No Longer Human

by Osamu Dazai

To know the nature of despair and to triumph

not the smile of a human being:

Again, I have never known what it means to be hungry.

their griefs really be genuine? Am I wrong in thinking that these people have become such complete egoists and are so convinced of the normality of their

of life that they have never once doubted themselves?

If you’ve slept soundly at night the morning is exhilarating, I suppose. What kind of dreams do they have? What do they think about when they walk along the street? Money? Hardly—it couldn’t only be

I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.” My activities as jester, a role born of desperation,

I endured it. I even felt as if it enabled me

see one more particular aspect of human beings. I smiled in my weakness.

I find it difficult to understand the kind of human being who lives, or who is sure he can live, purely, happily, serenely while engaged in deceit.

yearn to see with their own eyes monsters of ever more horrible shapes.

Here was the true self I had so desperately hidden. I had smiled cheerfully; I had made others laugh;

The next instant he asked with his quiet smile, “Was that real?”

“freedom”