To be sure, he had had
a slight glimmering of the truth; he had realized in a sort of vague,
general way that he had not been treated fairly at home, but he had not
been able to provide a definite and final explanation, perhaps because
he had never considered it necessary. But his return home, the review
of the army of memories, had brought him a solution--the solution. And
he saw its ruthless logic.
He was what his parents had made him. Without being able to think it
out in scientific terms he was able to expound the why of like. It was
one of the inexorable rules of heredity. To his parents he owed
everything and nothing. He reflected on this paradox until it became
perfectly clear to him. They--his parents--had given him life, and
that was all. He owed them thanks for that, or he would have owed them
thanks if he considered his life to be worth anything. But he owed
them nothing because they had spoiled the life they had given him, had
spoiled it by depriving him of everything he had a right to expect from
them--love, sympathy, decent treatment. They had given him instead,
blows, kicks, curses, hatred. Hatred!
Yes, they had hated him; they had told him that; he was convinced of
it. The reason for their hatred had always been a mystery to him and,
for all he cared, would remain a mystery.
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