The Old Veterinarian and Other Writings

An aging veterinarian moves into a smaller house with his wife and children, carrying the weight of a career that never fulfilled its early promise. His story looks back through the years in which new knowledge overtook him and family hopes hardened into disappointment, until a friend’s kindness offers an unexpected measure of relief.

This collection brings together three complete works by Itō Sachio. Alongside The Old Veterinarian, A Tea Ceremony Notebook argues that true taste cannot be purchased with money or reduced to formal gestures. Comparing Japanese tea gatherings with European family dinners, it asks how courtesy, pleasure, and daily habits might shape a household. Gleanings follows a return to a native village, where altered roads, a neglected shrine, and an old scribble awaken memories of youth and first affection.

First published between 1906 and 1913, these writings move between fiction, cultural argument, and intimate recollection. Their shared concern is what gives life warmth and meaning when outward expectations fail. This new English translation preserves all three texts, with thirty-two notes on historical details, names, customs, and unusual source wording.