Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [27]
In the thrust-and-parry practice I called out “O-men!” and struck. The same instant I was thrown flying against the wainscot, and darkness descended before my eyes, interspersed with scatters of stars resembling a fireworks display. Like these stars, my confidence in my kendō ability—or rather my pride in it—went plummeting through an empty sky.
A hundred proverbs and tag phrases come to mind. “The world is not an indulgent place.” “There is always something higher.” “The frog in his well.” “Looking at the ceiling through a hollow reed.” Once thrown against the wall, I gained a bitter understanding of how presumptuous I had been to ridicule my previous fencing master for being hit by an automobile. My long, smug “goblin’s nose” was summarily broken off, never to grow back again. But prior to my graduation from primary school it was not only kendō that shattered the pride of my goblin’s nose.
I had hoped to attend Fourth Middle School. I failed the entrance examination. But my case was different from my brother’s when he failed the exam to enter First Middle School. It was an event that aroused no surprise. Even my record at Kuroda Primary School was something you would have to call representative of a frog in his well. I had applied myself only in the subjects I liked, such as grammar, history, composition, art and penmanship. In these areas no one could surpass me. But I couldn’t make myself like science and arithmetic, and only very reluctantly put enough energy into these subjects to stay a shade above disgrace. The result was obvious. Attempting to deal with the questions on science and arithmetic in the Fourth Middle School examination, I was at a complete loss.
I still have the same strengths and weaknesses. It seems I am of a literary rather than a scientific turn. An example is the fact that I can’t write numbers properly. They end up looking like the decorative ancient cursive syllabary. Learning to drive a car is out of the question; I am incapable of operating an ordinary still camera or even putting fluid in a cigarette lighter. My son tells me that when I use the telephone it’s as if a chimpanzee were trying to place a call.
When someone is told over and over again that he’s no good at something, he loses more and more confidence and eventually does become poor at it. Conversely, if he’s told he’s good at something, his confidence builds and he actually becomes better at it. While a person is born with strengths and weaknesses as part of his heredity, they can be greatly altered by later influences.
However, this kind of defense now serves no purpose, and my only reason for bringing it up is to say that it was then that the path I would take in life became clear to me. It was the path of literature and art. And the point at which these two would diverge was still a long way off.
The Gleam of Fireflies
GRADUATION DAY was at hand. Primary-school graduation ceremonies in those days followed a prescribed order—conventional, well mannered and sentimental. First the school principal made a hackneyed address of encouragement and blessing for the future of the graduates, then one of the guests delivered a perfunctory message of greeting, to which a representative of the graduating class made a formal response. Then the graduates sang with organ accompaniment:
“We sing thanks for our teacher’s kindness,
We have honored and revered …”
The fifth-year students followed this with:
“After the years, met daily as brothers and sisters,
You go on …”
And at the end all together sang:
“In the gleam of fireflies.”
At this point all the girls would start sobbing. And in the midst of that, as valedictorian representing the graduating boys, I had to give my formal response.
Our teacher had written my speech himself, handed it to me and told me to make a clean copy and “give a fine delivery” of it. This speech met all the requirements as to content, but it read like strung-together excerpts from an ethics text book. I knew that I would never be able to put any feeling into it. The rhetoric praising