Encounters on a Dark Night
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| "Encounters on a Dark Night" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Ichiyō Higuchi | |
| Original title | Yamiyo |
| Translator | Robert Lyons Danly (1981) |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Bungakukai |
| Publication type | Magazine |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | 1894 |
| Published in English | 1981 |
Encounters on a Dark Night (Japanese: やみ夜, Hepburn: Yamiyo) is a short story by Japanese writer Ichiyō Higuchi first published in 1894.[1][2][3] It follows the encounter of a young woman, Oran, with social outcast Naojirō, who discover that both had been treated contemptuously by the same man.
Oran, a lonely young woman, lives with servant couple Sasuke and Osoyo in a derelict house surrounded by a garden wall. One night, a teenage boy is hit by a rickshaw in front of the entrance and carelessly left behind by the driver and his passenger. Sasuke takes the unconscious boy in, and he, his wife and Oran see to his recovery. Their guest is nineteen-year-old orphan Naojirō, whose anger and mistrust led him to a life as a social outcast. Naojirō eventually recovers and falls in love with his caring host. Oran tells him that she had been left by her fiancé after her father Matsukawa's suicide, following failed business transactions. When Naojirō finds out that Oran's unfaithful fiancé and the passenger of the rickshaw which hit him are the same man, diet member Namizaki, he vows to kill him. Oran encourages him in his plan, but Naojirō fails, only slightly hurting Namizaki. The boy disappears without a trace, and his fate remains unclear, as does the fate of Oran and her servants. A few months later, new residents seem to have moved into the Matsukawa house.