The Secretary

At a mountain hot spring, Okumura Tatsuya knows how to make himself welcome. A ministry secretary recovering from illness, he quickly charms a prosperous merchant with easy conversation and games of go. The merchant’s daughter, Mitsuyo, is less impressed. She waits for a young philosopher whose contempt for worldly maneuvering soon puts him at odds with her father.

As the family returns to Tokyo, a contest for a government coal mine draws business ambitions and private desires into the same web. Confidential information becomes a bargaining tool, and hospitality shades into a more disturbing exchange.

First published in 1895, Kawakami Bizan’s The Secretary combines richly ornamented Meiji prose with a sharp story of influence, money, and the cost of respectability. This complete new English translation preserves all seven sections, with brief notes on cultural allusions, period objects, and uncertainties in the supplied Japanese text. AI-assisted translation, prepared and edited by Valentin Sarić.