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MAN WITH THE FLOWER IN HIS MOUTH
mysterious disease. There it is—empty, indifferent, waiting for somebody—anybody at all—to come and sit down in it. (A pause.) What were we saying?—Oh, yes. I remember. The pleasures we take in imagination—how do you suppose I came to think of a chair in one of those waiting-rooms in a doctor's office, where the patients sit waiting for their turn?
THE CUSTOMER: Yes—in fact—
MAN WITH THE FLOWER: You don't understand?—Neither do I. (A pause.) But the fact is that certain mental associations—oh! between things worlds apart—are so peculiar to each of us, and they are determined by considerations, experiences, habits of mind, so individual that people would never understand one another unless they avoided them when they talked. Nothing more illogical, sometimes, than these associations. (A pause.) But the relation, perhaps, may be this—funny, eh? Do you suppose those chairs get any pleasure out of imagining who the patient is to be who will next sit down in them, waiting for his turn to see the doctor?—what disease he will have?—where he will go?—what he will do after he has been examined? . . . No pleasure at all! And so it is with me. . . . No pleasure at all! So many patients come, and they are there, poor chairs, to be sat on! . . . Well—my job in life is something like theirs. Now this thing, and now that, occupies me. This moment it happens to be you, and . . . pleasure?—Believe me, I find no pleasure at all in thinking of the train you lost—of the family you have in the country—all the annoyances I can imagine you have.
THE CUSTOMER: There are a lot of them, I can tell you!
MAN WITH THE FLOWER: Well, you ought to thank God that you've nothing worse than annoyances!—(A pause.) Some of us, you know, are worse off than that! (A pause.) I'm telling you that I need to attach myself in my imagination to the lives other people lead. But—in my peculiar way—without pleasure—without any real interest, even—in such a way, in fact—yes, just so—in such a way, precisely, as to sense the annoyances they encounter. . . . In such a way as to be able to understand how stupid and silly life is, so that no one, really, ought to care a snap about being rid of the thing! (With sullen rage.) And that’s a good deal to prove, you know. It takes
