W. is in a questioning mood. - 'Would you call yourself a moral man?', he asks. 'Would you call yourself a man of honour?' And then, 'Do other people look up to you? Are others moved by you, inspired by you?' And then, 'Do you think you've touched other people's lives - in a good way? Have your students changed the way they live because of you?' And then, 'Do you think you deserve the title, lecturer? Do you think you stand in the tradition of other great lecturers in the past?

More questions. - 'What do you think you've imparted to your students? What do you think they've taken from you?' And then, 'What does teaching mean to you?', he asks me. 'What is your method of teaching? Do you think they've learned from your example?' And then, 'Do you regard yourself as an inspiring presence, or an inhibiting presence? Have you been an open road, or a living obstacle? Have you pointed beyond yourself like a seer, like a prophet, or have you only ever pointed to yourself as a living warning?'

'Do you teach by example?', W. says. 'Do you tell your students about your life, about the way you've sought to exemplify the philosophical ideal?' He tells his students about my life, he says. He uses me as an example. Of the vices of thought. Of thought's compromise and destruction. Lars is where philosophy crashed and burned, he tells them. Lars is where philosophy shot itself in the head.