The Pearl Lady, Volume 1

A young husband hurrying to his convalescent wife shares a motorcar with a university student. A sudden accident leaves him entrusted with a watch, a notebook, and a dying man’s final words. His effort to return the watch leads him to Ruriko, a beautiful widow whose composure conceals a troubling history.

The story then moves backward to the days before her marriage. Ruriko loves an earnest young man, but her impoverished aristocratic family faces the ambitions of a wealthy businessman. A rejected proposal becomes a financial siege, testing her father’s integrity and her own fierce determination.

First serialized in newspapers in 1920, Kikuchi Kan’s novel examines the power of money over love, reputation, and family loyalty. This first supplied volume preserves its suspenseful change of perspective and ends at the original segment boundary, with the story continuing in Volume 2. Explanatory notes clarify names, period terms, and the distinction between original publication and the later base edition.