekomata’s bloodshot, sunken eyes, tears had even begun to well up at that moment.

When the room suddenly fell silent and they inadvertently looked up to gaze at Mr. Nekomata’s figure, a faint sense of sympathy and subtle regret seemed to pass through everyone’s hearts.
But by the time they noticed it, it was too late.
Having returned to their original earnestness, each student’s heart that sought to welcome this new teacher found itself powerless to do anything about the surrounding atmosphere grown too disrupted for that purpose.
The small whirlpools had no choice but to be swept into the large whirlpool.
Moreover, there were even some who, trying to mask their guilt over having unwittingly caused an uproar, deliberately sought to hide themselves once more within the clamor.

“You… your—”
Amidst the utter chaos as Mr. Nekomata withdrew from the room, Takagi shouted in an exaggeratedly clownish voice.
They joined in and, boisterously making a racket, exited the classroom.

This unfortunate first impression created a gap between Mr. Nekomata and us that could never be fully bridged until the very end.
A favorable first impression may at times envelop even the second and third bad impressions.
But we experienced the opposite in our feelings toward the teacher.
And the teacher’s unpleasant feelings toward us, which had begun with a completely simple misunderstanding, seemed to gradually intensify in hue from that day onward.
The teacher would become agitated at the slightest provocation and took offense in his words.
Mr. Nekomata’s nerves, sharpened to an almost pathological sensitivity, were always agitated when he stood before us.
His face was perpetually cast in a heavy, gloomy shadow.
We never once saw Mr. Nekomata’s brightly laughing face.
Mr. Nekomata seemed as though he were someone who had forgotten the joy of existence.

“He’s such a boring teacher,” we whispered to each other.
“Boring students,” Mr. Nekomata likely muttered to himself as well.

However, boring teachers were not limited to just Mr. Nekomata.
The teachers’ room at T Middle School had assembled instructors of varied dispositions.
There stood a Vice Principal who seemed the very incarnation of obstinacy.
A half-bald pate, twisted nose, eyes frigid enough to freeze human compassion.
We hapless students endured his parched ethics lectures delivered through that nasal drone—each word scraping our nerves raw as we fought surging resentment.
There too was an English teacher who fancied himself a wit.
A pallid face with rouged lips, hair parted stiff as a theatrical wig.
When he tilted his head with feigned sophistication—eyes gauging our moods while smirking—we tasted bile at such cheap affectation.
The Chinese classics teacher nursed his lifelong dream: amassing fifty thousand yen.
Then the biology master’s boyish pride—donning military garb for outings to flaunt medals from Sino-Japanese campaigns: Sixth-Class Golden Kites and Seventh-Class Blue Paulownias—these quirks we found oddly endearing among tolerable faculty.

We called the Vice Principal "Mashed Yam" and referred to the Chinese classics teacher as "Fifty Thousand Yen."
Among these many teachers, the only one addressed by his actual name was Mr. Sugiyama, the history teacher, who had already left the school.
This was because Mr. Sugiyama’s amiable personality left no openings for us to address him with derisive nicknames.
However, our use of nicknames for the teachers did not necessarily stem solely from malice or sarcasm.
From our perspective as students, Confucian morals like “thou shalt not tread upon a teacher’s shadow even from seven paces away” were inhumane ethics that rendered teachers excessively cold and severe.
It was easy to revere teachers as distant idols, but for us—perpetually brimming with youthful yearning—this felt far too lonely.
We wanted nothing more than to approach our teachers as warm, cherished humans and grow close to them.
But the more we tried to grow close, the higher walls the teachers built around themselves.
And they strove all the more to idolize themselves.
Moreover, they even adopted affected attitudes, placing their idolized selves upon pedestals to gaze coldly down at us.
We wanted to sneer at those attitudes.
We wanted to shatter the stubbornness of our teachers that peered through gaps in those castle walls.

“Mashed Yam,” “Fifty Thousand Yen…” When we tried calling them by these names, our hearts harbored both the satisfaction of venting our spite at having our expectations betrayed and a petty thrill from tearing down our idols.
In the same vein, Mr. Takashi Junsuke was soon bestowed with the derisive nickname “Nekomata” by us.
The origin of that nickname was as follows.

Around that time, a short story titled "Nekomata" was included in the national language textbook we were using.

“Nekomata yo, ayo Nekomata yo to mōshikereba…” Mr. Nekomata recited one of its lines in a loud voice tinged with peculiar rural intonation.
They burst into uproarious laughter.
The humor of it all—the amusing passage describing Nekomata Hōshi being chased into flight—combined with the teacher’s vaguely feline features came together in that instant.
We—Nekomata, Nekomata—repeated silently in our hearts.
Moreover, as days passed, not only did the cynical essence encapsulated in “Nekomata” come to fit his character perfectly, but we began feeling this single word deftly satirized him.
And thus, Mr. Nekomata was finally christened “Mr. Nekomata.”

“Therefore, National Language Studies is of utmost importance!”—having declared this with fervor, Mr. Nekomata mechanically brought his figure, wrapped in an old-fashioned black mourning coat, into the classroom when the time bell rang. And he repeated his passionless, tedious lectures as always. We could not help but feel disappointed that the teacher’s fervor amounted to nothing but empty words.

At a certain time, Mr. Nekomata gave a lecture on *The Ten Foot Square Hut.* It was the height of spring, and through the frosted glass of the left-hand window shone a serene sunlight that seemed to sing of nature’s lush abundance. The bright classroom was filled to the brim with a muggy, tepid air that hung heavily throughout. From the gap of the half-opened window peeked the vivid green of new buds, and there was no wind to stir the white curtains. When sitting still at one’s desk, the listless teacher’s lecture voice began to sound like the buzzing of bees’ wings. And before we knew it, the tension in our bodies began to loosen, and a pleasant drowsiness gradually enveloped us. In a corner, someone’s faint snoring made a tickling-like noise. Mr. Nekomata’s lecture seemed not to have entered anyone’s ears.

“Ah, how dull…” muttered Uemura suddenly from his seat at the back right.
Hailing from Kagoshima, he was the ringleader of the class’s heckling, and his unvarnished rural frankness was loved by everyone.

“The line ‘In the morning we die, in the evening we are born—such is our lot, resembling nothing so much as water bubbles…’ referred to…”
Mr. Nekomata’s sluggish, drool-like lecture voice stopped dead.
And suddenly raising his face, he glared at Uemura with deep wrinkles gathered between his eyebrows.

“Uemura! What did you just say?”
“Go on—say it again…”
Mr. Nekomata’s eyes glinted sharply.

Everyone involuntarily lifted their faces to stare at him.

“‘Ah… how dull,’ I said, see.”

Uemura replied with unshakable calm.
The class erupted in raucous laughter.
The scrape of shifting feet blended with sharp cracks of desktops being slapped.

“Y-you... You imbecile!”
Veins like earthworms pulsed across Mr. Nekomata’s face as he lunged toward Uemura’s desk.

“What do you take this classroom for? You—you…!”

“What’re you even supposed to be? I’m a student, I’ll have you know!”

“Don’t get cocky. A guy like you—there are plenty of your kind around.” Mr. Nekomata continued, choking as he spoke. “Just what do you mean by ‘dull’?”

“It’s dull ’cause it’s dull, y’see. Don’t you get it? Y’know y’know…”

Uemura answered with a nonchalant expression. The contrast between the enraged teacher and Uemura’s exaggerated composure was like something out of a satirical cartoon.

“Are you mocking me? That won’t be enough to let this slide.”
“Get out of the classroom! Go on, get out…!”
Mr. Nekomata’s face turned pale, his lips trembling with anger.
Uemura whistled idly and turned aside.
An unpleasant silence filled the classroom.

“Teacher, please continue the lecture on *The Ten Foot Square Hut*,” Tani, the class representative, shouted with feigned earnestness.
“That’s right, that’s right…” everyone echoed in exaggerated unison.
Mr. Nekomata glared back at Uemura with hate-filled eyes and clicked his tongue.
He stomped back to the lectern with heavy footsteps.
The textbook was picked up again.

“I have a question,” said Takei, whom everyone respected as the class philosopher, lifting his pensive eyes as he stood up.

“What…”
Mr. Nekomata braced himself as if to protect his own person.

“Teacher, within the lecture you just gave on *The Ten Foot Square Hut*, there lies an intriguing aspect of Chōmei’s worldview.”
“Regarding that, I would like to hear your opinion, Teacher.”
“If it’s just explaining words and phrases, then National Language Studies is meaningless.”
Takei’s pale face, which bore an intellectual sharpness, flushed.
The air in the room, which had been buzzing, suddenly stilled.
A faint look of panic appeared on Mr. Nekomata’s face as he received the unexpected question.

“Th-that’s true,” Mr. Nekomata stammered. “Chōmei was a pessimist; he despaired of this world. In other words, seeing the misery of those natural disasters and calamities and…”

“I understand that,” Takei interrupted. “I believe Chōmei’s philosophy constitutes a pessimistic worldview influenced by Buddhism’s theory of reincarnation. He could no longer endure the scorching hell of a life tormented by natural disasters and calamities, and sought to escape from this illusory, impure world. And he sought to achieve enlightenment. However, in the parts that appear in *The Ten Foot Square Hut*, Chōmei’s philosophy remains incomplete. Not only that, but there’s something contrived—an exaggerated unpleasantness—in that pessimistic attitude of his.”

Takei’s mind was always far ahead of our world. When we were engrossed in Shunrō Oshikawa’s novels, he was absorbed in reading works like Dr. Ōnishi’s *History of Western Philosophy*. When he was in third year, his essay “On the Superman,” published in the alumni magazine, was an impenetrable text to us, but it received praise from Mr. Sugiyama and others as a perspective on Nietzsche.

“I don’t care about such things...”
Mr. Nekomata said this with a bitter smile and a slightly mocking air.

“It’s not something to dismiss! Are you saying philosophical questions are useless to us, Teacher?” Takei pressed sharply, his tone combative.

“That’s right, that’s right…” everyone muttered without reason.
And just as the room was about to be swept into that agitating mood again, the dismissal bell rang out crisply.
Mr. Nekomata turned his back on the students’ sneering whispers and left the classroom as though fleeing.

Unpleasant periods of clashing shields repeated themselves several times.
On one occasion, when Shudo questioned him about the usage of “kakari-kakaru”—a classical Japanese grammatical structure—Mr. Nekomata endured an hour of torment.
Shudo was a diligent student with particular interest and understanding of national grammar.
When he began posing meticulous questions, Mr. Nekomata would often expose his lack of learning in his replies.
At those times too, he displayed such wretched impatience that he stammered repeatedly.
It was hardly surprising that Mr. Nekomata’s twisted emotions led him to perceive Shudo’s questions as deliberate time-wasting.
And in the end, he showered him with vulgar insults.

“What, you don’t understand… If you can’t grasp it even now, you’re an imbecile.”
Mr. Nekomata slammed the book onto the lectern and bellowed furiously.
Even the mild-mannered Shudo finally showed signs of agitation and confronted Mr. Nekomata in a vehement tone.
The surliness of Mr. Nekomata’s attitude strengthened everyone’s rebellious spirit.

Spring had deepened before we knew it.
As the cedar grove of T Park adjacent to the school deepened its green hue day by day, the sunlight falling on the schoolyard soil began to glare in a way that made one feel summer’s approach.
And by the time the tree shade behind the chemistry classroom became a favored gathering spot for students who had begun wearing white covers on their hats to rest, everyone’s dissatisfaction toward Mr. Nekomata had gradually surged.
We, whose initial shred of respect had been wounded by the teacher’s comical regional accent, grew weary of his tedious lectures and felt an unpleasant oppression from his face perpetually twisted in a grimace.
The mischievousness of everyone, which had worked vigorously to escape that weariness and unpleasant oppression, eventually grew tired.
The malicious amusement obtained by teasing and irritating Mr. Nekomata had gradually begun to fade away.
And a more tangible sense of dissatisfaction toward Mr. Nekomata began to be felt.

“It’s a loss to be taught by a teacher like that,” Shudo said one day.
“What kind of absurd teacher can’t even explain a single grammatical phrase?”
“He’s downright stupid.”
“You bet he’s bad. His brains have completely rotted through by now,” said Matsukawa.
“But if you don’t properly study National Language Studies, you’ll regret it. Every entrance exam has it,” said one student.

“Exactly—we can’t just take this lightly!” said Tani, the class rep, kicking away a pebble at his feet.

“When it comes to actual scholarship, Mr. Oishi from third year was far more substantial,” Shudo said again.
He had been the most disillusioned by Mr. Nekomata’s intellectual shortcomings.

“That’s right—even that man was better.”

“But whether he’s scholarly or not,” I interjected defiantly, “being taught with that attitude is utterly unbearable, isn’t it?”

“We should expel him…!” Takei suddenly shouted.
The students, who had vaguely anticipated where this was heading, turned to look at Takei in surprise.
And they fell silent without quite knowing what to say.

If one were to lay bare everyone’s innermost thoughts—even if dissatisfaction and resentment toward Mr. Nekomata existed—uttering such a forceful term as “expulsion” still felt somehow forbidden.
Above all, everyone fully recognized Mr. Nekomata’s essential kindness and sincerity.
Precisely because of this recognition, they now examined their own conduct toward him with a twinge of guilt.
For it could not be denied there had been malice—relying on their united front to deliberately fray his nerves and render his lectures incomprehensible… Had they received him with slightly more gentleness and composure, they surely would not have disturbed his state of mind so profoundly…
Yet even as each harbored such thoughts privately, the group mentality permeating the entire class easily overpowered them.
All sensed that an obstinate force pushing toward some decisive point had already begun stirring.
They knew full well resisting this force was impossible here, and that acting alone against it would achieve nothing.
Thus when Takei’s voice suddenly rang out with boldness at that very moment, everyone felt startled as though their secret intentions had been pierced.

“Anyway, it’s fine if we aren’t taught by a teacher like that,” Tokunou said after a moment of silence.

“That’s right.”
“We’ll ask the school to replace him.”
“If they refuse to replace him, it’ll be our last resort,” declared Tani, the class rep, his voice vehement.
Everyone nodded in silent agreement, intoxicated by the rebellious thrill coursing through them.
Not a shred of that wavering sympathy for Mr. Nekomata remained in anyone’s heart.

A few days later, the petition to replace Mr. Nekomata—submitted by six class representatives including Tani—was curtly rejected alongside the Vice Principal’s harsh rebuke.
The Vice Principal gazed down at them with icy eyes as he spoke.

“What do you all take a student’s primary duty to be? This is truly an impertinent matter.”
“The school would never assign you an unqualified teacher.”
“Consider this carefully.”
“If this were a military matter and Mr. Takahashi were your superior officer, what do you think would happen?”
“You all, as those who resist a superior officer, may not escape being shot.”
The Vice Principal spoke with a haughty attitude that seemed to proclaim the brilliance of his own metaphor.
The greasy sheen of his balding forehead gleamed with a visibly detestable arrogance.

“What? If this were the military, we’d be shot…”
When the Vice Principal’s words reached the entire class, it was Takei who retorted like this and flew into a rage.
Everyone joined in unison and raised indignant shouts.
Needless to say, this barbaric metaphor from the Vice Principal—a puppet of antiquated education—incensed everyone brimming with youthful vigor.
The resentment toward the Vice Principal’s words instead heightened everyone’s dissatisfaction with Mr. Nekomata.

At the end of June, days of oppressive gloom continued one after another, the rainy season having set in with its interminable drizzle.
It was during third period on a certain Friday, and on that day too, the classroom was dimly lit due to the unrelenting drizzle.

When Mr. Nekomata began reading the attendance register in his usual manner—"Tani... Takei... Shudo..."—the classroom lay still as cold water's depths.
Seeming to notice the unnatural pitch of his own voice echoing without response, Mr. Nekomata jerked his head up.
At that moment, he saw before him students transformed into mutes.
And surely he must have felt the surrounding air closing in on him with that ominous stillness preceding a storm—
that stillness relentlessly pressing against him like advancing floodwaters.

“Why aren’t you answering…”
Mr. Nekomata gasped sharply as if anticipating unease, but when he called out again—“Why aren’t you answering…?”—his complexion turned deathly pale, the trailing echo of his voice trembling faintly.
Not a single student answered.
The classroom’s silence—so crystalline one might hear blood surging through the veins on his forehead—hung like a held breath.

“Why aren’t you answering…”
He stood up convulsively, face wrapped in terror as he shouted for the third time.
Still no one answered.
Bewilderment flooded his features.
Then came the desperate clicking of his tongue before he froze against the blackboard—a motionless silhouette, dumbstruck as a shadow puppet.

The tense silence crept by—one minute, two minutes.
While secretly sensing the triumph of their united resolve flowing from chest to chest, they stared coldly at the teacher.

“What on earth do you all mean to do with me?”
Mr. Nekomata lifted his sallow-complexioned face and demanded.

“Do you all have complaints against me?”
Mr. Nekomata said again.
That trembling voice of his—wrenched out as if through a press—had somehow taken on an imploring tone.

Two or three minutes slipped by uselessly.
The sound of rain falling hushedly outside began vibrating against my eardrums like plucked strings.

Tani and Takei, who had been expected to declare on behalf of the class to the teacher, remained completely silent.
When it came down to it, they still couldn't bring themselves to say it—I thought, feeling disappointed.
A feeling of irritation at everyone's spinelessness and the frustration of watching the teacher's bewildered state gradually welled up within my chest.
And the sense of impatience at the silence that pointlessly dragged on gnawed away at me beyond any ability to contain it.
The involuntary muscles of my lips began trembling on their own, blood surged fiercely into the vessels of my eyes, the pit of my stomach tightened—such emotional excitement coursed through my entire body.
Standing up, taking the lead before everyone, bravely declaring for the class's sake—as I thought this, I began to feel as though I were an extraordinary hero.

“Why are you silent…!” Mr. Nekomata bellowed with a look of fierce anger.

“Teacher…”
When I stood up and shouted like this, I was seized by a dizzying excitement.
But in that instant, I clearly realized that everyone’s astonished gazes had converged on me.

“Teacher, we have complaints against you.”
I said vehemently.
Everyone around me let out groaning murmurs and voiced their support.

“What—you have complaints…?” Mr. Nekomata turned bloodshot eyes toward me as he echoed back.

“That’s right.”
“First of all, your lectures aren’t interesting in the slightest.”
“Attending your class is nothing but tedious.”
“We want to listen to pleasant lectures and study in an enjoyable way.”
“But…”
Though my entire body tingled with excitement, once I began speaking, my tongue moved with unexpected smoothness.
“But you always teach us with such a disgruntled look.”
“And what you teach doesn’t sink in at all.”

“That’s right, that’s right…”
Everyone echoed in unison with voices that seemed to catch in their throats.
Mr. Nekomata watched me—speaking in a harsh, youthful tone devoid of thoughtful restraint—with a dumbfounded expression.

“Teacher, why won’t you become more cheerful?”
“Your face always looks like you’ve bitten into something bitter.”

“What... my face?” Mr. Nekomata retorted with a bitter smile.
“Even if you tell me to make my face cheerful—this is just my nature; there’s nothing to be done about it.”
Everyone erupted in derisive laughter.

“However, humans are emotional animals.”
“If you lecture with an unpleasant expression, then we who are listening also become unpleasant.”
“You have never once laughed—you’re always sulking.”
“And then don’t you immediately start shouting or getting angry?”
I was deadly serious and terribly pleased with myself.
I felt as though I were some kind of patriot myself.
And I was intoxicated by the exhilaration of having every single word I spoke being powerfully affirmed by the entire class.

“That’s because you all don’t study diligently.”
“Even I am no different as an emotional animal.”
“If you all work earnestly, I’d become cheerful—but…”
“That’s incorrect.”
“Because you don’t teach us in a way that makes us want to learn.”

“Don’t get cocky…”
Mr. Nekomata flushed crimson once more and barked in a cutting voice.

“We’re not being impudent.
“That’s the truth about you.”
I grew heated and pressed further.
“We have no intention of attending your lectures.”

“That’s right! That’s right!”

“Stay strong…”

The classroom erupted in violent commotion, everyone's voices becoming entangled.

Mr. Nekomata abruptly fell silent.
He turned his face toward the window and stood motionless.
The teacher's back, clad in black mourning clothes, quivered faintly.
In those eyes where anger had peaked, tears had welled up unnoticed.
His profile with its sparse red mustache curling upward appeared darkly eloquent of the loneliness belonging to a man past fifty.
As I looked at Mr. Nekomata's shabby figure frozen in place, I couldn't help feeling an oppressive weight bearing down on my chest.
I became aware that the emotions which had surged up all at once were gradually subsiding.
Simultaneously, I began regretting my own words spoken so thoughtlessly in that heedless moment.
Feeling the anguish of being unable to sit back down in the seat I'd risen from, I could do nothing as a loathsome emotion spread through my heart.

“I see. Then there’s no help for it.”
“You may do as you will.”
Mr. Nekomata suddenly turned eyes brimming with anguish toward us and spoke these words with finality.
The expression that appeared on his face in that moment was no longer anger.
It conveyed only a desperate loneliness so profound it stole one’s breath.
He snatched up the attendance register and national language textbook from the lectern, threw open the door, and left the classroom.
Everyone who had been staring blankly at this scene finally erupted in cheers when they noticed the erratic sound of his footsteps fading down the corridor.

“Miyahara, you did well.”
“Splendid, splendid…”
When I sank into my seat with a crestfallen heart, everyone applauded me in unison.
At that moment, the fact that tears were welling in my downcast eyes was likely known to no one but myself.

Before long, Vice Principal "Mashed Yam" arrived, followed by the student supervisor—a Reserve Warrant Officer.
And the thirty-seven students of Fourth Year B Group were subdued without reason by their despotism.

When the results of the first term exams were announced, my conduct evaluation had dropped from second to fifth rank.

But when the midsummer vacation ended and the refreshing autumn semester began, we could no longer see Mr. Nekomata standing before the blackboard. According to rumors, this was apparently the third time Mr. Nekomata had been expelled by middle school students—and we were the ones who had done it.

“Nekomata, scamper-scamper for an hour”—though no one knew who had composed this mad verse, it would sometimes come up in conversation; but as autumn deepened, Mr. Nekomata’s figure gradually faded from everyone’s memory.

～～～～～～～～～～～

It was a certain sunny afternoon in early March.
I received a visit from Tokunou after a long interval.
He was a Type B student at the Naval Academy and was already the father of a child.

“It’s turned into lovely weather.”
As they said this, the two of them arranged rattan chairs on the veranda and conversed.
The sunlight streaming through the glass door shone with a pleasant spring-like radiance.

“Hey, the other day at Takanawa Gotenyama, I ran into Mr. Nekomata.”
After some conversation had lapsed, Tokunou said as if suddenly remembering.

“What—with Mr. Nekomata…”
I asked back, startled.

“That’s right.
“It was a Saturday, you see. I went to visit a friend in that neighborhood, but he wasn’t there—that’s when it happened on my way back.”
“You know that dimly lit steep slope beside Duke Mori’s residence, right?”
“I was descending to Yatsuyama... That’s where it happened.”
Tokunou began speaking in a naval officer’s characteristically light and brisk tone.

“What an odd place to have met him.”

“That’s right.”
“Anyway, as I was about to descend the slope, there was an old man climbing up from below with a penguin-like gait.”
“That, you see, was none other than Mr. Nekomata.”
“And he wore a black mourning coat faded to a muddy brown, a bowler hat with a hole in it, and deep rubber boots caked in mud—each mended here and there with round leather patches…”

“What’s this—he’s exactly the same as he was back then!”

Before my eyes, the familiar figure of Mr. Nekomata from T Middle School’s classroom abruptly materialized.

“You see, his appearance hasn’t changed one bit.”
“From the wrinkles in his trousers like a folded Odawara lantern to those white cuffs—protruding two inches past his hands—all soiled, and that same gold chain.”
“And when I suddenly caught sight of him there, looking exactly as he did years ago, I felt such unbearable nostalgia.”
“I nearly ran over to touch him on impulse.”
“But remembering everything from back then, I lost my nerve to speak.”
“While I hesitated like that, we ended up passing each other by.”
“Of course there was no way he’d recognize me—me in my navy lieutenant’s uniform—as his student from ten years ago.”
“To Mr. Nekomata, I was just another stranger on the roadside.”

“No wonder.”
“When you think about it, it’s exactly ten years now.”
I found myself feeling somewhat reminiscent and sentimental.

“However, we were truly young back then. You were quite the mischievous young master yourself, but honestly—in any school dispute anywhere, there’d hardly be a student who’d confront a teacher just for disliking their face. Humans are emotional animals—that sort of thing was probably your generation’s masterpiece.”
Tokunou said this and blew out Three Castles cigarette smoke.
The two of them looked back and laughed heartily.
“But I wonder if Mr. Nekomata can still keep teaching…”

“Well, that’s exactly how it is.
At that moment, just as we passed each other—when I abruptly turned around—there was white chalk dust sprinkled over Mr. Nekomata’s slightly hunched shoulders, wasn’t there?
That proves he’s still teaching...”
When Tokunou said this, he broke off his words and gazed at the pleasantly clear sky.

“That’s a keen observation,” I said while following the traces of his gaze.

“However, to speak without reserve—when I saw that at the time, I couldn’t help but associate it with the dust on antiques.”
Tokunou turned toward me once again and said.
A wry smile drifted across his sun-tanned, dusky face.

“The dust of antiques…” I murmured absently, but rather than pitying Mr. Nekomata—who seemed half-buried in that dust—the sight of him, as though symbolizing the wretchedness of many people, pressed upon my chest as a single irony.

“However, if humans become like that, they’re fine antiques.”
“And with no ambition left, no hope, no complaints—for Mr. Nekomata, there could be no happier time than now.”
Tokunou said this, paying no heed to my silence, and laughed brightly.

(April 1919, "Mita Bungaku")