No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

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no escape from it, but naturally I did not show my
pictures to anyone except Takeichi. I disliked the
thought that I might suddenly be subjected to their
suspicious vigilance, when once the nightmarish
reality under the clowning was detected. On the other
hand, I was equally afraid that they might not recognize
my true self when they saw it, but imagine that
it was just some new twist to my clowning—occasion
for additional snickers. This would have been most
painful of all. I therefore hid the pictures in the back
of my cupboard.
In school drawing classes I also kept secret my
"ghost-style" techniques and continued to paint as
before in the conventional idiom of pretty things.
To Takeichi (and to him alone) I could display
my easily wounded sensibilities, and I did not hesitate
now to show him my self-portraits. He was very enthusiastic,
and I painted two or three more, plus a
picture of a ghost, earning from Takeichi the prediction,
"You'll be a great painter some day."
Not long afterwards I went up to Tokyo. On my
forehead were imprinted the two prophecies uttered
by half-wit Takeichi: that I would be "fallen for,"
and that I would become a great painter.
I wanted to enter an art school, but my father
put me into college, intending eventually to make
a civil servant out of me. This was the sentence passed