literature at the Kyoto Imperial University. It was his opinion that Akutagawa, who always had hanging on his door the sign, “Sick, Compliments to Callers,” that he might have more time to read, was the most scholarly of the literary men of Japan. He expressed a wish, however, that Akutagawa would forsake Persia and Greece and their curios and devote more time to men like Marx and Shaw.
Kikuchi first came to admire Akutagawa when, with a few others at the University, they began in 1914 the publication of the third series of the magazine Shinshichō . His maiden effort appeared in the first issue, attracting no particular attention. But in the following year he published in the magazine Teikoku Bungaku two stories, the second of which, “ Rashōmon ,” became the title story of his first volume, published in May, 1917, and is now always associated with his name. It is a gruesome thing concerning the old two-storied south gate of Kyoto in the days when that landmark was falling into decay with the rest of the ancient capital toward the end of the twelfth century. By way of lame extenuation, this much, at least, may be said for the story (which is the fourth in this volume), that in other tales, Akutagawa has written with even more disgusting realism of this truly distressing period.
In December, 1915, while still at the University, Akutagawa became a disciple of the preeminent writer of the day, Natsume Sōseki, who probably had a greater influence than any other man on his literary life. Mori Ogai, the versatile army surgeon, who tried his hand at so many things in the literary field during the periods of Meiji and Taishō, has been credited with having had the next greatest influence on him.
In 1916, in a fourth revival of the magazine Shinshichō , Akutagawa published “ Hana ” (The Nose), the second story in this book, which drew from Natsume the highest praise. He told his young disciple that if he would write twenty or thirty more stories like it, he would find himself occupying a unique position among the writers of his country, a