The Driving Force. Michel Tremblay

a burn that never heals, and over the years I realized that it had become my motor. I’d never be able to forgive you for committing that act, and as long as forgiveness was impossible, I’d have a reason to write. I wanted every play I wrote, every bit of my work, every successful production to be a blow to you, as painful, as brutal as the one you dealt me before my career had even begun. You wanted to crush me in the bud, you failed, and now I was going to try to crush you, slowly but surely, bit by bit, success after success after success! I had my first taste of revenge ten years ago, do you remember? No, even if your brain was still working you wouldn’t remember, because you were so caught up in your little triumph, so intoxicated by your fifteen minutes of fame that you didn’t notice a thing. There was a TV show back then where five nights in a row, they’d invite a celebrity to come meet people from his past—relatives, teachers, classmates … When my turn came, when they invited me, I saw an opportunity to stage a double-revenge, and I succeeded.