gains some popularity for himself by means of this expression, because, on the one hand, it is easy and, on the other, because he has succeeded with it, he is apt, without regard for its suitability or unsuitability, to incline toward this means. And this is a mannerism.”
The professor had always been indifferent to art, especially to drama. Even Japanese plays he had seen only a few times in his life. Once the name of “Baiko” appeared in a story by a certain student. Even this professor, who prided himself on his encyclopaedic knowledge, did not know what this name meant. So when he had an opportunity, he called the student to him and asked him.
“I say, what’s ‘Baiko’?”
“Baiko? Baiko is an actor at present attached to the Imperial Theatre at Maru-no-uchi and now taking the part of Misao in Taikoki Judanme .”
Thus politely replied this student dressed in a hakama of Kokura duck. Hence the professor had no opinions of his own at all on the various rules of stage presentation on which Strindberg pithily commented. Only, he was able to take some interest in it in so far as it reminded him of certain things he had seen in western theatres while studying abroad. There was, so to speak, not much difference between him and a middle school English teacher who reads Bernard Shaw’s dramas to hunt for idioms. But interest is interest anyhow.
The still unlighted Gifu lantern hung from the ceiling of the veranda. And Prof. Hasegawa sat in the cane chair reading Strindberg’s Dramaturgy . If I write only this, I believe the reader can easily imagine what a long early-summer afternoon it was. But by this I do not mean at all that the professor was overcome with ennui. If anybody should try to interpret it thus, he would be deliberately trying to give it a cynical and perverse interpretation.