Well, then, in your waking life as in your dreams, weren’t you running away? That doesn’t sound like someone numb to his guilt.
You can have such moments but they’re not characteristic, they’re incidental to the predominant state of mind. Remnants of whatever humanity I may have once had.
I see.
Because the truth is, I just shrug and soldier on. As kind as I am, as well-meaning and helpful as I try to be, I have no feelings finally, for good or ill. In the depths of my being, no matter what happens, I am left cold, impenetrable to remorse, to grief, to happiness, though I can pretend well enough even to the point of fooling myself. I am trying to say I am finally, terribly, unfeeling. My soul resides in a still, deep, beautiful, emotionless, calm, cold pond of silence. But I am not fooled. A killer is what I am. and to top things off I am incapable of punishing myself, taking my own life in despair of the wreck I’ve made of other people’s lives, helpless infants or women I love. And that’s what Martha’s large husband the opera singer failed to understand when he condemned me, perhaps in the hope that I would see the light and off myself. [thinking] Of course I would never do that.
[Andrew’s Brain, Doctorow, E. L.]
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