One evening in December, I was walking with a critic friend of mine under the bare willows along the so-called Koshiben Kaidō (Lunch-on-Hip Highway) toward Kanda Bridge. To right and left of us staggered through the light still lingering in the gloaming men who seemed to be those petty officials to whom Shimazaki Tōson long ago said in patriotic indignation, “Walk with your heads held higher.” Perhaps it was because we ourselves, try as we might, could not quickly shake off a similar melancholy feeling that, walking so near together that the shoulders of our overcoats touched and quickening our steps a thought, we said hardly a word till we were passing the Ote Machi car stop. Then my friend the critic glanced at a group of chilly-looking people waiting for a car by a red post there and, suddenly giving a shiver, mumbled as if to himself,
“They remind me of Mōri Sensei.”
“Who’s Mōri Sensei?”
“He was a teacher of mine in middle school. Haven’t I ever told you about him?”
In place of a negative answer, I silently pulled down the brim of my hat. What here follows is the story of Mōri Sensei then told me by that friend.
It was about ten years ago, when I was yet in the third year class of a certain prefectural middle school. During the winter vacation, Adachi Sensei, a young teacher who taught our class English, died of acute pneumonia brought on by influenza. It all happened so suddenly that there was no time to choose a suitable successor to take his place, so it must have been as a last expedient. At any rate, for the time being, our