Read Online The Breast by Philip Roth - Free Book Online

passionately well-meaning literature teacher I was always fond of ending the hour with something moving for the students to carry from the uncontaminated classroom out into the fallen world of junk food and pop stars and dope. True, Kepesh’s occupation’s gone— Othello, Act III, Scene 3—but I haven’t lost entirely a teacher’s good intentions. Maybe I haven’t even lost my students. On the basis of my fame, I may even have acquired vast new flocks of undergraduate sheep, as innocent of calamity as of verse. I may even be a pop star now myself and have just what it takes to bring great poetry to the people.
    (“Your fame?” says Dr. Klinger. “Surely the world knows by now,” I say, “excepting perhaps the Russians and Chinese.” “In accordance with your wishes, the case has been handled with the utmost discretion.” “But my friends know. The staff here knows. That’s enough of a start for something like this.” “True. But by the time the news filters beyond those who know and out to the man in the street, he tends by and large not to believe it.” “He thinks it’s a joke.” “If he can take his mind off his own troubles long enough to think anything at all.” “And the media? You’re suggesting they’ve done nothing with this either?” “Nothing at all.” “I don’t buy that, Dr. Klinger.” “Don’t. I’m not going to argue. I told you long ago—there of course were inquiries in the beginning. But nothing was done to assist anyone, and after a while these people have a living to make like everybody else, and they move right along to the next promising misfortune.” “Then no one knows all that’s happened.” “All? No one but you knows it all, Mr. Kepesh.” “Well, maybe I should be the one to tell all then.” “Then you will be famous, won’t you?” “Better the truth than tabloid fantasy. Better from me than from the chattering madmen and morons.” “Of course the madmen and the morons will chatter anyway, you know. You realize that you will never be taken on your own terms, regardless of what you say.” “I’ll still be a joke.” “A joke. A freak. If you insist on being the one to tell them, a charlatan too.” “You’re advising me to leave well enough alone. You’re advising me to keep this all to myself.” “I’m advising you nothing, only reminding you of our friend with the beard who sits on the throne.” “Mr. Reality.” “And his principle,” says Klinger.)
    And now to conclude the hour with the poem by Rainer Maria Rilke entitled “Archaic Torso of Apollo” written in Paris in 1908. Perhaps my story, told here in its entirety for the first time, and with all the truthfulness that’s in me, will at the very least illuminate these great lines for those of you new to the poem—particularly the poet’s concluding admonition, which may not be so elevated a sentiment as appears at first glance. Morons and madmen, tough guys and skeptics, friends, students, relatives, colleagues, and all you distracted strangers, with your billion different fingerprints and faces—my fellow mammalians, let us proceed with our education, one and all.
    We did not know his legendary head,
    in which the eyeballs ripened. But
    his torso still glows like a candelabrum
    in which his gaze, only turned low,
    holds and gleams. Else could not the curve
    of the breast blind you, nor in the slight turn
    of the loins could a smile be running
    to that middle, which carried procreation.
    Else would this stone be standing maimed and short
    under the shoulders’ translucent plunge
    nor flimmering like the fell of beasts of prey
    nor breaking out of all its contours
    like a star: for there is no place
    that does not see you. You must change your