Status Updates From Ten Nights of Dream, Hearin...

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This one really drags.

Following the general, two or three officers dressed in new-style olive-colored uniforms go by. I guessed they'd come to meet him, for their expressions differ notably from his. Ever since childhood I've known the words of Mencius that "man is largely the creature of his environment," but when I find so big a difference in facial expression between one who has returned from war ... (p. 128)

"WELL, this is a surprise. You haven't been round for ages," said Tsuda trimming the lampwick which had come out rather too long.
As I listened to his words, I used three fingers to resolve the bottom of the cheap Soma-porcelain teacup balanced on the knees of my trousers. My joints were nearly bursting through the cloth. And I thought yes, it must indeed be a real surprise to him. ... (p. 65)

... He thereupon himself fell over the precipice.
Ken-san told me this story about Shotaro, and added that the story proved that too much looking at women was never a good thing. I thought he was quite right. Ken-san further oberved that he would like to have Shotaro's Panama hat.
Shotaro will probably not survive. Ken-san will have the Panama hat. (p. 63)

As I entered the Barber's, three or four men dressed in white greeted me in unison: "Good day, sir."
I stood in the middle of the room and noticed it was square. Two of its sides had windows, mirrors the other two. I made a count of the mirrors. There were six of them.
I placed myself in front of one of the mirrors, and sat down. The seat went "pop." It was a chair made extremely comfortable to sit on. ... (p. 52)

I dreamt.
I was sitting by the bedside, with my arms folded, when the woman lying there on her back quietly remarked that she would die now. She lay there with her soft-profiled oval face framed by her long hair spread out upon the pillow. The depth of her white cheeks was moderately tinged with the warm hue of blood; and the lips, of course, were red. No sign whatever of a dying person. ...(p. 27)

"The Heredity of Taste"--incident in the Russo/Japanese war in Manchuria sets a friend, narrator, of one of its victims, Kō-san, to learn the identity of a young woman he's seen set white chrysanthemums on the gravesite and seen mentioned in Kō-san's diary; as an academic he devises a theory to explain the attraction between her and Kō-san by which their look-alike ancestors were also attracted to each other.

Short works 1904-7. "Ten Nights of Dream": half begin "I dreamt"; #1 dying woman; #2 man seeking enlightenment; #3 child prompting father to recall a dark past; #4 man attempting magic; #5 captive desiring his beloved; #6 sculpting guardian gods for a temple gate; #7 man's being bored by a sea voyage; #8 man getting haircut; #9 wife praying in Shinto shrine; #10 man helping woman. "Hearing Things": foreboding cured.