Personal relationships had always felt to him like a spider’s web whose strands bound him more tightly the more he struggled. He had never known true love; he had married out of obligation. As soon as he decided never to have children, a child came to him and his wife. He was a man who lived in a world of dreams and fantasies, the sort of man most people despise. He had never found his place among other people. His life was one of isolation, of going against the current. He used to put all his hope in the future.
