No Longer Human

THE THIRD NOTEBOOK: PART ONE

them. In the end I have felt past caring; I have laughed them away with my clowning, or surrendered to them abjectly with a silent nod of the head, in the attitude of defeat.
In later years I came to realize that if Flatfish had at the time presented me with a simple statement of the facts, there would have been no untoward consequences. But as a result of his unnecessary precautions, or rather, of the incomprehensible vanity and love of appearances of the people of the world, I was subjected to a most dismal set of experiences.
How much better things would have been if only Flatfish had said something like this, "I'd like you to enter a school beginning in the April term. Your family has decided to send you a more adequate allowance once you have entered school."
Only later did I learn that this in fact was the situation. If I had been told that, I should probably have done what Flatfish asked. But thanks to his intolerably prudent, circumlocutions manner of speech, I only felt irritable, and this caused the whole course of my life to be altered.
"If you do not feel like confiding your problems to me I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you."
"What kind of problems?" I really had no idea what he was driving at. "Isn't there something weighing on your heart?"
"For example?"
"'For example'! What do you yourself want to do now?"
"Do you think I ought to get a job?"
"No, don't ask me. Tell me what you would really like."
"But even supposing I said I wanted to go back to school . . ."
"Yes, I know, it costs money. But the question is not the money. It's what
you feel."
Why, I wonder, couldn't he have mentioned the simple fact that the money
would be forthcoming from home? That one fact would probably have settled my feelings, but I was left in a fog.
"How about it? Have you anything which might be described as aspirations for the future? I suppose one can't expect people one helps to understand how

difficult it is to help another person." "I'm sorry."
"I'm really worried about you. I'm responsible for you now, and I don't like you to have such halfhearted feelings. I wish you would show me that you're resolved to make a real effort to turn over a new leaf. If, for example, you were to come to me to discuss seriously your plans for the future, I would certainly do what I could. But of course you can't expect to lead your former life of luxury on the help that poor old Flatfish can give—don't give yourself any illusions on that score. No—but if you are resolute in your determination to begin again afresh, and you make definite plans for building your future, I think I might actually be willing to help you to rehabilitate yourself if you came to me for help, though Heaven knows I haven't much to spare. Do you understand my feelings? What are your plans?"
"If you won't let me stay here in your house I'll work . . ."
"Are you serious? Do you realize that nowadays even graduates of Tokyo Imperial University . . ."
"No, I wasn't thinking of getting a job with a company." "What then?"
"I want to be a painter." I said this with conviction. "Wha-a-t?"
I can never forget the indescribably crafty shadow that passed over Flatfish's face as he laughed at me, his neck drawn in. It resembled contempt, yet it was different: if the world, like the sea, had depths of a thousand fathoms, this was the kind of weird shadow which might be found hovering here and there at the bottom. It was a laugh which enabled me to catch a glimpse of the very nadir of adult life.
He said, "There's no point in discussing such a thing. Your feelings are still all up in the air. Think it over. Please devote this evening to thinking it over seriously."
I ran up to the second floor as though driven, but even when I lay in bed nothing of a particularly constructive nature occurred to me. The next morning at dawn I ran away from Flatfish's house.

I left behind a note, scrawled in pencil in big letters on my writing pad. "I shall return tonight without fail. I am going to discuss my plans for the future with a friend who lives at the address below. Please don't worry about me. I'm telling the truth." I wrote Horiki's name and address, and stole out of Flatfish's house.
I did not run away because I was mortified at having been lectured by Flatfish. I was, exactly as Flatfish described, a man whose feelings were up in the air, and I had absolutely no idea about future plans or anything else. Besides, I felt rather sorry for Flatfish that I should be a burden on him , and I found it quite intolerably painful to think that if by some remote chance I felt like bestirring myself to achieve a worthy purpose, I should have to depend on poor old Flatfish to dole out each month the capital needed for my rehabilitation.
When I left Flatfish's house, however, I was certainly not seriously entertaining any idea of consulting the likes of Horiki about my future plans. I left the note hoping thereby to pacify Flatfish for a little while, if only for a split- second. (I didn't write the note so much out of a detective-story stratagem to gain a little more time for my escape—though, I must admit that the desire was at least faintly present—as to avoid causing Flatfish a sudden shock which would send him into a state of wild alarm and confusion. I think that might be a somewhat more accurate presentation of my motives. I knew that the facts were certain to be discovered, but I was afraid to state them as they were. One of my tragic flaws is the compulsion to add some sort of embellishment to every situation—a quality which has made people call me at times a liar—but I have almost never embellished in order to bring myself any advantage; it was rather that I had a strangulating fear of that cataclysmic change in the atmosphere the instant the flow of a conversation flagged, and even when I knew that it would later turn to my disadvantage, I frequently felt obliged to add, almost inadvertently, my word of embellishment, out of a desire to please born of my usual desperate mania for service. This may have been a twisted form of my weakness, an idiocy, but the habit it engendered was taken full advantage of by the so-called honest citizens of the world.) That was how I happened to jot down Horiki's name and address as they floated up from the distant recesses of my