Short Fiction

that. They say he’s an old has-been English teacher whom nobody will employ anywhere, so he probably comes here to kill time. He orders a cup of coffee and sits in on us all evening, so we’re not over-pleased.”

When I heard this, Mōri Sensei’s sorrowful glance always pleading for something unknown came suddenly before my eyes. Ah, Mōri Sensei! At that moment I felt that I had been able for the first time dimly to understand him, to understand his sturdy character. If there is such a thing as a born educator, he was surely one. It was as impossible for him to stop teaching English as to stop breathing. If he were forced to stop, his splendid vitality would droop instantly just like a plant deprived of water. So, urged on by his interest in teaching English, he deliberately came alone to this café every evening to sip a cup of coffee. Of course his was no such leisure as to deserve being taken for time-killing by the head waiter. More, our mistaking him long before and deriding him for working only for a living, now was proven a shameful blunder. How he must have been tormented by the vulgar construction put upon his actions by the world, which credited him only with killing time or making a living! Of course, even in such torment, always assuming an attitude of serenity and caparisoned in that purple necktie and derby hat, he went on translating unflinchingly, braver than Don Quixote. But still in his eyes was there not sometimes that sorrowful gleam entreating the sympathy of the students he was teaching⁠—nay, the sympathy of all the world he was facing?

Thinking such thoughts momentarily and deeply moved till I did not know whether I should laugh or cry, I buried my face in my overcoat collar and hurried out of the café. And still Mōri Sensei, taking advantage of the absence of customers, raised his shrill voice and went on teaching English to the eager waiters under the cold and over-bright electric lights.

“As it’s a word that stands for a name, it’s called a pronoun. Isn’t it? A pronoun. You see that, don’t you?”

The Ball

I

It was the night of the third day of the eleventh month of the nineteenth year of Meiji (1886). Akiko, the seventeen-year-old daughter of the distinguished family of ⸻, accompanied by her bald-headed father, climbed the stairs of the Rokumeikan, where the ball that night was to be held. Great chrysanthemum blossoms, which seemed almost to be artificial, formed threefold hedges up the sides of the broad, brightly gas-lighted stairs. The petals of the chrysanthemums, those at the back pink, those in the middle deep yellow, and those in front pure white, were all tousled like flag tassels. And near where the banks of chrysanthemums came to an end, already floated out incessantly from the ballroom at the top of the stairs lively orchestra music like an irrepressible sigh of happiness.

Akiko had early been taught to speak French and dance. But tonight she was going to attend a formal ball for the first time in her life. Wherefore in the carriage, when her father spoke to her from time to time, she returned only absentminded answers. Thus deeply had an unsettled feeling that may well be defined as a glad uneasiness taken root in her breast. Till the carriage finally came to a stop in front of the Rokumeikan, time and again she lifted impatient eyes and gazed out of the window at the scanty lights of the Tokyo streets drifting by outside.

But immediately she entered the Rokumeikan, she experienced that which made her forget her uneasiness. When halfway up the stairs, she and her father overtook some Chinese officials ascending just ahead of them. And as the officials separated in their fatness to let them go ahead, they cast surprised glances at Akiko. In good truth, with her simple rose-colored ball gown, a light blue ribbon around her well-formed neck and a single rose exhaling perfume from her dark hair, Akiko that night was fully possessed of the beauty of the girls of enlightened Japan, a beauty that might well startle the eyes of these Chinese officials with their long pigtails hanging down their backs. And just as she noticed this, a young Japanese in swallowtails came hurrying down the steps and, as he passed them, turned his head in a slight reflex action and likewise gave a glance of surprise after Akiko as she went on. Then for some reason, as if suddenly having an idea, he put his hand up to his white necktie and went on hurriedly down through the chrysanthemums toward the entrance.

When they got to the top of the stairs, at the door of the ballroom on the second floor they found a count with gray whiskers, who was the host of the evening, with his chest covered with decorations, and the countess, older than himself, dressed to the last degree of perfection in a Louis XV gown, extending a dignified welcome to the guests of the evening. Akiko did not fail to see the momentary look of naive admiration that appeared and faded away somewhere in the crafty old face even of this count when he saw her. Her good-natured father, with a happy smile, introduced her briefly to the count and countess. She experienced a succession of the feelings of shame and pride. But meanwhile she had just time to notice that there was a touch of vulgarity in the haughty features of the countess.

In the ballroom, too, chrysanthemums blossomed in beautiful profusion everywhere. And everywhere the lace and flowers and ivory fans of the ladies waiting for their partners moved like soundless waves in the refreshing sweetness of perfume. Akiko soon separated from her father and joined one of the groups of gorgeous women. They were all girls of about the same age dressed in similar light blue