Longing

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 Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  CHAPTER FIVE THE LIBRARY, A–Z F or a great many years until my retirement I biked back and forth to Stanford every day from my home, stopping many days to admire the Rodin statues of the Burghers of Calais, or the gleaming mosaics on the chapel dominating the Quad, or to browse at the campus bookstore. Even after retirement I continued to bike around Palo Alto, running errands or visiting friends. But lately I’ve lost confidence in my balance, and so I avoid biking in traffic and limit my riding to bike paths for thirty or forty minutes at sundown. Though my routes have changed, the experience of biking has always been one of liberation and contemplation, and lately when I ride, the experience of the smooth, swift motion and the breeze in my face invariably transports me into the past. Aside from an intense ten-year affair with a motorcycle during my late twenties and early thirties, I’ve been faithful to bicycling since I was twelve, when, after a long, hard campaign of begging and wheedling, my parents gave in and bought me a flashy red American Flyer for my birthday. I was a persistent beggar and discovered at an early age a supremely effective technique, a technique that never failed: simply make a linkage between my desired object and my education. My parents were not forthcoming with money for any type of frivolity, but when it came to anything even remotely related to education—pens, paper, slide rules (remember those?), and books, especially books—they gave with both hands. Hence, when I told them I would use the bicycle to visit the grand Washington Central Library at Seventh and K Streets more often, they could not refuse my request. T HE AUTHOR AT AGE TEN. I kept my side of the bargain: every Saturday, without fail, I filled my bicycle leatherette saddlebags with the six books (the library limit) I had digested since the previous Saturday and took off on the forty-minute ride for new ones. The library became my second home and I spent hours there each Saturday. My long afternoons served a dual purpose: the library put me in contact with the larger world I longed for, a world of history and culture and ideas, and at the same time it eased my parents’ anxiety and gave them the satisfaction of knowing that they had begotten a scholar. Also, from their standpoint, the more time I spent indoors reading, the better: our neighborhood was a dangerous one. My father’s store and our second-floor apartment were located in a low-income neighborhood of segregated Washington, DC, a few blocks from the border of the white neighborhood. The streets were rife with violence, theft, racial skirmishes, and drunkenness (much of that fueled by liquor from my father’s store).

• From Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty (1999)

  Physical beauty is like athletic skill: it peaks young. Extreme beauty is rare, and almost always found, if at all, in people before they reach age thirty-five. We say that time steals beauty, but time merely moves on from an idealized moment when the body has developed into its physical and (pro)creative powers and has yet to decline in health and fertility. Many tortured quests for beauty are efforts to stretch these few years into perpetuity, to retain the appearance of nubile adolescence forever. As William Butler Yeats wrote, “decrepit age … has been tied to me, as to a dog’s tail.” If only we could capture youthful exuberance and bottle it. We wish to stay forever young not only in our hearts and our minds but in our bodies. Although “rough winds do shake the darling buds of May” for both sexes, it is women who try more desperately to hold on to youth. This is because they want to appeal to men, who often seek young partners. Gay and straight men rate photographs of younger potential “sex objects” as more attractive than older ones. Straight women tend to prefer slightly older men, and lesbians are neutral on the subject. A two- or three-year age difference between men and women is typical for first marriages, with the bride being younger. For example, the average age of a first-time bride in the United States in 1996 was 24.8 years and for a first-time groom 27.1 years. Once men get into their thirties they begin to fetishize younger women. If men marry a second time, their wives are on average five years younger than they. If they marry a third time, the new wife is likely to be eight years younger. A man may like a younger woman for many reason including longings for his own lost youth, the desire to play a father figure, and the need to dominate and control, but the mating statistics suggest that marrying younger women may simply reflect men’s desire to mate with a maximally fertile woman, or at least one who looks that way.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He felt, suddenly, trapped in a dream from which he could not awaken. The earrings were heavy and archaic, suggesting the shape of a feathered arrow: Rufus never really liked them . In that time, eons ago, when they had been cufflinks, given him by Eric as a confession of his love, Rufus had hardly ever worn them. But he had kept them. And here they were, transformed, on the body of his sister. The burly college boy, looking straight ahead, seemed to nudge Eric with his knee. Eric moved a little out from the bar and moved nearer the door, so that they would see him when they looked his way. He stood sipping his drink in the bar; they stood on the twilit sidewalk. Eric watched Vivaldo and used these moments to remember him. Vivaldo seemed more radiant than he had ever been, and less boyish. He was still very slim, very lean, but he seemed, somehow, to have more weight. In Eric’s memory, Vivaldo always put one foot down lightly, like a distrustful colt, ready, at any moment, to break and run; but now he stood where he stood, the ground bore him, and his startled, sniffing, maverick quality was gone. Or perhaps not entirely gone: his black eyes darted from face to face as he spoke, as he listened, investigating, weighing, watching, his eyes hiding more than they revealed. The conversation took a more somber turn. One of the musicians had brought up the subject of money—of unions, and, with a gesture toward the spot where Eric stood, of working conditions. Vivaldo’s eyes darkened, his face became still, and he looked briefly down at Ida. She watched the musician who was speaking with a proud, bitter look on her face. “So maybe you better give it another thought, gal,” the musician concluded. “I’ve thought about it,” she said, looking down, touching one of the earrings. Vivaldo took this hand in his, and she looked up at him; he kissed her lightly on the tip of the nose. “Well,” said another musician, wearily, “we better be making it on in.” He turned and entered the bar, saying, “Excuse me, man” to Eric as he passed. Ida whispered something in Vivaldo’s ear; he listened, frowning. His hair fell over his forehead, and he threw his head back, sharply, with a look of annoyance, and saw Eric. For a moment they simply stared at each other. Another musician, entering the bar, passed between them. Then, Vivaldo said, “So there you are.

• From Another Country (1962)

  But she was very sure of herself, you could tell she wasn’t going to take any shit.” He laughed. “Sounds like my girl, all right.” “I wish I looked like her,” Belle said. “My!” “I like you just the way you are,” said Lorenzo. Out of the corner of his eye, and from far away, Vivaldo watched his arms go up and saw Belle’s dark hair fall. Just above my head . That was a song that Ida sometimes sang, puttering inefficiently about the kitchen, which always seemed sandy with coffee grinds and vaguely immoral with dead cigarettes on the burnt, blistered paint of the shelves. Perhaps the answer was in the songs. Just above my head , I hear music in the air . And I really do believe There’s a God somewhere . But was it music in the air, or trouble in the air? He began whistling another song: Trouble in mind, I’m blue , But I won’t be blue always , ’Cause the sun’s going to shine In my back door someday . Why back door? And the sky now seemed to descend, no longer phosphorescent with possibilities, but rigid with the mineral of choices, heavy as the weight of the finite earth, onto his chest. He was being pressed: I’m pressing on , Ida sometimes sang, the upward way! What in the world did these songs mean to her? For he knew that she often sang them in order to flaunt before him privacies which he could never hope to penetrate and to convey accusations which he could never hope to decipher, much less deny. And yet, if he could enter this secret place, he would, by that act, be released forever from the power of her accusations. His presence in this strangest and grimmest of sanctuaries would prove his right to be there; in the same way that the prince, having outwitted all the dangers and slaughtered the lion, is ushered into the presence of his bride, the princess. I loves you, Porgy, don’t let him take me . Don’t let him handle me with his hot hands . To whom, to whom, did she sing this song? The blues fell down this morning. The blues my baby gave to me . Water trickled past his ear, onto his wrist. He did not move and the slow tears rolled from the corners of his eyes. “You’re groovy, too,” he heard Belle say. “For real?” “For real.” “Let’s try to make it to Spain. Let’s really try.” “I’ll get dressed up Monday, uptown style”—she giggled—“and I’ll get a job as receptionist somewhere. I hate it, it’s such a drag, but, that way, we can get away from here.” “Do that, baby. And I’ll get a job, too, I promise.” “You don’t have to promise.” “But I do.” He heard their kiss, it seemed light and loving and dry, and he envied them their deadly and unshakable innocence. “Let’s ball.” “Not here.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  I believe that many women who struggle with sexual and/or emotional integrity are still little girls trapped in a grown woman’s body, desperately seeking a father figure to give them the love they craved as a child. This pursuit of “love” takes the form of searching for intimacy and closeness, and unfortunately the world we live in teaches that this intimacy and closeness can be found only through sexual relationships. However, as many women have painfully discovered, relationships can be built entirely on sex and still be devoid of any intimacy or closeness at all, which leaves us feeling even more powerless to have our needs met. Unfortunately, women have long been using sex in order to get their own needs met. In fact, this has been going on since biblical times. Paul preached against it in his first letter to Timothy when he wrote, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent” (2:12). Some people have interpreted this verse as an injunction to keep women from any form of leadership in the church, but I believe it has nothing to do with teaching the gospel or justly exercising her authority to lead others to Christ. As I’ve researched the actual Greek word that Paul was using for “authority,” I have come to believe he was addressing the exact issue we’re talking about in this chapter: women using sex to exert power over men. The word Paul used for “authority” is the Greek word authentein, and not all scholars agree on its meaning. Some have translated it as “to usurp authority, domineer, or exercise authority over,” but others translate it as “to involve someone in soliciting sexual liaisons.” In other words, the verse could be read, “I do not permit a woman to teach sexual immorality or to involve a man in sexual sin.”3 Here are a few other examples of women who are guilty of manipulation games in their quest to gain a sense of power over men: • Corin confesses that when she dresses in the morning, she considers what men she will be meeting with that day and chooses her attire based on whether she will need to sway a man’s decision in a business matter. (Corin is abusing her power by using her sex appeal to manipulate men into giving her what she wants.) • Trina has little interest in Kurt, a male coworker who obviously thinks the world of her, the way he heaps compliments on her. However, she will go out to lunch with Kurt if he offers to buy or if she just needs an ego boost. (Trina is taking advantage of Kurt’s affection and his pocketbook with no intention of ever reciprocating his feelings.) • Vicki admits that when she overspends the budget, she often initiates sex with her husband before breaking the news to him. (Vicki uses sex to soften the blow of money mismanagement.)

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  When we first come to Christ, our spiritual life has little shape or form. We submit ourselves to Jesus Christ as our Savior and ask God to begin shaping us into what He wants us to be. “We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand” (Isaiah 64:8; see also Jeremiah 18:4-6). As a piece of clay, we can allow ourselves to be molded and become a product of the Potter who cares for us, but we cannot express our love back to Him. We can’t experience any deep sense of intimacy if we remain in this level of relationship. Why? Because a lump of clay’s value is based on how it can be used. When we comply and feel God using us, we feel good about ourselves. When we mess up or don’t have a clear sense of purpose, we feel guilty and distant from God. We often withdraw because we believe He is angry with us due to our poor performance. Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” This scripture affirms that it is important for us to submit to God and allow Him to shape our lives into something that brings Him honor. However, He doesn’t want our relationship to stagnate there. He wants it to continue growing in depth and intimacy. SHEPHERD/SHEEP RELATIONSHIP It may not be flattering to be compared to sheep, but this metaphor illustrates how well God takes care of His people, just as a shepherd carefully tends his flock. God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel: For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered…. They will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. (34:11-15; see also the parable of the good shepherd in John 10:1-18). Although sheep know the shepherd’s voice and will follow him, they have no idea what the heart of the shepherd feels for them. Sheep are unable to share the shepherd’s dreams and hopes. They are merely concerned with their daily need for food and water. While it is important for us to follow and trust God as our caretaker and provider just as a sheep follows a shepherd, God longs for us to have far more with Him. MASTER/SERVANT RELATIONSHIP

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

  I tried out for the college tennis team and managed to play one varsity doubles match, and joined the university chess team, where I played second board for several intercollegiate matches. I consider the first year of medical school the worst year of my life, not only because of the academic demands but because Marilyn was off to France for her junior year abroad. I dug in and memorized what I was asked to learn and worked perhaps even harder than I had as a pre-med student. My only pleasure in medical school sprang from my relationship with Herb Kotz and Larry Zaroff, my lifelong friends. They were my anatomy lab partners as we dissected our cadaver, whom we christened Agamemnon. Unwilling to bear separation from Marilyn any longer, I decided, toward the end of my first year, to transfer to Boston and, mirabile dictu, I was accepted as a transfer student by Boston University Medical School, and when Marilyn returned from her year in France, we got engaged. In Boston, I rented a room in a large four-story Back Bay boardinghouse on Marlborough Street. It was my first year away from home, and my life, inner and outer, began to change for the better. Some other medical students lived in the same house and I soon made friends. Soon three or four of us were commuting together daily to school. One of them, Bob Berger, was to become a close lifelong friend. More on Bob later. T HE AUTHOR’S ROOM IN BOSTON DURING MEDICAL SCHOOL DAYS , 1953. But the pièce de résistance of being in Boston for my second year of medical school was my weekends with Marilyn. Wellesley College had a very strict code about unchaperoned students spending time off campus at night, and so each week, Marilyn had to invent some legitimate-sounding excuse to be away and obtain an invitation from a broad-minded friend. We studied part of the weekend, took drives along the New England coast, visited museums in Boston, and ate dinner at Durgin-Park. My inner life was also changing. I was no longer frantic, only minimally anxious, and I was finally sleeping soundly. I knew, even during my first year of medical school, that I would go into psychiatry, though I had only had a few psychiatry lectures, and had never spoken to a psychiatrist. I think I had decided upon psychiatry before even entering medical school: it flowed from my passion for literature and from a belief that psychiatry offered me proximity to all the great writers I loved. My deepest pleasure was to lose myself in the world of a novel, and over and over again I told myself that the very best thing a person could do in life was to write a fine novel. I’ve always had a hunger for stories, and since I first read Treasure Island as a young adolescent I have dived deeply into the narratives that great writers offer us.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  While men are primarily aroused by what they see with their eyes, women are more aroused by what they hear. He may fantasize about watching a woman undress, but she fantasizes about him whispering sweet nothings in her ear. The temptation to look at pornography can be overwhelming to a male, while females would much rather read the relational dialogue in a romance novel. Men want to look and touch, whereas women much prefer to talk and relate. Most men experience a regular, recurring need for a physical, sexual release. Some feel this intense need as often as every couple of days. Others experience it a couple of times per week or even less (according to their season of life). While the frequency of the need varies from man to man, each one has his own sexual “cycle” in which he experiences these physical desires. While it may be difficult for some women to fathom that sex is actually a cyclical need for men, don’t we have our own unique cycle as well? Although physical pleasure may not be a cyclical need, we long for attention and affection on a regular, recurring basis. Just as a man would become far more vulnerable to a sexual affair if his wife rarely responded to his physical needs for a sexual release, a woman becomes far more vulnerable to an affair when her emotional needs are neglected over and over. When a woman falls into a sexual affair, most often her affair begins as an emotional one. It is out of her emotional needs that her heart cries out for someone to satisfy her innermost desires to be loved, needed, valued, and cherished. A woman’s emotional needs are just as vitally important to her as a man’s physical needs are to him. Figure 1.1 (on the previous table) summarizes the distinguishing differences between how men and women respond sexually. NAIVETÉ IS NOT A VIRTUE Let’s not be naive enough to believe that because Rebecca, Carol, Sandra, or Lacy are not acting out physically with a premarital or extramarital partner that their actions aren’t compromising their sexual integrity. Nor is it wise to think that what happened to Jean or any of the other women could never happen to us. The apostle Paul writes: So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!…Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled…. Do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”…Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality. (1 Corinthians 10:12; 1 Peter 1:13-16; Ephesians 5:3)

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Yes,” she said. And they kept walking, neither seeming to have the energy it would have demanded to stop and hail a cab. They could not talk about the funeral now, there was too much to say; perhaps each had too much to hide. They walked down the wide, crowded Avenue, surrounded, it seemed, by an atmosphere which prevented others from jostling them or looking at them too directly or for too long a time. They reached the mouth of the subway at 125th Street. People climbed up from the darkness and a group of people stood on the corner, waiting for the bus. “Let’s get that cab,” she said. Vivaldo hailed a cab and they got in—as, she could not help feeling they had been expected to do—and they began to roll away from the dark, the violent scene, over which, now, a pale sun fell. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder.” “Yes? What do you wonder?” Her tone was sharper than she had intended, she could not have said why. “What she means when she says she’ll never forget it.” Something was going on in her mind, something she could not name or stop; but it was almost as though she were her mind’s prisoner, as though the jaws of her mind had closed on her. “Well, at least that proves that you’re intelligent,” she said. “Much good may it do you.” She watched the cab roll down the Avenue which would eventually turn into the Avenue she knew. “I’d like to prove to her—one day,” he said; and paused. He looked out of the window. “I’d like to make her know that the world’s not as black as she thinks it is.” “Or,” she said, dryly, after a moment, “as white.” “Or as white,” he said, mildly. She sensed that he was refusing to react to her tone. Then he said, “You don’t like her—Ida.” “I like her well enough. I don’t know her.” “I guess that proves my point,” he said. “You don’t know her and you don’t want to know her.” “It doesn’t matter whether I like Ida or not,” she said. “The point is, you like her. Well, that’s fine. I don’t know why you want me to object. I don’t object. But what difference would it make if I did?” “None,” he said, promptly. Then, “Well, some. I’d worry about my judgment.” “Judgment,” she said, “has nothing to do with love.” He looked at her sharply, but with gratitude, too. “For it’s love we’re talking about—?” “For what you seem to be trying to prove,” she said, “It had better be.” She was silent. Then she said, “Of course, she may also have something to prove.” “I think she has something to forget,” he said. “I think I can help her forget it.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Scott returned with a quart bottle of beer and three glasses. She had a remarkably authoritative and graceful walk. “Don’t you mind my boy,” she said, “he’s just full of the devil, he can’t help it. I been trying to knock it out of him, but I ain’t had much luck.” She smiled at Vivaldo as she poured his beer. “You look kind of shy. Don’t you be shy. You just feel as welcome here as if you was in your own house, you hear?” And she handed him his glass. “Thank you,” said Vivaldo. He took a swallow of the beer, thinking she’d probably be surprised to know how unwelcome he felt in his own house. And then, again, perhaps she wouldn’t be surprised at all. “You look as though you dressed up to go out someplace, too, old lady.” “Oh,” she said, deprecatingly, “I’m just going down the block to see Mrs. Braithwaite. You remember her girl, Vickie? Well, she done had her baby. We going to the hospital to visit her.” “Vickie got a baby? Already?” “Well, the young folks don’t wait these days, you know that.” She laughed and sipped her beer. Rufus looked over at Vivaldo with a frown. “Damn,” he said. “How’s she doing?” “Pretty well—under the circumstances.” Her pause suggested that the circumstances were grim. “She had a right fine boy, weighed seven pounds.” She was about to say more; but Ida entered. She was already quite tall, nearly as tall as she was going to be. She, too, had been dealing in hot combs and curling irons, Vivaldo’s later impression that she had been in pigtails was due to the fact that her hair had been curled tightly all over her head. The dress she wore was long and blue and full, of some rustling material which billowed above her long legs. She came into the room, looking only at her brother, with an enormous, childlike smile. He and Rufus stood up. “You see, I got here,” said Rufus, smiling, and he and his sister kissed each other on the cheek. Their mother stood watching them with a proud, frowning smile. “I see you did,” said Ida, moving a little away from him, and laughing. Her delight in seeing her brother was so real that Vivaldo felt a kind of anguish, thinking of his own house, his own sister. “I been wondering if you’d make it—you keep so busy all the time.” She said the last with a wry, proud, grown-up exasperation, as one submitting to the penalties imposed by her brother’s power and glory. She had not looked at Vivaldo, though she was vividly aware of him. But Vivaldo would not exist until Rufus permitted it. He permitted it now, tentatively, with one hand on his sister’s neck. He turned her toward Vivaldo. “I brought a friend of mine along, Vivaldo Moore. This is my sister, Ida.” They shook hands.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Eric raised his eyebrows. “I guess she is. She thinks she is. I don’t know. What does it mean, to be in love? Are you in love with Ida?” “Yes,” said Vivaldo. Eric rose and walked to the window. “You didn’t even have to think about it. I guess that tells me where I am.” He laughed. With his back to Vivaldo, he said, “I used to envy you, you know that?” “You must have been out of your mind,” said Vivaldo. “Why?” “Because you were normal,” Eric said. He turned and faced Vivaldo. Vivaldo threw back his head and laughed. “Flattery will get you nowhere, son. Or is that a subtle put-down?” “It’s not a put-down at all,” said Eric. “But I’m glad I don’t envy you any more.” “Hell,” said Vivaldo, “I might just as easily envy you. You can make it with both men and women and sometimes I’ve wished I could do that, I really have.” Eric was silent. Vivaldo grinned. “We’ve all got our troubles, Buster.” Eric looked very grave. He grunted, noncommittally, and sat down again. “You’ve wished you could—you say. And I wish I couldn’t.” “You say.” They looked at each other and smiled. Then, “I hope you get along with Ida better than I did with Rufus,” Eric said. Vivaldo felt chilled. He looked away from Eric, toward the window; the dark, lonely streets seemed to come flooding in on them. “How,” he asked, “did you get along with Rufus?” “It was terrible, it drove me crazy.” “I figured that.” He watched Eric. “Is that all over now? I mean—is Cass kind of the wave of your future?” “I don’t know. I thought I could make myself fall in love with Cass, but—but, no. I love her very much, we get on beautifully together. But she’s not all tangled up in my guts the way—the way I guess Ida is all tangled up in yours.” “Maybe you’re just not in love with her. You haven’t got to be in love every time you go to bed. You haven’t got to be in love to have a good affair.” Eric was silent. Then, “No. But once you have been—I” And he stared into his drink. “Yes,” Vivaldo said at last, “yes, I know.” “I think,” said Eric, “that I’ve really got to accept—or decide—some very strange things. Right away.” He walked into the dark kitchen, returned with ice, and spiked his drink, and Vivaldo’s. He sat down again in his straight chair. “I’ve spent years now, it seems to me, thinking that one fine day I’d wake up and all my torment would be over, and all my indecision would end—and that no man, no boy, no male—would ever have power over me again.”

• From Real Life (2020)

  Il me faut quelque chose. Un oui. Un non. Mais plus qu’un peut-être. — Mais pourquoi tu tiens tant à me voir ? — Le week-end n’est pas encore fini », dit Miller en souriant. Mais c’est ce sourire timide de tout à l’heure, celui qui a déclenché toutes ces complications au départ. Wallace détourne les yeux. « Appelle-moi, dit-il. On verra. — Bon, je me contenterai de ça. » Miller attire Wallace contre lui. Il sent la fumée et les cendres, et aussi les oranges. Wallace passe ses bras autour de la taille de Miller, et ne fait pas un mouvement pour se reculer. Il a eu beau répéter sur tous les tons qu’il voulait être seul, maintenant qu’il se retrouve si près, il s’aperçoit qu’il veut, plus que tout au monde, être dans les bras de quelqu’un. Mais il ne parvient pas à se résoudre à le demander maintenant et, se connaissant, il ne ferait que changer d’avis par la suite, le regretter à l’instant où il obtiendrait ce qu’il désire. « Bon, je vais y aller. — C’est ce que tu dis », fait Miller. Wallace éclate de rire et recule, s’arrachant à ses bras. « À plus tard. — À plus tard. » Wallace poursuit son chemin et se retourne à plusieurs reprises. Miller est là, chaque fois, qui fume et l’observe. Il y a plus de monde à présent. Le soleil brille. Il fait clair. Il fait chaud. Au bout d’un moment, il est impossible de distinguer Miller des promeneurs qui traversent la rue et circulent dans les deux sens sur le chemin du Capitole. En fin de compte, ce ne sont que des gens qui vivent leurs vies, font des courses, mangent, rient et se disputent, comme tout le monde. Ça aussi, c’est la vraie vie, se dit Wallace. Pas seulement l’accumulation de tâches, de choses à faire et à trier, mais aussi le fait de rencontrer par hasard d’autres vies ; tout le monde ici-bas est insignifiant une fois observé parmi l’ensemble. Au coin de la rue, il s’arrête, s’appuie contre un immeuble et ferme les yeux. Le monde tournoie, tangue sous lui. La semaine l’attend, avec toutes ses exigences, sa structure et, sous peu, la nouvelle année universitaire va commencer. S’il continue comme ça, s’il continue d’avancer, va-t-elle l’avaler, jusqu’à ce que le son de son poids la traversant soit absorbé dans sa masse, jusqu’à ce que sa vie ne soit pas plus reconnaissable de l’extérieur que les vies des autres le sont à ses yeux dans la rue ?

• From Another Country (1962)

  Yes and no.” Briefly: “You’ll see.” This brought them to another silence, and, after a few seconds, they hung up. He entered their building, stepped into the elevator, and told the elevator man where he was going. He had forgotten the style of American elevator men, but now it came back to him. The elevator man, without a surly word, slammed the elevator gates shut and drove the car upward. The nature of his silence conveyed his disapproval of the Silenskis and all their friends and his vivid sense of being as good as they. He rang the bell. Cass opened the door at once, looking as bright as the bright day. “Eric!” She looked him over with the affectionate mockery he now remembered. “How nice you look with your hair so short!” “How nice,” he returned, smiling, “you look with yours so long. Or was it always long. It’s that kind of thing a long absence makes you forget.” “Let me look at you.” She pulled him into the apartment and closed the door. “You really look wonderful. Welcome home.” She leaned forward suddenly and kissed him on the cheek. “Is that the way they do it in Paris?” “You have to kiss me on both cheeks,” he said, gravely. “Oh.” She seemed slightly embarrassed but kissed him again. “Is that better?” “Much,” he said. Then, “Where is everybody?” For the large living room was empty, and filled with the sound of the blues. It was the voice of a colored woman, the voice of Bessie Smith, and it hurled him, with violence, into the hot center of his past: It’s raining and it’s storming on the sea. I feel like somebody has shipwrecked poor me . For a moment Cass looked as though she were sardonically echoing his question. She crossed the room and lowered the volume of the music slightly. “The children are over in the park with some friends of theirs. Richard’s in his study, working. But they should all be appearing almost any moment now.” “Oh,” he said, “then I’m early. I’m sorry.” “You aren’t early, you’re on time. And I’m glad. I was hoping to have a chance to talk to you alone before we go down to this jam session.” “You’ve got a pretty agreeable jam session going on right now,” he said. Cass went over to the bar, and he threw himself down on the sofa. “It’s mighty nice and cool in here. It’s awful outside. I’d forgotten how hot New York could be.” The large windows were open and the water stretched beyond the windows, very bright and peaceful, but murkier than the Mediterranean. The breeze that filled the room came directly from the water; seemed, almost, to bring with it the spice and stink of Europe and the murmur of Yves’ voice.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Partons sans nous retourner. — Ça serait le rêve, dit-elle, secouant la tête, mais le truc, avec les rêves, c’est qu’il faut se réveiller, Wally. — Je sais bien, crois-moi, », réplique-t-il, mais la perspective d’une vie avec Brigit, une vie simple et facile, fondée exclusivement sur leur propre conception du bonheur, semble irrésistible. Ils pourraient vivre dans la maison minuscule de son amie dans l’East Side, profiter du jardin, préparer des confitures et des sauces et passer les après-midi ensoleillés à lire paresseusement. Ils pourraient vivre en autarcie, loin de tout et de tous. Ils terminent leurs glaces et se lèvent, raides et endoloris. Brigit le serre fermement dans ses bras une dernière fois, et il refuse presque de la lâcher. « Reste, murmure-t-il. S’il te plaît. » Elle l’embrasse sur la joue. « Oh, Wally. Ça va aller. Prends bien soin de toi, OK ? » Il l’accompagne jusqu’au kiosque, la salue d’un geste, puis regarde son pull blanc disparaître peu à peu dans la pénombre. Les autres, tous autant qu’ils sont, n’ont pour ainsi dire pas d’intérêt pour lui. Ils ne comptent pas. Ils ne comptent pas. Ils ne comptent pas. Wallace remonte la rue vers son appartement, fatigué, la tête lourde. Le soleil de l’après-midi lui a donné chaud et il se sent un peu groggy. Il a envie de se faire couler un bain et d’y tremper un long moment, sans rien faire. Il aimerait bien pouvoir se téléporter mais, heureusement, il n’a pas beaucoup de chemin à faire. Il marche dans la rue bordée d’arbres, éclairée par les globes blancs des lampadaires. Hier soir, à la même heure, il se trouvait à l’autre bout de la ville avec Miller. Vingt-quatre heures seulement – une rotation de la Terre, un déplacement dans l’espace et le temps. Il existe une théorie selon laquelle tous les instants de nos vies sont perpétuellement en train de se produire, simultanément. Il repense à ces mots de Vers le phare : « Et toutes les vies que nous avons vécues. » Tous les instants. À la fois la nuit dernière, avec Miller, et l’ensemble des points de la trajectoire de son existence qui l’ont mené à cet instant ; l’homme dans la pénombre, son visage de squelette descendant sur Wallace, suspendu là pour toujours ; la sensation d’être déchiré, de façon permanente, sans retour ; ce garçon que Miller a estropié, son sang qui jaillissait, brûlant, pendant que Miller le cognait sans relâche – tout cela, en même temps, se déversant dans le présent.

• From Another Country (1962)

  And he felt that if he were a real writer, he would simply go home and work and throw everything else out of his mind, as Balzac had done and Proust and Joyce and James and Faulkner. But perhaps they had never held in their minds the nameless things he held in his. He felt a very peculiar, a deadly resignation: he knew that he would not go home until it was too late for him to go anywhere else, or until Ida answered the phone. Ida: and he felt an eerie premonition, as though he were old, walking years from now through familiar streets where no one knew or noticed him, thinking of his lost love, and wondering, Where is she now? Where is she now? He passed the movie theater and the tough boys and tough men who always stood outside it. It was ten o’clock. He turned west on Waverly Place and walked to a crowded bar where he could get a hamburger. He forced himself to have a hamburger and a beer before he called his apartment again. There was no answer. He went back to the bar and ordered a whiskey and realized that he was running out of money. If he were going to keep on drinking he would have to go to Benno’s, where he had a tab. He drank his whiskey very slowly, watching and listening to the crowd around him. They had been college boys, mostly, in his day, but both he and they had grown older and he gathered, from the conversations around him, that the college boys had graduated into the professions. He had his eye, vaguely, on a frail, blonde girl, who also seemed, somewhat less vaguely, to have her eye on him: incredibly enough, she seemed to be a lawyer. And he was abruptly very excited, as he had been years ago, at the prospect of making it with a chick above his station, a chick he was not even supposed to be able to look at. He was from the slums of Brooklyn and that stink was on him, and it turned out to be the stink that they were looking for. They were tired of boys who washed too much, who had no odor in their armpits and no sweat on their balls. He looked at the blonde again, wondering what she was like with no clothes on. She was sitting at a table near the door, facing him, toying with a daiquiri glass, and talking to a heavy, gray-haired man, who had a high giggle, who was a little drunk, and whom Vivaldo recognized as a fairly well-known poet.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  For, I saw the church full; and one went this way, and another that way. But I was displeased that I led a secular life; yea now that my desires no longer inflamed me, as of old, with hopes of honour and profit, a very grievous burden it was to undergo so heavy a bondage. For, in comparison of Thy sweetness, and the beauty of Thy house which I loved, those things delighted me no longer. But still I was enthralled with the love of woman; nor did the Apostle forbid me to marry, although he advised me to something better, chiefly wishing that all men were as himself was. But I being weak, chose the more indulgent place; and because of this alone, was tossed up and down in all beside, faint and wasted with withering cares, because in other matters I was constrained against my will to conform myself to a married life, to which I was given up and enthralled. I had heard from the mouth of the Truth, that there were some eunuchs which had made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake: but, saith He, let him who can receive it, receive it. Surely vain are all men who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things which are seen, find out Him who is good. But I was no longer in that vanity; I had surmounted it; and by the common witness of all Thy creatures had found Thee our Creator, and Thy Word, God with Thee, and together with Thee one God, by whom Thou createdst all things. There is yet another kind of ungodly, who knowing God, glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful. Into this also had I fallen, but Thy right hand upheld me, and took me thence, and Thou placedst me where I might recover. For Thou hast said unto man, Behold, the fear of the Lord is wisdom, and, Desire not to seem wise; because they who affirmed themselves to be wise, became fools. But I had now found the goodly pearl, which, selling all that I had, I ought to have bought, and I hesitated.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Torello took the ring and mounted to horse; then, bidding all his people adieu, he set out on his journey and came presently with his company to Genoa. There he embarked on board a galleon and coming in a little while to Acre, joined himself to the other army[476] of the Christians, wherein, well nigh out of hand, there began a sore sickness and mortality. During this, whether by Saladin's skill or of his good fortune, well nigh all the remnant of the Christians who had escaped alive were taken by him, without blow stricken, and divided among many cities and imprisoned. Messer Torello was one of those taken and was carried prisoner to Alexandria, where, being unknown and fearing to make himself known, he addressed himself, of necessity constrained, to the training of hawks, of which he was a great master, and by this he came under the notice of Saladin, who took him out of prison and entertained him for his falconer. Messer Torello, who was called by the Soldan by none other name than the Christian, recognized him not nor did Saladin recognize him; nay, all his thoughts were in Pavia and he had more than once essayed to flee, but without avail; wherefore, certain Genoese coming ambassadors to Saladin, to treat for the ransom of sundry of their townsmen, and being about to depart, he bethought himself to write to his lady, giving her to know that he was alive and would return to her as quickliest he might and bidding her await him. Accordingly, he wrote letters to this effect and instantly besought one of the ambassadors, whom he knew, to cause them come to the hands of the Abbot of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, who was his uncle. [Footnote 476: Sic (_all' altro esercito_). The meaning of this does not appear, as no mention has yet been made of two Christian armies. Perhaps we should translate "the rest of the army," _i.e._ such part of the remnant of the Christian host as fled to Acre and shut themselves up there after the disastrous day of Hittin (23 June, 1187). Acre fell on the 29th July, 1187.]

• From Another Country (1962)

  She broke off suddenly: “Are you sure you’re a man, Vivaldo?” He said, “I’ve got to be sure.” “Fair enough,” she said. She walked to the stove and put a light under the frying pan, walked to the table and opened the meat. She began to dust it with salt and pepper and paprika, and chopped garlic into it, near the bone. He took a swallow of his drink, which had no taste whatever; he splashed more whiskey into his glass. “When Rufus died, something happened to me,” she said. She sounded now very quiet and weary, as though she were telling someone else’s story; also, as though she herself, with a faint astonishment, were hearing it for the first time. But it was yet more astonishing that he now began to listen to a story he had always known, but never dared believe. “I can’t explain it. Rufus had always been the world to me. I loved him.” “So did I,” he said—too quickly, irrelevantly; and for the first time it occurred to him that, possibly, he was a liar; had never loved Rufus at all, but had only feared and envied him. “I don’t need your credentials, Vivaldo,” she said. She watched the frying pan critically, waiting for it to become hot enough, then dropped in a little oil. “The point, anyway, at the moment, is that I loved him. He was my big brother, but as soon as I knew anything, I knew that I was stronger than he was. He was nice, he was really very nice, no matter what any of you might have thought of him later. None of you, anyway, knew anything about him, you didn’t know how.” “You often say that,” he said, wearily. “Why?” “How could you—how can you?—dreaming the way you dream? You people think you’re free. That means you think you’ve got something other people want—or need. Shit.” She grinned wryly and looked at him. “And you do, in a way. But it isn’t what you think it is. And you’re going to find out, too, just as soon as some of those other people start getting what you’ve got now.” She shook her head. “I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for you. I even feel kind of sorry for myself, because God knows I’ve often wished you’d left me where I was——” “Down there in the jungle?” he taunted. “Yes. Down there in the jungle, black and funky—and myself.” His small anger died down as quickly as it had flared up. “Well,” he said, quietly, “sometimes I’m nostalgic, too, Ida.” He watched her dark, lonely face. For the first time, he had an intimation of how she would look when she grew old. “What I’ve never understood,” he said, finally, “is that you always accuse me of making a thing about your color, of penalizing you. But you do the same thing. You always make me feel white.

• From Educated (2018)

  Unwilling to suffer a humiliating defeat, cut down one by one as they tried to break through the cavalry, they mounted their horses and charged off the face of the mountain. When the Apache women found their broken bodies on the rocks below, they cried huge, desperate tears, which turned to stone when they touched the earth. Grandma never told us what happened to the women. The Apaches were at war but had no warriors, so perhaps she thought the ending too bleak to say aloud. The word “slaughter” came to mind, because slaughter is the word for it, for a battle when one side mounts no defense. A slaughter was the likely outcome of the warriors’ bravery. They died in heroic thunder; their wives in collective silence. A void in the shared history, a blank page. As we drove to the trailer, the sun dipping in the sky, its last rays reaching across the highway, I thought about the Apache women. Like the sandstone altar on which they had died, the shape of their lives had been determined years before—before the armies assembled, before the horses began their gallop, their sorrel bodies arching for that final collision. Long before the warriors’ leap it was decided how the women would live and how they would die. By the warriors, by their attachers, by the women themselves. Decided. Choices, numberless as grains of sand, had layered and compressed, coalescing into sediment, then into rock, until all was set in stone. —I HAD NEVER BEFORE left the mountain and I ached for it, for the sight of the Princess etched in pine across the massif. I found myself glancing at the vacant Arizona sky, hoping to see her black form swelling out of the earth, laying claim to her half of the heavens. But she was not there. More than the sight of her, I missed her caresses—the wind she sent through canyons and ravines to sweep through my hair every morning. In Arizona, there was no wind. There was just one heat-stricken hour after another. I spent my days wandering from one side of the trailer to the other, then out the back door, across the patio, over to the hammock, then around to the front porch, where I’d step over Dad’s semiconscious form and back inside again. It was a great relief when, on the sixth day, Grandpa’s four-wheeler broke down and Tyler and Luke took it apart to find the trouble. I sat on a large barrel of blue plastic, watching them, wondering when we could go home. When Dad would stop talking about the Illuminati. When Mother would stop leaving the room whenever Dad entered it. That night after dinner, Dad said it was time to go. “Get your stuff,” he said. “We’re hitting the road in half an hour.” It was early evening, which Grandma said was a ridiculous time to begin a twelve-hour drive.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  To Carthage I came, where there sang all around me in my ears a cauldron of unholy loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and safety I hated, and a way without snares. For within me was a famine of that inward food, Thyself, my God; yet, through that famine I was not hungered; but was without all longing for incorruptible sustenance, not because filled therewith, but the more empty, the more I loathed it. For this cause my soul was sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense. Yet if these had not a soul, they would not be objects of love. To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved, I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness; and thus foul and unseemly, I would fain, through exceeding vanity, be fine and courtly. I fell headlong then into the love wherein I longed to be ensnared. My God, my Mercy, with how much gall didst Thou out of Thy great goodness besprinkle for me that sweetness? For I was both beloved, and secretly arrived at the bond of enjoying; and was with joy fettered with sorrow-bringing bonds, that I might be scourged with the iron burning rods of jealousy, and suspicions, and fears, and angers, and quarrels. Stage-plays also carried me away, full of images of my miseries, and of fuel to my fire. Why is it, that man desires to be made sad, beholding doleful and tragical things, which yet himself would no means suffer? yet he desires as a spectator to feel sorrow at them, this very sorrow is his pleasure. What is this but a miserable madness? for a man is the more affected with these actions, the less free he is from such affections. Howsoever, when he suffers in his own person, it uses to be styled misery: when he compassionates others, then it is mercy. But what sort of compassion is this for feigned and scenical passions? for the auditor is not called on to relieve, but only to grieve: and he applauds the actor of these fictions the more, the more he grieves. And if the calamities of those persons (whether of old times, or mere fiction) be so acted, that the spectator is not moved to tears, he goes away disgusted and criticising; but if he be moved to passion, he stays intent, and weeps for joy.