“If she should say: ‘That is not what I meant, at all.’ What would it mean to you?”
“It would mean I was a Fool. It would mean I was ridiculous.”
“And why is that bad?”
Emil Hering looked incredulously at the older man, who looked inscrutably back.
“Well,” he struggled to explain, as if to a baby or an alien, “if I was a fool, and looked ridiculous, then she would laugh at me, and everyone else would laugh at me.”
“If she were to laugh at you, and everyone else were to laugh at you, why would that be bad? What would that mean to you?”
Emil Hering could not believe his ears. It seemed so simple and obvious. But Janosch A. Prufrock was waiting for an answer.
“Well,” he struggled harder, “it would mean I would be ostracized. I would lose all respect in my community Vineta, and I will be alone and looked down upon as an idiot.”
It felt dangerous to say it out loud. And it felt liberatory to discover it for himself. And of its truth he was in no doubt.
“Indulge me,” said Janosch A. Prufrock, “for I am old and foolish myself. It may seem obvious to you, but if you were to lose all respect in Vineta, and are looked down upon and are alone, what would that mean? Why would it be bad?”
“Because I cannot survive alone. My father is gone. My mother was never here. I am struggling to run the pension. I will be destitute, broken, and completely a failure.”
Incredibly, Janosch A. Prufrock went on, “And if you are indeed completely a failure, what would that mean to you?”
Emil Hering looked at him with incredulous eyes, “If I were completely a failure, then it would mean it would have been better if I’d never been born.”
“Ah,” said Janosch A. Prufrock softly, “failure is so unbearable, and success so essential, that literally birth and death and worth ride upon it.”
There was silence.
Neither man said anything for a moment. Though the older man was looking at the younger with love, recognition, and sympathy.
Then Janosch A. Prufrock said, “I myself, have not achieved the success I wanted. At my age, I am without companion, without a wife, without children, all of which I had wanted and still want. These have been the most important things to me, and I have not achieved any of them. Tell me, Emil, knowing my failures, do you look down upon me?”
Emil looked at him with wonder, “No, not at all.”
“Sincerely?”
“Sincerely!” Emil said with conviction and compassion.
“Are you saying, knowing I have failed my goals, you do not look down upon me?”
“I do not look down upon you at all. In fact, knowing… it makes you seem more human.”
“And yet, you would be supra-human, über-human, not content with being mere human and failing all the time.”
Emil saw what he was driving at, yet remained unconvinced.
Janosch A. Prufrock continued with a penetrating look, “Is there not something a little narcissistic in your insistence on being better than mere human? That failure is all right for me and others, but you can do better? Is there not something a little narcissistic in your high standards for yourself, which you are too kind and compassionate to apply to mere mortals like me and others?”
Emil felt discomfited, for fairly, he saw there was truth in what Janosch said. But his spirit rebelled nonetheless. For so what? He was capable of more, and he knew it. His father had insisted on it, and his mother… oh how he would have loved to make her proud of him!