Natsumi Sōseki's "Ten Nights' Dreams"
Natsume Sōseki in 1912 Natsume Soseki's Ten Nights' Dreams , translated by Takumi Kashima and Loretta R. Lorenz, comprises ten dreams written like very short stories. Or are they short stories that appear dreamlike? The strongest of them have the mysterious quality of dreams. In "The Eighth Night," the narrator-dreamer at a barber shop could see people passing by the lattice-window reflected in the mirror in front of him. When he turned around, however, to see a woman counting her yen, she could not be seen. After he paid and went out of the shop, he saw five oblong basins full of goldfish. The goldfish seller, eyes fixed on the goldfish before him, hardly cared about the busy people passing by. The dream of "The Tenth Night" was strongly sexual. A young man had to keep tapping the snouts of a never-ending line of pigs. When one pig finally succeeded in licking him, he collapsed. Other dreams have the rigor of a moral lesson. Challenged by a m...