“Kokoro” by Natsume Soseki (translated by Meredith McKinney)

This is a short novel about the relationship between a college student who by chance meets an unnamed mentor, whom he only refers to as Sensai. “Now, when he is dead, I understand at last. He had never disliked me, and the occasional curt greetings and aloofness were not expressions of displeasure intended to keep me at bay. I pity him now, for I realize that he was in fact sending a warning, to someone who was attempting to grow close to him, signaling that he was unworthy of such intimacy. For all his unresponsiveness to others’ affection, I now see, it was not them he despised but himself. Needless to say, I returned to Tokyo fully intending to visit Sensei…. I visited Sensei quite often thereafter. He was always at home when I called. And the more I saw of him, the sooner I wanted to visit him again. Yet Sensei’s manner toward me never really changed, from the day we first exchanged words to the time when our friendship was well established. He was always quiet, sometimes almost forlorn. From the outset he seemed to me strangely unapproachable, yet I felt compelled to find a way to get close to him.”

Sensai was a man of leisure and of means, but he was also well-educated. “Sensei was indeed a philosopher, it seemed to me, but a potent reality seemed woven into the fabric of his philosophy. Nor was his thinking grounded in anything remote from himself, observed only in others. No, behind his convictions lay some keenly felt personal experience.”

The last third of the novel takes the form of a letter Sensai writes to his protege, who is away from Tokyo, visiting his dying father in the countryside. “Being, as you know, quite isolated from human intercourse, I have not a single truly binding obligation in my life. Whether intentionally or by nature, I have lived so as to keep such ties to an absolute minimum. Not that I am indifferent to obligation. No, I spend my days so passively because of my very sensitivity to such things—I lack the energy to withstand the toll they take on my nerves.”

Finally, Sensai reveals why he has lived his life in the manner he has chosen, “I resolved that I must live my life as if I were already dead. How many years has it been since I made that decision? My wife and I have lived in peace together all that time. We have in no way been unhappy, quite the opposite. But this one thing in me, this thing that for me is so vital, has always been for my wife a place of incomprehensible darkness. The thought fills me with pity for her…. I have not written from mere personal whim. My past, which made me what I am, is an aspect of human experience that only I can describe. My effort to write as honestly as possible will not be in vain, I feel, since it will help both you and others who read it to understand humanity better.”