Yeah, aside from the old kana (which at this point in the Advent I barely notice 
) this was a breeze to read. I actually know nothing about the original story of Lillith, my understanding has been loosely cobbled together from various media references over the year 
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This time it was my turn to assume the author was a dude until I looked them up on Wikipedia 
(You can tell my memory for Japanese names is terrible, since it’s not their first appearance in the calendar…)
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But otoh with 子 at the given name’s end it’s very probably a woman.
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春の鳥 was really interesting. I’m guessing the writing has been modernized as I checked and the author died in 1908, yet this had no old kana. He’s the same author who wrote 初恋 that we read earlier in the Advent, but I enjoyed this piece quite a bit more.
edit: oh btw this is tomorrow’s Natively entry. As mentioned in the table, the kanji used seems to vary by source. I’m guessing modernization but 
一灯 | L32??
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If you check the book’s library card on Aozora, there are two dates for 初版発 i.e. “first publication”, namely 1939 and 1960. I guess the latter is the modernized version (because otherwise the “first” would be pretty weird).
(Also it says “new kanji and new kana” for the Aozora version so we know it should be the newer one.)
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I’ve noticed a lot of Aozora works list first publication as after the author’s death, and they also list where it was pulled from. I expect it’s just the first publication of that magazine or that short story collection rather than anything to do with the actual first publication of the work
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Ah, I see. Yeah, it’s a bit intransparent in general what these dates refer to 
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春の鳥 | L32 I did not realize this is the same author as 初恋. This is much better. Probably the longest story in the calendar so far. 
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I don’t think I’ve encountered use of 僕 not as the first person pronoun before…
The poem mentioned at the end is Wordsworth’s There Was a Boy.
Wikipedia says the story was written in 1904.
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一灯 | L35 I wonder if this is semi-autobiographical? It feels personal. I like Dazai’s writing but I still haven’t plucked up the courage to read 人間失格. Maybe 2025 will be the year… 
On a side note: My gradings continue to be all over the place. 
apparently I rated this harder than LV 37 but easier than LV 36 and similar to stuff in the LV 31-33 range… clearly, I have no clue what I am doing. 
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Exactly, I myself bought the book when I read 待つ, so quite some time ago. Since then the book itself is waiting 
Maybe 2025 will be the year.
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Some of the details (parents dead and elder brother being the head of the family and giving him an allowance; enrolling in university in Tokyo but not studying and failing to graduate) certainly seem to line up with the description of the author’s life on Wikipedia.
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I agree that 一燈 is likely autobiographical. I didn’t enjoy it as much as his fictional story telling, but it was interesting to peek into his personal life a bit.
re grading - I think it was @javerend who said once that Aozora stories exist in their own little bubble. It’s hard to grade them in general I personally just view it as rough guidelines when it comes to shorts especially, since someone who normally reads max ~30 could power through a L35 short that’s only 5 pages, ya know?
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白いシヤツの群 | L32?? Liked this. Quite eery. Uses a few - to me - unusual kanji (e.g. 煩い) and historical readings (e.g. 好い as こい), but with a recording it was easy enough.
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Isn’t that いい ?
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on the recording it was こい so I looked it up and apparently that is a historical reading for this. might be the choice of the person recording or common for the time that it was written in.
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I liked 白いシャツの群れ, apparently the author is known for horror. This reminded me of the sort of scary story I’d read as a kid. I rated it pretty hard though as without a read along the kanji was rough and the way the men spoke to each other was likewise not super learner friendly.
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親という二字 was interesting. Very 太宰 vibes. Not my favorite of his short works I’ve read so far, but not bad either.
Also one more day of Advent! I’m going to read a bonus 坂口安吾 essay on xmas which people are welcome to join me on or not - the subject matter is probably a bit uncomfortable because I did find it due to being referenced in my 戦前エロ事件 book
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I was proud of not missing a day and promptly fell off a day before the end. 
in my defense, I opened the story in the morning… and my brain was just like “ok, done.” and forgot about it for the rest of the day.
親という二字 | L31 Typical Dazai but definitely a decent read.
猫の踊 | L32?? Spooky. 
it doesn’t end well for the cat.
(It took me probably a full minute to realize you mean the 25th. )
Merry Christmas to anyone who celebrates today and a lovely day to everyone else. 
Thanks again to @cat for organizing this. It was fun. 
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猫の踊 is annoyingly formatted on the Aozora site, with what should be furigana in brackets after the word. The internet archive has a rendering of it in vertical text with furigana as furigana which you might prefer.
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