"Yes, it is time for the denouncement. Tell me, you feel that now you
are through? You have fulfilled your function?"
"Yes. Yes."
"Now you will have but to lean back, as it were, so to speak, and see
me suffer?"
"<i>Yes.</i>"
"No. Can't do it, old man. Can't. <i>I</i> know. You're too human, too
like me. The one thing a man can't accept is a passive state, a state
of uselessness. Not if he can possibly avoid it. Something has to be
happening to him. He has to be happening to something. You didn't kill
me because then you would have nothing left to do. You'll never kill
me."
"Of course not!" Victor stormed. "Fundamental safety cut-off!"
"Rationalization. You don't <i>want</i> to kill me. And you can't stop
challenging me at every turn. That's your function."
"Stop talking and just think about your miserable life," Victor said
meanly. "Your friends won't grow and mature with you. You won't make
any new friends. You'll have me to constantly remind you of your
uselessness, your constant unrelenting sterility of purpose. How's that
for boredom, for passiveness?"
"That's what I'm trying to tell you," Manet said irritably, his social
manners rusty. "I won't be bored. You will see to that. It's your
purpose. You'll be a challenge, an obstacle, a source of triumph every
foot of the way. Don't you see? With you for an enemy, I don't need a
friend!"