Gauche the Cellist(Part 3)
Japanese
The following night, he practiced the cello until late at night, got tired, and dozed off with a sheet of music in his hand. Near the crack of the dawn, someone gently knocked on the door again.
"Come in! The door is open."
It was a field mouse and its tiny young. The mouse, putting a chestnut before him, bowed and said,
"My baby is dying. Have mercy on us and cure its illness, sir?"
Gauche was offended and said,
"I can't be a doctor."
The mother mouse dropped her eyes for a while, mustered her courage, and said,
"Don't tell me you can't. You've cured my friends of their illness every day."
"I don't know what you mean."
"Thanks to you, the rabbit's grandmother and the raccoon dog's father got well. In addition, so did the ill-natured horned owl. Why won't you help my son?"
"There must be some mistake. I've never helped the horned owl."
The mother mouse burst into tears.
"My baby has become ill just as you've stopped playing. I've been asking you to play again, but you refused. What a poor thing! Won't you play the cello for my baby?"
He was so surprised and shouted,
"What? Are you saying while I'm playing the cello, I'm curing an owl or a rabbit of their illness? What do you mean by that?"
The mouse, rubbing her eyes with her hands, said,
"We, animals living around here, crawl under your floor to listen to your cello in order to get over our illness."
"Is it true?"
"Yes, when we listen to your cello, our blood circulates through the body faster and makes us get better."
"Is it really true that the sounds of my cello cure you of your diseases? All right, I'l play."
He, picking up the little mouse and putting it into the hole of his cello, began to play a kind of rhapsody for a few minutes. After his performance, he took the little mouse out of the hole and put it on the floor.
The young suddenly began to spin on the floor.
"He got well. Thank you so much, Gauche." Saying so, the mother also began to spin with her son.
"Thank you, thank you so much..." after bowing to him about ten times, they left there.
He went to bed and fell asleep soon after.
On the sixth night after that, the orchestra succeeded in playing 'The Sixth Symphony' at the City Hall. There was a storm of applause. They played another piece as an encore. Even after they left the stage, the audience never moved and never stopped their clapping and cried,
"Encore! Encore!"
The conductor suddenly called Gauche and said to him behind the stage,
"Gauche, play something for them on the stage."
"Me?・Gauche was dumfounded.
The members pushed him out on the stage. Seeing him, the audience clapped their hands harder.
He said to himself,
"They are making a fool of me! All right, I'll play 'The tiger hunting in India'."
He calmed his temper and sat on a chair in the center of the stage. He played the tune with rapt attention, while the audience was so quiet to listen to his music. He kept playing; the tune where the cat had blinked its eyes passed, and then it bumped itself against the door...
When he finished his performance, he ran into the dressing room without looking at the audience, where all the members, including the conductor, were quietly sitting with their eyes closed.
"I can't figure out what's happening this evening," he thought.
Then the conductor stood up, approached him, and said,
"It was wonderful, Gauche! We were all moved to listen to your performance. Your cello has been much improved in only a week or so. I should say your performance ten days ago was like a baby's, and now, a soldier's. You could do it anytime you want to."
The rest of the members also stood up, came to him, and cried in concert,
"Bravo!!"
Late at night that day, he came home. He guzzled down some water and opened the window. He looked up at the sky, where the cuckoo had flown away, and said,
"Hey, Cuckoo, sorry. I didn't get angry at you. Cat, Raccoon dog and Mice, thank you so much for practicing with me those nights!"(2011/11/1 With Itaya)Original by Kenji Miyazawa Images by Jun Hatanaka
The End.
Gauche the Cellist(Part 1)
Gauche the Cellist(Part 2)
