No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

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and suchlike things, but the object of their efforts is
invariably the individual, and, even once the individual's
needs have been met, again the individual comes
in. The incomprehensibility of society is the incomprehensibility
of the individual. The ocean is not
society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to
gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the
illusion of the ocean called the world. I learned to
behave rather aggressively, without the endless anxious
worrying I knew before, responding as it were
to the needs of the moment.
When I left the apartment in Koenji I told the
madam of the bar in Kyobashi, "I've left her and
come to you." That was all I said, and it was enough.
In other words, my single then-and-there contest had
been decided, and from that night I lodged myself
without ceremony on the second floor of her place.
"Society" which by all rights should have been implacable,
inflicted not a particle of harm on me, and
I offered no explanations. As long as the madam was
so inclined, everything was all right.
At the bar I was treated like a customer, like the
owner, like an errand boy, like a relative of the
management; one might have expected that I would
be considered a very dubious character, but "society"
was not in the least suspicious of me, and the regular
customers of the bar treated me with almost painful