"I was horrified that I couldn't feel anything at her death. I had really loved Granny, and the hymns that we'd chosen together were sung. Why then couldn't I grieve? Long after the funeral, my comforter was replaced by Granny's - my mother's only inheritance. In the evening when I pulled it up over me, Granny's special smell of clean linen flooded over me, and then I cried for the first time and understood what had happened. Oh, Granny, you'll never hear me sing again. You'll never spread real butter on my bread again, and what you've forgotten to tell me about your life will now never be revealed. Every evening, for a long time, I cried myself to sleep, for the smell continued to cling to the comforter."
"Is wounded vanity not the mother of all tragedies? But where pride is wounded, there something even better than pride grows.
For life to be a proper spectacle, its play must be well-played; but for this good play actors are needed.
I found all vain people to be good actors; they play and want to be spectacular – all their spirit is focused in this willing.
They perform themselves, they invent themselves; in their proximity I love to be a spectator of life – it heals me of my melancholy.
Therefore I spare the vain, because they are physicians for my melancholy and keep me riveted to people as if to a play.
And then: who could measure the full depth of the vain man’s modesty! I mean him well and pity him his modesty.
From you he wants to acquire his faith in himself; he nourishes himself from your glances, he eats praise from your hands.
He even believes your lies, when you lie well about him; for at bottom his heart sighs: “what am I?”
And if the truest virtue is the one that is not aware of itself, well; the vain man knows nothing of his modesty!"
On Human PrudenceKitabı okuyor
Rock’s depression and angst only boiled harder with each cutting remark. He’d never been good enough. Not good enough for his blood parents, and certainly not good enough for his adopted mother.
THE LOTTERY
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o’clock; in some towns there were so many people that the lottery took
Sayfa 219Kitabı okudu
She knew how attractive she was, and although she rarely listened to her mother, there was one thing her mother said that she never forgot: 'Beauty, my dear, doesn't last'..
“Tell me, Mother Gothel, why are my clothes becoming too tight? They don’t fit me any more."
