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?”