Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Confessions of the Flesh (The History of Sexuality, Vol. 4) (2021)

  6. Giving account. The imminence of famine and death, the need for a constant protection, and the concern with salvation dominate relations of the sheep and the shepherd; they don’t allow for the latter to ever be innocent of the bad things that happen to them; the least of his faults—negligence, avidity, egoism—risks leading them to their perdition: “If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die.”60 A fault the shepherd would immediately pay for himself, for if the flock is lost, it is he himself who will lose; and he will go hungry in his turn if he reduces it to famine: “the shepherds have become stupid…therefore they have not prospered and all their flock is scattered.”61 But he will also have to report his failings to the one who handed over his animals for him to lead. Ambivalence of pastoral power: it is total, it has to oversee everything down to details; the shepherd takes responsibility for everything having to do with the flock, his power is undivided in its exercise, its only limit and its only law being the well-being of the animals themselves. But the time comes when the shepherd must report everything. The pastorate is a power that is born in the morning and dies with the evening; a “transit” power not only by its object, but also by the form according to which it is delegated and given back. The shepherd receives the flock only to return it. Even if he is king, he has charge of it only because he was chosen: “You took me from the middle of the mountains, you called me to be the shepherd of men, you entrusted me with the scepter of justice.”62 He will be asked for an accounting of his faults and if he has lost the flock, he will be punished. Yahweh will ask: “Where then is the flock you were entrusted with, the sheep that were our pride?”63 And seeing that the shepherds have failed, he will tell them: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done.”64 The shepherd’s power is caught in a long network of responsibilities where the faults are tied both to immediate sanctions and deferred punishments; he is subjected to a perpetual “accounting”—counting of the animals in his care and given back, a toting up of the living and the dead, a reckoning of mistakes, poor decisions, and instances of negligence.

• From Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike (2016)

  ITO AND SUMERAGI were right on time. Monday morning, 9:00 a.m. sharp, they pulled up to the building, each wearing a dark suit and dark tie, each carrying a black briefcase. I thought of all the samurai movies I’d seen, all the books I’d read about ninjas. This was how it always looked before the ritual killing of the bad shogun. They walked straight through our lobby and into our conference room and sat down. Without a word of small talk we stacked our books in front of them. Sumeragi lit a cigarette, Ito uncapped a fountain pen. They commenced. Pecking at calculators, scratching at legal pads, drinking bottomless cups of coffee and green tea, they slowly peeled back the layers of our operation and peered inside. I walked in and out, every fifteen minutes or so, to ask if they needed anything. They never did. The bank auditor arrived soon after to collect all our cash receipts. A fifty-thousand-dollar check from United Sporting Goods really had been in the mail. We showed him: It was right on Carole Fields’s desk. This was the late check that set all the dominoes in motion. This, plus the normal day’s receipts, covered our shortfall. The bank auditor telephoned United Sporting Goods’ bank in Los Angeles and asked that their account be charged immediately, the funds transferred to our account at Bank of California. The Los Angeles bank said no. There were insufficient funds in the United Sporting Goods account. United Sporting Goods had also been playing the float. Already feeling a splitting headache coming on, I walked back into the conference room. I could smell it in the air. We’d reached that fateful moment. Leaning over the books, Ito realized what he was looking at and did a slow double-take. Exeter. Secret factory. Then I saw the realization dawn that he was the sucker who’d paid for it. He looked up at me and pushed his head forward on his neck, as if to say: Really? I nodded. And then... he smiled. It was only a half smile, a mohair sweater smile, but it meant everything. I gave him a weak half smile in return, and in that brief wordless exchange countless fates and futures were decided. PAST MIDNIGHT, ITO and Sumeragi were still there, still busy with their calculators and legal pads. When they finally left for the day they promised to return early the next morning. I drove home and found Penny waiting up. We sat in the dining room, talking. I gave her an update. We agreed that Nissho was done with their audit; they’d known everything they needed to know before lunch. What followed, and was yet to follow, was simply punishment. “Don’t let them push you around like this!” Penny said. “Are you kidding?” I said. “Right now they can push me around all they want. They’re my only hope.” “At least there are no more surprises,” she said. “Yes,” I said.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Rufus stuck out his tongue at Vivaldo, who was watching him with a faintly quizzical frown. Leona returned and set a fresh beer before Vivaldo and said, “You boys finish up now, I’m going to get dressed.” She gathered her clothes together and vanished into the bathroom. There was silence at the table for a moment. “She going to stay here with you?” Vivaldo asked. “I don’t know yet. Nothing’s been decided yet. But I think she wants to—” “Oh, that’s obvious. But isn’t this place a little small for two?” “Maybe we’ll find a bigger place. Anyway—you know—I’m not home a hell of a lot.” Vivaldo seemed to consider this. Then, “I hope you know what you’re doing, baby. I know it’s none of my business, but——” Rufus looked at him. “Don’t you like her?” “Sure, I like her. She’s a sweet girl.” He took a swallow of his beer. “The question is—how much do you like her?” “Can’t you tell?” And Rufus grinned. “Well, no, frankly—I can’t. I mean, sure you like her. But—oh, I don’t know.” There was silence again. Vivaldo dropped his eyes. “There’s nothing to worry about,” said Rufus. “I’m a big boy, you know.” Vivaldo raised his eyes and said, “It’s a pretty big world, too, baby. I hope you’ve thought of that.” “I’ve thought of that.” “Trouble is, I feel too paternal towards you, you son of a bitch.” “That’s the trouble with all you white bastards.” They encountered the big world when they went out into the Sunday streets. It stared unsympathetically out at them from the eyes of the passing people; and Rufus realized that he had not thought at all about this world and its power to hate and destroy. He had not thought at all about his future with Leona, for the reason that he had never considered that they had one. Yet, here she was, clearly intending to stay if he would have her. But the price was high: trouble with the landlord, with the neighbors, with all the adolescents in the Village and all those who descended during the week ends. And his family would have a fit. It didn’t matter so very much about his father and mother—their fit, having lasted a lifetime, was now not much more than reflex action. But he knew that Ida would instantly hate Leona. She had always expected a great deal from Rufus, and she was very race-conscious. She would say, You’d never even have looked at that girl, Rufus, if she’d been black. But you’ll pick up any white trash just because she’s white. What’s the matter—you ashamed of being black? Then, for the first time in his life, he wondered about that—or, rather, the question bumped against his mind for an instant and then speedily, apologetically, withdrew. He looked sideways at Leona. Now she was quite pretty.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “It’s kind of an interesting play,” Ellis said, cautiously, “and, from what I’ve heard of you, it ought to do very good things for you.” He turned back to Ida and Vivaldo. “Could I persuade you to have one drink with me in some secluded, air-conditioned bar? I really don’t think,” he said to Ida, “that you ought to make a habit of working in such infernos. You’ll end up dying of tuberculosis, like Spanish bullfighters, who are always either too hot or too cold.” “Oh, I guess we have time for one drink,” said Ida, looking doubtfully at Vivaldo, “what do you think, sweetie?” “It’s your night,” said Vivaldo. They started toward the door. “I’d like to mix maybe just a little bit of business in with this drink,” said Ellis. “I figured that,” said Vivaldo. “What an eager beaver you are.” “The secret,” said Ellis, “of my not inconsiderable success.” He turned to Ida. “I thought you told me yesterday that Dick Silenski and his wife would be here—?” Something happened, then, in her face and in his—in his, wry panic and regret, quickly covered; in hers, an outraged warning, quickly dissembled. They entered the wide, hot street. “Eric saw them,” she said, calmly, “something happened, they couldn’t come.” “The kids got into a fight in the park,” said Eric. “Some colored kids beat them up.” He heard Ida’s breathing change; he told himself he was a bastard. “I left them waiting for the doctor.” “You didn’t tell me that,” cried Vivaldo, “Jesus! I’d better call them up!” “That isn’t what you told me, either,” said Ida. “They weren’t very badly hurt,” said Eric, “just bloody noses. But they thought they’d better have a doctor look at them and of course they didn’t want to leave them alone.” “I’ll call them,” said Vivaldo, “as soon as we get to a bar.” “Yes, sweetie,” said Ida, “you’d better do that. What a terrible thing to have happen.” Vivaldo said nothing; kicked at a beer can on the sidewalk. They were walking west through a dark wilderness of tenements, of dirty children, of staring adolescents, and sweating grownups. “When you say colored boys,” Ida pursued, after a moment, “do you mean that was the reason for the fight?” “There didn’t,” said Eric, “seem to be any other reason. They’d never seen the boys before.” “I imagine,” said Ida, “that it was in some kind of retaliation—for something some other boys had done to them.” “I guess that must be it,” said Eric.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Eric stood up, looking out over the sea, almost poised to run. Yves liked to hold his breath under water for as long as possible, a test of endurance which Eric found pointless and, in Yves’ case, frightening. Then Yves’ head appeared again, and his arm flashed. And, even from this distance, Eric could see that Yves was laughing —he had known that Eric would be watching from the garden. Yves began swimming toward the beach. Eric sat down. The kitten rushed over and rubbed itself against his legs. It was the end of May. They had been in this house for more than two months. Tomorrow they were leaving. Not for a long time, perhaps never again, would Eric sit in a garden watching Yves in the water. They would take the train for Paris in the morning and, after two days there, Yves would put Eric on the boat for New York. Eric was to get settled there and then Yves was to join him. Now that it had all been decided and there could be no turning back, Eric felt a sour and savage apprehension. He watched as Yves stepped out of the water. His brown hair was bleaching from the sun and glowed about his head; his long, wiry body was as brown as bread. He bent down to lift off the scarlet bikini. Then he pulled on an old pair of blue jeans which he had expropriated from Eric. They were somewhat too short for him, but no matter—Yves was not very fond of Americans, but he liked their clothes. He stalked up the slope, toward the house, the red cloth of the bikini dangling from one hand. Yves had never mentioned going to America and had never given Eric any reason to suppose that he nourished such a desire. The desire arrived, or was, in any case, stated, only when the possibility arose: for Eric had slowly graduated from near-starvation to dubbing French films to bit roles in some of the American films produced abroad. One of these bits had led to television work in England; and then a New York director had offered him one of the principal supporting parts in a Broadway play. This offer had presented Eric with the enormous question he had spent three years avoiding. To accept it was to bring his European sojourn to an end; not to accept it was to transform his sojourn into exile. He and Yves had been together for more than two years and, from the time of their meeting, his home had been with Yves. More precisely and literally, it was Yves who had come to live with him, but each was, for the other, the dwelling place that each had despaired of finding. Eric did not want to be separated from Yves.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  Though I was satisfied with the way I had handled this incident, I know I have more personal work to do in that area, and I would have been far more uncomfortable had I not liked Brenda so much, and known how hard it was for her to criticize me. I had no doubt, also, that I would have felt far more threatened had my patient been an angry male. I’ve always been uneasy in confrontation, personally and professionally, and have carefully avoided any administrative position that might require it—for example, a chairmanship, committee head, or deanship. Only once, a few years after I had finished my residency, did I agree to be interviewed for a chairmanship—at my alma mater, Johns Hopkins. Fortunately—for me and for them—they selected another candidate for the position. I’ve always told myself that avoiding administrative positions was a wise move because my real strength lay in clinical research, practice, and writing, but I have to admit now that my fear of conflicts, and my general shyness, played a significant role in it. My wife, knowing I prefer only small social events of four or, at the most, six people, finds it hilarious that I became an expert in group therapy. But, in fact, my experience in leading therapy groups turned out to be therapeutic, not only for my patients but for me as well: it greatly increased my comfort in group situations. And, for a long time, I have felt little anxiety in addressing large audiences. But then, such performances are always on my own terms: I want no part of a spontaneous confrontational public debate: I don’t think quickly in such situations. One of the advantages of old age is that audiences now treat me with great deference: it’s been years, decades, since a colleague or a questioner in the audience has verbally challenged me. I halt my bike ride for ten minutes to watch the Gunn High School tennis team practice, thinking back to my days on the Roosevelt High School tennis team. I played number six on the six-player team, but was a much better player than Nelson at the number-five slot. Whenever we played one another, however, he intimidated me with his aggressiveness and cursing, and, even more, by his halting play at crucial points and standing still in silent prayer for a few moments. The coach was unsympathetic and told me to “grow up and handle it.” I continue biking and think of the many attorneys and CEOs I’ve treated who thrive on conflict, and I marvel at their appetite for battle. I’ve never understood how they got to be that way, nor, of course, how I came to be so conflict-avoidant. I think of elementary school bullies who threatened to beat me up after school. I remember reading stories of kids whose fathers taught them how to box, and how I pined for such a father.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Nobody’s seen him,” Ida cried, “for nearly six weeks! Until last night! I know my brother, he doesn’t do things like this. He always come by the house, no matter where he’d been, or what was happening, just so we wouldn’t worry. He used to bring money and things—but even when he was broke, he come anyway. Don’t tell me he’s just sleeping it off somewhere. Six weeks is a long time.” She subsided a little, subsided to a venomous murmur. “And you know what happened—between him and that damn crazy little cracker bitch he got hung up with.” “All right,” Richard said, helplessly, after a considerable silence, “have it your own way.” Cass said, “But there’s no need to go rushing off in the rain right away. Rufus knows Vivaldo is going to be here. He may come by. I was hoping you would all stay for supper.” She smiled at Ida. “Won’t you, please? I’m sure you’ll feel better. It may all be cleared up by this evening.” Ida and Vivaldo stared at each other, having, it seemed, become allies in the course of the afternoon. “Well?” asked Vivaldo. “I don’t know. I’m so tired and evil I don’t seem to be able to think straight.” Richard looked as though he thoroughly agreed with this; and he said, “Look. You’ve been to the police. You’ve told everyone you could. You’ve checked the hospitals, and”—he looked at her questioningly—“the morgue”—and she nodded, not dropping her eyes. “Well. I don’t see any point in rushing out in this damn Sunday-afternoon rain, when you hardly even know where you’re going. And we all saw him last night. So we know he’s around. So why not relax for a couple of hours? Hell, in a couple of hours you may find out you haven’t got to go anywhere, he’ll turn up.” “Really,” said Cass, “there’s a very good chance he’ll turn up here today.” Ida looked at Cass. Then Cass realized that something in Ida was enjoying this—the attention, the power she held for this moment. This made Cass angry, but then she thought: Good. It means that whatever’s coming, she’ll be able to get through it. Without quite knowing it, from the moment Ida stepped through the door, she was preparing herself for the worst. “Well,” said Ida, looking at Vivaldo, “I asked Mama to call me here—just in case.” “Well, then,” said Cass, “it seems to me it’s settled.” She looked at the clock. “The boys should be home in about another hour. I think what I’ll do is fix us all a fresh drink.” Ida grinned. “That’s a very friendly idea.” She was terribly attractive when she grinned. Her face, then, made one think of a mischievous street boy. And at the same time there glowed in her eyes a marvelously feminine mockery. Vivaldo kept watching her, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  in an intimate relationship 5 ,” I would encourage you to set this book down and seek help from someone who can assist you in getting to safety. The National Domestic Violence Hotline, for instance, is a valuable resource in the US for anyone who may be in an abusive relationship. See the further reading and resources section at the end of the book for details of organizations in the US, UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Now is a good time to point out a very important distinction that not everyone recognizes. There is a difference between anger and aggression. Anger is a feeling state. It’s an emotion brought on by the belief that we are being treated unfairly or having our goals blocked. It’s exceedingly common, with most people saying they experience it a few times a day to a few times a week. 6 It’s different from the acts of harm that are sometimes associated with it. Those acts of harm reflect aggression, which is a behavior where a person intends to hurt a person verbally or physically. This distinction is really important, especially in terms of this book. The world is full of angry people who aren’t necessarily aggressive people. Anger can be expressed in near infinite ways and physical violence is a relatively rare consequence. People are far more likely to suffer other sorts of consequences such as feeling scared or sad after an angry outburst; they could get into a verbal altercation, damage property, drive dangerously, or use alcohol or other drugs. The angry people you interact with might not be abusive to you or anyone, but that doesn’t make interacting with them easy. They can still have a very toxic influence on your life, leaving you feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, anxious, or even angry yourself. Feeling Unprepared and Uncertain I am a psychology professor who has been studying anger and other emotions for more than 20 years. I have conducted research on healthy and unhealthy expressions of anger, taught courses on anger and other emotions, and early in my career I did clinical work with angry clients. I have also made a point of connecting with people via my research and social media to better understand

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  For this reason, our discussion of the nature of Rabbinic religious experience must be brief and limited. Yet it is an important point in the present work that there is, or should be, a congruence between the pattern of religion - how it works - and the religious experience which tends to characterize the life of its adherents. If an incongruence occurs, if the traditional pattern is not responsive to new religious needs, attitudes and feelings, there is a religious crisis. This will be seen in detail when we come to IV Ezra. It has been a common view among Christian scholars that there is such an incongruence in Judaism generally and in Rabbinic Judaism in particular. God, it has been said, became very remote in the period after the return from Babylon. He was no longer spoken of familiarly, but only by circumlo- cutions; and angels were necessary as intermediaries. 2 Yet Judaism possessed no means of access to the remote God save obedience to the Torah, which is manifestly insufficient and inadequate. This situation led to a religion. of anxiety on the one hand (could one do enough works to earn favour with the distant God?) and smug self-reliance on the other hand (some could). 3 This estimate of Jewish religious experience -anxiety coupled with 1 In addition to the works which are discussed below, see Biichler, Types, pp. 6<)ff., on 'the religious emotions of the Jew'. 2 A familiar statement of the view is that ofR. Bultmann,Jesusand the Word, pp. 138f. Bultmann was aware of the strong tradition in Judaism of the presence of God (p. 140), but seems to have thought that that tradition weakened in later Judaism. Cf. also Primitive Christianity, p. 6o: '[God] was no longer a vital factor in the present ... '; p. 61 : the idea of God's transcendence meant that 'God was no longer bound to his people'. 3 Bultmann, Primitive Christianity, pp. 70£., relying on Bousset, Religion des Judentums, pp. 392-4. 10] The nature of religious life and experience 213 arrogant self-righteousness - rests on three theories about Jewish theology, all wrong. They are the view that a man must do more good deeds than he commits transgressions, that God was viewed as inaccessible, and that the individual felt himself to be lost, having no access to the remote God. We have spent the bulk of the chapter thus far in an effort to show that the traditional view in Christian scholarship that Rabbinic soteriology consists of weighing deeds is wrong-it is not supported by the texts which are taken to support it and it is contradicted by another all-pervasive view. We should now point out how Bousset (and, following him, Bultmann and numerous other New Testament scholars) connected this view of Jewish soteriology with the conclusion that it led to a completely ina_dequate religious experience. Thus Bousset argued that despite what would appear to be the certainty of salvation implicit in Judaism, there was a deep un- certainty.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The yellow electric light, self-consciously indirect, would by now have been discovered to be useless and would have been turned off. The girl would have taken off her shoes and turned on her radio or her hi-fi set and would be lying on the bed. The gray light, coming in through the monk’s-cloth blinds, would, with the malice of the noncommittal, be examining every surface, corner, angle, of the unloved room. The music would not be loud. They would have poured drinks by now and the girl’s drink would be on the table. The boy’s would be between his hands. He would be sitting on the bed, turned a little away from the girl, staring at the floor. His cap would have been pushed further back. And the silence, beneath the music, would be tremendous with their fear. Presently, one of them would make a move to conquer this. If it were the girl, the movement would be sighing and halting—sighing because of need, halting because of hostility. If it were the boy, the movement would be harshly or softly brutal: he would lunge over the girl as though rape were in his mind, or he would try to arouse her lust by means of feathery kisses, meant to be burning, which he had seen in the movies. Friction and fantasy could not fail to produce a physiological heat and hardness; and this sheathed pressure between her thighs would be the girl’s signal to moan. She would toss her head a little and hold the boy more tightly and they would begin their descent into confusion. Off would come the cap—as the bed sighed and the gray light stared. Then his jacket would come off. His hands would push up the sweater and unlock the brassière. Perhaps both might wish to pause here and begin a discovery of each other, but neither would dare. She moaned and clung to darkness, he removed the sweater. He struggled unlovingly with her breasts; the sound of her gasps foreshadowed his failure. Then the record on the hi-fi came to an end, or, on the radio, a commercial replaced the love song. He pulled up her skirt. Then the half-naked girl, with a small, apologetic murmur, rose from the bed, switched off the machine. Standing in the center of the room, she might mock her nakedness with a small, cruel joke. Then she would vanish into the john. The boy would finish his drink and take off everything except his undershorts. When the girl reappeared, both would be ready.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Ensuite, tout le monde était sorti s’asseoir dans la piscine gonflable, l’eau déjà tiédie par le soleil, mais suffisamment fraîche et, de toute façon, c’était au caractère l’inédit de l’acte qu’ils prenaient tant plaisir, et ça ne comptait pas pour rien. Ils habitent à quelques minutes à pied de chez Wallace, et le saladier n’est pas chaud cette fois, mais un peu frais. Le ciel du début de soirée est pâle. Il est à peine plus de 18 h 30. Il est à l’heure. Il peut les voir par la fenêtre en arrivant, tous éclairés par les lumières jaunes de la cuisine, souriants, riant. Des guirlandes blanches ont été accrochées à la rampe. Il s’ancre intérieurement. Ça va aller. Tout va bien se passer. Il n’a que des amis ici. Il entrouvre la porte du bout du pied et passe la tête par l’embrasure. « Bonsoir, bonsoir ! » lance-t-il en entrant. « Wallace ! », fait un chœur de voix qui s’élèvent de la cuisine. Il retire ses chaussures sans se pencher, les laisse à la porte et traverse le courant d’air chaud pour rejoindre la cuisine, où sept ou huit personnes sont déjà rassemblées. Cole et Vincent nettoient des légumes racines dans la cuvette gris foncé de l’évier, se bousculant avec affection. Roman est assis par terre, il joue avec un petit lapin. Emma s’approche de Wallace avec un verre de vin et lui passe un bras autour du cou. Lukas et Yngve découpent du céleri et des carottes sur le plan de travail. « Oh, vous faites un ragoût de lapin ? » demande Wallace en posant son saladier dans un coin. « Ne fais pas des plaisanteries comme ça sur Lila », dit Lukas, qui pointe son couteau vers Wallace. Il plaisante, mais à peine, à entendre sa voix. « J’adore le ragoût de lapin, fait Yngve. J’adore, j’adore, j’adore. » Lukas lui coule un regard blessé et de léger dégoût, comme s’il venait d’essuyer une trahison totale. De l’autre côté de la cuisine, à côté de Cole et Vincent, il y a une femme qui pile de la glace. Elle est grande, solide, avec des épaules larges et un cou gracile. Elle porte un dos-nu, et Wallace aperçoit une constellation de taches de rousseur brun poussière sur ses omoplates. Elle respire la santé. Son rire est grave et un peu rauque. Elle se tourne vers Cole pour lui dire quelque chose ; elle est très jolie. Elle a les yeux bleu foncé. Emma lui chuchote à l’oreille, la voix pâteuse à cause du vin. « C’est Zoe. Yngve essaie de caser Miller. — Ah, il me semble que Cole m’en a touché un mot au tennis », dit Wallace, et il essaie de sourire, mais il a déjà mal aux joues et la soirée n’est même pas encore commencée. « Je crois qu’elle fait de l’escalade, un truc comme ça ? » Emma boit encore une longue gorgée de vin. Elle a les yeux rouges.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  CHAPTER TWELVE MARRYING MARILYN I n 1954 when we married, Marilyn was already a confirmed Francophile. Having spent her junior year in France, she dreamed of a honeymoon in Europe, whereas I, a provincial lad who had never left the northeastern United States, had zero interest in going abroad. But she was canny: “How about a honeymoon in France on a motorcycle?” She knew I was fascinated with motorcycles and motorbikes, and knew, also, that one could not rent such vehicles in the United States. “Here, look at this,” she said, and handed me an advertisement about renting a Vespa in Paris. So off we went to Paris, where I excitedly selected a large Vespa at a rental station a block from the Arc de Triomphe. Although I had never even touched, let alone driven, a Vespa, I needed to reassure the suspicious manager of the station that I was an experienced driver. I mounted the Vespa and, as nonchalantly as possible, asked him for the location of the starter and gas pedal. He looked seriously concerned as he showed me the small button starter and told me that turning the handlebars controlled the gas flow. “Oh,” I said, “it’s different in the US,” and, without another word, took off for a practice ride while Marilyn wisely waited for me at a nearby café. Alas, I was on a one-way street that immediately fed directly into the hectic ten-lane thoroughfare circling the Arc de Triomphe. That ninety-minute drive was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life: autos and taxis zoomed past on both sides of me, horns blaring, windows unrolled, shouts hurled, fists shaken. I understood no French, but had a strong feeling that the cacophonies of the phrases shouted at me were not words of welcome to France. I stalled perhaps thirty times in my heroic circumnavigation of the Arc de Triomphe, but an hour and a half later, when I ended up back at the café next to the rental stand to collect my wife, I knew how to drive a Vespa. T hree weeks earlier in Maryland, on June 27, 1954, we had been married, and our wedding luncheon was held at the Indian Spring Country Club owned by Marilyn’s wealthy uncle, Samuel Eig. Immediately afterward I set about raising money for our European vacation—my parents were supporting me and paying my medical school tuition, and there was no way I could ask them to pay for this trip. For the past couple of years, my cousin Jay and I had sold fireworks for the Fourth of July at a stand we had built (Jay was the one who had bet me thirty dollars that I would not marry Marilyn).

• From Another Country (1962)

  We never even saw them before! ” “Sometimes—sometimes the world is like that, Paul. You just have to watch out for people like that.” “Is it because they’re colored and we’re white? Is that why?” Again, Richard and Eric looked at each other. Richard swallowed. “The world is full of all kinds of people, and sometimes they do terrible things to each other, but—that’s not why.” “Some colored people are very nice,” said Eric, “and some are not so nice—like white people. Some are nice and some are terrible.” But he did not sound very convincing and he wished he had held his peace. “This kind of thing’s been happening more and more here lately,” Richard said, “and, frankly, I’m willing to cry Uncle and surrender the island back to the goddam Indians. I don’t think that they ever intended that we should be happy here.” He gave a small, dry laugh, and turned his attention to Paul again. “Would you recognize any of these boys if you saw them again?” “I think so,” Paul said. He caught his breath and dried his eyes. “I know I’d recognize one of them, the one I hit. When the blood came out of his nose and his mouth, it looked so— ugly —against his skin.” Richard watched him a moment. “Let’s go inside and clean up and see what’s happening to old Michael.” “Michael can’t fight,” Paul said, “you know? And kids are always going to be picking on him.” “Well, we’re going to have to do something about that. He’ll have to learn how to fight.” He walked to the door, with his arm on Paul’s shoulder. He turned to Eric. “Make yourself at home, will you? We’ll be back in a few minutes.” And he and Paul left the room. Eric listened to the voices of the children and their parents, racing, indistinct, bewildered. “All kids get into fights,” said Richard, “let’s not make a big thing out of it.” “They didn’t really get into a fight,” Cass said. “They were attacked . That’s not the same thing at all, it seems to me. ” “Cass, let’s not make it any worse than it is.” “I still think we ought to call the doctor; we don’t know anything about the human body, how do we know there isn’t something broken or bleeding inside? It happens all the time, people dropping dead two days after an accident.” “Okay, okay, stop being so hysterical. You want to scare them to death?” “I am not hysterical and you stop being the Rock of Gibraltar. I’m not part of your public, I know you!” “Now, what does that mean?” “Nothing. Nothing.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Do wonders for our bank account, too. Don’t you let this lousy ex-expatriate come here and turn your head.” He walked over to the bar and poured himself a drink. “Did you leave many broken hearts over there?” “They were very restrained about it. Those centuries of breeding mean something, you know.” “That’s what they kept telling me when I was over there. It didn’t seem to mean much, though, beyond poverty and corruption and disease. How did you find it?” “I had a ball. I loved it. Of course, I wasn’t in the Army—” “Did you like the French? I couldn’t stand them; I thought they were as ugly and as phony as they come.” “I didn’t feel that. They can be pretty damn exasperating—but, hell, I liked them.” “Well. Of course, you’re a far more patient sort than I’ve ever been.” He grinned. “How’s your French?” “Du trottoir—of the sidewalk. But fluent.” “You learn it in bed?” He blushed. Richard watched him and laughed. “Yes. As a matter of fact.” Richard carried his drink to the sofa and sat down. “I can see that traveling hasn’t improved your morals any. You going to be around awhile?” Eric sat down in the armchair across the room from Richard. “Well, I’ve got to be here at least until the play opens. But after that—who knows?” “Well,” said Richard, and raised his glass, “here’s hoping. May it run longer than Tobacco Road.” Eric shuddered. “Not with me in it, bud.” He drank, he lit a cigarette; a certain familiar fear and anger began to stir in him. “Tell me about yourself, bring me up to date.” But, as he said this, he realized that he did not care what Richard had been doing. He was merely being polite because Richard was married to Cass. He wondered if he had always felt this way. Perhaps he had never been able to admit it to himself. Perhaps Richard had changed—but did people change? He wondered what he would think of Richard if he were meeting him for the first time. Then he wondered what Yves would think of these people and what these people would think of Yves. “There isn’t much to tell. You know about the book—I’ll get a copy for you, a coming-home present—” “That should make you glad you’ve returned,” said Cass. Richard looked at her, smiling. “No sabotage, please.” He said to Eric, “Cass still likes to make fun of me.” Then, “There’s a new book coming, Hollywood may buy the first one, I’ve got a TV thing coming up.” “Anything for me in the TV bit?” “It’s cast. Sorry. We probably couldn’t have afforded you, anyway.” The doorbell rang. Cass went to answer it.

• From Real Life (2020)

  La pièce elle-même est vaste et blanche. Il y a des livres et des papiers un peu partout sur le bureau, mais disposés selon un ordre étudié. Simone est grande. Elle a le goût des lignes nettes. Avec son carré court stylé et ses lunettes surannées, elle ressemble à une bibliothécaire de dessin animé. Elle tire une chaise pour Wallace et s’assoit en face de lui, jambes croisées. « Alors, Wallace, dit-elle, écartant légèrement les bras. D’après ce que j’ai entendu dire, les temps sont durs. » Il prend son temps pour répondre à cette manœuvre d’ouverture. S’il s’empresse de confirmer, elle va la lui renvoyer en pleine figure. S’il minimise trop, elle va pointer son bluff, et ressortir les infos qu’elle aura eues par Dana, Katie et les autres, ou par ses collègues ou professeurs, une armée invisible d’espions qui observent ses moindres faits et gestes. Avec un regard de sympathie altière, elle attend. « On a connu des jours meilleurs », dit-il en souriant, tentant de se placer sur le même registre léger. — Raconte-moi. Je suis désolée d’avoir été absente si longtemps. » Où était-elle ? Copenhague, ou Londres. Elle a un appartement à Paris avec son mari, Jean-Michel, qui est américain, mais français de naissance. Pendant de longues périodes de l’année, Simone n’est pas dans la vie de Wallace. Elle voyage beaucoup, anime des séminaires et donne des conférences tant sur ses recherches – celles de leur labo – que sur la nature de la science. C’est un peu comme une évangéliste, en un sens, et Wallace n’a pas de mal à comprendre pourquoi. Elle a le don de vous donner l’impression que vous êtes le centre du monde, l’impression que vos inquiétudes, si triviales soient-elles, sont dignes de considération. Le problème, toutefois, c’est qu’elle accorde le même poids à vos défauts, si mineurs soient-ils. Sauf avec Dana, se dit-il, qui n’a que les bons côtés de l’empressement de Simone. « C’est juste un sacré bazar, je dirais. Mes expériences… — Oui, tes souches ont été contaminées. — Exact. Et j’ai perdu les data de cet été. — Ah, c’est vraiment dommage, dit-elle en fronçant les sourcils. Je suis vraiment désolée d’apprendre que tu as eu toutes ces difficultés. — C’est pas grave », fait-il par réflexe. Elle place ses mains sur ses genoux et hoche lentement la tête à plusieurs reprises. « J’ai reçu un mail de Dana, hier soir, et je dois dire que ça m’a fait froid dans le dos, Wallace. — Ah bon ? Quel genre de mail ? — Je t’en prie, Wallace. Ne fais pas semblant de ne pas savoir de quoi ça parlait. — Je vois. Je vois. OK. » Simone fait la grimace, serre les dents. Elle reprend : « Ce qui m’inquiète, c’est que vos conflits permanents créent un environnement toxique. — Je comprends pourquoi vous avez cette impression.

• From Another Country (1962)

  So they tried to keep their door open, but there were risks attached to this, particularly if Ida were home, lounging on the sofa in her brief blue playsuit or practicing arrangements with the help of the record player. The sound of Vivaldo’s typewriter, the sound of Ida’s voice, the sound of the record player, attracted the attention of people coming up and down the stairs and the glimpse the open door afforded of Ida inflamed the transient imagination. People used the open door as an incitement—to stop, to listen, to stare, to knock, pretending that a friend of theirs had once lived in this very apartment, and did they know whatever had become of good old Tom or Nancy or Joanna? Or inviting them to a party upstairs or down the street, or inviting themselves to a party at Vivaldo’s. Once, absolutely beside himself, Vivaldo had beaten from the landing to the streets a boy who stood in the hot shadow of the landing, his hands in his pockets and his eyes on Ida—or, rather, on the spot from which, with a furious cry and a curse, she had hastily removed herself. The boy had not taken his hands from his pockets, only kept up a small, ugly animal moaning; and fallen, when Vivaldo had pushed him through the street door, heavily, on one shoulder. The police came shortly afterward, their own combustible imaginations stiffening their ready civic pride. After that, they kept the doors not only closed but locked. Yet, the entire shapeless, unspeakable city seemed to be in the room with them, some summer nights. He worked, she worked, he paced the room, she paced. She wanted him to become a “great” writer, but, unless she was working, she was incapable of being left alone. If she was working, the sound of her voice, the sound of her music, menaced, and, most often, drowned out that other orchestra in his head. If she was not working, she poured him another beer, ruffling his hair; she observed that his cigarette had burned itself out in the ashtray and lit him a new one; or she read over his shoulder, which he could not bear—but it was easier to bear this than to hear himself accused of having no respect for her intelligence. On the evenings they were together in the house, he really could not work, for he could not move far enough away from her, he could not enter himself. But he tried not to resent this, for the evenings she was away were worse.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Sa raquette tremble un peu dans ses mains. Il consolide sa prise, remue les doigts. — C’est vrai. Ça fait un moment que ce n’est pas génial, pas parfait. Mais je ne savais pas qu’on était si mal en point. » Cole secoue la tête d’un air dégoûté et met une balle dans le bas du filet. « Tu sais », commence Wallace, même s’il n’a aucune idée d’où il va avec ces mots, conscient seulement que l’expression de Cole lui fait mal au ventre. « Je crois que c’est sans doute une bonne chose qu’il ait exprimé, euh, un désir ? Un besoin ? C’est sans doute bien qu’il en ait parlé. — Mais j’avais à peine dit non qu’il tourne le dos et s’inscrit sur une appli de rencontres ? À quoi ça sert de communiquer si on n’écoute pas ? — Oui, c’est vrai, tu as raison. Mais peut-être qu’il a fait ça parce qu’il a eu aussi l’impression de n’être pas entendu ? » Cole lève les yeux du filet et lui lance un regard froid. Sa bouche est un trait sévère. « Alors quoi, c’est ma faute ? — Non, Cole, j’ai pas dit ça. — Parce que ça serait dégueulasse de dire ça, Wallace. » Wallace tente de trouver une bulle intérieure de calme, un soupçon de paix. Il pousse un soupir. La sueur lui brûle le coin des yeux. « Cole, tout ce que je dis, c’est que Vincent aussi est un être humain. Et tu n’es pas le seul dans cette relation à avoir des sentiments. — Je ne suis pas prêt à prendre son parti ! — Je ne te demande pas de prendre son parti, ni de lui pardonner, ni rien de tel. Je dis seulement que peut-être que ça va encore, tous les deux. Peut-être que tout ce que ça montre, c’est que ça marche entre vous. » Wallace s’efforce de sourire malgré la tension dans sa mâchoire et sa nuque. S’il y parvient, alors peut-être que ce sera vrai qu’ils sont à l’abri, que les choses vont bien entre eux. S’il parvient à sourire, il arrivera peut-être à y croire, et Cole aussi. C’est tout ce qu’il veut, après tout. C’est tout ce qui compte ici, Wallace s’en rend compte. Les sentiments de Cole. « Je ne sais pas. » Ils vont se placer en fond de court et Cole décide d’attaquer par un service musclé qui atterrit sur la ligne de service. La balle rebondit bien haut, et Wallace réussit à la renvoyer avec une bonne profondeur et suffisamment d’effet. La balle trace une courbe agréable, un arc qui l’amène juste devant la ligne de service de Cole. C’est facile de faire des échanges de ce type, en mettant juste assez de force dans chaque coup pour passer le filet, mais pas suffisamment pour faire de vrais dégâts.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  Yet, in my senior year, I had been conducting a small bookie venture handling bets on baseball: I was giving 10–1 odds that any three selected players on a given day would not get six hits between them. The odds were in my favor. I had been doing famously well and always had money to buy gardenia corsages for Marilyn Koenick, my steady girlfriend. However, a few days before graduation I lost my bookie notebook. Where was it? I was in a frenzy and searched everywhere up to the very moment of graduation. Even when I heard my name called and started to stride across the stage, I trembled, wondering: Would I be honored as a sterling citizen of the Roosevelt High School 1949 class or expelled from the school for gambling? When I told Michael that story, he guffawed and muttered, “A shrink after my own heart.” A fter writing notes on our session, I change into casual clothes and tennis shoes and take my bike out of the garage. At eighty-four, tennis and jogging are long behind me, but almost every day I ride on a bike path near my home. I start by pedaling through a park full of strollers and Frisbees and children climbing ultramodern structures, and then cross a rude wooden bridge over Matadero Creek and climb a small hill that grows steeper every year. At the crest I relax as I begin the long downhill glide. I love coasting with the rush of warm air streaming in my face. Only at these moments can I begin to understand my Buddhist friends who speak of emptying the mind and luxuriating in the sensation of simply being. But the calm is always short-lived, and today, in the wings of my mind, I sense the rustling of a daydream readying to go onstage. It is a daydream that I’ve imagined scores, perhaps hundreds, of times over my long life. It had been dormant for several weeks, but Michael’s lament about the lack of mentors stirs it awake. A man, carrying a briefcase and dressed in a seersucker suit, straw hat, white shirt, and necktie, enters my father’s small, shoddy grocery store. I’m not in the scene: I see it all as if I’m hovering near the ceiling. I don’t recognize the visitor but I know that he is influential. Perhaps he is the principal of my elementary school. It is a hot, steamy Washington, DC, June day and he takes out his handkerchief to wipe his brow before turning to address my father. “I have some important things to discuss with you concerning your son, Irvin.” My father is startled and anxious; he has never before encountered such a thing. Never having assimilated into the American culture, my father and my mother were at ease only with kinsmen, other Jews who had emigrated with them from Russia.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He was in a section of warehouses. Very few people lived down here. By day, trucks choked the streets, laborers stood on these ghostly platforms, moving great weights, and cursing. As he had once; for a long time, he had been one of them. He had been proud of his skill and his muscles and happy to be accepted as a man among men. Only—it was they who saw something in him which they could not accept, which made them uneasy. Every once in a while, a man, lighting his cigarette, would look at him quizzically, with a little smile. The smile masked an unwilling, defensive hostility. They said he was a “bright kid,” that he would “go places”; and they made it clear that they expected him to go, to which places did not matter—he did not belong to them. But at the bottom of his mind the question of Rufus nagged and stung. There had been a few colored boys in his high school but they had mainly stayed together, as far as he remembered. He had known boys who got a bang out of going out and beating up niggers. It scarcely seemed possible—it scarcely, even, seemed fair—that colored boys who were beaten up in high school could grow up into colored men who wanted to beat up everyone in sight, including, or perhaps especially, people who had never, one way or another, given them a thought. He watched the light in Rufus’ window, the only light on down here. Then he remembered something that had happened to him a long time ago, two years or three. It was when he had been spending a lot of time in Harlem, running after the whores up there. One night, as a light rain fell, he was walking uptown on Seventh Avenue. He walked very briskly, for it was very late and this section of the Avenue was almost entirely deserted and he was afraid of being stopped by a prowl car. At 116th Street he stopped in a bar, deliberately choosing a bar he did not know. Since he did not know the bar he felt an unaccustomed uneasiness and wondered what the faces around him hid. Whatever it was, they hid it very well. They went on drinking and talking to each other and putting coins in the juke box. It certainly didn’t seem that his presence caused anyone to become wary, or to curb their tongues. Nevertheless, no one made any effort to talk to him and an almost imperceptible glaze came over their eyes whenever they looked in his direction. This glaze remained, even when they smiled. The barman, for example, smiled at something Vivaldo said and yet made it clear, as he pushed his drink across the bar, that the width of the bar was but a weak representation of the great gulf fixed between them.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  It would have been absolutely unthinkable for me, or, for that matter, for any of my close friends, to have decided to take what is now called a “gap” year, to join an organization like the Peace Corps (which did not yet exist), or volunteer for humanitarian work in other countries, or choose one of the many other options so commonplace in the world of my children and their peers. For all of us there was the ever-present pressure of the medical admission process. It never occurred to any of us to take any longer than necessary to reach medical school. But I felt an additional pressure: I needed to lock in my relationship with Marilyn. I needed to succeed, to show her I would have a solid career and would become a person of such consequence that she would be persuaded to marry me. She was half a year behind me, and her French teacher urged her to apply to Wellesley College, which immediately accepted her. In her senior year of high school, her sorority big sister advised her that she was too young to be permanently pinned down and she should, at least occasionally, go out with other guys. This did not sit well with me and I still remember the names of the two boys she dated. As soon as she left for Wellesley, I grew extremely anxious about losing her: I felt I couldn’t compete with the Ivy League guys she would be meeting. I wrote her constantly expressing my worry that I could not possibly be interesting enough for her, that she was meeting other men, that I might lose her. My whole life at that time was lived in the pre-med sciences, in which Marilyn took no interest whatsoever. I saved Marilyn’s letters, and a few years ago, Wellesley , the college magazine, published a number of them. D uring those years, I was so weighed down with anxiety and had such great difficulty sleeping that I should have seen a therapist, but it didn’t seem like an option then. However, if I were to have seen a therapist like me then, I imagine the dialogue would have gone something like this: D R. Y ALOM: You said on the phone your anxiety was almost unbearable. Tell me more about that. I RVIN: Look at my fingernails, bitten to the quick. I’m ashamed of them and I try to hide my nails when I’m with anyone: look at them. A vise-like pressure in my chest. My sleep is screwed up completely. I use Dexedrine and coffee to pull all-nighters to study for exams and now I can’t sleep without sleeping pills. D R. Y ALOM: What are you taking? I RVIN: Seconal, every night. D R. Y ALOM: Who prescribes it for you? I RVIN: I just snitch it from my folks. For as long as I can remember they’ve both popped a Seconal every single night. I’ve wondered if perhaps insomnia is genetic.