Lemon

by Motojirō Kajii · 1925

A depressed, penniless young man wanders Kyoto, oppressed by an unnamed dark weight, until he buys a single lemon whose cool scent and color lift his spirits. In the Maruzen bookshop he stacks heavy art books into a tower, sets the lemon on top like a bomb, and walks out.

Books mentioned in Lemon (1)

• The Words of the Orange Seller by Liu Ji: “The phrase "strikes the nose" from The Words of the Orange Seller, which I had learned in classical Chinese class, floated up in fragments. [auto-translated]”