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see it now, and can describe its every detail... but more than the house or the village, I remember the people. I have come across millions of people, but the people of that village were more innocent than any, because they were very primitive. They knew nothing of the world. Not even a single newspaper had ever entered that village. You can now understand why there was no school, not even a primary school... what a blessing! No modern child can afford it.
I remained uneducated for those years and they were the most beautiful years.
Yes, I must confess I had a private tutor. That first tutor was himself uneducated. He was not teaching me, but trying to learn by teaching me. Perhaps he had heard the great saying, "The best way to learn is to teach," but he was a good man, nice, not like a nasty schoolteacher. To be a school teacher one has to be nasty. That is part of the whole business world. He was nice -- just butterlike, very soft. Let me confess, I used to hit him, but he would not hit me back. He would simply laugh and say, "You are a child, you can hit me. I am an old man, I cannot hit you back. When you are old you will understand." That's what he said to me, and yes, I understand.
He was a nice villager with great insight. Sometimes villagers have insight which civilized people lack. Just now I am reminded....
A beautiful woman comes to a beach. Seeing nobody around she undresses. Just before she steps into the ocean an old fellow stops her and says, "Lady, I am the village policeman. It is prohibited to swim in the ocean from this beach." The woman looks puzzled and says, "Then why did you not prevent me from getting undressed?" The old man laughs and laughs, with tears in his eyes. He says, "Undressing is not prohibited, so I waited behind a tree!"
A beautiful villager... that type of people lived in the village -- simple people. It was surrounded by small hills and there was a small pond. Nobody could describe that pond except Basho. Even he does not describe the pond, he simply says,
The ancient pond
Frog jumps in
Plop!
Is this a description? The pond is only mentioned, the frog too.
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