La souris japonaise : roman

The story opens with a self‑aware narrator who feels his very existence is a rebellion against the stifling conventions of his bourgeois upbringing. Born to a magistrate father and an enigmatic mother, he has been schooled by a series of tutors whose lessons range from brutal socialism to genteel aristocracy, leaving him both cultured and deeply disillusioned. He declares that any crime he might commit is not a perverse impulse but a logical extension of a life dominated by hollow legality and hollow virtue.

As the narrator reflects on his upbringing, a strange, almost symbolic presence begins to disturb his orderly world—a seemingly insignificant Japanese mouse that becomes a focal point for his restless intellect. This creature, observed in moments of quiet contemplation, forces him to confront the thin line between moral certainty and dangerous obsession. Listeners are drawn into his internal struggle, wondering whether his philosophical justification will lead him toward redemption, ruin, or something far more unsettling.