No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

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afraid, no matter how much I tried to make her smile,
no matter how much I played the clown. She began
to address me with an excessive profusion of honorifics.
Is immaculate trustfulness after all a source of
sin?
I looked up various novels in which married
women are violated. I tried reading them, but I could
not find a single instance of a woman violated in so
lamentable a manner as Yoshiko. Her story obviously
could never be made into a novel. I might actually
have felt better if anything in the least resembling
love existed between that runt of a shopkeeper and
Yoshiko, but one summer night Yoshiko was trusting,
and that was all there was to it . . . And on account
of that incident I was cleft between the eyebrows, my
voice became hoarse, my hair turned prematurely
grey, and Yoshiko was condemned to a life of anxiety.
In most of the novels I read emphasis was placed on
whether or not the husband forgave the wife's "act."
It seemed to me, however, that any husband who still
retains the right to forgive or not to forgive is a lucky
man. If he thinks that he can't possibly forgive his
wife, he ought, instead of making such a great fuss, to
get divorced as quickly as possible and find a new
wife. If he can't do that he should forgive and show
forbearance. In either case the matter can be com-