Joy

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 Henry and June (1986)

  As I ran upstairs to comb my hair, I knew that the next day I would rush to see Henry. All he does to combat my phantoms is to push me against the wall of his room and kiss me, to tell me in a whisper what he wants of my body today, what gestures, what attitudes. I obey, and I enjoy him to frenzy. We rush along over phantasmagoric obstacles. Now I know why I have loved him. Even Fred, before he left us, seemed less tragic, and I confided to Henry that I didn’t want a perfect love from him, that I knew he was tired of all that, as I was, that I felt a surge of wisdom and humor, and that nothing could stop our relationship until we just didn’t want to make love any more. For the first time, I think I understand what pleasure is. And I am glad I laughed so much last night, and sang this morning, and moved irresistibly towards Henry. (Eduardo was still here when I left, carrying the package containing Henry’s curtains.) Just before this, my brother Joaquin and Eduardo were talking about Henry, in my presence. (Joaquin has read my journal.) They think that Henry is a destructive force who has elected me, the most creative of forces, to test his power on, that I have succumbed to the magic of tons of literature (it is true that I love literature), that I will be saved—I forget how, but somehow in spite of myself. And as I lay there, already happy because I had decided I would have my Henry today, I smiled. On the first page of a beautiful purple-covered diary book Eduardo gave me, with an inscription, I have already written Henry’s name. No Dr. Allendy for me. No paralyzing analysis. Just living. April When Henry hears Hugo’s beautiful, vibrant, loyal, heart-stirring voice over the telephone, he is angry at the amorality of women, of all women, of women like myself. He himself practices all the disloyalties, all the treacheries, but the faithlessness of a woman hurts him. And I am terribly distressed when he is in such a mood, because I have a feeling of being faithful to the bond between Hugo and me. Nothing that I live outside of the circle of our love alters or diminishes it. On the contrary, I love him better because I love him without hypocrisy. But the paradox torments me deeply. That I am not more perfect, or more like Hugo, is to be despised, yes, but it is only the other side of my being.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Those whom we called the “damned” or the “dwellers beneath the earth,” because one should avoid naming the demons by their real name unless one does it with music and with offerings, were now becoming particularly obtrusive: the other evening, they had even left a big bruise on her leg, which was a warning. They might indeed drive her to insanity, so her sisters and sisters-in-law decided to hold a meeting on the subject. There, they all spoke at the same time, in their high-pitched voices, but managed all the same to agree on the urgency of holding a ceremony in honor of the demons that live below. A dance invoking their protection would be a wise thing for the whole house. Noucha, the wife of Uncle Aroun, courageously volunteered to take the matter up with her miser husband, as it involved some expense. Her sisters were suddenly moved to the heart and thanked her with tears in their eyes, like an autumn shower that comes over very suddenly. Then they broke up, all agog and happy at the idea of such wonderful and useful fun. My mother brought out her wooden box that she hid against the wall beneath the bed. For lack of space in our common closet, that was where she tucked away her own personal treasures. Among broken trinkets, old ribbons, fragments of bridal veils, old purses and baby clothes, she discovered some weird oriental finery, shapeless and gaudy, all orange, yellow, and green, embroidered with beads and sequins. Then she gathered together all the colored scarves and handkerchiefs that she could find throughout the house. Twice, she went busily out to buy, in the covered markets, her share of the incense: a little bit of the kind that is called ouchak, some of the jaoui kind, and a few sticks of ned. She did everything that could be expected of her as a worthy contribution toward her younger sister’s recovery. Still, her joy was very childish and she could scarcely conceal it; it was written all over her face, and she could no longer refrain from anticipating the event by singing snatches of song from time to time. In spite of her protests, we teased her about all this. On the appointed day, at noon, she was too much intent on preparing for the ceremony to fulfill all her duties as a mother, so that we had to be content with a pot of chick-peas, cooked in water. Whenever it came to the matter of food, we could become really unpleasant with Mother. Quite properly, we blamed the coming ceremony and her for the excessive importance that she seemed to attach to it. Hungry and bad-tempered, we repeated, each of us in turn, the traditional question: “Is that all there is?” “Yes, that’s all. Father didn’t leave me any money this morning, and I’m lucky to have been able to borrow twenty francs from Noucha.”

• From Henry and June (1986)

  “I want to get more familiar with you. I love you. I loved you when you came and sat on the bed—all that second afternoon was like warm mist—and I hear again the way you say my name—with that queer accent of yours. You arouse in me such a mixture of feelings, I don’t know how to approach you. Only come to me—get closer and closer to me. It will be beautiful, I promise you. I like so much your frankness—a humility almost. I could never hurt that. I had a thought tonight that it was to a woman like you I should have been married. Or is it that love, in the beginning, always inspires such thoughts? I don’t have a fear that you will want to hurt me. I see that you have a strength too—of a different order, more elusive. No you won’t break. I talked a lot of nonsense—about your frailty. I have been a little embarrassed always. But less so the last time. It will all disappear. You have such a delicious sense of humor—I adore that in you. I want always to see you laughing. It belongs to you. I have been thinking of places we ought to go to together—little obscure places, here and there, in Paris. Just to say—here I went with Anaïs—here we ate or danced or got drunk together. Ah, to see you really drunk sometime, that would be a treat! I am almost afraid to suggest it—but Anaïs, when I think of how you press against me, how eagerly you open your legs and how wet you are, God, it drives me mad to think what you would be like when everything falls away. “Yesterday I thought of you, of your pressing your legs against me standing up, of the room tottering, of falling on you in darkness and knowing nothing. And I shivered and groaned with delight. I am thinking that if the weekend must pass without seeing you it will be unbearable. “If needs be I will come to Versailles Sunday—anything—but I must see you. Don’t be afraid to treat me coolly. It will be enough to stand near you, to look at you admiringly. I love you, that’s all.” Hugo and I are in the car, driving to an elegant evening. I sing until it seems my singing is driving the car. I swell my chest and imitate the roucoulement of the pigeons. My French rrrrrrrrrrr roll. Hugo laughs. Later, with a marquis and a marquise, we come out of the theatre, and whores press in around us, very close. The marquise tightens her mouth. I think, they are Henry’s whores, and I feel warmly towards them, friendly.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I got back to work while I waited to learn when my interview would take place. With difficulty I got together a few books and I made up for the lack of textbooks that were out of print by studying more collateral readings and other compilations. In order not to be distracted during study, I gave up taking my temperature. It was a good idea: soon I experienced once more a long-forgotten happiness. With delight, I discovered that my mind had not gone to seed, in fact this period of lying fallow had done it good. When I tired of taking notes, I rushed around town to prepare for my trip. Owing to the confusion in government agencies and the suspicions that were a hangover from the state of siege, it was difficult to get travel orders. But I was optimistic and resolute. I experienced such a pleasure in wandering freely in the liberated city, without always having to fear a German dragnet, that I even discovered a liking for purposeless roaming, as though I were renewing acquaintance with my own city. In short, I was a new man. On the appointed day I was ushered into a big office, rather like a government department. The desk stood in the middle of a carpet of thick blue wool with black squares. Behind the desk, on this magnificent Gabes rug, was my little principal. The heads of Oriental agencies take great care to stage a princely setting and I was accustomed to this. But the frail silhouette of Monsieur Marouzeau, with his sparse short-cropped hair and his pants too short above his socks, seated here in the proud surroundings of his predecessor, this was indeed very funny. When he saw me, he rose in a very friendly manner and greeted me without any ceremony. “Good morning, Benillouche, take a chair...” He had read my letter. So I was resuming my studies! Very good! I was wise to do it immediately, and he could but encourage me heartily. He had always known I would succeed. Besides, he would help me as much as he could. I was grateful to him for his simplicity in still treating me as a former pupil; this allowed me more freedom. As he chattered on without coming to the object of my visit, I reminded him of it. “Ah, yes! You’ve made a fine mess of it, you know. I’m told that you’re no longer a government employee.” I did not quite see what he meant. I felt only that very bad news was coming. “You might have obtained the delay you asked for, and I would have helped you. But when I was shown that letter of yours I could obviously do nothing. The chief of personnel was final about it: you resigned and you were not thrown out like the rest of your colleagues. As a point of law...” I suddenly remembered.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  We discuss finances and I tell him the cost of the visits prevents me from seeing him more often. He not only reduces his fee by half but offers to let me pay in part by working for him. I am flattered. We talk about physical facts. I am underweight. A few pounds more would give me security. Will Allendy add medicine to the psychic treatment? I confess the fear I have that my breasts are small perhaps because I have masculine elements in me and half of my body may therefore be adolescent. Allendy: “Are they absolutely undeveloped?” “No.” As we flounder in talk I say, “You are a doctor; I’ll simply show them to you.” And I do. Then he laughs at my fears. “Perfectly feminine,” he says, “small but well outlined—lovely figure. A few pounds more, yes,” but how disproportionate my self-criticisms. He has observed the unnaturalness of my personality. As if enveloped in a mist, veiled. No news to me, except that I did not know it could be so plainly read. For example, my two voices, which have become quite apparent lately: one, according to Fred, is like that of a child before its First Communion, timid, soundless. The other is assured, deeper. This one appears when I have a great deal of confidence. Allendy thinks that I have created a completely artificial personality, like a shield. I conceal myself. I have constructed a manner that is seductive, affable, gay, and within this I am hidden. I had asked him to help me physically. Was this a sincere action, showing him my breasts? Did I want to test my charm on him? Wasn’t I pleased that he should be complimentary? That he should show more interest in me? Is it Allendy or Henry who is curing me? Henry’s new love has me in a state of bliss such as I have never known. He wanted to hold off. He didn’t want to put himself in my power. He didn’t want to add himself to “the list” of my lovers. He didn’t want to get serious. And now! He wants to be my husband, to have me all the time; he writes love letters to the child I was at eleven, who has touched him profoundly. He wants to protect me and give me things. “I never thought such a frail little thing could have so much power. Did I ever say you were not beautiful? How could I say it! You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful!” When he kisses me now I do not hold back. I can now bite him when we lie in bed. “We devour each other, like two savages,” he said.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  But I had to confess I was wrong. Sometimes with Bissor — who was the only one of the lycée boys whose standard of living was not beyond my own means — I went to the movies on Saturdays. More than anything else, it was the way we spent our leisure time that showed up the difference between ourselves and our schoolmates; we used to go to the Kursaal which they considered a dive, having never set dainty foot there. Certainly, they were not altogether wrong. In order to get in for the three o’clock show, we had to queue up at one, be jostled and elbowed and attacked by kids of our own age, older boys, and even adults, until the box office opened. Often the queue grew too long and dissolved into sudden confusion; by the time things had straightened out, we had lost our places. Once, our tickets were torn out of my hand before I could identify the thief; Bissor in his rage couldn’t refrain from railing at me while I burst into tears. So we went to complain to the manager and he allowed us into the theater despite his mistrust. On one of our movie Saturdays, Bissor was unexpectedly called in for an additional assignment on his newspaper route. We decided that I’d go alone to buy the tickets and leave one with the cashier for Bissor to pick up as soon as he was free to join me. It was anguish for me to stand in line without Bissor; I was a weakling, and I don’t know how many humiliations his presence saved me. I got to the Kursaal long before the box office opened, but there was already a big crowd. To my delight, a policeman was there lording it over the whole square. The Sicilian laborers who composed our aristocracy, with slicked-down hair and bright ties; the ragged bootblacks who were its lowest class and had gathered the price of a ticket by collecting cigarette butts; the fritter-vendors in their greasy fezzes; the Maltese cabbies with their cap visors coquettishly broken; the porters with professional ropes thrown over their shoulders; all these people, so brutal and dishonest in past weeks, were now miraculously orderly, almost polite, waiting under the eyes of the Mohammedan policeman, an enormous fellow with a pock-marked face and a pointed black mustache. I felt happy being where I was: the façade of the Kursaal, built to look like a dragon’s head, spat out its flames; there were colored posters glued to the monster’s cheeks, and the crowd itself was disturbing but full of living joy; all this contributed to give me each time the same glow of happiness. On this particular day, there was also the promise of security.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I got back to work while I waited to learn when my interview would take place. With difficulty I got together a few books and I made up for the lack of textbooks that were out of print by studying more collateral readings and other compilations. In order not to be distracted during study, I gave up taking my temperature. It was a good idea: soon I experienced once more a long-forgotten happiness. With delight, I discovered that my mind had not gone to seed, in fact this period of lying fallow had done it good. When I tired of taking notes, I rushed around town to prepare for my trip. Owing to the confusion in government agencies and the suspicions that were a hangover from the state of siege, it was difficult to get travel orders. But I was optimistic and resolute. I experienced such a pleasure in wandering freely in the liberated city, without always having to fear a German dragnet, that I even discovered a liking for purposeless roaming, as though I were renewing acquaintance with my own city. In short, I was a new man. On the appointed day I was ushered into a big office, rather like a government department. The desk stood in the middle of a carpet of thick blue wool with black squares. Behind the desk, on this magnificent Gabes rug, was my little principal. The heads of Oriental agencies take great care to stage a princely setting and I was accustomed to this. But the frail silhouette of Monsieur Marouzeau, with his sparse short-cropped hair and his pants too short above his socks, seated here in the proud surroundings of his predecessor, this was indeed very funny. When he saw me, he rose in a very friendly manner and greeted me without any ceremony. “Good morning, Benillouche, take a chair...” He had read my letter. So I was resuming my studies! Very good! I was wise to do it immediately, and he could but encourage me heartily. He had always known I would succeed. Besides, he would help me as much as he could. I was grateful to him for his simplicity in still treating me as a former pupil; this allowed me more freedom. As he chattered on without coming to the object of my visit, I reminded him of it. “Ah, yes! You’ve made a fine mess of it, you know. I’m told that you’re no longer a government employee.” I did not quite see what he meant. I felt only that very bad news was coming. “You might have obtained the delay you asked for, and I would have helped you. But when I was shown that letter of yours I could obviously do nothing. The chief of personnel was final about it: you resigned and you were not thrown out like the rest of your colleagues. As a point of law...”

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Ginou was ready to accept me as her husband! I scarcely knew what to do, what to say, how to express my joy. “And to think that you waited until now to say so,” I remarked reproachfully. “We have been together for the past two hours. Don’t you think it was selfish of you to deprive me of two hours of sheer happiness?” She smiled with great tenderness as we reached the gate of the park. The tall trees at the entrance bore mauve-colored blossoms, like flowers pinned in a girl’s hair. We were no longer by ourselves for there were other people around us. I was so happy and excited that I wanted to have her all to myself, to hold her tight in my arms. So I suggested that we turn back into the park. No, she felt it was too late; we ought to be more reasonable, she thought, and refused. I barely touched her cheek as I kissed her, but still she withdrew. I knew how worried she always was about her own reputation, so I didn’t insist now and walked her home. All the while, she spoke in an even voice, very reasonably, in the tones of a housewife organizing her household chores. She asked me not to mention anything yet to anyone, not a word of our secret. We would have to wait until I had been admitted to the medical profession as her parents would never accept a son-in-law who had neither job nor profession. So I promised her everything she asked for and would have been ready to promise her, had she wanted it, the moon too. All the same, I rushed to Henry’s place as I had to share my happiness with someone. On the way there, without any loss of enthusiasm, I began to think too that I would have to make a lot of money. Ginou was accustomed to certain luxuries, but one more element in my defiance of fate no longer scared me at all and I was sure I would be successful. When I got to Henry’s, I found him fixing his bicycle. Every Saturday evening, he cycled fifty kilometers to go and whistle a serenade beneath his girl friend’s window. I told him my whole story at once and he congratulated me: “She’s a very attractive girl.” Then he added, jokingly: “But what the hell, is it you or the physician that she wants as a husband?” I answered quite seriously that she was right and that her decision proved that she had sound common sense. She was the kind of wife I wanted.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The absence of any feminine companionship was not the least of the reasons that made my adolescence quite morbidly austere, with a stifling quality about it of which I was actually rather proud. As a matter of fact, I never did anything for the mere pleasure of relaxation. Every one of my gestures had a purpose that was calculated in terms of what it was worth. I studied because I wanted to assure myself of fame in the future, or I worked to make money. When at last I was too tired and allowed myself to write or to devote some of my time to social life, which was also work in my eyes, I brought to either of these occupations the same kind of earnestness. I was really a very serious young man. But I managed, in spite of all this, to experience the kind of adventure that is unique and entirely wonderful. One of the girls of the kind that I admired and believed to be quite inaccessible accepted my admiration and even encouraged me. Now, I can understand it better: she fell in love with my earnestness. But here, at last, I was tasting of happiness. As an adolescent, I was never very happy nor very unhappy. I had no time for such states of being; on the contrary, I was always busy learning, changing, being active. In the light of individual incidents of this constant struggle, I was also indignant, revolted, or exultant. But my adventure with Ginou revealed to me that, although I had been unfortunate enough to be born into an impossible moment of history, life could still leave a taste of honey in my mouth. One day, I was playing volleyball in the sun, wearing only my bathing trunks, with Mina, a scout-mistress. The sky was a pale blue, all of one spotless color, above a sea that was exquisitely warm and green. While she was busy throwing and catching the ball across a low breakwater that lay between us, Mina continued to tell me, with much sarcastic humor, details of their last summer camp. I was rather fond of Mina because of her very realistic views about other girls. She was the daughter of a tradesman who had made good, but she could still remember what life had been like before her father had struck it rich, and she now observed her new social background with a very lucid mind. Her sarcasm was pitiless but always smiling, and her own rather sickly health was certainly at the root of much of her bitterness. Her rather pleasant venom may also have acted upon me as a revenge for some of my own jealousy that I was never ready to confess.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  But I managed, in spite of all this, to experience the kind of adventure that is unique and entirely wonderful. One of the girls of the kind that I admired and believed to be quite inaccessible accepted my admiration and even encouraged me. Now, I can understand it better: she fell in love with my earnestness. But here, at last, I was tasting of happiness. As an adolescent, I was never very happy nor very unhappy. I had no time for such states of being; on the contrary, I was always busy learning, changing, being active. In the light of individual incidents of this constant struggle, I was also indignant, revolted, or exultant. But my adventure with Ginou revealed to me that, although I had been unfortunate enough to be born into an impossible moment of history, life could still leave a taste of honey in my mouth. One day, I was playing volleyball in the sun, wearing only my bathing trunks, with Mina, a scout-mistress. The sky was a pale blue, all of one spotless color, above a sea that was exquisitely warm and green. While she was busy throwing and catching the ball across a low breakwater that lay between us, Mina continued to tell me, with much sarcastic humor, details of their last summer camp. I was rather fond of Mina because of her very realistic views about other girls. She was the daughter of a tradesman who had made good, but she could still remember what life had been like before her father had struck it rich, and she now observed her new social background with a very lucid mind. Her sarcasm was pitiless but always smiling, and her own rather sickly health was certainly at the root of much of her bitterness. Her rather pleasant venom may also have acted upon me as a revenge for some of my own jealousy that I was never ready to confess. “By the way,” she suddenly confided rather knowingly, “let me congratulate you. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Ginou talk like that about any boy. She’s a reasonable girl, and one who is well aware of her own charm. That’s why she never does anything silly. Well, she mentioned your name to me six times in six days of summer camp, and even told me all about how she had dreamed about you. I think she would be ready to allow you to sit in the front row, just beyond the footlights of the stage where she gives her personal appearances.” I knew how much Mina enjoyed all kinds of go-between business. It gave her a chance to exercise her catty tongue and her foxy mind. That was why everyone was a bit scared of her but quite willing to use her services once in a while. So although I only shrugged my shoulders, I decided that she couldn’t be inventing all of it.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Eight years after we had moved into the rebuilt laundry-rooms, they still had, all of them, the same opinions and the same tics. My cousins, once grown up as young men, all retained the features of their childhood, scarcely hardened at all. For the time being, the direct access to the terrace seemed to promise us a magnificent party. All our gatherings, from now on, would be wonderful, with so much space at our disposal. On the roof terrace, we were still, to some extent, at home. Our guests were congratulating us excitedly, and we gladly accepted their compliments. My imagination was already aroused more than it should be, and my bar mitzvah thus acquired the importance of an assumption into Heaven. As an event, it is in any case decisive, consecrating the transition from childhood to adulthood: the boy becomes a new member of the community, which celebrates his admission with great sincerity. As hero of the day, he conducts, in the synagogue and in front of all the faithful, that morning’s service, whereas the profane part of the holiday lasts all night and the parents, whether rich or poor, have only one thought, to dazzle their crowded guests. As boys, we used to dream, for years, in anticipation of this triumphant day which set a limit within our lives for all wonderful promises: “After my bar mitzvah, I’ll do this and that...” In a synthesis of all the wonderful feasts of which I had ever heard, I had imagined that an ox would be sacrificed on our threshold, its blood dripping down the whole staircase, all the poor fed at our expense, lighting so brilliant as to pale the stars, the music of a triumphant procession, an orgy lasting until dawn, all the women and my mother uttering shrill cries of excitement, and the men drunk, happy and grateful... At the mere repetition of all this, dispensed to whoever would listen to me, my chest seemed to swell with pride and joy as if I were already wearing a silken shirt and standing there to dazzle the assembled crowd. My mother was expected to give birth to the child in April. If luck would have it that she was delivered of a boy, we would kill two birds, even three, with one stone: we would celebrate our housewarming, my bar mitzvah, and the circumcision of the newborn son. To my taste, they all spoke far too much about my potential partner in all this glory. I was jealous of this possible brother who prevented me from being the uncontested hero of a ceremony that would occur only once in my lifetime.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I said, “If I had the means to help bring June back, would you want me to do it?” Henry winced and suddenly lurched towards me. “Ah, don’t ask me such a question, Anaïs, don’t ask me.” One day we were talking about his writing. “Perhaps you couldn’t write here at Louveciennes,” I said. “It’s too peaceful, nothing driving you.” “It would just be a different writing,” he said. He was thinking of Proust, whose handling of Albertine haunts him. How far we are from his drunken letter. Yesterday he was disarming; he was so whole. How he absorbed! June rarely confided in him. Will he turn around and deny all his feelings? I teased him. “Perhaps all I have written is untrue, untrue of June, untrue of me. Perhaps it’s hypocrisy.” “No! No!” He knew. Real passions, real loves, real impulses. “For the first time I see some beauty in it all,” says Henry. I am afraid of not having been truthful enough. I am amazed at Henry’s emotion. “Am I not the Idiot?” I ask. “No, you see , you just see more,” says Henry. “What you see is there, all right. Yes.” He reflects as he talks. He often repeats a phrase, to give himself time to reflect. What goes on behind that compact forehead fascinates me. The extravagance of Dostoevsky’s language has re-leased both of us. He was a portentous author for Henry. Now, when we live with the same fervor, the same temperature, the same extravagance, I am in bliss. This is the life, the talk, these are the emotions which belong to me. I breathe freely now. I am at home. I am myself. After being with Henry, I go to meet Eduardo. “I want you, Anaïs! Give me another chance! You belong to me. How I suffered this afternoon, knowing you were with Henry. I never knew jealousy before; and now it is so strong it is killing me.” His face is terrifyingly white. He always smiles, as I do. Now he cannot. I am not yet accustomed to the sight of misery given by me; or, rather, given to Eduardo. It upsets me. Yet, deep down, I am cold. I sit there, seeing Eduardo’s face distorted with pain, and I really feel nothing but pity. “Will you come with me?” “No.” I employ all the excuses that will not hurt him. I tell him everything except that I love Henry. Finally, I win. I let him take me in a taxi to the station

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I went to the Viking to meet Eduardo. We have been confiding to each other: he, about a woman in his pension; I, about Henry. We sat in the mellow light. Eduardo is afraid to be left out of my life. “No,” I said, “there is plenty of room. I love Hugo; better than ever, I love Henry and June, and you, too, if you wish.” He smiled. “I’ll read you Henry’s letters,” I said, because he was worrying about my “imagination” (Perhaps Henry is nothing, he was thinking). And as I read to him, he stopped me. He couldn’t bear it. He talks to me about psychoanalysis, which reveals how he loves me, how he sees me now. Henry’s love creates an aureole around me. I sit so securely before Eduardo’s timidity. I watch him approaching me, seeking closeness, a touch of my hand, of my knee. I watch him becoming human. For this moment, a long time ago, I would have given so much, but I have left it all far behind. “Before we leave,” he says, “I want . . .” And he begins to kiss me. “It is Eduardo,” I murmur, pliant. The kiss is lovely. I am half-moved, half-taken. But he does not pursue the desire. He had wanted a half-measure. Here it was. We leave the place. We take a taxi. He is overwhelmed with the joy of touching me. “Impossible,” he cries out. “At last! But it means more to me than to you.” It is true. I am moved only because I have become accustomed to desiring that very beautiful mouth. Look what I have done! Look at the spectacle of Eduardo’s torment. My beautiful Eduardo, Keats and Shelley, poems and crocuses—so many hours of looking into his limpid green eyes and seeing the reflections of men and whores. For thirteen years his face, his mind, his imagination turned towards me, but his body was dead. His body is alive now. He moans my name. “When will I see you? I must see you tomorrow.” Kisses, on the eyes, on the neck. The world seems to have turned upside down. Tomorrow it will die, I thought. But tomorrow, because I sit expecting nothing, Eduardo’s madness returns, and I feel, for the first time, destiny , an imperative need of a psychological resolution. We walk in full sunshine to a hotel he knows, we climb stairs, gaily, we enter a yellow room. I ask him to close the curtains. We are weary of dreams, of imaginings, of tragedy, of literature. Downstairs he pays for the room. I say to the woman, “Thirty francs is too much for us. Next time can’t you let it for less?” And in the street we burst out laughing: the next time! The miracle is accomplished. We walk, expanded. We are very hungry. We go to the Viking and eat four big sandwiches (there was a time when I couldn’t swallow in Eduardo’s presence).

• From Henry and June (1986)

  Meanwhile I opened a bottle of perfume. “Put some on.” The attendant was there, staring, waiting for her tip. I did not care about her. June had a hole in her sleeve. I was terribly happy. June was exultant. We talked simultaneously. “I wanted to call you last night. I wanted to send you a telegram,” June said. She had wanted to tell me she was very unhappy on the train, regretting her awkwardness, her nervousness, her pointless talk. There had been so much, so much she wanted to say. Our fears of displeasing each other, of disappointing each other were the same. She had gone to the cafe in the evening as if drugged, full of thoughts of me. People’s voices reached her from afar. She was elated. She could not sleep. What had I done to her? She had always been poised, she could always talk well, people never overwhelmed her. When I realized what she was revealing to me, I almost went mad with joy. She loved me, then? June! She sat beside me in the restaurant, small, timid, unworldly, panic-stricken. She would say something and then beg forgiveness for its stupidity. I could not bear it. I told her, “We have both lost ourselves, but sometimes we reveal the most when we are least like ourselves. I am not trying to think any more. I can’t think when I am with you. You are like me, wishing for a perfect moment, but nothing too long imagined can be perfect in a worldly way. Neither one of us can say just the right thing. We are overwhelmed. Let us be overwhelmed. It is so lovely, so lovely. I love you, June.” And not knowing what else to say I spread on the bench between us the wine-colored handkerchief she wanted, my coral earrings, my turquoise ring, which Hugo had given me and which it hurt me to give, but it was blood I wanted to lay before June’s beauty and before June’s incredible humility. We went to the sandal shop. In the shop the ugly woman who waited on us hated us and our visible happiness. I held June’s hand firmly. I commandeered the shop. I was the man. I was firm, hard, willful with the shopkeepers. When they mentioned the broadness of June’s feet, I scolded them. June could not understand their French, but she could see they were nasty. I said to her, “When people are nasty to you I feel like getting down on my knees before you.” We chose the sandals. She refused anything else, anything that was not symbolical or representative of me. Everything I wore she would wear, although she had never wanted to imitate anyone else before. When we walked together through the streets, bodies close together, arm in arm, hands locked, I could not talk. We were walking over the world, over reality, into ecstasy. When she smelled my handkerchief, she inhaled me.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  He was laughing almost to tears. He was drunk. I was drunk, too, quite. I felt warm and dizzy and happy. We talked for hours. Henry said the truest and deepest things, and he has a way of saying “hmmm” while trailing off on his own introspective journey. Before I met Henry I was intent on my D. H. Lawrence book. It is being published by Edward Titus, and I am working with his assistant, Lawrence Drake. “Where are you from?” he asks me at our first meeting. “I’m half Spanish, half French. But I was raised in America.” “You’ve certainly survived the transplantation.” He appears to be sneering as he talks. But I know better. He takes up the work with tremendous enthusiasm and speed. I’m grateful. He calls me a romantic. I get angry. “I’m sick of my own romanticism!” He has an interesting head—vivid, strong accents of black eyes, black hair, olive skin, sensual nostrils and mouth, a good profile. He looks like a Spaniard, but he is Jewish—Russian, he tells me. He is puzzling to me. He looks raw, easily hurt. I talk warily. When he takes me to his place to go over the proofs, he tells me I interest him. I can’t see why—he seems to have had a lot of experience; why does he bother about a beginner? We talk, fencingly. We work, not so very well. I don’t trust him. When he says nice things to me, I think he is playing on my inexperience. When he puts his arms around me, I think he is amusing himself with an overintense and ridiculous little woman. When he gets more intense, I turn my face away from the new experience of his mustache. My hands are cold and moist. I tell him frankly, “You shouldn’t flirt with a woman who doesn’t know how to flirt.” It amuses him, my seriousness. He says, “Perhaps you are the kind of woman who doesn’t hurt a man.” He has been humiliated. When he thinks I have said, “You annoy me,” he jumps away as if I had bitten him. I don’t say that sort of thing. He is very impetuous, very strong, but he doesn’t annoy me. I answer his fourth or fifth kiss. I begin to feel drunk. So I get up and say incoherently, “I’m going now—for me it can’t be without love.” He teases me. He bites my ears and kisses me, and I like his fierceness. He throws me on the couch for a moment, but somehow I escape. I am aware of his desire. I like his mouth and the knowing force of his arms, but his desire frightens me, repulses me. I think, it’s because I don’t love him. He’s stirred me but I don’t love him, I don’t want him.

• From Bluets (2009)

  217. “We’re only given as much as the heart can endure,” “What does not kill you makes you stronger,” “Our sorrows provide us with the lessons we most need to learn”: these are the kinds of phrases that enrage my injured friend. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to come up with a spiritual lesson that demands becoming a quadriparalytic. The tepid “there must be a reason for it” notion sometimes floated by religious or quasi-religious acquaintances or bystanders, is, to her, another form of violence. She has no time for it. She is too busy asking, in this changed form, what makes a livable life, and how she can live it. 218. As her witness, I can testify to no reason, no lesson. But I can say this: in watching her, sitting with her, helping her, weeping with her, touching her, and talking with her, I have seen the bright pith of her soul. I cannot tell you what it looks like, exactly, but I can say that I have seen it. 219. Likewise, I can say that seeing it has made me a believer, though I cannot say what, or in what, exactly, I have come to believe. 220. Imagine someone saying, “Our fundamental situation is joyful.” Now imagine believing it. 221. Or forget belief: imagine feeling , even if for a moment, that it were true. 222. In January 2002, camping in the Dry Tortugas, on an island which is essentially an abandoned fort ninety miles north of Cuba, flipping through a copy of Nature magazine. I read that the color of the universe (whatever this might mean—here I gather that it means the result of a survey of the spectrum of light emitted by around 200,000 galaxies) has finally been deduced. The color of the universe, the article says, is “pale turquoise.” Of course , I think, looking out wistfully over the glittering Gulf. I knew it all along. The heart of the world is blue . 223. A few months later, back at home, I read somewhere else that this result was in error, due to a computer glitch. The real color of the universe, this new article says, is light beige. 224. Recently I found out that “les bluets” can translate as “cornflowers.” You might think I would have known this all along, as I have been calling this book “Bluets” (mispronounced) for years. But somehow I had only ever heard, “a small blue flower with a yellow center that grows abundantly in the countryside of France.” I thought I’d never seen it. 225. Shortly after finding out about the bluets, I have a dream in which I am sent an abundance of cornflowers. In this dream it is perfectly all right that that is their name. They do not need to be bluets any longer. They are American, they are shaggy, they are wild, they are strong.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  In a corner, I spotted our school principal, his hair carefully trimmed in a crew-cut, but his pants too short as always, surrounded by parents who were all putting on an act for him. Theirs were indeed the grace and the lightness of a dancing bear. Devoid of any hope, I circled this fort that was being besieged, hoping to catch his eye, though effectively barred by the backs of the crowd. At long last, he caught sight of me and beckoned me to come closer: “Ah, there’s Benillouche, our honors prize-winner!” A wave of happiness came over me as all these people whom I despised now turned to stare at me, perhaps with indifference or even jealousy. The principal was talking to a little man I had failed to notice because he was concealed by the crowd. His glasses framed in black, like those of a comic actor, were the only element of self-affirmation in his otherwise sickly body, modest appearance and characterless clothes. “Come, come here, Benillouche,” insisted the principal. He then introduced me to the little man, who — none other than the Chief of Public Education for Tunisia — held out his hand and smiled in a friendly manner. I felt very guilty about being late and mumbled that I had been prevented from coming earlier, which seemed to interest nobody at all. “What are your plans for the coming school year?” the Chief asked me politely. “I want to study philosophy,” I answered with assurance. By affirming it now in public, I gave myself the impression that all discussion of the matter, within myself, was now closed. My own answer did me good and reassured me. “That’s perfect,” he replied. “We need teachers. Study hard and we can give you a job.” His promise was vague and concerned a very distant future, but still justified my decision. It made me feel joyously confident. But the attention of the principal and the Chief of Education was again demanded by the aggressive parents circling around them. I was cast out of the group by a movement like that of an amoeba ejecting a foreign body. ~ 11. THE CHOICE ~ In the decision that I reached by myself at the time I graduated from high school, two men probably played a decisive part. Marrou, who taught me French in my last year there, and Poinsot, who taught me philosophy, both acted as midwives in helping me to give birth to the man I was destined, for better or for worse, to become. In Marrou, himself a Berber by birth and family background, though a Christian as a consequence of his upbringing, I thought I had discovered a symbol of my salvation. He proved that it was really possible to come into the world poor and an African and yet become a man of culture, well dressed, and smoking expensive cigarettes.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Immediately after breakfast, Mother used to send us out so that she could do her household chores in peace. We would still be acting out our undisturbed dream when the sun, rising straight ahead in the sky, filled the alley to the brim with a blinding light that dispelled every fold of shadow. We used to play at trades, at being doctor, tailor, saddler, above all, grocer. Our plump little fingers transformed old matches, stuck into holes in the wall, into the spigots for drawing olive and peanut oil. We used to mix water with the black earth in order to make sorghum paste, or with yellow sand to make halva, or with crushed apricot stones to make milk. In old tin cans in which tobacco was sold we put the semolina we made from chalky plaster we scraped from between loose stones in the walls. Measuring and mixing very seriously, I played the part of the grocer while Kalla was the housewife: as among grown-ups, I benefited from the masculine privileges. We also had seasonal games: fruit pits in summer, buttons in winter, in spring we hunted green caterpillars that were born spontaneously, we thought, of the morning dew. We also believed that they headed for cooking pots in order to poison our food. We used to throw handfuls of coarse salt on the poor things to see them suddenly shrink and then melt, soon leaving but a small spot of yellowish liquid on the cold pavement of the yard. We even had our secret pleasures, the first expressions of an inner life that was independent of our parents. In winter, once night had fallen, Mother used to light the oil lamp. The flame would hesitate, reddish and exhaling a malodorous black smoke, and the furniture seemed to dance in the struggle of light and shadows. Of this uncertain strife the room as we knew it by night was born, mysterious and welcoming, with planes of yellow light, shadows with hard edges, and impenetrable voids. We then abandoned the passage that had grown too cold, and climbed into bed, to slip as fast as we could beneath the heavy blankets with their warm colors, the red of embers, the green of cactus, the purple of eggplant. We would disappear completely, alone in the heart of the darkness. Whispering and groping, we helped our hands to find each other. Mother, awaiting Father’s return, busied herself with some sewing, her head almost touching the lamp. Sometimes, she would ask us: “What are you up to?” Half-stifled, raising the blankets with difficulty, we thought that we gave, from the outside, the appearance of a small tent, and announced our alibi: “We’re playing at housekeeping.” I doubt whether she ever suspected what we were actually doing and I do not remember experiencing any deep feelings of shame about it.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Friday was always born in an excited dawn, and it blossomed majestically into a triumphant Sabbath that made us stiff and solemn in our holiday attire, all lit up by the solemn candles. Kalla and I had no new duties, but we enjoyed the happy excitement of the household. Mother and Joulie, our neighbor, assisted by the latter’s daughter Touira, hurried all day at their chores, with twice as many fires in their earthenware hearths, for they had to set out, all over the rooms, the meals for two whole days. They only just managed to get everything done by the time the first star appeared to announce the Sabbath. At five o’clock, the darkness that was beginning in our room discovered a new order: the laden table spread with an embroidered white cloth, the chest of drawers bearing a bowl of yellow narcisssus, the bed and the sofa covered with white sheets. The great brass candlestick and two Phoenician lamps replaced the oil lamp. The olive oil sizzled as it burned, with an occasional sputter, and cast trembling shadows that were soft and unfamiliar on our walls. For the Sabbath, even the light seemed unusual. Scrubbed in warm water, combed and dressed in our best, we waited for Father to come home earlier than usual. But on his way he had stopped at the barber’s so that when he appeared he was well shaven and combed, already Sabbatical in spite of his working clothes. He dropped his heavy keys on the marble top of our chest of drawers and drew oranges, sweet lemons, or dates and nuts from the depths of his coat pockets, or else a big bag of roasted chick-peas and a smaller one of pistachio nuts, all of which he handed to Mother. One after another, our Friday evening friends then began to arrive: Didakh the cobbler, Hmaïnou the watchmaker, sometimes Joule, the landlady’s son who felt happier with us than with his own mother. My father, with everything about him clean, his hair carefully brushed flat, and a sprig of jasmine tucked over his ear, was happy and relaxed, seated Turkish style on the divan as on a throne. The men would then drink their little glasses of araki as they ate force-meat balls, chick-peas, and strongly seasoned pickled carrots and squash. As for me, I greedily accepted the little drop of alcohol that they often offered me; and as the feast went on, my eyelids began to grow heavy and I was already slightly drunk by the time we got around to eating dinner. I cannot remember ever having gone to bed on a Friday night; I suppose I used to fall asleep while still at table, as I have often seen Kalla fall asleep, her white face disappearing beneath her beautiful black hair.

• From Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907)

  Moreover, it was not purely a religious question with them; matters that concern money somehow never are purely religious. In paying tribute to Cæsar, they seemed to deny the sovereignty of Jehovah, Israel’s only king; that was, indeed, one point for grief. But another point was that they had to pay, pay, pay; and money is such a dear thing! Jesus felt none of their fond reverence for cash. Hence he could say, Give to Cæsar the stuff that belongs to him, and give to God what he claims. We have another incident in which his inward attitude to taxation comes out. The Jews annually paid a poll-tax of half a shekel for the support of the temple worship, which sufficed to maintain it in splendor. The collector met Peter and asked if his master did not intend to pay. Peter, probably knowing his custom hitherto, said, “Certainly.” When he came into the house, Jesus, who seems to have overheard the conversation, asked him from whom the kings of the earth usually exacted taxes, from their subjects or their sons. Peter rightly judged that the subjects usually did the paying, and the members of the royal family were exempt. “Then,” said Jesus, “as we are sons of God and princes of the bloodroyal, we are exempt from God’s temple-tax.” But lest we give offence, go catch a fish and pay the tax.” We all know by experience that the expression of the face and eye are often quite essential for understanding the spirit of a conversation. We must think of Jesus with a smile on his lips during this conversation with his friend Peter. Yet something of his most fundamental attitude to existing institutions found expression in this gentle raillery. He was inwardly free. He paid because he wanted to, and not because he had to. Camille Desmoulins, one of the spiritual leaders of the French Revolution, called Jesus “le bon sansculotte.” Emile de Laveleye, the eminent Belgian economist, who had the deepest reverence for Christianity as a social force, said, “If Christianity were taught and understood conformably to the spirit of its Founder, the existing social organism could not last a day.” James Russell Lowell said, “There is dynamite enough in the New Testament, if illegitimately applied, to blow all our existing institutions to atoms.” These men have not seen amiss. Jesus was not a child of this world. He did not revere the men it called great; he did not accept its customs and social usages as final; his moral conceptions did not run along the grooves marked out by it. He nourished within his soul the ideal of a common life so radically different from the present that it involved a reversal of values, a revolutionary displacement of existing relations. This ideal was not merely a beautiful dream to solace his soul. He lived it out in his own daily life. He urged others to live that way.