The Road (Ishikawa Takuboku)

Five village teachers set out on a mountain road to observe a lesson at a neighboring school. Among them are an elderly assistant, two men accustomed to authority, a young woman and a young man whose thoughts repeatedly return to her.

The outward walk fills with jokes, grievances and memories. At the school, an apparently ordinary lesson reveals how much a teacher can overlook. Lunch brings drink and gossip; the return journey brings darkness, a mistaken turning and growing unease about two colleagues who have fallen behind.

Ishikawa Takuboku’s story makes a rural excursion an exacting study of power, embarrassment, desire and the stories people tell about one another. Its unresolved ending leaves the reader on the road with the teachers.