この間もちょっと畳で爪を磨いだら細君が非常に怒ってそれから容易に座敷へ入れない。 The other day when I happened to be
sharpening my claws on some straw floor-matting, the mistress of the house
became so unreasonably incensed that now it is only with the greatest
reluctance that she’ll even let me enter a matted room.

台所の板の間で他（ひと）が顫えていても一向平気なものである。 Though I’m shivering on the wooden floor in the
kitchen, heartlessly she remains indifferent.

I'm reading through I am a cat by Soseki and I came across this use of the
word 他 which had the reading as ひと. I'm having trouble understanding how this
word is being used in this sentence and would appreciate some enlightenment.
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translation archaic-language
What is the use of 他（ひと）in this sentence?
「ひと」 is a literary reading of 「他」.

It means " ** _another person_** ", " ** _a third person_** ", " **
_someone_** ", etc.

In other words, 「他{ひと}」 here means the same thing as 「ほかの人」, 「誰{だれ}か」 or just
plain 「人」.
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This Japanese sentences are highly literary expression. These are quoted from
"吾輩は猫である（夏目漱石）." Some of them are entirely not modern expression. I can't read
"他" as "ひと" without the furigana.

We can't find "他（ひと）" in modern leterature. In meiji period highly
sofisticated perple like 漱石 wrote this kind of expression.

Anyway I associate "他人（たにん）" with "他（ひと）."
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There's a lot going on with the word 他｛ひと｝ here.

First, the assigning of the reading of ひと(人) to 他 (or substitution of the
kanji 他 for 人) is an instance of a creative author exercising his literary
license.

Second, here, as he sometimes does elsewhere in the book, the Cat is (despite
his titular/opening declaration) describing himself as 人 (person). This is not
so much because this sapient feline identifies himself as a homo sapience as
because the word is being used loosely, to mean not a human being but any
individual being possessing person-ness, which he is.

Third, I think this 人 can said to be an indefinite noun phrase (though the
Japanese lacks such marking here) having a specific and identifiable referent.
Plus, this is also a case of referring to oneself in the third person. But
with the word 人 it's a common practice, to which fact the presence of the
eighth definition of [人](http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/jn/185757/meaning/m0u/)
in this dictionary attests:

> ８ 話し手が自分を第三者のようにいう語。わたし。「人のことも少しは考えてくれよ」

So the quote may be more literally rendered: "Even when a person/man is
shivering on the wooden floor of the kitchen, heartlessly she remains
indifferent," where it is clear by convention and from the context that by "a
person/man" the Cat himself is referred to. Hence their decision to translate
the 他｛ひと｝ as "I"
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I'm not sure if everyone is misunderstanding the origin of this but in olden
times Chinese was the language of literature.

The answer to this is nothing more than the person decided to use the (now
archaic) way of writing it with the Chinese character. It is strange but, it
makes sense if you think of it in this way.

In Japanese you could read this as

> ほか

But if it were Chinese this is quite obviously just

> tā

(he/she; singular).

The meaning as you can see is different, but so it is at times when Chinese
and Japanese use the same kanji.

If it were an old, old text this might make more sense but I have no idea of
the original source you are referring to. @Sonny suggested this text was Meiji
period, so some upper-class people might still be familiar with classical
Chinese.

(More info about the Chinese character:
<http://dictionary.hantrainerpro.com/chinese-english/translation-ta_he.htm> )
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