How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #10
And the incorruptible Professor walked, too, averting his eyes from the odious multitude of mankind. He had no future. He disdained it. He was a force. His thoughts caressed the images of ruin and destruction […] Nobody looked at him. He passed on unsuspected and deadly, like a pest in the street full of men. (13.56)
In the closing lines of The Secret Agent, Conrad shows the tensions that make the Professor feel like garbage when he's walking through the street. On the one hand, we hear the guy's got no future. On the other hand, he's supposed to be a "force." The final line tells us that he's deadly, but then it compares him to a pest in a street full of men. One last time, Conrad reveals to us the unavoidable contradiction that'll always torture a man as proud as the Professor. He hates other people and thinks he's greater than them, but still feels small among them. They don't know anything about him. He becomes anonymous in a crowd, just squeezing the little ball in his pocket and thinking about blowing himself up. He'll never have the total confidence his bomb is supposed to give him, because in the end, he needs other people. He needs recognition from them, but he can't admit this need to himself because this would mean admitting to weakness. In a way, it's kind of like being permanently stuck in adolescence.