Shame

Passages

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

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• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  To help them rediscover and keep their dignity, I had to fight the danger of losing my own. It was at the camp, in my daily life with them, that I came to realize how far my studies and my high-school education had removed me from any possible communion with my own people. When I slid under the tent where the head of the camp had assigned me a place, I thought I would never get used to the stifling animal stench that rose from the stale straw. Jute sacks and rags showed that all the places on either side of the doors were occupied. Courage failed me and I was unable to make up my mind to return to this lair the first night; I left the tent with my bag on my back. When somebody called my name and got up from a little group, I felt very great pleasure, as though I had been lost in a hostile crowd. In a shapeless hairy gandourah, patched but clean, I recognized a boy I had met at scout meetings. He led me toward his companions, all members of the same movement, so I felt relatively at home. Here there was a little oasis of affection in the middle of the silent suspicion of the others. They told me they had a small tent which they disciplined themselves to keep tidy and clean. The five of them were, as a matter of fact, fairly well shaven, and their metal bowls seemed well scrubbed with sand. They offered me a place in their tent, which I spontaneously and effusively accepted. But I was immediately ashamed of my joy. I felt that I should have made the effort to live in an ordinary tent in the rotten straw and the stench of human beasts, for there I would be among workers, and it was for them I thought I had come. But I did not have the courage to do this. The devil whispered all sorts of excuses: would I be better equipped in such filth? Would I not, on the contrary, ruin what was left of my health? Perhaps a certain distance between us would give me more authority? Surely it was better to avoid the excessive familiarity which the promiscuity of sleeping and waking together would breed. In short, I brought my bag over to the scouts, and thus began a retreat which was to have important consequences.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Toward the beginning of the afternoon, I had to go through the great ritual of washing and dressing. To avoid the expense of the public bath, to which I would have had to invite as my guests all the neighborhood boys, Aunt Noucha had allowed us to use her own bathroom. As none of our families had a private bathroom and none of us had ever seen one before, the mere use of this one gave the occasion a peculiar solemnity. But, to my great disappointment, it was on Aunt Rbiqua that the sacred honor of washing me was conferred, to compensate her never having had any children. I had never stood naked before anybody and now tied a towel securely around my loins while she went down on her knees because her sore back made it difficult for her to bend forward. Then she proceeded to rub my back and chest up and down and down and up with big sweeps of the sponge, as if she were a machine. Finally, she ordered me to remove the towel. I shook my head, without uttering an answer. She failed to understand me at once, lost her temper, mumbled that I was a fool to want to hide such a silly little sliver of meat (which offended me because of her lack of respect for my treasure); she was old enough to be my mother and, if she had been, she would anyhow have brought me up better. The mere idea that she might have been my mother struck me as weird. I held the towel tightly with both hands and stared obstinately at the washbasin, waiting for her to reach the end of her sermon. But she went on mumbling and, retreating from my loins, proceeded to scrub my feet. I had won the battle, relaxed my vigilance, and began to inspect, with admiration, the splendid nickel-plated and enameled gadgets of the bathroom, when her hand suddenly slipped in between my thighs and began to scrub energetically, but at random. Wild with anger and shame, I pushed her away so hard that she fell over backwards against the wall, balanced as she was somewhat precariously on her pointed old knees. She stood up again with difficulty, cursing and reviling me, threw the sponge on the floor, stalked out of the bathroom, screaming that she was going to complain to my father. She never returned, so that I was left to finish my bath by myself.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I recall the sacrilegious communions during my childhood at which I received my father in place of God, closing my eyes and swallowing the white bread with blissful tremors, embracing my father, communing with him, in a confusion of religious ecstasy and incestuous passion. Everything was for him. I wanted to send him my journal. Mother dissuaded me because it might have gotten lost on the way. Oh, the hypocrisy of my lowered eyes, the hidden bursts of tears at night, the voluptuous secret obsession with him. What I remember best of him at this moment is not paternal protection or tenderness, but an expression of intensity, animal vigor, which I recognize in myself, an affinity of temperament which I recognized with a child’s innocent intuition. A volcanic life hunger—that is what I remember and still participate in, secretly admiring a sensual potency that automatically negates my mother’s values. I have remained the woman who loves incest. I still practice the most incestuous crimes with a sacred religious fervor. I am the most corrupt of all women, for I seek a refinement in my incest, the accompaniment of beautiful chants, music, so that everyone believes in my soul. With a madonna face, I still swallow God and sperm, and my orgasm resembles a mystical climax. The men I love, Hugo loves, and I let them act like brothers. Eduardo confesses his love to Allendy. Allendy is going to be my lover. Now I send Hugo to Allendy so that Allendy will teach him to be less dependent on me for his happiness. When I immolated my childhood to my mother, when I give away all I own, when I help, understand, serve, what tremendous crimes I am expiating—strange, insidious joys, like my love for Eduardo, my own blood; for Hugo’s spiritual father, John; for June, a woman; for June’s husband; for Eduardo’s spiritual father, Allendy, who is now Hugo’s guide. It only remains for me now to go to my own father and enjoy to the full the experience of our sensual sameness, to hear from his lips the obscenities, the brutal language I have never formulated, but which I love in Henry. Am I hypnotized, fascinated by evil because I have none in me? Or is there in me the greatest secret evil? My analysis was really over when Allendy kissed me the last time and I felt the nascence of a personal relationship. I took great pleasure in his kiss, and an hour later I was in Henry’s arms. Henry is asleep now in my writing room, and I sit a few yards away writing about Allendy’s kiss. I loved Allendy’s bigness, his mouth and his hand at my throat. Henry was waiting for me at the station afterwards. I know I love him and that with Allendy it is coquetry, a pleasant game I am learning to play.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  They all smiled with a certain dignity, raising their heads whenever this was required, lowering their gaze whenever the text ordered it. This was exactly as our fathers did it, and we were all rehearsing our own future parts. But I was both ashamed and scared, as I have said, and even today I’m to a great extent disgusted and horrified, but I still cannot manage to feel entirely alien to this procession, not in any way accessory to this sacrifice that is constantly repeated. Slowly, the procession passed twice along the walls of the synagogue, then went up to the high chair of the priest on the dais. The crowd was silent while our supervisor, still conscious of his responsibilities, climbed onto the heavy wooden chair that was carved with sacred texts. His aides then placed the boy on the High Priest’s knees, lying face upwards, after which, sharing in the traditional honor, they climbed onto the steps at the back of the throne. In the middle of the watchful group of his torturers, the victim waited, not daring to move or to say a word. His skinny little legs were folded, drawn up over his body, stiff as the legs of a cataleptic chicken. One could hear the breathing of the crowd watchful in its suspense, and the dry sputtering of the flames in the little lamps. The High Priest then drew out his blade and solemnly, with broad gestures, reached out toward the child’s crotch. I felt that I could not bear the sight of what was about to happen. All my groin ached as if the knife were about to wound me too. But why, in spite of this, was I unable to look away, why did my eyes remain glued to the boy’s tiny white penis that I could discern from afar in the light that came down from the air vents which had become green with all the mold of the years? An intolerable fear kept me close to the wall, a feeling of shame before this nakedness; all this was mingled with a feeling too that I shall never forget, a pleasure at being accessory to the ceremony, accepting it all. Within my own penis, I felt the pleasure of fear transformed into tremors like those of an electric shock. How shall I ever forget my complicity?

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Their filthy Oriental robes and faded fezzes were part of the life of sordid neighborhoods that I wanted to forget; their complicity and their resignation, in so many blatant stupidities that stifled me, roused my scorn. Soon, in my indignation, I began to confuse the synagogue with the ghetto. My overt break, however, was not the most difficult. To save myself internally, I contrived tests. I fought the uneasiness I felt on entering the deeply moving gloom of our old temples, and I walked deliberately up to their damp walls so as to face the mystery of the tabernacle, making wisecracks about the magic of oil lamps and the green light of ancient windows, the oppressive odor of old leather, of parchment and incense. There, I began to reason and to wrestle with myself. The little flames jutting out of the oil lamps are not souls: a ridiculous superstition! Souls are not immortal, heaven and hell do not exist! I could tell nobody of my difficult struggle with myself for fear of his making a fool of me. So I hesitated between an awareness of ridicule and a heroic satisfaction, between the temptation to deceive myself at small cost and the impossibility of not condemning my failures. You can fool the whole world, but not yourself. To drop the sacred phylacteries that we bind around our foreheads was a horrible sin, to be punished by death. The Law said it, it seems; the rabbis gravely affirmed it; the faithful repeated it with terror. I decided I could; I must cast them aside calmly, I would certainly not die because of it. Still, I didn’t do it. And I rationalized beautifully: I had no need of childish demonstrations, it was enough to affirm my own freedom. A free man doesn’t have to spend his time being blasphemous to deny God. But I felt my attitude was the least costly; I was ashamed to risk so little. At other times, I went to the point of blasphemy in committing less serious offenses. Bread must not be thrown away or left where it can be stepped on by passers-by; all crumbs must therefore be carefully gathered and left on the windowsill or stuffed into cracks in the wall. So I took whatever bread I didn’t eat and made a show of throwing it where it could be stepped on. Of course, I felt ridiculous while doing it, but my very embarrassment seemed a hesitation, a trick of my superstitious fear, and I continued to throw my bread away, in spite of myself. How mixed up I was! At home, however, my revolt had been completely expressed, and I no longer wisecracked or attacked but merely tried to live apart.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  But how could I ever have become a professor of philosophy and dedicated myself to the play of well-defined ideas, teaching the young my phony solutions to phony problems, with all the imaginary psychology of university textbooks? One has to teach calmly, with peace of mind and a pipe in one’s mouth like Poinsot; to walk to and fro in the classroom and puff away before answering a question with conviction, with conviction and irony, in fact with complete detachment. How wonderfully transparent was Poinsot! He walked around with tiny steps, one hand in his pocket, the other at his pipe, his eyes vague. In the middle of a sentence, halfway between his desk and the window, he would stop and take off in a quick reverie, while we waited respectfully. There was only the puffing of his pipe to disturb the silence; then, after a moment, he would deliver his precise and methodical conclusions. What could I be sure of? Before one scoffs at national pride and the fatherland, at wealth and good manners, love of one’s country, family, and traditions, one must have arrived at a proper evaluation of one’s country, have had enough to eat, and have received a good education. Then one can look on from afar and make wisecracks. But I have no sense of humor and not enough courage to be cynical. I would have had to rediscover everything for myself, build it all up again, and reconsider every proposition. Is it possible to build with anger and passion, indignation and envy, shame and a sense of being alien? If my principal had only known how I envied him! This average Frenchman from Burgundy, with his old culture and good background, a university man and a Republican of good family, suffered because he was in a foreign land! I am ill at ease in my own land and I know of no other. My culture is borrowed and I speak my mother tongue haltingly. I have neither religious beliefs nor tradition, and am ashamed of whatever particle of them has survived deep within me. To try to explain what I am, I would need an intelligent audience and much time: I am a Tunisian but of French culture. (“You know, the art of Racine, an art that is perfectly French, is accessible only to the French...”) I am Tunisian, but Jewish, which means that I am politically and socially an outcast. I speak the language of the country with a particular accent and emotionally I have nothing in common with Moslems. I am a Jew who has broken with the Jewish religion and the ghetto, is ignorant of Jewish culture and detests the middle class because it is phony. I am poor but desperately anxious not to be poor, and at the same time, I refuse to take the necessary steps to avoid poverty.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Never once did I feel current pass between us. His eyes always avoided mine, and I understood later what I had always suggested to him: in me, he recognized his own personal battle, his difficult past, his insecurity. I lacked the courage to answer that I preferred to study medicine. After all, he was the one who paid, and he added now, with some disdain and the only sign of any real emotion in all our conversation, as if he had already guessed some objection on my part: “It is absolutely necessary to live on Easy Street. It’s very important, and you’ll realize it, too.” But for whom this contempt? For those who failed to earn an easy living, or for his own philosophy of profit and earnings? At the time, I seemed to understand that he despised those whose earnings were small; on the whole, I agreed with him. Money was only one aspect of the glory that I hoped to win. In town, people were already complaining that the medical profession was overcrowded and that young doctors found it increasingly difficult to build up a practice. Pharmacies remained, however, an excellent business. Our middle class is too recent to have much respect for professional scales of values or for a disinterested vocation. It still understands only commercial success and, of course, this opinion of our middle class imposes itself on our other classes too. But even if Monsieur Bismuth was right, he now separated quite brutally two images that I had kept closely connected: the one, of my material success, of my studies, and the other, of myself in a white smock, the lancet in my hand as I accomplished a task that brought health to mankind and earned me its gratitude. At the same time, I was struck by Monsieur Bismuth’s happening to agree with my father, who so painfully and disturbingly insisted that one needs to earn as much as possible. I now accepted the advice, in spite of my incipient shame, simply because I felt that my noble mission justified it fully. But if I were to be deprived of the image of the white smock and of the meek and grateful poor, then I would be entirely lost and would find myself facing again my father’s bald and unqualified advice: “You have to make money.” If I adopted as my own all my father’s spoken daydreams, then I was really anxious to become a rich man or rather to break away from our poverty. But I had too closely bound the idea of money together with that of my future, of my most disinterested image of my own self. To my utter surprise, the pure and desirable light that had led me on now seemed to grow dim.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I tried to catch her eye, but she was staring at the ceiling. Fortunately, I had prepared myself for this meeting, I had thought about it and had heard accounts of similar ones. I knew what I had to do and, whatever my shyness, it had to be done. I began by stroking her shoulders. After a while her very coldness gave me courage, and my desire, needing no such subtleties, became manifest. Slowly, I was spontaneous again. As she remained with her face to the ceiling, my hand became a little more daring and slipped down to her bosom. Without a word, but firmly, she removed my hand. I understood that I had reached an area that was out of bounds. Submissively and afraid to hurt her feelings, I kept away from it, skipped the breasts and descended further, with no more embarrassment than if I had been alone. Soon I had almost forgotten her existence and was in a suave solitary dream when, far too soon for my liking, she guessed I was ready and, in a blank voice, ordered: “Come on, now.” Obediently I let go of her. Without looking or changing position, she stretched her hand toward the table and soaked her fingers in a glass of olive oil, which I recognized by its odor. She rubbed some between her thighs, while I furtively looked on, in spite of myself and my shame. The mystery which had, in my dreams, been so disturbing, was really a little disgusting in its biological reality and its vulgar animality. Then, as I hesitated, she must have realized that I was inexperienced. She drew me toward her, and like a child, I clumsily let myself be guided. To be joined in this manner to her flesh along the whole length of my own body now maddened me, and when her grasp became more specific, I could wait no longer. This angered her, and she grunted as she hurriedly guided me. I had already nearly finished, and left the matter at that. My pleasure had been too hasty and left me all tense; I found it much less satisfying than self-abuse. Because I had depended on someone else, my enjoyment had been meager. She pushed me over to one side, slapped her hand between her legs, and went and sat on the basin. I also got up and stood there with my loins all tense and sticky.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I wrote: not subject to conscription. From the other side of the counter, the lieutenant read it upside down. “Please give details,” he said. “Why can’t you be conscripted? Are you a foreigner, or exempted, or rejected...” “Foreign,” I said. “Well, not exactly; native African Jew.” “Ah, then wait,” he said hurriedly, “wait, don’t write anything. It’s that... er... Would you mind enlisting under another name?” “But...“ “Of course,” he quickly added, “it’s simply a formality. We are very happy to have you; it’s just to avoid... you know, politics...” he stammered. Out of pity, I helped him. “You don’t want any Jews?” “Oh, not us. You know, we already have lots. They’re good fighters and good comrades at arms. That’s why General Giraud’s men say that the Gaullists are mostly Jews, which isn’t true and does us a great deal of harm; so, for the moment, well...” The demonstration was painful, so he shifted to safer grounds, those of his own enthusiasm. “The important thing is to fight, isn’t it? I mean the pleasure of smashing the Krauts! You know, when we took Bizerte, I wept tears of joy...” He tried to warm himself and us with the memory of his emotions. My face must have been fairly impassive. He shut up. Henry smiled pleasantly, as though he had a great liking for the lieutenant and perfectly understood his difficulties. But I knew his face too well. The poor officer glanced at the register again. “I’m so glad you’re a student. I too was a student, in pharmacy. You must understand, politics has nothing to do with...“ He lied clumsily. He must have known that I too wanted to fight my own war, and not just any war. War is either a personal affair or a swindle. His face lit up, and he seemed to have found an idea: “Look, leave your name and just add ‘Mohammed.’ There is no difficulty for Moslems.” He had spoken alone all the time. “I’m going to think this over,” I said at length. I looked at the register and at my name which was only the fourth: Alexandre Benillouche. As usual, I had forgotten to write Mordekhai. Benillouche could well be a Moslem name, since “Ben” is a prefix common to both Jews and Moslems. But why should the Moslems fight? In any case, I wanted to avoid any misunderstanding. Mordekhai, I was certainly Mordekhai Benillouche. Before leaving, I picked up the pen again and, without looking at the lieutenant, added “Mordekhai” in brackets. Fortunately, Henry was silent about his triumph. For a while, I tried to be calm and to reason. These refusals might well revolt me, but they also gave fresh strength to the arguments of wisdom.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  You’re in love with her, and you must be ready to pay the price!” Slowly, I made my way home to our Passage. To reach our hallway door, I had to chase away the flock of night-prowling cats that fed out of our ashcans. Not in the least scared, they waited a few feet away, their eyes bright in the darkness. Late though it was, I couldn’t sleep. One more road that I was closing, that closed itself ahead of me. Had I really wanted very deep in me to become a middle-class bourgeois? I wasn’t one and no longer wanted to be one. How could I ever be like Jean-Jean, like the Gazelle, like Michel, like the Commissioner? Polished as pebbles picked up on the seashore, they had no memory. Would I ever be able to forget Pinhas and the others who are like him, merely to save myself? How had I ever been able to believe that I would be able to lead a futile and self-satisfied existence? That evening, perhaps, I caught a glimpse of what their life really is. But that was also the time when I thought I had discovered in myself the signs of a calling, to teach philosophy. The bohemian manner of Poinsot, my admiration for him, the satisfactions that my successes in philosophy classes assured me, all this made me feel that teaching was an intellectual profession that was not committed to middle-class values and that maintained its independence as far as prejudices and earnings are concerned. It was also about that time that I began to develop the habit of going on long walks, all by myself, in the poorer districts of the city. ~ 11. THE CHOICE ~ In the decision that I reached by myself at the time I graduated from high school, two men probably played a decisive part. Marrou, who taught me French in my last year there, and Poinsot, who taught me philosophy, both acted as midwives in helping me to give birth to the man I was destined, for better or for worse, to become. In Marrou, himself a Berber by birth and family background, though a Christian as a consequence of his upbringing, I thought I had discovered a symbol of my salvation. He proved that it was really possible to come into the world poor and an African and yet become a man of culture, well dressed, and smoking expensive cigarettes. I always admired his long and carefully manicured fingers, stained yellow at the tips, between the index and the middle finger, from the Turkish tobacco that perfumed his classroom. He had published two slim volumes of verse of a beauty that, to me, seemed quite disconcerting; this alone showed me that it is possible to achieve a true mastery of a language that is not one’s mother tongue. Marrou, however, was not very po pular. Our other teachers made no bones about proclaiming their opinions on his vanity and his pretentiousness.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I recall the sacrilegious communions during my childhood at which I received my father in place of God, closing my eyes and swallowing the white bread with blissful tremors, embracing my father, communing with him, in a confusion of religious ecstasy and incestuous passion. Everything was for him. I wanted to send him my journal. Mother dissuaded me because it might have gotten lost on the way. Oh, the hypocrisy of my lowered eyes, the hidden bursts of tears at night, the voluptuous secret obsession with him. What I remember best of him at this moment is not paternal protection or tenderness, but an expression of intensity, animal vigor, which I recognize in myself, an affinity of temperament which I recognized with a child’s innocent intuition. A volcanic life hunger—that is what I remember and still participate in, secretly admiring a sensual potency that automatically negates my mother’s values. I have remained the woman who loves incest. I still practice the most incestuous crimes with a sacred religious fervor. I am the most corrupt of all women, for I seek a refinement in my incest, the accompaniment of beautiful chants, music, so that everyone believes in my soul. With a madonna face, I still swallow God and sperm, and my orgasm resembles a mystical climax. The men I love, Hugo loves, and I let them act like brothers. Eduardo confesses his love to Allendy. Allendy is going to be my lover. Now I send Hugo to Allendy so that Allendy will teach him to be less dependent on me for his happiness. When I immolated my childhood to my mother, when I give away all I own, when I help, understand, serve, what tremendous crimes I am expiating—strange, insidious joys, like my love for Eduardo, my own blood; for Hugo’s spiritual father, John; for June, a woman; for June’s husband; for Eduardo’s spiritual father, Allendy, who is now Hugo’s guide. It only remains for me now to go to my own father and enjoy to the full the experience of our sensual sameness, to hear from his lips the obscenities, the brutal language I have never formulated, but which I love in Henry. Am I hypnotized, fascinated by evil because I have none in me? Or is there in me the greatest secret evil? My analysis was really over when Allendy kissed me the last time and I felt the nascence of a personal relationship. I took great pleasure in his kiss, and an hour later I was in Henry’s arms. Henry is asleep now in my writing room, and I sit a few yards away writing about Allendy’s kiss. I loved Allendy’s bigness, his mouth and his hand at my throat. Henry was waiting for me at the station afterwards.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  AT HOME 4 . UNCLE JOSEPH’S DEATH 5 . THE CHALLENGE 6 . THE DANCE 7 . THE KOUTTAB SCHOOL 8 . GINOU 9 . THE PARTY 10 . COMMENCEMENT DAY 11 . THE CHOICE PART THREE : The World 1 . THE RED-LIGHT DISTRICT 2 . THE OTHERS 3 . THE WAR 4 . THE CAMP 5 . ESCAPE 6 . THE INVENTORY 7 . EXAMINATION 8 . DEPARTURE New introduction: Literature, confession and testimony When The Pillar of Salt was first published in 1953, it was greeted in Tunis as a scandal. I, a Jew and son of a craftsman and an illiterate mother who lived at the edge of the equally poor Jewish and Muslim quarters, was describing not only the misery, deprivation, endemic diseases, the ravages of tuberculosis and syphilis, obscurantism and superstition they contained, but the failings of the tiny local bourgeoisie, which thought itself opulent but was only ridiculous. I was no kinder to my Muslim fellow citizens or to the various European colonialists. The Pillar of Salt reads like a general indictment. No one contested its accuracy, just the fact that I had made it public. “One should not wash one’s dirty linen outside the family!”, was repeated angrily. That was not my purpose in writing this book. I saw it mostly as a confession rooted in an autobiography. How could I not have included my relationships with my family and friends, among whom I lived until the age of twenty, after the German occupation during which I was sent to several forced labor camps, and until I belatedly escaped to Europe? Today, I believe that these criticisms were not entirely unfounded. Because I think that any work, even when it seems farthest from reality, has some roots in the author’s own life. How can one not assume that much of Spinoza’s work is the consequence of his troubles with his community? I hope that some day a wise biographer discovers the existential basis of Descartes’ “I think therefore I am”. Today, these quarrels having calmed down, my former fellow citizens, scattered across various host countries, recall them with nostalgia. In fact, as often happens, The Pillar of Salt has taken on a life of its own. Sixty years later, the book still sells steadily. I see it now as a young man’s account of a difficult journey at the dawn of his life among the fears and humiliations of his family, the suspicious ambiguity of Muslims and the contempt of Western colonizers, and a document about a community that has now all but disappeared.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  Allendy: “On the contrary, a man loves to feel this sense of importance you give him.” “I immediately imagined he would love me less.” Allendy was amazed at the extent of my lack of confidence. “To an analyst, of course, it is very clear, even in your appearance.” “In my appearance?” “Yes. I saw immediately that you have seductive manners and bearing. Only people who are unsure act seductively.” We laughed at this. I told him I had imagined seeing my father at my dance recital in Paris, when it was proved he was in St. Jean de Luz at the time. It had given me a shock. “You wanted him to be there. You wanted to dazzle him. At the same time you were frightened. But because you have wanted to seduce your father since you were a child and did not succeed, you have also developed a strong sense of guilt. You want to dazzle physically, but when you succeed, something makes you stop. You tell me you haven’t danced since.” “No. I have even had a very strong feeling against it. It was also due to bad health.” “I have no doubt that if you should succeed in your writing you would also give that up to punish yourself.” Other women who are talented but ugly are self-satisfied, confident, magnificent, and I who am talented and attractive, so Allendy tells me, weep because I do not look like June and inspire passion. I try to explain this to him. I have put myself in the worst position of all by loving Henry and sharing him with a June who is my greatest rival. I am exposing myself to a final death blow since I am sure that Henry will chose June (as I would choose her if I were a man). I also know that if June comes back, she would not choose me in preference to Henry. So I can only lose both ways. And I am risking this. Everything pushes me into it. (Allendy tells me it is masochism.) I again seek pain. If I should give up Henry now, of my own free will, it would only be to suffer less. I feel two impulses: one masochistic-and resigned, the other seeking escape. I yearn to find a man who will save me from Henry and this situation. Allendy listens and broods on this. One evening in Henry’s kitchen—he and I alone—we talk ourselves empty. He takes up the subject of my red journal, tells me what faults I have to beware of, and then says, “Do you know what baffles me? When you write about Hugo, you write wonderful things, but at the same time they are unconvincing. You do not tell anything that would cause your admiration or love. It sounds strained.” I immediately become distressed, as if it were Allendy questioning me.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I had come to the work-camp of my own accord, and I fully realized it when I saw that my presence could be of no help to these men. I am not trying to justify myself, I am only relating what I believe I must say. I had been simple enough to think I could help the others, but in fact I could neither break through the massive suspiciousness caused by their suffering, nor get them to accept me. Maybe I lacked love, maybe I was too feeble for such a struggle which was mostly a struggle against myself. To help them rediscover and keep their dignity, I had to fight the danger of losing my own. It was at the camp, in my daily life with them, that I came to realize how far my studies and my high-school education had removed me from any possible communion with my own people. When I slid under the tent where the head of the camp had assigned me a place, I thought I would never get used to the stifling animal stench that rose from the stale straw. Jute sacks and rags showed that all the places on either side of the doors were occupied. Courage failed me and I was unable to make up my mind to return to this lair the first night; I left the tent with my bag on my back. When somebody called my name and got up from a little group, I felt very great pleasure, as though I had been lost in a hostile crowd. In a shapeless hairy gandourah, patched but clean, I recognized a boy I had met at scout meetings. He led me toward his companions, all members of the same movement, so I felt relatively at home. Here there was a little oasis of affection in the middle of the silent suspicion of the others. They told me they had a small tent which they disciplined themselves to keep tidy and clean. The five of them were, as a matter of fact, fairly well shaven, and their metal bowls seemed well scrubbed with sand. They offered me a place in their tent, which I spontaneously and effusively accepted. But I was immediately ashamed of my joy. I felt that I should have made the effort to live in an ordinary tent in the rotten straw and the stench of human beasts, for there I would be among workers, and it was for them I thought I had come. But I did not have the courage to do this. The devil whispered all sorts of excuses: would I be better equipped in such filth? Would I not, on the contrary, ruin what was left of my health? Perhaps a certain distance between us would give me more authority? Surely it was better to avoid the excessive familiarity which the promiscuity of sleeping and waking together would breed.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Sicilian workers in patched blue overalls, with their tools at their feet, were arguing noisily; a French housewife, conscious of her own dignity, was on her way to the market; in front of me a Mohammedan sat with his son, a tiny little boy wearing a miniature fez and with his hands all stained with henna; to my left, a Djerban grocer from the South, off to restock his store, with his basket between his legs and a pencil over his ear. The rain was sweeping against the panes of the car, opaque with steam, and the drops of water fell against them like the blows of a whip. The Djerban, under the influence of the warmth and the calm of the car, became restless. He smiled at the little boy, whose eyes twinkled as he turned to look at his father. The latter, flattered by this attention and grateful, reassured the child and smiled at the Djerban. “How old are you?” the grocer asked the boy. “Two and a half years old,” the father replied. “Did the cat gobble it up?” the grocer asked the child. “No,” the father answered. “He isn’t circumcised yet, but some day soon...” “Ah, ah!” The grocer had indeed found a theme which was rich in conversational possibilities with the child. “Will you sell me your tiny little animal?” “No!” the child replied with horror. Quite obviously, the boy knew this whole routine and had already heard the same proposition before. I too, knew it all, and had myself played the game some years ago, attacked by other aggressors and feeling the same emotions of shame, curiosity, and complicity. The child’s eyes sparkled with the pleasure of his awareness of his own growing virility, and with the shock of his revolt against such an unwarranted attack. He looked toward his father, but the latter only smiled: this was an accepted game. All our neighbors in the car took a friendly interest in the scene which was traditional and earned their approval. In this warm and human car, protected as we were against nature’s aggressiveness, we were like one happy family. “I offer you ten francs for it,” the Djerban proposed. “No!” the child protested. A Bedouin pushed the sliding door open and hesitated as he entered. The stink of a stable and of stale cooking fats spread throughout the car, as well as of something else that I was unable to identify. Through the still open door an unpleasant draft reached us. “Close the door!” the Sicilian masons shouted, though apparently without any hostility or clannish animosity. The Mohammedans in the car all pricked their ears up. For a while, the little game stopped. But the Sicilians had really intended no harm and we were quite clearly, one and all, a big family of Mediterraneans. One of the Mohammedans, to show that he appreciated it, even decided to join in the fun: “Close that door! Don’t they have doors, back home on your mountainside?”

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I wondered what I was supposed to do. I could not put my clothes on over this mess. Meanwhile, she was quickly washing herself with careful movements that splashed the water from the basin all over the red distemper of the walls. But even as she went through her usual toilet, a thousand times repeated, with her legs spread apart over the old basin, its blots of rust where the enamel had worn away and the soapy water dripping off her thighs, she became less terrifying to me, also a little despicable, as were all prostitutes in the eyes of my schoolmates. But I also felt that my disgust and scorn were to some extent also for myself. She emptied the basin out into a little gutter that led to a hole under the door where I could see daylight. She then filled the basin again and handed it to me. As I did not immediately grasp what she intended, she looked at me as though I were quite stupid and said: “Here, catch!” She put it in my hands, pushed my wrists down to the proper level, and started soaping my body over the basin. It was hard for me to hold the basin straight, for I was so unsatisfied and tense, and, at the same time, so close to more unbearable pleasure. As her fingers soaped and rinsed and soaped again with the same dexterity as on her own body, I watched, as I would have watched any artisan working away in his shop, had he asked me, a curious passer-by, for a helping hand. I might have been a complete stranger to what she was doing to me had it not been for the nagging and painful sensation of pleasure caused by her fingers, and for the effort of not moving, as well as for the humiliating feeling of being so completely dependent and childishly ineffective. At last, with a sharp movement she tore some toilet paper off a roll hanging from a crooked nail in the wall and wiped me. Then she put on her blue dress again, turned her back on me and, in front of the mirror by the little table, got herself ready for the next customer. I dressed too fast and got my feet caught in my shorts and trousers. All I had to do now was pay her. But now that she was dressed again, she was a woman once more and full of mystery. I found her as terrifying as before. I had put the necessary sum in a separate pocket. I did as I had read in novels, and placed the money on the table without looking at her.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  On the Saturday evening, like all the others, I bathed carefully and got my best clothes ready. The next day, Mimouni and I took our stand in the line, with a reasonable distance between us. The walk, to begin with, was pleasant. The village was at the foot of the mountain, and the road, going all the way downhill, revealed to us, in spite of a ground mist that rose to our shoulders, a valley full of violet-colored rocks that had been scattered by a vast and cataclysmically violent landslide. It both terrified and delighted me. When we reached the church, we were distributed in two pews, with the smaller boys in the front one. I thus found myself quite close to the altar; its magnificence, with painted statues that were so unsophisticated in their expressions, with great festooned candles and the gilded utensils and flowers, all this made a great impression on me. Although a mere country chapel, the whole church struck me as grandiose. I was overcome by a sacred uneasiness that was not new to me because I had once broken the candle at the High Holiday. As a Jew pretending to be devout in a Christian house of worship, I was committing a sacrilege in the eyes of the God of the Christians. The darkness, the incense, the lights, the mysteries of the Catholic faith, all these had reduced to nothing the superficial irony and contempt with which we always dismissed the aberrations of the idolaters. The God Jesus must indeed be very powerful to inspire such homage, and I would perhaps have to suffer His vengeance. Unconsciously, I compared all these riches to the poverty and nakedness of our synagogue, the bright embroidered vestments of the priests to the sordid everyday habit of our rabbi. The daring implied by such a comparison disturbed me even more: I feared and admired the Christians and thereby betrayed my Jewish faith. I was caught between two terrifying conceptions of what is sacred. Why had I ever left my family? My position became quite unbearable when I saw the faithful kneel down. It was indeed impossible for me to bend down before the altar, out of fear both of the foreign God and of my own. I tried to spot Mimouni; but only I stood up in the kneeling crowd, stiff and taut with shame and anguish. Suddenly I felt, in my back, a powerful blow: I had forgotten the presence of all the other boys. I scarcely dared move, but I could perceive, behind me, their shocked expressions, their faces distorted by anger and contempt: “Down on your knees! Down on your knees,” they prompted me.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  What really convinced me was probably the fact that the medical commission declared me unsuitable for work. When I received my summons I went again to see my doctor. He certified that he had given me medical treatment for a lung infection. What with his certificate, the limited staff, the superficial character of mass examinations, and probably some implicit directives, I was hardly examined at all by a young doctor who was in a hurry and not very sure of himself. I was put into one of the already overstaffed offices of the new community organization. For once, I blessed my physical disability, which indeed I no longer felt. The graver dangers I was now exposed to even made my temperature subside. But I could not be satisfied with merely saving myself. As soon as I had done it, I was ashamed. Reports from the camps were very bad. As they had never had any experience of war, or of natural or historical disasters, my brethren — all city-dwellers, artisans, office-workers, salesmen, and petty traders, with a skin that was too white and flabby stomach muscles — lost all appearance of being human after only a few days of camp life. They neither washed nor shaved any more, were covered with lice, and just gave up, in spite of the efforts of the braver young men who tried to help them. The best of them, those who in a moment of revolt tried to escape, had to cross hostile country and were quickly caught and shot or deported to Germany. Those who came home, wounded, sick, or on leave, were so thin, dazed, or aggressive in their filthy rags all caked with mud, that we were ashamed to look at them. The Germans, following a plan which we could not guess, grew more and more demanding and vicious. They shot the stragglers and the sick. They multiplied their demands and became increasingly difficult to satisfy. After they had taken all the men younger than thirty-five years of age, they demanded those aged forty, and then those aged forty-five. We began to realize that if the German occupation were to last much longer we would be completely lost, for the Germans had time on their side and would eventually exhaust us. It was no longer possible to answer their summonses, and the community could no longer furnish the required monthly quota of men, so the raids began again.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  sexuality have a connection, Allendy believes I showed an unconscious resistance to sexuality. Also, the resistance returns more strongly when some incident reawakens my sense of guilt. I realized that my life was stopped again. I cried. But perhaps because of this talk with Allendy I was able to go on, to go to Henry, to conquer my jealousy of Paulette. I suppose it is an indication of my pride and independence to say that I find it difficult to give entire credit to psychoanalysis for my various victories, and I am apt to believe it is due to Henry’s great humanness or my own efforts. Eduardo pointed out to me how quickly I forget the true source of my new confidence and how this very confidence (given to me by Allendy) is what makes one believe in one’s own powers. In short, I don’t know enough about psychoanalysis yet to realize that I owe everything to Allendy. I have not let myself dwell sentimentally on him. In fact, I am glad that I do not love him. Need him, yes, and admire him, but without sensuality. I have a feeling that I am waiting for him to become upset by me. I enjoy it when he admits I intimidated him the first day we met or when he talks about my sensual charm. Here, the awareness that transference is an artificially stimulated emotion inspires me with more mistrust than ever. If I doubt genuine manifestations of love, how much more do I doubt this mentally aroused attachment. Allendy talks about finding my true rhythm. He developed this from an acutely visual dream I had. As far as he could see, from studying me, I was fundamentally an exotic Cuban woman, with charm, simplicity, and purity. All the rest was literary, intellectual. There was nothing wrong with acting roles except that one must not take them seriously. But I become sincere and go all the way. And I then become uneasy and unhappy. Allendy also believes my interest in perversions to be a pose. Long after he said this, I remembered that the place where I have been most soundly happy is Switzerland, where I lived washed of all external roles. Do I think myself interesting in a picture hat, soft dress, little make-up, as I am in Switzerland? No. But I think myself interesting in a Russian hat! Lack of faith in my fundamental values. At this point I began to balk a little. If psychoanalysis is going to annihilate all nobility in personal motives and in art by the discovery of neurotic roots, what does it substitute in place of them? What would I be without my decoration, costume, personality? Would I be a more vigorous artist? Allendy says I must live with greater sincerity and naturalness. I must not overstep the bounds of my nature, create dissonances, deviations, roles (as June has done), because it means misery.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Ill at ease in their presence, I was furious with them because of the facility with which they rolled the impossible r that Paris has imposed on the rest of France. I tried and resolved a thousand times to roll my r ’s with the proper guttural sound until I found the right tone; but when I watched my speech, I lost the thread of my ideas and, if my thought was difficult to express, I had to leave my tongue in peace while I figured out what I wanted to say; it was then that I reverted to my peculiar speech with its sounds which were as foreign as those of Latin Americans or of exotic films, and deprived all that I said in French of any seriousness. But if I managed to speak as if I were clearing my throat, the others would laugh and imitate me. “You speak French like a German,” they would say, imitating the German accent. Unfortunately, I spoke like no one on earth. I tried desperately to speak this language which wasn’t mine, which perhaps will never be entirely mine, but without which I would never be able to achieve self-realization. Our local dialect was only just able to satisfy the daily needs of eating and drinking. Could I tell my schoolmates that my mother not only spoke no European language at all, but barely managed to carry on in her own dialect? I never told them, or anyone, anything; I hated them, pretended to despise them, made a show of all my own failings, and rolled my r ’s even louder than before. All the same, I envied them. I’m not trying to give a flattering picture of myself, nor to justify my behavior; I’m trying here to get rid of what’s on my stomach and to vomit what I cannot digest and forget. I was jealous, envious, even spiteful, and soon unbearable to all those who were ready to like me. I had every fault that’s generally condemned. But could I have been otherwise? Each morning, my classmates smiled, were confident, smelled of eau de Cologne and of good toilet soaps. I supposed, not without astonishment, that they washed from top to toe every morning. It was only much later that I understood why some people have an unpleasant odor and others no odor at all.