“Do it?” Absolutely terrified! Emmanuel grinned with satisfaction. He released him. “Why, do you play an instrument?”
“No ... no....” What a fool! But why should he understand?
“Oh, you compose....”
Idiot!
“I don’t have to compose! I don’t have to play!” Snarling: “I said I could do it. You don’t have to know a note to do it.... It’s just got to be in you....” His hands dropped. A silly smile came into his face. What’s the use? “I guess I can’t explain. I don’t know myself exactly what I mean. Take the sky, for instance. It’s like a banner. That’s it, a torn banner. Well, I could do that, too! Not paint it, or write about it, though. Something else....”
The other had left him. Emmanuel looked after the hurrying man and he knew that an empty papier-mâché figure was going there, a papier-mâché figure made of flesh, curiously, and that terror was dogging the steps of that figure. Let him run! Let him think that he, Emmanuel Wolkowitz, is a lunatic! Let him run. Now, now he was not afraid of the street. He turned and shouted into it:
“I won’t be a doctor!”
He shook his fist into the face of the houses:
“I won’t be a doctor!”
Blood rushed to his face. He coughed. Perspiration stood on his forehead. He felt tired, spent. How would he ever get home? The Subway.... He turned into the station. But the music, although that had been blocks beyond, kept on following him. He muttered.