Despair

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 Real Life (2020)

  Le simple poids de tout cela le force à faire une pause. Il appuie sa main contre le bâtiment en brique et vomit dans la ruelle. Deux garçons épais qui passent sur le trottoir s’arrêtent. « Ça va ? », demandent-ils de leur accent monotone du Midwest. « Ça va, mec ? » Wallace leur fait signe de circuler, et, ne demandant pas mieux, ils circulent, poursuivent leur soirée. Dans la rue, des gens interpellent leurs amis. D’autres font la queue au bar un peu plus loin, parfois avec une cigarette. Dehors, ça sent la pluie, le tabac, la bière et la pisse. Wallace s’essuie le coin de la bouche. Ses yeux le piquent. Une fois chez lui, il se plonge de nouveau dans la baignoire. Cette fois, l’eau n’est pas assez brûlante pour lui décoller la peau des os, mais elle est tout de même d’une tiédeur satisfaisante. Il appuie sa tête contre le mur carrelé pendant que le niveau monte. Ses entrailles en feu gargouillent. Les carreaux sont jaunes et la lumière trop vive est atténuée par un foulard bleu qu’il a drapé autour du néon du lavabo, au risque de mettre le feu. Mais il ne compte pas rester assez longtemps dans la baignoire pour ça. Que fait Miller en cet instant ? Il avait dit qu’il appellerait, mais il ne l’a pas fait. Il doit être chez lui, avec Yngve et Lukas, et Emma et Thom, ou Cole et Vincent ; peut-être même qu’ils sont tous ensemble. Wallace s’asperge le visage, se frotte les yeux, tente de s’arracher à son incertitude. Tout aurait pu se passer autrement s’il était resté dans le lit de Miller ce matin ; tout aurait pu tourner d’une autre façon. Mais ça ne sert à rien de se dire ça maintenant, de vouloir que les choses soient différentes. Quand donc une telle attitude a-t-elle fonctionné pour lui ? Quand donc a-t-il été dans son pouvoir de transformer le monde en fonction de ses désirs, ou de ses besoins ? Le monde avance sans lui, le laisse à la traîne ; Wallace n’a pas pour habitude de se satisfaire de l’état des choses. Il appuie sa tête contre le rebord de la baignoire, perdu dans la contemplation du tapis de bain marron et des cheveux pris dans le tissu. Au bout d’un moment, Wallace sort de l’eau et va se planter devant le miroir. Il touche son ventre qui pendouille presque jusqu’à ses cuisses, et passe son autre main sur son pénis flasque. Il s’empoigne et tente d’imaginer un scénario sexuel en regardant son propre corps. Il tente de se déclencher mentalement une érection, de trouver une étincelle ou une braise de désir enfouie bien profond dans sa conscience, mais rien ne vient, rien ne remue en lui.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “So long,” he said, and turned away. He wanted to leave before Jane precipitated a race riot. And he also realized that he had become the focus of two very different kinds of attention. The blacks now suspected him of being an ally—though not a friend, never a friend!—and the whites, particularly the neighborhood Italians, now knew that he could not be trusted. “Hurry home,” Jane called behind him, “hurry home! Is it true that they’ve got hotter blood than ours? Is her blood hotter than mine?” And laughter rang down the street behind this call, the suppressed, bawdy laughter of the Italians—for, after all, Vivaldo was one of them, and a male, and apparently, a gifted one—and the delighted, vindictive laughter of the Negroes. For a moment, behind him, they were almost united—but then, each, hearing the other’s laughter, choked their laughter off. The Italians heard the laughter of black men; the black men remembered that it was a black girl Vivaldo was screwing. He crossed the Avenue. He wanted to go home and he wanted to eat and he wanted to get drunk and, also, perhaps out of simple fury, he wanted to get laid—but he did not feel that anything good would happen to him tonight. And he felt that if he were a real writer, he would simply go home and work and throw everything else out of his mind, as Balzac had done and Proust and Joyce and James and Faulkner. But perhaps they had never held in their minds the nameless things he held in his. He felt a very peculiar, a deadly resignation: he knew that he would not go home until it was too late for him to go anywhere else, or until Ida answered the phone. Ida: and he felt an eerie premonition, as though he were old, walking years from now through familiar streets where no one knew or noticed him, thinking of his lost love, and wondering, Where is she now? Where is she now? He passed the movie theater and the tough boys and tough men who always stood outside it. It was ten o’clock. He turned west on Waverly Place and walked to a crowded bar where he could get a hamburger. He forced himself to have a hamburger and a beer before he called his apartment again. There was no answer. He went back to the bar and ordered a whiskey and realized that he was running out of money. If he were going to keep on drinking he would have to go to Benno’s, where he had a tab.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Then he took me to that place he has, way over on the East River. I kept wondering what I was going to do. I didn’t know what to do. I watched his face in the taxicab. He put his hand on my leg. And he tried to take my hand. But I couldn’t move. I kept thinking of what that black man had said to me, and his face when he said it, and I kept thinking of Rufus, and I kept thinking of you. It was like a merry-go-round, all these faces just kept going around in my mind. And a song kept going around in my head, Oh, Lord, is it I? And there he sat, next to me, puffing on his cigar. The funny thing was that I knew if I really started crying or pleading, he’d take me home. He can’t stand scenes. But I couldn’t even do that. And God knows I wanted to get home, I hoped you wouldn’t be here, so I could just crawl under the sheets and die. And, that way, when you came home, I could tell you everything before you came to bed, and—maybe—but, no, we were going to his place and I felt that I deserved it. I felt that I couldn’t fall much lower, I might as well go all the way and get it over with. And then we’d see, if there was anything left of me after that, we’d see.” She threw down about two fingers of whiskey and immediately poured herself another drink. “There’s always further to fall, always, always.” She moved from the table, holding her glass, and leaned against the icebox door. “And I did everything he wanted, I let him have his way. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me.” She gestured aimlessly with her glass, tried to drink from it, dropped it, and suddenly fell on her knees beside the table, her hands against her belly, weeping.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The old seemed reconciled to being there, to having no teeth, no hair, having no life. Some laughed together, the young, with dead eyes set in yellow faces, the slackness of their bodies making vivid the history of their degradation. They were the prey that was no longer hunted, though they were scarcely aware of this new condition and could not bear to leave the place where they had first been spoiled. And the hunters were there, far more assured and patient than the prey. In any of the world’s cities, on a winter night, a boy can be bought for the price of a beer and the promise of warm blankets. Rufus shivered, his hands in his pockets, looking through the window and wondering what to do. He thought of walking to Harlem but he was afraid of the police he would encounter in his passage through the city; and he did not see how he could face his parents or his sister. When he had last seen Ida, he had told her that he and Leona were about to make it to Mexico, where, he said, people would leave them alone. But no one had heard from him since then. Now a big, rough-looking man, well dressed, white, with black-and-gray hair, came out of the bar. He paused next to Rufus, looking up and down the street. Rufus did not move, though he wanted to; his mind began to race, painfully, and his empty stomach turned over. Once again, sweat broke out on his forehead. Something in him knew what was about to happen; something in him died in the freezing second before the man walked over to him and said: “It’s cold out here. Wouldn’t you like to come in and have a drink with me?” “I’d rather have a sandwich,” Rufus muttered, and thought You’ve really hit the bottom now. “Well, you can have a sandwich, too. There’s no law that says you can’t.” Rufus looked up and down the street, then looked into the man’s ice-cold, ice-white face. He reminded himself that he knew the score, he’d been around; neither was this the first time during his wanderings that he had consented to the bleakly physical exchange; and yet he felt that he would never be able to endure the touch of this man. They entered the bar and grill. “What kind of sandwich would you like?” “Corned beef,” Rufus whispered, “on rye.” They watched while the meat was hacked off, slammed on bread, and placed on the counter. The man paid and Rufus took his sandwich over to the bar. He felt that everyone in the place knew what was going on, knew that Rufus was peddling his ass. But nobody seemed to care. Nobody looked at them.

• From Push (1996)

  So back to the kitchen, git her pies, pile my own plate higher than the first time, know if I don't she just gonna make me go back again. I sit her pies down on the tray. Try not to look at her. Try to watch the white people on TV running on the beach sand. Try not to see grease running down Mama's chin, try not to see her grab whole ham hock wif her hand, try not to see myself doing the same thing. Eating, first 'cause she make me, beat me if I don't, then eating hoping pain in my neck back go away. I keep eating till the pain, the gray TV light, and Mama is a blur; and I just fall back on the couch so full it like I'm dyin' and I go to sleep, like I always do; almost. Almost, go to sleep; it's the pain in my shoulder keep me from totally conking out this time. I feel Mama's hand between my legs, moving up my thigh. Her hand stop, she getting ready to pinch me if I move. I just lay still still, keep my eyes close. I can tell Mama's other hand between her legs now 'cause the smell fill the room. Mama can't fit into bathtub no more. Go sleep, go sleep, go to sleep, I tells myself. Mama's hand creepy spider, up my legs, in my pussy. God please! Thank you god I say as I fall asleep. I'm twelve, no I was twelve, when that shit happen. I'm sixteen now. For past couple of weeks or so, ever since white bitch Lichenstein kick me outta school shit, 1983 and 1987, twelve years old and sixteen years old, first baby and this one coming, all been getting mixed up in my head. Mama jus' hit me wif fry in' pan? Baby, brand-new and wrapped in white blankets, or fat and dead-eyed lying in crib at my grandmother's house. Everything seem like clothes in washing machine at laundry mat—round 'n round, up 'n down. One minute Mama's foot smashing into side of my head, next I'm jumping over desk on Mrs Lichenstein's ass. But now, right now, I'm standing at the sink finishing the dishes. Mama sleep on couch. It's Friday, October 16, 1987. I got to get through Saturday and Sunday 'fore I get to Monday—the alternative. "School?" Mama say. "Go down to welfare, school can't help you none, now." Lady at Lane Bryant on one-two-five call these leggings YELLOW NEON. I'm wearing them and my X sweat shirt. Put some Vaseline on my face, nuffin' I can do about my hair till I git some money to git my braids put back in. I look at my poster of Farrakhan on the wall. Amen Allah! Radio clock glowing red 8:30 a.m. Time to go! Mama sleep. I be back before she wake up, back in time to clean up and fix breakfast for Mama.

• From Another Country (1962)

  4And the summer came, the New York summer, which is like no summer anywhere. The heat and the noise began their destruction of nerves and sanity and private lives and love affairs. The air was full of baseball scores and bad news and treacly songs; and the streets and the bars were full of hostile people, made more hostile by the heat. It was not possible in this city, as it had been for Eric in Paris, to take a long and peaceful walk at any hour of the day or night, dropping in for a drink at a bistro or flopping oneself down at a sidewalk café—the half-dozen grim parodies of sidewalk cafés to be found in New York were not made for flopping. It was a city without oases, run entirely, insofar, at least, as human perception could tell, for money; and its citizens seemed to have lost entirely any sense of their right to renew themselves. Whoever, in New York, attempted to cling to this right, lived in New York in exile—in exile from the life around him; and this, paradoxically, had the effect of placing him in perpetual danger of being forever banished from any real sense of himself. In the evenings, and on week ends, Vivaldo sat in his undershorts at the typewriter, his buttocks sticking to the chair, sweat rolling down his armpits and behind his ears and dripping into his eyes and the sheets of paper sticking to each other and to his fingers. The typewriter keys moved sluggishly, striking with a dull, wet sound—moved, in fact, rather the way his novel moved, lifelessly, pushed forward, inch by inch by recalcitrant inch, almost entirely by the will. He scarcely knew what his novel was about any longer, or why he had ever wished to write it, but he could not let it go. He could not let it go, nor could he close with it, for the price of that embrace was the loss of Ida’s, or so he feared. And this fear kept him suspended in a pestilential, dripping limbo.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Then there was silence, except for the voice of Bessie Smith. When my bed get empty, make me feel awful mean and blue, “Oh, sing it, Bessie,” Vivaldo muttered. My springs is getting rusty, sleeping single like I do. Rufus picked up his drink and finished it. “Did you ever have the feeling,” he asked, “that a woman was eating you up? I mean—no matter what she was like or what else she was doing—that that’s what she was really doing?” “Yes,” said Vivaldo. Rufus stood. He walked up and down. “She can’t help it. And you can’t help it. And there you are.” He paused. “Of course, with Leona and me—there was lots of other things, too——” Then there was a long silence. They listened to Bessie. “Have you ever wished you were queer?” Rufus asked, suddenly. Vivaldo smiled, looking into his glass. “I used to think maybe I was. Hell, I think I even wished I was.” He laughed. “But I’m not. So I’m stuck.” Rufus walked to Vivaldo’s window. “So you been all up and down that street, too,” he said. “We’ve all been up the same streets. There aren’t a hell of a lot of streets. Only, we’ve been taught to lie so much, about so many things, that we hardly ever know where we are.” Rufus said nothing. He walked up and down. Vivaldo said, “Maybe you should stay here, Rufus, for a couple of days, until you decide what you want to do.” “I don’t want to bug you, Vivaldo.” Vivaldo picked up Rufus’ empty glass and paused in the archway which led into his kitchen. “You can lie here in the mornings and look at my ceiling. It’s full of cracks, it makes all kinds of pictures. Maybe it’ll tell you things it hasn’t told me. I’ll fix us another drink.” Again he felt that he was smothering. “Thanks, Vivaldo.” Vivaldo dragged his ice out and poured two drinks. He came back into the room. “Here. To all the things we don’t know.” They drank. “You had me worried,” said Vivaldo. “I’m glad you’re back.” “I’m glad to see you,” said Rufus. “Your sister left me a phone number to call in case I saw you. It’s the lady who lives next door to you. I guess maybe I should call her now.” “No,” said Rufus, after a moment, “it’s too late. I’ll go on up there in the morning.” And this thought, the thought of seeing his parents and his sister in the morning, checked and chilled him. He sat down again in the easy chair and leaned back with his hands over his eyes. “Rufus,” Leona had said—time and again—“ain’t nothing wrong in being colored.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Eric smiled, grimly. “I’m not sure that there is a comparison, Vivaldo. Sex is too private. But if you went to bed with a guy just because he wanted you to, you wouldn’t have to take any responsibility for it; you wouldn’t be doing any of the work. He’d do all the work. And the idea of being passive is very attractive to many men, maybe to most men.” “It is?” He put his feet on the floor and took a long swallow of his drink. He looked over at Eric and sighed and smiled. “You make the whole deal sound pretty rough, old buddy.” “Well, that’s the way it looks from where I’m sitting.” Eric grimaced, threw back his head, and sipped his whiskey. “Maybe I’m crying because I wanted to believe that, somewhere, for some people, life and love are easier—than they are for me, than they are. Maybe it was easier to call myself a faggot and blame my sorrow on that.” Then silence filled the room, like a chill. Eric and Vivaldo. stared at each other with an oddly belligerent intensity. There was a great question in Eric’s eyes and Vivaldo turned away as though he were turning from a mirror and walked to the kitchen door. “You really think it makes no difference?” “I don’t know. Does the difference make any difference?” “Well,” said Vivaldo, tapping with his thumbnail against the hinges of the door, “I certainly think that the real ball game is between men and women. And it’s physically easier.” He looked quickly at Eric. “Isn’t it? And then,” he added, “there are children.” And he looked quickly at Eric again. Eric laughed. “I never heard of two cats who wanted to make it failing because they were the wrong size. Love always finds a way, dad. I don’t know anything about baseball, so I don’t know if life’s a baseball game or not. Maybe it is for you. It isn’t for me. And if it’s children you’re after, well, you can do that in five minutes and you haven’t got to love anybody to do it. If all the children who get here every year were brought here by love, wow! baby, what a bright world this would be!” And now Vivaldo felt, at the very bottom of his heart, a certain reluctant hatred rising, against which he struggled as he would have struggled against vomiting. “I can’t decide,” he said, “whether you want to make everybody as miserable as you are, or whether everybody is as miserable as you are.” “Well, don’t put it that way, baby. How happy are you? That’s got nothing to do with me, nothing to do with how I live, or what I think, or how miserable I am—how are you making it?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  And he watched that sullen, wiry body. He watched his face. The dome of his forehead seemed more remarkable than ever, and more pure, and his mouth seemed, at once, more cruel and more defenseless. This nakedness was the proof of Yves’ love and trust, and it was also the proof of Yves’ force. Yves, one day, would no longer need Eric as he needed Eric now. Now, Yves tilted back his head and finished his drink and turned to Eric with a smile. “You are drinking very slowly tonight. What is the matter?” “I’m getting old.” But he laughed and finished his drink and handed his glass to Yves. And, as Yves walked away from him, as he heard him in the kitchen, as he looked out over the yellow, winking lights along the shore, something opened in him, an unspeakable despair swept over him. Madame Belet had arrived and he heard Yves and the old peasant woman in the kitchen. Their voices were muted. On the day that Yves no longer needed him, Eric would drop back into chaos. He remembered that army of lonely men who had used him, who had wrestled with him, caressed him, and submitted to him, in a darkness deeper than the darkest night. It was not merely his body they had used, but something else; his infirmity had made him the receptacle of an anguish which he could scarcely believe was in the world. This anguish rendered him helpless, though it also lent him his weird, doomed grace and power, and it baffled him and set the dimensions of his trap. Perhaps he had sometimes dreamed of walking out of the drama in which he was entangled and playing some other role. But all the exits were barred—were barred by avid men; the role he played was necessary, and not only to himself. And he thought of these men, that ignorant army. They were husbands, they were fathers, gangsters, football players, rovers; and they were everywhere. Or they were, in any case, in all of the places he had been assured they could not be found and the need they brought to him was one they scarcely knew they had, which they spent their lives denying, which overtook and drugged them, making their limbs as heavy as those of sleepers or drowning bathers, and which could only be satisfied in the shameful, the punishing dark, and quickly, with flight and aversion as the issue of the act.

• From Real Life (2020)

  C’était comme ça. Quand il parlait, les gens se déconcentraient. Mais lorsqu’il les regarda de nouveau, Wallace constata que tous le dévisageaient avec tendresse, sidérés. « Oh », dit-il, un peu surpris. Miller se remit à manger ses nachos, mais Cole et Yngve plissèrent les yeux. Leurs ombres glissèrent sur la table. Comme s’ils étaient tout près. « Tu peux partir, tu sais », dit Vincent. Au son de sa voix, Wallace sentit sa nuque se réchauffer. « Si tu es malheureux, tu peux toujours t’en aller. Tu n’es pas obligé de rester. — Attends, deux secondes, lui dis pas un truc pareil, fit Cole. Si tu t’en vas, tu ne peux pas revenir sur ta décision. — Prendre des décisions sur lesquelles tu ne peux pas revenir, c’est ça, le monde réel, mon chou. — Non mais écoute-toi. T’es coach de vie, tout d’un coup ? Tu parles comme si tu faisais du télémarketing, sérieux. — Ce que tu peux être prétentieux, siffla Vincent. À un degré… terrifiant, parfois. » Cole se pencha pour regarder Wallace derrière Vincent. « Partir, ça ne t’aidera pas. Partir, c’est abandonner, un point c’est tout. — Tu ne peux pas décider ce qui est trop dur pour quelqu’un d’autre », s’emporta Vincent. Wallace posa sa paume sur le dos de Vincent. Celui-ci transpirait à travers sa chemise. Son corps vibrait comme une corde de guitare. « Hé, c’est bon », protesta Wallace, mais Vincent l’entendit à peine. « Lui mets pas la pression, dit-il à Cole. C’est quoi, une secte ? — Je me demande où est Lukas, fit Yngve assez fort pour se faire entendre de l’équipe de foot. Tu sais, toi, Cole ? — Avec Nate, je crois », répondit Cole, mais sans quitter Vincent des yeux. Yngve tressaillit. Lukas et Yngve étaient plus ou moins amoureux l’un de l’autre depuis la première année, mais Yngve était hétéro et finalement, Lukas en avait eu marre de soupirer après lui et s’était trouvé un mec qui étudiait à l’école vétérinaire. C’était un choix curieux, mais juste, se disait Wallace. Parfois, dans les soirées, quand Yngve était très saoul, il balançait des trucs comme : Coucher avec un véto, c’est pratiquement de la zoophilie. Sérieux, c’est même pas une vraie discipline. Lukas se contentait de hausser les épaules, sans relever. Yngve avait une copine, de toute façon. Wallace avait de la peine pour les deux garçons. Cela paraissait plus triste que le strict nécessaire. « Ils viennent ? — Pas s’ils sont malins », répliqua Vincent. La glace s’était transformée en bouillie blanchâtre. Les moucherons avaient quitté la vigne vierge du mur de soutènement pour attaquer résolument leurs plats dans la pénombre.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Yet, her face did not seem precisely faded, or, for that matter, old. It looked scoured, there was something invincibly impersonal in it. “I watched Richard this morning and I thought to myself, as I’ve thought before, how much responsibility I must take for who he is, for what he’s become.” She put the tip of her finger against her lips for a moment, and closed her eyes. “I score him, after all, for being second-rate, for not having any real passion, any real daring, any real thoughts of his own. But he never did, he hasn’t changed. I was delighted to give him my opinions; when I was with him, I had the daring and the passion. And he took them all, of course, how could he tell they weren’t his? And I was happy because I’d succeeded so brilliantly, I thought, in making him what I wanted him to be. And of course he can’t understand that it’s just that triumph which is intolerable now. I’ve made myself—less than I might have been—by leading him to water which he doesn’t know how to drink. It’s not for him. But it’s too late now.” She smiled. “He doesn’t have any real work to do, that’s his trouble, that’s the trouble with this whole unspeakable time and place. And I’m trapped. It doesn’t do any good to blame the people or the time—one is oneself all those people. We are the time.” “You think that there isn’t any hope for us?” “Hope?” The word seemed to bang from wall to wall. “Hope? No, I don’t think there’s any hope. We’re too empty here”—her eyes took in the Sunday crowd—“too empty—here.” She touched her heart. “This isn’t a country at all, it’s a collection of football players and Eagle Scouts. Cowards. We think we’re happy. We’re not. We’re doomed.” She looked at her watch. “I must get back.” She looked at him. “I only wanted to see you for a moment.” “What are you going to do?” “I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know when I do. Richard’s gone off, he may not be back for a couple of days. He wants to think, he says.” She sighed. “I don’t know.” She said, carefully, looking at the painting, “I imagine, for the sake of the children, he’ll decide that we should weather this, and stick together. I don’t know if I want that or not, I don’t know if I can bear it. But he won’t sue me for divorce, he hasn’t got the courage to name you as corespondent.” Each to the other’s astonishment, laughed. She looked at him again. “I can’t come to you,” she said. There was a silence. “No,” he said, “you can’t come to me.” “So it’s really—though I’ll see you again—good-bye.” “Yes,” he said. Then, “It had to come.” “I know.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Then they had the tunnel to themselves. The train rushed into the blackness with a phallic abandon, into the blackness which opened to receive it, opened, opened, the whole world shook with their coupling. Then, when it seemed that the roar and the movement would never cease, they came into the bright lights of 125th Street. The train gasped and moaned to a halt. He had thought that he would get off here, but he watched the people move toward the doors, watched the doors open, watched them leave. It was mainly black people who left. He had thought that he would get off here and go home; but he watched the girl who reminded him of his sister as she moved sullenly past white people and stood for a moment on the platform before walking toward the steps. Suddenly he knew that he was never going home any more. The train began to move, half-empty now; and with each stop it became lighter; soon the white people who were left looked at him oddly. He felt their stares but he felt far away from them. You took the best. So why not take the rest? He got off at the station named for the bridge built to honor the father of his country. And walked up the steps, into the streets, which were empty. Tall apartment buildings, lightless, loomed against the dark sky and seemed to be watching him, seemed to be pressing down on him. The bridge was nearly over his head, intolerably high; but he did not yet see the water. He felt it, he smelled it. He thought how he had never before understood how an animal could smell water. But it was over there, past the highway, where he could see the speeding cars. Then he stood on the bridge, looking over, looking down. Now the lights of the cars on the highway seemed to be writing an endless message, writing with awful speed in a fine, unreadable script. There were muted lights on the Jersey shore and here and there a neon flame advertising something somebody had for sale. He began to walk slowly to the center of the bridge, observing that, from this height, the city which had been so dark as he walked through it seemed to be on fire. He stood at the center of the bridge and it was freezing cold. He raised his eyes to heaven. He thought, You bastard, you motherfucking bastard. Ain’t I your baby, too? He began to cry. Something in Rufus which could not break shook him like a rag doll and splashed salt water all over his face and filled his throat and his nostrils with anguish. He knew the pain would never stop. He could never go down into the city again. He dropped his head as though someone had struck him and looked down at the water.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He did not want to go home and lie awake, waiting, or walk up and down, staring at his typewriter and staring at the walls. Later for all that, later. And beneath all this was the void where anguish lived and questions crouched, which referred only to Vivaldo and to no one else on earth. Down there, down there, lived the raw, unformed substance for the creation of Vivaldo, and only he, Vivaldo, alone, could master it. “Here’s how,” he said, and, unsteadily, they raised their glasses, and drank. “Thanks, Vivaldo,” said Lorenzo, and downed his whiskey in a single swallow. Vivaldo looked at the young face, which was damp and a little gray and would soon be damper and grayer. The veins in the nose were thickening and darkening; and, sometimes, as now, when Lorenzo looked straight before him, the eyes were more baffled and infinitely lonelier than those of a child. And at such moments Belle watched him, too, sympathy struggling to overcome the relentless vacuity in her face. And Harold seemed hooded then, like a great bird watching from a tree. “I’d love to go back to Spain,” said Lorenzo. “Do you know Spain?” asked Vivaldo. “He used to live there,” Belle said. “He always talks about Spain when we get high. We were supposed to go this summer.” She bent her head over her cocktail glass, disappearing for a moment, like some unprecedented turtle, behind the citadel of her hair. “Are we going to go, baby?” Lorenzo spread his hands, helplessly. “If we can get enough bread, we’ll go.” “It shouldn’t cost much to get to Spain,” Harold said. “And you can live there for almost nothing.” “It’s a wonderful place,” said Lorenzo. “I lived in Barcelona, on a fellowship, for over a year. And I traveled all over Spain. You know, I think they’re the grooviest people in the world, the sweetest cats I ever met, I met in Spain. That’s right. They’ll do anything for you, baby, lend you their shirts, tell you the time, show you the ropes—” “Lend you their sisters,” Harold laughed. “No, man, they love their sisters—” “But hate their mothers?” “No, man, they love them, too. Like they never heard of Freud.” Harold laughed. “They’ll take you home and feed you, they’ll share anything they’ve got with you and they’ll be hurt if you don’t take it.” “Mothers, sisters, or brothers,” Harold said. “Take them away. Open up that window and let that foul air out.” Lorenzo ignored this, looking around the table and nodding gravely. “That’s the truth, men, they’re great people.” “What about Franco?” Belle asked.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Pourquoi sortir dans le vaste monde et être comme ces poissons, comme les gens à la jetée, bouffis et commerciaux, avec si peu de désirs dans la vie, si ce n’est de voir le jour suivant, rien, si ce n’est la biologie pure de tout ça, la partie de la vie qui doit, par nécessité, résister à la mort, reliant les jours les uns après les autres, le temps ne signifiant rien, comme de l’eau ? Mais rester dans le programme, rester où il se trouve, reviendrait à accepter la futilité de ses efforts à se fondre sans se faire remarquer dans la masse de ceux qui l’entourent. Ce serait une vie passée à nager contre le courant, à tenter de remonter le fleuve de la cruauté des autres. Ça lui tape sur les nerfs de penser à ça, à la fermeture de cette partie de lui qui, à présent, palpite et se contorsionne tel un organe neuf qui perçoit les limites de la vie avec une terrible acuité. Rester là et souffrir, ou sortir et se noyer, voilà ses options. Il jette le poisson pané dans l’huile chaude qui se met à crépiter et à cracher des gouttelettes brûlantes. Il se brûle le bout du doigt, mais il l’a déjà engourdi. Il y a maintenant quatre tranches de poisson dans l’huile, toute de formes bizarres, vaguement humaines, comme des poupées d’argile. Miller est encore appuyé contre le bar. Il a mis un pull trop grand appartenant à Wallace, et un short, sans caleçon. Les habits de Wallace ont l’air enfantin sur le corps de Miller. Dans sa posture courbée, les mains croisées sous le menton, on voit bien les nœuds de sa colonne vertébrale. Wallace fait rapidement frire le poisson, retournant les morceaux à mesure qu’ils commencent à brunir, de sorte qu’ils soient croustillants, sans être desséchés ou brûlés. Ils mangent le poisson chaud, sortant juste de la friture, sur des serviettes en papier, croquant dans la chair blanche qui dégage de la vapeur à l’instant où elle touche l’air. Ils devraient attendre que ça refroidisse un peu, suggère Wallace, mais Miller se jette dessus sans façon, et mastique voracement. La graisse dégouline sur ses doigts et ses paumes. Wallace se les lèche pour se nettoyer, et à ce geste, Miller plante son regard sur lui, les yeux luisants de désir.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Enfin arrivé à son appartement, Wallace se rend compte qu’il a oublié son téléphone chez Miller. C’est une complication, mais ce n’est pas tragique. Demain, c’est lundi. Il verra Miller au bâtiment de sciences de la vie où il travaille. Il lui demandera de lui rapporter le téléphone, mardi ou un autre jour – un simple service, juste deux amis qui s’entraident. Propre, efficace. Rien à voir avec le fait d’ouvrir sa vie de force, d’éclater le passé comme un œuf. Wallace se fait couler un bain chaud et se plonge dans la baignoire profonde et blanche. Il peut à peine supporter la chaleur de l’eau bleuâtre qui lui arrive à la poitrine. La salle de bains est silencieuse, trop éclairée. S’il n’avait pas peur de rester dans le noir, il éteindrait, mais il redoute de s’endormir, et il n’aimerait pas ça, se noyer dans sa baignoire tout seul. Qui le retrouverait ? Un voisin ? Son propriétaire ? Quand l’odeur de son cadavre pourri filtrerait dans le couloir ? Quand quelqu’un s’en plaindrait ? Ou est-ce que Miller viendrait le chercher ? Wallace presse ses genoux l’un contre l’autre. La surface de l’eau se ride. Il s’enfonce davantage dans la chaleur cuisante. Sa peau devient couleur argile, rouge, elle le pique comme si l’eau lui causait une brûlure réelle. Il se savonne puis se rince ; l’eau devient grise de savon, de peau morte et de crasse. Il sent encore la fumée, du feu, et peut-être aussi de l’histoire de Miller, celle du temps où, alors qu’il fumait, il a cogné un garçon jusqu’au sang. Wallace plonge la tête dans l’eau, pour chasser la fumée de ses yeux. Il s’enfonce encore davantage, jusqu’au menton. Ses jambes flottent. Il se noierait en un instant. Vers le milieu de la matinée, Wallace est réveillé par des coups insistants à sa porte. Il s’extrait du lit où il somnole par intermittence depuis des heures, en pull vert et short en coton bleu. Malgré les persiennes baissées, il règne une clarté aveuglante dans l’appartement. Quand Wallace ouvre la porte, Miller se tient là, devant lui, les cheveux mouillés, sortant de la douche, la peau rouge et fraîche. Il a l’air comme écorché. « Tu es parti. Tu es parti. Après toutes ces conneries que j’ai dites, tu es parti. — Je sais. Je suis désolé. Je ne voulais pas déranger, c’est tout. — Je t’avais dit que tu ne dérangeais pas, je t’avais dit que je voulais que tu restes. Et tu es parti. Tu es parti , Wallace. » Wallace est déjà fatigué. Vont-ils vraiment se courir après comme ça ? D’un bout de la ville à l’autre, d’un lit à l’autre ?

• From The Decameron (1353)

  [Footnote 389: _i.e._ thy lover's.] [Footnote 390: _V'è donato_, _i.e._ young lovers look to receive gifts of their mistresses, whilst those of more mature age bestow them.] The disconsolate lady, seeing that the scholar's words tended to a cruel end, fell again to weeping and said, 'Harkye, since nothing I can say availeth to move thee to pity of me, let the love move thee, which thou bearest that lady whom thou hast found wiser than I and of whom thou sayst thou art beloved, and for the love of her pardon me and fetch me my clothes, so I may dress myself, and cause me descend hence.' Therewith the scholar began to laugh and seeing that tierce was now passed by a good hour, replied, 'Marry, I know not how to say thee nay, since thou conjurest me by such a lady; tell me where thy clothes are and I will go for them and help thee come down from up yonder.' The lady, believing this, was somewhat comforted and showed him where she had laid her clothes; whereupon he went forth of the tower and bidding his servant not depart thence, but abide near at hand and watch as most he might that none should enter there till such time as he should return, went off to his friend's house, where he dined at his ease and after, whenas himseemed time, betook himself to sleep; whilst the lady, left upon the tower, albeit some little heartened with fond hope, natheless beyond measure woebegone, sat up and creeping close to that part of the wall where there was a little shade, fell a-waiting, in company of very bitter thoughts. There she abode, now hoping and now despairing of the scholar's return with her clothes, and passing from one thought to another, she presently fell asleep, as one who was overcome of dolour and who had slept no whit the past night.

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

  … I shall do nothing good anymore, so why do anything! ” A catastrophic event for Nietzsche occurred in 1882: his passionate (though unconsummated) relationship with Lou Salomé, a lovely young Russian woman destined to infatuate other great men, among them Freud and Rainer Maria Rilke, came to an end. Nietzsche and his friend Paul Rée were both enamored of Lou Salomé, and the three made plans to live together in Paris. But the plan exploded in 1882, when Paul and Lou began a sexual relationship. Nietzsche was devastated and fell into great despair. Thus everything seemed to point to 1882 for my book: it was the nadir of Nietzsche’s life—the time when he most needed help. And it was also a heavily documented year for all my major characters: Nietzsche, Breuer, Freud (as a medical student), and Lou Salomé. As a reader I had lived in novels all my life, but I was a rank amateur at writing one. I pondered how to insert my imagined plot into 1882 without changing historical events. I could think of only one solution: to locate the entire novel in an imagined thirteenth month of that year. Perhaps I was overly cautious: I dared leap into fiction but played it safe by keeping one foot in reality, using historical characters and events rather than inventing fictional ones, even to the point of taking some of Nietzsche’s dialogue from his letters. I felt as though I were learning to ride a bicycle by using training wheels. Ultimately I envisioned a thought experiment that served as a keystone for the writing that would follow: imagine what might have happened if Friedrich Nietzsche had been placed in a moment of history when he could have invented a psychotherapy, derived from his own published writings, that could have been used to cure himself. What a pity, I often mused, that it was not possible to have situated the story ten years later and imagined a therapeutic encounter between two towering geniuses: Nietzsche, the philosopher, and Freud, the psychoanalyst. But history did not cooperate. In 1882, Freud was still a young medical student, and he would not become a renowned practitioner for another decade. By that time Nietzsche had suffered a catastrophic brain disease (most likely tertiary syphilis) that resulted in severe dementia for the rest of his life. If not Freud, then who else in 1882 might Nietzsche consult for help? My historical search yielded no names of practicing therapists in Vienna, or, for that matter, anywhere else in the world: the field of psychotherapy had yet to be born . As I’ve mentioned earlier, we often regard Freud as the father of psychoanalysis, but he was far more than that: he was the father of psychotherapy per se . Ultimately I decided to have Nietzsche consult with Dr. Josef Breuer, Freud’s teacher and mentor. Breuer, an outstanding physician, was often called upon to treat eminent figures, including royalty suffering from arcane medical conditions.

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

  CHAPTER THREE I WANT HER GONE I have a patient, Rose, who lately had been talking mostly about her relationship with her adolescent daughter, her only child. Rose was close to giving up on her daughter, who had enthusiasm only for alcohol, sex, and the company of other dissipated teenagers. In the past Rose had explored her own failings as a mother and wife, her many infidelities, her abandoning the family several years ago for another man and then returning a couple of years later when the affair had run its course. Rose had been a heavy smoker and had developed crippling advanced emphysema, but, even so, she had for the past several years tried hard to atone for her behavior and devoted herself anew to her daughter. Yet nothing worked. I strongly advocated family therapy, but the daughter refused, and now Rose had reached her breaking point: every coughing fit and every visit to her pulmonary doctor reminded her that her days were limited. She wanted only relief: “I want her gone,” she told me. She was counting the days until her daughter would graduate from high school and leave home—for college, a job, anything. She no longer cared which path her daughter would take. Over and again she whispered to herself and to me: “I want her gone.” I do all I can in my practice to bring families together, to heal rifts between siblings and between children and parents. But I had grown fatigued in my work with Rose and lost all hope for this family. In past sessions I had tried to anticipate her future if she cut her daughter off. Would she not feel guilty and lonely? But that was all to no avail, and now time was running out: I knew that Rose did not have long to live. After referring her daughter to an excellent therapist, I now attended only to Rose and felt entirely on her side. More than once she said, “Three more months till she graduates from high school. And then she is out. I want her gone. I want her gone.” I began to hope she would get her wish. As I took my bicycle ride later that day, I silently repeated Rose’s words—“I want her gone. I want her gone”—and before long I was thinking of my mother, seeing the world through her eyes, perhaps for the very first time. I imagined her thinking and saying similar words about me. And now that I thought about it, I recalled no maternal dirges when I finally and permanently left home for medical school in Boston. I recalled the farewell scene: my mother on the front step of the house waving goodbye as I drove away in my fully packed Chevrolet, and then, when I vanished from view, stepping inside. I imagine her closing the front door and exhaling deeply.

• From Another Country (1962)

  It made him remember days and nights, days and nights, when he had been inside, on the stand or in the crowd, sharp, beloved, making it with any chick he wanted, making it to parties and getting high and getting drunk and fooling around with the musicians, who were his friends, who respected him. Then, going home to his own pad, locking his door and taking off his shoes, maybe making himself a drink, maybe listening to some records, stretching out on the bed, maybe calling up some girl. And changing his underwear and his socks and his shirt, shaving, and taking a shower, and making it to Harlem to the barber shop, then seeing his mother and his father and teasing his sister, Ida, and eating: spareribs or pork chops or chicken or greens or cornbread or yams or biscuits. For a moment he thought he would faint with hunger and he moved to a wall of the building and leaned there. His forehead was freezing with sweat. He thought: this is got to stop, Rufus. This shit is got to stop. Then, in weariness and recklessness, seeing no one on the streets and hoping that no one would come through the doors, leaning with one hand against the wall he sent his urine splashing against the stone-cold pavement, watching the faint steam rise. He remembered Leona. Or a sudden, cold, familiar sickness filled him and he knew he was remembering Leona. And he began to walk, very slowly now, away from the music, with his hands in his pockets and his head down. He no longer felt the cold.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He thought of his friends—what friends? He was not sure that he had ever really been friends with Vivaldo or Richard or Cass; and Rufus was dead. He was not certain who, long, long after the event, had sent him the news—he had the feeling that it had to be Cass. It could scarcely have been Vivaldo, who was made too uneasy by what he knew of Eric’s relation to Rufus—knew without being willing to admit that he knew; and it would certainly not have been Richard. No one, in any case, had written very often; he had not really wanted to know what was happening among the people he had fled; and he felt that they had always protected themselves against any knowledge of what was happening in him. No, Rufus had been his only friend among them. Rufus had made him suffer, but Rufus had dared to know him. And when Eric’s pain had faded, and Rufus was far away, Eric remembered only the joy that they had sometimes shared, and the timbre of Rufus’ voice, his half-beat, loping, cocky walk, his smile, the way he held a cigarette, the way he threw back his head when he laughed. And there was something in Yves which reminded him of Rufus —something in his trusting smile and his brave, tough vulnerability. It was a Thursday when the news came. It was pouring down rain, all of Paris was wavering and gray. He had no money at all that day, was waiting for a check which was mysteriously entangled in one of the bureaucratic webs of the French cinema industry. He and Yves had just divided the last of their cigarettes and Yves had gone off to try and borrow money from an Egyptian banker who had once been fond of him. Eric had then lived on the Rue de la Montagne Ste. Geneviève, and he labored up this hill, in the flood, bareheaded, with water dripping down his nose and eyelashes and behind his ears and down his back and soaking through his trench-coat pocket, where he had unwisely placed the cigarettes. He could practically feel them disintegrating in the moist, unclean darkness of his pocket, not at all protected by his slippery hand. He was in a kind of numb despair and intended simply to get home and take off his clothes and stay in bed until help came; help would probably be Yves, with the money for sandwiches; it would be just enough help to enable them to get through yet another ghastly day. He traversed the great courtyard and started up the steps of his building; and behind him, near the porte-cochère, the bell of the concierge’s loge sounded, and she called his name. He went back, hoping that she was not going to ask him about his rent. She stood in her door, with a letter in her hand. “This just came,” she said. “I thought it might be important.” “Thank you,” he said.