His thin existence all acidified into rage.

We had hit the iceberg, and it was time to person the lifeboats.

I had never defrauded a man of a farthing, nor called him knave behind his back. But now the last rag that covered my nakedness had been torn from me. I was branded a blackleg, card-sharper, and murderer.

The U-agent will have few choices about how to lead his life, few opportunities to act on considerations of the kind of person he is, or wants to become. He will thus have little room for the things we associate with the very idea of 'leading a life'. These will all be submerged beneath the question of which causal levers are optimific.