Galaxy Railway Night

Author: Kenji Miyazawa
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: A yearning for a pure heart, a pursuit of eternal life, and a steadfast commitment to dreams. The Japanese literary world generally believes that Kenji Miyazawa, with his obscure life and inner dreams, wrote delightful stories for children, social satire and commentary for the youth, and religious peace and compassion for the elderly.
"Classmates, this river we often call a river, or sometimes a trace of milkwater flowing through, is this faint white ribbon. Do you know what it is?" The teacher pointed to a large black constellation map hanging in front of the blackboard, the white, hazy band running from top to bottom like the Milky Way, and asked the students in the classroom.
Kompnerula raised his hand. Four or five other students also raised their hands. Gianni was about to raise his hand but quickly reconsidered. He had read articles in magazines that said they were all stars, but lately, Gianni had always felt sleepy in class, with no time or books to read, so he was now hazy about everything.
However, the teacher noticed his movement. "Gianni, you know, right?" Gianni stood up energetically but, after standing up, had no idea how to answer. The student sitting in front, Chanelli, turned around and looked at Gianni, chuckling softly. Gianni panicked and flushed red.
The teacher asked again, "If you observe the Milky Way closely with a powerful telescope, what do you think it is mostly made of?" Of course, it’s stars. Gianni thought. But this time, he couldn’t answer immediately either. The teacher looked troubled for a moment, then turned to Kompnerula and called out, "Then, Kompnerula, tell us."
Kompnerula, who had just been so eager to raise his hand, stood up awkwardly but still couldn’t answer. The teacher looked at him in slight surprise for a moment before quickly saying, "Alright!" Then, pointing to the constellation map, he added, "If we look at this hazy silver river with a high-quality, large telescope, we can see many small stars. Gianni, right?" Gianni nodded, blushing. But his eyes suddenly filled with tears.
Yes, I already knew it, Gianni thought. Kompnerula certainly did too. Kompnerula’s father was a doctor, and they had read that magazine at his house. After reading it, Kompnerula had found a very thick book in his father’s study, opened to the page about the Milky Way, and they had stared in awe at the beautiful photo of an entire page filled with darkness, dotted with countless tiny white dots. Kompnerula would never forget it. He hadn’t answered immediately because he knew Gianni had to work hard before and after school, leaving him with no energy to play with others or even talk to Kompnerula. He had deliberately not answered out of sympathy for Gianni.
Thinking this, Gianni felt that both he and Kompnerula were quite pitiful.
The teacher continued, "So, if we consider the Milky Way as a real river, those countless small stars would be like the small sand grains or pebbles at the bottom of the river. And if we see it as a huge river of milkwater, it’s closer to the Milky Way. In other words, these stars are the tiny fat globules floating in the milk-like liquid. Then, what is the water in the river? It’s a vacuum that can transmit light at a certain speed, where the sun and the Earth float. That is to say, we all live in the water of the Milky Way. When we look around from the water of the Milky Way, just like how the deeper the water, the bluer it looks, we will see that the deeper and farther parts of the Milky Way are gathering more stars, making it appear white and hazy.
"Everyone, look at this model." The teacher pointed to a large biconvex lens filled with many glowing sand grains. "The shape of the Milky Way is the same as this. These glowing sand grains, we consider them as stars that can shine by themselves, just like our sun. Let’s assume our sun is roughly in the center here, and the Earth is near the sun. You can stand in the center at night and look around inside the convex lens. The lens here is thinner, so you can only see a few glowing sand grains, which are stars. The lenses on both sides are thicker, so you can see many glowing sand grains, which are many stars. Farther away, you can only see a white, hazy expanse, which is the principle of today’s lesson on the Milky Way.
"As for how big this convex lens is and the various stars inside it, I’ll explain next time in physics class when class is over. Today happens to be Milky Way Festival, so go outside and observe the sky well. That’s all for today’s class. Please put away your textbooks and notebooks."
The classroom echoed with the sound of opening and closing desks and stacking books. After a while, everyone stood up, bowed, and then left the classroom one by one.