The House Where the Crane Lived and Other Stories

A girl resents her married sister’s silence until a gift of perfume changes the color of her morning. On a country road, friends reclaim pawned instruments and join a wandering feast beneath the moon. Another narrator races through the woods, mistakes a film crew for a real pursuit, and finds that his younger siblings have taken the sensible route.

These six complete works range from a remembered anecdote about Goethe to the solace of poetry shared by two girls. The long concluding story, The House Where the Crane Lived, follows a writer and an astronomer whose work is continually interrupted by family life. A crane, an unnamed long-handled implement and a house’s elaborate customs become troubling images of duty and release.

Makino Shin’ichi (1896–1936) blends comedy, tenderness and restless self-questioning. This English collection preserves the supplied order, dreams, shifting conversations and unresolved implications, with concise notes on period language and source peculiarities. AI-assisted translation.