The Witch

A young bookseller has lost the woman he loves. When a friend takes him to consult a spirit medium in Tokyo, he finds the missing woman at the old woman’s door—and receives a warning that returning may cost him his life.

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s unsettling tale brings supernatural terror into a city of streetcars, telephones, shop windows, and crowded commerce. Black butterflies appear where they should not, a strange voice enters a telephone conversation, and ordinary reflections become threatening. The lovers’ hopes depend on a plan whose secrecy may be impossible to protect.

First published in 1919, The Witch combines a storyteller’s intimate address with a vivid modern cityscape. Its characters struggle to understand powers that resist both legal authority and confident explanation. This complete English translation preserves the narrator’s doubts, the lovers’ desperate conversations, and the story’s surprising tenderness, with brief notes on names, cultural references, and textual details. AI-assisted translation.