Authors: Albert Cohen
'When she gets home, she will compare her husband with her supplier of poems and she will despise him. Every little thing will generate contempt, even her husband's dirty washing. As if Don Juan didn't put his dirty shirts in the laundry basket! But the stupid little fool, who only ever sees him when he is on stage, performing, always at his best, freshly bathed and elegantly spruced, imagines that here is a hero whose shirts never get dirty, who never has to go to the dentist. But he goes to the dentist, of course he does, just like any husband. But he never admits it. Don Juan is an actor who is never off stage, he is camouflaged, he disguises any physical shortcomings and does in secret everything a husband does openly and unaffectedly. But because he does these things in secret, and because she has no imagination whatsoever, he appears to her to be some sort of demigod. Oh the filthy, nostalgic look in the eye of the soon-to-be-unfaithful little fool! Oh her mouth gaping to catch the noble words of her Prince Charming, who has intestines ten metres long like everyone else! Oh the little numskull who fills her head, which is in the clouds, with thoughts of magic and Ues. Everything about her husband irritates her. His radio and his harmless custom of listening to the news three times a day, poor sweet man, his slippers, his rheumatism, the way he whistles in the bathroom, the noises he makes when he cleans his teeth, his innocent mania for calling her by tender, baby names, like pet and petal or plain darling at every possible opportunity, a habit which has lost its charm and turns the knife in the wound. What Madame requires is an endless supply of sublimity.
'So she arrives home. Brief moments ago the seducer had hung garlands upon her, called her the goddess of the forest and Diana returned in human form, and here she is with a husband who turns her into a pet, and this makes her feel cross. Brief moments ago, sweet and captivated, she had listened eagerly as her seducer filled her head with elevated topics of conversation - painting, sculpture, literature, culture, nature - and she had responded with delight: in other words a couple of bad actors hamming it up. Whereas now the poor husband asks her in all innocence what she makes of the behaviour of the Boulissons, who came to dinner two months ago, since when, silence, not a peep out of them, nor invited back either. "And to cap it all, I've just been told they've had the Bourrassuses round to their place! You realize they only got to know the Bourrassuses through us! In my opinion we shouldn't have anything more to do with them. What do you think?" And so on and so forth, including the touching "You know, petal, everything was just fine and dandy with the boss, he calls me by my Christian name." In short, not many sublime moments with her husband, no pretentious exchanges of shared tastes for Kafka, and it dawns on the little fool that she is ruining her life with her snoring clod of a spouse, that her humdrum existence is not worthy of her. For she is as stupid as she is vain.
'But the funniest part of it all is that she resents her husband, not only because he is not poetic but also and especially because she cannot behave poetically with him. She might not know it, but she blames him because he is witness to the petty indignities which she suffers daily: her sour breath first thing in the morning, her rumpled hair which would not look out of place on a circus clown or some drink-sodden old hag, and all the rest of it, not forgetting perhaps her evening dose of liquid paraffin or her prunes. Living cheek by jowl with toothbrushes and slippers, she feels that she has been knocked off her pedestal and she lays the blame squarely at the door of the poor unfortunate husband who soon reaches the end of his tether. But come five in the afternoon, behold her process in triumph when, freshly laundered, with hair set and dandruff-free, more exultant and not less proud than the winged Victory of Samothrace, she goes forth with lively step to meet her noble, secret stomach-churner, and as she goes she sings Bach chorales, glorying in the knowledge that soon she will be performing sublime and beautiful things for her knotter-of-intestines, and that she will in consequence feel as immaculate as a princess in her hair-do which has really turned out most awfully well.
'On the day they married, Jewish women strict in the faith used to shave their heads and wear a wig. I like that. An end to beauty, thanks be to God! But take, on the other hand, the most glamorous star of the silver screen. She believes she is irresistible. She offers herself in alluring poses, which invariably feature her rump. Now because she is no more than the sum of her beauty, that devil's claw, all I have to do to punish her for her looks is to imagine that she has been given a strong enema and has the squits, and she immediately loses her charm and any hold she had over me! She can live in the lavatory for all I care! But a Jewess in a wig never loses her aura, for she has chosen to live on a level where no physical imperfection can undermine her. I've lost my thread. What was I saying about the little fool?'
'She realizes she's ruining her life.'
'Bless you,' he said, and with thumb and forefinger sharpened his aristocratic scimitar of a nose as though to sharpen his thoughts, and then his expression melted. 'Yes, there is nothing so noble as holy matrimony, the union of two human beings who come together not through passion, which is carnality, animal ruse and transience, but in tenderness, which is the image of God. Yes, a union of two miserable creatures doomed to sickness and death who seek the sweet joy of growing old together and being the only family each of them knows. "Brother and sister shalt thou call thy wife," says the Talmud. (He suddenly realized he had made up the quotation and went on more warily.) Verily, verily, I say unto you, the action of a wife who squeezes her husband's boils and tenderly drains the pus therefrom weighs more heavily and is finer by far than all the bucking and fishy writhings of Anna Karenina. So praise to the Talmud and shame upon adulterous women, for they have an animal itch and are only too ready to rush off, off their heads, off to the sea. Yes, animal. For Anna is in love with the body of that oaf Vronsky, that's the simple truth of it, and all her fine words are a smokescreen which hangs like lace over his meat. Do I hear voices accusing me of interpreting existence from the viewpoint of the materialist? But if some malfunction of the glands had made Vronsky fat and put thirty kilos of flab on his belly, the equivalent of three hundred packets of butter each weighing a hundred grams, would she have fallen in love with him the moment they met? Meat rules. There's no more to be said.
'Tactic number four: the strong-man ploy. Seduction is a game that's played dirty! The cock cockadoodles to let her know that he's a thug, the gorilla beats his chest, boom-boom, and soldiers have it made.
"Die Offiziere kommen!"
cry the young women of Vienna, and it's out with the comb. Strength is their obsession, and they miss nothing which seems to signal its presence. If he stares unblinkingly into her eyes, she feels deliciously stirred, her legs turn weak at the gorgeous threat he represents. If he settles back authoritatively in his armchair, she reveres him. If he's the laconic, English-explorer type who takes his pipe out of his mouth to say "Yes", she reads hidden depths in this "Yes" and admires the way he bites on the stem of his pipe and the disgusting noise the dottle makes in the bowl. It's virile and it thrills her. The seducer may talk rubbish, but if he talks self-confidently, in a manly voice, deep-throated and husky, she will gaze at him with eyes wide and moist, as though he had invented a new kind of relativity of even wider ramifications. She picks up everything: his walk, say, or that way he has of suddenly turning round, from which she deduces from deep inside her pretty little head that he is aggressive and dangerous, thank God. And to cap it all, to attract her, I am required to dominate and humiliate her husband, though it makes me feel shame for me and pity for him. Yes, I was ashamed when I had him on the phone just now, ashamed of the nauseating tone of superiority I put on for your benefit, which is indispensable if you want to do the husband down and ruin his credibility in the eyes of the little fool.
'Now all I have to do to seduce a dog is to be nice to him. A dog isn't particularly impressed by strength. But with women it's different, they demand it, they want danger, they find it attractive. Oh yes, it's the danger in strength, the power to kill, which attracts and excites them, for they are baboons. I once knew a girl, came of a good family, a family known for piety and noble sentiments, a pure young thing, who fell madly in love with a musician who was a hundred and eighty centimeatres tall but also, alas, quiet and shy. Being unable to change him into the genuine, dynamic article but determined to fall deeper and deeper in love with him, she tried injecting doses of artificial virility into his bloodstream so that she would be thrilled by the result and thus love him even more. So during the innocent walks they took together, she would say from time to time: "Jean, be more assertive!" One day, in the same spirit, she presented him with an English pipe, the short-stemmed kind, the sort smoked by sea dogs or English detectives, and she would not let him be until he stuck it in his mouth then and there while she watched delighted and fulfilled. The pipe excited her. But the very next day she met an army lieutenant at a smart social do. The moment she saw his uniform and his sword she immediately fell head over heels in love, her blood beat at the open door of her soul, and she saw clearly that defending one's country was an even finer thing than making music. You see, a sword is a good deal more exciting than a pipe.
'Strength, strength, that's all they talk about. And what is strength if not at root the age-old, ape-old ability to brain your prehistoric neighbour in a quiet corner of the virgin forest which bloomed a hundred thousand years ago? Might is the power to kill! I know, I've said it before. Well I'm saying it again, and shall go on saying it until the day I die! Read the adverts these genteel girls put in the paper, attractive appearance, with direct and soon-to-be-realized Expectations, as they phrase it. Read them and you'll see that what they want is a gentleman who is not simply as long as possible but also dynamic, with a strong character, and the thought of it makes them open their eyes in wonderment as though it were a fine and great thing, whereas in reality it is utterly repellent. Character!' he exclaimed sorrowfully. 'Character! They admit it! These hussies with their angel faces admit that what they want is a tall, dark, strong man with a firm jaw who chews gum, a beefy man, a manly man, a conceited cock who is always right, a man who speaks his mind and never changes it, a man of stubborn, unyielding heart, a man who can hand it out, a man, in other words, who is capable of murder! Character is just another name for physical strength, and the man with character is a substitute product, the social, ersatz version of the gorilla. Gorillas! Can we never get away from gorillas?
'They throw up their arms in protest and claim that I do them an
injustice, since they want their gorilla also to be a moral creature! They insist that their meaty, beefy gorilla who has Character, that is, a potential killer, should speak fine words and talk to them of God, and that they should sit down together and read the Bible in the evening, before they go to bed. A feeble alibi which is also the height of perversity. And that's how these scheming creatures can, with a clear conscience, both cherish the hairy chests and murderous fists and also lap up the cool eyes and the pipe! Pig's trotters smothered in whipped cream! Mutton dressed up in flowers and paper frills as in a butcher's window! False coin circulating endlessly and everywhere! But instead of a hundred and eighty centimeatres they say handsome or dashing and in their adverts speak of good appearance! And for savage and cold-eyed bully-boy who can scare the delicious daylights out of us they say dynamic, has Character! Instead of wealthy and ruling class they say refined and cultured! And for fear of death and the selfish hope that slim hips will endure, forever they say spirit, the hereafter, life eternal! I know that you hate me. Heigh-ho. Glory be to truth!
'There's no getting away from it, they're palaeolithic. They are the palaeolithic descendants of the low-of-brow females who meekly followed the squat caveman and his axe of flint! As far as I can tell, while he was alive no woman, not one, ever loved great Jesus, the man of sorrows, as a man. "Not manly enough," wailed the daughters of Galilee. They surely despised him for turning the other cheek. On the other hand they stood open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the spectacle of the square-chinned Roman centurions. Oh their admiration which makes me feel sick for them, their odious preference for the silent, upright Martin Edens who specialize in the right hook to the jaw.
Tor the loves of my youth I feel only horror. Then, I loathed being loved for the carnimalities of my manhood which they forced me to perform, which they expected of me, hated being loved for what the brainless hen finds pleasing in the odious cockerel. To attract them, I rode a high horse, though haughty I was not. I beat my chest, though I certainly was not strong, thank God. But that was how they wanted me, and, although I was ashamed, I needed their love, however ill-gotten.
'Strong! Strong! The word is never far from their lips! I've had it drummed into me constantly. "You are so strong!" they would say, and I felt ashamed. One, more intense, more female than the rest, even drooled: "You're such a
brute!"
which made me appear even stronger still and catapulted me into the divine ranks of the great apes. I ached with shame and self-disgust. I was humiliated by such bestiality and felt an urge to shout and scream and tell her I was the weakest man that ever walked this earth. Had I done so, she would have dropped me like a hot potato, and I needed her warmth, the warmth which they give only when passion rules, the divine mothering bestowed by women in love. And so, to keep her warmth, which was what mattered most to me, I bought her passion by posing as her gorilla and, with lead in my heart, I pranced unrestrained, sat down authoritatively, crossed my legs as arrogantly as I could get away with, stated my views tersely, and brooked no reply.