Akutagawa Ryunosuke is one of the most widely read Japanese writers in Europe. The bizarre interweaving of fiction and reality, deep psychologism, paradoxical judgments and subtle irony serve the main goal in his works - the study of universal moral and ethical problems of the individual. In this collection, Akutagawa appears to readers as a great connoisseur and connoisseur of European culture. The desire to draw parallels between East and West did not leave him throughout his life. However, borrowing plots from European works, he always brings something of his own to them. The values of other peoples are refracted in the rays of the rising sun of Japan, mutually enriching.