No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

149
lost all confidence in myself, doubted all men immeasurably,
and abandoned all hopes for the things
of this world, all joy, all sympathy, eternally. This
was truly the decisive, incident of my life. I had been
split through the forehead between the eyebrows, a
wound that was to throb with pain whenever I came in
contact with a human being.
"I sympathize, but I hope it's taught you a lesson.
I won't be coming back. This place is a perfect hell
. . . But you should forgive Yoshiko. After all, you're
not much of a prize yourself. So long." Horiki was
not stupid enough to linger in an embarrassing situation.
I got up and poured myself a glass of gin. I wept
bitterly, crying aloud. I could have wept on and on,
interminably.
Without my realizing it, Yoshiko was standing
haplessly behind me bearing a platter with a mountain
of beans on it. "He told me he wouldn't do anything
.. ."
"It's all right. Don't say anything. You didn't
know enough to distrust others. Sit down. Let's eat
the beans."
We sat down side by side and ate the beans. Is
trustfulness a sin, I wonder? The man was an illiterate
shopkeeper, an undersized runt of about thirty, who
used to ask me to draw cartoons for him, and then