Killing Commendatore

by Haruki Murakami

“Sometimes I think I’m empty,” he confessed. The smile still lingered on his lips. “Empty?” “Hollow inside. I know it sounds arrogant, but I’ve always operated on the assumption that I was a lot brighter and more capable than other people. More perceptive and discerning, with greater powers of judgment. Physically stronger, too. I figured I could succeed at whatever I turned my mind to. And I did. Put my hands on whatever I wanted to possess. Being locked up in Tokyo prison was a clear setback, of course, but I considered that an exception to the rule. When I was young, I saw no limits to what I could achieve. I thought I could attain a state close to perfection. Climb and climb until I reached a height where I could gaze down on everyone else. But when I passed fifty, I looked at myself in the mirror and discovered nothing but emptiness. A zero. What T. S. Eliot called a ‘straw man.’” I couldn’t think of anything to say. “My whole life may have been a mistake up till now,” Menshiki went on. “I feel that way sometimes. That I took a wrong turn somewhere. That nothing I’ve done has any real meaning. That’s why I told you I often find myself envying you.” “Envying what, for example?” “You have the strength to wish for what you cannot have. While I have only wished for those things I can possess.”