An Obstacle, A Doorway

Is he, in the end a tortured man?, W. wonders. Is he a man of anxiety? No, not really. He's amused, despite everything, by my antics. He amuses himself by his antics when he's with me.

Then am I the obstacle to his seriousness, to his true anguish? But W. wonders whether I am  not the source of his desire to be seriousness, of his desire to be anguished. Perhaps, in the end, he can reach a conception of his seriousness, his anguish, only through a negation of my unseriousnessness, and my lack of anxiety, and, by the same token, by the negation of his unseriousnessness, and his lack of anxiety when he's with me?

In that way, I am both his obstacle and his doorway.