"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-and death tensions—as to suggest some clumsy imitation of a detective novel. The missions on which I was employed were really of a stupefying inconsequentiality, but the comrades kept themselves worked up into a state of frantic excitement by incessantly reminding themselves how dangerous these errands were.) I felt at the time that if I should become a party member and got caught, not even the prospect of spending the rest of my life in prison would bother me: it occurred to
