Read Online My Body in Nine Parts by Raymond Federman - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Raymond Federman
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Intensely, with a penetrating gaze. I like to observe a woman even before I speak to her. Just to get a feel of her personality. I trust my eyes.
A Frenchman once told me that I had des yeux strabiques .
I didnât know that word. So I looked it up in the dictionary.
Strabique: Affecté de strabisme .
Strabisme: Défaut de parallélisme des axes optiques des yeux, entraînant un trouble de la vision binoculaire .
Can you believe that? The guy was all wrong. There is nothing strabismic about my eyes. I donât have un oeil qui dit zut à lâautre . No, one of my eyes does not say hello to the other.
I am definitely not cross-eyed as was Jean-Paul Sartre. Now I remember how Céline once referred to Sartre as un poisson rouge strabique . I thought it was perfect.
Itâs possible that I have a shifty gaze. Shifty in the sense that it is difficult to decipher what I say with my eyes. So, one could say that I have an oblique gaze, but certainly not a strabique look.
My eyes have cried a lot in my life. And not because I am sentimental. I know that a man is not supposed to admit that he cries easily. In our time, when a man cries, itâs a sign of weakness. Itâs not masculine, we are told.
In the 18th Century men cried freely in public. Thatâs why they always had a lace handkerchief tucked into the sleeve of their coat.
Onions make me cry. I see an onion, I smell it, and immediately I start crying like a little child. When my wife is peeling onions in the kitchen, I am forced to leave the house until the onions are cooked.
A little nothing can make me cry. A burst of wind in the eye, and here come the tears. I am not ashamed to cry. Letâs say that in general I have humid eyes.
Some people have dry eyes. Others wet eyes.
It is said that dry eyes and humid eyes mark the difference between good and bad people. A dry gaze is a sign of meanness, hardness, indifference. A humid gaze shows kindness, tenderness, graciousness.
Therefore, one can determine if a person is kind or hard, tender or mean simply by looking at that personâs eyes.
So it can be said that because I have humid eyes, I am a kind person. A person who is not afraid to weep to express his emotions.
Not that I think of myself better than another, or more emotional.
But itâs especially at the movies that I cry the most. When there is a sad scene.
For instance, the other day I went to see the Italian movie called, Sorrisi a Plaza San Marco freely adapted from my novel Smiles on Washington Square . The director, Luigi Fratenelli, decided to transpose the action, the love story of Moinous and Sucette to Venice. He even changed the name of the lovers. In the film Moinous is called Romeo, and Sucette Guillieta. A little too obvious, but I was not consulted. I donât know the actors who play the part of the lovers who exchange smiles without ever talking to each other, but I must admit that they play their roles with a great deal of talent and passion. And it is in fact in the finale scene, when Guillieta gets up to leave with Roberto and drops the poor Romeo there in that trattoria, where they were having an espresso, and he tumbles back into the mud of despair and loneliness, as it is said at the end of the novel, that I started crying quietly. I remained in my seat until everyone had left the theater. Not that I was ashamed of my tears. Others next to me also cried softly. I heard them. No, I stayed there simply to enjoy my tears.
Excuse this detour to the movies, but I wanted to show you why crying is very natural for me.
I cannot prevent myself from crying. Certain persons can hold back their tears. Can sob in their throat without tears in their eyes. Not me. With me the tears have to flow. Thatâs why I always have a handkerchief in my pocket, like the gentlemen of old. Though I have replaced the lace handkerchief with paper tissues.
One never knows when the occasion will arise for me to cry.
I
A Frenchman once told me that I had des yeux strabiques .
I didnât know that word. So I looked it up in the dictionary.
Strabique: Affecté de strabisme .
Strabisme: Défaut de parallélisme des axes optiques des yeux, entraînant un trouble de la vision binoculaire .
Can you believe that? The guy was all wrong. There is nothing strabismic about my eyes. I donât have un oeil qui dit zut à lâautre . No, one of my eyes does not say hello to the other.
I am definitely not cross-eyed as was Jean-Paul Sartre. Now I remember how Céline once referred to Sartre as un poisson rouge strabique . I thought it was perfect.
Itâs possible that I have a shifty gaze. Shifty in the sense that it is difficult to decipher what I say with my eyes. So, one could say that I have an oblique gaze, but certainly not a strabique look.
My eyes have cried a lot in my life. And not because I am sentimental. I know that a man is not supposed to admit that he cries easily. In our time, when a man cries, itâs a sign of weakness. Itâs not masculine, we are told.
In the 18th Century men cried freely in public. Thatâs why they always had a lace handkerchief tucked into the sleeve of their coat.
Onions make me cry. I see an onion, I smell it, and immediately I start crying like a little child. When my wife is peeling onions in the kitchen, I am forced to leave the house until the onions are cooked.
A little nothing can make me cry. A burst of wind in the eye, and here come the tears. I am not ashamed to cry. Letâs say that in general I have humid eyes.
Some people have dry eyes. Others wet eyes.
It is said that dry eyes and humid eyes mark the difference between good and bad people. A dry gaze is a sign of meanness, hardness, indifference. A humid gaze shows kindness, tenderness, graciousness.
Therefore, one can determine if a person is kind or hard, tender or mean simply by looking at that personâs eyes.
So it can be said that because I have humid eyes, I am a kind person. A person who is not afraid to weep to express his emotions.
Not that I think of myself better than another, or more emotional.
But itâs especially at the movies that I cry the most. When there is a sad scene.
For instance, the other day I went to see the Italian movie called, Sorrisi a Plaza San Marco freely adapted from my novel Smiles on Washington Square . The director, Luigi Fratenelli, decided to transpose the action, the love story of Moinous and Sucette to Venice. He even changed the name of the lovers. In the film Moinous is called Romeo, and Sucette Guillieta. A little too obvious, but I was not consulted. I donât know the actors who play the part of the lovers who exchange smiles without ever talking to each other, but I must admit that they play their roles with a great deal of talent and passion. And it is in fact in the finale scene, when Guillieta gets up to leave with Roberto and drops the poor Romeo there in that trattoria, where they were having an espresso, and he tumbles back into the mud of despair and loneliness, as it is said at the end of the novel, that I started crying quietly. I remained in my seat until everyone had left the theater. Not that I was ashamed of my tears. Others next to me also cried softly. I heard them. No, I stayed there simply to enjoy my tears.
Excuse this detour to the movies, but I wanted to show you why crying is very natural for me.
I cannot prevent myself from crying. Certain persons can hold back their tears. Can sob in their throat without tears in their eyes. Not me. With me the tears have to flow. Thatâs why I always have a handkerchief in my pocket, like the gentlemen of old. Though I have replaced the lace handkerchief with paper tissues.
One never knows when the occasion will arise for me to cry.
I
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