In it were reflected distinctly and coldly just like a part of a stage setting, first of all the side of a staircase leading up to the second floor, then the opposite wall, a door painted white and the advertisement of a concert hung up on the wall. Yes, and besides, the marble-topped tables. And there was a big potted pine, and an electric lamp hanging from the ceiling. A big gas heating stove of porcelain was also visible. And I could see in front of the stove in a circle three or four waiters talking together earnestly. And then—it was just as, inspecting the objects in the mirror one by one, I came to these waiters in front of the stove. I was startled by the sight of a guest who, surrounded by the waiters, was seated at a table. The reason he had not attracted my attention up to that time was probably that, with the waiters all around him, I had unconsciously taken him for a cook of the café or something. But what startled me then was not only the fact that I had found a guest where I had thought there was none. It was that although only the profile of the man in the mirror was visible, from the shape of that bald head like an ostrich egg, the look of that green and rusty morning coat and the shade of that everlasting purple necktie, I knew at a glance that he was Mōri Sensei.
As soon as I recognized him, the seven or eight years that had passed since we parted came suddenly into my mind. A class monitor in a middle school studying the Choice Reader and myself there then calmly blowing the smoke of a cigar through my nose—for me, those years could by no means be thought short. But could it be true that the current of time, which sweeps away all things, had not been able to do anything to this Mōri Sensei, who had already risen above time? He who was now sharing a table with these waiters in a night café was unmistakably the teacher who had in days long past taught reading in that classroom into which the westering sun never shone. Nor had his bald head changed. And his purple necktie was the same. And then that shrill voice—even now, was he not lifting that shrill voice up and busily explaining something to the waiters? Smiling unconsciously and forgetting all unawares the melancholy I had not been able to escape, I listened attentively.
“Look, this adjective here modifies that noun. You see, Napoleon is the name of a person, so it’s called a noun. You see, don’t you? Then if you look at that noun, directly after it—do you know what this is directly after it? Eh? You, what do you think?”
“It’s a relative—a relative noun,” ventured one of the waiters stammering.
“What, a relative noun? There’s no such thing as a relative noun. It’s a relative—er—a relative pronoun? Yes, that’s it, a relative pronoun, you see. It’s a pronoun, so look, it stands for the noun ‘Napoleon!’ Doesn’t it? The word ‘pronoun’ means ‘for a name,’ doesn’t it?”
From the talk, it seemed that Mōri Sensei was teaching English to the café waiters. Then I edged my chair over and looked into the mirror at a different angle. As I expected, a book that looked like a reader lay open on the table. Mōri Sensei, busily pointing with his finger to the page, seemed never to get tired of explaining. And in this, too, he was the same as of old. Only the waiters now standing around him, different from the students of that time, were listening attentively to his excited explanations, all with their eyes shining and their shoulders crowded together.
While I looked for a few minutes at the scene in the mirror, a warm feeling for Mōri Sensei floated gradually to the surface of my consciousness. Should I go to him and compare notes with him after our long separation? But he probably would not remember me, whom he had seen only in a classroom during one short term. Even if he did remember me—I suddenly recalled that malicious laughter which we had showered upon him in those days and thought it would be showing more respect for him not to introduce myself after all. So having finished my coffee, I threw away the stub of my cigar and got up stealthily, when, though I had tried to move quietly, I seemed after all to have attracted his attention. At the moment I left my chair, all at once he turned that sallow round face, that slightly soiled turndown collar and that purple necktie my way. At that instant his animalish eyes met mine in the mirror. But as I had expected, there was no sign in them that he had met an old acquaintance. The only thing glittering in them was that same old sorrowful glance that seemed always to be pleading for something.
With my eyes cast down, I took the bill the waiter brought and went silently to the desk by the door to pay it. There the head waiter, with whom I was slightly acquainted, was sitting languidly with his hair sprucely parted.
“There’s a man over there teaching English. Is he employed to teach in this café?,” I asked as I paid my bill, and he, gazing out into the street and looking bored, replied,
“No, he’s not employed. He only comes every night and teaches like
