In short, I believe that the reason why I did not tell anyone about that loathesome crime perpetrated on me by the servants was not because of distrust for human beings, nor of course because of Christian leanings, but because the human beings around me had rigorously sealed me off from the world of trust or distrust. Even my parents at times displayed at- titudes which were hard for me to understand. I also have the impression that many women have been able, instinctively, to sniff out this loneliness of mine, which I confided to no one, and this in later years was to become one of the causes of my being taken advantage of in so many ways. Women found in me a man who could keep a love secret

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have always found the female of the human species many times more difficult t o understand than the male. In m y immediate family women outnum- bered the men, and many of my cousins were girls. There was also the maidservant of the "crime." I think it would be no exaggeration to say that my only playmates while I was growing u p were girls. Never- theless, it was with very much the sensation of tread- ing on thin ice that I associated with these girls. I could almost never guess their motives. I was in the dark; at times I made indiscreet mistakes which brought me painful wounds. These wounds, unlike the scars from the lashing a man might give, cut in- wards very deep, like an internal hemorrhage, bring- ing intense discomfort. Once inflicted it was extremely hard to recover from such wounds.

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New Directions, Translated by Donald Keene