Sadness

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 Real Life (2020)

  Il prend du gratin d’aubergines parmigiana, de la purée, du pilaf, des pâtes aux olives, et des raviolis maison. C’est comme s’il avait un énorme gouffre en lui qui ne peut être rempli que par la nourriture. Il mange, il mange, se ressert, du kale, du houmous, des chips de pita, des crackers. Il y a un assortiment de desserts : sa salade de fruits, une tarte aux noix de pécan, une tarte à la citrouille, un clafoutis aux cerises, des sablés au citron, des biscuits à la cannelle, une kyrielle de cookies. Il les mange morceau par morceau, bouchée par bouchée, les enfournant dans sa bouche. Il est le seul à manger car tous les autres parlent à voix basse, par groupes de deux ou trois, tentant de comprendre ce qui s’est passé. Wallace ne lève pas les yeux. Il y a eu une période, en deuxième année, peu après que Dana avait convaincu Simone qu’il avait inversé les détergents, où il déjeunait tout seul à la bibliothèque du deuxième étage. Il réchauffait ses ramen dans le micro-ondes bancal de la cuisine puis transportait son bol fumant dans les couloirs en s’efforçant de maintenir le couvercle bien pressé contre l’eau chaude qui s’agitait dans le récipient, puis il prenait place dans l’une des salles d’étude de façon à être seul dans sa honte. Il mangeait en regardant des vidéos sur son portable, avec la lumière vive de l’après-midi qui filtrait par la fenêtre étroite et se déposait comme une latte dorée sur la table. Il avait déjeuné tout seul quotidiennement pendant un mois, jusqu’au jour où Henrik était venu le trouver. En levant les yeux, Wallace l’avait vu qui l’observait par la vitre de la porte. Il avait sursauté, et renversé son bol par terre. Le visage d’Henrik s’était assombri. Wallace s’était mis à genoux pour remettre les nouilles souillées dans le récipient, et Henrik avait poussé la porte et dit : Qu’est-ce que tu fais là ? On a une cuisine pour ça. Il avait croisé ses bras sur sa poitrine, les mains mouillées sur sa poitrine, et il n’avait pas bougé jusqu’à ce que Wallace ait fini de ramasser son bol et sa fourchette et pris la direction de la cuisine pour jeter son repas. Par la suite, pendant longtemps, il avait sauté le repas. Chaque jour, vers trois heures de l’après-midi, quand Henrik allait manger, il s’arrêtait juste au moment de quitter leur paillasse et se retournait pour jeter un regard à Wallace. Il y avait du regret dans ses yeux, se dit-il à présent. Du regret et autre chose. Dommage qu’il ne l’ait pas interrogé à ce sujet. Dommage qu’il n’ait pas demandé à Henrik de déjeuner avec lui. Il se demande à présent si ce jour-là, Henrik était vraiment venu le gronder, ou lui faire une proposition – lui offrir son amitié, peut-être – mais, timide comme il était, il n’avait pas su s’y prendre, et s’était pris les pieds dans le tapis.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “No, baby, you sure don’t,” Ida said, “not unless you’re really willing to ask yourself how you’d have made it, if they’d dumped on you what they dumped on Rufus. And you can’t ask yourself that question because there’s no way in the world for you to know what Rufus went through, not in this world, not as long as you’re white.” She smiled. It was the saddest smile Cass had ever seen. “That’s right, baby. That’s where it’s at.” The cab stopped in front of Small’s. “Here we go,” said Ida, jauntily, seeming, in an instant, to drag all of herself up from the depths, as though she were about to walk that mile from the wings to the stage. She glanced quickly at the meter, then opened her handbag. “Let me,” said Cass. “It’s just about the only thing that a poor white woman can still do.” Ida looked at her, and smiled. “Now, don’t you be like that,” she said, “because you can suffer, and you’ve got some suffering to do, believe me.” Cass handed the driver a bill. “You stand to lose everything—your home, your husband, even your children.” Cass sat very still, waiting for her change. She looked like a defiant little girl. “I’ll never give up my children,” she said. “They could be taken from you.” “Yes. It could happen. But it won’t.” She tipped the driver, and they got out of the cab. “It happened,” said Ida, mildly, “to my ancestors every day.” “Maybe,” said Cass, with a sudden flash of anger, and very close to tears, “it happened to all of us! Why was my husband ashamed to speak Polish all the years that he was growing up?—and look at him now, he doesn’t know who he is. Maybe we’re worse off than you.” “Oh,” said Ida, “you are. There’s no maybe about that.” “Then have a little mercy.” “You’re asking a lot.” The men on the sidewalk looked at them with a kind of merciless calculation, deciding that they were certainly unattainable, that their studs or their johns were waiting inside; and, anyway, three white policemen, walking abreast, came up the Avenue. Cass felt, suddenly, exposed, and in danger, and wished she had not come. She thought of herself, later, alone, looking for a taxi; but she did not dare say anything to Ida. Ida opened the doors, and they walked in. “We’re really not dressed for this place,” Cass whispered. “It doesn’t matter,” Ida said. She stared imperiously over the heads of the people at the bar, into the farther room, where the bandstand seemed to be, and the raised dance floor. And her arrogance produced, out of the smoke and confusion, a heavy, dark man who approached them with raised eyebrows. “We’re with Mr. Ellis’s party,” said Ida. “Will you lead us to him, please?”

• From Push (1996)

  Ms Rain a butch. This still shock to me 'cause you can not tell it, but I remember what she said —not homos who rape me, not homos who let me be igne-rent. I forgets all that oP shit lately— Five Percenters, Black Israelites, etc etc (etc etc mean yeah yeah). I never be butch like Celie but it don't make me happy—make me sad. Maybe I never find no love, nobody. At least when I look at the girls I see them and when they look they see ME, not what I looks like. But it seems like boyz just see what you looks like. A boy come out my pussy. Was nothing. A dark spot in the sky; then turn to life in me. When he grow up he gonna laff big black girls? He gon' laff at dark skin like he got? One thing I say about Farrakhan and Alice Walker they help me like being black. I wish I wasn't fat but I am. Maybe one day I like that too, who knows. But I look my friends in the circle and I tell them, test say I'm HIV positive. And all the tongues dead, can't talk no more. Rita Romero hug me like I'm her chile and I cry and Ms Rain rub my back and say let it out, Precious, let it out. I cry for every day of my life. I cry for Mama what kinda story Mama got to do me like she do? And I cry for my son, the song in my life. The little brown penis, booty, fat thighs, roun' eyes, the voice of love say, Mama, Mama he call me. Then crying stop. Rita go to her purse and get magazine call Body Positive say I got to join HIV community. Jezus! It's a community of them? Us, I mean. But I tell her, Not now. I just need to think. Is life a hammer to beat me down? Jermaine jump up do boxing dance (she think she Mike Tyson!) say fight back! I laugh, a little. Ms Rain say we got to write now in our journals. Say each of our lives is important. She got us book from Audre Lorde, a writer woman like Alice Walker. Say each of us has a story to tell. What is a black unicorn? I don't really understand the poem but I like it. I don't have nothing to write today—maybe never. Hammer in my heart now, beating me, I feel like my blood a giant river swell up inside me and I'm drowning. My head all dark inside. Feel like giant river I never cross in front me now. Ms Rain say, You not writing Precious. I say I drownin' in river.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She said nothing. She watched the cold trees and the cold park. She wondered how Richard’s work had gone that morning; she wondered about the children. It seemed, suddenly, that she had been away a long time, had failed very great obligations. And all she wanted in the world right now was to get home safely and find everything as she had left it—as she had left it so long ago, this morning. “You’re so juvenile,” she heard herself saying. She was using her most matronly tone. “You know so little”—she smiled—“about life. About women.” He smiled, too, a pale, weary smile. “All right. But I want something real to happen to me. I do. How do you find out about”—he grinned, mocking her—“life? About women? Do you know a lot about men?” The great numbers above faraway Columbus Circle glowed in the gray sky and said that it was twelve twenty-seven. She would get home just in time to make lunch. Then the depression she had been battling came down again, as though the sky had descended and turned into fog. “Once I thought I did,” she said. “Once I thought I knew. Once I was even younger than you are now.” Again he stared at her but this time said nothing. For a moment, as the road swerved, the skyline of New York rose before them like a jagged wall. Then it was gone. She lit a cigarette and wondered why, in that moment, she had so hated the proud towers, the grasping antennae. She had never hated the city before. Why did everything seem so pale and so profitless: and why did she feel so cold, as though nothing and no one could ever warm her again? Low in his throat Vivaldo hummed the blues they had heard at the funeral. He was thinking of Ida, dreaming of Ida, rushing ahead to what awaited him with Ida. For a moment she hated his youth, his expectations, possibilities, she hated his masculinity. She envied Ida. She listened to Vivaldo hum the blues.

• From Another Country (1962)

  And it makes me feel kind of restful and protected—and strong—there are some things which only a woman can give you,” He walked to the window, peering down through the slats in the Venetian blinds as though he were awaiting the moment when the men in their opposing camps would leave their tents and meet in the shadow of the trees. “And yet, in a way, it’s all a kind of superior calisthenics. It’s a great challenge, a great test, a great game. But I don’t really feel that—terror—and that anguish and that joy I’ve sometimes felt with—a few men. Not enough of myself is invested; it’s almost as though I’m doing something—for Cass.” He turned and looked at Vivaldo. “Does that make sense to you?” “I think it does,” said Vivaldo. “I think it does.” But he was thinking of some nights in bed with Jane, when she had become drunk enough to be insatiable; he was thinking of her breath and her slippery body, and the eerie impersonality of her cries. Once, he had had a terrible stomachache, but Jane had given him no rest, and finally, in order to avoid shoving his fist down her throat, he had thrown himself on her, hoping, desperately, to exhaust her so that he could get some sleep. And he knew that this was not what Eric was talking about. “Perhaps,” said Vivaldo, haltingly, thinking of the night on the roof with Harold, and Harold’s hands, “it’s something like the way I might feel if I went to bed with a man only because I—liked him—and he wanted me to.” Eric smiled, grimly. “I’m not sure that there is a comparison, Vivaldo. Sex is too private. But if you went to bed with a guy just because he wanted you to, you wouldn’t have to take any responsibility for it; you wouldn’t be doing any of the work. He’d do all the work. And the idea of being passive is very attractive to many men, maybe to most men.” “It is?” He put his feet on the floor and took a long swallow of his drink. He looked over at Eric and sighed and smiled. “You make the whole deal sound pretty rough, old buddy.” “Well, that’s the way it looks from where I’m sitting.” Eric grimaced, threw back his head, and sipped his whiskey. “Maybe I’m crying because I wanted to believe that, somewhere, for some people, life and love are easier—than they are for me, than they are. Maybe it was easier to call myself a faggot and blame my sorrow on that.” Then silence filled the room, like a chill. Eric and Vivaldo. stared at each other with an oddly belligerent intensity. There was a great question in Eric’s eyes and Vivaldo turned away as though he were turning from a mirror and walked to the kitchen door. “You really think it makes no difference?” “I don’t know.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I am myself weary of going wandering so long among such miseries; wherefore, purposing henceforth to leave such part thereof as I can fitly, I say that,--our city being at this pass, well nigh void of inhabitants,--it chanced (as I afterward heard from a person worthy of credit) that there foregathered in the venerable church of Santa Maria Novella, one Tuesday morning when there was well nigh none else there, seven young ladies, all knit one to another by friendship or neighbourhood or kinship, who had heard divine service in mourning attire, as sorted with such a season. Not one of them had passed her eight-and-twentieth year nor was less than eighteen years old, and each was discreet and of noble blood, fair of favour and well-mannered and full of honest sprightliness. The names of these ladies I would in proper terms set out, did not just cause forbid me, to wit, that I would not have it possible that, in time to come, any of them should take shame by reason of the things hereinafter related as being told or hearkened by them, the laws of disport being nowadays somewhat straitened, which at that time, for the reasons above shown, were of the largest, not only for persons of their years, but for those of a much riper age; nor yet would I give occasion to the envious, who are still ready to carp at every praiseworthy life, on anywise to disparage the fair fame of these honourable ladies with unseemly talk. Wherefore, so that which each saith may hereafterward be apprehended without confusion, I purpose to denominate them by names altogether or in part sorting with each one's quality.[15] The first of them and her of ripest age I shall call Pampinea, the second Fiammetta, the third Filomena and the fourth Emilia. To the fifth we will give the name of Lauretta, to the sixth that of Neifile and the last, not without cause, we will style Elisa.[16] These, then, not drawn of any set purpose, but foregathering by chance in a corner of the church, having seated themselves in a ring, after divers sighs, let be the saying of paternosters and fell to devising with one another many and various things of the nature of the time. After awhile, the others being silent, Pampinea proceeded to speak thus: [Footnote 15: Or character (_qualità_).]

• From Another Country (1962)

  Cass looked down at the tabletop and played with the salted peanuts in the red plastic dish. “Well, that’s why I called you—to talk to you. But it’s not so easy. I’m not sure I know what’s the matter.” The waiter returned and set their drinks down before them. “That’s not true. I guess I do know what’s the matter.” Then she was silent. She sipped her drink nervously and lit a cigarette. “I guess it’s about Richard and me,” she said at last. “I don’t know what’s going to become of us. There doesn’t seem to be anything between us any more.” She spoke in an odd, breathless way, almost like a schoolgirl, and as though she did not believe what she was saying. “Or I guess that’s not right. There’s a hell of a lot between us, there must be. But none of it seem to work. Sometimes—sometimes I think he hates me—for being married, for the children, for the work he does. And other times I know that isn’t true, that can’t be true.” She bit her lower lip and stubbed out her cigarette and tried to laugh. “Poor Vivaldo. I know you’ve got troubles of your own and don’t know what to do about the maunderings of a middle-aged, self-centered matron.” “Now that you mention it,” he said, “I guess you are practically decrepit.” He tried to smile; he did not know what to say. Ida and Ellis, thrust hastily to the back of his mind, were, nevertheless, dimly accomplishing their unspeakable violations of his manhood. “It really just sounds like a kind of summer storm—don’t all married people have them?” “I really don’t know anything about all married people. I’m not sure I know anything about marriage.” She sipped her drink again, saying, irrelevantly, “I wish I could get drunk.” Then she giggled, her proud face suddenly breaking. “I wish I could get drunk and go out and pick up a truck driver or a taxi driver or anybody who’d touch me and make me feel like a woman again.” She hid her face with one bony hand and her tears dripped through her fingers. Keeping her head down, she searched fiercely through the absurd straw handbag and finally came up with a small bit of Kleenex. With this, miraculously, she managed to blow her nose and dry her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’ve just been sitting around brooding too long.” “What have you been brooding about, Cass? I thought you and Richard had it made.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  The sun was going down, but the heat had not lessened. The stone and steel and wood and brick and asphalt which had soaked in the heat all day would be giving it back all night. They walked two blocks, to the corner of Fifth Avenue, in silence; and in this silence something lived which made Vivaldo oddly reluctant to leave Cass alone. The corner on which they stood was absolutely deserted, and there was very little traffic. “Which way are you going?” he asked her. She looked up and down the Avenue—up and down. From the direction of the park there came a green and yellow cab. “I don’t know. But I think I’ll go to that movie.” The cab stopped, several blocks from them, waiting for a red light. Cass abruptly put up her hand. Again, he volunteered. “Would you like me to come with you? I could act as your protection.” She laughed. “No, Vivaldo, thank you. I don’t want to be protected any more.” And the cab swerved toward them. They both watched it approach, it slowed and stopped. He looked at her with his eyebrows very high. “Well—” he said. She opened the door and he held it. “Thank you, Vivaldo,” she said. “Thank you for everything. I’ll be in touch with you in a few days. Or call me, I’ll be home.” “Okay, Cass.” He made a fist and touched her on the chin. “Be good.” “You, too. Good-bye.” She got into the cab and he slammed the door. She leaned forward to the driver, the cab rolled forward, downtown. She turned back to wave at him and the cab turned west . It was like waving good-bye to land: and she could not guess what might have befallen her when, and if, she ever saw land again. At Twelfth Street and Seventh Avenue she made the driver carry her one block more, to the box office of the Loew’s Sheridan; then she paid him and walked out and actually climbed the stairs to the balcony of this hideous place of worship, and sat down. She lit a cigarette, glad of the darkness but not protected by it; and she watched the screen, but all she saw were the extraordinarily unconvincing wiggles of a girl whose name, incredibly enough, appeared to be Doris Day. She thought, irrelevantly, I never should come to movies, I can’t stand them , and then she began to cry. She wept looking straight ahead, this latter rain coming between her and James Cagney’s great, red face, which seemed, at least, thank heaven, to be beyond the possibilities of make-up. Then she looked at her watch, noting that it was exactly eight o’clock. Is that good or bad? she wondered idiotically—knowing, which was always part of her trouble, that she was being idiotic. My God, you’re thirty-four years old, go on downstairs and call him .

• From Real Life (2020)

  Qu’est-ce qu’on loupe ? » Wallace fléchit les jambes et s’assoit sur l’herbe au bord de la piste. Son corps entier vibre. Cole s’assoit à côté de lui, puis se laisse aller en arrière et pose un bras sur son visage. Le monde dans toute sa vastitude est immobile et silencieux. Même les oiseaux semblent suspendus sur leur perchoir. Un grillon va se poster au bout d’un brin d’herbe jauni et émet plusieurs longs cris. Puis il est avalé par un héron. Wallace observe les yeux énormes de l’oiseau qui penche son long cou pour repérer l’insecte dans l’herbe. Pour le grillon, cet œil doit sembler tellement grand, impossible. Et l’œil doit trouver le grillon assez infinitésimal pour être négligeable mais cependant être capable de discerner son architecture dans son intégralité. Le héron fait claquer son bec au-dessus de l’herbe et engloutit le grillon. Cole pousse un soupir. « Je voudrais juste que les choses redeviennent comme avant. Comme quand on était à Ole Miss, qu’on faisait des projets. Ça, ça n’a jamais fait partie du plan. On se voulait, nous et personne d’autre. — Les projets, ça évolue. Ça ne veut pas dire qu’ils ne sont pas bons ou qu’ils sont à l’eau. Ça veut juste dire… qu’on veut autre chose. — Mais je ne veux pas autre chose. Je ne veux personne d’autre. Je veux Vincent. » Cole parle d’un ton acerbe. Wallace tortille des brins d’herbe verte, faisant un petit trou dans la terre. La voix de Cole est criblée de fissures. L’atmosphère est rafraîchie par l’eau, mais la chaleur de la journée n’a pas commencé à refluer, elle demeure, telle une gaze sur leur peau. « Je sais, Cole. Mais tu ne l’as pas perdu. Vous êtes toujours ensemble. Vous pouvez encore faire que ça marche. — Mais, et s’il ne veut plus de moi ? S’il a trouvé autre chose ? — Tire pas des plans sur la comète. » Wallace est frappé par ces mots car ce n’est pas à lui qu’ils appartiennent, mais à sa grand-mère. Il l’entend parfaitement à la table de la cuisine, remuant la pâte à pain de maïs en fredonnant un air. Il se sent un bref instant malade, étourdi par le souvenir. « Je peux pas m’en empêcher, apparemment. J’ai que ça, des plans. — C’est pas vrai », dit Wallace en saupoudrant le ventre de Cole de brins d’herbe. « Tu as un mec. C’est plus que ne peuvent en dire certains d’entre nous. — Mon mec cherche un mec. — Tu n’en sais rien. Tu ne lui as pas posé la question. — Pourquoi tu t’es inscrit sur cette appli, toi ? — Pour passer le temps, surtout.

• From Real Life (2020)

  La surface de l’eau ondule au passage d’oiseaux volant bas, attrapant les insectes. Il ramasse un caillou et le lance vers les herbes jaunes. Une douzaine d’oiseaux jaillissent, leurs ailes grises et marron, leurs corps effilés comme des pointes de flèches. Cole laisse échapper un gémissement exaspéré. « Et ensuite, après le dîner, on prend le café, continue-t-il, et Roman se tourne vers Vincent et dit : “Tu sais, il n’y a rien de mieux que de baiser quelqu’un pendant que mon copain regarde.” » L’accent français de Cole est lamentable, caricatural et hilarant. Wallace s’efforce de se retenir de rire. Il a du mal. « T’imagines, sérieux ? Ce putain de pédé a dit ça à mon copain. Devant moi. Il a dit ça. — Je me demande si c’est vrai, fait Wallace. S’il le pense vraiment. — Je ne laisserai personne baiser mon copain devant moi. Je ne laisserai personne baiser mon copain. À part moi. » Wallace se mord le bout de la langue, qu’il a déjà tellement irritée aujourd’hui. Il ravale ce qu’il avait envie de dire : qu’une personne ne vous appartient pas juste parce que vous êtes en couple, juste parce que vous l’aimez. Que les individus sont des individus, et qu’ils ne s’appartiennent qu’à eux-mêmes, ou qu’il devrait en être ainsi. Miller peut faire ce qu’il veut avec qui il veut, c’est la pensée qui lui traverse la cervelle en un éclair. Il a le cœur jaloux. L’amour est un sentiment égoïste. « Il en pense quoi, Vincent ? — Eh bien, on en a reparlé quand ce petit con est parti. On est en train de faire la vaisselle, il se tourne vers moi et il demande : “Chéri, t’en as pensé quoi, de ce qu’a dit Roman ?” J’ai pété les plombs, Wallace. J’ai complètement perdu les pédales. — Mais qu’est-ce qu’il veut, Vincent ? — Alors je dis : “Je ne suis pas fan.” Vincent faisait une tête… Juste… J’aurais voulu que tu vois ça, Wallace. On aurait dit qu’il avait loupé son bus ou son train. On aurait dit qu’il était sur la mauvaise rive du lac et qu’il essayait de voir si le bateau allait revenir le chercher. » Cole a l’air triste mais en colère. Il se remémore, revit cette soirée dans leur appartement. « Et j’ai su immédiatement qu’il allait faire un truc dans ce genre. S’inscrire sur cette appli, chercher quelque chose. — Mais il a dit quoi ? » Cole lèche le sel au-dessus de sa lèvre. Il se tourne de nouveau vers l’eau, vers les herbes qui ondulent, soupirant dans le vent. « Il a dit : “Mais t’as pas envie de savoir ?” — Savoir quoi ? — C’est tout. C’est tout. » Cole rit. « C’est tout ce qu’il a dit : “Mais t’as pas envie de savoir ?” Qu’est-ce qu’on loupe en étant ensemble, Wallace ? Tu peux me dire ça ?

• From Real Life (2020)

  Il n’a pas envisagé la possibilité que l’affabilité de la nature de Cole puisse déformer autre chose, aplatir un autre trait ; ou qu’elle puisse être le résultat d’un jeu savamment orchestré, une illusion. Toutes les soirées, les conversations remises à plus tard, les questions attentionnées sur le bien-être de tous, les gâteaux, ses tenues passe-partout, la flexibilité de ses horaires, son attitude placide – tout cela suggère un authentique souci des autres et une absence d’égoïsme. Comment Cole, justement, peut-il douter de lui-même, de qui il est, quand la personnalité qu’il présente au monde est construite avec un tel soin ? Ce n’est que maintenant, même, que Wallace prend conscience de quelques faux plis aux coutures, qui laissent entrapercevoir la construction. Peut-être Cole sourit-il de toutes ses dents pour cacher une grimace. « Je connais cette impression, dit Wallace. Je la connais très bien. — Alors dis pas ça, OK, que tu me connais, que tu sais comment ça va se terminer, parce que tu ne me connais pas, et tu ne peux pas savoir. — OK. Ça se tient. OK. — J’ai juste hyper peur. Je l’aime depuis si longtemps. On est ensemble depuis si longtemps. Je ne sais pas si je suis capable de recommencer. » Bien sûr que Cole a peur de perdre Vincent. Bien sûr que c’est ça, le comble des désirs de Cole, pas seulement pour cette relation, mais pour la configuration même des choses : une carrière, un partenaire aimant, des amis, des petites soirées sympathiques, un peu de tennis le week-end. Ce que Cole demande à la vie, avant toutes choses, c’est que les questions soient résolues avant même d’être soulevées, et que tout se mette naturellement en place. Il espère qu’ils vont juste finir leur troisième cycle et enchaîner sur la phase suivante de leur existence exactement comme ils sont maintenant, juste un peu plus vieux, un peu plus riches, un peu plus à l’aise. Les déconvenues inévitables, les chagrins ne font pas partie de son plan. Vincent n’est pas seulement Vincent, il est aussi un symbole qui prend plus de poids avec chaque jour qui passe. Il est un gardien, un vaccin contre l’incertitude de l’avenir. « Je suis vraiment désolé que tu éprouves ça. C’est trop lourd. — Non, toi, dit Cole. Ton père – merde , je suis reparti en boucle. Pardonne-moi. — Ne t’en fais pas pour ça. Ne t’en fais pas. Franchement. — Ça doit être tellement énorme, de perdre ton père, ça doit être atroce. — C’est… dans l’ensemble, ça va », avoue Wallace, qui s’aventure trop près d’un nerf. Il n’a pas envie de recommencer à expliquer que le chagrin peut être à la fois dense et diffus, comme une volée d’oiseaux dans le ciel. Il ne veut pas se lancer sur ce terrain-là. Il sent un goût de terre sur ses lèvres et dans sa bouche, granuleux et salé.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know when I do. Richard’s gone off, he may not be back for a couple of days. He wants to think, he says.” She sighed. “I don’t know.” She said, carefully, looking at the painting, “I imagine, for the sake of the children, he’ll decide that we should weather this, and stick together. I don’t know if I want that or not, I don’t know if I can bear it. But he won’t sue me for divorce, he hasn’t got the courage to name you as corespondent.” Each to the other’s astonishment, laughed. She looked at him again. “I can’t come to you,” she said. There was a silence. “No,” he said, “you can’t come to me.” “So it’s really—though I’ll see you again—good-bye.” “Yes,” he said. Then, “It had to come.” “I know. I wish it hadn’t come as it has come, but”—she smiled—“you did something very valuable for me, Eric, just the same. I hope you’ll believe me. I hope you’ll never forget it—what I’ve said. I’ll never forget you.” “No,” he said, and suddenly touched her arm. He felt that he was falling, falling out of the world. Cass was releasing him into chaos. He held on to her for the last time. She looked into his face, and she said, “Don’t be frightened, Eric. It will help me not to be frightened, if you’re not. Do that for me.” She touched his face, his lips. “Be a man. It can be borne, everything can be borne.” “Yes.” But he stared at her still. “Oh, Cass. If only I could do more.” “You can’t,” she said, “do more than you’ve done. You’ve been my lover and now you’re my friend.” She took his hand in hers and stared down at it. “That was you you gave me for a little while. It was really you.” They turned away from the ringing canvas, into the crowds again, and walked slowly down the stairs. Cass put up her hood; he had never taken off his cap. “When will I see you?” he asked. “Will you call me, or what?” “I’ll call you,” she said, “tomorrow, or the day after.” They walked to the doors and stopped. It was still raining. They stood watching the rain. No one entered, no one left. Then a cab rolled up to the curb and stopped. Two women, wearing plastic hoods, fumbled with their umbrellas and handbags and change purses, preparing to step out of the cab. Without a word, Eric and Cass rushed out into the rain, to the curb. The women ran heavily into the museum. Eric opened the cab door. “Good-bye, Eric.” She leaned forward and kissed him. He held her. Her face was wet but he did not know whether it was rainwater or tears. She pulled away and got into the cab. “I’ll be expecting your call,” he said. “Yes. I’ll call you. Be good.” “God bless you, Cass. So long.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  “What have you been brooding about, Cass? I thought you and Richard had it made.” These words sounded, in his own ears, stiff and uncaring. But he had known Cass and Richard too long and been too young when he met them; he had never really thought of Cass and Richard as lovers. Sometimes, of course, he had watched Cass move, realizing that, small as she was, she was all woman and all there, had good legs and nice breasts and knew how to twist her small behind; and, sometimes, watching Richard’s great paw on her wrist, wondered how she bore his weight. But he had the tendency of all wildly disorganized people to suppose that the lives of others were tamer and less sensual and more cerebral than his own. And for the very first time he had the sense of Cass as a passionate woman who had merely been carrying on a legal love affair; who writhed as beautifully and shamelessly in Richard’s arms as the women Vivaldo had dreamed about for all these years. “I guess,” he added, “I must sound pretty dumb. Forgive me.” She smiled—smiled as though she had read his thoughts. “No, you don’t. Perhaps I also thought we had it made. But nobody ever has it made.” She lit another cigarette, straightening her shoulders, slowly circling, as she had for many weeks now, around some awful decision. “I keep telling myself it’s because of the way our lives have changed, now that Richard’s becoming so well known. But it isn’t that. It’s something that’s been there all along.” Now she was very grave and dry. She looked at Vivaldo through the smoke of her cigarette, narrowing her eyes. “You know, I used to look at you and all your horrible adventures and compare you to Richard and me and think how lucky we were. He was the first”—she faltered and looked down—“the very first man I ever had, and I was the first for him, too—really the first, the first girl, anyway, he ever loved.” And she looked down again, as though the burden of confession were too great. Yet they were united in the knowledge that what she had begun she must now finish. “And you think he doesn’t love you any more?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  He looked out of the window, drying his eyes. They had come out on Lenox Avenue, though their destination was on Seventh; and nothing they passed was unfamiliar because everything they passed was wretched. It was not hard to imagine that horse carriages had once paraded proudly up this wide avenue and ladies and gentlemen, ribboned, be-flowered, brocaded, plumed, had stepped down from their carriages to enter these houses which time and folly had so blasted and darkened. The cornices had once been new, had once gleamed as brightly as now they sulked in shame, all tarnished and despised. The windows had not always been blind. The doors had not always brought to mind the distrust and secrecy of a city long besieged. At one time people had cared about these houses—that was the difference; they had been proud to walk on this Avenue; it had once been home, whereas now it was prison. Now, no one cared: this indifference was all that joined this ghetto to the mainland. Now, everything was falling down and the owners didn’t care; no one cared. The beautiful children in the street, black-blue, brown, and copper, all with a gray ash on their faces and legs from the cold wind, like the faint coating of frost on a window or a flower, didn’t seem to care, that no one saw their beauty. Their elders, great, trudging, black women, lean, shuffling men, had taught them, by precept or example, what it meant to care or not to care: whatever precepts were daily being lost, the examples remained, all up and down the street. The trudging women trudged, paused, came in and out of dark doors, talked to each other, to the men, to policemen, stared into shop windows, shouted at the children, laughed, stopped to caress them. All the faces, even those of the children, held a sweet or poisonous disenchantment which made their faces extraordinarily definite, as though they had been struck out of stone. The cab sped uptown, past men in front of barber shops, in front of barbeque joints, in front of bars; sped past side streets, long, dark, noisome, with gray houses leaning forward to cut out the sky; and in the shadow of these houses, children buzzed and boomed, as thick as flies on flypaper. Then they turned off the Avenue, west, crawled up a long, gray street. They had to crawl, for the street was choked with unhurrying people and children kept darting out from between the cars which were parked, for the length of the street, on either side. There were people on the stoops, people shouting out of windows, and young men peered indifferently into the slow-moving cab, their faces set ironically and their eyes unreadable. “Did Rufus ever have you up here?” she asked. “To visit his family, I mean.”

• From Real Life (2020)

  On est amis. On est tous amis ici. — Et Lukas, il est là ? — Oui, en haut », fait Yngve, puis il se reprend : « Ah non. Il est avec Nate. » Il y a quelque chose dans sa voix, pas de la tristesse, car ça serait trop facile d’appeler ça de la tristesse, ou du regret. Il y a quelque chose dans sa façon de dire ces mots, dans sa façon de se raviser, comme s’il s’était convaincu que Lukas dormait en haut, en sécurité, comme si par un tour de passe-passe anodin, il avait réussi à se le faire croire. À présent, face à la vérité, sa voix s’amollit, se teinte, comme s’il tournait les paumes vers le ciel, surpris en plein mensonge. Ses yeux bleu-gris comme des pierres de rivière sont bordés de rouge. Rien d’étonnant à ce que la maison soit si calme. Wallace propose un peu d’eau à Yngve, qui accepte le verre avec un sourire. Un éclair d’agacement passe sur le visage de Miller, mais disparaît aussitôt, comme s’il se disait, qu’est-ce que je suis puéril, qu’il boive, ça n’a pas d’importance. Yngve engloutit l’eau comme si son temps était compté. « Bon, je vais me coucher, annonce-t-il. — OK, dors bien », fait Miller. Yngve dit quelques mots en suédois, embrasse Wallace sur la joue, et sort. Ils l’écoutent monter l’escalier, et son poids sur chaque marche, lourd au début se fait de plus en plus faible jusqu’à devenir indiscernable de la masse de la maison elle-même. Miller montre l’espace à ses côtés d’un signe de tête, et Wallace se glisse près de lui. Miller prend un bout de couverture, comme Yngve tout à l’heure. « Tu m’as laissé tout seul. — Je t’ai écrit un mot. — Ah bon ? — Non, fait Miller en riant. — J’ai pas regardé, de toute façon. — T’as bien dormi ? Tu te sens mieux ? — Oui. Et oui ça va mieux », fait Wallace, même s’il sent la nervosité le reprendre. « J’ai cru que je t’avais fait fuir. — Non. Tu ne peux pas me faire fuir. — Ça, je ne sais pas si c’est vrai. C’est pas grave si ça t’a fait flipper, ou je sais pas quoi. C’est beaucoup. Je sais. — Mais non. » Miller tripote le rebord de la couverture sans regarder Wallace. Son cou est rouge, ses joues aussi. Son côté petit garçon, la partie de lui qui est toujours hésitante, bafouillante, ressort plus que jamais en cet instant. Wallace embrasse son épaule. « OK. Tant mieux. Ça me fait plaisir. C’est juste que tu n’as rien dit après. » Il se dévoile, dépose son malaise aux pieds de Miller, qui peut le reconnaître ou l’ignorer. Il pourrait prendre Miller au mot, le croire, accepter que ce silence ne veuille rien dire du tout. Il ne va pas insister. Il va lâcher. Il va être coulant.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  Even a book shop was hard to find. Calendars, yes, oodles of them, supplied by the butcher or grocer. Never a Holbein, a Carpaccio, a Hiroshige, a Giotto, nor even a Rembrandt. Whistler possibly, but only his mother, that placid-looking creature all in black with hands folded in her lap, so resigned, so eminently respectable. No, never anything among us dreary Christians that smelled of art. But luscious pork stores with tripe and gizzards of every variety. And of course linoleums, brooms, flower pots. Everything from the animal and vegetable kingdom, plus hardware, German cheese cake, knackwurst and sauerkraut. A church on every block, a sad-looking affair, such as only Lutherans and Presbyterians can bring forth from the depths of their sterilized faith. And Christ was a carpenter! He had built a church, but not of sticks and stones. Not I, But the Father within Me—Nexus“Why should we always go out of our way to describe the wretchedness and the imperfections of our life, and to unearth characters from wild and remote corners of our country?” Thus Gogol begins Part II of his unfinished novel. I was now well into the novel—my own—but still I had no clear idea where it was leading me, nor did it matter, since Pop was pleased with all that had been shown him thus far, the money was always forthcoming, we ate and drank well, the birds were scarcer now but still they sang, Thanksgiving had come and gone, and my chess game had improved somewhat. Moreover, no one had discovered our whereabouts, none of our pestilential cronies, I mean. Thus I was able to explore the streets at will, which I did with a vengeance because the air was sharp and biting, the wind whistled, and my brain ever in a whirl drove me on face forward, forced me to ferret out streets, memories, buildings, odors (of rotting vegetables), abandoned ferry slips, storekeepers long dead, saloons converted into dime stores, cemeteries still redolent with the punk of mourners. The wild and remote corners of the earth were all about me, only a stone’s throw from the boundary which marked off our aristocratic precinct. I had only to cross the line, the Grenze , and I was in the familiar world of childhood, the land of the poor and happily demented, the junk yard where all that was dilapidated, useless and germ-ridden was salvaged by the rats who refused to desert the ship. As I roamed about gazing into shop windows, peering into alleyways, and never anything but drear desolation, I thought of the Negroes whom we visited regularly and of how uncontaminated they appeared to be. The sickness of the Gentiles had not destroyed their laughter, their gift of speech, their easy-going ways.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The sun surrounded her golden hair which was piled on top of her head and fell over her brow in girlish, somewhat too artless and incongruous curls. This was meant to soften a face, the principal quality of which had always been a spare, fragile boniness. There was a fine crisscross of wrinkles now around the large eyes; the sun revealed that she was wearing a little too much make-up. This, and something indefinably sorrowful in the line of her mouth and jaw, as she stood silently at the bar, looking down, made Eric feel that Cass was beginning to fade, to become brittle. Something icy had touched her. “Do you want gin or vodka or bourbon or Scotch or beer? or tequila?” She looked up, smiling. Though the smile was genuine, it was weary. It did not contain the mischievous delight that he remembered. And there were tiny lines now around her neck, which he had never noticed before. We’re getting old, he thought, and it damn sure didn’t take long. “I think I’d better stick to whiskey. I get too drunk too fast on gin—and I don’t know what this evening holds.” “Ah,” she said, “farsighted Eric! And what kind of whiskey?” “In Paris, when we order whiskey—which, for a very long time, I didn’t dare to do—we always mean Scotch.” “You loved Paris, didn’t you? You must have, you were gone so long. Tell me about it.” She made two drinks and came and sat beside him. From far away, he heard the muffled cling! of a typewriter bell. It’s a long old road, Bessie sang, but I’m going to find an end. “It doesn’t seem so long,” he said, “now that I’m back.” He felt very shy now, for when Cass said You loved Paris he at once thought, Yves is there. “It’s a great city, Paris, a beautiful city—and—it was very good for me.” “I see that. You seem much happier. There’s a kind of light around you.” She said this very directly, with a rueful, conspiratorial smile: as though she knew the cause of his happiness, and rejoiced for him. He dropped his eyes, but raised them again. “It’s just the sun,” he said, and they both laughed. Then, irrepressibly, “I was very happy there, though.” “Well, you didn’t leave because you weren’t happy there any more?” “No.” And when I get there, I’m going to shake hands with a friend. “A guy I know who thinks he has great psychic powers”—he sipped his whiskey, smiling—“Frenchman, persuaded me that I’d become a great star if I came home and did this play. And I just haven’t got the guts to go against the stars, to say nothing of arguing with a Frenchman. So.” She laughed. “I didn’t know the French went in for things like that. I thought they were very logical.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As soon as the lady had the money, the signs began to change, and whereas before he had free access to her whenassoever it pleased him, reasons now began to crop up, whereby it betided him not to win admission there once out of seven times, nor was he received with the same countenance nor the same caresses and rejoicings as before. And the term at which he was to have had his monies again being, not to say come, but past by a month or two and he requiring them, words were given him in payment. Thereupon his eyes were opened to the wicked woman's arts and his own lack of wit, wherefore, feeling that he could say nought of her beyond that which might please her concerning the matter, since he had neither script nor other evidence thereof, and being ashamed to complain to any, as well for that he had been forewarned thereof as for fear of the scoffs which he might reasonably expect for his folly, he was beyond measure woeful and inwardly bewailed his credulity. At last, having had divers letters from his masters, requiring him to change[419] the monies in question and remit them to them, he determined to depart, lest, an he did it not, his default should be discovered there, and accordingly, going aboard a little ship, he betook himself, not to Pisa, as he should have done, but to Naples. There at that time was our gossip Pietro dello Canigiano, treasurer to the Empress of Constantinople, a man of great understanding and subtle wit and a fast friend of Salabaetto and his family; and to him, as to a very discreet man, the disconsolate Florentine recounted that which he had done and the mischance that had befallen him, requiring him of aid and counsel, so he might contrive to gain his living there, and avouching his intention nevermore to return to Florence. Canigiano was concerned for this and said, 'Ill hast thou done and ill hast thou carried thyself; thou hast disobeyed thy masters and hast, at one cast, spent a great sum of money in wantonness; but, since it is done, we must look for otherwhat.'[420] Accordingly, like a shrewd man as he was, he speedily bethought himself what was to be done and told it to Salabaetto, who was pleased with the device and set about putting it in execution. He had some money and Canigiano having lent him other some, he made up a number of bales well packed and corded; then, buying a score of oil-casks and filling them, he embarked the whole and returned to Palermo, where, having given the customhouse officers the bill of lading and the value of the casks and let enter everything to his account, he laid the whole up in the magazines, saying that he meant not to touch them till such time as certain other merchandise which he expected should be come. [Footnote 419: _i.e._ procure bills of exchange for.]

• From Another Country (1962)

  Her face changed, she rose from the table and walked back to the stove. “I’m sure it must seem like that to you,” she said—very humbly. She moved to the sink and leaned against it, watching him. “But I wasn’t trying to torment you—whenever I did. I don’t think that I thought about that at all. In fact, I know I didn’t, I’ve never had the time.” She watched his face. “I’ve just realized lately that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, certainly more than I can swallow.” He winced. She broke off suddenly: “Are you sure you’re a man, Vivaldo?” He said, “I’ve got to be sure.” “Fair enough,” she said. She walked to the stove and put a light under the frying pan, walked to the table and opened the meat. She began to dust it with salt and pepper and paprika, and chopped garlic into it, near the bone. He took a swallow of his drink, which had no taste whatever; he splashed more whiskey into his glass. “When Rufus died, something happened to me,” she said. She sounded now very quiet and weary, as though she were telling someone else’s story; also, as though she herself, with a faint astonishment, were hearing it for the first time. But it was yet more astonishing that he now began to listen to a story he had always known, but never dared believe. “I can’t explain it. Rufus had always been the world to me. I loved him.” “So did I,” he said—too quickly, irrelevantly; and for the first time it occurred to him that, possibly, he was a liar; had never loved Rufus at all, but had only feared and envied him. “I don’t need your credentials, Vivaldo,” she said. She watched the frying pan critically, waiting for it to become hot enough, then dropped in a little oil. “The point, anyway, at the moment, is that I loved him. He was my big brother, but as soon as I knew anything, I knew that I was stronger than he was. He was nice, he was really very nice, no matter what any of you might have thought of him later. None of you, anyway, knew anything about him, you didn’t know how.” “You often say that,” he said, wearily. “Why?” “How could you—how can you?—dreaming the way you dream? You people think you’re free. That means you think you’ve got something other people want—or need. Shit.” She grinned wryly and looked at him. “And you do, in a way. But it isn’t what you think it is. And you’re going to find out, too, just as soon as some of those other people start getting what you’ve got now.” She shook her head. “I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry for you. I even feel kind of sorry for myself, because God knows I’ve often wished you’d left me where I was——” “Down there in the jungle?” he taunted.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Parce que tu l’as dit . Tu l’as dit tout fort. Tu veux te barrer. Tu as brisé l’illusion qu’on a tous. Que ça va continuer comme ça pour toujours, que ce qu’on a maintenant est bien. — Mais c’est bien. » Wallace prend ses bras et les serre plus fort contre lui. Elle embrasse ses cheveux, puis son oreille. Elle lui pardonné. Wallace se détend. « Je ne sais pas, si c’est bien. Parfois j’ai l’impression que c’est tout ce que j’ai toujours voulu. Des recherches approfondies. Régulières. Un apprentissage permanent. Mais il y a des jours où je suis malheureuse comme les pierres et j’ai juste envie de chialer. Comme nous tous, je pense. À notre façon. On est tous super malheureux dans cette fac. Mais l’entendre dire à haute voix. C’est comme si quelqu’un avait prononcé un juron à l’église. — C’est l’église, ici ? — Arrête, tu vois ce que je veux dire. Je me suis dit : Oh non, pitié. D’abord j’ai eu envie de te prendre dans mes bras. Parce que j’en ai, des jours comme ça. Puis j’ai eu envie de t’étrangler, histoire que tu la fermes, plutôt que de nous forcer tous à penser à ça. » Mais la différence, a envie de dire Wallace, c’est que vous, vous avez l’option de ne pas y penser . Son malheur n’a rien d’inédit, mais il est spécifique. Ils ont tous perdu des données, saboté des expériences. Il y a eu la fois où les cristaux d’Yngve ne se sont pas solidifiés dans sa solution parce qu’il s’était trompé dans la concentration de potassium de son tampon ; il ne lui est resté qu’un liquide boueux. Il y a eu la fois où Miller a éteint une vénérable lignée de cellules bactériennes transmise de doctorant en doctorant pendant quelque vingt ans dans son labo parce qu’il avait retiré le récipient entier du congélateur à –80 °C, plutôt qu’une petite aliquote, et avait tout bousillé en une inoculation ratée. Une autre fois, Emma a oublié d’entrer ses données sur le serveur et son ordinateur portable a planté, si bien qu’elle n’avait aucun moyen de récupérer ses séries de qPCR et a dû recommencer une expérience qui prenait plusieurs semaines. Ou la fois où Cole a renversé de l’acide dans l’évier et tenté de le faire partir avec de l’eau de Javel, si bien que le quatrième étage a dû être évacué. Dans leurs vies à tous, il y avait des jours où tout allait de travers et où ils étaient forcés de se demander s’ils voulaient vraiment continuer.