Spring Snow by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 1999-03-11T05:00:00+00:00

29

THREE DAYS LATER, when two canceled classes gave Honda a free afternoon, he went to watch the district court in session, accompanied by a law student who was one of the family houseboys. It had been raining since morning.

Honda’s father was a justice of the Supreme Court and, even within his own family, was a strict observer of principles. He was greatly pleased by the promise shown by his nineteen-year-old son, who had applied himself to the law even before entering college. His father thus felt confident enough to conclude that his son would eventually succeed him. Up to this year, the office of judge had been for life, but the previous April a large-scale reform of the juridical system had been put into effect. As a result, more than two hundred judges had been laid off or requested to hand in their resignations. Justice Honda, wanting to show his solidarity with his unfortunate old friends, had offered his own resignation, but it had not been accepted.

The experience, however, seemed to have marked a turning point in his views on life, which, in their turn, affected what had been a rather formal relationship with his son. From then on, he brought to it a warmth of generosity that resembled the affection shown by a high official to the subordinate he has selected to succeed him. Honda himself was determined to work harder than ever at his studies to try to be worthy of such unprecedented favor.

One result of his father’s changed views was that he permitted his son to attend court sessions even though he was not yet an adult. He did not, of course, go so far as to let him come into his own court, but he gave him permission to watch whatever civil or criminal cases he liked, as long as he was accompanied by the young retainer who was also a law student.

His father explained to Shigekuni that since all his familiarity with the law came from books, it would be extremely valuable for him to come in contact with the actual process of law in Japan and to experience it at a practical level. Justice Honda had more than this in mind, however. Truth to tell, his main concern was to expose his still sensitive, nineteen-year-old son to those elements of human existence that were dredged up in all their shockingly sordid reality in criminal court. He wanted to see what Shigekuni was able to draw from such experience.

It was a dangerous sort of education. Still, when the Justice considered the greater danger of allowing a young man to form his character out of an assimilation from careless popular behavior, cheap entertainment and so on, from whatever might please or appeal to his immature taste, he felt confident of the advantages of this educational experiment. There was a good chance that it would at least make Shigekuni acutely aware of the stern and watchful eye of the law. He would see all the amorphous, steaming,

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