Pity Comes From Above

“God, you’re pathetic, Jacob.” Not a scream, not hatred — pity, and it “went deeper into Jacob than any scream could have.” A scream would have meant Simon was still burning, still his. Pity comes from above: for the first time in his life, Jacob Voss is being looked down on, and the one doing it is the man who was lying at his feet two minutes earlier. The floor did not move — the support slid out from under him.

Power over another person rests on his reaction: on fear, desire, resentment — on anything at all that is directed at you (see “The Dry Well”). Pity is the only feeling that does not ask, does not fear and does not wait: it looks at a person as an object, not as a source. That is why, for someone who controls, it is harder to bear than rage. Note the other side as well: Simon’s “height” is not a victory but the height of numbness. He looks down from above because he himself is no longer inside. Jacob does not know this; he knows only that he has been let go.