Guilt

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 The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Whenever a step sounded on the landing, the two gatherings immediately became still. Visitors, wrapped in silence, confused before faces closed in uniform mourning, stuttered their condolences, shook countless hands, and disappeared. I pitied them and felt almost guilty to have participated in their discomfort without feeling more afflicted. My hand was shaken dozens and dozens of times before the hearse finally arrived. The undertakers entered, faceless and insignificant, and we all stood up. When they lifted the limp corpse, it dangled from their arms, and I left the room. Yes, in spite of everything, I admitted to myself, I was impressed. But why should I be present at such an affair? Barbarous, like all the rest of it! Outside, the luxurious hearse was waiting, all black and silver, surrounded by funerary lamps, drawn by horses caparisoned in black and with black plumes on their heads. This was indeed an expense, which the brothers must have agreed to share, but appearances have to be respected. People would not have understood, had the surviving Benillouche brothers made a mediocre funeral for their senior, their father. Neighbors and relatives began to cluster around the hearse in the shade, and soon a crowd had gathered. Windows along the street that had been closed for siesta were now flung open, and people leaned out to watch the show. Not knowing who I was, the people around me chatted pleasantly. The funeral had broken up their daily routine and they were, in spite of themselves, in a quietly pleasant mood. Everyone was silent when the coffin appeared; it had been carried with difficulty down the narrow stairwell and now made a hollow sound as they slid it into the hearse. We, the men, lined up behind the hearse, according to our ages, with the oldest standing at the head. So I found myself next to my cousin, Uncle Gagou’s son, who had exactly the same name as I. In the hullabaloo that had begun again, we were able to speak openly to each other. He immediately reproached me bitterly. Why hadn’t I come at once? Our widowed aunt had notified all the members of the family, individually and without delay. Uncle Joseph was entitled to all respect. (I was beginning to know this.) My cousin spoke with confidence, sure of his rights; it was also true that we had the same name, the same given and family name, both of us samples of the same job, and the copy could certainly criticize the original or vice versa, for I was deviating from the well-founded rules of religion, custom, and tradition. He was the real Alexandre Benillouche, dressed in black and deeply involved in his family’s grief for the loss of its head. The hearse began to move. Howling and shrieking suddenly broke loose from all the windows of the apartment we had just left.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 3: Further, he who avails himself of an indulgence granted him, avails himself of a favor received. But a man does not merit by receiving a favor. Therefore the marriage act is not meritorious. Objection 4: Further, merit like virtue, consists in difficulty. But the marriage act affords not difficulty but pleasure. Therefore it is not meritorious. Objection 5: Further, that which cannot be done without venial sin is never meritorious, for a man cannot both merit and demerit at the same time. Now there is always a venial sin in the marriage act, since even the first movement in such like pleasures is a venial sin. Therefore the aforesaid act cannot be meritorious. On the contrary, Every act whereby a precept is fulfilled is meritorious if it be done from charity. Now such is the marriage act, for it is said (1 Cor. 7:3): “Let the husband render the debt to his wife.” Therefore, etc. Further, every act of virtue is meritorious. Now the aforesaid act is an act of justice, for it is called the rendering of a debt. Therefore it is meritorious. I answer that, Since no act proceeding from a deliberate will is indifferent, as stated in the Second Book (Sent. ii, D, 40, Q[1], A[3]; [4922]FS, Q[18], A[9]), the marriage act is always either sinful or meritorious in one who is in a state of grace. For if the motive for the marriage act be a virtue, whether of justice that they may render the debt, or of religion, that they may beget children for the worship of God, it is meritorious. But if the motive be lust, yet not excluding the marriage blessings, namely that he would by no means be willing to go to another woman, it is a venial sin; while if he exclude the marriage blessings, so as to be disposed to act in like manner with any woman, it is a mortal sin. And nature cannot move without being either directed by reason, and thus it will be an act of virtue, or not so directed, and then it will be an act of lust. Reply to Objection 1: The root of merit, as regards the essential reward, is charity itself; but as regards an accidental reward, the reason for merit consists in the difficulty of an act; and thus the marriage act is not meritorious except in the first way. Reply to Objection 2: The difficulty required for merit of the accidental reward is a difficulty of labor, but the difficulty required for the essential reward is the difficulty of observing the mean, and this is the difficulty in the marriage act. Reply to Objection 3: First movements in so far as they are venial sins are movements of the appetite to some inordinate object of pleasure. This is not the case in the marriage act, and consequently the argument does not prove.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  How much would I have preferred a good thrashing! A spanking delivered with the hard and horny hand of my father, or even a whipping, with his belt, on the soles of my feet. I would then have howled, swallowed my tears for a good quarter of an hour, and been able to publicize my suffering; after which my conscience would have been appeased and I would have played out of doors until I had forgotten my crime. Instead, a vague anxiety already began to pervade me when my mother refused me the privilege, granted to me twice a week, of awaiting her return from the market at the opening of Tarfoune Street. As soon as we saw her, we always rushed toward her from there and seized her heavy basket that my sister and I would then drag as far as our kitchen. Seated side by side on the brick-red tiled floor that was never cold, we played a wonderful game of fishing in it, punctuating our fun with loud cries of joy. Mother always left us in peace, our excuse being that we put the vegetables away in the kitchen closet and the fruit in the room. We always put all the yellow lemons together, so vividly bright and rich in aroma that I never wearied of breathing their scent deep in my lungs, as if I wanted to absorb their contents through my sense of smell, and then the eggplants, dark purple with mysterious lighter spots that turned to red, the tender green artichokes that seemed to paraffin the whole mouth and to coat the palate with rubber, lastly the heavy watermelon that was so heavy we had to roll it along the floor to the room. Each time we discovered a little surprise, some peanut butter, a piece of halva, a sesame cake. But we always tasted everything: a fresh mouthful of fennel, a lick of sugar, a bite into a carrot. Mother knew our joy and didn’t constrain it with useless nagging. To prevent any damage was her only concern: “Be careful with the eggs! Don’t get all dirty from the fish!” On this particular morning that I remember so bitterly, she wouldn’t let us take hold of her basket. I knew the meaning of her tight lips. Her fine Berber face was drawn taut over the jaws and the hard peaks of her cheekbones.

• From The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

  As we later reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry, 81 percent of the patients diagnosed with BPD at Cambridge Hospital reported severe histories of child abuse and/or neglect; in the vast majority the abuse began before age seven.[4] This finding was particularly important because it suggested that the impact of abuse depends, at least in part, on the age at which it begins. Later research by Martin Teicher at McLean Hospital showed that different forms of abuse have different impacts on various brain areas at different stages of development.[5] Although numerous studies have since replicated our findings,[6] I still regularly get scientific papers to review that say things like “It has been hypothesized that borderline patients may have histories of childhood trauma.” When does a hypothesis become a scientifically established fact? Our study clearly supported the conclusions of John Bowlby. When children feel pervasively angry or guilty or are chronically frightened about being abandoned, they have come by such feelings honestly; that is because of experience. When, for example, children fear abandonment, it is not in counterreaction to their intrinsic homicidal urges; rather, it is more likely because they have been abandoned physically or psychologically, or have been repeatedly threatened with abandonment. When children are pervasively filled with rage, it is due to rejection or harsh treatment. When children experience intense inner conflict regarding their angry feelings, this is likely because expressing them may be forbidden or even dangerous. Bowlby noticed that when children must disown powerful experiences they have had, this creates serious problems, including “chronic distrust of other people, inhibition of curiosity, distrust of their own senses, and the tendency to find everything unreal.”[7] As we will see, this has important implications for treatment. Our study expanded our thinking beyond the impact of particular horrendous events, the focus of the PTSD diagnosis, to look at the long-term effects of brutalization and neglect in caregiving relationships. It also raised another critical question: What therapies are effective for people with a history of abuse, particularly those who feel chronically suicidal and deliberately hurt themselves?

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  THE PARTY ~ Our memories of things impose some order on the past and give it its meaning. As I grew older, it thus seemed to me that my whole life had been but a series of breaks and interruptions, each one in turn more serious and definitive. Still, I had long continued to hope that some harmony might be achieved, and had even thought that I might be able to impose on myself and my relationships with the outside world some kind of order, if only by using my own will power and my ability to choose. I thought I would end up as a member of the middle class, not so much because belonging to this class was a kind of ideal as because my education, the tastes that I was discovering, and my concern with the arts, in fact all my future position in life, were already forcing me into this position. Still, I continued not to like the middle class, though I was forced to admit that I really felt at ease only in its midst. They were the only people to read books, to understand my preoccupations, to enjoy and practice poetry and the arts. One day, however, I became brutally aware of the fact that I was not a member of the middle class and could never become one . All my childhood friends were now becoming tailor’s apprentices, their shoulders rounded by their work, their whole appearance weak and sickly in their black waistcoats; or else, grocery clerks, pale from working in the shade of the covered bazaars; or office workers who were already becoming flabby, with yellowish fat. We scarcely even greeted each other any longer; they were ashamed of their own condition and respectful towards me, and I was full of feelings of guilt, though God knows why. Only Levi, an orphan who was a baker’s assistant and rode a tricycle for the deliveries remained quite spontaneous in his manner and always shouted, the moment he spotted me in the street: “Shalom, Mordekhai!” Such a public utterance of my name that smacked of the ghetto displeased me considerably, but I was afraid of hurting his feelings if I asked him to be more discreet about it. So I suffered each time I saw him emerge on the horizon, dancing like a puppet on his wheel. As for the middle-class boys who were now my classmates, they had become my equals and my everyday companions. In spite of myself, I respected their new suits that were so elegantly cut, their high-quality school equipment, and their healthy appearance. I even envied them their being able to refer without any hesitation to their parents and their social background. I, on the contrary, always had to be careful and watch my step when it came to admitting anything about myself or my family.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether the demons will carry out the sentence of the Judge on the damned?Objection 1: It would seem that the demons will not carry out the sentence of the Judge on the damned after the day of judgment. For, according to the Apostle (1 Cor. 15:24): “He will then bring to naught [*Vulg.: ‘When He shall have brought to naught,’ etc.] all principality, and power, and virtue.” Therefore all supremacy will cease then. But the carrying out of the Judge’s sentence implies some kind of supremacy. Therefore after the judgment day the demons will not carry out the Judge’s sentence. Objection 2: Further, the demons sinned more grievously than men. Therefore it is not just that men should be tortured by demons. Objection 3: Further, just as the demons suggest evil things to men, so good angels suggest good things. Now it will not be the duty of the good angels to reward the good, but this will be done by God, immediately by Himself. Therefore neither will it be the duty of the demons to punish the wicked. On the contrary, Sinners have subjected themselves to the devil by sinning. Therefore it is just that they should be subjected to him in their punishments, and punished by him as it were. I answer that, The Master in the text of Sentent. iv, D, 47 mentions two opinions on this question, both of which seem consistent with Divine justice, because it is just for man to be subjected to the devil for having sinned, and yet it is unjust for the demon to be over him. Accordingly the opinion which holds that after the judgment day the demons will not be placed over men to punish them, regards the order of Divine justice on the part of the demons punishing; while the contrary opinion regards the order of Divine justice on the part of the men punished. Which of these opinions is nearer the truth we cannot know for certain. Yet I think it truer to say that just as, among the saved, order will be observed so that some will be enlightened and perfected by others (because all the orders of the heavenly hierarchies will continue for ever) [*Cf. [5110]FP, Q[108], AA[7],8], so, too, will order be observed in punishments, men being punished by demons, lest the Divine order, whereby the angels are placed between the human nature and the Divine, be entirely set aside. Wherefore just as the Divine illuminations are conveyed to men by the good angels, so too the demons execute the Divine justice on the wicked. Nor does this in any way diminish the punishment of the demons, since even in torturing others they are themselves tortured, because then the fellowship of the unhappy will not lessen but will increase unhappiness.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  But I have a rendezvous with Henry at six. We walk a bit together and then we separate, both angry, with barely any words. I see him walking aimlessly and desolately. I cross the street and walk into the Printemps. I go to the counter with necklaces and bracelets and earrings, which dazzle me always. I stand like a fascinated savage. Glitter. Amethyst. Turquoise. Shell pink. Irish green. I would like to be naked and cover myself with cold crystal jewelry. Jewelry and perfume. I see two very broad flat steel bracelets. Handcuffs. I am the slave of bracelets. They are soon clasped on my wrists. I pay. I buy rouge, powder, nail lacquer. I do not think of Eduardo. I go to the coiffeur, where I can sit still and frozen. I write with a wrist encircled in steel. Later, Henry asks questions. I refuse to answer. I resort to women’s tricks. I keep the secret of my faithfulness. We press each other’s arms as we walk through the streets of Paris. A dangerous hour. I have already experienced today the strange pleasure of hurting Eduardo. Now I want to stay with Henry and hurt Hugo. I can’t bear to be going home alone, while Henry goes to Clichy. I am tormented by the desire we couldn’t satisfy. It is he who is now afraid of my madness. Today Allendy drives his questions relentlessly. I cannot escape. When I try to change the subject, he answers me but returns to the subject I am eluding. He is confused by what I tell him about Eduardo, about wanting to be cruel to Hugo the same day, and about the bracelets. Henry is obviously the favored one just now. But since Allendy proceeds from the assumption that I love Eduardo, he is certain to get lost, although he does see quite clearly the struggle between my wanting to conquer and my wanting to be conquered. I sought domination in Henry, and he does dominate me sexually, but I was deceived by his writing and his enormous experience. Allendy did not understand the bracelets. I bought two of them, he says, in contradiction to my feeling of satisfaction at hurting Eduardo and Hugo. As soon as I achieve cruelty, I want to prostrate myself. One bracelet for Hugo and one for Eduardo. This, I do not believe. I chose the two bracelets with a feeling of absolute subjection to Henry and liberation from the tenderness which binds me to Hugo and Eduardo. When I showed them to Henry, I stretched out both my wrists as one does in being handcuffed. Allendy is probing the moment at the concert when I imagined him sad and troubled. What exactly did I imagine? Did he have financial worries, concern over his work, emotional troubles? “Emotional,” I said quickly. “What did you think of my wife?”

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I lied and lied more carefully, more calculatingly than June, with all the strength of my mind. I wish I could tell you how and why. . . . Anyway, I did it all without endangering our love: it was a battle of wits in which I have taken the utmost delight. And do you know what? Allendy has beaten us, Allendy has found the truth, he has analyzed all of it right, has detected the lies, has sailed (I won’t say blithely) through all my tortuousness, and finally proved today again the truth of those damned ‘fundamental patterns’ which explain the behavior of all human beings. I tell you this: I would never let June go to him, for June would simply cease to exist, since June is all ramifications of neuroses. It would be a crime to explain her away. . . . And tomorrow I go to Allendy and we start another drama, or I start another drama, with a lie or a phrase, a drama of another kind, the struggle to explain, which is in itself deeply dramatic (are not our talks about June sometimes as dramatic as the event we are discussing?). I find that I do not know what to believe, that I have not decided yet whether analysis simplifies and undramatizes our existence or whether it is the most subtle, the most insidious, the most magnificent way of making dramas more terrible, more maddening. . . . All I know is that drama is by no means dead in the so-called laboratory. This is as passionate a game as it has been for you to live with June. And then when you see the analyst himself caught in the currents, then you are ready to believe there is drama everywhere. . . . ” My letter to Henry reveals my lies to him, necessary lies, mostly lies meant to heighten my confidence. October I spend a night with my beloved. I ask only that he does not return to America with June, which reveals to him how much I care. And he makes me swear that whatever happens when June comes I must believe in him and in his love. It is a difficult thing for me to do, but Allendy has taught me to believe, so I promise. Then Henry asks, “If I had the means today and I asked you to come away with me for good, would you do it?” “Because of Hugo and June I would not, could not But if there were no June and no Hugo, I would go away with you, even if we had no means.” He is surprised. “Sometimes I wondered if it was a game for you.” But he sees my face and is moved to silence. A night of clear, calm talk, when sensuality is almost superfluous.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I am remembering this while Hugo is gardening. And to be with him now seems as if I were living in the state of being I was in at twenty. Is it his fault, this youthfulness of our life together? My God, can I ask about Hugo what Henry asks about June? He has filled her. Have I filled Hugo? People have said there is nothing in him but me. His great capacity for losing himself, for love. That touches me. Even last night he talked about his inability to mix with other people, saying that I was the only one he was close to, happy with. This morning in the garden he was in bliss. He wanted me there, near him. He has given me love. And what else? I love the past in him. But all the rest has seeped away. After what I revealed to Henry about my life, I was in despair. It was as if I were a criminal, had been in jail, and were at last free and willing to work honestly and hard. But as soon as people discover your past they will not give you work and expect you to act like a criminal again. I am finished with myself, with my sacrifices and my pity, with what chains me. I am going to make a new beginning. I want passion and pleasure and noise and drunkenness and all evil. But my past reveals itself inexorably, like a tattoo mark. I must build a new shell, wear new costumes. While I wait for Hugo in the car I write on a cigarette box (on the back of the Sultanes there is a good bit of rosy space). Hugo has found out that: I have not seen the gardener about the garden, the mason about the cracked pool, have not done my accounts, have missed my fitting for an evening dress, have broken all routine. One evening Natasha calls up. I am supposed to have spent the nights in her studio. And she asks me, “What have you been doing these last ten days?” I cannot answer her or Hugo will hear me. “Why does Natasha call you up?” he asks. Later, in bed. Hugo is reading. As I write, almost under his eyes, he cannot suppose that what I am writing is so treacherous. I am thinking the worst about him I have ever thought.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I needed but to cross the threshold of our flat to find again its ambivalent atmosphere so full of bitterness, of slight but constant hostility, of claims on my feelings, all justified up to a point; at once, I became grouchy, deprived of my gratitude, discouraged. On Friday nights, when dinner had been varied and plentiful, family life was like a cloudless sky. No sooner had the first star appeared than my parents entered upon their day of rest; they would then be in good spirits, ready for a pleasant chat of which I was often the subject: “Remember what you wrote us from the summer camp: ‘You must carry me up! You must!’“ The whole family would laugh and I would try to smile although the story had already been repeated a thousand times. I found it more painful to be reminded now of the nonsense I had written than of my childhood panic. I could spot in their insistence on this little story a reproach that was also a revenge, half-resentful and half-affectionate. In effect, they were saying: “Remember, once you were weak and helpless. You think you are strong now and can do without us. When you needed us, we protected you.” I could see their increasing bitterness and disapproval of the turn my life was taking. It was neither pride nor resentment that separated me from my parents, but a far more penetrating emotion, that of guilt. I had been tutoring other kids ever since my fourth year in high school, so I was almost completely independent — financially, at least. I never dreamed of reproaching my parents with failing to give me what they had not given me: they had never had anything to give. But they made me feel guilty for what I didn’t give to them. When we moved from our alley, we left our proper social and economic level. Even if people were poor in our new street, they dressed better and patronized more expensive stores. We now had to live above our means and to sacrifice necessities to appearances. As she had in the past, my mother continued to buy remnants and pieces of defective cloth in the covered bazaars; but now, in making our clothes, she had to sew the pieces together into something “stylish.” She also started taking cheap permanent waves which reddened her lovely black hair and, for some months, made her head resemble a hideous brown sheep’s head. I retained, consequently, a fixed horror of permanents. For the first time in his life, my father now bought a suit of overalls. We had gas and electricity; for her long-term Sabbath cooking, however, my mother reverted to charcoal which was cheaper. Our gas and electricity bills were indeed occasions for collective remorse: “Put out that light! Is it so hard to press a button?

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The raiders carried off all men indiscriminately, the old and the young, the healthy and the sick. A few young girls disappeared. The families of the hostages begged and prayed and wept. Something had to be done about those who were already in the camps. When they saw that no help would come from anywhere and that ostrich tactics led only to disaster, the leaders of the community got in touch with the Germans. Later, they were violently criticized for this; at the time, however, we heaved a sigh of relief. I have enough other reasons to feel strongly against our middle class and can dare to say this. The ghetto was there, easy to cut off and surround with a handful of men, and open to any attack. The Germans could kill, rape, and loot as they pleased. Those who protest today are the ones who found refuge in homes in the European quarters, but could one hope to hide the whole ghetto? The little hucksters, saddlers, tailors, bakers, and cobblers had no connections. Something had to be done. The Germans agreed to stop the raids and to allow us to organize a medical service that would exempt the sick and the aged from labor camps. In exchange, the leaders had to supply a given contingent of workers. At last we thought we would be able to leave our anguished seclusion. I must admit that, at the time, we found this arrangement preferable to the day-to-day terror of random police raids. What really convinced me was probably the fact that the medical commission declared me unsuitable for work. When I received my summons I went again to see my doctor. He certified that he had given me medical treatment for a lung infection. What with his certificate, the limited staff, the superficial character of mass examinations, and probably some implicit directives, I was hardly examined at all by a young doctor who was in a hurry and not very sure of himself. I was put into one of the already overstaffed offices of the new community organization. For once, I blessed my physical disability, which indeed I no longer felt. The graver dangers I was now exposed to even made my temperature subside. But I could not be satisfied with merely saving myself. As soon as I had done it, I was ashamed. Reports from the camps were very bad. As they had never had any experience of war, or of natural or historical disasters, my brethren — all city-dwellers, artisans, office-workers, salesmen, and petty traders, with a skin that was too white and flabby stomach muscles — lost all appearance of being human after only a few days of camp life. They neither washed nor shaved any more, were covered with lice, and just gave up, in spite of the efforts of the braver young men who tried to help them.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Whenever the students grumbled and my colleagues wisecracked about our food, I once more measured the distance that still separated me from them; what they despised gave me pleasure. My new bed also gave me as much joy as our diet, and I slept at home only when it was unavoidable, and chiefly because of the bedbugs. On the rare occasions when I did use my divan-bed, the starved bugs ravenously attacked me. I would wake up, after the first heavy sleep, with my neck itching like mad and my hands covered with heavy red swellings. No matter how heavy my eyes, I could not fall asleep again. My shoulders, armpits, ankles, and hands itched unbearably and I scratched myself desperately and had to bathe the irritated skin with vinegar. My battle against these dreadful insects would continue all night, while the room reeked with their sickly odor. Often a single massacre was not enough, and I would be attacked again and again. Sometimes, in the dark, I thought I could feel their horrible little legs crawling over my body. At once I would turn on the light and suddenly throw off the blankets and strip myself naked, only to find it had been a false alarm. But I would go ahead and make a new inspection of all my bedding and my clothing. In the middle of the night, with silence all around me and the electric light making my tired eyes smart, I worked furiously and methodically in an attempt to exterminate my enemy. At long last, I had to give it up and decided to spend all my nights in the high school dormitory, even when I had a twenty-four hour pass. My colleagues were surprised at this, for in their eyes a night away from the dormitory was a great relief. Actually, there was another reason that made it unpleasant for me to stay at home. The children there didn’t have enough to eat and were growing up all bones, with big heads and long knotty legs. My little cousins, however, unlike my brothers and sisters, were all soft and flabby, rather too fat, with the unhealthy fat one gets from eating too many starches. They seemed to suffer from a dyspeptic appetite and they constantly asked for food. Nothing was more unbearable for me than the exasperated voice of my widowed aunt grumbling all day long after her children: “May the Red Death carry you off! You’re eating too much! I’ve nothing left to give you!” All this made me feel ashamed of the luxurious diet I enjoyed at school, and I tried to ignore the guilt-feelings I felt. Most of my joys were indeed spoiled for me in this manner, though I had learned to drive out of my mind all disquieting thoughts. At least, I had a room where I could live protected from all this, so I moved all my belongings and my books there.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Oh, but she knew, and only too well, what it would mean should they be there together; the lies, the despicable subter- fuges, as though they were little less than criminals. It would be: ‘ Mary, don’t hang about my bedroom — be careful . . . of course while we’re here at Morton . . . it’s my mother, she can’t understand these things; to her they would seem an out- rage, an insult. . . . And then the guard set upon eyes and lips; the feeling of guilt at so much as a hand-touch; the pretence of a careless, quite usual friendship —‘ Mary, don’t look at me as though you cared! you did this evening — remember my mother.’ Intolerable quagmire of lies and deceit! The degrading of all 384 THE WELL OF LONELINESS that to them was sacred — a very gross degrading of love, and through love a gross degrading of Mary. Mary . . . so loyal and as yet so gallant, but so pitifully untried in the war of ex- istence. Warned only by words, the words of a lover, and what were mere words when it came to actions? And the ageing woman with the far-away eyes, eyes that could yet be so cruel, so accusing — they might turn and rest with repugnance on Mary, even as once they had rested on Stephen: ‘I would rather see you dead at my feet. . . .’ A fearful saying, and yet she had meant it, that ageing woman with the far-away eyes — she had uttered it knowing herself to be a mother. But that at least should be hidden from Mary.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  She expressed her impatience with me and her displeasure in a veritable avalanche of scolding: my uncle had been dead since the evening before and my father was furious that I hadn’t come along sooner. She herself couldn’t understand my negligence; so much trouble simply because I persisted in spending all my time at school for so-called study, as if I didn’t have a home to work in, and so on, and so on... Then, without any transition, her scolding gave way to coy persuasion. “Let’s go. Come with me,” she concluded. She lowered her voice as if revealing a secret in the midst of a large crowd. “I know it bores you. I waited for you because I was afraid you wouldn’t come. But it’s your father’s brother, his oldest brother — in fact his father! You know how your father hates to complain, but he’s very angry that you didn’t come back at once.” It was a long time now since my mother’s simple histrionics had ceased to amuse or irritate me. I followed her without a word. The sun was now directly overhead, completely flooding the streets, and I abandoned all hope of making use of the fringes of shade. Crushed, I accepted this walk through hell. Perspiration, as it evaporated, made my shirt cling unpleasantly to my skin like the coarse linen bandages that my mother used to put on my childhood boils. My mother, on the contrary, had kept her race’s capacity to withstand the sun and now walked without any apparent effort, chattering cheerfully and skipping from topic to topic with the lively grace of the once pretty and lightheaded girl. My temples throbbed; preoccupied with my worries about the examination, I was distracted from her babbling and hardly replied. I admired the way she remained lively and enthusiastic even under the crushing weight of a family of ten. It frightened me to think how far apart we had grown, how foreign she was to all that I was becoming. With a simplicity that tried to be cunning, she attempted to give me some advice. Really, she’d never seen my father in such a state; true, Uncle Joseph had given him his education and been a father to him and such a father had the right to all honors. So it would be better if I acted as if the deceased were my own father (God forbid!); then I would show my father how I would act when his time came too. As I said nothing, she finally came around to mentioning what was obviously the most difficult thing: naturally, as a sign of mourning, I wouldn’t shave for a month. This time I emerged from my torpor and angrily refused. No, they couldn’t count on that. I couldn’t go to school unshaven. She heaved a deep sigh, half-sincere, half-feigned. My God! What a son she had!

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I was put into one of the already overstaffed offices of the new community organization. For once, I blessed my physical disability, which indeed I no longer felt. The graver dangers I was now exposed to even made my temperature subside. But I could not be satisfied with merely saving myself. As soon as I had done it, I was ashamed. Reports from the camps were very bad. As they had never had any experience of war, or of natural or historical disasters, my brethren — all city-dwellers, artisans, office-workers, salesmen, and petty traders, with a skin that was too white and flabby stomach muscles — lost all appearance of being human after only a few days of camp life. They neither washed nor shaved any more, were covered with lice, and just gave up, in spite of the efforts of the braver young men who tried to help them. The best of them, those who in a moment of revolt tried to escape, had to cross hostile country and were quickly caught and shot or deported to Germany. Those who came home, wounded, sick, or on leave, were so thin, dazed, or aggressive in their filthy rags all caked with mud, that we were ashamed to look at them. The Germans, following a plan which we could not guess, grew more and more demanding and vicious. They shot the stragglers and the sick. They multiplied their demands and became increasingly difficult to satisfy. After they had taken all the men younger than thirty-five years of age, they demanded those aged forty, and then those aged forty-five. We began to realize that if the German occupation were to last much longer we would be completely lost, for the Germans had time on their side and would eventually exhaust us. It was no longer possible to answer their summonses, and the community could no longer furnish the required monthly quota of men, so the raids began again. Our anxiety of the first days gripped us again, but this time we were angry and disturbed, like hunted down beasts. We could not sleep any more. The German air force was busy elsewhere, so we spent our nights, which were nothing but one long alarm, standing half-asleep in trenches, with our backs against the damp earth. In the daytime we skirted the walls as we hurried to find some bread or to get news of our loved ones, safe at most for an hour or so.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  “No, you’re not the king, because you’re wearing my sweater, and it’s my mother who gave it to you only the day before yesterday.” Chouchane was staring at us, and the game was again in its moment of tense silence, so that my remark sounded loud as the proclamation of a herald. Fraji’s terrified batlike eyes became even wider as he stared at me before casting a single glance, as fleeting as the signal of a lighthouse, on Chouchane and all the others. Finally, Fraji climbed painfully down from his crumbling pedestal and went off without uttering a single word in reply, without looking at any of us, as though he were alone in a deserted street. My pride and my justifiable anger suddenly fell flat and I felt a lump in my throat. By that time the other boys had decided to play another game and offered me a small part in it. In all the excitement and shouting I forgot the incident and became lighthearted again. When the violet-colored twilight began to fill our street, it seemed to me that the afternoon had been very short. Soon my mother appeared at the end of our alley, heavily veiled, as is proper for a woman returning from the bath house. Although she rarely wore a veil, I recognized her at once by her hurried gait and rushed to greet her. A minute later, Kalla and Joulie were there too, and my sister began to tell me about her interesting afternoon at the Turkish bath. That night I slept very quietly.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  Allendy is watching over my life. He has hypnotized me into a trusting somnolescence. He wants me to be lulled by my happiness, to rest on his love. We decide, for Hugo’s sake (Hugo has become jealous of him), that I should not come to see him for ten or twelve days. It is also like a test of my confidence. Suddenly I relax my fevered desire for him and accept his nobility, his seriousness, his self-sacrifice, his concern for my happiness, and I feel humble. What makes me humble is that he believes I love him, and I feel that I am lying. It moves me to think I can lie to this great, sincere man. I wonder whether he knows better than I whom I love or whether I am deceiving him, as I have deceived them all. In 1921, when I was still corresponding with Eduardo, I was already in love with Hugo. If Hugo knew that in Havana, while we were exchanging love letters, I was stirred by Ramiro Collazo. If Henry knew that I love Allendy’s kisses, and if Allendy knew how deeply I want to live with Henry . . . Allendy believes my life with Henry, my low life, is not true or real or lasting, whereas I know I belong to it. He says, “You have traversed shady experiences, but I feel that you have remained pure. They are temporary curiosities, a hunger for experience.” Whatever experience I enter I come out unscathed. Everyone believes in my sincerity and purity, even Henry. Allendy wants me to see my love for Henry as a literary or dramatic excursion and my love for him as an expression of my true self, whereas I believe it is exactly the opposite. Henry has me, mind and womb; Allendy is my “experience.” There is continuous music from our new radio. Hugo listens while he beatifically contemplates the benefits of Allendy’s help. The announcer talks in a strange language from Budapest. I think about my lies to Allendy and wonder why I lie. For example, I have worried inordinately about Henry’s troubles with his eyes. If he should become as blind as Joyce, what would become of him? I say to myself, “I ought to give up everything and go and live with him and take care of him.” When I tell Allendy about my fear, I exaggerate the danger Henry is in. Lies are a sign of weakness. It seems to me that I do not have the courage to tell Allendy openly I do not love him, and so, instead, I want him to see what I am ready to do for Henry. An afternoon with Henry. He begins by telling me that our conversation the other night was the deepest and closest we have had, that it has changed him, given him strength. “To run away from June, I feel now, is no solution. I have always run away from women.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Years later, he was to betray his secret violence when, with unexpected audacity in such a silent man, soft and almost an invalid, he became a leader in Franco-Nazi collaboration. But his classes were carefully prepared and intelligent, so that they did me more harm than any stupid or aggressive jokes. I respected all that seemed scientifically accurate, and because I found no immediate reply to his arguments, they troubled me and made me feel guilty. To combat this, I threw myself into studies of Judaism and became intellectually aware of our own Hebrew spiritual tradition. For a few years I enthusiastically attended any lecture or meeting which could help me in these investigations; then firmly entrenched within my new knowledge, I tried to undermine as best I could the teachings of this doctrinaire racial theorist in the minds of my school-fellows. But they all laughed at my discoveries, much as they also derided what our teacher said. So I resorted to my usual vengeance. As he had at least the tact to allow us to express contrary views, whether he liked it or not, I was his best pupil, and I remember well writing angry sixteen-page compositions for him. But this was impossible with Murat, whom we nicknamed the sprinkler because he constantly spat as he spoke. He was an old crank who was a good example of the kind of anti-Semitism that is bred of stupidity. His mere physical appearance repelled me, with his rotting and uneven yellow teeth, the deposit of thick foaming saliva in the corners of his mouth, his colorless and lifeless hair, and the eternal moist cigarette stub which made him blink with its smoke. He allowed no discussion and, being mean and grumpy, took petty revenge on any obstinate contradictors, that is on the few pupils who thought at all. The others laughed at him and teased him with excessive humility, and this seemed to flatter him. When he was exasperated he would relieve himself by insulting them grossly. On the whole, however, they got on well together. On days when his temper was good he would leave his desk and, putting his left foot up on a bench, would rest his chin on his hand and his elbow on his knee; it was time for a more intimate exchange of views. As he spat over the more unfortunate pupils who sat in the front row, he would ask seemingly innocent questions which were intended to make us reveal our most secret faults. Why was it that, in this country, the Jews always mentioned the profession of the deceased in death notices? He pretended not to know the reason, but he smiled knowingly: simply because Jews make the most — even of death — to advertise! But his stupidity went hand in hand with his greed, and my comrades learned to play the dirty trick of giving him presents.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  This particular day, it was the bread that was lacking when I sat down for breakfast, so she asked me to go and fetch it at the baker’s oven, which was in the Street of the Sparrows, a blind alley fairly far from our home. As I was not very hungry, this unexpected chore annoyed me and I grumbled, pretended it was already too late, and made up my mind to go off without breakfasting. With the vast selfishness of a child, I guessed quite rightly that this would upset my mother and punish her for her forgetfulness. Finally, she lost her temper and, running short of other arguments, called upon heaven as a witness to curse me. But I was stubborn, slung my school satchel over my shoulder, and left the house. When I reached the end of the street, I heard her calling me, so I turned back with some ill will, dragging my feet, to receive from her my two pennies and an unexpected piece of bread crust. She had certainly borrowed it from Joulie, and this gesture made my vague remorse weigh all the more heavily on my conscience. The day had been spoiled for me, by my empty stomach and my confused conscience. I reached the old iron gate of the school, of course, too early. Birdie’s head, with his humble expression, his heavy eyelids that were always lowered, scarcely rose above a compact group of school children, while the other hucksters managed to attract only a few customers. One of them, a new trader, was giving us the old blarney to build up his trade. I noticed Saul as he detached himself from Birdie’s group: he was my rival and had thus come to be my first comrade. Our teacher in the first grade used to make us sit in the classroom by order of merit, so that Saul and I occupied the first row almost all year round. Comrades in the front row, we soon became friends by force of habit, though there was some irony to this as Saul was the son of a rich merchant in the covered bazaar, a fact that was each day more noticeable to me. Beneath his black apron that always seemed new, he wore fine cloth pants with mother-of-pearl buttons on the side, which had long aroused my curiosity: what could possibly be the use of buttons without any buttonholes? I had often made fun of them and Saul never knew what to answer. One day, as I repeated my taunts, he took on a superior manner: his mother had explained to him certain facts that he could not reveal to me. In spite of my exasperation and insistence, he absolutely refused to speak. In addition, he always smelled good, every day of the week, which impressed me very much.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  In effect, they were saying: “Remember, once you were weak and helpless. You think you are strong now and can do without us. When you needed us, we protected you.” I could see their increasing bitterness and disapproval of the turn my life was taking. It was neither pride nor resentment that separated me from my parents, but a far more penetrating emotion, that of guilt. I had been tutoring other kids ever since my fourth year in high school, so I was almost completely independent — financially, at least. I never dreamed of reproaching my parents with failing to give me what they had not given me: they had never had anything to give. But they made me feel guilty for what I didn’t give to them. When we moved from our alley, we left our proper social and economic level. Even if people were poor in our new street, they dressed better and patronized more expensive stores. We now had to live above our means and to sacrifice necessities to appearances. As she had in the past, my mother continued to buy remnants and pieces of defective cloth in the covered bazaars; but now, in making our clothes, she had to sew the pieces together into something “stylish.” She also started taking cheap permanent waves which reddened her lovely black hair and, for some months, made her head resemble a hideous brown sheep’s head. I retained, consequently, a fixed horror of permanents. For the first time in his life, my father now bought a suit of overalls. We had gas and electricity; for her long-term Sabbath cooking, however, my mother reverted to charcoal which was cheaper. Our gas and electricity bills were indeed occasions for collective remorse: “Put out that light! Is it so hard to press a button? It cost us two hundred francs last month!” I heard those words thousands of times. My father groaned continuously and made plans to reduce our budget. But he didn’t have the severity needed to carry out these plans; besides, we could hardly live on less than we did. In order to pay our higher rent, to buy more conventional clothes and to meet the other indispensable expenses of our new status, we could no longer eat our fill. Besides, our family was always increasing. My father and his friends discussed their common problems at the café, and each passed his own unworkable suggestions on to the next. One evening, my father came home with this scheme: “There are so many of us that each meal is very expensive. If we cut out only one meal a week we could make a real monthly saving. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we go to bed on an empty stomach.