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.

Page 136 of 212 · 20 per page

• From Real Life (2020)

  Parfois, il repérait les vestiges fragiles, bruns, des tiges, une fois que tout le vert avait été absorbé. À un certain angle, on pouvait deviner les formes des larves de moustiques qui se tortillaient, s’agitant juste à la surface. Son père lui avait dit un jour que c’étaient des têtards. Wallace l’avait cru. Il avait pris un peu d’eau visqueuse dans ses mains en coupe et plissé les yeux pour tenter de voir les têtards. Mais bien sûr, c’étaient seulement des moustiques. L’eau sombre. Il avait un nœud de tension en haut de la poitrine, dur et roulé sur lui-même. La sensation d’une balle noire collée à l’intérieur de ses poumons. Son ventre aussi lui faisait mal. Il n’avait rien mangé de la journée, à part une soupe. La surface de sa faim était rêche, comme une langue de chat. La pression s’accumulait derrière ses orbites. Oh ! se dit-il quand il comprit de quoi il s’agissait : des larmes. En cet instant, il y avait un corps à côté du sien. Wallace se tourna, s’attendant furtivement à voir le visage de son père, tiré de sa mémoire, mais au lieu de ça, c’était Emma, qui avait fini par venir avec son fiancé, Thom, et leur chien, Scout, créature hirsute et joyeuse. Elle lui passa un bras autour des épaules et rit : « Qu’est-ce que tu fabriques ici ? — J’admire la vue, il faut croire », dit-il, tentant de la faire rire. Il n’avait pas vu Emma depuis une semaine ou davantage. Elle travaillait deux étages en dessous, dans un labo situé au bout d’un long couloir sombre. À chaque fois que Wallace lui avait rendu visite – pour déjeuner, ou pour déposer quelque chose – il avait eu le sentiment de sortir du bâtiment des sciences de la vie pour entrer dans un lieu interdit, comme s’il s’était perdu et avait été aspiré dans une curieuse dimension voisine. Les murs étaient nus à l’exception d’un tableau d’affichage où restaient accrochés des flyers jaunis et des posters des années 80, comme si les occasions annoncées étaient encore nouvelles. Emma et Wallace étaient devenus amis en vertu du fait qu’ils étaient les seuls dans leur programme à n’être pas des hommes blancs. Cela représentait quatre ans de regards échangés par-dessus la tête de garçons de haute taille, avec leur assurance robuste, leurs voix fortes et leurs propositions effrontées. Quatre ans de conversations à mi-voix dans ce long couloir sombre, de moments où ils avaient eu l’impression que les choses deviendraient plus faciles pour eux. Elle écarta ses cheveux bruns bouclés de son visage et le regarda. Il se sentit aussi mince que les serviettes en papier de Cole, à cet instant. « Wallace, qu’est-ce qui ne va pas ? » demanda-t-elle.

• From City of Night (1963)

  And indeed, just like that, Miss Destiny—on—has begun to tell me about when she first came out and how she became Miss Destiny. Soon, Im the only one listening to her, the others moving away restlessly, having heard it or portions of it or a version of it: Trudi finds her “daddy”—a fat middle-aged man—and Chuck goes to the bar and is now talking to a flashily dressed fruit in a redcheckered vest. Skipper is playing the shuffleboard, ramming the disk vengefully into the pins.... Wordlessly entranced, the emaciated man is standing next to Tiger where hes leaning against the peeling wall. Buddy has left the bar, probably going to Main Street or the park. And Lola is sitting alone at the bar, elbows propping her ugly face dejectedly. Looking at her from the distance, I realized how much she looks like a lesbian. “Before I flipped,” Miss Destiny was saying, rushing, as if the hurried flow of her words would keep me with her, “I was very Innocent,” and I could sense the huge depression suddenly, perhaps that one rejection just now echoing into the very depths of her consciousness setting off a thousand other rejections. “Of course,” she went on, “Miss Thing had told me, ‘Why how ridiculous!—that petuh between your legs simpuhlee does not belong, dear.’ And oh, once, when I was a kid, I asked my father for paperdolls , and he brought me some Superman comicbooks instead—and then, oh! I asked him for Superman paperdolls.... And they were always so ashamed of me when I wanted to dress up—and my father threw me out—on a cold night, too—and I took my doll with me that I slept with since I was little—and I had to quit college (where I studied Dramatics, dear, but not for long, because they wouldnt let me play the girl’s part), and I went to Philadelphia. And the first thing I did, why, I bought myself a flaming-red dress and higheeled sequined shoes and everyone thought I was Real, and Miss Thing said, ‘Hurray, honey! youve done it—stick to it,’ and I met a rich daddy, who thought I was Real, and he flipped over me and took me to a straight cocktail party....” And so, with Eminent contiadictions (I must warn you), the wayward saga of Miss Destiny unfolds—that night at the 1-2-3, in the ocean of searching faces:

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  Ignorant of the fact that the Dada Manifesto of 1918 contained these lines: “I am writing a manifesto and I want nothing, yet I say certain things, and I am against manifestoes as a matter of principle, as I am also against principles…. I write this manifesto to show that one may perform opposed actions together, in a single fresh respiration; I am against action; for continual contradiction, for affirmation also, I am neither for nor against and I do not explain for I hate good sense…. There is a literature which does not reach the voracious mass. The work of creators, sprung from a real necessity on the part of the author, and for himself. Consciousness of a supreme egotism where the stars waste away…. Each page must explode, either with the profoundly serious and heavy, the whirlwind, dizziness, the new, the eternal, with the overwhelming hoax, with an enthusiasm for principles or with the mode of typography. On the one hand a staggering fleeing world, affianced to the jinglebells of the infernal gamut, on the other hand: new beings… .” Thirty-two years later and I am still saying Yes! Yes, Monsieur Antipyrine! Yes, Monsieur Tristan Bustanoby Tzara! Yes, Monsieur Max Ernst Geburt! Yes! Monsieur René Crevel, now that you are dead by suicide, yes, the world is crazy, you were right. Yes, Monsieur Blaise Cendrars, you were right to kill. Was it the day of the Armistice that you brought out your little book—J’ai tué? Yes, “keep on my lads, humanity….” Yes, Jacques Vaché, quite right—“Art ought to be something funny and a trifle boring.” Yes, my dear dead Vaché, how right you were and how funny and how boring and touching and tender and true: “It is of the essence of symbols to be symbolic.” Say it again, from the other world! Have you a megaphone up there? Have you found all the arms and legs that were blown off during the melee? Can you put them together again? Do you remember the meeting at Nantes in 1916 with André Breton? Did you celebrate the birth of hysteria together? Had he told you, Breton, that there was only the marvelous and nothing but the marvelous and that the marvelous is always marvelous—and isn’t it marvelous to hear it again, even though your ears are stopped? I want to include here, before passing on, a little portrait of you by Emile Bouvier for the benefit of my Brooklyn friends who may not have recognized me then but who will now, I am sure…. “… he was not at all crazy, and could explain his conduct when occasion required. His actions, none the less, were as disconcerting as Jarry’s worst eccentricities. For example, he was barely out of hospital when he hired himself out as a stevedore, and he thereafter passed his afternoons in unloading coal on the quays along the Loire.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Well, you were calling me all the time about that time, but I didn’t really think about you very much, not seriously anyway. I liked you, but I certainly hadn’t planned to get hung up on a white boy who didn’t have any money—in fact, I hadn’t planned to get hung up on anybody. But I liked you, and the few times I saw you it was a kind of—relief—from all those other, horrible people. You were really nice to me. You didn’t have that look in your eyes. You just acted like a real sweet boy and maybe, without knowing it, I got to depend on it. Sometimes I’d just see you for a minute or so, we’d just have a cup of coffee or something like that, and I’d run off—but I felt better, I was kind of protected from their eyes and their hands. I was feeling so sick most of the time through there. I didn’t want my father to know what I was doing and I tried not to think about Rufus. That was when I decided that I ought to try to sing, I’d do it for Rufus, and then all the rest wouldn’t matter. I would have settled the score. But I thought I needed somebody to help me, and it was then, just at the time that I—” She stopped and looked down at her hands. “I think I wanted to go to bed with you, not to have an affair with you, but just to go to bed with somebody that I liked. Somebody who wasn’t old, because all those men are old, no matter how young they are. I’d only been to bed with one boy I liked, a boy on our block, but he got religion, and so it all stopped and he got married. And there weren’t any other colored men, I was afraid, because look what happened to them, they got cut down like grass! And I didn’t see any way out, except—finally—you. And Ellis.” Then she stopped. They listened to the rain. He had finished his drink and he picked up hers. She looked down, he had the feeling that she could not look up, and he was afraid to touch her. And the silence stretched; he longed for it to end, and dreaded it; there was nothing he could say. She straightened her shoulders and reached out for a cigarette. He lit it for her. “Richard knows about me and Ellis,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “but that’s not why I’m telling you. I’m telling you because I’m trying to bring this whole awful thing to a halt. If that’s possible.” She paused. She said, “Let me have a sip of your drink, please.” “It’s yours,” he said. He gave it to her and poured himself another one.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Won’t you come back?” Then she did look up at him, tears falling down her face. “Oh, Richard. I don’t know if I can.” “Why? Do you despise me so much?” She looked down, twisting the handkerchief. He squatted beside the chair. “I’m sorry we’ve got so far apart—I really don’t even know how it happened, but I guess I got mad at you because—because you seemed to have so little respect for”—he tried to laugh—“my success. Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. I know you’re smarter than I am, but how are we going to eat, baby, what else can I do? Maybe I shouldn’t have let myself get so jealous of Vivaldo, but it seemed so logical, once I thought about it. Once I thought about it, I thought about it all the time. I know he must be alone a lot, and—and you’ve been alone.” She looked at him, looked away. He put one hand on her arm; she bit her lip to control her trembling. “Come back to me, please. Don’t you love me any more? You can’t have stopped loving me. I can’t live without you. You’ve always been the only woman in the world for me.” She could keep silence and go into his arms, and the last few months would be wiped away—he would never know where she had been. The world would return to its former shape. Would it? The silence between them stretched. She could not look at him. He had existed for too long in her mind—now, she was being humbled by the baffling reality of his presence. Her imagination had not taken enough into account—she had not foreseen, for example, the measure or the quality or the power of his pain. He was a lonely and limited man, who loved her. Did she love him? “I don’t despise you,” she said. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you think that.” Then she said nothing more. Why tell him? What good would it do? He would never understand it, she would merely have given him an anguish which he would never be able to handle. And he would never trust her again. Did she love him? And if she did, what should she do? Very slowly and gently, she took her arm from beneath his hand; and she walked to the window. The blinds were drawn against the night, but she opened them a little and looked out: on the lights and the deep black water. Silence rang its mighty gongs in the room behind her. She dropped the blinds, and turned and looked at him. He sat, now, on the floor, beside the chair that she had left, his glass between his feet, his great hands loosely clasped below his knees, his head tilted up toward her. It was a look she knew, a listening, trusting look. She forced herself to look at him; she might never see that look again; and it had been her sustenance so long!

• From Real Life (2020)

  Elle posa une main douce sur son poignet. Il s’éclaircit la gorge pour cacher ses larmes. « Rien, rien. » Ses yeux le piquaient. « Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé, Wallace ? » Emma avait un petit visage avec des traits marqués et un teint olivâtre qui faisait parfois penser aux gens, sous certains éclairages, qu’elle n’était pas blanche. Mais elle était blanche, bien que d’une branche exotique. Ses grands-parents d’un côté étaient tziganes, ou tchèques, comme on disait désormais. De l’autre côté, ils étaient siciliens. Elle avait le menton pointu comme Yngve, mais sans la fossette. Sa main ne faisait pas tout à fait le tour du poignet de Wallace, mais elle le serrait tout de même. « C’est rien », répéta-t-il, tentant de le penser cette fois, car il ne savait pas exactement ce qui le tracassait. Que pouvait-il dire, à part que ce n’était rien ? « On dirait pas, mon vieux. — Mon père est mort », dit-il, parce que c’était aussi vrai que tout autre chose, sauf qu’il ne s’en sentit pas soulagé. Il éprouva plutôt une décharge électrique, pareille à un cri soudain dans une pièce silencieuse. « Merde, s’écria-t-elle. Merde. » Puis, se reprenant, elle secoua la tête et dit : « Je suis navrée, Wallace. Toutes mes condoléances. » Il sourit ; il ne savait pas trop comment accueillir la compassion des autres. Il avait toujours eu l’impression que, lorsque les gens étaient tristes pour vous, ils étaient en fait tristes pour eux-mêmes ; à croire que votre malheur ne faisait que leur servir d’excuse pour ressentir ce qu’ils avaient envie. La compassion, c’était une forme de ventriloquie. Son père était mort à plusieurs centaines de kilomètres de là. Wallace ne l’avait dit à personne. Son frère l’avait appelé. Puis étaient venus les posts sur les réseaux sociaux, la famille, ceux qui étaient concernés et ceux qui cherchaient simplement des informations, le spectacle hideux, écumant du deuil public. C’était bizarre, se dit Wallace en souriant à Emma, car il n’éprouvait pas un chagrin dévastateur – non, quand il pensait à la mort de son père, il ressentait ce qu’il ressentait toujours lorsque quelqu’un ne venait pas au labo le matin. Mais peut-être n’était-ce pas toute la vérité non plus. Il ne savait pas quoi éprouver, alors il essayait de ne rien éprouver du tout. Le sentiment paraissait plus honnête de cette façon. Plus authentique. « Merci », dit-il, car que peut-on dire d’autre quand on est pris dans l’étau de la compassion de quelqu’un ? « Attends », reprit-elle, jetant par-dessus son épaule un coup d’œil vers la table où étaient assis les garçons, obnubilés maintenant par Scout, qui se faisait caresser avec délice. « Ils ne savent pas ? — Personne ne sait. — Putain. Pourquoi ? — Parce que c’était plus facile, j’imagine. Tu vois ? — Non, Wallace, je ne vois pas.

• 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)

  “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 Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  His mother is dying of cancer, his father peddles shoelaces all day, the pigeons are crippled. (The ones that used to make the synagogue their home.) He needs a raise. He needs food in his belly.” To astonish him or intrigue him, I would sometimes relate little anecdotes about my messengers, always using the past tense as if about someone who had once been in the service (though he was there all the time, right up my sleeve, securely hidden away in Px or FU office.) Yes, I’d say, he was the accompanist of Johanna Gadski, when they were on tour in the Black Forest. Yes (about another), he once worked with Pasteur at the famous Institute in Paris. Yes (still another), he went back to India to finish his History of the World in four languages. Yes (a parting shot), he was one of the greatest jockeys that ever lived; made a fortune after he left us, then fell down an elevator shaft and smashed his skull. And what was the invariable response? “Very interesting, indeed. Keep up the good work. Remember, hire nothing but nice clean boys from good families. No Jews, no cripples, no ex-convicts. We want to be proud of our messenger force.” “Yes, sir !” “And by the way, see that you clean out all these niggers you’ve got on the force. We don’t want our clients to be scared out of their wits.” “Yes, sir !” And I would go back to my perch, do a little shuffling, scramble them up a bit, but never fire a soul, not even if he were as black as the ace of spades. How did I ever manage to leave them out of the messenger book, all these lovely dementia praecox cases, these star rovers, these diamond-backed logicians, these battle-scarred epileptics, thieves, pimps, whores, defrocked priests and students of the Talmud, the Cabala and the Sacred Books of the East? Novels! As if one could write about such matters, such specimens, in a novel. Where, in such a work, would one place the heart, the liver, the optic nerve, the pancreas or the gall bladder? They were not fictitious, they were alive, every one of them, and, besides being riddled with disease, they ate and drank every day, they made water, they defecated, fornicated, robbed, murdered, gave false testimony, betrayed their fellow-men, put their children out to work, their sisters to whoring, their mothers to begging, their fathers to peddling shoelaces or collar buttons and to bringing home cigarette butts, old newspapers and a few coppers from the blind man’s tin cup. What place is there in a novel for such goings-on?

• From Real Life (2020)

  Ils ont joué l’un contre l’autre à bien des reprises – tellement, en fait, que chacun sait ce que va faire l’autre avant même que la balle ait atterri de son côté du court. Par exemple Wallace sait que s’il dirige son second service sur le coup droit de Cole, pour l’appâter, Cole va lâcher son bras et probablement faire une balle trop longue. Cole sait que c’est la tactique, mais il pense que c’est cette fois qu’il va poser son passing pile sur la ligne. Ils commencent au filet, juste quelques échanges à la volée pour habituer leurs corps à suivre la balle sous le soleil. Ils cognent tranquillement, facilement, des coups maîtrisés. Wallace préfère frapper en coup droit à la volée, et il a appris à prendre la balle devant lui de ce côté. Il peut la placer de chaque côté de Cole, pour un échauffement plus complet. Cole est moins doué sur ce point. Il préfère les grands coups télescopiques de fond de court. Mais cette position leur permet de continuer encore un peu à parler. Cole a les yeux rouges et sa voix est enrouée, embuée par les larmes. « Sérieusement, tu chercherais d’autres partenaires, si tu étais en couple ? — Je ne sais pas, Cole. Je crois que tout dépend, avec ce genre de choses. — Pas moi. Je crois que certaines personnes ont envie de ça et d’autres non, et on peut aussi se mettre à en avoir envie quand quelque chose ne va pas. Qu’est-ce qui s’est passé pour qu’on en arrive là, putain ? — Tu as dit que vous en aviez parlé comme d’une éventualité. — C’est vrai. — Il a dit pourquoi il en avait envie ? — Il dit qu’il en a marre de m’attendre le week-end, le soir et pendant les vacances, que je suis obnubilé par mes bactéries, mes découvertes médicamenteuses et mon prochain article. Et aussi, il dit qu’il veut autre chose – plus d’intimité. Mais putain, on l’est, intimes. — C’est beaucoup, reconnaît Wallace. Ça fait beaucoup à encaisser. — Oui, et là-dessus, il dit : “J’ai envie d’avoir une relation ouverte. Je voudrais qu’on en parle.” Tu sais comment il est, avec sa voix neutre. Cette voix de psy qu’il tient de sa mère. — Je ne savais pas que sa mère était psy. — Elle ne l’est pas. Elle est conseillère d’orientation dans un lycée. C’est son père qui est psy. — Ah. » La balle arrive plus vite, donc Wallace recule d’un pas. Cole frappe magnifiquement aujourd’hui. Des coups nets, à plat. Wallace a du mal à suivre.

• 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 The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  to remind her of Collins these days but a fat, half-blind and pampered old pony. Strange how these memories came back this morning; she had lain in bed lately trying to recapture the child- ish emotions aroused in her by Collins and had failed, yet this morning they came back quite clearly. But the garden was full of a new memory now; it was full of the sorrowful memory of Martin. She turned abruptly, and leaving the shed walked towards the lakes that gleamed faintly in the distance. Down by the lakes there was a sense of great stillness which the songs of the birds could in no way lessen, for this place had that curious stillness of spirit that seems to interpenetrate sound. A swan paddled about in front of his island, on guard, for his mate had a nest full of cygnets; from time to time he glanced crossly at Stephen though he knew her quite well, but now there were cygnets. He was proud in his splendid, incredible whiteness, and paternity made him feel overbearing, so that he refused to feed from Stephen’s hand although she found a biscuit in her pocket. ‘ Coup, c-o-u-p! ’ she called, but he swung his neck sideways as he swam — it was like a disdainful negation. ‘ Perhaps he thinks I’m a freak,’ she mused grimly, feeling more lonely because of the swan. The lakes were guarded by massive old beech trees, and the beech trees stood ankle-deep in their foliage; a lovely and lumi- nous carpet of leaves they had spread on the homely brown earth of Morton. Each spring came new little shuttles of greenness that in time added warp and woof to the carpet, so that year by year it grew softer and deeper, and year by year it glowed more resplendent. Stephen had loved this spot from her childhood, and now she instinctively went to it for comfort, but its beauty only added to her melancholy, for beauty can wound like a two-edged sword. She could not respond to its stillness of spirit, since she could not lull her own spirit to stillness. She thought: ‘ I shall never be one with great peace any more, I shall always stand outside this stillness — wherever there is ab- solute stillness and peace in this world, I shall always stand just 114 THE WELL OF LONELINESS outside it.’ And as though these thoughts were in some way pro- phetic, she inwardly shivered a little. Then what must the swan do but start to hiss loudly, just to show her that he was really a father: ‘ Peter,’ she reproached him, ‘I won’t hurt your babies — can’t you trust me? I fed you the whole of last winter! ’

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

  CHAPTER FOUR CIRCLING BACK F rom time to time I reread Charles Dickens, who has always had a central place in my pantheon of writers. Recently an extraordinary phrase in A Tale of Two Cities caught my eye: “ For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in a circle nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind of smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep… ” That passage moves me tremendously: as I indeed draw closer to the end, I, too, find myself circling more and more to the beginning. My clients’ memories more often trigger my own, my work on their future calls upon and disturbs my past, and I find myself reconsidering my own story. My memory of early childhood has always been fragmented, probably, I’ve always believed, because of my early unhappiness and the squalor in which we lived. Now, as I move into my eighties, more and more images from early life intrude upon my thoughts. The drunks sleeping in our vestibule covered with vomit. My loneliness and isolation. The roaches and the rats. My red-faced barber calling me “Jew Boy.” My mysterious, tormenting, and unfulfilled sexual throbbings as a teenager. Out of place. Always out of place—the only white kid in a black neighborhood, the only Jew in a Christian world. Yes, the past is drawing me in and I know what “smoothings” mean. Now, more than ever before, I imagine my dead parents watching and taking great pride and pleasure in seeing me speak before a crowd. At the time my father died, I had written only a few articles, technical pieces in medical journals that he couldn’t understand. My mother lived twenty-five years longer and, though her poor grasp of English, and, later, her blindness, made it impossible for her to read my books, she kept them stacked by her chair and stroked them and clucked over them to visitors in her retirement home. So much is incomplete between my parents and me. There are so many things we never discussed about our life together, about the tension and unhappiness in our family, about my world and their world. When I think of their lives, picture them arriving at Ellis Island, penniless, without an education, without a word of English, my eyes tear up. I want to tell them, “I know what you went through. I know how hard it was. I know what you did for me. Please forgive me for being so ashamed of you.” T HE AUTHOR’S FATHER AND MOTHER, CA. 1930. Looking back at my life from my eighties is daunting and sometimes lonely. My memory is unreliable, and there are so few living witnesses to my early life. My sister, seven years older, has just died, and most of my old friends and acquaintances are gone, too.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She closed the door behind him and he took off Eric’s coat and hung it in the bathroom and dried his dripping hair. “Do we have anything to eat in this house? ” “Yes. Are you hungry?” “Starving.” He came out of the bathroom. “What did Richard have to say?” She was in the kitchen with her back to him, digging in the cupboard beneath the sink where the pots and pans were kept. She came up with a frying pan; looked at him briefly; and this look made him feel that Richard had managed, somehow, to frighten her. “Nothing very pleasant. But it’s not important now.” She put the pan on the stove and opened the icebox door. “I think you and Cass were his whole world. And now both of you have treated him so badly that he doesn’t know where he is.” She took tomatoes and lettuce and a package of pork chops out of the icebox and put them on the table. “He tried to make me angry—but I just felt terribly sad. He’d been so hurt.” She paused. “Men are so helpless when they’re hurt.” He came up behind her and kissed her. “Are they?” She returned his kiss, and said gravely, “Yes. You don’t believe it’s happening. You think that there must have been some mistake.” “How wise you are!” he said. “I’m not wise. I’m just a poor, ignorant, black girl, trying to get along.” He laughed. “If you’re just a poor, ignorant, black girl, trying to get along, I’d sure hate like hell to tangle with one who’d made it.” “But you wouldn’t know. You think women tell the truth. They don’t. They can’t.” She stepped away from him, busy with another saucepan and water and flame. And she gave him a mocking look. “Men wouldn’t love them if they did.” “You just don’t like men .” She said, “I can’t say that I’ve met very many. Not what I call men.” “I hope I’m one of them.” “Oh, there’s hope for you,” she said, humorously, “you might make it yet. ” “That’s probably,” he said, “the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” She laughed, but there was something sad and lonely in the sound. There was something sad and lonely in her whole aspect, which obscurely troubled him. And he began to watch her closely, without quite knowing that he was doing so. She said, “Poor Vivaldo. I’ve given you a hard time, haven’t I, baby?” “I’m not complaining,” he said, carefully. “No,” she said, half to herself, running her fingers thoughtfully through a bowl of dry rice, “I’ll say that much for you. I dish it out, but you sure as hell can take it.” “You think maybe,” he said, “that I take too much?” She frowned. She dumped the rice into the boiling water. “Maybe.

• From Another Country (1962)

  You didn’t have that look in your eyes. You just acted like a real sweet boy and maybe, without knowing it, I got to depend on it. Sometimes I’d just see you for a minute or so, we’d just have a cup of coffee or something like that, and I’d run off—but I felt better, I was kind of protected from their eyes and their hands. I was feeling so sick most of the time through there. I didn’t want my father to know what I was doing and I tried not to think about Rufus. That was when I decided that I ought to try to sing, I’d do it for Rufus, and then all the rest wouldn’t matter. I would have settled the score. But I thought I needed somebody to help me, and it was then, just at the time that I—” She stopped and looked down at her hands. “I think I wanted to go to bed with you, not to have an affair with you, but just to go to bed with somebody that I liked . Somebody who wasn’t old, because all those men are old, no matter how young they are. I’d only been to bed with one boy I liked, a boy on our block, but he got religion, and so it all stopped and he got married. And there weren’t any other colored men, I was afraid, because look what happened to them, they got cut down like grass! And I didn’t see any way out, except—finally—you. And Ellis.” Then she stopped. They listened to the rain. He had finished his drink and he picked up hers. She looked down, he had the feeling that she could not look up, and he was afraid to touch her. And the silence stretched; he longed for it to end, and dreaded it; there was nothing he could say. She straightened her shoulders and reached out for a cigarette. He lit it for her. “Richard knows about me and Ellis,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, “but that’s not why I’m telling you. I’m telling you because I’m trying to bring this whole awful thing to a halt. If that’s possible.” She paused. She said, “Let me have a sip of your drink, please.” “It’s yours,” he said. He gave it to her and poured himself another one. She blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “It’s funny the way things work. If it hadn’t been for you, I don’t think Ellis would ever have got so hung up on me. He saw, better than I did, that I really liked you and that meant that I could really like somebody and so why not him, since he could give me so much more?