Relief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Although they had been there for days, I did not open them immediately with my usual impatience. Who could still hold me in this city? Only a printed letter from the Community Treasurer attracted my attention. I had expected it and I knew what it contained. Indeed, it was to tell me I could come and collect my salary as a forced laborer. I dressed and went at once to the cashier, who was just closing shop. The sum was fairly big and very welcome, for my stay in Algiers had emptied my pockets. I divided my money in two sums, put the smaller one in my wallet and the other in my pocket within easy reach of my hand. Night fell suddenly while I was still on my way home. In the Passage, the heat had driven all the tenants out of their flats. In summer, after gulping down their dinner, they usually put chairs out on the sidewalk and chatted until it got cool. In the silence of the night, they formed an island of sound. This reminded me of our well-hidden clubroom in our old blind alley, where we had sat in the cool when it was so hot outside. All this chattering with loud calls and exclamations from sidewalk to sidewalk now seemed unbearably vulgar to me. The blind alley had never really existed; my heart had only been more peaceful before I had come to understand. My father was still upstairs, so I went into the apartment. I pulled out the larger part of my earnings and gave it to him. “I’ve collected my pay,” I explained, “you know, my worker’s pay.” He stammered, embarrassed by his obvious pleasure. “All that! Have you any left for yourself, at least?” “Yes, yes, quite enough.” Then I went to get some food in the kitchen. Never had it been so plentiful. I settled at one of the tables of our temporary restaurant and read as I ate. I heard my father dressing slowly. I was certain he would never say more of this. In fact, after having puttered around and hesitated, he went and joined the others in the street. But it did not last long. Our usual intermediary, my mother, came up. She bustled around in the rooms, moved a few chairs, finally came closer, put her hands on the table, and said confidentially: “Your father blesses you. He is very moved, you know. It’s not so much the money, but the thought behind it that has moved him.” I smiled vaguely and pretended to be busy with my book. She did not insist and disappeared.

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

  Studying EMDRThe Trauma Clinic was saved by a manager at the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health who had followed our work with children and now asked us to take on the task of organizing the community trauma response team for the Boston area. That was enough to cover our basic operations, and the rest was supplied by an energetic staff who loved what we were doing—including the newly discovered power of EMDR to cure some of the patients whom we’d been unable to help before. My colleagues and I began to show one another videotapes of our EMDR sessions with PTSD patients, which enabled us to observe dramatic week-by-week improvements. We then started to formally measure their progress on a standard PTSD rating scale. We also arranged with Elizabeth Matthew, a young neuroimaging specialist at the New England Deaconess Hospital, to have twelve patients’ brains scanned before and after their treatment. After only three EMDR sessions eight of the twelve had shown a significant decrease in their PTSD scores. On their scans we could see a sharp increase in prefrontal lobe activation after treatment, as well as much more activity in the anterior cingulate and the basal ganglia. This shift could account for the difference in how they now experienced their trauma. One man reported: “I remember it as though it was a real memory, but it was more distant. Typically, I drowned in it, but this time I was floating on top. I had the feeling that I was in control.” A woman told us: “Before, I felt each and every step of it. Now it is like a whole, instead of fragments, so it is more manageable.” The trauma had lost its immediacy and become a story about something that happened a long time ago. We subsequently secured funding from the National Institute of Mental Health to compare the effects of EMDR with standard doses of Prozac or a placebo.[2] Of our eighty-eight subjects thirty received EMDR, twenty-eight Prozac, and the rest the sugar pill. As often happens, the people on placebo did well. After eight weeks their 42 percent improvement was greater than that for many other treatments that are promoted as “evidence based.”

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  “Forgiveness of sins,” then, is an altogether bigger reality than we have imagined. It is (to use the fashionable language) “cosmic.” When individuals share in it, experiencing for themselves the glorious relief of knowing themselves to be forgiven, they are, whether they realize it or not, learning to sing one of the “inside parts” within the much larger symphonic chorus of new creation. The alto line (if that’s what our part is) matters. The harmony needs it. But if you only had the altos singing their line, you wouldn’t have much idea of what the music as a whole was supposed to mean. That is the kind of problem we have faced in the Western church as we have labored under the Platonized vision of the goal of salvation. As we saw briefly above, one of the key problems about the idea of a platonic “disembodied heaven” is that it generates the wrong view of what human life ought to be in the present time as an anticipation, or even a qualification, for that destiny. The idea of “heaven” carries with it in the popular mind and even in many well-taught Christian minds the notion that this is where “good people” go, while “bad people” go somewhere else. This, of course, quickly gets modified by standard teachings of the gospel: we are all “bad people,” so that if anyone “goes to heaven,” it must be because our badness has somehow been dealt with and, in some traditions, because someone else’s “goodness” has somehow been “reckoned to our account.” But the problem with this entire way of looking at things is that the idea of moral behavior as the qualification for “heaven” is itself a distortion. As we saw above, we have Platonized our eschatology—our vision of the ultimate end—and, to match, have “moralized” our anthropology, our sense of what humans are and what they are meant to be. This has worked its way into traditions of Christian ethics, and I have argued elsewhere (in my book Virtue Reborn, whose American title is After You Believe) that we need to replace this with the biblical vocation of human beings, which is to be image-bearers, God’s “royal priesthood.”

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

  Finally, Stickgold suggests a clear link between EMDR and memory processing in dreams: “If the bilateral stimulation of EMDR can alter brain states in a manner similar to that seen during REM sleep then there is now good evidence that EMDR should be able to take advantage of sleep-dependent processes, which may be blocked or ineffective in PTSD sufferers, to allow effective memory processing and trauma resolution.”[18] The basic EMDR instruction, “Hold that image in your mind and just watch my fingers moving back and forth,” may very well reproduce what happens in the dreaming brain. As this book is going to press Ruth Lanius and I are studying how the brain reacts, both while remembering a traumatic event and an ordinary experience, to saccadic eye movements as subjects lie in an fMRI scanner. Stay tuned. Association and IntegrationUnlike conventional exposure treatment, EMDR spends very little time revisiting the original trauma. The trauma itself is certainly the starting point, but the focus is on stimulating and opening up the associative process. As our Prozac/EMDR study showed, drugs can blunt the images and sensations of terror, but they remain embedded in the mind and body. In contrast with the subjects who improved on Prozac—whose memories were merely blunted, not integrated as an event that happened in the past, and still caused considerable anxiety—those who received EMDR no longer experienced the distinct imprints of the trauma: It had become a story of a terrible event that had happened a long time ago. As one of my patients said, making a dismissive hand gesture: “It’s over.” While we don’t yet know precisely how EMDR works, the same is true of Prozac. Prozac has an effect on serotonin, but whether its levels go up or down, and in which brain cells, and why that makes people feel less afraid, is still unclear. We likewise don’t know precisely why talking to a trusted friend gives such profound relief, and I am surprised how few people seem eager to explore that question.[19] Clinicians have only one obligation: to do whatever they can to help their patients get better. Because of this, clinical practice has always been a hotbed for experimentation. Some experiments fail, some succeed, and some, like EMDR, dialectical behavior therapy, and internal family systems therapy, go on to change the way therapy is practiced. Validating all these treatments takes decades and is hampered by the fact that research support generally goes to methods that have already been proven to work. I am much comforted by considering the history of penicillin: Almost four decades passed between the discovery of its antibiotic properties by Alexander Fleming in 1928 and the final elucidation of its mechanisms in 1965. Chapter 16Learning to Inhabit Your Body: Yoga

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  Uncoupling fear and allowing the normally time-limited immobility reaction to complete is, in principle, a straightforward matter. The therapist helps reduce the duration of immobility by gently diminishing the level of fear. In other words, the therapist’s job is to aid a client to gradually uncouple the fear from the paralysis, so as to gradually restore self-paced termination. In this way the (fear-immobility) feedback loop is broken; colloquially, it runs out of gas. As a client learns to experience the physical sensations of the immobility in the absence of fear, trauma’s grip is loosened, and equilibrium is restored. In the next four chapters, I discuss how therapists can help clients learn how to uncouple the fear from the immobility and restore active defensive responses. When clients achieve this, they often describe the physical sensation of immobility (in the absence of fear) with a mixture of curiosity and profound relief or, often, “as though waking from a nightmare.” There is an important caveat to this simple “prescription.” Where trauma has been lengthy and deeply entrenched, other factors come into play: primarily, one’s very faculty for change and reengagement in life becomes impaired. This aspect has been poignantly portrayed in Louise Erdrich’s compelling novel The Master Butchers Singing Club. In the first chapter, the male protagonist, Fidelis, leaves the trenches Charting Duration of Immobility Amongst Different Scenarios [image file=image_rsrc2N5.jpg] Figure 4.1a This figure illustrates the duration and severity of “freezing” in three situations. The first scenario is similar to an opossum being attacked and playing dead. The opossum freezes, and the predator, losing interest in this inert carrion, walks off in search of livelier prey. Left alone, the opossum “shakes off” this encounter and goes on its way, none the worse. This is called self-paced termination. The second scenario illustrates what happens when an animal emerging from immobility is restrained and frightened. It is thrust back into terror, and the immobility is far deeper, lasting for a much longer time. This paralyzing terror is the effect of fear-potentiated immobility and leads to PTSD. This is why the phrase “time heals all wounds” simply does not apply to trauma. The third scenario shows what happens in a successful therapy session. The therapist gradually guides the client to briefly touch into the immobility sensations, and then guides her to uncouple the immobility from the fear. In this way she can discharge the underlying hyperarousal and return to equilibrium. of World War I and returns to his mother’s cooking and kindness. He sleeps for the first time in his own familiar, comfortable bed, an experience that he has not known for years. Fear/Immobility Cycle [image file=image_rsrc2N6.jpg] Figure 4.1b This is how we become trapped in the fear/immobility cycle.

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

  Neurofeedback helped her to reverse these learning disabilities. “I learned to keep track of things; for example, to read maps. Right after we started therapy, there was this memorable time when I was going from Amherst to Northampton [less than ten miles] to meet Sebern. I was supposed to take a couple of buses, but I ended up walking along the highway for a couple miles. I was that disorganized—I couldn’t read the schedule; I couldn’t keep track of the time. I was too jacked up and nervous, which made me tired all the time. I couldn’t pay attention and keep it together. I just couldn’t organize my brain around it.” That statement defines the challenge for brain and mind science: How can we help people learn to organize time and space, distance and relationships, capacities that are laid down in the brain during the first few years of life, if early trauma has interfered with their development? Neither drugs nor conventional therapy have been shown to activate the neuroplasticity necessary to bring those capacities online after the critical periods have passed. Now is the time to study whether neurofeedback can succeed where other interventions have failed. Alpha-Theta TrainingAlpha-theta training is a particularly fascinating neurofeedback procedure, because it can induce the sorts of hypnagogic states—the essence of hypnotic trance—that are discussed in chapter 15.[23] When theta waves predominate in the brain, the mind’s focus is on the internal world, a world of free-floating imagery. Alpha brain waves may act as a bridge from the external world to the internal, and vice versa. In alpha-theta training these frequencies are alternately rewarded. The challenge in PTSD is to open the mind to new possibilities, so that the present is no longer interpreted as a continuous reliving of the past. Trance states, during which theta activity dominates, can help to loosen the conditioned connections between particular stimuli and responses, such as loud cracks signaling gunfire, a harbinger of death. A new association can be created in which that same crack can come to be linked to Fourth of July fireworks at the end of a day at the beach with loved ones. In the twilight states fostered by alpha/theta training, traumatic events may be safely reexperienced and new associations fostered. Some patients report unusual imagery and/or deep insights about their life; others simply become more relaxed and less rigid. Any state in which people can safely experience images, feelings, and emotions that are associated with dread and helplessness is likely to create fresh potential and a wider perspective.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  They were merely exemplifying and extending, in horrific circumstances, the character they had already learned and practiced. In fact, once again, the incredulity of many who heard those stories matches the incredulity of people in the first century, as well as in our own, when hearing the story of Jesus’s resurrection. And for the same reason. In both cases we are witnessing a new world coming to birth. Resurrection and forgiveness belong together. Both are the direct result of the victory won on the cross, because the victory won on the cross was won by dealing with sin and hence with death. Resurrection is the result of death’s defeat; forgiveness, the result of sin’s defeat. Those who learn to forgive discover that they are not only offering healing to others. They are receiving it in themselves. Resurrection is happening inside them. The wrong done to them is not permitted to twist their lives out of shape. Forgiveness isn’t weakness. It was and is a great strength. Resurrection and forgiveness together are vital for understanding the extraordinary and large-scale result of the victory won on the cross. The nations of the world were now set free to worship the one true God. Freedom One of the greatest achievements of the cross is routinely overlooked by modern Christians. We tend to think of the early mission to the wider non-Jewish world as simply a good piece of news to be shared as widely as possible: “Jesus died so you can go to heaven—seize the chance while you can!” But even when we have revised that formulation to focus on new creation rather than “heaven,” we are missing something deep that stands behind and underneath it. Because of the cross, the world as a whole is free to give allegiance to the God who made it. Up to the time of Jesus the people in the countries and cultures surrounding Israel had gone their own ways. They had worshipped idols and served them. That, at least, was the normal Jewish perception, and the records, both written and archaeological, back it up. To be sure, in many nations and at many times people had reacted against the pagan systems that surrounded them. Fine moralists and subtle thinkers dreamed of a better world. As Paul noted in Athens, the pagan poets themselves pointed to a larger truth. But the nations as a whole were in the grip of dark, unforgiving systems of thought and practice. And the victory of Jesus on the cross meant that now at last that power was broken. We saw this earlier in our brief study of John’s gospel.

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

  Once patients can tolerate being aware of their trauma-based physical experiences, they are likely to discover powerful physical impulses—like hitting, pushing, or running—that arose during the trauma but were suppressed in order to survive. These impulses manifest themselves in subtle body movements such as twisting, turning, or backing away. Amplifying these movements and experimenting with ways to modify them begins the process of bringing the incomplete, trauma-related “action tendencies” to completion and can eventually lead to resolution of the trauma. Somatic therapies can help patients to relocate themselves in the present by experiencing that it is safe to move. Feeling the pleasure of taking effective action restores a sense of agency and a sense of being able to actively defend and protect themselves. Back in 1893 Pierre Janet, the first great explorer of trauma, wrote about “the pleasure of completed action,” and I regularly observe that pleasure when I practice sensorimotor psychotherapy and somatic experiencing: When patients can physically experience what it would have felt like to fight back or run away, they relax, smile, and express a sense of completion. When people are forced to submit to overwhelming power, as is true for most abused children, women trapped in domestic violence, and incarcerated men and women, they often survive with resigned compliance. The best way to overcome ingrained patterns of submission is to restore a physical capacity to engage and defend. One of my favorite body-oriented ways to build effective fight/flight responses is our local impact center’s model mugging program, in which women (and increasingly men) are taught to actively fight off a simulated attack.[31] The program started in Oakland, California, in 1971 after a woman with a fifth-degree black belt in karate was raped. Wondering how this could have happened to someone who supposedly could kill with her bare hands, her friends concluded that she had become de-skilled by fear. In the terms of this book, her executive functions—her frontal lobes—went off-line, and she froze. The model mugging program teaches women to recondition the freeze response through many repetitions of being placed in the “zero hour” (a military term for the precise moment of an attack) and learning to transform fear into positive fighting energy. One of my patients, a college student with a history of unrelenting child abuse, took the course. When I first met her, she was collapsed, depressed, and overly compliant. Three months later, during her graduation ceremony, she successfully fought off a gigantic male attacker who ended up lying cringing on the floor (shielded from her blows by a thick protective suit) while she faced him, arms raised in a karate stance, calmly and clearly yelling no.

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

  That struck me as an important finding: My patients were always blowing up in response to small provocations and felt devastated by the slightest rejection. I became fascinated by the possible role of serotonin in PTSD. Other researchers had shown that dominant male monkeys had much higher levels of brain serotonin than lower-ranking animals but that their serotonin levels dropped when they were prevented from maintaining eye contact with the monkeys they had once lorded over. In contrast, low-ranking monkeys who were given serotonin supplements emerged from the pack to assume leadership.[19] The social environment interacts with brain chemistry. Manipulating a monkey into a lower position in the dominance hierarchy made his serotonin drop, while chemically enhancing serotonin elevated the rank of former subordinates. The implications for traumatized people were obvious. Like Gray’s low-serotonin animals, they were hyperreactive, and their ability to cope socially was often compromised. If we could find ways to increase brain serotonin levels, perhaps we could address both problems simultaneously. At that same 1985 meeting I learned that drug companies were developing two new products to do precisely that, but since neither was yet available, I experimented briefly with the health-food-store supplement L-tryptophan, which is a chemical precursor of serotonin in the body. (The results were disappointing.) One of the drugs under investigation never made it to the market. The other was fluoxetine, which, under the brand name Prozac, became one of the most successful psychoactive drugs ever created. On Monday, February 8, 1988, Prozac was released by the drug company Eli Lilly. The first patient I saw that day was a young woman with a horrendous history of childhood abuse who was now struggling with bulimia—she basically spent much of her life bingeing and purging. I gave her a prescription for this brand-new drug, and when she returned on Thursday she said, “I’ve had a very different last few days: I ate when I was hungry, and the rest of the time I did my schoolwork.” This was one of the most dramatic statements I had ever heard in my office. On Friday I saw another patient to whom I’d given Prozac the previous Monday. She was a chronically depressed mother of two school-aged children, preoccupied with her failures as a mother and wife and overwhelmed by demands from the parents who had badly mistreated her as a child. After four days on Prozac she asked me if she could skip her appointment the following Monday, which was Presidents’ Day. “After all,” she explained, “I’ve never taken my kids skiing—my husband always does—and they are off that day. It would really be nice for them to have some good memories of us having fun together.”

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Between these nail-biter briefings, we tried to distract ourselves by creating an ultimate movie guide list on my phone. For me, action and thrillers. For Mom, movies about dogs. For Brian, Turner Classics and anything with subtitles (or what I call “cinema Ambien”). Somewhere between Citizen Kane and Marley & Me , Dad’s surgeon emerged. “I got it all,” he said. “We’ll need to do some more chemo as an insurance policy, but as of now, he’s in remission.” Ohthankgod. I exhaled so fully I thought I’d deflate. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so fortunate as I did at that moment. Mom was a puddle of relief. Brian acted like an ecstatic sports announcer whose favorite team had just scored— gooooal! Dad didn’t want anyone but my mother to tell him the news. In case it was bad, she was the only person he felt comfortable sharing the moment with. He greeted me with a huge, anesthesia-laced grin when I was finally allowed to see him. We laughed. We cried. Above all, we were grateful. Dad thanked his amazing surgeon for saving his life. And then he told us about a dream he had. “It was the craziest experience. I was in an epic sword fight,” he said. “Guess what, Dad?” I replied. “You won.” PEOPLE AREN’T PROJECTS Post surgery, you’d think my anxiety would have eased up a bit, especially after the fantastic news. But it actually got worse. Rather than find comfort (or at least a respite) in the successful outcome, I let perpetual worry about Dad relapsing worm its way into my brain. So, naturally, I numbed that feeling by planning, strategizing, and trying to take control. Don’t get me wrong—strategizing and planning are extremely helpful, especially in life-threatening situations. I wouldn’t be here writing this book if I didn’t have these skills. In many ways, I can thank my anxiety for helping save my life. But when my anxiety becomes acute and pervasive, it not only affects my physical well-being; it clouds my ability to make sound decisions. According to research, our brains think and plan more effectively when we’re not anxious, which makes perfect sense. Have you ever tried to make an important decision or solve a challenging problem while freaking out? The outcome can be “interesting,” to say the least. To make matters worse, I wasn’t aware of how my behavior was putting undue stress and pressure on others—especially my parents. My focus remained on “fixing” Dad. I was too busy calling in all my troops. Top integrative doctors weighed in. Out-of-the-box adjunct treatments were recommended. Dietitians built specific meal plans designed to rebuild Dad’s body. Books were purchased, supplements were ordered, acupuncture appointments were scheduled. Medical marijuana was approved (or as Dad called it, “grass,” a term no one has used since 1969). Mom and I went into overdrive to secure everything.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Every cell of my body relaxed as he continued on: “We’re thrilled with how well you’re still doing. If you feel comfortable enough, we’re confident that it would be safe for you to have even more time between scans. You can come back in three to five years if you want—whatever works for you.” Sweet Jesus. After comparing 16 years of my scans, the doctors’ consensus was that my cancer was stable enough to give me more breathing room between checkups. “Are you serious!?” I exclaimed. “This is incredible! Thank you so much, Dr. D.! I’ll be back in five.” The force of my enthusiastic response surprised even me. But after nearly two decades of anxiety-provoking doctors’ appointments, I was ready to leave fear in my rearview. As I was doing a happy dance in my head, Brian interjected: “Let’s go with three.” For him, five years felt like too much time to allow, as cancer can be a trickster and show up at the most unlikely times. Oh, and the lump in my arm? Turns out it was a glamorous fatty tumor. No metastasis. That night Brian and I toasted my milestone with an expensive glass of champagne at a fancy hotel bar. Perhaps I could even retire my lucky underwear (the elastic had certainly seen better days). When I called my parents to share the news, they were ecstatic. These were the kinds of calls they prayed for. Despite the outward celebration, on the inside I felt awful—guilty. It seemed cruel that I was OK while Dad’s fate hung in the balance. My incredible news felt as if I were intentionally pouring alcohol on his open wound. This isn’t fair! Why me? Why not him? Why ask why? I know better. While my fear of dying was fading to a more manageable level, my fear of losing Dad was on the rise. I knew he wasn’t a statistic; he was a real person with real hopes and real potential. Just because the five-year survival rate for people with pancreatic cancer is only 10 percent didn’t mean he couldn’t be one of the “lucky ones.” Every patient’s circumstances, genetic makeup, and capacity to heal are different. But I still couldn’t shake the idea that I knew where this was ultimately going. That my dad wouldn’t make it.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  You’ve lost your seniority, but you’re not an old man and can start again. Pass your exams first and then come back and see me; we’ll try and get you a job here if you want one.” Monsieur Marouzeau seemed so kindly, as he turned in embarrassment around his desk, with his socks showing in the sandals that he wore all the year round — since he was in the “colonies”; and my fury dropped immediately, blown away by the feeling of futility and the emptiness of the future which was oppressing me more and more. This was probably the precise moment when I ceased to care about the university and my studies, but I was not clearly conscious of it. In spite of my spasmodic rages, I was accustomed to injustice and to the natural inequalities among men. Monsieur Marouzeau had convinced me and sat down again. Daydreaming is contagious, so he started dreaming out aloud: everybody has his own difficulties and he too had been harmed by the war and had seen neither his family nor his country for five years, and it pained him. Yes, he had the impression of living on borrowed time. To live on borrowed time. That’s an eloquent expression. But I had never lived on anything but borrowed time and I had been waiting to live, God knows how long. I can see now that I was already condemned. “Well,” my good principal concluded with much originality, “such is life, Benillouche, such is life!” He took me to the door and we shook hands cordially. I went down the great marble staircase and found myself outside, outside in the cold, out of the educational system. It was my own fault, Marouzeau had said. No, I did not feel I had made a mistake, and I would have done the same again. No, that had probably not been the right place for me either. How odd was the feeling of relief that came after each break! Had the principal said yes and reinstated me without discussion, had I been granted my leave of absence as I requested, would I really have been glad to go back to the civil service? Would I not, sooner or later, have realized my mistake in choosing this path and trying to be what, within me, deep down within me, I was not? And if I had obstinately insisted on not realizing it others would have forced me. This refusal was a warning. It was my fate to be always breaking with something, but without ever being able to retrace my steps for my past always slammed the door in my face. If my nose had been too long that might have been fixed in a couple of weeks in a clinic, or a gangrenous arm could be amputated, but I had a heart that was defective.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  “No, go ahead now and study pharmacy, or medicine, if you prefer the latter.” Now that he was no longer paying for my studies, two extra years didn’t upset him at all. He offered me his hand, without rising from his chair. “If you ever need any advice, or a recommendation, don’t hesitate to come along to the store.” So I went down the passage again, and remembered only then that I had forgotten to explain to him the purpose of my visit, the Prize! But I was surely very late as it was, so I hurried along the bridgelike passage that led from the office to the store. Why should I go back and tell him now? How could it interest him at all? It no longer concerned anybody but me. My crowning success thus coincided with my achieving responsibility for my own decisions. He was leaving me to my own devices! Once my surprise was over, I tried to feel anger or indignation. I kept repeating to myself: “He’s giving me up, the skunk!” But I could feel no real anger, only a sensation of being at last free from my state of financial dependence, which, for the past seven years, had been like slavery. I tried to walk fast through the crowded streets of the central food markets: a huge conglomeration of trucks, horse-drawn carriages, wooden boxes, mountains of vegetables, bright fruit of all colors, thrown there on the ground, among all the rotting refuse. But no, his behavior was almost what I should have expected. I protested against everything that I saw all around me, against my parents, these tradesmen, this city that is torn apart in separate communities that hate each other, against all their ways of thinking. I wanted to study philosophy, perhaps a strange idea in the eyes of all these people, but I refused to be a money-earner, and even this was being refused me. Well, I would study all the same, and I found again, deep within myself, some violent emotion to confirm me in this decision. They would all see whether, yes or no, I would manage to study what I wanted, not what Monsieur Bismuth wanted! I would indeed study philosophy, instead of pharmacy or medicine. It never even occurred to me that any difficulties might arise in my path. I felt too much vigor in me, too much momentum carrying me ahead.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I went down the great marble staircase and found myself outside, outside in the cold, out of the educational system. It was my own fault, Marouzeau had said. No, I did not feel I had made a mistake, and I would have done the same again. No, that had probably not been the right place for me either. How odd was the feeling of relief that came after each break! Had the principal said yes and reinstated me without discussion, had I been granted my leave of absence as I requested, would I really have been glad to go back to the civil service? Would I not, sooner or later, have realized my mistake in choosing this path and trying to be what, within me, deep down within me, I was not? And if I had obstinately insisted on not realizing it others would have forced me. This refusal was a warning. It was my fate to be always breaking with something, but without ever being able to retrace my steps for my past always slammed the door in my face. If my nose had been too long that might have been fixed in a couple of weeks in a clinic, or a gangrenous arm could be amputated, but I had a heart that was defective. My misfortunes were never chance encounters, and I could not easily avoid them. The more I get to know myself, the more aware I become of this. To put an end to this state of affairs would mean putting an end to myself, to die or to go mad. My principal’s temporary appointment would end one day, but I would never find the solution to my problem because I am that problem. I was no longer in a hurry as I left the Board of Education. Where would I go now? I followed the old ramparts with their white battlements that cut the sky in equal slices of blue. Then I went through the great green door with its useless rusty gates. The setting is unreal and absurd, like pasteboard in a provincial theater. I went into the covered bazaars, between rows of low houses leaning against and climbing over each other. This was the architecture of my native country. Would I agree to live in one of these houses, without water or light, in these muddy streets? Could I bring myself to return to live in the Middle Ages?

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  He seemed to forget that our only link was that of financial assistance and that, once he ceased to give me any, we automatically became strangers again. Out of sheer habit, he continued to give me instructions: “You will study pharmacy all the same. You can do some tutoring and live in one of the dormitories of the Cité Universitaire in Paris. Come back and see me before you leave town and I’ll give you a letter of introduction to the director of the Spanish House there. He’s a good friend of mine.” But my future was no longer any of Monsieur Bismuth’s business, and this alone was a good enough reason for me to dare at last to express to him an objection. “I was planning to study philosophy,” I said. His gesture expressed only contempt. “To become a teacher? A civil servant? You’ll never earn a living that way.” He had overridden my argument, just as he had before when he decided that I must study pharmacy instead of medicine. “No, go ahead now and study pharmacy, or medicine, if you prefer the latter.” Now that he was no longer paying for my studies, two extra years didn’t upset him at all. He offered me his hand, without rising from his chair. “If you ever need any advice, or a recommendation, don’t hesitate to come along to the store.” So I went down the passage again, and remembered only then that I had forgotten to explain to him the purpose of my visit, the Prize! But I was surely very late as it was, so I hurried along the bridgelike passage that led from the office to the store. Why should I go back and tell him now? How could it interest him at all? It no longer concerned anybody but me. My crowning success thus coincided with my achieving responsibility for my own decisions. He was leaving me to my own devices! Once my surprise was over, I tried to feel anger or indignation. I kept repeating to myself: “He’s giving me up, the skunk!” But I could feel no real anger, only a sensation of being at last free from my state of financial dependence, which, for the past seven years, had been like slavery. I tried to walk fast through the crowded streets of the central food markets: a huge conglomeration of trucks, horse-drawn carriages, wooden boxes, mountains of vegetables, bright fruit of all colors, thrown there on the ground, among all the rotting refuse. But no, his behavior was almost what I should have expected.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The water was muddy and tasted of iron. The early morning did not bring the violence of the day before. The front seemed to have become stabilized. The traffic started again, calm and scattered. If the front moved back a little, hitchhiking would become possible again. The men took to the fields again, and four of us stayed by the road to watch for a ride. Without moving, we let two German armored cars go past, only too relieved not to be questioned. We waved down a big truck driven by a civilian. He slowed down, rolled by, and stopped. We ran after him, an Italian civilian, probably a paid volunteer. We started vaguely explaining to him and ended up by being more explicit. Yes, he would take us, but he risked getting himself into a great deal of trouble, a great deal... We wasted no breath. Among Mediterraneans there was no need to beat about the bush — with a German we would never have dared — how much? He hesitated. We proposed five hundred francs. He accepted, protesting with his hand that it was not the money that influenced him; he would get into trouble anyway. As soon as we had struck the bargain we yelled with all our might, as much to show our joy as to call the others. They were not far off and were inside the truck as soon as we were. Never has a machine seemed more miraculous to me. In less than an hour we had left an unreal world and entered a familiar one. Now the men re-enacted their outward journey, but their painful memories were tinged with joy. “Look,” one of them said to me, “see that big building there. That was where they held a thousand of us. They kept us there three days without letting us go out or even leave the straw on which we slept...” “The smell was something...” They were almost proud of their stories and were already reconstructing their memories. “Look, that must be where poor Berdah...” Silence fell. It was a mistake to recall this detail. There were no traces of the machine-gun murder of poor Berdah, the clubfoot who straggled behind. All intent on the joy of returning to town, the men did not want to be reminded of things they could not joke about. Instead, they told me at length of the group-leader’s protest to the German officer who would not permit more than one man to go to the toilets at a time. The leader had proved, with figures in hand, that going there in turns would mean that each man could relieve himself only once every five days. Thus Jewish logic had triumphed over German force, they concluded.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  § 23. Temporary Repose. A.D. 260–303. Gallienus (260–268) gave peace to the church once more, and even acknowledged Christianity as a religio licita. And this calm continued forty years; for the edict of persecution, issued by the energetic and warlike Aurelian (270–275), was rendered void by his assassination; and the six emperors who rapidly followed, from 275 to 284, let the Christians alone. The persecutions under Carus, Numerianus and Carinus from 284 to 285 are not historical, but legendary.42 During this long season of peace the church rose rapidly in numbers and outward prosperity. Large and even splendid houses of worship were erected in the chief cities, and provided with collections of sacred books and vessels of gold and silver for the administration of the sacraments. But in the same proportion discipline relaxed, quarrels, intrigues, and factions increased, and worldliness poured in like a flood. Hence a new trial was a necessary and wholesome process of purification.43 § 24. The Diocletian Persecution, A.D. 303–311. I. Sources. Eusebius: H. E. Lib. VIII. – X; De Martyr. Palaest. (ed. Cureton, Lond, 1861); Vita Const. (ed. Heinichen, Lips. 1870). Lactantius: De Mortibus Persec. c. 7 sqq. Of uncertain authorship. Basilius M.: Oratio in Gordium mart.; Oratio in Barlaham mart. II. Works. Baronius: Annal. ad ann. 302–305. Gibbon: Chrs. XIII., XIV. and XVI. Jak. Burckhardt: Die Zeit Constantins des Gr. Basel, 1853, p. 325. Th. Keim: Der Uebertritt Constantins des Gr. zum Christenthum. Zürich 1852. The same: Die römischen Toleranzedicte für das Christenthum (311–313), in the "Tüb. Theol. Jahrb." 1852. (His. Rom und das Christenthum only comes down to A.D. 192.) Alb. Vogel: Der Kaiser Diocletian. Gotha 1857. Bernhardt: Diokletian in s. Verhältnisse zu den Christen. Bonn, 1862. Hunziker: Regierung und Christenverfolgung des Kaisers Diocletianus und seiner Nachfolger. Leipz. 1868. Theod. Preuss: Kaiser Diocletian und seine Zeit. Leipz. 1869. A. J. Mason: The Persecution of Diocletian. Cambridge, 1876. Pages 370. (Comp. a review by Ad. Harnack in the "Theol. Literaturzeitung" for 1877. No. 7. f. 169.) Theod. Zahn: Constantin der Grosse und die Kirche. Hannover, 1876. Brieger.: Constantin der Gr. als Religionspolitiker. Gotha, 1880. Comp. the Lit. on Constantine, in vol. III., 10, 11. The forty years’ repose was followed by, the last and most violent persecution, a struggle for life and death.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  These jokes contributed to make me learn, the hard way, how personal one’s anguish must always be, how difficult to communicate at all. As soon as my appeal had been sent, I became sure of my imminent rescue. Once solicited, my father couldn’t possibly leave me in this state of despair. Nor did this delay, so full of hopes that already made me feel less disturbed, last very long. Every day we were obliged to rest during a siesta that lasted from one-thirty until four in the afternoon. We were expected to sleep at that time, and absolute quiet was obligatory, though I cannot remember having slept once in that period. The heat and the crudely bright sunlight caused adults and all of nature to be overcome by a silent torpor that was broken only by the shrill chirping of the cicadas, but all of this had no effect on our vitality. We lay beneath our blankets, whispering from bed to bed and swapping well-thumbed comic books. As soon as I ceased to move, the world was no longer real and, since I could not exert my body, I began to play with my imagination. The terrifying brightness that confuses all colors in a dazzling white still failed to inspire in me any fear, so that I could abandon myself fully to the magic of light, enjoying to the utmost this invasion in the course of which my body seemed to faint and fail me as I forgot, without any anguish, all of the world that has mass. I gladly stared at the blinding light of the window and soon the stone and the woodwork both vanished, leaving me alone in the midst of the sky, propelling myself with great strokes of the arms in a sea of clouds. Then colors came back to life, long streaks of flickering greens, glistening drops of pink crystal that I found it delightful to turn off and on like lights, with a flicker of my eyelid, and that left behind them, in spite of my efforts, their tracings of darkness. Suddenly, in the course of this interplanetary trip, I saw my father: his head stood out clearly against one of the panes of the window. This apparition in the general drowsiness of the universe, in the gratuitous world of my joy-riding in the skies, seemed to me quite miraculous, an extraordinary confirmation of his omnipotence. The rules that governed our lives were thereby abolished and I jumped out of my bed. All my anxieties were now but a nightmare, the hostile world around me recovered some of its lost warmth while confidence and security regained control.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I vaguely promised Kalla I would look into this business and, without taking further notice of her disappointment, went to bed. When I awoke, it was striking five but the sun was still warm. I had slept perfectly, for four hours in a deep sleep such as I had not known for a very long time. Kalla had disappeared, but on the table I found some letters addressed to me. Although they had been there for days, I did not open them immediately with my usual impatience. Who could still hold me in this city? Only a printed letter from the Community Treasurer attracted my attention. I had expected it and I knew what it contained. Indeed, it was to tell me I could come and collect my salary as a forced laborer. I dressed and went at once to the cashier, who was just closing shop. The sum was fairly big and very welcome, for my stay in Algiers had emptied my pockets. I divided my money in two sums, put the smaller one in my wallet and the other in my pocket within easy reach of my hand. Night fell suddenly while I was still on my way home. In the Passage, the heat had driven all the tenants out of their flats. In summer, after gulping down their dinner, they usually put chairs out on the sidewalk and chatted until it got cool. In the silence of the night, they formed an island of sound. This reminded me of our well-hidden clubroom in our old blind alley, where we had sat in the cool when it was so hot outside. All this chattering with loud calls and exclamations from sidewalk to sidewalk now seemed unbearably vulgar to me. The blind alley had never really existed; my heart had only been more peaceful before I had come to understand. My father was still upstairs, so I went into the apartment. I pulled out the larger part of my earnings and gave it to him. “I’ve collected my pay,” I explained, “you know, my worker’s pay.” He stammered, embarrassed by his obvious pleasure. “All that! Have you any left for yourself, at least?” “Yes, yes, quite enough.” Then I went to get some food in the kitchen. Never had it been so plentiful. I settled at one of the tables of our temporary restaurant and read as I ate. I heard my father dressing slowly. I was certain he would never say more of this. In fact, after having puttered around and hesitated, he went and joined the others in the street. But it did not last long. Our usual intermediary, my mother, came up. She bustled around in the rooms, moved a few chairs, finally came closer, put her hands on the table, and said confidentially: “Your father blesses you.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I dozed, then came my turn to watch, and when I was relieved I dozed off again. I closed my eyes, but for a long time I followed the lights and colors from under my eyelids. Three bombs dropped so close that we were showered with sulphur. At last, as the tired night receded, the war again became wary and silent. We made the best of the truce and marched on. I did not feel rested. Sleep, which had not for a moment been deep, only reduced my weariness to a general torpor; in the same way, dawn veiled the landscape and obliterated the contours of hills and the ragged olive trees, softened the harsh brown earth and the dry green of the cactus hedges. We trudged silently ahead step by step, for centuries, it seemed. I have no recollection of this dead and shapeless time when nothing existed but the monotonous and independent movement of our clogs. Nothing, I imagine, could have made me more tired, and I no longer had either memory or desire. But I stopped once more to drink. Beside the road, a clay-red stream wound along the bottom of an eroded bed, and I rediscovered my thirst which made my tongue cling to my palate. The water was muddy and tasted of iron. The early morning did not bring the violence of the day before. The front seemed to have become stabilized. The traffic started again, calm and scattered. If the front moved back a little, hitchhiking would become possible again. The men took to the fields again, and four of us stayed by the road to watch for a ride. Without moving, we let two German armored cars go past, only too relieved not to be questioned. We waved down a big truck driven by a civilian. He slowed down, rolled by, and stopped. We ran after him, an Italian civilian, probably a paid volunteer. We started vaguely explaining to him and ended up by being more explicit. Yes, he would take us, but he risked getting himself into a great deal of trouble, a great deal... We wasted no breath. Among Mediterraneans there was no need to beat about the bush — with a German we would never have dared — how much? He hesitated. We proposed five hundred francs. He accepted, protesting with his hand that it was not the money that influenced him; he would get into trouble anyway. As soon as we had struck the bargain we yelled with all our might, as much to show our joy as to call the others. They were not far off and were inside the truck as soon as we were. Never has a machine seemed more miraculous to me. In less than an hour we had left an unreal world and entered a familiar one. Now the men re-enacted their outward journey, but their painful memories were tinged with joy.