雪女
by Kidō Okamoto
A man back from Manchuria tells of a woman he met in the snow.
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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
Told through a narrator relaying a story, this passage follows Horibe, just back from Manchuria, as he travels through a snowy evening with his Chinese servant, searching for a house to lodge in before his encounter with the snow woman unfolds. The careful depiction of wind, snow, and numbing cold gives the opening a chilling, steadily suspenseful storytelling feel.
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.
An abbreviation combining Yun Prefecture and Shuo Prefecture, referring collectively to the bitterly cold frontier regions of northern China. The author uses this elegant Chinese term to evoke the bleak desolation of the Manchurian countryside.
That is, an inn (桟 is a variant of 栈). Ri Tarō speaks broken Japanese; expressions like 「遠いある」 and 「親切ある」 later in the text are Okamoto Kidō's deliberate imitation of such speech.
This describes the kang, a sleeping platform unique to houses in northeastern China: built of brick or packed earth and connected to the cooking stove, so that the residual heat from cooking fires warms the whole platform.
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.