Kabanata Kabanata 11 · MŌRI SENSEI

. MŌRI SENSEI

One evening in December, I was walking with a critic friend of mine

under the bare willows along the so-called Koshiben Kaidō (Lunch-on-Hip

Highway) toward Kanda Bridge. To right and left of us staggered through

the light still lingering in the gloaming men who seemed to be those

petty officials to whom Shimazaki Tōson long ago said in patriotic

indignation, “Walk with your heads held higher.” Perhaps it was because

we ourselves, try as we might, could not quickly shake off a similar

melancholy feeling that, walking so near together that the shoulders

of our overcoats touched and quickening our steps a thought, we said

hardly a word till we were passing the Ote Machi car stop. Then my

friend the critic glanced at a group of chilly-looking people waiting

for a car by a red post there and, suddenly giving a shiver, mumbled as

if to himself,

“They remind me of Mōri Sensei.”

“Who’s Mōri Sensei?”

“He was a teacher of mine in middle school. Haven’t I ever told you

about him?”

In place of a negative answer, I silently pulled down the brim of my

hat. What here follows is the story of Mōri Sensei then told me by that

friend.

* * * * *

It was about ten years ago, when I was yet in the third year class of a

certain prefectural middle school. During the winter vacation, Adachi

Sensei, a young teacher who taught our class English, died of acute

pneumonia brought on by influenza. It all happened so suddenly that

there was no time to choose a suitable successor to take his place, so

it must have been as a last expedient. At any rate, for the time being,

our middle school gave the work Adachi Sensei had been doing to an old

man called Mōri Sensei, who was at that time teaching English in a

certain private middle school.

It was on the afternoon of the day he took up his work that I saw him

for the first time. We students of the third year class were overcome

with curiosity at the prospect of meeting the new teacher and, from

the time his steps resounded in the hall, awaited the beginning of

the lesson in unwonted silence. But when they stopped outside the

cold and sunless class-room and the door finally opened,--ah, even in

these surroundings, the scene at that moment stands clearly before

my eyes. Mōri Sensei, who opened the door and entered, first of all

reminded me by his shortness of the spider men often seen in side-shows

at festivals. But what took the gloom out of the feeling he inspired

was his smooth and shining bald head, which might almost be called

beautiful, and on the back of which there barely clung some slight

wisps of grizzled hair, but which for the most part looked just like

such ostrich eggs as are pictured in text books on natural history.

And finally, that which gave him a mien distinct from that of ordinary

men was his strange morning coat, which was literally so green and

rusty as almost to make one doubt that it had ever been black. And I

have even a surprising recollection of an extremely gay purple necktie

showily tied just like a moth with outspread wings in his slightly

soiled turn-down collar. Wherefore it was of course not surprising

that, the minute he entered, sounds of suppressed laughter suddenly

arose here and there all over the room.

However, with a reader and the roll book clasped in his arms and with

an air of perfect composure, as if not having the least regard for us

students, he stepped up on to the low platform, returned our bow and,

with an amiable smile on his very good-natured, sallow round face,

began in a shrill voice,

“Gentlemen.”

We had never once during the past three years been addressed as

gentlemen by the teachers of that school. So Mōri Sensei’s “Gentlemen”

naturally made us all involuntarily open eyes of wonder. And at

the same time, expecting that, now that he had already begun with

“Gentlemen,” there would instantly follow a great speech on teaching

methods or something, we waited with bated breath.

However, Mōri Sensei, having said “Gentlemen,” looked round the room

and spoke not another word for some time. In spite of the calm smile on

his flaccid face, the corners of his mouth twitched nervously. At the

same time an uneasy light continually came and went in his eyes, which

were clear and somehow like the eyes of a domestic animal. Although he

did not express it in words, it seemed that he had something that he

wished to beg of us, but unfortunately could not himself tell clearly

what it was.

“Gentlemen,” he finally repeated in the same tone. And then this time,

afterwards, as if he would catch the echo of the voice in which he said

it, he added greatly flustered,

“I am hereafter to teach you the ‘Choice Reader’.”

Feeling our curiosity grow more and more intense, we became absolutely

still and fastened our eyes on his face. But as he said this, he looked

round the room again with that pleading expression in his eyes, and

without another word, sat down suddenly in the chair, as if a spring

had given way in him. And he began to look at the roll, which he opened

beside the “Choice Reader,” already lying open. I probably need not

tell you how this abrupt way of ending his greetings disappointed us,

or rather how it went further and impressed us with a sense of its

ridiculousness.

But fortunately, before we had begun to laugh, he lifted those eyes

like a domestic animal’s from the roll and called the name of one

of us, adding to it the title, “San.” Of course this was the signal

to stand up and translate from the reader. So the student stood up

and translated a paragraph of “Robinson Crusoe” or something, in the

smart tone peculiar to Tōkyō Middle School boys. And as he read, Mōri

Sensei, putting his hand now and then to his purple necktie, went

along carefully correcting his every wrong translation, of course, and

even his slightest mispronunciation. There was something strangely

affected in his pronunciation, but it was for the most part accurate

and distinct, and he seemed in his own heart to have special confidence

in himself in this direction.

But after the student had taken his seat and Mōri Sensei began his own

translation of the passage, laughter arose again here and there among

us. For this teacher, who was such a master in pronunciation, when he

came to translate, knew so few Japanese words as hardly to seem like

a Japanese. Or it may have been that, even if he did know them, he

was not able to find them on the spur of the moment. For instance, to

translate only one line, he said, “So at last Robinson Crusoe decided

to keep it. As for why he decided to keep it, it was one of these queer

animals--there are many of them at the zoo--what do you call them?

Er--they’re clever at tricks--you all must know what I mean, don’t you?

You know, they have red faces--what? Monkeys? Yes, yes, it was one of

those monkeys. He decided to keep one of those monkeys.”

Of course, since he had that much trouble with the word “monkey,”

when it came to any word that was a little difficult, he could not

strike upon a suitable translation till he had gone all around it many

times. Besides, he was at such times greatly flustered, and putting

his hand to his throat so frequently that it seemed he must tear off

his purple necktie, he lifted his anxious face and looked at us with

panic-stricken eyes. And then, pressing his bald head in his two hands,

he would put his face down on the desk and come to an abashed stop. At

such times his naturally small body shrank up timidly exactly like

a deflated rubber balloon, and even his legs, hanging down from the

chair, seemed to float danglingly in space. And again, we students

found that funny and tittered. Then while he was repeating his

translation two or three times, the laughing voices gradually became

audacious and, at last, even from the front row, welled up openly. As

for how much this laughter of ours hurt the good Mōri Sensei,--the

truth is that of late years even I have many times involuntarily wished

to cover my ears at the recollection of that pitiless sound.

Yet Mōri Sensei went bravely on with his translation till the bugle

announced recess. And when he had finished the last paragraph, he again

assumed his original air of composure and, returning our bow, went out

of the room with a show of calmness, as if he had forgotten entirely

the dismal struggle he had had up to that minute. Scarcely had he gone

out when there arose in our midst a great burst of laughter like a

tempest and the noise of deliberately opening and shutting the lids

of desks, and then one student jumped up on the platform and quickly

mimicked his gestures and voice,--ah, must I remember even the fact

that I, decorated with the monitor’s mark and surrounded by five or six

students, proudly pointed out his mistakes in translation. And what of

those mistakes? To tell the truth, I was showing off, even then not

knowing in the least whether they were really mistakes or not.

* * * * *

It was a noon hour three or four days later. Gathered in the sand pit

by the turning bars, five or six of us students were chatting glibly

about such things as the coming terminal examinations, as we exposed

the backs of our serge uniforms to the warm winter sun. Then Tamba

Sensei, who weighed a hundred and fifty pounds and had up to that

moment been hanging to the horizontal bar with a student, dropped down

into the sand with a loud, “One, two!” and appearing among us in his

vest and athletic cap, said,

“How’s the new teacher, Mōri Sensei?”

Tamba Sensei also taught us English, but being a famous lover of

athletics, and, at the same time, being credited with ability in the

reciting of Chinese poems, he seemed to be very popular even with those

stalwarts, the jujitsu and single-sticking champions, who hated English

itself. So when he said this, one of those stalwarts, fingering a mitt,

replied with a shyness unnatural to him,

“Er--he’s not too--what shall I say? Everybody says he’s not too good.”

Then Tamba Sensei, dusting the sand off his trousers with his

handkerchief, smiled proudly and said,

“Is he worse than you are?”

“Of course he’s better than I am.”

“Then you have nothing to complain of, have you?”

The stalwart, scratching his head with his mitted hand, withdrew

weakly. But the English genius of our class, adjusting his strong

myopic spectacles, protested in a pert tone, unbecoming his years,

“But Sensei, as most of us mean to take the entrance examinations to

higher schools, we want to be taught by the very best teachers.”

But Tamba Sensei, laughing spiritedly as always, said,

“Nonsense! it’s all the same whoever teaches you only for a term or so.”

“Then is Mōri Sensei to teach us only one term?”

This question seemed to touch Tamba Sensei a little near home. But this

worldly-wise teacher, purposely giving no reply, took off his athletic

cap, and energetically knocking the dust out of his closely cropped

hair, suddenly looked all around at us and, cleverly changing the

subject, said,

“Of course, Mōri Sensei’s a very old man, so he’s a little different

from us. This morning when I got on a car he was seated in the very

middle of it, and when we got near the place to change, he called out,

‘Conductor, conductor!’ It was so funny I nearly died laughing. Anyhow,

he’s certainly different.”

But when it came to things of that sort about Mōri Sensei, there were

more than enough that had astonished us without our waiting to be told

about them by Tamba Sensei.

“And they say Mōri Sensei, when it rains, comes to school in his

foreign clothes with wooden clogs on his feet!”

“Isn’t that his lunch that always hangs from his belt wrapped in a

white cloth wrapper?”

“Somebody said that when he saw him hanging to a strap in a car, his

woolen gloves were full of holes.”

Gathering about Tamba Sensei, we chattered such nonsense noisily from

every side. Then, perhaps drawn in by these remarks, when our voices

became louder, Tamba Sensei finally spoke up gaily, and twirling his

athletic cap on his finger, said thoughtlessly,

“Better yet, that hat’s an antique.”

Just at that moment, Mōri Sensei, thinking I know not what, made his

appearance composedly with his small body, that antique derby hat on

his head and his hand gravely fingering that same old purple necktie,

at the door of the two-storied school building facing the turning bar

but ten paces away. In front of the door six or seven boys, probably

of the first year class, were playing pickaback or something, and when

they saw him, they all scrambled to be first and saluted him politely.

Mōri Sensei, standing in the sunshine on the stone steps before the

door, seemed to be lifting his derby and returning their bows with a

smile. When we saw this, naturally feeling a sort of shame, we all

suspended our merry laughter and were silent for a moment. But with

Tamba Sensei, this was probably because of a combination of shame

and confusion that was more than enough to shut his mouth. Slightly

sticking out the tongue that was just saying, “That hat’s an antique,”

and suddenly putting his cap on his head, he swung himself round

quickly and, with a loud “One!” threw his fat body in its vest at the

horizontal bar. And then when he had stretched his legs up into space

for a “lobster snap” and shouted “Two!”, he cut neatly through the blue

winter sky and was up on the bar without effort. It was natural that

his funny covering of his shame should make us all titter. We students

around him, who had restrained ourselves for a moment, looking up at

Tamba Sensei on the bar, clapped our hands and yelled exactly as if we

were rooting at a baseball game.

Of course I myself joined in the applause with the rest. While I

was applauding, however, I began, half instinctively, to hate Tamba

Sensei up on the bar. But this does not mean that I sympathized with

Mōri Sensei. For the applause we gave Tamba Sensei then had, at the

same time, the indirect object of showing our bad will toward Mōri

Sensei. Analyzing it to-day, my feeling at that moment is susceptible

of explanation as scorn for Tamba Sensei morally, combined with scorn

for Mōri Sensei intellectually. Or I may think of my scorn as having

had added to it an impertinence from its having been given proper

indorsement by Tamba Sensei’s words, “That hat’s an antique.” So while

applauding him, I looked triumphantly across my elevated shoulders

at the entrance of the school-house. There stood our Mōri Sensei yet

motionless on the stone steps like a winter fly or something that

covets the sunshine, watching with absorption the innocent play of the

first year students. That derby hat and that purple necktie,--why now

can I never forget that scene which I then, rather as an object of

derision, took in at a glance?

* * * * *

The feeling of scorn aroused in us by Mōri Sensei’s costume and

attainments on the day he took up his work grew stronger and stronger

throughout all the class after Tamba Sensei’s slip. Then came a

certain morning less than a week later. Snow had been falling since the

night before, and the roof of the drill-shed stretching out below the

windows was covered so deep that no shade of the tiles showed through,

but in the class-room a coal fire blazed red in the stove, and even

the snow that fell on the window panes melted away before it had time

to throw in its pale blue reflected light. Sitting in a chair in front

of the stove, Mōri Sensei was squeezing out his shrill voice as usual,

earnestly teaching us the “Psalm of Life” from the “Choice Reader,” but

of course not a single student was seriously listening. Worse yet, a

certain jujitsu champion seated beside me had all along been reading a

story of adventure by Oshikawa Shunro in the “Chivalrous World” spread

out under his reader.

This went on for probably twenty or thirty minutes. Then Mōri Sensei,

suddenly getting up from his chair, began to discuss the question of

life in connection with the Longfellow poem he was reading. I do not

remember the gist of his talk at all, but I think that, rather than an

argument, it was something impressionistic built around his own life.

For I faintly remember that he said something like this as he babbled

on in an agitated tone, lifting and lowering his arms constantly just

like a plucked bird:

“You don’t understand life yet. Do you? Even if you want to, you can’t.

That itself doubtless makes you happy. When you get like me, you know

life perfectly. You know it, but it’s mostly hardships. Understand?

It’s mostly hardships. I myself have two children. Well, I must send

them to school. When I send them,--er--when I send them--tuition? Yes,

that’s it. Tuition is necessary. Isn’t it? So it’s mostly hardships all

right.”

But of course we could not be expected to understand the feelings of

this teacher who, whether he intended to or not, actually appealed

against the troubles of life even to us unsophisticated middle school

students. Rather, we who saw only the ridiculous side of the fact that

he was making the appeal as he went on speaking, all began to snicker.

Only our laughter did not turn into its usual guffaw, which was perhaps

due to the fact that his shabby clothes and his expression as he ran

shrilly on aroused in us a certain amount of sympathy, as if they were

the hardships of life themselves. But though our laughter did not grow

louder, after a moment the jujitsu champion sitting beside me suddenly

put aside his “Chivalrous World” and stood up with the fierceness of a

tiger. And as I wondered what he was going to do, he said,

“Sensei, we attend this class to be taught English. So if you don’t

teach it to us, there’s no need of our staying in this class-room. If

you go on talking like that, I shall go at once to the gymnasium.”

With that, he made as sour a face as he could and took his seat again

most fiercely. I have never seen a man look so strange as Mōri Sensei

did then. With his mouth still half open as if he had been struck by

lightning, he simply stood like a poker by the stove for a minute

or two gazing into that impetuous student’s face. But finally that

imploring expression rushed into his animalish eyes and set them

alight, and he suddenly put his hand to that purple necktie of his and

lowering his bald head two or three times, said,

“Yes, I’m at fault. I’ve done wrong, so I apologize sincerely. To be

sure, you’re all here to study English. I did wrong not to teach you

English. Since I’ve done wrong, I apologize sincerely. You understand,

don’t you? I apologize sincerely.”

And he repeated the same sort of thing over and over again, smiling

such a smile that he seemed almost to be weeping. Through the door of

the stove, the fire cast a red light aslant across his figure, making

the worn places on his coat at the shoulders and waist stand out more

clearly. At the same time, his bald head, every time he ducked it,

shone with a fine coppery gloss and looked even more like an ostrich

egg.

But this pitiful scene then seemed to me but the exposing of this

teacher’s essential inferiority. Now he was trying to escape the

danger of losing his job even by humoring his students. So he was a

teacher because he had to be to make a living and not because he had

any interest in education itself. While hazily making such criticism,

I now felt contempt not only for his clothes and scholarship, but for

his character as well, and I rested my chin in my hands on my “Choice

Reader” and hurled at him one impertinent laugh after another, as he

stood in front of the blazing stove being burned at the stake, as it

were, both in spirit and in the flesh. Of course I was not the only

one. The jujitsu champion who had cornered him, when he turned red

and apologized, cast a momentary glance my way and, smiling a cunning

smile, promptly began again to “study” that adventure story of

Oshikawa Shunro’s under his reader.

And until the bugle sounded for recess, our Mōri Sensei, more confused

than ever, went on trying desperately to translate poor Longfellow.

Deep down in my ears still rings his shrill, almost choking, voice,

as with the perspiration beading his sallow round face and his eyes

constantly pleading for something unknown, he read, “Life is real,

life is earnest.” But the cry of millions of miserable human beings

hidden in that shrill voice was too deep to stimulate our ear drums

in those days. So there were many besides myself who even yawned

brazenly aloud as we grew more and more weary during that hour. But

Mōri Sensei, holding his small body erect in front of the stove, and

utterly oblivious of the flying snow coating the window panes, went

on brandishing his reader incessantly and shouting desperately as if

a spring in his head had suddenly unwound. “Life is real, life is

earnest! Life is real, life is earnest!”

* * * * *

Consequently, when the school term for which he had been employed was

over and we could see Mōri Sensei no more, we were glad and never felt

the least regret. No, I might better say that we were so indifferent

to his going that we did not even feel glad. I, especially, was so

entirely lacking in graciousness that, as I grew to manhood during

seven or eight years, passing through the middle school, the high

school and the university, I practically forgot the very existence of

such a teacher.

Then in the autumn of the year of my graduation from the university,--I

say the autumn, but it was the night of one of those rainy days toward

the beginning of December when dense mist often comes down in the

evening, and when the willows and plane trees along the avenues had

long since shed their yellow leaves. After diligently searching at

the second-hand book stores in Kanda for some German books, which

had become most scarce since the beginning of the European war, and

finally buying one or two, suddenly as I was passing the Nakanishiya,

keeping out the all but motionless chill night air of late autumn with

my turned-up overcoat collar, I somehow felt a longing for noisy human

voices and warm drinks and stepped casually into a café there.

But when I once got in, I found that the room, though small, was

bare-looking, and there was not a single customer. On the marble-topped

tables sitting in rows, only the gilding on the sugar bowls reflected

the electric light coldly. With a lonely feeling, as if I had been

deceived by some one, I went over to a table in front of a built-in

mirror on the wall and sat down. Then I ordered a cup of coffee from

the waiter who came to me and, taking out a cigar abruptly, finally,

after striking many matches, got it lighted. And soon there stood on

the table before me a steaming cup of coffee, but still my spirits,

having once fallen, seemed, like the low-hanging mist outside, not

easily to be dissipated. The books I had just bought at the second-hand

book stores were books on philosophy printed in fine type, and here

it would have been painful for me to read a single page even of such

distinguished discourses. Wherefore, because I could do nothing else,

I rested my head on the back of my chair and, sipping Brazilian coffee

and puffing my Havana by turns, allowed my purposeless gaze to stray at

random into the mirror just in front of my nose.

In it were reflected distinctly and coldly just like a part of a

stage setting, first of all the side of a staircase leading up to the

second floor, then the opposite wall, a door painted white and the

advertisement of a concert hung up on the wall. Yes, and besides, the

marble-topped tables. And there was a big potted pine, and an electric

lamp hanging from the ceiling. A big gas heating stove of porcelain was

also visible. And I could see in front of the stove in a circle three

or four waiters talking together earnestly. And then,--it was just

as, inspecting the objects in the mirror one by one, I came to these

waiters in front of the stove. I was startled by the sight of a guest

who, surrounded by the waiters, was seated at a table. The reason he

had not attracted my attention up to that time was probably that, with

the waiters all around him, I had unconsciously taken him for a cook of

the café or something. But what startled me then was not only the fact

that I had found a guest where I had thought there was none. It was

that although only the profile of the man in the mirror was visible,

from the shape of that bald head like an ostrich egg, the look of that

green and rusty morning coat and the shade of that everlasting purple

necktie, I knew at a glance that he was Mōri Sensei.

As soon as I recognized him, the seven or eight years that had passed

since we parted came suddenly into my mind. A class monitor in a

middle school studying the “Choice Reader” and myself there then

calmly blowing the smoke of a cigar through my nose,--for me, those

years could by no means be thought short. But could it be true that

the current of time, which sweeps away all things, had not been able

to do anything to this Mōri Sensei, who had already risen above time?

He who was now sharing a table with these waiters in a night café was

unmistakably the teacher who had in days long past taught reading in

that class-room into which the westering sun never shone. Nor had his

bald head changed. And his purple necktie was the same. And then that

shrill voice,--even now, was he not lifting that shrill voice up and

busily explaining something to the waiters? Smiling unconsciously and

forgetting all unawares the melancholy I had not been able to escape, I

listened attentively.

“Look, this adjective here modifies that noun. You see, Napoleon is

the name of a person, so it’s called a noun. You see, don’t you? Then

if you look at that noun, directly after it,--do you know what this is

directly after it? Eh? You, what do you think?”

“It’s a relative--a relative noun,” ventured one of the waiters

stammering.

“What, a relative noun? There’s no such thing as a relative noun. It’s

a relative--er--a relative pronoun? Yes, that’s it, a relative pronoun,

you see. It’s a pronoun, so look, it stands for the noun ‘Napoleon!’

Doesn’t it? The word ‘pronoun’ means ‘for a name’, doesn’t it?”

From the talk, it seemed that Mōri Sensei was teaching English to the

café waiters. Then I edged my chair over and looked into the mirror at

a different angle. As I expected, a book that looked like a reader lay

open on the table. Mōri Sensei, busily pointing with his finger to the

page, seemed never to get tired of explaining. And in this, too, he was

the same as of old. Only the waiters now standing around him, different

from the students of that time, were listening attentively to his

excited explanations, all with their eyes shining and their shoulders

crowded together.

While I looked for a few minutes at the scene in the mirror, a warm

feeling for Mōri Sensei floated gradually to the surface of my

consciousness. Should I go to him and compare notes with him after

our long separation? But he probably would not remember me, whom he

had seen only in a class-room during one short term. Even if he did

remember me,--I suddenly recalled that malicious laughter which we had

showered upon him in those days and thought it would be showing more

respect for him not to introduce myself after all. So having finished

my coffee, I threw away the stub of my cigar and got up stealthily,

when, though I had tried to move quietly, I seemed after all to have

attracted his attention. At the moment I left my chair, all at once he

turned that sallow round face, that slightly soiled turn-down collar

and that purple necktie my way. At that instant his animalish eyes met

mine in the mirror. But as I had expected, there was no sign in them

that he had met an old acquaintance. The only thing glittering in them

was that same old sorrowful glance that seemed always to be pleading

for something.

With my eyes cast down, I took the bill the waiter brought and went

silently to the desk by the door to pay it. There the head waiter, with

whom I was slightly acquainted, was sitting languidly with his hair

sprucely parted.

“There’s a man over there teaching English. Is he employed to teach in

this café?”, I asked as I paid my bill, and he, gazing out into the

street and looking bored, replied,

“No, he’s not employed. He only comes every night and teaches like

that. They say he’s an old has-been English teacher whom nobody will

employ anywhere, so he probably comes here to kill time. He orders a

cup of coffee and sits in on us all evening, so we’re not over-pleased.”

When I heard this, Mōri Sensei’s sorrowful glance always pleading for

something unknown came suddenly before my eyes. Ah, Mōri Sensei! At

that moment I felt that I had been able for the first time dimly to

understand him, to understand his sturdy character. If there is such a

thing as a born educator, he was surely one. It was as impossible for

him to stop teaching English as to stop breathing. If he were forced

to stop, his splendid vitality would droop instantly just like a plant

deprived of water. So, urged on by his interest in teaching English,

he deliberately came alone to this café every evening to sip a cup of

coffee. Of course his was no such leisure as to deserve being taken

for time-killing by the head waiter. More, our mistaking him long

before and deriding him for working only for a living, now was proven

a shameful blunder. How he must have been tormented by the vulgar

construction put upon his actions by the world, which credited him only

with killing time or making a living! Of course, even in such torment,

always assuming an attitude of serenity and caparisoned in that purple

necktie and derby hat, he went on translating unflinchingly, braver

than Don Quixote. But still in his eyes was there not sometimes

that sorrowful gleam entreating the sympathy of the students he was

teaching,--nay, the sympathy of all the world he was facing?

Thinking such thoughts momentarily and deeply moved till I did not know

whether I should laugh or cry, I buried my face in my overcoat collar

and hurried out of the café. And still Mōri Sensei, taking advantage of

the absence of customers, raised his shrill voice and went on teaching

English to the eager waiters under the cold and over-bright electric

lights.

“As it’s a word that stands for a name, it’s called a pronoun. Isn’t

it? A pronoun. You see that, don’t you?”