The Ideal Woman

A husband claims to seek peace at home, yet his account begins with a blow against his wife. As arguments deepen, he watches her habits with growing hostility, resents the demands of their infant daughter and wanders the city looking toward other women. His insistence that he has no lover gives way to a more disturbing discovery: he has begun measuring real people against an imagined ideal.

Memories of a cousin who died young draw that ideal into his dreams. But a photograph unsettles the image he has created, and neither jealousy nor escape offers a simple way back to his family. Toyoshima Yoshio follows the narrator’s contradictory explanations through intimate domestic scenes and increasingly uncertain perception.

First published in 1920, The Ideal Woman presents a troubled marriage through a voice whose judgments invite scrutiny. This complete English translation preserves the supplied ending and the original emphasis on personal names, with notes on historical language, unusual printed forms and the annotated Japanese reference. AI-assisted translation.