His punishment. Faith. That, I felt, was the act of facing the tribunal of justice with one's head bowed to receive the scourge of God. I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven. "Why haven't you a chance?" "Because I disobeyed what my father told me." "Did you? But everybody says you're so nice." That's because I deceived them. I was aware that everybody in the apartment house was friendly to me, hut it was extremely difficult for me to explain to Shigeko how much I feared them all, and how I was cursed by the unhappy peculiarity that the more I feared people the more I was liked, and the more I was liked the more I feared them—a process which eventually compelled me to run away from everybody. I casually changed the subject. "Shigeko, what would you like from God?" "I would like my real Daddy back." I felt dizzy with the shock. An enemy. Was I Shigeko's enemy, or was she mine? Here was another frightening grown-up who would intimidate me. A stranger, an incomprehensible stranger, a stranger full of secrets. Shigeko's face suddenly began to look that way.
I had been deluding myself with the belief that Shigeko at least was safe, but she too was like the ox which suddenly lashes out with its tail to kill the horsefly on its flank. I knew that from then on I would have to be timid even before that little girl. "Is the lady-killer at home?" Horiki had taken to visiting me again at my place. I could riot refuse him, even though this was the man who had made me so miserable the day I ran away. I welcomed him with a feeble smile.
