Botchan (Master Darling)

When I was small, I did reckless things. I jumped from the second floor because someone called me a coward. I cut my thumb to prove a knife was sharp. I fought over chestnuts and crashed through fences and carrot patches. Father called me useless. Mother worried I'd never amount to anything. My older brother was handsome and perfect and always mocked me. We fought every other week. Once I hit him in the forehead with a chess piece. Father threatened to cut me out of his will.

Only Kiyo, the maid, stood between me and disaster. She had little schooling, but she believed I could become something good. She snuck me sweets, left warm noodles by my bed on cold nights, and once pressed three yen into my hand. Like a fool, I dropped the money in the latrine. She fished it out with a bamboo stick, dried it carefully, and exchanged it for silver so no one would laugh. She said, 'One day you will have a big house and your own rickshaw. May I be your housekeeper then?' I just nodded. How can you say no to a dream that has already made you its own?

Mother died. Father did nothing sensible. My brother learned English and became a businessman. When Father died too, my brother sold the house and inheritance and disappeared to a job far away. He gave me six hundred yen and said I could do what I wanted. He threw fifty yen at Kiyo, as if he wanted to get rid of both of us. I waved goodbye at the station and never saw him again.

I decided to study for three years, without any real plan. I stumbled into a physics school because I happened to walk past it. I was near the bottom of my class when I finished. Eight days later, I got a job offer as a math teacher in the far south, on an island called Shikoku. The salary was forty yen a month. Me and my recklessness always travel together, so I said yes.

Before I left, I visited Kiyo. She had grown thin and gray in the hair, but her eyes were warm. She said I must start a home immediately, as if a roof and meals fall from the sky. I said I would come back in summer with a surprise from the west. She wanted sweets wrapped in bamboo leaves, completely the wrong thing for my journey. On the platform, she held back tears. As the train pulled out, I stuck my head out the window. She stood alone and grew smaller and smaller.

I arrived by steamship. A boatman in a red loincloth rowed us to shore under a burning sun. The town was mostly a fishing village. At the first inn, they tried to squeeze me into a room under the stairs and lied that all the good rooms were taken. I got angry and gave them five yen as 'tea money' to get away. The next day I got a large room at another inn. I wrote a long letter to Kiyo. I told her the town was boring, the room was wonderful, I had dreamed she was eating bamboo leaves, and I had already nicknamed my colleagues: Badger, Redshirt, Pumpkin, Hedgehog, and Clown.

The principal had a black mustache and round blinking eyes. He looked like a badger, so I called him that in my head. He talked for a long time about how a teacher must be a light for the youth, an example, almost a star in the sky. Forty yen a month to be a saint seemed a bit scarce. The head teacher wore a red flannel shirt year-round, spoke softly and nicely, and I didn't like him from the first moment. I called him Redshirt.

A pale, round English teacher named Koga looked like an overripe pumpkin, so he became Pumpkin. A short, bristly math teacher laughed loudly and sharply, as if he were stabbing. He became Hedgehog. The art teacher floated around in fine clothes and bragged about Tokyo like a cheap actor. He became the Clown. An old, solemn teacher of ancient rules bowed like a grandfather. It felt like a zoo.

Hedgehog came to the inn and sorted out my schedule without ceremony. He also took me to find lodgings. We ended up at Ikagin's, a small curio dealer with a wife who looked like a witch. It was quiet up the hill, and I moved in.

The first day I stood on the platform and heard forty big boys say 'Teacher,' I flinched. In Tokyo, I had been saying 'Teacher' for three years. Now I was the echo. The boys were sturdy and many were taller than me. They spoke in a thick, slow dialect. In the middle of class, the biggest one stood up and said I talked too fast. I said I was a boy from Tokyo. I couldn't speak like them. They would have to wait until they understood. I felt a little braver when I said that. But then a boy asked if I could solve some difficult problems right then and there. I couldn't. I said I would show them next time, and the room filled with jeers. A teacher is not an encyclopedia, and forty yen is not all knowledge.

One evening I ate four bowls of deep-fried noodles. The next morning, someone wrote on the blackboard in chalk: 'Professor Tempura.' I wiped it off, but in the next class, it said: 'Four bowls, but no laughing!' Soon they added rice balls and prices. Every evening I went to the public baths. My towel bled color, so they called me 'Red Towel.' I swam alone in the granite pool. Then a sign appeared: 'No swimming in the pool.' And the next day, the same words on the board. The pettiness was as thick as the air.

One evening I had night duty at the school. All teachers took a round, except Badger and Redshirt, who were exempted as if they were too important. The duty room was baking in the evening sun. I slipped out to the bathroom to breathe. When I came back, Badger stood there and asked around as if I weren't on duty. I said yes. Then I went in and turned off the lamp.

When I lay down, fifty grasshoppers jumped out of the blanket like stones from a mat. I swatted and swept them out. Six boys from the dormitory laughed loudly and said I had to prove I had swept. They talked in circles with words like 'are they grasshoppers or angels?' and denied everything. A little later, the whole ceiling pounded in rhythm: 'One-two-three-whee!' I ran through dark hallways, tripped on a wooden block they had wedged, banged my knee, and heard them laugh at the end of the hall. I stayed awake the rest of the night. Mosquitoes bit my face, and my pride burned. At dawn, I dragged two boys in. They said nothing. When Badger came, he smoothed everything over with nice words and told me to rest. But I still went to classes, even though my face was covered in bites.

Afterward, Redshirt invited me on a fishing trip. The Clown also came. We rowed past a small island with pines like umbrellas. Redshirt said the view was like a painting by a great artist. The Clown nodded too eagerly.

We anchored in six fathoms. They tried to catch big fish. They only caught skinny small fish, the kind farmers use as fertilizer. The Clown made a joke about Russian books. Redshirt laughed hollowly and said names I didn't care about. I caught a small, slippery fish. The hook stuck, and the feeling of it wriggling in my hand made me sick. I quickly smacked it on the deck board so it died. I lay on my back and watched clouds cut the sky, and I thought of Kiyo. Fresh sea air would have been good for her tired lungs. With her, I wouldn't be ashamed anywhere.

In the boat, they whispered together. They said words like 'tempura' and 'dango' and 'same old Hotta.' They didn't say my name, but I knew they meant me. On the way back, Redshirt said the students liked me, but I had to be careful. In a school, there were many relationships, he said, things I would understand later. I asked him to speak plainly. He wouldn't. He whispered that some people who seemed friendly might not be. Especially those who had found me lodging. He probably meant Hedgehog. If he had something on his mind, he could just say the name.

Next day, I tried to give Hedgehog one and a half sen, the price of the ice water he had bought me the first week. I didn't want to be indebted if he was a snake behind my back. He laughed first, then realized I was serious. He pushed the coins back. I pushed them forward. He took them with a groan. Then he said something that lit me up: I should move. The landlord complained that I was too strict and fussy, that I made them do too much, that he could make more money selling 'art.' I was furious. Then why did he take me there? We argued until the school bell silenced us.

In the afternoon, there was a meeting about the dormitory boys and the night's pranks. They sat around a long table, looking like a cheap restaurant. Badger began nicely, saying it was all due to his lack of virtues. If it really was his fault, he could have resigned before the speech, I thought. Redshirt asked for leniency. The boys were strong and half-aware of their mistake, he said. The Clown agreed completely. I tried to speak, but couldn't find fine words. I just said the boys were deluded and must apologize.

Then Hedgehog stood up. He spoke clearly. To torment a new teacher for no reason was just spite. To be lenient now would lower the whole school's dignity. The school should teach honesty and courage, not lazy shortcuts. He demanded strict punishment and a public apology. My heart leaped. He said everything I couldn't get out. Then he added that my trip to the bathroom during duty was a separate matter and equally serious. I stood up at once, said it was true, and apologized. Some laughed. They always laugh, those who have never known the relief of saying 'I was wrong' right out.

The boys were confined for a week and came to bow to me. Then I didn't want to leave anymore. Afterward came 'advice from the leadership': Teachers should not eat at 'low' places like noodle shops. Only at farewell parties was it allowed. Redshirt gave a little speech about how teachers were upper class and should seek comfort in fishing, books, and poetry. I was tired of his perfume and all his smooth words. I asked if 'meeting the Madonna' was also comfort for the soul. The room fell silent. Redshirt slumped. The Clown looked away. Everyone understood.

That same evening, I left Ikagin's. While I packed, the landlord flattered and scolded in the same sentence. I don't waste breath on such double talk. I jumped into a rickshaw and left. I walked without aim, until I remembered that Pumpkin, Koga, lived in Kajimachi. His mother welcomed me with a paper lantern. Koga listened and arranged a place for me with an old couple, the Hagino family. I moved in.

At the Hagino's, there was peace. The old woman liked to talk. She thought I was married and wondered where my wife was. I laughed and said I was only twenty-four. She said many marry before that. 'I can find you a good wife,' she said. Then she looked at me and said I probably already had a girl in Tokyo, since I asked for letters every day. I thought of Kiyo, but I said nothing.

The old woman knew everything that mattered here. She told me about the town's most beautiful girl. People called her Madonna, a foreign word for very beautiful. The art teacher before the Clown had supposedly said it first. Madonna had been engaged to Koga. Then his father died, and the family became tight. While everything was postponed, Redshirt came with a matchmaker. He fell head over heels, the old woman said, and started visiting Madonna. The family hesitated because Madonna was already promised, but Redshirt came again and again. The rumors were bad. Hedgehog had talked to him about it. Then Redshirt replied nicely that he wouldn't marry until things were properly broken off, but there was nothing wrong with 'visiting' as long as it lasted. After that, Hedgehog and Redshirt were enemies.

Two days later, Kiyo's letter finally came. Her pencil stuttered and trembled across the paper like an old bird. She had written and rewritten. She praised me for being straightforward. She told me to save money and be wise, and sent me back ten yen of what I had given her. She had put the rest in a savings bank for the day we would start a house in Tokyo. I sat on the veranda with the wind in the paper and felt everything around me grow calmer.