Pathway to Japanese Literature

Two Friends

I stayed in Kokura, Buzen for a span of four years. It was October of the first year. In the house I rented in Kajimachi during the June rainy season, I spent a lonely summer; yet remnants of that summer lingered here and there, and warm days persisted. Returning from the government office I commuted to daily after four o'clock, when I sat in the roughly ten-mat room, the landlord's honeybees would occasionally fly past the eaves. Across the road where two rickshaws could easily pass each other, the whirring sound of a spinning wheel twisting thread could be heard from the house opposite. The one spinning thread was a one-eyed old spinster, and on days when the maid at my place returned to her lodgings, she would come to help out.

One day upon returning from the government office, I opened Wundt’s psychology book that I had left half-read on my desk, read about half a page, but finding myself disinclined to continue, stopped. And listening to the usual sound of the spinning wheel, I sat absentmindedly.

Just then, the maid brought a stranger’s business card. When I asked what sort of person it was, she said it was a young man wearing Western clothes. When I said to show him in regardless, that person immediately entered.

He appeared to be a man barely past twenty, cheerful and of an unreserved disposition. It later became clear to me that the reason this person gave me such an impression was because he had associated extensively with foreigners and, without realizing it, had shed his reserved Eastern manner.

After exchanging initial greetings, I inquired about his purpose.
I will refer to this person as F-kun.
What F-kun said was strikingly different from the ordinary.
"You and I are both from Iwami Province, but since I was born in Tsuwano, I am from within the Kamei family's domain, while you are what's called a person of the Tenryō."
"I resolved early on to specialize in German and went to Tokyo."
"I enrolled in various schools and sought out various teachers as mentors, but from my current perspective, neither any school nor any teacher could satisfy me."
"I tried associating extensively with Germans as well, but just as there are few Japanese who have systematic knowledge of their national language, Germans too are not truly proficient in German."
“Then I examined German texts written by Japanese people and Japanese texts translated from German, but every single one was riddled with errors.”
“Among them, I discovered that you write German most freely and translate German most accurately.”
“However, as your life in Tokyo appeared overwhelmingly busy, I refrained from approaching.”
“So I made my way down here to Kokura.”
"So you went out of your way to track me down all the way from Tokyo."
"Now that I'm here in Kokura, I declare that I want to learn German from you."

Hearing this, I was astonished both by F-kun’s immense confidence and by how greatly he overestimated me; for a time, I simply stared at his face in silence.
In retrospect, it feels cruel now, but at that moment, even the suspicion that he might be a madman had taken root in my mind.

Then I tentatively gave this reply.
“You are overestimating me.
I am not that great.
But setting aside my own matter for now—are you truly so proficient in German that you couldn’t find anyone in Tokyo worthy of studying under?
With all due respect, I doubt that.”
As I said this, I took the Wundt book that was on the desk, placed it before F-kun, and spoke.
“This book leans somewhat toward specialization and isn’t ideal for merely testing German proficiency, but if you’re still willing, I’d like you to read about a page here and explain its meaning to me.
If you’d prefer another book, there are novels and magazines available—we could go with those instead,” I said.

F-kun took the book from my hand and looked at the title.
“Psychology, I see,” he said.

“That’s correct. Can you read that?”

“It’s not that I can’t read it. I’d only heard of this book but never seen it before. However, when I studied *Paedagogik*, I became convinced one must start with psychology, so I did glance through some psychology books. Where shall I read?”

As he said this and flipped through the book, a chapter titled “Die Seele” near the end appeared.

“Please read that section aloud for me,” I said.

F-kun read five or six lines in a low voice, appearing slightly awkward.
His voice was low, but his pronunciation was good.
As I listened to him read fluently, I could clearly grasp the meaning.

"That's enough—now explain the meaning to me," I said.

F-kun effortlessly elucidated the meaning of the original text, which was constructed almost entirely from technical terms.

I was surprised again.
F-kun was far from a madman.
Your immense confidence was only natural.
I said,
"If you can read that much, there’s no difference in ability between you and me."

“Oh, come now.”
“There’s no such thing.”
“I’ll ask questions one by one,” said F-kun.

From this alone I understood that F-kun had not been spouting empty grandiloquence. However, everything else remained entirely uncertain to me. I resolved to gradually solve these doubts. Just among them there was one thing I needed to ascertain immediately—that was F-kun’s living condition; that was his personal circumstances.

I said: “If becoming someone to consult about your German studies is what you require, I have no reason to refuse.” “But tell me—how do you intend to sustain yourself in Kokura?” I pressed him like this only to be met with silence. Without pause I pressed further with brutal directness: “Do you have money?”

F-kun could no longer remain silent.
“The money was all used up on the train fare from Tokyo.
If I were to obtain some from my home country, I might secure a modest amount, but it wouldn’t suffice for immediate needs.
Couldn’t you let me stay with you for the time being?”

This statement influenced my evaluation considerably. F-kun’s mastery of German dispelled my initial suspicion that he might be a madman and greatly elevated him in my esteem, yet this statement significantly lowered my estimation of him. Naturally, one does not devalue a person’s abilities simply because they are poor. However, if F-kun truly had not a penny saved and had come relying on me, I began to suspect that his earlier praise of me was not overestimation but flattery—or even sycophancy. If the desire to study were accompanied by a desire to live off someone, then F-kun’s motive for seeking me out would become significantly impure. Even if almost no human action arises from entirely pure motives, I might suspect that the impurity behind F-kun’s actions was perhaps somewhat excessive.

Among those who had ever declared their desire to study under me, there had never been anyone with such mastery as F-kun. From my perspective, F-kun was a miracle. However, there had been any number of people who came wanting to live off me without a penny saved. From my perspective, F-kun was an ordinary opportunist. The path of dealing with such opportunists was a well-trodden one for me. In proceeding along this well-trodden path, I needed only to make some adjustments while considering the other aspect of this miracle.

I never handed cash to opportunists.
This was one principle regarding opportunists.

Thereupon, I said the following to F-kun: “You are quite proficient in German. That is all I know about you. With just that alone, it does not occur to me to go so far as to live together with you. Therefore, I will introduce you to an inn where I feel at ease. At the inn, through their trust in me, they will let you stay and provide meals. In the meantime, I will seek a position for you. That too—if we consider your talent alone—there is not entirely no prospect. If things go well, you should use the reward you earn yourself to pay the inn’s bill. If things do not go well and no money comes from your hometown either, I will take care of the inn’s bill alone. I cannot make any promises beyond that.” Then I asked: “Is that acceptable?”

F-kun seemed to feel that the arrangement wasn't what he had envisioned—contrary to his anticipations—upon hearing my terms, but he agreed nonetheless.
He had likely expected I would either approve or refuse.
Moreover, since my answer was neither approval nor refusal, it must have come as a surprise to him.
In any case, he showed no particular gratitude and acquiesced.

I sent a messenger to call a subordinate and gave them instructions.
And taking F-kun along, had him taken to an inn called Tachimi.
Tachimi was an inn near Kokura Station where I had stayed when I first arrived in this town.
The proprietress was a widow over forty who doted on her Chin.
She was intelligent and quick to grasp any topic.
I entrusted F-kun to this woman’s care.

―――――――――――

The reason I told F-kun I had some prospects was that there happened to be a group of young men in Kokura at the time searching for a German teacher. Thereupon, I promptly spoke to that group's administrator and had them hire F-kun. It was settled that I no longer needed to pay Tachimi Inn's bill.

F-kun came to visit me nearly every day. Our conversations never strayed from German matters, though he never posed any difficult questions to me. Settling into his new position, he diligently researched methods for teaching German to beginners and consulted me about them. As I listened to these discussions over time, I gradually came to realize there was a considerable disparity between his knowledge of German and mine. It was a matter of mutual strengths and weaknesses. He was thoroughly versed in case grammar. He would analyze sentences with meticulous precision. There were moments when I encountered technical terms in his speech that startled me with their novelty. Yet in the German sentences he wrote lingered what Chinese scholars call Japanized expressions—habits of syntax no native German speaker would employ, as I often pointed out. When he remained unconvinced, I would produce the Reclam edition of Goethe that I carried even while traveling to substantiate my arguments. These exchanges proved so intellectually stimulating that I found myself anticipating his visits.

On fine Saturdays and Sundays, I would take F-kun out for walks.
The narrow town of Kokura was such that walking from one end to the other wasn’t sufficient, so we went along the coast to Ōsato or took the train toward Kashii.
Even though there was no particular time to read, he always carried German books hidden with him as we walked.
They were works on epistemology and ethnology from the Goeschen edition.
When I asked why, he replied that the pleasure lay in thinking he would read them if he had time.
He was a man of voracious intellectual curiosity.

Two or three weeks later, wondering what sort of life F-kun was leading, I visited Tachimi Inn on my way back from the government office.
The proprietress happened to be chasing a small dog out through the entrance at that moment.
“You see, since our Chin here’s a female, all manner of dogs keep coming around—it’s such a nuisance,” she explained before turning to berate the retreating dog with a lingering scowl: “Damn cur! Damn cur!”
The Chin watched from behind the counter with an air of detached indifference.

“How is F-kun doing?” I asked.

“It’s no wonder he’s such an eccentric, seeing how you’re looking after him,” said the proprietress with a smile.

“‘So you mean he’s become odd precisely because I’m looking after him?’”
“Hmm, that’s troublesome.”
“Tell me exactly how he’s being different.”

While saying this, I sat down in front of the counter.

“No, he’s quite a fine gentleman, but even though mornings and evenings have grown this cold, he still wears only a single layer.”
“When it’s cold, he covers himself with a quilt and reads.”
The proprietress produced a zabuton cushion for me and said this.

_Hmm._
_I wonder if he’s short on funds._
I muttered as if to myself.

“That’s not the case at all. Not long after he began staying here, he declared that he now had money and went so far as to have the payment settled through the end of this month.” Since it was already November, F-kun had used the money he received last month from the youth group to make an advance payment.

Anyway thinking I should meet him I went up to the second floor.
At Tachimi Inn they had a policy of accommodating high-class guests in the detached room at the rear.
Next was the second floor facing the main house’s inner courtyard.
The small second-floor room facing the main street had a window with fine latticework and they did not lodge guests there.
F-kun said the cheapest place was fine and settled there.

“F-kun—are you there?” I called out and you slid open the shoji from inside.
Sure enough he was wearing an unlined summer kimono over his flannel shirt.
Beneath a dim window shaded by fine lattices sat an old writing desk—there was your seat.
I sat facing you across a small brazier filled with charcoal briquettes.

What immediately caught my eye at this moment was an empty I Bakushu beer crate set upright on the opposite side of the desk to serve as a bookshelf.
Moreover, three large books with russet leather-bound spines occupied more than half of that crate, while the rest was filled with small books and notebooks.
The three large books were brand new.
From the dim crate, the gold lettering inscribed on the leather spines radiated light.
I bent my neck and tried to read the gold lettering.

“It’s Meyer’s Small,” said F-kun.

“I see.”
“It’s become quite an impressive volume, hasn’t it?”
“Though mine is a two-volume set.”

“That’s the old edition.”
“I noticed this one at Nankodo, so I sent a postal money order to have it delivered.”

“But with this much expansion, even labeled ‘Small,’ it becomes cumbersome.”
“Why go through the trouble of ordering it?”

“Well，when you’re a teacher，people ask you to explain personal names and geographical terms．Without something like this reference work，I’d feel quite at sea．”

F-kun and I talked about conversation dictionaries．We debated Meyer versus Brockhaus．We analyzed how these German compendiums differed from Larousse and Britannica．We traced how popular publications were evolving toward scientific rigor．I remained until lamplight time before finally leaving．

Back at my lodgings，I sent my maid over with an old lined kimono for F-kun．It stood to reason—after prepaying fifty days’ rent and purchasing that lexicon，your entire monthly stipend would evaporate，leaving no margin for careless tobacco consumption．

――――――――――――

Because I believed F-kun had an opportunistic side, from the very beginning I made sure to keep a certain distance in my dealings with you.
However, as time passed after we became acquainted, this distance gradually diminished.

This was partly because I recognized your passion for scholarship—so intense you’d neglect food and clothing to buy books—but it was by no means solely that. The depth of your expertise in the German language had already been apparent from our very first meeting. When viewed in that light, the fact that you were a lover of learning need not be questioned.

The main cause that narrowed the distance between F-kun and me lay in my discovery of your "virginity." It lay in my discovery that you possessed almost no knowledge of the opposite sex. This might have been my misapprehension. However, even now, I do not believe I was deceived by you.

I do not believe that F-kun had no secrets.
Nor do I think that you never told lies.
However, you did not seem to be the sort of person who deliberately fabricated lies.
He did not seem inclined to devise elaborate phrases for falsehoods.
Let him sit facing me and attempt deliberate deception.
I immediately feel intense revulsion.
This is my instinct.
Because I possess this instinct, I am not often deceived by others.
There have been many instances where I have seen through swindlers who had duped countless people at first glance.

In contrast, even people lacking a sense of duty—amoral individuals, those deemed worthless by society—if they sat facing me and candidly expressed their intentions, I felt a sense of pleasure. I had for many years associated with such people without conflict.

As I had mentioned before, from the very beginning I regarded F-kun as an opportunist. Yet your conversations never once aroused antipathy in me. Your speech was impulsive. When your innermost thoughts lay utterly exposed before me, there were moments when you achieved extremes of unvarnished candor. At times he expounded truths astonishingly. I always accepted this willingly and even found it amusing.

As we met nearly every day—sometimes even spending entire days together—the conversations between F-kun and me were no longer limited to German language matters and philosophy.
One day I said to you:
"I hold an official position in this town and am known by many people."
"Those people have now come to know you too."
"And they say we look like brothers."
When I visited Tokken General Store on Hondori Street, the proprietor remarked, "Your younger brother has also visited our shop."
Wondering whom he meant, I inquired—only to find he was speaking of you.
"We're from the same country but not related," I replied.
The shopkeeper looked doubtful. "My, but you bear such a striking resemblance..."
"Do I resemble you? What do you think?" I asked, turning to look at F-kun.

At that moment, F-kun remarked that there seemed to be quite a number of cases where strangers bore resemblances to each other, and proceeded to tell this story.
"It was the night you stayed in Ono-michi."
In a room on one side of the second floor surrounding an inner courtyard, you were shown in.
Then, the guest staying on the opposite side of the second floor had called a great many geishas and was making a tremendous racket.
Unable to bear the boredom, you went out into the corridor and looked across.
On the other side too, a geisha came out, leaned on the railing, and looked this way.
That geisha called out to the geishas from her group.
The two of them whispered something and looked this way.
"It was fine to look from here, but thinking that being watched from over there was unpleasant, you went back into the room."
The commotion on the opposite side continued until late into the night.
You got into bed and fell asleep, annoyed by the loud shamisen music.
While you had been asleep for some time, you thought someone had come into the room and woke up.
When you looked, a geisha had come and was sitting by your pillow.
You sat up in surprise.
And when you asked, “What’s the matter?” she replied, “There’s something I wish to ask you.”
You stood up and folded the bedding.
And then you asked the geisha her business.
The geisha’s words were as follows.
"I am one of the many geishas staying in the room on the opposite side."
"I was born in this region and had an older brother."

“He ran away from home and his whereabouts are unknown.”
“Yet when I saw you earlier from across the way, I thought at once you were that brother.”
“Though many years have passed since we parted, because I think daily how I long to see you—long to see you—I’ve kept you alive in my heart here.”
“When I saw you, I wanted to run straight over, but others were watching so I restrained myself.”
“If I’ve mistaken you for another, please forgive me.”
“Having seen someone I believe to be my beloved brother, it would grieve me forever to part without exchanging words.”
“In essence, she was asking, ‘Who exactly are you?’”
You answered thus.

“That’s truly unfortunate.”
“I am from Sekishū, and this is my first time coming to Ono-michi.”
“Since it would be bad if anyone found out you came here, you should leave quickly,” you reportedly said.

I found F-kun’s story interesting as I listened to it.
From my understanding, your initial statement that strangers often bear resemblances must have been a rhetorical question.
When the geisha came to the bedroom, you—like Inukai Shinno bracing against Hamaji’s ambush—tidied the bedding and resolutely inquired about her business.
Having earnestly listened to the geisha’s words, you skillfully showed respect and kept her at a distance.
When you finished speaking, I stared intently at your face, seeking there an expression of *Ironie*.
However, that proved futile.

F-kun had believed the geisha’s words to be true and had recounted them to me exactly as he heard them.
I was surprised.
And I said:
“Japanese women may seem headstrong, yet they’re docile.
If that had been a Westerner, they would have surely pressed in.
Then you too—just as Wilhelm lacked the courage to push Philene’s chest away—would have become a captive of women.”

When I said this, it was now F-kun’s turn to be surprised. Later, I heard that you—who had avoided reading novels on the advice of some Westerner—nonetheless knew works like Wilhelm Meister and Geisterseher, and that upon hearing my words, you had apparently realized as if undergoing cataract surgery.

After this incident, I paid close attention to F-kun’s words and actions toward the opposite sex. And I came to realize that you were entirely inexperienced in this regard. You did not worry about the lack of clothing and food. You restrained sexual desire. You were different from ordinary opportunists. You were great at any rate, I thought. So as the distance I had initially maintained between you and me gradually diminished, I made no attempt to hinder it. My discernment may have been mistaken. However, even now I do not believe I was deceived by you.

―――――――――――

December arrived.

It was my sixth month since arriving in Kokura and F-kun’s third month since following after me.
I began practicing French and came to commute daily to the missionary’s residence in Bashakumachi after dinner.

This greatly influenced my interactions with you.
The reason for this was that even when you came to visit, I would talk about French.
“While French may be interesting,” you said, “I would rather deeply understand one language than have a shallow knowledge of two.”
“That’s another theory,” I said.
Behind this remark lay the implication that things would not proceed so simply.
You perceived that.
And you felt somewhat awkward.
Moreover, after interacting too frequently, an inevitable sense of weariness also began to mingle.
As a result, you who had been coming daily began visiting every other day.
You began coming every two days.
To put it metaphorically, though the two of us had initially lived like parallel lines far apart, there was a period when that distance narrowed considerably; now we came to live once again like parallel lines—closer yet still separate.

F-kun made his living as a German teacher.
I worked as a government official while also practicing French to make my living.
And we would occasionally meet and have candid conversations.
A conventional friendship formed between the two of them.

―――――――――――

The following year arrived.
In early April, F-kun came and said that since he had to return home due to his father’s illness, he wanted me to lend him travel expenses.
When asked how much was needed, he said twenty-five yen would suffice.
I promptly handed it over.
I no longer treated him as an opportunist.
Neither I nor you ever brought up the matter of that money again.
I had not expected to receive repayment.
You were by nature not one to dwell on such matters.
I thought that this was neither willfulness nor feigned ignorance.
In all our years of association, this was the only time you troubled me materially.

Before long, F-kun returned and took up lodgings in Torimachi.
And he resumed working as a German teacher as before.
One summer day, I once visited you and was treated to ramune.

At the end of the year, the landlord in Kajimachi suddenly raised the rent, so I moved to Kyo-machi.
I moved from a house with the sound of spinning wheels to one with the sound of drums.
Kyo-machi was situated in the back alleys of Kokura’s red-light district, where the sounds of shamisen and drums could constantly be heard.
F-kun also came to talk at this house frequently.

Another year came to an end.
It marked my third year since arriving in Kokura.
Around mid-August, F-kun received an appointment to Yamaguchi Higher School and assumed his position there.

In March of the following year, my official duties were transferred, and I returned to Tokyo.
Exactly four years after my arrival, I departed from Kokura.

――――――――――――

I went to Kokura without a wife and returned to Tokyo with a wife.
However, the person who followed me was not only my wife—there was now another individual who had come right after.
He was still a young monk, whom I called Mr. Ankokuji among ourselves.

Mr. Ankokuji began coming to my place every day from around the time I moved to Kyo-machi in Kokura.
When I returned from the office, Mr. Ankokuji would surely have come and waited, staying until dinner time.
During this time, I would provide Mr. Ankokuji with translation and reading of a German-language introductory philosophy text.
Mr. Ankokuji in turn would give me lectures on Yuishiki theory.
After seeing Mr. Ankokuji off, I would have dinner and go to the missionary’s residence in Bashakumachi to study French.

Such being the case, when I departed Kokura, there were a great many colleagues and acquaintances who came to see me off at the station, but among them, it was Mr. Ankokuji who most lamented our parting.

“If you leave, it would be a shame for Mr. Ankokuji,” said the acquaintance half-mockingly to me.

True to form, Mr. Ankokuji found it unbearable to sever our association, so he transferred the temple where he had been serving as abbot to someone else and left Kokura with an air of nonchalance. In Tokyo, he took up lodgings across from my house on Dangozakaue. The area opposite my house was a cliff adjoining the lowland extending to Nezu; consequently, atop that cliff lay nothing more than what people might call a cat’s forehead worth of flatland. There, in the days when Nezu was a pleasure quarter, stood a small dormitory where the retired master of Hachimanro resided. Later, they bought and demolished it, erected long pillars beneath the cliff, and built a spacious two-story house whose eaves faced my own. My house, which once enjoyed a fine view, became a gloomy residence due to the construction of that two-story house. It was this two-story boarding house that Mr. Ankokuji came to.

However, my life after returning to Tokyo differed from my time in Kokura in its busyness.
Despite having made the effort to come, Mr. Ankokuji could no longer exchange knowledge with me as before.
As I was feeling regret over this situation, F-kun happened to arrive and take up lodgings there.
He had apparently relinquished his position in Yamaguchi and come here with the intention of living in Tokyo.

Thereupon, Mr. Ankokuji sought to have F-kun provide the translation and reading of an introductory philosophy text instead of having me do it. However, F-kun and I differed in our approaches to handling foreign languages. Whether dealing with colloquial or literary language, I treated it as a unified whole. F-kun would not leave any element unanalyzed from a grammatical case perspective. I opened Mr. Koeber’s *Introduction to Philosophy* and translated it character by character from the first page for his benefit. Moreover, I made efforts to employ terminology from Buddhist scriptures in my translations. Given Mr. Ankokuji’s capacity for freely expounding Yuishiki theory, he comprehended it much as an ordinary person would grasp a Fibel or primer. F-kun refused to adhere to this conventional method and instead tried to instruct Mr. Ankokuji starting from grammatical cases. This forced Mr. Ankokuji to exert effort in an entirely different direction, causing him considerable distress.

After some time had passed, F-kun was appointed to Daiichi Higher School but continued living in the same boarding house and commuted to the nearby school; therefore, your relationship with Mr. Ankokuji remained unchanged.

――――――――――――

After I returned to Tokyo, the cherry blossoms bloomed and scattered, and no sooner had it turned warm than the heat set in. Climbing to the second floor and looking at the boarding house across the way, I saw that the second-floor doors there were also left wide open. Due to the many rooms, I couldn’t see those where F-kun and Mr. Ankokuji stayed. What remained visible was the room occupied by a young female student.

Occasionally, garments with red collar linings and grape-brown hakama trousers could be seen hung out to dry over the railing. At times, a red-sleeved undergarment lay carelessly tossed there too. By evening, the owner of these clothes would appear wearing a gaudy summer kimono, cooling herself at the edge of the veranda. There were moments when I inadvertently caught sight of her returning from outside and changing her garments, causing me to avert my gaze. Without consciously intending to, I had come to recognize this woman’s face, though I never found occasion to ask her name or discover which school she attended. She was neither beautiful nor ugly—a person without a single striking feature that might catch someone’s eye.

It seemed that the lodgers in the house across from me changed frequently, and I would notice that familiar faces had disappeared and new ones had appeared. However, F-kun and Mr. Ankokuji remained without relocating elsewhere. The female student visible from the second floor of my house also remained without relocating.

―――――――――――

Over a year had passed, and it became the second summer since my return to Tokyo.
One day Mr. Ankokuji came and said he would return home during the summer heat.
Mr. Ankokuji had transferred his temple in Kokura to someone else, but he had a house connected by secular ties at a small station along the Kyushu Railway’s Toyoshu Line.
He was going there to visit.

After Mr. Ankokuji had left, someone from my household went to hear the neighborhood rumors.
It was said that the monk had gone to Shikoku on F-kun’s errand and was thus returning to Kyushu on that occasion.
The destination of the errand was the parental home of the female student lodging across the way.
F-kun had secretly become close with the female student, but as the situation finally became impossible to conceal from others, he decided to formally marry her.
They did not consent to it at her parents’ home in Shikoku.
Therefore, it was said that F-kun had sent Mr. Ankokuji to persuade the parents.

When I heard this, I said, “So if you’re using Mr. Ankokuji as your envoy for marriage negotiations, F-kun must be playing the feudal lord.”
It occurred to me that such an arrangement could only exist between someone like F-kun—a shameless Egoist—and Mr. Ankokuji, a man of academic virtue yet naive about worldly matters, possessing a childlike heart.

Mr. Ankokuji’s sincerity moved the stubborn provincial parents, and the female student became F-kun’s wife.
The two of them acquired a house in Koishikawa.

――――――――――――

Another year passed.
I departed for the battlefield because war with Russia had broken out.
F-kun came to see me off at Shinbashi Station and presented me with a Russian grammar book written in German.
Because I had this book and the Russian-German bilingual dictionary I had bought at Nankodo, I found them quite useful during my time in Manchuria.

Among the letters I received in Manchuria, there was one from Mr. Ankokuji. It stated that due to a serious illness, he had given up his research on the German language and gone to the coast of the Bōsō area for a restorative change of climate. I immediately sent a reply to console him. This was the longest letter I had ever written, and in it I had composed something akin to a parable: that one must not assume illnesses deemed incurable by society are truly so, and that those who seek peace of mind must not yield to disease. I suspected that Mr. Ankokuji had suffered greatly for his language studies and that this had caused his illness. That a person who could effortlessly trace even the most complex logic should instead be tormented by the mechanical rules of grammatical cases he had to memorize—imagining this filled me with profound pity, I deeply thought.

When I returned triumphantly to Japan after spending the New Year in Manchuria, Mr. Ankokuji had already gone back to Kyushu.
He had come to serve as head priest at a temple in the mountains near Kokura.

F-kun was still living in Koishikawa and was employed at Daiichi Higher School.
Your and my busy lives did not permit us to visit each other, so I could only occasionally exchange words with you on the Sugamo-Mita Line tram.

Then, four or five years later, I suddenly received news of F-kun’s death.
It was said that he had suddenly passed away due to throat cancer.