Botchan

by Natsume Sōseki

Ignorant of the mechanical side of this irrigating method at that time, I stuffed the bamboo pole with stones and sticks, and satisfied that no more water came up, I returned home and was eating supper when Furukawa, fiery red with anger, burst into our house with howling protests.

"He's so reckless that I worry about his future," I often heard mother say of me. Exactly; I have never amounted to much. I am just as you see me; no wonder my future used to cause anxiety to my mother. I am living without becoming but a jailbird.

If I kept at one study with bull-dog tenacity for three years, I should be able to learn something.

By nature, there is no branch of study whatever which appeals to my taste.

Since I detested every kind of study, any kind of study should have been the same to me.

For three years I studied about as diligently as ordinary fellows, but not being of a particularly brilliant quality, my standing in the class was easier to find by looking up from the bottom.

This too was a blunder due to hereditary recklessness.

anyway. I knew nothing about the place or the people there. It did not worry me or cause any anxiety. I had simply to travel there and that was the annoying part.

She evidently thought as soon as a fellow finishes school, money comes to his pocket by itself.

"This may be our last good-by. Take care of yourself."

It would be far better to stick this note up in the teachers' room for three days instead of going through such a monkey process.

And he laughed. If he knew it so well already, what on earth did he scare me for?

If such a fellow prided himself on being a Tokyo kid, I wished I had never been born in Tokyo. I might go on writing about each one of them, for there are many, but I stop here otherwise there will be no end to it.

Asked who was the head teacher of mathematics, I found that he was no other than that Porcupine. Holy smokes! was I to serve under him? I was disappointed.

I learned the English word "witch" when I was in middle school, and this woman looked exactly like one.

physics, but in calling others "teacher" and being called one, there is a wide gap of difference.

"If I talk too fast, I'll make it slow, but I'm a Tokyo fellow, and can't talk the way you do. If you don't understand it, better wait until you do."

Don't take a teacher for an encyclopaedia! If I could work out such hard questions as these easily, I would not be in such a backwoods town for forty yen a month. I returned to the teachers' room.

Wkwkwkw anjay koplak.

I realised that the profession of teaching not quite so easy a calling as might have appeared.

Outrageous, indeed, to keep on chained to the school, staring at the empty space when he had nothing more to do, even though he was "bought" by a salary! Other fellow teachers, however, meekly submitted to the regulation, and believing it not well for me,—a new comer—to fuss about it, I stood it.

"But four bowls is too much." What did they care if I ate four bowls or five as long as I paid it with my own money,—and

Hahaha myob

and as they were capable of doing nothing better, they were trumpeting aloud this tempura incident in quite as serious a manner as the Russo-Japanese war.

Then those gossipy spotters started saying that for one who made only forty yen a month to take a first class bath every day was extravagant. Why the devil should they care? It was none of their business.

I was told that they were accorded by the government treatment similar to officials of "Sonin" rank. Oh, fudge! They were paid more, worked less, and were then excused from this night watch. It was not fair. They made regulations to suit their convenience and seemed to regard all this as a matter of course. How could they be so brazen

"Am I wrong to understand that you are night watch?" Chuck that "Am-I-wrong-to-understand"! Two hours ago, did he not say to me "You're on first night watch to-night. Now, take care of yourself?" What makes one use such a roundabout, twisted way of saying anything when he becomes a principal? I was far from smiling.

The fellows who like to borrow money but not pay it back, are surely such as these students here after they are graduated. What did these fellows come to this middle school for, anyway? They enter a school, tattle round lies, play silly jokes behind some one by sneaking and cheating and get wrongly swell-headed when they finish the school thinking they have received an education.

else. In this respect, Kiyo is worthy of admiration. She is an old woman, with neither education nor social position, but as a human, she does more to command our respect. Until now, I have been a trouble to her without appreciating her goodness, but having come alone to such a far-off country, I now appreciated, for the first time, her kindness. If she is fond of sasa-ame of Echigo province, and if I go to Echigo for the purpose of buying that sweetmeat to let her eat it, she is fully worth that trouble. Kiyo has been praising me as unselfish and straight, but she is a person of sterling qualities far more than I whom she praises. I began to feel like meeting her.

Not for me! I take it this way that generally those who are fond of fishing or shooting have cruel hearts. Otherwise, there is no reason why they could derive pleasure in murdering innocent creatures. Surely, fish and birds would prefer living to getting killed. Except those who make fishing or shooting their calling, it is nonsense for those who are well off to say that they cannot sleep well unless they seek the lives of fish or birds.

The line had only a tiny bit of lead that looked like a weight. It had no float. To fish without a float seemed as nearly reasonable as to measure the heat without a thermometer, which was something impossible for me.

I was irritated; I swung the line and banged the fish against the bottom of the boat. It speedily died. Red Shirt and Clown watched me with surprise. I washed my hands in the water but they still smelled "fishy." No more for me! I don't care what fish I might get, I don't want to grab a fish. And I presume the fish doesn't want to be grabbed either. I hastily rolled up the line.

Wkwkwkwkwk goblok

Kiyo is a poor wrinkled woman, but I am not ashamed to take her to any old place. Clown or his likes, even in a Victoria or a yacht, or in a sky-high position, would not be worthy to come within her shadow.

If they wanted to talk, they should do it louder. If they wanted to discuss something secret, why in thunder did they invite me? What damnable blokes! Grasshoppers

I would sooner hang myself than to get helped by Clown.

And a school is a place where somewhat complicated private circumstances are common and one cannot do everything straight and simple".

"If can't get it through straight and simple, how does it go?" "Well, there you are so straight as that. As I was saying, you're short of experience…

"I'm not afraid who might do me as long as I'm honest."

"You say look-out, but I can't be more watchful than I'm now. If I don't do anything wrong, after all, that's all right isn't it?"

When I come to consider the situation, it appears that a majority of people are encouraging others to become bad. They seem to believe that one must do wrong in order to succeed. If they happen to see some one honest and pure, they sneer at him as "Master Darling" or "kiddy."

What's the use then of the instructors of ethics at grammar schools or middle schools teaching children not to tell a lie or to be honest. Better rather make a bold departure and teach at schools the gentle art of lying or the trick of distrusting others, or show pupils how to do others.

When Red Shirt laughed, he laughed at my simplicity. My word! what chances have the simple-hearted or the pure in a society where they are made objects of contempt! Kiyo would never laugh at such a time; she would liste...

I heartily despise Clown. It would be beneficial for Japan if such a fellow were tied to a quernstone and dumped into the sea.

And if Porcupine is so bad a teacher as that, it would be better to discharge him. What a lack of backbone for a head teacher and a Bachelor of Arts! As he is a fellow so cautious as to be unable to mention the name of the other even in a whisper, he is surely a mollycoddle.

If I am in his way, he had better tell me so, and ask me to resign because I am in his way. There is nothing that cannot be settled by talking it over. If what he says sounds reasonable, I would resign even tomorrow. This is not the only town where I can get bread and butter; I ought not to die homeless

I knew the word "gentleman" from books, and thought it was found only in the dictionary, but not a thing alive. But since I met Hubbard Squash, I was impressed for the first time that the word represented a real substance.

When I heard the principal speak, I was impressed that indeed the principal, or Badger, was saying something "grand." If the principal was willing to assume all responsibilities, saying it was his fault or his lack of virtues, it would have been better stop punishing the students and get himself fired first. Then there will be no need of holding such thing as a meeting.

In the first place, just consider it by common sense. I was doing my night duty right, and the students started trouble.

Where in thunder would be a peach of damfool who always swipes other people's faults and says "these are mine?"

If a meeting was so nonsensical an affair as this, I would have been better absent taking a nap at home.

"When I heard of the rough affairs in the dormitory, I was greatly ashamed as the head teacher of my lack of discipline and influence. When such an affair takes place there is underlying cause somewhere. Looking at the affair itself, it may seem that the students were wrong, but in a closer study of the facts, we may find the responsibility resting with the School.

Who would have grasshoppers put into his bed unconsciously! If things go on like this, they may stab some one asleep, and get freed as having done the deed unconsciously.