No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

65
shop I patronized who always would put in the package
of cigarettes she handed me . ..; and the woman
in the seat next to mine at the Kabuki Theatre . . . ;
and the time when I was drunk and fell asleep
on the streetcar in the middle of the night; and
that letter burning with passion that came unexpectedly
from a girl relative in the country; and the
girl, whoever it was, who left a doll—one she had
made herself—for me when I was away. With all of
them I had been extremely negative and the stories
had gone no further, remaining undeveloped fragments.
But it was an undeniable fact, and not just
some foolish delusion on my part, that there lingered
about me an atmosphere which could send women into
sentimental reveries. It caused me a bitterness akin
to shame to have this pointed out by someone like
Horiki; at the same time I suddenly lost all interest
in prostitutes.
To show off his "modernity" (I can't think of any
other reason) Horiki also took me one day to a secret
Communist meeting. (I don't remember exactly what
it was called—a "Reading Society," I think.) A
secret Communist meeting may have been for Horiki
just one more of the sights of Tokyo. I ^vas introduced
to the "comrades" and obliged to buy a pamphlet. I
then heard a lecture on Marxian economics delivered
by an extraordinarily ugly young man, the guest of