No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

117
I was frightened even by God. I could not believe
in His love, only in His punishment. Faith. That, I
felt, was the act of facing the tribunal of justice with
one's head bowed to receive the scourge of God. I
could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to
believe in the existence of heaven.
"Why haven't you a chance?"
—^"Because I disobeyed what my father told me."
"Did you? But everybody says you're so nice."
That's because I deceived them. I was aware that
everybody in the apartment house was friendly to me,
but it was extremely difficult for me to explain to
Shigeko how much I feared them all, and how I was
cursed by the unhappy peculiarity that the more I
feared people the more I was liked, and the more I
was liked the more I feared them—a process which
eventually compelled me to run away from everybody.
I casually changed the subject. "Shigeko, what
would you like from God?"
3^ "I would like my real Daddy back."
I felt dizzy with the shock. An enemy. Was I
Shigcko's enemy, or was she mine? Here was another
frightening grown-up who would intimidate me. A
stranger, an incomprehensible stranger, a stranger
full of secrets. Shigeko's face suddenly began to look
that way.
I had been deluding myself with the belief that