Pride

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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 4: According to Augustine (Ep. ad Consent. cxlvi) “the Divine power is able to remove” whatever qualities He will “from this visible and tangible body, other qualities remaining.” Hence even as in a certain respect “He deprived the flames of the Chaldees’ furnace of the power to burn, since the bodies of the children were preserved without hurt, while in another respect that power remained, since those flames consumed the wood, so will He remove passibility from the humors while leaving their nature unchanged.” It has been explained in the Article how this is brought about. Reply to Objection 5: The scars of wounds will not be in the saints, nor were they in Christ, in so far as they imply a defect, but as signs of the most steadfast virtue whereby the saints suffered for the sake of justice and faith: so that this will increase their own and others’ joy (Cf. [5075]TP, Q[54], A[4], ad 3). Hence Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxii, 19): “We feel an undescribable love for the blessed martyrs so as to desire to see in that kingdom the scars of the wounds in their bodies, which they bore for Christ’s name. Perchance indeed we shall see them for this will not make them less comely but more glorious. A certain beauty will shine in them, a beauty though in the body, yet not of the body but of virtue.” Nevertheless those martyrs who have been maimed and deprived of their limbs will not be without those limbs in the resurrection of the dead, for to them it is said (Lk. 21:18): “A hair of your head shall not perish.” Whether all will be equally impassible?Objection 1: It would seem that all will be equally impassible. For a gloss on 1 Cor. 15:42, “It is sown in corruption,” says that “all have equal immunity from suffering.” Now the gift of impassibility consists in immunity from suffering. Therefore all will be equally impassible. Objection 2: Further, negations are not subject to be more or less. Now impassibility is a negation or privation of passibility. Therefore it cannot be greater in one subject than in another. Objection 3: Further, a thing is more white if it have less admixture of black. But there will be no admixture of passibility in any of the saints’ bodies. Therefore they will all be equally impassible. On the contrary, Reward should be proportionate to merit. Now some of the saints were greater in merit than others. Therefore, since impassibility is a reward, it would seem to be greater in some than in others. Further, impassibility is condivided with the gift of clarity. Now the latter will not be equal in all, according to 1 Cor. 15:41. Therefore neither will impassibility be equal in all.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  And the heart of Romans 3:27–31 is the firm declaration that the God in whom both Jew and Gentile must believe is the One God of Israel: Jewish-style monotheism is at the heart of the justification by which Gentile and Jew alike are declared to be within the sin-forgiven family. The whole passage, from 2:17 to 4:25, is all about God’s covenant with Israel and through Israel for the world and about the true worship at the heart of this covenant, the worship of the one true God, which replaces the idolatry of 1:18–23 and thus undoes the sin of 1:24–32. Thus, before we probe into any specific details of the passage, it is clear that the usual reading of 3:21–26 has screened out these larger contexts of meaning. It is always possible, of course, that Paul has jumped from one topic to a different one and then back again. Some have tried to read the text that way. But in a tight, interwoven piece of writing like this the high probability is that the author intends the opaque bit in the middle (opaque to us, presumably not to him!) to be the explicit bridge between what went before and what comes after. What has happened in the usual reading, instead, is that a particular meaning has been assumed for 3:21–26 and the passages on either side have been read in the light of this assumed meaning, distorting both. When, therefore, we note that 3:25–26, at least, seems to be speaking of the divine covenant faithfulness, the dikaiosynē theou , we ought to assume not that Paul is quoting earlier “Jewish Christian” formulations, which he is then anxiously modifying, but that this is indeed his central topic. God’s faithfulness to the covenant with Israel, even granted the large-scale failure of Israel as a whole, will result in the rescue of the whole sinful world . This is what we ought to assume the passage will be about. Likewise, when we note that the central statement of the passage, that God “put forth Jesus as the place of mercy,” uses the word hilastērion , which in the scriptures refers to the covering of the “ark of the covenant,” the place where God cleanses Israel from sins so that he and his people can meet, we ought to assume that he is speaking of the way in which true worship is being restored in place of idolatry. Paul is not simply invoking a “cultic metaphor” alongside a “law court” metaphor, on the one hand, and a “slave market” metaphor, on the other. He is thinking of the restoration of true cult, true worship: the one God cleansing people from defilement so that the true meeting, the heart of the covenant, may take place at last. These assumptions will not let us down. The covenant is indeed the context; the restoration of true worship is indeed the goal. The passage is indeed about God’s dealing with sin.

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

  A secure attachment combined with the cultivation of competency builds an internal locus of control, the key factor in healthy coping throughout life.[7] Securely attached children learn what makes them feel good; they discover what makes them (and others) feel bad, and they acquire a sense of agency: that their actions can change how they feel and how others respond. Securely attached kids learn the difference between situations they can control and situations where they need help. They learn that they can play an active role when faced with difficult situations. In contrast, children with histories of abuse and neglect learn that their terror, pleading, and crying do not register with their caregiver. Nothing they can do or say stops the beating or brings attention and help. In effect they’re being conditioned to give up when they face challenges later in life. Becoming RealBowlby’s contemporary, the pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, is the father of modern studies of attunement. His minute observations of mothers and children started with the way mothers hold their babies. He proposed that these physical interactions lay the groundwork for a baby’s sense of self—and, with that, a lifelong sense of identity. The way a mother holds her child underlies “the ability to feel the body as the place where the psyche lives.”[8] This visceral and kinesthetic sensation of how our bodies are met lays the foundation for what we experience as “real.”[9] Winnicott thought that the vast majority of mothers did just fine in their attunement to their infants—it does not require extraordinary talent to be what he called a “good enough mother.”[10] But things can go seriously wrong when mothers are unable to tune in to their baby’s physical reality. If a mother cannot meet her baby’s impulses and needs, “the baby learns to become the mother’s idea of what the baby is.” Having to discount its inner sensations, and trying to adjust to its caregiver’s needs, means the child perceives that “something is wrong” with the way it is. Children who lack physical attunement are vulnerable to shutting down the direct feedback from their bodies, the seat of pleasure, purpose, and direction.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I made up for all this, however, by making increasingly heavy demands on myself and by becoming even more austere. I no longer allowed myself any outings, stopped going to the movies, and added several more hours to my schedule of studies so as to make up in quantity what I had lost in quality of concentration. The study plan that I worked out for myself was calculated on the basis of periods of fifteen minutes, not only from day to day but for several months ahead, and I then forced my body and my mind to comply with this schedule that fitted me like a tight corset. I got up at dawn, my eyes still smarting from sleeplessness, and I went to bed again in the evening only when I began to fall asleep over a difficult textbook. But all this made me somehow aware of my own superiority. There can be no question about it, I had really taken myself in hand, achieved financial independence and managed to study a subject that I had picked out for myself. In the high school where I had to live, everything was old and familiar to me. I was entitled to a room that I had to share with a colleague, and to the same food as the pupils who boarded there. Everyone complained of this diet that was heavy and monotonous. Though I never dared say it, I was delighted with the sheer size of our portions. All these dried vegetables and spaghetti and potatoes were very much like the food I was used to at home. But here, every meal included meat without fail, so that this particular monotony of our diet was a blessing to me. Whenever the students grumbled and my colleagues wisecracked about our food, I once more measured the distance that still separated me from them; what they despised gave me pleasure. My new bed also gave me as much joy as our diet, and I slept at home only when it was unavoidable, and chiefly because of the bedbugs. On the rare occasions when I did use my divan-bed, the starved bugs ravenously attacked me. I would wake up, after the first heavy sleep, with my neck itching like mad and my hands covered with heavy red swellings. No matter how heavy my eyes, I could not fall asleep again. My shoulders, armpits, ankles, and hands itched unbearably and I scratched myself desperately and had to bathe the irritated skin with vinegar. My battle against these dreadful insects would continue all night, while the room reeked with their sickly odor. Often a single massacre was not enough, and I would be attacked again and again.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  Because I’m really a writer. To make films you have to have boundless energy, you have to work and play with others really, really well, and I’m really a more contemplative kind of person. I like to sit at home and think, a lot. And have time to read and think and walk the dog. To live in my car and eat at Burger King three times a day and be constantly trying to persuade people to do things... I just couldn’t do it. In film, you reenact things in physical reality. And physical reality is recalcitrant. I can write a line like, “She picks him up and drags him onto the bed,” but if she can’t pick him up and you’re struggling, then it’s two hours later, and people are starting to walk, and say, “Hey, I got to go.” It was just wrong, but at least I found out. It was terrible. I was crying every morning when I woke up and had to do it again. My husband said, just forget it, forget it. So, I went back to writing fiction. I became a newspaper editor in Colorado. I was the editor/reporter/photographer, I set the type, I laid out the pages. I did that for two years, which is a very demanding job. And then when I quit in ’87, I wrote 18 short stories that first year and I’ve been writing ever since. It’s been 20 years since I started writing. It was 12 years after I first started writing before I published my first short story. My “overnight success” is the result of 20 years of learning to write. A lot of it is determination and trying to find the teacher who has what you lack. You describe Kate Braverman as your mentor rather than as your teacher. Tell me a little bit about the relationship. I’ve had teachers who haven’t made much of an impact, but when somebody completely transforms your world, that’s a mentor. Somebody who’s always challenging me and somebody who raises the standards, that’s what I needed. And she would attack a flaw as if it were a personal affront. She’s very epigrammatic. She would put things in a way that seared on your brain. I remember I brought in an early work. I was a former journalist, so I had a very straightforward, pedestrian style. I was trying to really punch it up and I brought in a story and she said, “You know, you could make a really good living as a romance writer. It’s a good living, you could do that.” And I remember going outside and sitting in my car and crying. Would I ever get it? If you wrote a line that thudded, she’d say, “What did you do, fax that in?”

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Would I have dared to tell you about all this foolishness if I had not ultimately realized that intelligence and work cannot themselves guarantee the happiness or the value of a man? At that time, however, I believed firmly that they could; I had to believe it. For it was only through my struggles in school that I could triumph, assert myself, and vindicate myself. The quarterly report cards were my bulletins of victory. The pleasure and pride I took in them gave me the greatest satisfactions of my adolescence. They made my family’s sighs and my father’s asthma attacks bearable to me. My homework was done in a room where six children played, shrieked, and argued; sometimes they were joined by little friends and cousins, and by the shrieking, vulgar, and piercing voices of my aunts. I scarcely dared to silence them because they always suspected me of impertinence. Occasionally, I was so exasperated by a difficult assignment in Latin or mathematics that I jumped from my chair and shouted at the children. The hypocritical women then scolded the children gently and pretended to sympathize with me, but calmly went on with the shindy on their own account. The children would remain quiet for a while, but, soon carried away by their games, became as noisy as before; and the noise would go on. Finally, I reached the point where I could read a difficult book on a seat in the street in the midst of clanging streetcars or traffic or the screaming Mediterranean crowds, surely the noisiest in the world. Could I have continued without my fierce will and my ability to ignore my surroundings? Yet, at what nervous cost did I achieve it! With these same efforts, the same passion, I might have become a successful man. You can, of course, succeed in spite of all difficulties, but you must relinquish a piece of fur or of flesh at each contest and, more often than not, you die somewhere along the road. Sometimes you end up elsewhere; then you realize that the goal you had set yourself wasn’t really so worthwhile after all.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The comparison was good, but unfortunately explains too little. To compete successfully, one needed, in addition to intelligence and the ability to work hard, some financial stability too. But a larger income was required at each test, for it had to make up for the student’s lack of any earnings, to counteract the jealousies of relatives, the nagging criticisms of his family, the low morale of the student who grows weary of having too many problems and is soon tempted by the first steady earnings of his former classmates. Nor should one forget school fees, schoolbooks, and clothes. Such, at least, is the problem that arises for students of my social background. The number of obstacles that ill luck made me contend with was really very considerable. But fate’s first gift to me was to open the doors of high school. I was eleven years old when I was ready to take the examinations for my school certificate, an exceptional age for grade school, which was usually completed at thirteen. Foolishly, we made jokes about the ignorance of the high-school kids who were taking the same examination, but we overlooked the fact that they were much younger than we. Besides, the certificate was not required for them, and whatever backwardness they revealed at the examination was made up for in the course of their seven high-school years. They then came up for their baccalaureate exam at the age of sixteen, whereas the former grade-school pupils could not achieve this before the age of eighteen or nineteen. But I had not yet begun to look so far ahead. I was merely proud of getting into the last year of grade school and of being the youngest in my class. Still, it meant no advantages for me, as the lowest age for admission as a candidate was twelve. Everything was indeed very well worked out. If one of us managed to overcome all these handicaps, it proved that he was really much better than all the sons of middle-class parents. When our instructor, Monsieur Marzouk, drew up the list of official candidates, he was sorry to have to warn me that I had to wait until the next year. For a brief moment, the whole class concentrated its attention on me and I was more proud of it all than disappointed. Nor did I even dream that there was such a thing as an entrance examination for admission to the lowest high-school grade, which one could take at any age and that made the school certificate unnecessary. Who could have informed me?

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Monsieur Bismuth’s pharmacists always treated me with a condescending manner. They identified themselves with the store, and I was somehow sure that they said to themselves: “There’s the kid whose studies we pay for...” Whenever I went to the store, I simply put in an appearance and waited until someone decided to attend to me. Generally, they served several customers before announcing me. But I was in a hurry, that day, and swollen too with legitimate pride as I had to be on time for the announcements of the prizes. So I refrained from waiting for one of the pharmacists to be kind enough to attend to me; instead, I interrupted one at his work, told him my business was urgent and asked him to announce me without further delay. Miraculous though it might seem, he smiled and complied, and Monsieur Bismuth immediately sent back a reply to the effect that he would see me at once. So I sat down beside some waiting customers. I pitied these anxious, resigned, and suffering people from the bottom of my heart, for it was brimful with the noble and generous feelings that characterize men who are happy. There was much coming and going, there was a screeching sound whenever the glass panel of a display case was slid open, and the reflections of the neon lights varied constantly as the mirrors and glass panes and shining metal fixtures moved. Customers whispered and the cash register noisily made us aware of its presence; it was indeed an essential fixture, enthroned there regally and constantly working beneath the self-satisfied fingers of the owner’s niece. One touch, two touches, three, then a bell rang and the cash drawer opened. A veritable shower of money seemed to pour. The drugstore owner was really making a lot of money, and that was why the general consensus considered him a success. I smiled as I thought of my own secret ambition: no, I was too noble in my own eyes, too disinterested for a profession like this. I was made to live and to promote ideas (which was a slogan I had learned in my philosophy class), to experience the true and the beautiful. Official recognition of this had only just been granted to me. No, I would never allow myself to become a mere cash register. How vulgar! Monsieur Bismuth, former President of the Chamber of Commerce. How odd that some people take pride in having devoted their whole life to money-making! But time was going by, the appointed hour for the ceremony was approaching, and I had still not been summoned to the office of my benefactor. I asked the pharmacist whether Monsieur Bismuth might not have forgotten that I was waiting. And I suggested that he might make the trip along the corridor to the office again, but he pretended not to understand me and made a vague effort to reassure me.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  After questioning my friends, I came to believe that I was clearly ahead of them there too. I no longer doubted my genius and my pride was thereby increased. The appreciations expressed by my teachers filled my heart with happiness and made me laugh when I was alone. Sometimes, when I thought of these compliments as I walked along the street, I had to clench my teeth until they hurt in order not to smile like an idiot. Would I have dared to tell you about all this foolishness if I had not ultimately realized that intelligence and work cannot themselves guarantee the happiness or the value of a man? At that time, however, I believed firmly that they could; I had to believe it. For it was only through my struggles in school that I could triumph, assert myself, and vindicate myself. The quarterly report cards were my bulletins of victory. The pleasure and pride I took in them gave me the greatest satisfactions of my adolescence. They made my family’s sighs and my father’s asthma attacks bearable to me. My homework was done in a room where six children played, shrieked, and argued; sometimes they were joined by little friends and cousins, and by the shrieking, vulgar, and piercing voices of my aunts. I scarcely dared to silence them because they always suspected me of impertinence. Occasionally, I was so exasperated by a difficult assignment in Latin or mathematics that I jumped from my chair and shouted at the children. The hypocritical women then scolded the children gently and pretended to sympathize with me, but calmly went on with the shindy on their own account. The children would remain quiet for a while, but, soon carried away by their games, became as noisy as before; and the noise would go on. Finally, I reached the point where I could read a difficult book on a seat in the street in the midst of clanging streetcars or traffic or the screaming Mediterranean crowds, surely the noisiest in the world. Could I have continued without my fierce will and my ability to ignore my surroundings? Yet, at what nervous cost did I achieve it! With these same efforts, the same passion, I might have become a successful man. You can, of course, succeed in spite of all difficulties, but you must relinquish a piece of fur or of flesh at each contest and, more often than not, you die somewhere along the road.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I was surely better than all my classmates, all the students in the school, perhaps all the students in all the Alliance schools! Surely, I would go far and be very powerful. True, I couldn’t yet foresee the nature of this power, but it was a kind of broad movement toward the future, a lunging that was almost muscular. Following the advice of my father, who was more aware of such necessities, my mother began inspecting my wardrobe. “You know,” he explained to her, “only rich men’s sons attend high school, and our boy must be decently dressed, too.” In their eyes, as in my own, my entering high school acquired the importance of an introduction into society, which it actually turned out to be, even more than I had guessed. Our alley and the Alliance School belonged to one society, but the European sections of town and the high school to another. Above all, I was now setting forth on the adventure that leads to knowledge. I sometimes think back now, with horror, on the darkness in which I might have been forced to live, and I then consider the many aspects of the universe that I might never have come to know. I would not even have dreamed of their existence, like some deep-sea fish that remain ignorant of the very existence of light. Knowledge was the very origin, perhaps, of all the rifts and frustrations that have become apparent in my life. I might have been happier as a Jew of the ghetto, still believing confidently in his God and the Sacred Books, devoting his Sabbaths to the fun of pilpul distinctions of Talmudic right and wrong, flouting tiny details of the sacred edifice of the Law but never going beyond the approved limits of the game. But I could only see, in those days, the element of new adventure, and I approached it violently and full of confidence, sure that I had everything to gain. All my family difficulties, from now on, took on the appearance of unworthy worries. I had the whole world to conquer . A month later, I successfully passed the scholarship examinations that relieved me of almost all the school fees, much to Monsieur Bismuth’s satisfaction. The city high school isn’t free, which of course reduces one’s chances of being admitted to it.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Meanwhile, I was being spared the extreme poverty of the ghetto. Often, on Saturday evenings, I went to see my aunt Abbou, who lived in one of the sixteen rooms of the poorhouse called Oukala of the Birds. In the morning my cousins and I used to race each other to the toilet. The walls of the tiny closet were as sticky as a slug’s hole, the ceiling so low that one couldn’t stand upright. I shall never forget the heat, experienced nowhere else, of that hive, with its stairs of rotting wood. How can wood be so warm, so brotherly? I loved those rooms that seemed to trespass on each other, all built to a man’s size, with no preconceived plan but the eye’s desires and the limits of an arm’s reach. One of the rooms was halfway up the stairs. To economize on kerosene, all doors were closed as soon as it was dark, and we all woke up together, with the same lisping voices. The Oukala of the Birds lived according to the rhythm of the world. But I believed in some social distinction between its inhabitants and ourselves, since we lived a good five hundred meters from the nearest Jewish home. Besides, my father owned a store and was an employer. Once the crops have been harvested, the Bedouin has a little cash on hand and comes down to the city to buy a new halter for his horse, and this makes him feel important. Crossing the threshold of the narrow store where two men, as poorly dressed as he, are both busy at their tasks, he proudly proclaims: “I want to speak to the boss.” Without interrupting his work, my father would then raise his head and invite the customer to be seated on a stool. I would put aside my toy whips, made of threads of leather and matches, to concentrate on the serious business that was at hand. I was proud of my father’s nod of assurance, of being the son of the boss. Ours was a dignity of an entirely different sort, superior indeed to that of the street hucksters who are always being told by the cops to move on, or of the workers in a tailor’s shop, shaken by spasms from dawn to nightfall.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  He accepted my letter, adding that he approved of my gesture and would have done the same himself. I was proud and moved that I had had the courage to do what my school principal himself would have done, and I left his office feeling quits with the persecutors of Vichy. I had hit back, blow for blow. Of course, I had lost my job. But my reputation, both as a serious pupil and as a student, assured me many requests for private lessons. When they had encroached on my rigid schedule, I had refused them; now I would accept them. Even when the universities were closed to Jews I was not alarmed. Having no money, I could not attend them anyway. But we did have the right to continue to the end of the school year. The war was not real enough for me to imagine how long it might last. On the contrary, my own near future seemed so promising that in my own mind I just ignored this obstacle. Immediately, with the arrival of the Germans, came disaster. No longer did I have the leisure to meditate; we were hurled into such a whirlwind that we only started breathing again after they left. Disaster certainly makes one less lucid. The first morning after that sinister evening when the German authorities settled in the dark city, the Kommandantur took its first anti-Jewish steps. Armed with well-prepared lists and accompanied, as was fitting, by their French colleagues, the German police went out to collect several hundred hostages. It was announced that, at the slightest opposition, they would all be shot. Then came requisitions and exactions and murders. Now that we have news from the rest of the world, I know that we did not reach the bottom of the abyss. We had no gas chambers or crematoria. Those of us who were deported to Germany probably went through all that, but we did not know about it at the time. We were saved from despair by our ignorance and our lack of understanding concerning all that was upsetting our daily routine. I found out all about it later, and I know now what risks we ran and might still have run. That is why I want to deal quickly with this part of my story. We certainly had our share of misery, however meager compared to that of others.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Toward the end of my high-school years, I began to know what I did not want to become and, if only in a confused manner, what I wanted. I did not want to be Alexandre Mordekhai Benillouche, I wanted to escape from myself and go out toward the others. I was not going to remain a Jew, an Oriental, a pauper; I belonged neither to my family nor to my religious community; I was a new being, utterly transparent, ready to be completely remade into a philosophy instructor. It had to be done, and I would reconstruct the whole universe, with simple and clear elements, like all the philosophers who were my masters, and as Poinsot too had done. It would be a tough struggle, though I felt that no struggle could really be too tough for me. I exaggerated the difficulties that lay ahead of me, but this was only to enhance my own heroic attitude. I organized my life accordingly, working out several basic plans, then developing the individual details, as do all great builders. In this manner, my first efforts were soon crowned with success. I filed an application for a job as supervisor of studies in a high-school dormitory for resident students. Our principal remembered his promise and, within a week, I received my appointment. I then wrote a letter to the Head of the Philosophy Department in Algiers, which was the nearest university, asking him in all simplicity for some assistance. Though a professor on a university faculty was, in my eyes, a very important person indeed, he wrote me a reply that was full of encouragement; he even promised to look over my essays. My life as a poor student was divided between my work as a supervisor, monotonous and bothersome, and my own studies that were difficult enough, for lack of any advice other than this irregular checking of my philosophical compositions. My time was broken up, even my thoughts interrupted, by my constantly having to watch what was going on in passages and staircases, by my having to be present whenever the students moved from one class to the next, and by my having to attend to endless administrative details. Every hour on the hour, as soon as the bell rang, I had to put on my jacket and rush out of my room. Once the rhythm of my studies had thus been interrupted, it was difficult for me to return to the concentration and the flow of thought that are necessary for any productive work.

• From Aquinas's Summa Theologiae (Critical Essays on the Classics Series) (2006)

  Thomas, of course, had nothing against practical theology After all, he had presumably taught it himself for some years, and is far from neglecting it in his Summa; indeed, the largest part, the Secunda Pars, specifically covers human beings and their acts. But he now gave that practical theology a setting not evident in Dominican circles before him. By prefacing the Secunda or “moral” part with a Prima Pars on God, Trinity, and Creation, and then rounding it off with a Tertia Pars on the Son of God, Incarnation, and the Sacraments, Thomas put practical theology—the study of Christian life, its virtues and vices—in a full theological context. Christian morality, once and for all, was shown to be something more than a question of straight ethical teaching of vices and virtues in isolation. Inasmuch as the person was an intelligent being who was master of himself and possessed of freedom of choice, he was in the image of God. To study human action is therefore to study the image of God and to operate on a theological plane. To study human action on a theological plane is to study it in relation to its beginning and end, God, and to the bridge between, Christ and his sacraments. Thomas, one might add, was not alone in his dissatisfaction with the Dominican curriculum and tradition of theology. Just about the time that Thomas was beginning his Summa, Hugh Ripelin, Lector of Strasbourg, wrote a Compendium Theologicae Veritatis in seven books (God, Creation, Sin, Christ, Virtues, Sacraments, Last Things) which, with some 620 manuscripts, numerous printed editions, and translations into Armenian, Flemish, French, German, and Italian, had a huge success and might have inspired Thomas’s own Compendium Theologiae (1269–1273).27 But if Thomas and Hugh Ripelin were at variance with the practical tradition of vices and virtues, casus and “Collationes de moralibus” within their order, all the same both Hugh’s Compendium and Thomas’s Summa very much belonged in intent and purpose to the Dominican strain of practical manuals. Like Raymund of Pennafort, Aag of Denmark, Simon of Hinton, and other Dominican manualists who had written specifically for the iuniores and simplices, and for the generality of their Dominican brethren, Thomas in particular probably had young and run-of-the-mill Dominicans primarily in mind and not a more sophisticated, perhaps university audience when in chiselled prose and in easy, logical steps he put his Summa Theologiae together: “My purpose,” he wrote, “is so to propose the things that pertain to faith that the instruction of beginners will better be served.”28 This, needless to say, is far from evident in the Prologue. As the Prologue stands, Thomas could be referring to any and every beginner. But given the context of the genesis of the Summa at Santa Sabina, and the remarkable commission given him at Anagni in 1265, the assumption is hardly out of question that his beginners are Dominican beginners first and foremost, in the manner of other Dominican colleagues of his.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  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.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Nor were they to be blamed, their sole motive was to assume an appearance of power. I happened to hate our chemistry instructor, and the science that he taught us suffered as a consequence. Foolishly, I felt that he gave tuition to too many private pupils and had thus transformed our noble profession, already his and some day to be mine, into a trade. This indignation of mine was inspired by a prejudice that I shared with the middle classes. Why shouldn’t a teacher make the most of his profession, just like a doctor or a lawyer? But I had reasons of my own, better ones, in fact the only ones: I despised money-makers, one and all. My history instructor, on the other hand, was not prepared to forgive my political aggressiveness. The prize that was about to be awarded required an exemplary conduct. But I had shouted so often, in front of the whole class, my admiration for Robespierre and my respect for Saint-Just, or my indignation against the injustices of the nobility and the treason of the higher clergy, that I could no longer claim to have behaved with decorum. In the end, my supporters won the day and, one afternoon, as we sat in class listening to a lecture on astronomy, our little supervisor, Dubois, came in, his red nose stuck out ahead of him and his eyes glistening with tears of timidity. He then handed our instructor my summons to the commencement ceremony where the prizes would be announced, and ran off. Our mathematics instructor, a heavy Alsatian who constantly reminded us of his Germanic background, as opposed to the softness of Africa, and who therefore affected a Prussian crew-cut and a brutal manner, now read the message aloud, carefully pronouncing each word. In the silence that had come over the expectant class, my glory was becoming a reality under the very eyes of my classmates as they all stared at me. I lowered my own gaze, overcome by pride, in spite of my desire to appear detached. I could no longer feel the existence of my own body. I seemed to be only the hard beating of my own heart as it struck like a bell in the air. Again, I began to feel the burning heat in my cheeks, and I was called back to reality when Sitboun, who sat next to me, remarked: “Say, you swine...” This consecration of my glory made all my desires crystallize. I would make a career of philosophy, a daily business of it. My present prominence and the envious admiration of my classmates would then be permanent.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I pitied these anxious, resigned, and suffering people from the bottom of my heart, for it was brimful with the noble and generous feelings that characterize men who are happy. There was much coming and going, there was a screeching sound whenever the glass panel of a display case was slid open, and the reflections of the neon lights varied constantly as the mirrors and glass panes and shining metal fixtures moved. Customers whispered and the cash register noisily made us aware of its presence; it was indeed an essential fixture, enthroned there regally and constantly working beneath the self-satisfied fingers of the owner’s niece. One touch, two touches, three, then a bell rang and the cash drawer opened. A veritable shower of money seemed to pour. The drugstore owner was really making a lot of money, and that was why the general consensus considered him a success. I smiled as I thought of my own secret ambition: no, I was too noble in my own eyes, too disinterested for a profession like this. I was made to live and to promote ideas (which was a slogan I had learned in my philosophy class), to experience the true and the beautiful. Official recognition of this had only just been granted to me. No, I would never allow myself to become a mere cash register. How vulgar! Monsieur Bismuth, former President of the Chamber of Commerce. How odd that some people take pride in having devoted their whole life to money-making! But time was going by, the appointed hour for the ceremony was approaching, and I had still not been summoned to the office of my benefactor. I asked the pharmacist whether Monsieur Bismuth might not have forgotten that I was waiting. And I suggested that he might make the trip along the corridor to the office again, but he pretended not to understand me and made a vague effort to reassure me. A minute later, he went back through the little door, apparently in order to fetch something from the storeroom. I hoped my benefactor would be too busy and would now ask me to come back another day. Wearily, however, the pharmacist returned to tell me that my benefactor was going to see me, that he even wanted to see me and had important matters to discuss with me. This was an untimely development; it had been a foolish idea of mine to come on this visit just before the scheduled ceremony.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  So I often sought a particular word for a long while, questioning everyone around me. When I had found the word, I would repeat it over and over in a loud voice, like an incantation. I had grasped the “thing” and could invoke it at will: a part of the world was subjected to me. I pretended, however, to reject too pure, too refined a language, one that follows rules that are too strict. It was the meaning that mattered and must by itself dictate the words that would describe this meaning. I would use slang or invent my own words, or put down blatantly incorrect ones if the proper ones seemed ineffective. I no longer know whether I was really sincere. Perhaps I felt that, despite all my efforts, I would never be as adept at the language as my companions whom birth had endowed with an almost perfect linguistic equipment. The monthly report for Monsieur Bismuth reminded me that my efforts were not entirely for myself. The envious respect of the other students was a source of pleasure for me, and the compliments of my teacher for all my work were a compensation. I saw how the others looked around when I volunteered to recite in class, and how the teacher smiled. In these looks and smiles I could see myself victorious, like a young god. True, I worked like a brute; it was largely for this taste of revenge that I struggled so relentlessly for prizes and honors. But none of the other boys ever suspected what these things meant to me. What I wanted was more than their processed schoolbook learning. I began to discover the world of books and to catalogue it; I read tons of printed paper, at meals, in the street until the school bell rang, in bed until one in the morning. Sometimes, in my assignments, I would quote an author who was not in our required readings and, in fact, well beyond the normal range of an adolescent. My surprised teachers would then ask me to see them after class; after paying me an initial compliment, they generally tried to discourage me from such precocious readings. Of these meetings, I retained nothing but the attention that had been paid to me and the pleasure given my gratified pride; and I continued to read. In this manner I changed very quickly and began to regain my self-confidence, but remained all the more easily offended and hurt, and all the more resentful. One day I asked for permission to give a report on the poet Alfred de Vigny and it was granted to me. I admired Vigny’s disillusioned but haughty manliness, his noncompliance. And, of course, I had a weakness for the somber, for his grandiose sadness. Above all, I was violent in my will to show and affirm what I was.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  One after the other, he drew a bird, then a second bird, and a fish, all of them run-of-the-mill cards of which he already owned several copies. Saul had thus spent twenty-one pennies and now searched the pockets of his pants and of his overall apron, to find there only a top, some marbles, a piece of string, a two-penny piece, and a single penny, and that was all. On his face there began to appear the signs of a spoiled child’s tantrum, and he almost made me pity him. He shook out his crumpled handkerchief: another coin fell out of it. We all rushed to pick it up, another two-penny piece. We were interested in watching the last efforts of the luckless gambler, and only Birdie seemed to remain impassive, watching it all with a kind and paternal look in his eyes. Graziani, the gateman, then appeared in the entrance, clapped his hands and began to push open the heavy door. The group around Birdie slowly dispersed. Out of a feeling of friendship, I waited for Saul who was now fumbling in his satchel. He finally spoke to me, asking me with great affability: “Can you lend me two pennies?” I was his last chance, and I didn’t hesitate long. To be sure, I didn’t have much time to think it over and the whole situation was too new for me. Poor little rich boy Saul needed my money, my two pennies. I was vaguely and stupidly proud of this. Perhaps, too, I would have been ashamed to say no, and I later felt more resentful toward him because of this feeling of shame than of anything else. Saul had offered me, from time to time, chocolate or candy, but I had never offered him anything. I knew exactly where my own money was tucked away. But as I always hid it in a tobacco tin, well concealed beneath my apron, in the breast pocket of my shirt, and as Saul was now in a hurry, I fumbled around with my fingers in the pleats of the shirt and Saul became impatient. “Hurry up!” he exclaimed. I hastened to open the tin that was rattling with the only sound of my single coin and handed him the two-penny piece that was intended for my sandwich. Saul was thus able to complete the required sum, bought the last Nestlé bar, tore the wrapping, and exclaimed to me, in disgust: “What? Another fish? Well, I have no luck today.” It seemed to me that nobody had any luck at all that day. The street was deserted and Graziani was shaking his head with a sad expression, acting as if he were about to close the gate. We rushed in through the opening that was scarcely wide enough to allow a cat to pass. “Ragazzi! Ragazzi!” the old Italian grumbled affectionately. The massive door shut loudly behind us. We went to our seats in the first-year class and sat still.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  My history instructor, on the other hand, was not prepared to forgive my political aggressiveness. The prize that was about to be awarded required an exemplary conduct. But I had shouted so often, in front of the whole class, my admiration for Robespierre and my respect for Saint-Just, or my indignation against the injustices of the nobility and the treason of the higher clergy, that I could no longer claim to have behaved with decorum. In the end, my supporters won the day and, one afternoon, as we sat in class listening to a lecture on astronomy, our little supervisor, Dubois, came in, his red nose stuck out ahead of him and his eyes glistening with tears of timidity. He then handed our instructor my summons to the commencement ceremony where the prizes would be announced, and ran off. Our mathematics instructor, a heavy Alsatian who constantly reminded us of his Germanic background, as opposed to the softness of Africa, and who therefore affected a Prussian crew-cut and a brutal manner, now read the message aloud, carefully pronouncing each word. In the silence that had come over the expectant class, my glory was becoming a reality under the very eyes of my classmates as they all stared at me. I lowered my own gaze, overcome by pride, in spite of my desire to appear detached. I could no longer feel the existence of my own body. I seemed to be only the hard beating of my own heart as it struck like a bell in the air. Again, I began to feel the burning heat in my cheeks, and I was called back to reality when Sitboun, who sat next to me, remarked: “Say, you swine...” This consecration of my glory made all my desires crystallize. I would make a career of philosophy, a daily business of it. My present prominence and the envious admiration of my classmates would then be permanent. Before the results of our written examinations and especially of the one in philosophy had been announced, my classmates had stared at me; when my name was announced again and again, they shrugged their shoulders and returned to their own business of scrambling for the next best places after me. The ceremony was to take place the next day, a Thursday, at five o’clock.