Punishment

Haven't I told him about it before, my dreadful desire for punishment? It makes sense to him now, W. says. It's as clear as anything, my dreadful desire for punishment. It's not as if it stems from real guilt, W. says. The kind of guilt he suffers as a Catholic, he says.

W. constantly asks himself how he might become a better person. It's all his fault, he thinks; everything's his fault. But in my case … Nothing's my fault, that's what I think, isn't it? Whatever I do, whatever I've done, it's still not my fault.

Why then do I want to be punished?, W. muses. What's the reason? Precisely because I believe it isn't my fault, W.'s worked out, he says. Precisely because because I don't believe I'm in any way responsible …

It's all fate to me, isn't it?, W. says. It's impersonal. None of us can do anything, it's all over. And now I want to be punished, so I can feel the full injustice of it all. Now to be punished, and for something I didn't do, and for my very inability to do anything, that's it, isn't it? And for the inability of anyone to do anything, at the whole imposture. And to laugh and laugh as they smash my face in and simultaneously smash their own laughing faces …