Parting Frost

Taka has grown up expecting to marry Yoshinosuke. Their families have been close for generations and the future seems settled, until a loan, a calculated refusal and a household's ruin break the world they thought they knew. While Taka stays sheltered in her father's prosperous home, Yoshinosuke pulls a rickshaw through the winter streets to support his sick parents. A chance journey brings them together again, but affection must contend with money, suspicion and filial duty.

Parting Frost (Wakare-jimo, 1892), the early novella of Higuchi Ichiyo (1872-1896), joins a bitterly comic view of merchant ambition to a tragic love story. A complete new translation from the Japanese, with a translator's note, 25 endnotes and source information. AI-assisted translation.