It would be difficult to persuade me that the story of the Prodigal Son
is not the legend of a man who didn't want to be loved.  When he was a child,
everyone in the house loved him.  He grew up not knowing it could be any
other way and got used to their tenderness, when he was a child.

But as a boy he tried to lay aside these habits.  He wouldn't have been able
to say it, but when he spent the whole day roaming around outside and didn't
even want the dogs with him, it was because they too loved him; because in
their eyes he could see observation and sympathy, expectation, concern; because
in their presence too he couldn't do anything without giving pleasure or
pain.  But what he wanted in those days was that profound indifference of
heart which sometimes, early in the morning, in the fields, seized him with
such purity that he had to start running, in order to have no time or breath
to be more than a weightless moment in which the morning becomes conscious
of itself...

To take all this past upon himself once more, and this time really, was the
reason why, from the midst of his estrangement, he returned home.  We don't
know whether he stayed there; we only know that he came back.

Those who have told the story try at this point to remind us of the house
as it was then; there, only a short time has passed, a short period of counted
time, everyone in the house knows exactly how much.  The dogs have grown
old, but they are still alive.  It is reported that one of them let out a
howl.  All the daily tasks stop.  Faces appear in the window, faces that
have aged or grown up and touchingly resemble how they used to look.  And
in one old face, grown suddenly pale, recognition breaks through.  Recognistion?
 Is it really just recognition?  -- Forgiveness.  Forgiveness of what?  --
Love.  My God: it is love.

He, the one who was recognized, had no longer thought, preoccupied as he
was, that love could still exist.  It is easy to understand how, of everything
that happened then, only this has been handed down to us: his gesture, the
incredible gesture which had never been seen before, that gesture of supplication
with which he threw himself at their feet, imploring them not to love.  Dizzy
with fright, they made him stand up, embraced him.  They interpreted his
outburst in their own way, forgiving him.  It must have been an indescribable
relief for thim that, in spite of the desperate clarity of his posture, they
all misunderstood him.  He was probably able to stay.  For every day he recognized
more clearly that their love, of which they were so vain and to which they
secretly encouraged each other, had nothing to do with him.  He almost had
to smile at their exertions, and it was obvious how little they could have
him in mind.

-- The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge  (last essay)