The melancholic punishes what he has lost in effigy, yet it is his own self which has become this effigy, W. says, paraphrasing a famous psychoanalyst. Their own self – because the melancholic identifies completely with what they have lost. They punish it because they were once dependent upon it; they remain in grief because they have entombed its effigy inside themselves, until their lives, their very existence, are indistinguishable from this secret tomb.
I cannot live. I cannot exist: so the melancholic. While I live, there is no hope: so the one who cannot leave behind his grief. In W.'s case, it's different he says. – 'While you live, there is no hope',W. says. No hope for him, at any rate. 'While you live, I can't exist'. I've entombed his despairs inside me, W. says. And his hopes, too. Haven't they suffocated to death in the airless room of my life?
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