05

- "It isn't just Wally. It could be a girl, for goodness' sake. I mean if he were a girl, he'd have been painting scenery in some stock company all summer. Or bicycled through Wales. Or taken an apartment in New York and worked for a magazine or an advertising company. It's everybody, i mean. Everything everybody does is so -i don't know- not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless and sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you're conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different way...I'm just sick of ego, ego, ego. My own and everybody else's. I'm sick of everybody that wants to get somewhere, do something distinguished and all, be somebody interesting. It's disgusting -it is, it is. I don't care what anybody says."

- "You sure you're just not afraid of competing? I don't know much about it, but i'd lay odds a good psychoanalyst -i mean a really competent one- would probably take that statement."

- "I'm not afraid to compete. It's just the opposite. Don't you see that? I'm afraid i will compete, that's what scares me. That's why i quit the theatre department. Just because i'm so Horribly conditioned to accept everybody else's values, and just because i like applause and people to rave about me, doesn't make it right. I'm ashamed of it. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody. I'm sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of a splash."

Artificio

El joven estaba sincera, pero apaciblemente enamorado. Se encantaba con la radiante belleza de su comprometida, con su salud, gracia y destreza en los juegos, y con el tímido interés que comenzaba a demostrar por los libros e ideas que él le inculcaba. Ella era recta, leal y valiente, tenía sentido del humor (principalmente comprobado por las risas que él mismo le provocaba al bromear); y, él sospechaba, que en lo profundo de su inocente y curiosa alma, existía un brillo conmovedor que sería dichoso de descubrir.

Pero luego de terminado el análisis, volvió desalentado al pensamiento de que toda su sinceridad e inocencia eran un producto artificial. La naturaleza humana en bruto no es franca ni inocente; las torceduras y la desconfianza son instintivas. Entonces se sintió oprimido por esta creación de pureza ficticia, tan astutamente manufacturada por una conspiración de madres, tías, abuelas y ancestros de rancia época; porque estaba supuesto que eso era lo que a él correspondía, en orden a que tal vez ejerciera un caballerezco placer al destruir el artificio como si se tratara de una figura de nieve.