No Longer Human ( PDFDrive )

89
"Hey," he called to me, "you must be cold. Come here,
next to the fire."
I walked into his room, sat on a chair, and
warmed myself by the fire. I feigned an air of utter
dejection.
"You miss her, don't you?"
"Yes." I answered in a particularly faint and faraway
voice.
"That's human nature, I guess." His manner had
become increasingly self-important. "Where was it
you first took up with this woman?" The question
was weighted with an authority almost indistinguishable
from that of a judge. My jailor, despising me as
a mere child who wouldn't know the difference, acted
exactly as if he were charged with the investigation.
No doubt he was secretly hoping to while away the
long autumn evening by extracting from me a confession
in the nature of a pornographic story. I guessed
his intent at once, and it was all I could do to restrain
the impulse to burst out laughing in his face.
I knew that I had the right to refuse to answer any
queries put me by the policeman in an "informal
interrogation" of this sort, but in order to lend some
interest to the long night ahead, I cloaked myself in
a kind of simple sincerity, as if I firmly, unquestioningly
believed that this policeman was responsible
for investigating me, and that the degree of severity