The Garden and Other Stories

An ailing man returns to his family’s ruined garden and begins restoring it, helped by an orphaned boy. Their work cannot hold back time, yet it leaves a memory that becomes part of another life’s art.

In these eight works, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke moves between historical worlds and intimate modern portraits. A physician confronts an apparent Christian miracle. A faithful lover waits beneath a bridge as the water rises. Tolstoy and Turgenev quarrel over a woodcock, each exposing the pride behind his celebrated name.

Elsewhere, an awkward visit to Natsume Sōseki’s grave leads to an unexpected act of physical effort. Two recollections of friends trace disappointed love, political passion, restlessness, illness, and uneasy bonds between the living. The collection closes with a dramatic procession of voices around a violent warrior who has become a monk.