Musashi - Eiji Yoshikawa [423]
Kojirō’s demeanor was quite what might be expected. Though this was practice and many of his students were inexperienced, he gave no quarter. By the third session, the casualties already included one man permanently deformed, plus four or five suffering from lesser injuries. The wounded were not far off; their moans could be heard coming from the back of the house.
“Next!” shouted Kojirō, brandishing a long sword made of loquat wood. At the beginning he had told them that a blow struck with a loquat sword “will rot your flesh to the bone.”
“Ready to quit? If you’re not, come forward. If you are, I’m going home,” he taunted contemptuously.
Out of pure chagrin, one man said, “All right, I’ll give it a try.” He disengaged himself from the group, walked toward Kojirō, then leaned over to pick up a wooden sword. With a sharp crack, Kojirō flattened him.
“That,” he declared, “is a lesson in why not to leave yourself open. It’s the worst thing you can do.” With obvious self-satisfaction, he looked around at the faces of the others, thirty to forty in number, most of them all but visibly trembling.
The latest victim was carried to the well, where water was poured over him. He did not come to.
“Poor guy’s done for.”
“You mean … he’s dead?”
“He’s not breathing.”
Others ran up to stare at their slain comrade. Some were angry, some resigned, but Kojirō didn’t give the corpse a second glance.
“If something like this frightens you,” he said menacingly, “you’d better forget about the sword. When I think that any one of you would be itching to fight if somebody on the street called you a thug or a braggart …” He didn’t finish the sentence, but as he walked across the field in his leather socks, he continued his lecture. “Give the matter some thought, my fine hoodlums. You’re ready to draw the minute a stranger steps on your toes or brushes against your scabbard, but you’re tied up in knots when the time comes for a real bout. You’ll throw your lives away cheerfully over a woman or your own petty pride, but you haven’t the guts to sacrifice yourself in a worthy cause. You’re emotional, you’re moved only by vanity. That’s not enough, nowhere near enough.”
Throwing his chest out, he concluded, “The truth is simple. The only real bravery, the only genuine self-confidence, comes from training and self-discipline. I dare any one of you: stand up and fight me like a man.”
One student, hoping to make him eat his words, attacked from behind. Kojirō bent double, almost touching the ground, and the assailant flew over his head and landed in front of him. The next instant, there was the loud crack of Kojirō’s loquat sword against the man’s hipbone.
“That’ll be all for today,” he said, tossing the sword aside and going to the well to wash his hands. The corpse was lying in a flaccid heap beside the sink. Kojirō dipped his hands in the water and splashed some on his face without a word of sympathy.
Slipping his arm back into his sleeve, he said, “I hear a lot of people go to this place called Yoshiwara. You men must know the district pretty well. Wouldn’t you like to show me around?” Bluntly announcing that he wanted to have a good time or go drinking was a habit of Kojirō’s, but it was a matter of conjecture whether he was being deliberately impudent or disarmingly candid.
Yajibei chose the more charitable interpretation. “Haven’t you been to Yoshiwara yet?” he asked with surprise. “We’ll have to do something about that. I’d go with you myself, but, well, I have to be here this evening for the wake and so on.”
He singled out Jūrō and Koroku and gave them some money. Also a warning. “Remember, you two—I’m not sending you out to play around. You’re only going along to take care of your teacher and see that he has a good time.”
Kojirō, a few steps in front