ルルとミミ
By a crystal-clear lake live a brother and sister, Lulu and Mimi.
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Sample: three-line reading
Each word has its meaning in this sentence underneath, and each sentence has a full translation. Read the original and glance down only when you need to.
About the book
This passage tells of Lulu and Mimi, an orphaned brother and sister in a lakeside village whose father drowned himself after the bell he made would not ring, in a place where a murky lake is said to foreshadow sorrow. It reads like a folk tale, quiet and gentle, with a faint undertone of melancholy.
Cultural notes (selection)
Background a translation can’t carry: social roles, history and allusions. While reading, tap “Note” at the end of a sentence to see them all.
When a temple bell is cast, uneven flow of the bronze, impurities, bubbles or cracks can prevent the bell from producing its normal resonance, turning it into a "mute bell." Recasting was extremely expensive, and in the old days a caster who failed at one bell would lose his reputation.
This refers to "nozoki karakuri" (a peep show): a street fair attraction in which viewers looked through a lens at pictures inside a box while the performer changed the pictures and provided narration and song. It was common at fairs from the Taishō to early Shōwa periods, and is not an ordinary pair of binoculars.
That is, "ayatsuri ningyō" (puppets); here it refers to a puppet-theatre stall at a street fair. A small stage was set up before the temple gate to perform puppet shows and draw children, listed alongside the peep show and the balloon seller to evoke the liveliness of the fair.
About the author
Yumeno Kyūsaku (4 January 1889 – 11 March 1936) was a Japanese author whose pen name roughly means "a person who always dreams"; his real name was Sugiyama Yasumichi. He wrote detective novels and also worked as a Zen priest, post office director and sub-lieutenant, and is known for his avant-gardism and surrealistic, wildly imaginative and bizarre narratives.
How the glosses are made
Word glosses and sentence translations are generated in context by AI models (DeepSeek and Zhipu GLM), and every word is checked to have a gloss. AI can make mistakes; you can report problems from the book page.
FAQ
Is this the original text?
Yes. The library holds the opening section of the public-domain original, taken from 青空文库.
Do I need to pay or sign up?
Library books are free to read without an account. Other gloss languages and importing your own texts need an account and credits.
What level is it?
This one is marked “Beginner”. Every word is glossed, so you can keep reading even with a small vocabulary.
Can I use another gloss language?
English and Chinese glosses are prepared in advance; signed-in readers can generate other languages.