Cut ear, long pipe

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, “Picture,” from “The Life of a Stupid Man” (1927), trans. Jay Rubin.

The Life of a Stupid Man, a selection of stories from Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories (2006), is no. 56 in the Penguin Little Black Classics series (2015).

Elaine and I are in agreement: the three great discoveries as we’re making our way through these eighty volumes are Kenkō, Henry Mayhew, and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.