« Chaque chose possède deux côtés : un bon côté, et un côté pas trop mauvais. »

The maxim that everything has a good side and a side that is not too bad is Komatsu’s stated creed, introduced while Tengo and the Master discuss whether Komatsu believes his plan can unfold as he wishes. Its careful refusal to name a genuinely bad side makes it sound like optimism with its claims lowered; the Master, however, treats that guarded formulation as evidence that Komatsu may be more hopeful—or more self-assured—than he admits.

The Maxim and Its Occasion

The phrase enters a conversation about Komatsu’s confidence in his plan. The Master asks whether the editor thinks events have a chance of proceeding according to his wishes, and Tengo answers by presenting Komatsu’s credo: everything has two sides, one good and one not too bad. The maxim is therefore not offered as an abstract doctrine detached from character. It is Tengo’s explanation of the attitude with which Komatsu approaches an uncertain undertaking.

Its wording makes a distinction between the good and the merely tolerable rather than between good and bad. The second side is not called bad; it is softened into something “not too bad.” That qualification gives the saying its characteristic combination of caution and consolation. It does not promise that events will go well, but it resists the conclusion that an unfavorable outcome would be wholly disastrous.

The Master’s Reading

The Master responds with a smile and calls the outlook original. He reasons that someone who sees matters this way must be either an optimist or a person who is very sure of himself. Tengo rejects both explanations, describing Komatsu as merely cynical. The exchange stages a small disagreement over what the same formula reveals: Tengo treats it as a mark of cynicism, while the Master hears an underlying assurance in its refusal to grant the worst outcome full force.

The Master does not simply accept the categories as mutually exclusive. He counters that if Komatsu is cynical, then he is also an optimist, or else confident in himself. Tengo concedes that Komatsu may have that tendency. The conversation thus leaves the maxim’s psychological meaning unsettled without making it arbitrary: the Master’s interpretation is grounded in the very moderation of the phrase, which makes room for a bearable outcome even when a good one is uncertain.

Characterization and Significance

The maxim functions as a compressed portrait of Komatsu, conveyed through Tengo’s account and then reframed by the Master. It presents an outlook that can be read as cynical because it does not expect an unqualified good, but also as optimistic because it assumes that even the other side of a situation may remain manageable. The exchange does not establish that Komatsu’s plan will succeed, or explain its details here; its focus is the way his credo shapes expectations about its prospects.

The Master’s final observation, that Komatsu seems complicated, follows from this interpretive mismatch. The phrase does not settle whether Komatsu is a cynic, an optimist, or self-assured; instead, it makes those positions overlap. Its significance in the conversation lies in that double edge: a low expectation can protect against disappointment, yet the same refusal to imagine a wholly bad result can also register as confidence.