12
PARTISAN REVIEW
he's pig-headed') my head was so hard that, despite
all
my falls, it
has never once bled in my life: 'Bull-headed,' my pig of a father
used to say. At the seminary they were pToud as punch, a recruit
from the Protestant region was a victory, they greeted me like the
sun at Austerlitz. The sun was pale and feeble, to be sure, because
of the alcohol, they have drunk sour wine and the children's teeth
are set on edge,
gra gra,
one really ought to kill one's father, but after
all there's no danger that
he'll
hurl himself into missionary work
since he's now long dead, the tart wine eventually cut through his
stomach, so there's nothing left but to kill the missionary.
I have something to settle with him and with his teachers, with
my teachers who deceived me, with the whole of lousy Europe, every–
body deceived me. Missionary work, that's all they could say, go
out to the savages and tell them: 'Here is my Lord, just look at him,
he never strikes or kills, he issues his orders in a low voice, he turns
the other cheek, he's the greatest of masters, choose him, just see
how much better he's made me, offend me and you will see.' Yes,
I believed,
gra gra,
and I felt better, I had put on weight, I was
almost handsome, I wanted to be offended. When we would walk
out in tight black rows, in summer, under Grenoble's hot sun and
would meet girls in cotton dresses,
I
didn't look away, I despised
them, I waited for them to offend me and sometimes they would
laugh. At such times I would think: 'Let them strike me and spit
in my face,' but their laughter, to tell the truth, came to the same
thing, bristling with teeth and quips that tore me to shreds, the of–
fense and the suffering were sweet to me! My confessor couldn't un–
derstand when I used to heap accusations on myself: 'No, no, there's
good in you!' Good! There was nothing but sour wine in me, and
that was all for the best, how can a man become better if he's not
bad, I had grasped that in everything they taught me. That's the
only thing I did grasp, a single idea and, pig-headed bright boy, I
carried it to its logical conclusion, I went out of my way for pun–
ishments, I groused at the normal, in short I too wanted to be an
example in order to be noticed and so that after noticing me people
would give credit to what had made me better, through me praise
my Lord.
Fierce sun! It's rising, the desert is changing, it has lost its
mountain-cyclamen color, 0 my mountain, and the snow, the soft
