YOU SAID:

This rambling jeremiad begins on Christmas Eve, when Grass (who is himself the narrator and, in a manner of speaking, the protagonist) finds a present under the tree, the fulfillment of a seemingly whimsical wish: a female rat, gray-brown, one of the common variety rarely stocked by pet stores (“please not a white one with red eyes, not a laboratory rat”), in a tidy cage with all the appurtenances. Thus, instead of the Christ child in the manger, there is a She-rat (as Grass calls her) in a litter of wood shavings; instead of a joyful promise, there is a death-knell.

INTO JAPANESE

クリスマスイブ、このとりとめのない jeremiad が始まるとき草 (ナレーター彼自身であると言えば、主人公のように) 一見気まぐれな願い事の成就、ツリーの下のプレゼントを発見: 雌ラット、灰色茶色、一般的な品種の 1 つはほとんどペットで貯蔵格納 ("ごない赤目、laborat ではなく白いもの