No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

155
The madam of the bar in Kyobashi was the
recipient of Flatfish's discourse.
I called, "Madam."
"What? Have you come to?" She held her smiling
face directly over mine as she spoke.
I burst into tears. "Take me away from Yoshiko."
The words came as a surprise even to myself.
The madam rose to her feet and breathed a barely
audible sigh.
Then I made an utterly unpremeditated slip of
the tongue, one so comic, so idiotic that it all but defies
description. I said, "I'm going somewhere where there
aren't any women."
Flatfish was the first to respond, with loud guffaws;
the madam tittered; and in the midst of my
tears I turned red and smiled despite myself.
"An excellent idea," said Flatfish still continuing
his inane laughter. "You really ought to go to a place
with no women. Everything goes wrong as soon as
women are around you. Yes, a place without women
is a fine suggestion."
A place without women. And the worst of it was
that my delirious ravings were later to be realized in
a most ghastly way.
Yoshiko seemed to have got the idea that I had
swallowed the overdose of sleeping pills by way of
atonement for her sin, and this made her all the more