Yet, like many a person who resolves not to work to gain his living, Verloc in fact works quite hard. This resolution not to work so often conceals a deeper neurosis: a refusal of honesty, a desire to be free but without earning freedom. Such people have in fact to work hard; and they are never free because they are perpetually at the mercy of their nerves, since their activities are usually of a criminal nature – and they are anxious not to be found out and inconvenienced. They are quasi-psychopathologically obtuse at best. Verloc’s habits are indolent. He stays in bed until noon. He moves
...more
