白昼夢江戸川乱歩Upper intermediate · JLPT N2
白昼夢Hakuchūmu — A Dream in Broad Daylight
- JLPT N2
- 3,662 characters
- 3 parts
- about 31 minutes
"A Dream in Broad Daylight" is a short, eerie tale by Edogawa Ranpo, told in the first person by a narrator remembering a strange afternoon. On a muggy late-spring day he wanders down a long, dusty street in a run-down corner of Tokyo and comes upon a small crowd laughing at a pale, well-dressed but barefoot man. The man is giving an earnest speech: he says he loved his wife so much that he killed her. The audience treats it as a familiar joke. The narrator is less sure. The story is very short, and much of its effect comes from atmosphere: heat, dust, children's songs and shop signs, all described with plenty of onomatopoeia. The horror builds through small details, not action. For learners, the length makes it manageable in one or two sittings. The challenge is the style. The narration uses older literary forms such as 〜ぬ, 〜なんだ and 〜哉. The orator's speech also keeps shifting between rough, blustering plain forms and confiding polite ones. Following that shift is part of what makes the scene unsettling.
Contents
Before you read
- Learn the classical negatives before you start: 〜ぬ is the same as 〜ない (知らぬ = 知らない), and 〜なんだ is an old past negative (手につかなんだ = 手につかなかった). Once you recognize them, many sentences become much simpler.
- Watch the orator's pronouns and verb endings. When he uses 俺 and plain forms, he is blustering to the crowd. When he switches to 私 and です／ます, he is confiding, almost whispering. Marking each switch helps you follow the change in tone through Parts 2 and 3.
- Expect older spellings and set phrases: 〜て了う is just 〜てしまう, 悲しい哉 is an exclamation ('alas, how sad'), and 感ぜられる is an older form of 感じられる. Read them as variants of forms you already know rather than as new grammar.
- Many descriptive passages lean on onomatopoeia and long noun-modifying clauses that pile up details of the street. On a first read, find the main noun at the end of each clause, then go back for the details.
- Useful words to preview: 演説 (speech), 女房 (wife, colloquial), 嫉妬 (jealousy), 薬屋 (drugstore), 蝋人形 (wax figure), 巡査 (policeman), and 死蝋 (adipocere). This last term is central to Part 2 and is unlikely to be in your vocabulary yet.
Words to know
The most useful words from the notes across the story.
| Word | Meaning | JLPT |
|---|---|---|
| 女房にょうぼう | wifeInformal, rather masculine way to refer to one's own wife. | N2 |
| 用心ようじん | caution, care用心する = to be on one's guard; compare 火の用心 'beware of fire'. | N3 |
| 眩暈めまい | dizziness, giddinessOften written 目まい. | N2 |
| 三味線しゃみせん | shamisenA three-stringed Japanese lute, plucked with a large plectrum; together with the votive lantern it marks the house as a geisha house. | N1 |
| 境遇きょうぐう | situation; circumstances in life | N1 |
| 家出いえで | running away from homeUsed with をする. | N1 |
| 生真面目きまじめ | earnest, deadly serious生 (き) adds the sense of 'pure, thoroughly'. Stronger than plain 真面目. | N1 |
| 白昼はくちゅう | broad daylight, middayLiterally 'white day'; the title 白昼夢 means 'daydream'. | — |
| 場末ばすえ | shabby outskirts of a town, run-down districtSuggests a poor area far from the lively centre. | — |
| みちすがらみちすがら | on the way, in the course of a walkdictionary form: 道すがらLiterary; everyday Japanese would say 途中で. | — |
| 軒を並べていたのきをならべる | to stand side by side (of houses), to line a streetdictionary form: 軒を並べる軒 is the eaves of a roof. | — |
| 殺風景さっぷうけい | bleak, dreary, tastelessUsed for places with no charm or decoration. | — |
| 悠長ゆうちょう | leisurely, unhurried, slowOften slightly critical: too slow, too relaxed. | — |
| 活動写真かつどうしゃしん | motion picture, filmOld-fashioned word; today 映画. | — |
| 香具師やし | street hawker, fairground peddlerA special reading; these sellers drew crowds with a fast sales patter (口上). | — |
Plot summary
Show the full summary (contains spoilers)
On a hot, hazy afternoon the narrator walks along a shabby main street on the edge of Tokyo and joins a laughing crowd around a barefoot orator. The man explains that jealousy over his flirtatious, unfaithful wife drove him to stab her in the neck as she smiled at him from her mirror. He then cut her body into five pieces and kept them under running water until they turned to waxy adipocere. The listeners heckle him as if this were a stale act, but he insists it is true. Lowering his voice, he says she is now wholly his and hidden where no policeman would look: displayed in his own drugstore. The narrator turns, sees the shop behind him, and finds real skin beneath the wax of the model in its glass case. Shaken, he notices a policeman laughing with the crowd, lacks the strength to speak, and staggers away down the endless white road.
About the author
His pen name is a Japanese rendering of the name of Edgar Allan Poe, whom he admired. He began with detective stories such as 二銭銅貨 and went on to create the detective Akechi Kogorō. He also wrote many tales of the grotesque and the perverse, of which 人間椅子 is a famous example. Later he wrote the popular Boy Detectives series for young readers and promoted the mystery genre as an editor and critic. Japan's Edogawa Rampo Prize for mystery fiction is named after him.