I stood at a street corner and listened. From two cafés the flood of song rolled forth into the night. Everywhere community, everywhere this huddling together, everywhere this unloading of the burden of destiny, this flight into the warm proximity of the herd!

Two men passed me by slowly. I caught a phrase of their conversation.

“Isn’t it just like an assembly of youths in a nigger village?” said one. “They all do the same things. Even tattooing is in fashion. Look, that’s the young Europe.”

The voice rang suggestively in my ear. I followed behind the two in the dark street. One of them was a Japanese, small and elegant. I saw his yellow smiling face shine under the lamp.

The other spoke again.

“Well, I don’t suppose it’s any better with you in Japan. People who do not follow the herd are everywhere rare. There are a few here, too.”