We all hate you, we’re all disappointed with you, but we’re finished with disappointment, just as we’ve finished with resignation. Do we hate you? Yes, we still hate you, but our hatred has become diffuse, as if it cannot find you. Hatred is the whole sky just as what is hated – you – is as diffuse and spread as widely as the city.
Hatred – the last bond between you and us, but one that is infinitely attenuated, that is not really a bond at all. We would like to be completely indifferent, to sever all ties with you, who so disappointed us, who were always such a failure, but perhaps near-indifference is enough.
Sometimes, a little twinge of disgust: he’s still alive! Still there! If we looked, we’d find you. But it goes away. Sometimes, a little hatred: he’s a living affront! His stupidity! His vacancy!, but that, too, disappears. Do not look for him; forget him – this is what we tell ourselves; forget that he existed and that he ever existed, he who was so disappointing, he in whom we placed our hopes.
Our hopes! What folly! Who were we to hope – and in you? In you! What foolishness! Perhaps it wasn’t your fault. Perhaps it wasn’t your fault, but that does not mitigate it. Still the same – disappointment. Still the daily refutation of hope. But it is an old wound, and healing over. An old wound, and nearly forgotten.
Perhaps, we told ourselves, he’s there to remind us of what cannot be hoped for. Perhaps it is that he reminds us of our limitations, of our futility. It is as such we despise him, of that we are sure; but we have become reconciled to them: our horizons, our limitations. There is much we cannot do. There are many possibilities that are closed to us. Is it because we are older that we do not mind what we cannot do? Is it because of our age – how old are we now? – that we no longer protest?
You disappointed us, that is true. You failed to rise to his vocation, or perhaps we were mistaken, perhaps there was no vocation, perhaps you were too stupid, too stupid and too blind ever to have a vocation, let alone rise to one. Up and down Oxford Street you went, fooling no one. Up and down, like an idiot, not a thought in your head. We watched you, we waited, but nothing happened, you did nothing, you seemed incapable of everything. Why him?, we asked ourselves. Were we so stupid? Were we so deluded? Where had we gone wrong in choosing you, in picking you out from the crowd?
One day, you became ill. You lay down; you didn’t get up. This was appropriate, we thought. You shouldn’t get up, we thought, your story was over. You’d disappointed us – and died. This was apt, this was fitting. Disappointment – and then death. But you survived, didn’t you? You lived, didn’t you, well insomuch as you ever lived. Were you alive? Too alive, although just barely alive. Still too alive, still breathing.
And one day you rose. One day you became vertical again, one day you went out to the street and before long were going up and down Oxford Street as you used to do. It was as if nothing had happened: up and down the road like an idiot, going from cafe to cafe, like an idiot. What an affront! We sighed. Was there no longer such a thing as destiny? The old world was bound by that – destiny, but the new one?
Where are you now? We haven’t kept up. It’s only occasionally our thoughts turn to you; we are momentarily vexed, and then turn back to our tasks and projects. Where are you? Everywhere and nowhere, we tell ourselves. On Oxford Street? No doubt; but elsewhere, too – elsewhere and everywhere, a living affront.
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