Pathway to Japanese Literature

The other day, I caught sight of a flyer in the train advertising Shin Kokugeki’s performance of *The Great Bodhisattva Pass*. It was held as a memorial performance for Mr. Nakazato Kaizan. I felt like it had been a long time since this play was last performed. Mr. Nakazato Kaizan had passed away suddenly in Hamura, Nishitama District, his birthplace, during the war. What year had that been, I wonder? I have a memory of reading a brief newspaper article stating that Mr. Akimoto Mitaro of the Salvation Army served as chairman of the funeral committee. I do not remember the dates of his passing. Nor do I know what death anniversary year this marks.

I once cherished Mr. Nakazato Kaizan’s essay collection titled *Under the Thousand-Year Oak*. On the colophon, in Mr. Nakazato’s handwriting, was written "Honesty and Flexibility." It had been one of my cherished books, but during a time of financial hardship, I sold it off along with other books, including Francis de Sales’s collection of letters that Naruo Shotaro-kun had given me. To me, Mr. Nakazato Kaizan is someone I find somehow impossible to forget. And whenever I remember Mr. Nakazato, I also always find myself remembering Naruo-kun.

It has been over ten years now, but I once spent some time at Nishirin Juku in Hamura, managed by Mr. Nakazato Kaizan.
It was a period of about six months, spanning from early spring to the beginning of autumn.
I was already twenty-five years old, and it had become awkward to still be depending on my parents; moreover, my family’s circumstances could no longer support me indefinitely.

When I first met Mr. Nakazato Kaizan at the office of The Great Bodhisattva Pass Publication Society in Honcho, Nihonbashi, before going to Hamura, he said.
“Engage in meditation or take walks through the nearby mountains and fields.”

It was early March.
At Tachikawa, I transferred to the Ome Line and disembarked at Hamura.
Fields of wheat beginning to sprout and mulberry groves with unbudded branches came into view, while the Bukō Mountain Range—its snow not yet melted—loomed before my eyes.
As I walked along a solitary path between mulberry fields toward Nishirin Juku’s red cultured-tile roof—called the “Memorial Hall” by locals—a bicycle approached from ahead, its rider leaping off upon noticing me.

“Are you Koyama-san?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Mr. Nakazato sent word.
We’ve been waiting for you.
You can see the building on your right, can’t you?
That’s the printing office—everyone’s over there.”

That was Naruo-kun.
Naruo-kun said he was going there to shop but would return right away, then nimbly hopped back onto his bicycle.
He looked like a boy of seventeen or eighteen.
He wore a loose black high-collared uniform with black buttons, his round bright eyes giving him a bear-cub-like adorable face.
I turned to watch the bicycle recede into the distance.
Naruo-kun’s smile had been so warm.
It reminded me of a boy from *Cuore*.

When I opened the door to the printing office, there was a stove at the far end where two people were taking a break.
They were Mr. Muraki—Mr. Nakazato Kaizan’s nephew—and Mr. Tanaka Juntetsu.
When I saw Mr. Muraki’s face, I somehow felt I had seen it before.
I realized immediately.
He resembled Prince Shotoku.
It closely matched the image of Prince Shotoku found in state-designated textbook illustrations.
That portrait was drawn with an absurdly long neck, and Mr. Muraki’s neck happened to be exactly like that.
Since Mr. Muraki has likely settled into being a good father in a household with three or four children by now, I don’t think he would take my mention of his long neck as some kind of bad omen.
When I looked at Mr. Tanaka’s face, I recalled the wooden carving of a demon reciting Buddhist prayers that had adorned the staggered shelves in my childhood home.

“Did you figure it out right away?” asked Mr. Muraki.

When I nodded and recounted meeting Naruo-kun there, upon hearing me refer to him as "a young person" during that time,

“He’s certainly a young person, but how old do you think he is?”

“Hmm?”
“Isn’t he seventeen or eighteen?”

“He’s twenty-three.”

“So young…”

Just then, Naruo-kun returned.
Naruo-kun had gone to buy tea snacks.
While eating the manju that Naruo-kun had bought,

“Mr. Koyama here was just talking about meeting a lovely boy named Naruo-kun over there,” said Mr. Tanaka.

Naruo-kun showed a childlike smile and,

“How old are you, Koyama-san? Have you finished your check-up?”

I also laughed and,

“Yes, I’ve finished my check-up. I’m twenty-five.”

“In that case, you’re older than me then. So young…”

We exchanged looks and laughed. I’m normally the one people see as younger, but I was taken aback by Naruo-kun’s extraordinary youthfulness. Mr. Muraki was twenty-seven, two years older than me, but whether because we were childish, he looked significantly older. He was, so to speak, the caretaker of Nishirin Juku and also the supervisor of the printing office. Mr. Tanaka was already over thirty, a man with children, living at the foot of a small hill near the Tama Riverside, and came to the academy by bicycle every day.

In the evening, Mr. Nakazato Kaizan arrived from Tokyo riding an auto-rickshaw.
At that time, Mr. Nakazato Kaizan was living alternately ten days in Tokyo and seven in Hamura—to borrow his own expression—like an amphibian.
For commuting between Tokyo and Hamura, they initially used auto-rickshaws, but he soon purchased a Datsun car that was just beginning to gain popularity.
The driver was a man named Mr. Otake around our age who lived with his wife at Mr. Nakazato’s Tokyo residence.
Since Mr. Muraki was handy enough to handle small vehicles, whenever Mr. Nakazato came to Hamura, we would drive the Datsun all over during the time until Mr. Otake returned to Tokyo.
Mr. Nakazato called Mr. Otake “Shigehee” repeatedly.
This was presumably an affectionate nickname inspired by Otake Shigehee from the works of the late author Senda Sadayama.
I asked Mr. Otake to load my bedding—which had been left at the station—onto a rickshaw and transport it to the academy.
Mr. Nakazato announced he wanted udon and handed a fifty-sen silver coin to Naruo-kun.
Naruo-kun pedaled off on his bicycle.
Knowing only Tokyo prices, I wondered how much udon fifty sen could buy and secretly worried whether Mr. Nakazato might not be miserly—but when Naruo-kun returned and we began eating, we were stunned.
A single fifty-sen coin had transformed into such an enormous quantity of udon that six grown men loosening their belts couldn’t have finished it—Naruo-kun and I even made do with leftovers for breakfast the next morning.

At that time, Nishirin Juku had five buildings.
The large red building with cultural tiles was the main hall, where various memorabilia related to The Great Bodhisattva Pass were displayed.
This is why it bore the designation of a memorial hall.

To the right of the main hall was the printing office.
There we set type for Mr. Nakazato Kaizan’s writings and the institutional magazine Neighbor’s Friend.
Since there was no rotary press, we had the printing done at a Tokyo shop.
Behind the main hall stood a thatched-roof house.
This house was an exact replica of the hermitage Mr. Nakazato Kaizan had in Myoon Valley on Mount Takao in Bushu, where Mr. Muraki lived at the time.
There was one called Kōshodō.
This served as the library, connected to the main hall by a corridor.
Further back stood a tile-roofed cottage where Mr. Nakazato Kaizan stayed during his visits to Hamura.
When coming to Hamura, Mr. Nakazato Kaizan maintained a self-sufficient life in this cottage.
He would pull leeks from the garden to make soup himself.
We each lived independently—Mr. Nakazato as himself, Mr. Muraki as himself, and Naruo-kun and I as ourselves.
Initially Naruo-kun and I took turns cooking meals, but as I grew increasingly lazy, Naruo-kun gradually became the sole cook.
Naruo-kun had arrived at the end of November the previous year, making him three months my senior.

Naruo-kun and I slept in what might loftily be called the third floor of the main hall, though in truth it was just an attic.
“It’s a dreadful place, you know,” Naruo-kun said, watching my expression with some concern, but when I showed no further signs of distress, he seemed relieved.
I was rather indifferent to clothing, food, and shelter, so a primitive way of life was actually something I preferred.
I laid out three judo tatami mats in the middle of the narrow attic and made that my roost.
Naruo-kun had stationed himself by the window again.
When I asked, “Aren’t you cold?” he replied with something poetic: “I can see the stars.”
As I lay listening to the wintry wind howling outside the window, I began to feel as though I had built my nest in some impossibly high place—a peculiar sensation indeed.
It was said to evoke memories of Myoe Shonin of Togano, who supposedly sat zazen in the treetops.
I also recalled how the indigenous people of some tribe featured in the jungle movies popular at the time had built their dwellings in the treetops.
I found myself thinking less about my own life that was about to begin there and more about how someone like Naruo-kun had managed to live alone in such a place without even being driven out by rats.

When we talked it over, Naruo-kun and I discovered we shared a curious bond.
I was baptized by the late Mr. Takakura Tokutaro in my eighteenth year.
To me at that time, Christianity equated to Takakura.
I had been so devoted to him for a time.
But by twenty, I had already left the church and become adrift.
Just as I had carelessly stuffed coins into my trouser pocket only to drop them during a walk, I had somehow lost my faith without even noticing.
Naruo-kun had also received baptism from Mr. Takakura at the age of twenty.
And at that time, he was a student at Tokyo Theological Seminary where Mr. Takakura served as principal.
According to Mr. Otake Shigehee’s account, he had temporarily withdrawn from school due to neurasthenia stemming from a failed romance, but setting aside the matter of heartbreak, Naruo-kun’s unreserved smile seemed utterly unrelated to anything like neurasthenia.
“No, it’s just me being selfish,” Naruo-kun merely said tersely.
When I inquired about Mr. Takakura’s whereabouts, it was said he was now recuperating from illness in his hometown of Ayabe.
And so this gentleman seemed to be suffering from true neurasthenia.
Naruo-kun, seeming concerned about Mr. Takakura, said, “He’s an irreplaceable person.”
My heart was suddenly drawn to Naruo-kun like that.

We quickly became close.
Naruo-kun called me things like “Scarecrow Layman.”
It referred to a one-legged scarecrow in the rice fields.
Of course, Naruo-kun had just said it offhand without any real meaning—but there was no reason I should resemble such a thing.
He was foolish, pitiable, and utterly ridiculous, but even so, he at least served some purpose as a scarecrow.
I couldn’t imagine myself being of any use whatsoever.
I thought of myself as a burnt wooden stake.
I was struck by the delusion that some unknown person in white garments might be performing Ushi no Koku Mairi, driving nails of wrath along with curses into a doll made in my likeness.
For some time now, I had developed the unpleasant habit of grinding my teeth with a grating sound in my sleep.
Perhaps it was I who had neurasthenia.
I would sometimes call Naruo-kun the “Fake Pastor.”
Naruo-kun seemed fond of black.
He wore loose black clothes on his small frame but seemed particularly taken with their bagginess.
“I dislike anything constricting,” he said.
Naruo-kun’s overcoat was remarkably distinctive.
It too was black—terribly short in length but with a terribly ample width—something closer to a mantle than an overcoat.
Moreover, his hat was antiquated.
Less a small black bowler of the sort worn by village mayors in Wakefield or Stepanchikovo than a peculiar contraption resembling a bowl-shaped cap with a short brim attached.
The shoes he wore were also well-chosen.
They were neither buttoned nor laced—the kind with an elastic band that slipped easily onto one’s feet.

From the crown of his head to the tips of his toes, he was dressed entirely in black—a figure so reminiscent of a pastor in the making that one might have mistaken him for one—yet there was nothing comical about it.
This wasn’t some haphazard collection but rather the result of Naruo-kun’s deliberate sensibilities at work; it fit his character seamlessly without a single gap.
There was even something resembling a poet’s bearing about him.
I recognized that Naruo-kun possessed an innate gift for style.
Young women of marrying age would surely have wanted blessings from such an endearing pastor, wouldn’t they?
Naruo-kun would sometimes venture out eagerly to places like Ome Town in that outfit.
I dubbed this version of him the “Fake Pastor.”
Naruo-kun always answered with his characteristic gentle smile.
Needless to say, not a shred of pretentious literary affectation tainted Naruo-kun’s mind.
I also occasionally called him the “Hymn Pastor.”
Naruo-kun’s voice was pure bass.
There were times when he’d recite poetry or sing hymns while typesetting at the printshop, moments when we’d find ourselves completely captivated.
“If someone with that talent for enchantment doesn’t qualify as a full-fledged Fake Pastor,” I remarked, to which Naruo-kun earnestly replied, “At the seminary dormitory, I really was the best at hymns.”
Naruo-kun’s hymns must have reached even Jehovah’s heavenly throne.
I sometimes caught glimpses of Naruo-kun praying.
Though he seemed careful to avoid our notice during these moments, I’d feel as if I’d lost something vital.
In Naruo-kun’s posture as he prayed to the God who sees in secret—something reminiscent of apostles like Thomas or Andrew—I found myself deeply moved.
It might have been akin to the nostalgia a roughneck delinquent feels upon meeting a model student.

Our primary daily task as academy students was typesetting Mr. Nakazato Kaizan’s works and the magazine *Neighbor’s Friend* at the printing office.
Since there was no rotary press to handle printing, each time we typeset materials, Mr. Otake would make round trips between Tokyo and Hamura to transport them to the printing shop.
Typesetting fell exclusively to Mr. Muraki’s charge, while Naruo-kun and I handled type selection, with Mr. Tanaka—being nearsighted—primarily tasked with disassembling type.
I became proficient at type selection within days.
In under ten days, I could set eight boxes at nine pica per day.
This surprised even me—let alone everyone else.
I thought this work might suit my nature, but my efficiency never improved beyond that baseline.
January passed into February with no change.
My work retained an indefinably sluggish unreliability; compared to Naruo-kun, I inevitably lacked both precision and speed.
We competed several times—I always lost.
This was how things always went—no upsets—confirming I remained hopeless, a burnt wooden stake through and through.

“I’m no good.”
“I know that.”

“That’s not true.”

“Someone’s performing the Hour of the Ox curse ritual to put a hex on me.”

Naruo-kun burst out laughing,
“No way—it’s not like you’re Tatsu no Sukekurō or anything.
“Would there really be someone who would curse a good person like you, Koyama-san?”

“I wonder... Am I really a good person?”
“I’ve never once been thanked when shopping.”
“I can’t help but take it personally, you know.”

Naruo-kun laughed again,

“That’s terrible. Is that really true? But such suffering is an inherent part of a saint’s life, you know. It’s precisely by being despised and cast out by others that one becomes a saint, don’t you think? Well, it’s like being a leper. No one notices that divine glow.”

“What’s this. You’ve got such a childlike face, yet you can still manage a bit of flattery, can’t you. The Fake Pastor’s true nature is unmistakable.”

“No, I truly believe that. Koyama-san, by the end of your life, you will surely become like this.”

Naruo-kun widened his eyes and drew a circle behind his head with his finger.

Every time Sunday came, we swiftly transformed from printing office workers into Sunday school teachers. We opened up the second-floor grand hall of the main building and used it as our classroom. The students were village children. It wasn’t particularly interesting, but even so, a great many still came. Mr. Nakazato Kaizan wrote short homilies for the children every week. We printed them on cards and distributed them to the children. Most were stories related to the season or date at that time. I remember there being short stories about Higan and Qu Yuan. The three teachers other than me gave talks. I could never bring myself to speak before a crowd of ordinary people. Reading the text on the cards and having the children read it was all I could manage. I am not so much like that now, but in the past I was such a terrible blusher that at the slightest provocation I would flush like a maiden. Occasionally, Mr. Nakazato Kaizan would give talks. Mr. Nakazato would have the children gather stones of their own choosing from the Tama Riverbed and then conduct evaluations of them. Mr. Nakazato placed each stone on his palm one by one: *This stone has a most unusual shape and seems interesting at first glance, but such things quickly grow tiresome and fail to captivate our hearts for long; this stone appears plain and dull in appearance, yet if you look closely, its simple form holds an inexhaustible depth.* He spoke in that manner. Naruo-kun was skilled at storytelling. He often told Bible stories. Stories such as Noah’s Ark, the stable on the day of Jesus’s birth, and the road to Emmaus remain in my memory.

The story of Noah’s Ark was a masterpiece.
Naruo-kun managed to depict the psychological states of various animals packed together on the overcrowded ark, but the children were utterly delighted by his humorous storytelling style.
I thought Naruo-kun had literary talent.

“Why don’t you try writing children’s stories?”

I said, but Naruo-kun denied,

“I like children.
“I’ve been thinking I might return home and become an elementary school teacher.
“I’ve attended church Sunday schools before, but the children here are better.
“Those raised in the country are better.
“City children—how should I put it—despite being kids, they have this sort of cultural affectation.
“The children here may seem to live in poverty, but they’re all thriving freely.
“It’s really fun listening to them talk.
“They’re full of bright wit,
“Even what you might call the wisdom of living is budding in them.
“When they came up to this attic before and found my bedding, I wondered what they’d say—turns out they thought, ‘What’s this, a sparrow’s nest?’ but then realized it was a person’s nest after all.
“They say amusing things, don’t they?”

Naruo-kun was so beloved by the children. His desk was decorated all around with pictures and calligraphy they had sent him.

"The place was so dreary, I thought I'd ask them to put up some children's drawings. But when I requested them, they brought me so many! Don't children feel like they have to give everything they have all at once?"

"I'm like that."

“Yes, actually, I’m the same way.”

The two exchanged glances and laughed.
After all, we were both young.
That Naruo-kun found himself drawn to the children was undoubtedly one reason his stay kept being prolonged.

I wrote a practice piece called “The Stork Story” in this attic room—about the child a stork left in a cradle, about the young Hans Christian Andersen.
I had Naruo-kun read it.
“I do like it,” he told me.
“There was one part where I nearly cried.”

Naruo-kun would print on postcards the articles Mr. Nakazato Kaizan wrote for the children—since the cards happened to be postcard-sized—and send them each time to his younger siblings back home. His hometown was Fukugi Village in some district of Kishu Province, where his family had been farmers for generations. They appeared to be a large family, with Naruo-kun as the eldest son and his siblings still quite young. He suggested I do the same, but I had no one to send such postcards to. Whether it was then or later I can’t recall, but there was a time when he caught something I’d said about my family circumstances and sighed, “What an egoist.” I thought what Naruo-kun called “neurasthenia” might actually stem from family matters—the true source of his headaches. Needless to say, his family’s religion wasn’t Christianity. Mr. Takakura’s illness seemed to weigh heavily on him. Still, Naruo-kun kept steadily reading through the English translation of *Christian Principles* as part of his daily routine. In those days there was no flood of religious books like today’s, nor had a complete translation of *Christian Principles* yet been published.

Although the printing office work kept me relatively busy—preventing me from strolling through nearby hills and fields as much as Mr. Nakazato Kaizan had advised—I still walked about on Sunday afternoons with Naruo-kun guiding me.
I knew nothing of tree or plant names.
I couldn’t even recognize mulberry fields.
I kept wondering what that root-like thing could possibly be.
Naruo-kun taught me all manner of things this way.
That gen no shōko was both a plant and medicinal herb—this too I learned through Naruo-kun.
Until then, I’d believed geraniums were a type of salamander.
Naruo-kun gave me field lessons in this fashion.
“This hibiscus by the roadside got eaten by a horse,” he’d say, or “Here’s dogwood planted everywhere.”
Naruo-kun often chanted Wang Wei’s poems yearning for home.
I didn’t even know evening primroses.

“Mr. Nakazato seems to like evening primroses.”
“He writes in his essay something like, ‘Perhaps it is a flower suited for me to love.’”

And then Naruo-kun said.

“What do you think of Mr. Nakazato, Koyama-san?”

“I think he’s a kind person.”

“I think so too.”

One day, I visited Mr. Tanaka’s household at the foot of Daisuzan Mountain.
This area along the Tama River had a continuous stretch of undulating hills, and Mr. Tanaka had temporarily named one of them—the hill behind his own house—Daisuzan Mountain.
It was a neatly rounded hill with a pleasing shape, and to those who saw this mountain, Mr. Tanaka’s naming of it seemed somewhat spur-of-the-moment.
He would often do things like announce, “I am Tanaka Juntetsu, residing at the foot of Daisuzan Mountain,” in a Benzen Houshi-esque manner from *The Great Bodhisattva Pass* as a post-meal digestive exercise.
When I once inquired whether the name Daisuzan Mountain or the pseudonym Juntetsu had come first, Mr. Tanaka patted his head and replied with a wry smile, “That’s like asking whether the chicken or the egg came first.”
I had previously likened Mr. Tanaka to a demon reciting sutras, but in truth, he neither had such a fearsome face nor one that looked like he’d bitten into a bitter bug.
There was something about him that somehow resembled that impression.
When you looked closely at things like demons reciting sutras or demon roof tiles, they weren’t frightening at all.
They lacked the malevolent features one sees in humans.
In other words, they were neither mean-spirited nor sinister.
Rather, there were even traces suggesting they’d ended up with such facial expressions from being overly terrified of humans.
Their demon masks might perhaps have been the result of self-defense.
The fangs protruding from their mouths were not for challenging enemies but for protecting themselves.
Mr. Tanaka was an amiable, unassuming, and humble person.
He was slightly talkative and kind.
While talking to people, he would sometimes gesture by touching and stroking his head.
At such times, Mr. Tanaka was speaking while being mindful of the other person’s feelings.
Mr. Tanaka’s household consisted of his mother, his wife, and if I recall correctly, one child—a boy about two years old.
While Mr. Tanaka was away at the academy every day, his mother and wife worked in the fields.
Such was their life.

Mr. Tanaka apparently disliked farming tasks by nature and, around the age of twenty, had left home to do as he pleased in Tokyo—taking up various occupations, joining religious groups, and becoming part of social reform circles. He was that sort of "drifter" type. He once wrote about his memories of peddling Sayama tea while working his way through school and had it published in *Neighbor's Friend*. Wouldn't you find one or two people like Mr. Tanaka in any countryside? Mr. Tanaka was diligent. He readily took on tasks that others disliked. There were two people at the academy who always volunteered to draw the short straw—they were Mr. Tanaka and Naruo-kun. Taking advantage of that, Mr. Muraki and I always acted outrageously. Because of this, there were times when Mr. Tanaka appeared to be scurrying about. But he was never such a person. Looking at Mr. Tanaka, I still thought he was a simple country person—he possessed neither the cunning nor the tenacity of those scrambling for a cat's-forehead-sized foothold in the city. Moreover, Mr. Tanaka had no fangs to challenge or defend himself with. Even toward someone like me—a contrarian oblivious to worldly matters—he consistently maintained tolerance. In such a Mr. Tanaka there was, so to speak, the elegant sentiment of one who had entrusted himself to a minor role in life. That I associated that first impression with a demon reciting sutras might also have been due to the smile Mr. Tanaka possessed—one born from that elegant sentiment. Upon reflection, might not the statues of demons reciting sutras—those utilized in children’s incantations for warding off insects—be rather humorous beings? That day, Naruo-kun and I were shown what could be called a memento of Mr. Tanaka’s Tokyo wandering years—a signature book where autographs of notable figures from all walks of life were arrayed like a constellation of stars, leaving us both dumbfounded at how such a comprehensive *Pilgrim’s Progress* had been achieved. To give you a sample: Tokonami Takejirō, Kikuchi Kan, Yosano Akiko, Yamamuro Gunpei, Kagawa Toyohiko, Kitamura Rokurō, Nakamura Kichiemon, Sakai Toshihiko, Maruyama Tsurukichi—roughly this sort of lineup.

Some even had short sayings or haiku added.
Mr. Tanaka looked satisfied at our surprise and said, “They were all good people. They all kindly wrote in it right away.”
We were treated to porridge cooked with vegetables that his wife had prepared.

On the way back to the academy,

“Hamura’s such a poor village.”
“There’s nothing here.”
“It’s nice.”

When I said that, it seemed to get through to Naruo-kun,

“Yes.”
“The local temperament isn’t bad either. How about you?”
“Do you think you’ll be able to settle in?”

I did not answer that and,

Even when I dreamt, it was all about Tokyo.
Life here had not yet entered my dreams.

Naruo-kun abruptly spoke up as if struck by a thought,

“Mr. Nakazato’s life when he was on Mt. Takao seems to have been good.”
“He himself said so, didn’t he?”
“There’s a book called *Under the Thousand-Year Oak*, right?”
“Have you read it?”
“That sort of life must have been enjoyable.”

Hamura was a small, poor village.
The houses were all crude dwellings.
Even so, during the sericulture season, there appeared to be some earnings.

When I first got off at Hamura Station and saw mulberry roots in the fields and mountain ranges still retaining unmelted snow, I found it bleakly desolate. I was also startled by how harshly the locals spoke, as if they were spoiling for a fight. I wondered if they had violent dispositions, but that wasn’t so. The poverty that touched my heart after living there carried a softness.

I thought—that in the hearts of poor people, there exists no contempt for poverty itself. Around that time, Mr. Nakazato Kaizan had written in *Neighbor’s Friend* a line from his poem: “gazing upon plains and sky.” Yet Hamura remained nothing more than an ordinary poor village without any such marvels. Still, this poverty—of a place blessed with open fields and skies, the flow of the Tama River, and seasons of verdant foliage—held an unadorned simplicity. It did not harden nor embitter people’s hearts. The children grew bright and unconstrained, and I found it natural that the village’s spirit held no disdain for want. Though barely removed from Tokyo, the speech here had already taken on a rustic lilt, and I felt moved by how steadfastly the land preserved its distinctive character.

One day, when we had brought out a bench under the cherry tree that Mr. Nakazato Kaizan had named "Ogin-sama’s Cherry Tree" and were all drinking tea together, someone suggested we try holding a reading of *The Great Bodhisattva Pass* by assigning roles among ourselves.
Mr. Muraki volunteered to take on the role of Ryunosuke himself.
Mr. Tanaka’s Benshō priest was accepted by both himself and others without dispute.
Naruo-kun was essentially cast as Shigetaro Kiyosumi.

As for me—it was then that Mr. Nakazato Kaizan abruptly spoke.

“Koyama-kun would be good as Yohachi.”

He had assigned me that utterly straightforward role of a virtuous character—one devoid of hidden mechanisms or complexities.
That makes sense, I thought—

I want to be a Pygmy.

Mr. Nakazato Kaizan maintained a nonchalant expression as he said,

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

Readers of *The Great Bodhisattva Pass* will know this already—in the middle volumes of that monumental work, there appears a species of lowly creatures called Pygmies.
These were truly inferior beings; naturally they couldn’t have been born properly from a mother’s womb like ordinary people.
They were pitiful things that had accidentally emerged into the world through knotholes in ceilings and such.
Though lacking both eyes and mouths, their stomachs swelled nearly to bursting with self-importance and vanity.
These creatures would occasionally remember to come challenge Ryunosuke.
When Ryunosuke paid them no mind, they’d cling on endlessly, vigorously deploying psychological warfare.
Even Ryunosuke would eventually grow irritated and cut them down in one stroke without even showing his draw—but such was the wretchedness or perhaps recklessness of these inferior creatures that they showed no awareness of having been cleaved in two.
While clinging to walls and trembling away, through sheer simplicity they’d somehow regain their breath.
Thereupon, marveling at the unfathomable depths of their own mineral veins, they’d come dusting off Ryunosuke’s beard hairs once more.
Truly insufferable creatures.
Such were the Pygmies—these lowly animals.
Even I had no desire to become such a thing.
Then why had I said those words when he’d gone out of his way to assign me a good role?
It wasn’t out of contrariness or mischief.
I detest such attitudes.
They’re mere noise.
I may not be a defective radio, yet I sometimes emit such static.
Behind the declaration “I want to be a Pygmy,” there existed no true self whatsoever.

There was also such an incident.
One time, an esteemed guest came from Tokyo, and Mr. Nakazato Kaizan showed them around the main building while displaying mementos.
I was also nearby.
Among the mementos was a painting by Mr. Ishii Tsuruzo.
It depicted Shigetaro Kiyosumi of Kiyosumi running with a wolf.
It was a fine painting.
At that time, I lavishly praised the painting.
It was common knowledge that Mr. Nakazato Kaizan and Mr. Ishii had had a major falling-out.
It was still a time when the aftermath of that had not yet cooled.
The Tokyo guest furrowed their brows at my exaggerated words of praise.
However, Mr. Nakazato Kaizan merely said with a laugh, “It’s well-drawn,” and left it at that.
This too went against my nature.
It too was a kind of noise.

Mr. Nakazato Kaizan emerged from Koshodo carrying several antiquated books and called out “Koyama-kun, come here for a moment” upon noticing me as he walked along the covered corridor toward the main building. Though I had been heading to the printing office, I followed him into a room in the main building. He settled himself at the large desk there and motioned for me to sit beside him. This was dictation work—at the time, Mr. Nakazato had been serializing the continuation of *The Mysteries of Japanese Martial Arts* in *Neighbor’s Friend*, and these sessions formed part of that project. Removing his glasses case from his pocket, he put on spectacles, opened a book, and began dictating slowly. The subject was Minamoto no Yorimasa’s legendary defeat of the Nue monster.

His face softened whenever he wore glasses. Barrel-chested and imposing enough to resemble a construction foreman, Mr. Nakazato nonetheless spoke with a gentle voice—a clarity honed during his youth working as a telephone operator. While I’d rarely noticed it ordinarily, during these dictations his vocal precision became evident. My pen scratched across the paper as I transcribed with a pounding heart. He observed how I kept dunking my pen nib into the inkwell,

“Let me see.”

He peered at the manuscript paper I had presented,

“Because you press down too hard when writing, the ink dries up immediately.”

he said.
I was unbearably ashamed of my chicken scratch that kept smudging ink everywhere.
Mr. Nakazato took the pen himself and wrote flowingly.

“See, this is how you should lightly glide the pen.”

During calligraphy lessons in elementary school, there were times when the teacher would take my hand to instruct me.
The teacher’s palm was large and warm, and the small student’s chest swelled with joy and embarrassment.
In that moment, I found myself feeling something akin to that.
After being handed the pen back by Mr. Nakazato Kaizan, I resumed transcribing, but no matter how carefully I tried, my pen wouldn’t glide lightly, the characters I wrote bled with too much ink, and I still had to busy myself jabbing the pen tip into the inkwell.

“Let’s stop here for today.”

With that, Mr. Nakazato looked over my transcription, correcting mistaken characters and filling in omitted ones.
Mr. Nakazato said, “You’ve done well.”
There was nothing more to be done.
I fidgeted but spoke.

“Mr. Nakazato, was it enjoyable when you were under the Thousand-Year Oak?”

Mr. Nakazato merely nodded, a faint smile playing around his eyes.
I felt awkward.
I spoke again.

“Will there ever come a time when my youth coalesces and surfaces in my chest?”

Mr. Nakazato averted his eyes from my face but said something to the effect that everyone likely experiences a period when their heart finds ease at least once.
Then he stood up as if struck by sudden inspiration, selected a volume from the displayed books, returned to the desk, took up his pen, hesitated briefly before inscribing “Honesty and Flexibility” on the frontispiece, and handed me that copy of *Under the Thousand-Year Oak*.
As I opened the book and pored over the inserted photographs of the thousand-year oak and his hermitage, Mr. Nakazato rose.
I called out to his retreating figure as he walked along the corridor toward Koshodo.

“Mr. Nakazato.”

Mr. Nakazato Kaizan stopped and turned his profile.

“What books should a young man read?”

“*The Bible*.
*The Analects*.”

Mr. Nakazato Kaizan walked down the corridor, having tossed out those words.

I thought how wonderful it would be if Mr. Nakazato Kaizan had built a hermitage under the Thousand-Year Oak and I were the sole disciple attending him.
I would gather firewood, draw water, and till the fields.
Of course I would never say something like "I want to be a Pygmy."
Nor would the young man even ask what books he should read.
Just being by Mr. Nakazato’s side, just hearing his voice, my heart would be filled.
If Mr. Nakazato were to call me over, open the Analects and teach me, how happy I would be.
I would listen attentively to every word Mr. Nakazato spoke.
And so my heart would always be where it should be.

It was summer.

When I was taking a nap in the attic, Naruo-kun’s voice called up from below, “Anzan Koji, are you there?”
Naruo-kun only ever called me that way when something was up.
When I went down to check, Naruo-kun was acting unusually restless.

“Aren’t you ridiculously excited?”

When I said this,

“Soen-bo has come.”

His eyes shone.
Mr. Nakagawa Soen was a friend of Mr. Nakazato Kaizan who contributed haiku to *Neighbor’s Friend* in every issue at that time.
Occasionally letters would arrive from his pilgrimage destinations, and I delighted in reading those rare classical tones.

“What kind of person is he?”

“Well, go and meet him for yourself.”

Looking at Naruo-kun’s face, I thought that if this radiance was a reflection of Soen-bo, then he must be truly remarkable.
That day, I cornered Mr. Soen and had him teach me zazen, but found myself utterly overwhelmed by this young monk.
Just glimpsing the sun-burnished calves protruding from his hitched-up robes made my head spin.
This was no ordinary suntan.
It had transcended mere coppery hues.
Every inch proclaimed the rigor of pilgrimage.
Needless to say, my zazen practice died after three days.
Years later, I discovered Mr. Soen’s haiku—“Moonlight from before mothers were born”—selected for inclusion in Mr. Miyoshi Tatsuji’s *December Satire*.

Shortly after September began, I left Nishirin Juku.
“The countryside will be at its best from now on.
Stay a while longer,” Mr. Muraki said.
Mr. Tanaka persistently tried to dissuade me from returning to Tokyo.
As the used ink, pens, and notebooks would burden my luggage, I offered them to Mr. Tanaka, but he said, “I’ll keep these for you. Come back anytime you wish,” and steadfastly refused to speak any words of farewell.
“I’ll be returning to the dormitory myself before long,” Naruo-kun said.
Mr. Nakazato Kaizan said, “Do come visit again.”

When I returned to Tokyo, I immediately began bustling about.
That was something I had known from the start.
When I was working in that dubious occupation as an investigator for the Gramophone Dealers’ Association, a telegram suddenly arrived from Naruo-kun.
It told me to come to Shinjuku Station immediately.
I rushed there by car.
Naruo-kun stood before the station in his usual fake pastor attire, clutching a furoshiki bundle.
We went into a nearby coffee shop.
Just as Naruo-kun handed me the bundle and started explaining he needed to visit Kashiwa’s classmate—no, he didn’t exactly say he was going, but that some business required his attention—a policeman entered and abruptly ordered us to come to the police box.
When we asked why, he snapped, “Just come.”
They took us to the police box in front of the station.
The policeman looked between our faces and demanded, “What were you doing?”
“Nothing—we were just drinking tea and catching up,” we replied, whereupon he barked, “Open that bundle.”

It was at this moment that I finally let out an “Ah!” of understanding.
This policeman must have been watching from the moment I came rushing by car, which was why he’d undoubtedly mistaken us for some sort of covert street liaison.
It was exactly as it seemed.
The contents of the furoshiki bundle were books I’d entrusted to Naruo-kun when leaving Nishirin Juku.
There was *Under the Thousand-Year Oak*, *Letters of Francis de Sales*, *Mr. Akimoto Mitaro’s Missionary Diary*, a *Collection of Buddhist Hymns*, and others.
The collection of letters Bishop Francis de Sales had given to Madame Chantal was what Naruo-kun had presented to me as a parting gift.
It was the same book I’d glanced through at the academy and made that preposterous remark about—comparing it to Chekhov or some such nonsense.
The policeman picked up each volume one by one to inspect them, but finding neither red nor black books—only these incense-scented tomes—he grew visibly perplexed.
At last seeming to recognize his error, he told us we could leave.
We no longer felt like resuming our tea, and so parted ways at the police box’s entrance—he going left, I right.

The next and last time I saw Naruo-kun was when Mr. Takakura had passed away and his funeral was held at Shinanomachi Church.

Was the funeral chairman Mr. Tagawa Daikichiro or Mr. Saito Isamu? My memory remains unclear.
Among the disciples carrying Mr. Takakura's coffin was Naruo-kun.
I suddenly noticed Naruo-kun grimacing.
With so many bearers, the coffin couldn't possibly have been heavy.
If anything, the teacher's remains had grown too light.
And this must have been what twisted Naruo-kun's features.
That day we only exchanged a silent nod from across the distance, never speaking.

After that, my life rapidly deteriorated.
My dwelling places also shifted from one to another.

“Whenever you feel like it, please come back right away.”
I recalled Mr. Tanaka’s voice that said those words many times.
I too was born a “floating weed.”
Amidst all this, I heard by word of mouth that Naruo-kun became a vicar at Matsue Church and was assigned there.
Some time later, I heard that Naruo-kun fell ill and passed away suddenly in his hometown of Fukui Village.
I also heard tell that Mr. Nakazato Kaizan deeply regretted Naruo-kun’s untimely demise.

Not long after I left Nishirin Juku, I received a letter from Naruo-kun, and I remember that such things were written within it.
Needless to say, it is not exactly as in the original text.

“One of the Sanke Three Braves was a young samurai from Kii known as a certain someone.
At Sanjūsangen-dō, he attempted the long-distance archery trial; initially, he skillfully pierced the targets, but eventually all the arrows he loosed began to miss their marks.
In his moment of despair as he crossed his arms in resignation, a certain samurai from Owari—also one of the Sanke Three Braves—who had been watching everything unfold from the shadows emerged and, using his small stature, removed the congestion from his arm.
When he tried again then, this time every shot hit its mark, it was said.
This story came up today when we were transcribing the dictation of *The Mysterious Records of Japanese Martial Arts* at Kosho-do—your name was mentioned—and that’s when Mr. Nakazato told us about it.
When I heard this story, I recalled that you always called yourself a burnt wooden stake.
Mr. Nakazato Kaizan seems to deeply regret that you left the academy.
At Kosho-do, as you know, there is a folding screen on which Mr. Nakazato Kaizan painted a tiger.
Mr. Nakazato dictated with that folding screen behind him.
I somehow recalled the Four Sleepers Painting.
I’m sure it’s the one at Senso-ji Temple.
Leaning against the tiger, everyone was taking a nap.
Bukan was of course the teacher.
I felt something was lacking—whether I was Kanzan or Jittoku, I don’t know—but the absence of one person left me unsatisfied.”

To be left alone behind after being preceded by mentors and friends is a listless, drained feeling.