That evening we drank beer together. As a rule Sensei did not drink much. If a certain amount of alcohol failed to produce the desired effect, he was disinclined to experiment by drinking more.

"This isn't working today," he remarked with a wry smile.

"You can't cheer up?" I asked sympathetically.

I still felt disturbed by the argument I had heard. It produced a sharp pain in me, like a fishbone stuck in my throat. I couldn't decide whether to confess to Sensei that I had overheard it, and my indecision made me unusually fidgety.

Sensei was the first to speak about the matter. "You're not yourself tonight, are you?" he said. "I'm feeling rather out of sorts too, actually. You noticed that?"

I could not reply.

"As a matter of fact, I had a bit of a quarrel with my wife earlier. I got stupidly upset by it."

"Why . . . ?" I could not bring myself to say the word "quarrel."

"My wife misunderstands me. I tell her so, but she won't believe me. I'm afraid I lost my temper with her."

"How does she misunderstand you?"

Sensei made no attempt to respond to this. "If I was the sort of person she thinks I am," he said, "I wouldn't be suffering like this."

But I was unable to imagine how Sensei was suffering.

CHAPTER 10.

We walked back in silence. Then after quite some time, Sensei spoke.

"I've done wrong. I left home angry, and my wife will be worrying about me. Women are to be pitied, you know. My wife has not a soul except me to turn to."

He paused, and then seeming to expect no response from me, he went on. "But putting it that way makes her husband sound like the strong one, which is rather a joke. You, now-how do you see me, I wonder. Do I strike you as strong or as weak?"

"Somewhere in between," I replied.

Sensei seemed a little startled. He fell silent again, and walked on without speaking further.

The route back to Sensei's house pa.s.sed very near my lodgings. But when we reached that point, it did not feel right to part with him. "Shall I see you to your house?" I asked.

He raised a quick defensive hand. "It's late. Off you go. I must be off too, for my wife's sake."

"For my wife's sake"-these words warmed my heart. Thanks to them, I slept in peace that night, and they stayed with me for a long time to come.

They told me that the trouble between Sensei and his wife was nothing serious. And I felt it safe to conclude, from my subsequent constant comings and goings at the house, that such quarrels were actually rare.

Indeed, Sensei once confided to me, "I have only ever known one woman in my life. No one besides my wife has really ever appealed to me as a woman. And likewise for her, I am the only man. Given this, we should be the happiest of couples."

I no longer remember the context in which he said this, so I cannot really explain why he should have made such a confession, and to me. But I do remember that he spoke earnestly and seemed calm. The only thing that struck me as strange was that final phrase, we should be the happiest of couples. we should be the happiest of couples. Why did he say "should be"? Why not say simply that they were? This alone disturbed me. Why did he say "should be"? Why not say simply that they were? This alone disturbed me.

Even more puzzling was the somehow forceful tone in which he spoke the words. Sensei had every reason to be happy, but was he in fact? I wondered. I could not repress my doubt. But it lasted only a moment, then was buried.

Sometime later I stopped by when Sensei happened to be out, and I had a chance to talk directly with his wife. Sensei had gone to Shinbashi station to see off a friend who was sailing abroad that day from Yokohama. Customarily, those taking a ship from Yokohama would set off on the boat-train from Shinbashi at eight-thirty in the morning. I had arranged with Sensei to stop by that morning at nine, as I wanted his opinion on a certain book. Once there, I learned of his last-minute decision to see off his friend, as a gesture of thanks for the trouble he had taken to pay Sensei a special farewell visit the day before. Sensei had left instructions that he would soon be back, so I was to stay there and await his return. And so it came about that, as I waited in the living room, his wife and I talked.

CHAPTER 11.

By this time I was a university student, and felt myself to be far more adult than when I had first begun to visit Sensei. I was also quite friendly with his wife and now chatted easily and unself-consciously with her about this and that. This conversation was light and incidental, containing nothing remarkable, and I have forgotten what we spoke of. Just one thing struck me, but before I proceed I should explain a little.

I had known from the beginning that Sensei was a university graduate, but only after I returned to Tokyo had I discovered that he had no occupation, that he lived what could be called an idle life. How he could do it was a puzzle to me.

Sensei's name was quite unknown in the world. I seemed to be the only person who was in a position to really respect him for his learning and ideas. This fact always troubled me. He would never discuss the matter, simply saying, "There's no point in someone like me opening his mouth in public." This struck me as ridiculously humble.

I also sensed behind his words a contemptuous att.i.tude to the world at large. Indeed, Sensei would occasionally make a surprisingly harsh remark, dismissing some old school friend who was now in a prominent position. I didn't hesitate to point out how inconsistent he was being. I was not just being contrary-I genuinely regretted the way the world ignored this admirable man.

At such times Sensei would respond leadenly, "It can't be helped, I'm afraid. I simply don't have any right to put myself forward." As he spoke, an indefinable expression-whether it was despair, or bitterness, or grief I could not tell-was vividly etched on his features. Whatever it may have been, it was strong enough to dumbfound me. I lost all courage to speak further.

As his wife and I talked that morning, the topic shifted naturally from Sensei to this question. "Why is it that Sensei always sits at home, studying and thinking, instead of finding a worthy position in the world?" I asked.

"It's no use-he hates that sort of thing."

"You mean he realizes how trivial it is?"

"Realizes . . . well, I'm a woman, so I don't really know about such things, but that doesn't seem to be it to me. I think he wants to do something, but somehow he just can't manage to. It makes me sad for him."

"But he's perfectly healthy, isn't he?"

"He's fine, yes. There's nothing the matter with him."

"So why doesn't he do something?"

"I don't understand it either. If I understood, I wouldn't worry about him as I do. As it is, all I can do is feel sorry for him."

Her tone was deeply sympathetic, yet a little smile played at the corners of her mouth.

To an observer, I would have appeared to be more concerned than she. I sat silently, my face troubled.

Then she spoke again, as if suddenly recalling something. "He wasn't at all like this when he was young, you know. He was very different. He's changed completely."

"What do you mean by 'when he was young'?" I asked.

"When he was a student."

"Have you known him since his student days, then?"

She blushed slightly.

CHAPTER 12.

Sensei's wife was a Tokyo woman. Both she and he had told me so. "Actually," she added half-jokingly, "I'm not a pure-blood." Her mother had been born in Tokyo's Ichigaya district, back when the city was still called Edo, but her father had come from the provinces, Tottori or somewhere of the sort. Sensei, for his part, came from a very different part of j.a.pan, Niigata Prefecture. Clearly, if she had known him in his student days it was not because they shared a hometown. But since she blushed at my question and seemed disinclined to say more, I did not press the subject further.

Between our first meeting and his death, I came to know Sensei's ideas and feelings on all sorts of subjects, but I learned almost nothing about the circ.u.mstances surrounding his marriage. Sometimes I interpreted this reticence charitably, choosing to believe that Sensei, as an older man, would prefer to be discreet on a private matter of the heart. At other times, however, I saw the question in a less positive light, and felt that Sensei and his wife shared the older generation's timorous aversion to open, honest discussion of these delicate subjects. Both of my interpretations were of course mere speculations, and both were premised on the a.s.sumption that a splendid romance lay behind their marriage.

This a.s.sumption was not far wrong, but I was able to imagine only part of the story of their love. I could not know that behind the beautiful romance lay a terrible tragedy. Moreover, Sensei's wife had absolutely no way of understanding how devastating this tragedy had been for him. To this day she knows nothing of it. Sensei died without revealing anything to her. He chose to destroy his life before her happiness could be destroyed.

I will say nothing of that tragedy yet. As for their romance, which was in a sense born of this dreadful thing, neither of them told me anything. In her case, it was simply discretion. Sensei had deeper reasons for his silence.

One memory stands out for me. One spring day when the cherries were in full bloom, Sensei and I went to see the blossoms in Ueno. Amid the crowd were a lovely young couple, snuggled close together as they walked under the flowering trees. In this public place, such a sight tended to attract more attention than the blossoms.

"I'd say they're a newly married couple," said Sensei.

"They look as if they get on just fine together," I remarked a little snidely.

Sensei's face remained stony, and he set off walking away from the couple. When they were hidden from our view, he spoke. "Have you ever been in love?" I had not, I replied.

"Wouldn't you like to be?"

I did not answer.

"I don't imagine that you wouldn't."

"No."

"You were mocking that couple just now. I think that mockery contained unhappiness at wanting love but not finding it."

"Is that how it sounded to you?"

"It is. A man who knows the satisfactions of love would speak of them more warmly. But, you know . . . love is also a sin. Do you understand?"

Astonished, I made no reply.

CHAPTER 13.

People thronged all around us, and every face was happy. At last we made our way through them and arrived in a wooded area that had neither blossoms nor crowds, where we could resume the conversation.

"Is love really a sin?" I asked abruptly.

"Yes, most definitely," Sensei said, as forcefully as before.

"Why?"

"You'll understand soon enough. No, you must already understand it. Your heart is already restless with love, isn't it?"

I briefly searched within myself to see if this might be true, but all I could find was a blank. Nothing inside me seemed to answer his description.

"There's no object of love in my heart, Sensei. Believe me, I'm being perfectly honest with you."

"Ah, but you're restless precisely because there's no object, you see? You're driven by the feeling that if only you could find that object, you'd be at peace."

"I don't feel too restless right now."

"You came to me because of some lack you sensed, didn't you?"

"That may be so. But that isn't love."

"It's a step in the direction of love. You had the impulse to find someone of the same s.e.x as the first step toward embracing someone of the opposite s.e.x."

"I think the two things are completely different in nature."

"No, they're the same. But I'm a man, so I can't really fill your need. Besides, certain things make it impossible for me to be all you want me to be. I feel for you, actually. I accept that your restless urge will one day carry you elsewhere. Indeed I hope for your sake that that will happen. And yet . . ."

I felt strangely sad. "If you really believe I'll grow apart from you, Sensei, then what can I say? But I've never felt the slightest urge."

He wasn't listening. ". . . you must be careful," he went on, "because love is a sin. My friendship can never really satisfy you, but at least there's no danger here. Tell me, do you know the feeling of being held fast by a woman's long black hair?"

I knew it well enough in my fantasies, but not from reality. But my mind was on another matter. Sensei's use of the word sin sin made no sense to me. And I was feeling a little upset. made no sense to me. And I was feeling a little upset.

"Sensei, please explain more carefully what you mean by sin. Otherwise, I'd prefer not to pursue this conversation until I've discovered for myself what you really mean."

"I apologize. I was trying to speak truthfully, but I've only succeeded in irritating you. It was wrong of me."

We walked on quietly past the back of the museum and headed toward Uguisudani. Through gaps in the hedge we caught glimpses of the s.p.a.cious gardens, crowded thick with dwarf bamboo, secluded and mysterious.

"Do you know why I go every month to visit my friend's grave in Zshigaya?"

Sensei's question came out of the blue. He knew perfectly well, what's more, that I did not. I made no reply.

There was a pause, then something seemed to dawn on him. "I've said something wrong again," he said contritely. "I planned to explain, because it was wrong of me to upset you like that, but my attempt at explanation has only irritated you further. It's no use. Let's drop the subject. Just remember that love is a sin. And it is also sacred."