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Updated: June 10, 2025
Adzukizawa bears so little resemblance to Masanobu that one might suppose the two belonged to totally different races. Adzukizawa is large, raw-boned, heavy-looking, with a face singularly like that of a North American Indian. His people are not rich; he can afford few pleasures which cost money, except one buying books. Even to be able to do this he works in his leisure hours to earn money.
Yokogi, Adzukizawa's dearest friend, is a very rare visitor; for he is always studying at home. He is always first in his class the third year class while Adzukizawa is fourth. Adzukizawa's account of the beginning of their acquaintance is this: 'I watched him when he came and saw that he spoke very little, walked very quickly, and looked straight into everybody's eyes.
So I knew he had a particular character. I like to know people with a particular character. Adzukizawa was perfectly right: under a very gentle exterior, Yokogi has an extremely strong character. He is the son of a carpenter; and his parents could not afford to send him to the Middle School.
He has brought me old tattered prints to prove that the opinions now held by our director are diametrically opposed to the opinions he advocated fourteen years ago in a public address. I asked the director about it. He laughed and said, 'Of course that is Adzukizawa! But he is right: I was very young then. And I wonder if Adzukizawa was ever young.
And if I allow myself to like dainties now, I shall only suffer more later on. Adzukizawa has seen much of human life and character. He is naturally observant; and he has managed in some extraordinary way to learn the history of everybody in Matsue.
I have not seen him now for more than two months. He has been very, very ill; and his lungs are so weak that the doctor has forbidden him to converse. But Adzukizawa has been to visit him, and brings me this translation of a Japanese letter which the sick boy wrote and pasted upon the wall above his bed: 'Thou, my Lord-Soul, dost govern me. Thou knowest that I cannot now govern myself.
But I think the names and faces of those of whom I am about to speak will longest remain vivid in my remembrance Ishihara, Otani-Masanobu, Adzukizawa, Yokogi, Shida. Ishihara is a samurai a very influential lad in his class because of his uncommon force of character. Compared with others, he has a somewhat brusque, independent manner, pleasing, however, by its honest manliness.
On one occasion when the whole class refused to attend the lectures of a new teacher of physics, Yokogi alone refused to act with them arguing that although the teacher was not all that could be desired, there was no immediate possibility of his removal, and no just reason for making unhappy a man who, though unskilled, was sincerely doing his best. Adzukizawa finally stood by him.
Strong Sakane burst a blood-vessel last month and is now well. So we trust that Yokogi may rally. Adzukizawa daily brings news of his friend. But the rally never comes. Some mysterious spring in the mechanism of the young life has been broken. The mind lives only in brief intervals between long hours of unconsciousness.
As it is the Japanese custom to set cakes and tea before visitors, I always have both in readiness, and an especially fine quality of kwashi, made at Kitzuki, of which the students are very fond. Adzukizawa alone refuses to taste cakes or confectionery of any kind, saying: 'As I am the youngest brother, I must begin to earn my own living soon. I shall have to endure much hardship.
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