W.'s greatest flaw, he tells me as we walk along the quayside, is that he believes that with a group of friends, a community, thought might be possible. It is what our friendship, after all, has singularly failed to accomplish: thought is, in fact, utterly impossible for W. and for me, he says, but especially for me.
It's in no way funny, or surprising that I've never had an idea, W. notes. It's quite obvious. It's part of the course of things; it's plain to everyone. W. blames himself for raising my hopes, or giving me the impression my talents were being nutured.
By what idiocy was he drawn to me? Was it that I was the only one who listened to his dreams of intellectual friendship and intellectual community? But then, on the other hand, I am the one who so singularly destroyed any hopes he had for intellectual friendship and intellectual community, W. says. In the end, our friendship is founded upon the utter impossibility of our achieving anything at all.
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