Cruelty

In the end, I excel at only three things, W. says: smut, chimp noises and made-up German. That’s all my scholarship has amounted to.

And isn’t it the same with him? Ah, what does he really know? Of what is he really certain? Biblical Hebrew, of course…. The classical guitar…. The history of philosophy in the German tradition, in the French tradition…. Something of the Greeks.… But it’s nothing, nothing, W. says. He knows nothing at all.

If he’s cruel to me, it is with the same cruelty to which he subjects himself, W. says. If he's cruel, it's out of love, W. says. It is meant as a sign that he expects better. Would that he had a similar tutor! Would that he had someone to list his betrayals and half-measures!