HE WANTED TO DO what older people did, but he did not want to be like them. He did not want to be like his father, who had no fun; or his brother, who kept to himself and grunted when thinking; or his parents’ male friends, who rose from chairs with difficulty; or priests, who had bad manners and stains on their clothing. His mother had pretty skin, enjoyed jokes, and was pleasant to his friends; some other mothers were even nicer than his mother: but mothers were women. What he wanted was to stay up late, go out alone, make money, and buy things. He knew that by getting older he would be able to do this; still, he didn’t want to go to kindergarten, because his mother would have to leave him there. The first day, the kindergarten class visited the park and sang “Frere Jacques,” which he liked. “After the summer,” his mother said, “when you go to the real school I’ll buy you a sailor suit.” She did, and also a pencil case containing three yellow pencils, a pencil sharpener, a protractor, a six-inch wooden ruler, and an eraser, one end of which was soft for pencil and the other hard for ink. He looked forward to the fifth grade, where he would wear a uniform of gray tunic with stiff collar, gray pants, and a hard gray cap with a shiny black peak. If he went to his brother’s high school he would learn Latin and Greek. “Latin is hard,” his brother said, “but nothing like Greek,” and his brother drew the Greek characters that meant “the sea, the sea.” Among his brother’s college books was The Theory of the Leisure Class in a small green edition with a figure of a naked woman carrying a torch stamped in gold on the spine. He kept it in his room; his brother didn’t miss it. Six months before starting college he had read the catalogue thoroughly and wanted to elect twice as many courses as allowed. By his second term he yearned to be in the army: there would be no homework, he would live outdoors, and he would get laid. After three days the army seemed dangerous and demeaning, and he held himself apart so it would not change him. For the first time in his life he wanted to be younger than he was, and he daydreamed of being wakened in the morning by his mother holding a glass of orange juice. At night his nonsexual dreams were of real, past, personal events. He told himself that if in the future he should ever be about to think that the army was not so bad he must remember what he thought now: that it is the worst time of his life (and he has not forgotten this). When he was discharged he wanted to finish college, get a job, and marry. When his marriage began to fail he thought that to be free of the hostile presence of his wife and able to take out other women openly and guiltlessly would make him happy. When he left home he lived in a small apartment in a poor neighborhood, pressed his clothes after cleaning them with spot remover, and cooked meals of cheap food. After his children were almost grown he fell in love with a young woman. Their initial passionate lovemaking is degenerating into importunity and accommodation. Although the relationship has lessened his self-regard, his potency, and the affection of his friends (whom she snubs) he dreads losing her. After they separate he will no longer wish to move into the future; he will try to pamper himself by searching among unsatisfied desires of his childhood and adolescence for things to spend money on: he will buy a powerful microscope, planning to see for the first time what magnified blood and sperm look like, but will lose the impulse because it will not seem to matter what they look like; and white bucks with red rubber soles, which will amuse his friends but which he will be embarrassed to wear among strangers. He will buy the complete works of Freud, thinking that he might read them one at a time, to the exclusion of other books, and write a response in the manner of Norman O. Brown. As his functions fail he will blame recent minor illnesses rather than age and claim that soon again he will be able to go out by himself, prepare bachelor meals for his friends, take care of his finances; when he explains this to his daughters they will become silent and he will have a restless night.