No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

62
wanted in the shortest possible time without ever having
recourse to taxis: he used by turns, as seemed appropriate,
the streetcar, the bus and even steam
launches in the river. He gave me a practical education:
thus, if we stopped in the morning at a certain
restaurant on our way home from a prostitute's and
had a bath with our meal, it was a cheap way of
experiencing the sensation of living luxuriously. He
also explained that beef with rice or skewered chicken
—the sort of dishes you can get at a roadside stand—
are cheap but nourishing. He guaranteed that nothing
got you drunker quicker than brandy. At any rate,
as far as the bill was concerned he never caused me
to feel the least anxiety or fear.
Another thing which saved me when with Horiki
was that he was completely uninterested in what his
listener might be thinking, and could pour forth a
continuous stream of nonsensical chatter twenty-tyur
hours a day, in whichever direction the eruption of
his "passions" led him. (It may have been that his
passions consisted in ignoring the feelings of his listener.)
His loquacity ensured that there would be
absolutely no danger of our falling into uncomfortable
silences when our pleasures had fatigued us. In dealings
with other people I had always been on my guard
lest those frightful silences occur, but since I was
naturally slow of speech, I could only stave them off