CHAPTER 25

If I were to graduate this June as expected, I had to finish the thesis in the required form by the end of April. But when I counted off the remaining days on my fingers, my heart began to fail me. The other students had all been visibly busy for some time gathering material and writing notes, while I alone had done absolutely nothing toward the paper. I had put it off with the intention of throwing myself into the task after the New Year, and in this spirit I now set about it.

But in no time I ground to a halt. The abstract idea of a grand theme was outlined in my mind, and the framework of the discussion felt more or less in place, but now I sat head in hands, despairing. So I set about reducing my theme to something more manageable. Finally I decided to bypass the trouble of systematically setting down my own ideas. Instead, I would simply present material from various books on the subject and add a suitable conclusion.

The topic I had chosen was closely related to Sensei’s field of expertise, and when I ventured to ask his opinion about it, he had approved. In my present state of confusion, therefore, I naturally took myself straight off to visit Sensei and ask him to recommend some books.

He willingly told me all he knew and even offered to lend me two or three books. But he made absolutely no move to take on the task of actually advising me. “I don’t read much these days, so I don’t know what’s new in the field. You should ask your professors.”

I recalled then that his wife had said that he had once been a great reader, but for some reason his interest had waned considerably.

My thesis momentarily forgotten, I spontaneously asked, “Why aren’t you as interested in books as you used to be, Sensei?”

“There’s no particular reason. . . . I suppose it’s because I believe you don’t really become a finer person just by reading lots of books. And also . . .”

“What else?”

“Nothing else really. You see, in the old days I used to feel uncomfortable and ashamed whenever someone asked me a question I couldn’t answer, or when my ignorance was exposed in public somehow. These days, though, I’ve come to feel that there’s nothing particularly shameful about not knowing, so I don’t any longer have the urge to push myself to read. I’ve grown old, in a word.”

Sensei spoke quite serenely. His words held no hint of the bitterness of someone who has turned his back on the world, so they failed to strike me as they might have.

I went home feeling that, although he did not seem old to me, his philosophy was not very impressive.

From then on I spent my days sweating over my thesis like one possessed, my eyes bloodshot with effort and fatigue. I asked friends who had graduated a year ahead of me how they had fared in this situation. One told me how on the final day of submission, he had hired a rickshaw and rushed his thesis to the university office, barely managing to get it there before the deadline. Another said he had taken it in fifteen minutes past the five o’clock cut-off time and almost been rejected, but the department head had kindly intervened and allowed it to get through.

These tales made me feel both nervous and encouraged. Every day at my desk I pushed myself to the limits of my energy. When I wasn’t seated at the desk, I was in the gloomy library, scanning its high shelves. My eyes foraged greedily among the gold-printed titles on the books’ spines, like a collector avidly searching through antiques.

The plum trees bloomed, and the cold winter wind shifted to the south. Sometime later came the first rumors of cherry blossoms. Still I plowed doggedly ahead, like a blinkered workhorse, flogged mercilessly on by my thesis. Not until late April, when at last I had completed the writing, did I cross the threshold of Sensei’s house once more.