Breakfast and Other Writings

A traveler’s hunger puts a lecture on hard work to an unexpected test. At a sick man’s bedside, a dressmaker’s generosity toward a nurse turns into jealous suspicion. A young mother hesitates on the threshold of hospital treatment, while a solitary restaurant meal brings childhood servants and a family dog vividly back to mind.

These seven writings by Shimazaki Tōson move between intimate unease and the broad landscape around Komoro. A mountain pasture opens onto flowers, birds and the herdsman’s working life. In Breaking Through, a teacher struggling to become an independent writer confronts the injuries caused by his fiction, wartime crowds and the practical difficulty of supporting his family.

The collection closes with Tōson’s playful iroha karuta: forty-seven sayings for children and parents to share, preserved in their traditional order. All supplied text is translated, with notes on names, cultural details and unresolved endings. The card illustrations are unavailable; their original positions and descriptions are identified without reconstruction.