正夢
Beggars chat in the sun until a young one announces his dream.
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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
The text tells of beggars sunning themselves outside a town, where a young beggar recounts a dream of being led to a diamond-studded ring—then gets knocked out and searched, his body bought by a notorious miser who nearly has it cut open to find the ring, until the miser's children and a doctor bring him back to life. It reads like a folk tale told aloud, with absurd, darkly comic twists arriving one after another at a quick pace.
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.
「頭をかく」 means to scratch one's head, an instinctive gesture Japanese people make when embarrassed, flustered, or making excuses. Here, the two beggars are exposed one after the other, and this gesture depicts their embarrassment.
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.