Tension between the five individuals in Õgai’s story is created by who is where and when. Several characters suffer in silence rather than reveal their feelings, while around them the watchful community whispers maliciously. So constrained are they by social convention that the two would-be lovers, Okada and Otama, only once exchange a few words. But Okada and his fellow students are breaking away to join the modern world, and their defiant adventure at the end, involving a wild goose, suggests that those who don’t do the same will be left behind.

This tasteful translation and its informative introduction will bring Õgai, a Meiji intellectual and medical scientist, to the attention of many readers outside Japan for the first time. Translator Meredith McKinney’s choice of words avoids sentimentality yet illuminates the conflicting emotions of these five people, whether they are clinging to tradition or lurching into modernity.