As far as I know, he and his wife were a close married couple. I had never lived as a member of a family, so of course I didn't know much about them, but when he was sitting with me in the tatami room, he would sometimes call his wife instead of calling his servant. (His wife's name was SHIZU). He would always turn to the sliding door and say, "Hey SHIZU". The way he called her sounded gentle to me. The wife who answered and came out was also very honest. Sometimes, when he was served a meal and his wife appeared at his table, this relationship between them seemed to be even more clearly drawn.
He sometimes took his wife to music concerts and plays. According to my recollection, there were more than a couple of trips of a week or less with his wife. I still have the postcard I received from HAKONE. NIKKOI also received a postcard with a sheet of autumn leaves enclosed in it when I went to
The relationship between the teacher and his wife in my eyes at the time was first like this. There was only one exception. One day, when I went to ask for directions from the teacher's door as usual, I heard someone talking in the sitting room. When I listened carefully, I realised that it was not an ordinary conversation, but rather a backhanded remark. The teacher's house has a sitting room right next to the entrance, so I could almost recognise the tone of the conversation from my ears standing in front of the lattice. I could also tell that one of them was the teacher by the voice of a man who came up from time to time. The other man's voice was lower-pitched than the teacher's, so it was hard to tell who it was, but it sounded like his wife. She seemed to be crying. I wondered what I should do, and was lost at the door, but I quickly made up my mind and went back to my lodgings.
A strange uneasy feeling came over me. I lost the ability to read and swallow the books. After about an hour, the teacher came to the window and called my name. I was startled and opened the window. The doctor invited me to take a walk and invited me to join him from below. I took out my watch, which I had left wrapped between my sashes, and saw that it was already past eight o'clock. I was still wearing my hakama when I left. I immediately went outside.
That evening I drank beer with him. He was a man of limited drinking capacity by nature. If he drank to a certain extent and could not get drunk, he was not adventurous enough to try drinking until he was drunk.
'Not today,' the doctor chuckled.
'Can't you be amused?' I asked, pensively.
I was stuck in my gut from start to finish. I suffered as if I had a snack bone stuck in my throat. The turmoil of thinking about confiding in me, or rethinking whether I should or shouldn't, made me fidget in a strange way.
'You're out of your mind tonight,' the teacher began. 'Actually, I'm a bit strange myself. Can you tell?'
I had no answer to give.
'Actually, I had a bit of a fight with my wife earlier. So I went downstairs.
'I've excited my silly nerves,' the doctor said again.
Why ......"
The word 'fight' did not come out of my mouth.
'My wife misunderstands me. I told her it was a misunderstanding, but she wouldn't listen. I just got angry."
How wrong you are about your teacher."
The teacher did not attempt to answer this question of mine.
'If I was who my wife thinks I am, I wouldn't be suffering so much either.
How much the teachers suffered, this was also a problem I could not imagine.
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