This is a reflection on the effort to make narcissism (the most primitive psychic element of being) disappear, whereby, within an intimate performance in a bathroom, the artist himself doubles up and attacks himself. Him, whom he previously had loved so intensely, despite the others’ contempt, ends up breaking loose. He avoids this now separate being and tries to kill him in order to be admitted back into society. However, at the same time, he recognizes himself in that primary space where we fight for our own identity, which ends up either strengthened or dead.

“The man now sitting in front of Mr. Goliadkine was Mr. Goliadkine’s terror - in short, it was Mr. Goliadkine himself - not the Mr. Goliadkine who at that instant was sitting in his chair with an open mouth and his pen in mid air; it wasn’t he, who... - no, it was an other Mr. Goliadkine, someone completely other, who, at the same time, was nevertheless very much like the first...” (Fiodor Dostoïevski, “The double”)

The individual is well trained to flee from his other, to the point that he does not look into mirrors, for fear of recognizing himself as other. But paradoxically, his identity is constructed precisely by the reflections of these others.

The artist looks at himself. He is shaving in front of the mirror. His reflection has come to life, sitting behind him. The vision of the double generates in the artist feelings of extreme violence. Even before he notices his double for the first time, we can perceive something going on. Then, we he recognizes himself in the other man, a very distressing situation ensues. He is rigid and frightened, to the point of not being sure of his own existence.

But the real function of his double is to be different: “in all his gestures there was something that spoke of humiliation, of fear, of fright, to the point that at that instant he, and please allow us the following comparison, looked like a  man who, devoid of his own suit, wears that of another person.” And this man ends up behaving like a man embittered by the remorse that immediately makes him guilty for and in the face of the other. This instances the fight within himself. To vanquish the double is to vanquish oneself. The impotence of a fight without end fills him with desperation. He seeks refuge in water, which purifies him, until the other assumes him and welcomes him in, and they both embrace (under the shower).