No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

69
"modernity." An attraction for its odor of irrationality
led others, like myself, to participate in the movement.
I am sure that if the true believers in Marxism
had discovered what Horiki and I were really interested
in, they would have been furious with us,
and driven us out immediately as vile traitors. Strange
to say, however, neither Horiki nor I ever came close
to being expelled. On the contrary, I felt so much
more relaxed in this irrational world than in the world
of rational gentlemen that I was able to do what was
expected of me in a "sound" manner. I was therefore
considered a promising comrade and entrusted with
various jobs fraught with a ludicrous degree of secrecy.
As a matter of fact, I never once refused any of their
jobs. Curiously docile, I performed whatever they
asked of me with such unruffled assurance that the
"dogs" (that was the name by which the comrades
referred to the police) suspected nothing, and I was
never so much as picked up for questioning.
Smiling, making others smile, I punctiliously
acquitted myself of all their "dangerous missions."
(The people in the movement observed such excessive
precautions—they were perpetually prey to life-anddeath
tensions—as to BUggest some clumsy imitation
of a detective novel. The missions on which I was
employed were really of a stupefying inconsequenti-