親子孫三代、親友も加わっての伊勢萬人参り
(Three Generations with Friends in the Ise Pilgrimage of Ten Thousand)

平成28年5月号掲載(Published May, Heisei 28 (2016))

　去る２月に共につとめた立教二百年記念の伊勢萬人参りの感動が、今も脈うっているきょうこの頃です。

The deep emotion of the Bicentennial Ise Pilgrimage of Ten Thousand, which we performed together this past February, still pulses within me today.

　皆様との有り難い参宮に加えて、この度は、私の３人の子供である副教主と宗忠神社宮司、さらに他家に嫁いだ娘、それに加えてそれぞれの子供である八代宗芳をはじめ孫たちもお参りさせていただき、いずれもが心熱くなって帰途に就いたことを有り難く思っています。

Alongside the precious worship with all of you, this time my three children—the Vice Chief Patriarch, the Chief Priest of Munetada Shrine, and my daughter married into another family—together with their children, including my grandson Muneyoshi of the eighth generation heir, also joined the pilgrimage. Each returned home with hearts profoundly moved, and I am truly grateful.

　萬人参りの一日、私の学生時代の体育会ハンドボール部以来の親友であるテツこと小野勝敏君が馳せ参じて来て、共にお参りできたことも嬉しいことでした。その時の話に出た、彼が京都大学工学部冶金工学教授の時の教え子たちに与えた一文を送ってもらいましたので、ここに紹介させていただきます。ご一読下さい。

On one day of the pilgrimage, my lifelong friend since my student days in the university handball club, Prof. Ono Katsutoshi—known as Tetsu—came to join us, and I was delighted to worship together with him. In our conversation then, he mentioned a message he had once given to his students while serving as Professor of Metallurgical Engineering at Kyoto University. He later sent me that text, and I would like to share it here. Please read it.

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　振り返れば今蘇る帰還老軍曹の思い出
　小野勝敏

　フランス政府給費留学生としてパリ国立鉱山大学に滞在していた２８歳頃の話です。夏季の休暇は２か月、たっぷりある。この異国の社会に早く溶け込むため、大学の推薦でベルギーとの国境を目の前にしたバランシエンヌにある炭鉱で実習生活を送ることにした。日本では半年に及ぶ別子鉱山での実習の経験があったので、炭鉱坑内での仕事にたいする不安は無かったし、鉱山では人と人とのつながりが特に強いことが判っていた。

Looking Back, Memories Revived of the Returning Old Sergeant
By Prof. Ono Katsutoshi

It was around the age of twenty‑eight, when I was staying at the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris as a French government scholarship student. The summer vacation lasted two full months, ample and generous. To blend more quickly into this foreign society, I chose, on the university’s recommendation, to spend my practical training at a coal mine in Valenciennes, right at the border with Belgium.
In Japan I had already experienced six months of training at the Besshi Mine, so I felt no anxiety about working underground in the coal pits. I also knew well that in mining, the bonds between people are especially strong.

　炭鉱から帰ると夕方からとにかく暇で、毎晩のように町の居酒屋に出没していた。居酒屋は引退した町の老人達のタマリバであり、元は炭鉱で働いていた人たち、ＯＢの酒盛りの場でもあった。当時は日本人は初めて見るという人ばかりで、しかも地元の炭鉱に来ているということで、皆に大変もてて有頂天になっていたように思う。隣のベルギーはヨーロッパでも有数のビールの名産地であり、また西に繋がるノルマンディー地方の古い伝統酒、これはリンゴを原料とする芳醇な蒸留酒カルバドスであるが、これを注文してビールと交互に飲むのが作法で、調子に乗ると二日酔いてき面である。ここの古い炭鉱は鉱脈を追って深く掘り進んで、地下２０００ｍに達しており、地熱のため気温は４０度近くになっていた。坑内の切羽は爆発を恐れて火気厳禁であり、削岩機の動力は圧搾空気、削岩機の先端から冷却水を多量に放出しながら石灰層を粉砕するので、坑内は水浸しになる。高温多湿で坑内はサウナ風呂。夕方出坑すると爽快な気分となり、加えて会社から、小瓶であるがビールが支給されるので、これをラッパ飲みすると調子づき村の居酒屋へ繰り出した。

After returning from the coal mine, the evenings were utterly free, and I found myself almost every night at the taverns in town. These taverns were gathering places for retired elders, once miners themselves, now enjoying their reunions over drink. For many, it was the first time they had ever seen a Japanese person, and since I was working at their local mine, I was warmly welcomed and, I must admit, rather elated by the attention.
Neighboring Belgium was one of Europe’s renowned beer regions, while to the west lay Normandy, with its traditional spirit distilled from apples—calvados. The custom was to order calvados and alternate it with beer, but if one became carried away, the result was a punishing two‑day hangover.
The old mine here followed the veins deep underground, reaching nearly 2,000 meters. Because of the geothermal heat, the temperature approached forty degrees Celsius. At the working tunnel face, fire was strictly forbidden for fear of explosions. The drills were powered by compressed air, releasing torrents of cooling water at their tips as they shattered the limestone, leaving the tunnels flooded. In that high heat and humidity, the mine was like a vast sauna.
Emerging in the evening brought a rush of exhilaration, and the company provided small bottles of beer. Drinking straight from the bottle, I felt buoyant and would head off once more to the village tavern.

　居酒屋には毎晩のように一人の老人、左腕は無く右腕に義手を装着しているが、かくしゃくとした老人が来ていた。居酒屋のオーナーの話によれば、２０代で第一次世界大戦に出兵しドイツ軍と戦って片腕をなくした。その２０年後に第二次世界大戦が勃発し、彼は５０才を過ぎていたがこの激戦地での旗色の悪いフランス軍を見て、いてもたってもいられなくなり、皆の制止を振り切って志願して前線に張り付き、右手に短銃一丁を持って突っ込んでいった。終戦を迎えたときその右腕も無くしていた。すなわち彼は町の英雄であり、彼が酒場に現れると客はきちんと敬礼し、「軍曹殿」と言って敬意を表していた。店のマスターは、軍曹にはお代は一切頂戴しない方針であったように思う。

Every evening at the tavern, there was always one elderly man. His left arm was gone, and on his right he wore a prosthetic, yet he carried himself with vigor. According to the tavern owner, he had gone to war in his twenties during the First World War, fought against the German army, and lost one arm. Twenty years later, when the Second World War broke out, though already past fifty, he could not bear to watch the French forces falter in that fierce battleground. Defying all attempts to restrain him, he volunteered, clung to the front lines, and charged forward with only a pistol in his right hand. By the war’s end, that right arm too was lost.
Thus he was the town’s hero. Whenever he appeared in the tavern, the patrons stood and saluted, addressing him respectfully as “Sergeant.” The master of the tavern, it seemed, had a firm rule: the Sergeant never had to pay for his drink.

　彼は初めて会った時から若い私に、彼自身の人生を語るのを楽しみにしていた。私はとにかく”聞き上手”に徹し、彼の一言、一言に賛意を示して称え、笑顔を持って応対するように努めていた。「戦争が終わって、それから両腕の無い身でどのような生活を送ってきたのですか」。その返事は「ある時は犬、ある時はポニイ（ロバのような小型の馬）となり、また毎日欠かさず昼寝をしてきたのさ。」この言葉だけで彼の生活を想像できる人は居ないだろう。「ここはフランス、ドイツとベルギーに挟まれた小さな国ルクセンブルグに属する山あり谷ありの緑深き風光明媚なアルデンヌ地方に連なっている。アルデンヌの山深く羊の群れを追う牧羊犬の代わりだ。両腕が無くてもできるからね。冬には牧舎へ羊のエサを大量に運び込む荷役ポニイの代わりに大きな籠に牧草を詰め肩に担いで運んだのさ。両腕が無くても肩で運ぶことはできるからね。戦場から生まれ故郷のここバランシエンヌへ帰還した当初、毎晩のように戦場の痛ましい夢を見ていた。あるとき夢というものは、熟睡ののち眠りが浅くなっていく過程で現れるものだと気が付いた。そこで睡眠時間を早めに切り上げて起床し、明け方から牧場の雑役をこなして、足りない睡眠時間は昼寝で補う習慣になった訳さ。羊が牧草を食む間の木陰の微睡、牧舎の藁に埋もれ羊に囲まれての束の間の爆睡。ナポレオンがコルシカ島の一兵卒からフランス皇帝にまで登りつめることができたのは、戦場の放火が止む短時間に、いつ何処ででも野戦用の仮設テントに入って睡眠をとり、常に英気を取り戻す習慣を身に着けていたためでなんだよ。アルデンヌでの人生は、時が無限にゆっくりと流れ、心の底から湧きあがる自由の境地と爽快な気分は、年老いてここに帰国した後も、昼寝の習慣と共に永劫絶えることなく続いていくに違いない。」「軍曹あなたは誠に見上げた立派な方ですね。」

From the very first meeting, he delighted in telling me, a young man then, the story of his life. I devoted myself to being a good listener, affirming each word, praising him, and responding with a smile.
“How did you live after the war, with both arms gone?” I asked. His reply was: “At times I was a dog, at times a pony, and I have never failed to take a daily nap.” Few could imagine his life from those words alone.
“This land belongs to France, yet it stretches into the verdant Ardennes, that scenic region between Germany and Belgium, with its mountains and valleys. In the deep hills of the Ardennes, I took the place of a shepherd’s dog, driving the flocks of sheep—something I could do even without arms. In winter, when fodder had to be carried into the barns, I became like a pack pony, filling great baskets with hay and bearing them on my shoulders. Even without arms, one can carry with the shoulders.
When I first returned here to Valenciennes from the battlefield, I dreamed almost nightly of the war’s horrors. Then I realized that dreams come when sleep grows light after deep rest. So I began rising early, cutting short my sleep, and working at the farm from dawn, making up the lost hours with naps. A drowse in the shade while the sheep grazed, a sudden deep sleep buried in straw among the flock.
Napoleon rose from a Corsican soldier to Emperor of France because he had mastered the habit of seizing brief moments of rest whenever the guns fell silent, wherever he was, in a field tent, regaining his strength.
Life in the Ardennes flows infinitely slow, and the freedom and freshness that well up from the heart will surely never cease, even now in old age, sustained by the habit of the midday nap.”
“Sergeant, you are truly a man of greatness.”

　帰国して１０数年ののち、バランシエンヌから遥か北のベルギーの古都アントワープにある銅精錬所へ工場見学に呼んで貰った機会に、バランシエンヌ経由を画策して一泊した。炭鉱は採掘可能な鉱脈が尽きて閉山して１０年が経過し、炭鉱のシンボル大車輪は撤去され、敷地は更地となって雑草が生い茂っていた。私にとって酒飲みの聖地、居酒屋はオーナーが代わり、たむろするオジサンたちのメンバーもすっかり入れ替わっていた。オーナーは先代からの申し送りで軍曹の物語は知っていた。お墓への道筋を教えて貰い、家族のいなかった軍曹の質素なお墓に頭を垂れた。もっと早くここに戻って来るべきだった。

More than ten years after returning home, I was invited to visit a copper refinery in the ancient Belgian city of Antwerp. I arranged my journey so that I could pass through Valenciennes and stay overnight. By then, the coal mine had been closed for a decade, its coal seams exhausted. The great wheel that had symbolized the mine was gone, the grounds leveled, overgrown with weeds.
For me, the tavern had been a sacred place of drink, but the owner had changed, and the circle of old men who once gathered there was entirely replaced. The new owner, however, knew the Sergeant’s story, passed down from his predecessor. He guided me to the grave. There, at the modest resting place of the Sergeant—who had no family—I bowed my head. I should have returned much sooner.