Book of My Mother by Albert Cohen

Author:Albert Cohen [Cohen, Albert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781935744542
Publisher: Archipelago Books
Published: 2012-04-24T07:00:00+00:00

XII

SHE WAITED three hours for me in that square. Three hours which I could have spent with her. While she was waiting for me, wreathed in patience, I chose to concern myself, stupidly enthralled, with some poetic amber damsel, abandoning the wheat for the chaff. I missed three hours of my mother’s life. And for whom, good God? For an Atalanta, an attractive arrangement of flesh. I dared to prefer an Atalanta to the most sacred goodness, to my mother’s love, my mother’s incomparable love.

Incidentally, if some sudden illness had deprived me of my strength or merely all my teeth, the poetic damsel would have pointed me out and ordered her maid to sweep away that toothless garbage. Or, more nobly, the high-minded filly would have sensed – suddenly sensed in all pureness and in a flash of spiritual revelation – that she no longer loved me and that it would be impure not to live in truth and to go on seeing a man she no longer loved. Her soul would have made off on wings of scorn. Those noble creatures love men who are strong, energetic, and assertive – in other words, gorillas. Toothless or not, strong or weak, young or old, our mothers love us. And the weaker we are, the more they love us. Our mothers’ incomparable love.

A brief remark in passing. If poor Romeo had suddenly had his nose cut clean off in an accident, when Juliet next saw him she would have fled in horror. Thirty grams less meat and Juliet’s soul is no longer nobly stirred. Thirty grams less and that is the end of sublime moonlit babble, of “It is not yet near day: it was the nightingale, and not the lark.” If as a result of some hypophyseal disorder Hamlet had lost thirty kilos, Ophelia would no longer love him with all her soul. Ophelia’s soul can only reach divine heights of intensity if it has at least sixty kilos of beefsteak to feed on. It is true that if Laura had suddenly lost both legs, Petrarch would have dedicated less mystical poems to her. And yet poor Laura’s gaze would have been unchanged, and her soul too. Ah yes, but good Petrarch’s soul cannot love Laura’s soul unless she has pretty little thighs. Poor meat eaters that we are, one and all, spouting bunkum about the soul. Enough, my friend, cut it out – they’ve got the message.

My mother’s incomparable love. She was completely uncritical where her son was concerned. She accepted everything I did, possessed with the divine genius which makes a divinity of the beloved – the poor beloved who is so far from divine. If one evening I suggested going to the cinema, she would immediately declare that it was a wonderful idea and that “Yes, indeed, we must have some fun and enjoy ourselves while we’re alive” and “Really, it’s crazy to be sensible” and “Why on earth should we shut ourselves up at home like old people, so I’m ready, my darling, I’ve only to put on my hat.

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