“It’s all right, sure.” I forced a smile. “But let me get this straight. You came here on a sort of reconnaissance mission on behalf of your friends, summoning up every ounce of courage you could muster, is that it?”

“A one-man suicide corps,” Nitta candidly replied. “I read Satō-sensei’s piece again last night and resigned myself to various possible fates.”

I was looking at Fuji through the window. Fuji stood there impassive and silent. I was impressed.

“Not bad, eh? There’s something to be said for Fuji after all. It knows what it’s doing.” It occurred to me that I was no match for Fuji. I was ashamed of my own fickle, constantly shifting feelings of love and hatred. Fuji was impressive. Fuji knew what it was doing.

“It knows what it’s doing?” Nitta seemed to find my words odd. He smiled sagaciously.

Whenever Nitta came to visit me from then on, he brought various other youths with him. They were all quiet types. They called me “Sensei,” and I accepted that with a straight face. I have nothing worth boasting about. No learning to speak of. No talent. My body’s a mess, my heart impoverished. Only the fact that I’ve known suffering, enough suffering to feel qualified to let these youths call me “Sensei” without protesting—that’s all I have, the only straw of pride I can cling to. But it’s one I’ll never let go of. A lot of people have written me off as a spoiled, selfish child, but how many really know how I’ve suffered inside?

Nitta and a youth named Tanabe, who was skilled at composing tanka poems, were readers of Mr. Ibuse’s work, and perhaps because of this they were the ones I felt most comfortable with and became closest to. They took me to Yoshida once. It was an appallingly long and narrow town, dominated by the mountains that loomed above. Cut off from the sun and wind by Fuji, it was dark and chilly and not unlike the meandering, spindly stem of a light-starved plant. Streams flowed alongside the streets. This is characteristic, apparently, of towns at the foot of mountains; in Mishima, too, steadily flowing streams are everywhere, and people there sincerely believe that the water comes from the snows melting on Fuji. Yoshida’s streams are shallower and narrower than those in Mishima, and the water is dirtier. I was looking down at one of them as I spoke:

“There’s a story by Maupassant about a maiden somewhere who swims across a river each night to meet some young scion of the nobility, but I wonder what she did about her clothes. Surely she wouldn’t have gone to meet him in the nude?”

“No, surely not.” The young men thought it over. “Maybe she had a bathing suit.”

“Do you suppose she might’ve piled her clothes on top of her head and tied them down before she started swimming?”

The youths laughed.

“Or maybe she swam in her clothes, and when she met the scion she’d be soaking wet, and they’d sit by the stove till she dried. But then what would she do on the way back? She’d have to get the clothes all wet again swimming home. I worry about her. I don’t see why the young nobleman doesn’t do the swimming. A man can swim in just a pair of shorts without looking too ridiculous. Do you suppose the scion was one of those people who swim like a stone?”