No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

169
a curious manner by the old servant. Once in a while
we quarrel like husband and wife. My chest ailment
is sometimes better, sometimes worse; my weight
fluctuates accordingly. Occasionally I cough blood.
Yesterday I sent Tetsu (the old servant) off to the
village drugstore to buy some sleeping pills. She came
back with a box rather different in shape from the
one I'm accustomed to, but I paid it no particular attention.
I took ten pills before I went to bed but was
surprised not to be able to sleep at all. Presently I
was seized with a cramp in my stomach. I rushed to
the toilet three times in succession with terrible diarrhoea.
My suspicions were aroused. I examined the
box of medicine carefully—it was a laxative.
As I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, a hot
water bottle on my stomach, I wondered whether I
ought to complain to Tetsu.
I thought of saying, "These aren't sleeping pills.
They're a laxative!" but I burst out laughing. I think
"reject" must be a comic noun. I had taken a laxative
in order to go to sleep.
Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.
Everything passes.
That is the one and only thing I have thought
resembled a truth in the society of human beings
where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.
Everything passes.