Sensei’s Letter Symbol Analysis

But now, when Sensei is dead, I am beginning to understand. It was not that Sensei disliked me at first. His curt and cold ways were not designed to express dislike of me, but they were meant as a warning to me that I would not want him as a friend. It was because he despised himself that he refused to accept wholeheartedly the intimacy of others. I feel great pity for him.

Thus, in a desperate desire to act, I boarded the Tokyo-bound train. The noise of the engine filled my ears as I sat down in a third-class carriage. At last, I was able to read Sensei’s letter from beginning to end.

I was moved by your decision, albeit discourteous in expression, to grasp something that was alive within my soul. You wished to cut open my heart and see the blood flow. I was then still alive. I did not want to die. That is why I refused you and postponed the granting of your wish to another day. Now, I myself am about to cut open my own heart and drench your face with my blood. And I shall be satisfied if, when my heart stops beating, a new life lodges in your breast.

I believe that words uttered in passion contain a greater living truth than do those which express thoughts rationally conceived. It is blood that moves the body. Words are not meant to stir the air only: they are capable of moving greater things.

I was already a misanthrope when I left home for the last time. That people could not be trusted must have already become a conviction deeply rooted in my system. It was then that I began to think of my uncle, my aunt, and all the other relatives whom I had come to hate as typical of the entire human race. On the Tokyo-bound train, I found myself watching suspiciously my fellow passengers. And when anyone spoke to me, I became even more suspicious. My heart was heavy. I felt as though I had swallowed lead. But my nerves were on edge.

Okusan’s manner towards me gradually changed my own state of mind. I became less shifty and began to feel more relaxed. I suppose the fact that Okusan and the rest of the household took no notice of my suspicious and withdrawn manner gave me great comfort. Since there was nothing in my surroundings that seemed to justify watchfulness, I began to calm down.

But this did not prevent me from becoming more and more suspicious as time went by. Some small incident—I forget what—put the idea into my head that Okusan was forcing her daughter onto me from the same motives as those which prompted my uncle when he wished me to marry his daughter. Okusan, whom I had taken for a kindly person, quickly became a cunning schemer in my eyes. I was filled with disgust.

I am sure that if I had spoken to her with a truly repentant heart—as I did always to the spirit of my dead friend—she would have forgiven me. She would have cried, I know, from happiness. That I refused to tell her the truth was not due to selfish calculation on my part. I simply did not wish to taint her whole life with the memory of something that was so ugly. I thought that it would be an unforgivable crime to let fall even the tiniest drop of ink on a pure, spotless thing.

Finally, I became aware of the possibility that K had experienced loneliness as terrible as mine, and wishing to escape quickly from it, had killed himself. Once more, fear gripped my heart. From then on, like a gust of winter wind, the premonition that I was treading the same path as K had done would rush at me from time to time, and chill me to the bone.

Though I had resolved to live as if I were dead, my heart would at times respond to the activity of the outside world, and seem almost to dance with pent-up energy. But as soon as I tried to break my way through the cloud that surrounded me, a frighteningly powerful force would rush upon me from I know not where, and grip my heart tight, until I could not move. A voice would say: “You have no right to anything. Stay where you are.”

I turned to my wife, who had reminded me of its existence, and said: “I will commit junshi if you like; but in my case, it will be through loyalty to the spirit of the Meiji Era.” My remark was meant as a joke, but I did feel that the antiquated word had come to hold a new meaning for me.

Then, at the height of summer, Emperor Meiji passed away. I felt as though the spirit of the Meiji era had begun with the Emperor and ended with him. I was overcome with the feeling that I and the others, who had been brought up in that era, were now left behind to live as anachronisms.

My own past, which made me what I am, is part of human experience. Only I can tell it. I do not think that my effort to do so honestly has been entirely purposeless. If my story helps you and others to understand even a part of what we are, I shall be satisfied.