鴛鴦鏡
by Kidō Okamoto
A policeman recalls a case in a small northern town and an old mirror.
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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 recounts how a police officer in a small town in northeastern Japan at the end of the Meiji era, out on a winter night, spots a suspicious figure by the pond near a Benzaiten shrine, opening a case tied to a mandarin-duck mirror. Told in the first person as a recollection, the tone is calm and storyteller-like, wavering between ghost story and detective tale.
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.
Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar (the new calendar) in 1873, but in farming villages the old lunar calendar continued to be used alongside it for a long time, owing to agricultural work and seasonal customs. In the countryside, towns followed the new calendar while villages kept the old one for festivals such as Bon and New Year; this dual use of calendars persisted until the early Shōwa period.
In the Meiji period, haiku enthusiasts commonly took pen names (haigō). Literary men in a town would gather at someone's home to hold regular haiku meetings and select the best verses—an extremely common social activity in small provincial communities.
A stone lantern set up within shrine grounds or by the roadside, kept burning all night without going out. It served both as an offering to the gods and as light for people walking at night, and was usually maintained with lamp oil.
About the author
Kidō Okamoto (October 15, 1872 – March 1, 1939) was a Japanese author and playwright whose real name was Keiji Okamoto; he was born in the Shiba Takanawa district of Minato Ward, Tokyo. His best known work is the shin kabuki play Bancho Sarayashiki.
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 “Intermediate”. 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.