"Look at me in another light," Hugo went on. "I've tried to give you an inkling of it. You were the first who saw what I could do—glimpsed a fraction of it, rather—and into whose face did not come fear, loathing, even hate. Try to live with a sense of that. I can remember almost back to the cradle that same thing. First it was envy and jealousy. Then, as I grew stronger, it was fear, alarm, and the thing that comes from fear—hatred. That is another and perhaps a greater obstacle. If I found something to do, the whole universe would be against me. These little people! Can you imagine what it is to be me and to look at people? A crowd at a ball game? A parade? Can you?"
"Great God," the scientist breathed.
"When I see them for what they are, and when they exert the tremendous bulk of their united detestation and denial against me, when I feel rage rising inside myself—can you conceive—?"
"That's enough. I don't want to try to think. Not of that. I—"
"Shall I walk to my grave afraid that I shall let go of myself, searching everywhere for something to absorb my energy? Shall I?"
"No."
The professor spoke with a firm concentration. Hugo arrested himself. "Then what?"
"Did it ever dawn on you that you had missed your purpose entirely?"
The words were like cold water to Hugo. He pulled himself together with a physical effort and replied: "You mean—that I have not guessed it so far?"
"Precisely."