Endnote 119: Mario the homodont
… also overshot the spot to include that Mario’s a homodont: all his teeth are bicuspids and identical, front and back, not unlike a porpoise; it’s a source of unending struggle for Ted Schacht, who tends to avoid Mario because whenever he’s around him he has to fight the urge to have him open up and submit to scrutiny, which Schacht can well imagine would hurt his feelings: nobody wants to be an object of clinical interest like that.
Context
The note pivots from taxonomy to ethics in one semicolon: Schacht avoiding Mario because he can't stop wanting to examine him. "[N]obody wants to be an object of clinical interest like that" is the theme's gaze-problem stated flat out — the same problem U.H.I.D. solves with linen — and the kindest character in the E.T.A. cast has to manage it by absence. (The leading ellipsis is the raw's own; the endnote begins mid-thought.)