The Wall: (Intimacy) and Other Stories (New Directions Paperbook)
Jean-Paul Sartre
Language: English
Pages: 144
ISBN: 0811201902
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
One of Sartre’s greatest existentialist works of fiction, The Wall contains the only five short stories he ever wrote. Set during the Spanish Civil War, the title story crystallizes the famous philosopher’s existentialism.
'The Wall', the lead story in this collection, introduces three political prisoners on the night prior to their execution. Through the gaze of an impartial doctor—seemingly there for the men's solace—their mental descent is charted in exquisite, often harrowing detail. And as the morning draws inexorably closer, the men cross the psychological wall between life and death, long before the first shot rings out. This brilliant snapshot of life in anguish is the perfect introduction to a collection of stories where the neurosis of the modern world is mirrored in the lives of the people that inhabit it . This is an unexpurgated edition translated from the French by Lloyd Alexander.
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Backward and saw him take a watch from his pocket and look at it for a moment, never letting go of the wrist. After a minute he let the hand fall inert and went and leaned his back against the wall, then, as if he suddenly remembered something very important which had to be jotted down on the spot, he took a notebook from his pocket and wrote a few lines. “Bastard,” I thought angrily, “let him come and take my pulse. I’ll shove my fist in his rotten face.” He didn’t come but I felt him watching.
Began to shake his curls and stamp his feet shouting, “Baroom, tarataraboom!” and the grown-ups continued their conversation as though he did not exist. He ran to the garden and slipped out by the back door; he had brought his little reed cane with him. Naturally, Lucien was never supposed to leave the garden, it was forbidden; usually Lucien was a good little boy but that day he felt like disobeying. He looked defiantly at the big nettle patch; you could see it was a forbidden place; the wall.
Understand. Then I was afraid of having nightmares. I got up, walked back and forth, and, to change my ideas, I began to think about my past life. A crowd of memories came back to me pell-mell. There were good and bad ones—or at least I called them that before. There were faces and incidents. I saw the face of a little novillero who was gored in Valencia during the Feria, the face of one of my uncles, the face of Ramon Gris. I remembered my whole life: how I was out of work for three months in.
Complexes!” They got the habit of interpreting their dreams and their slightest gestures; Berliac always had so many stories to tell that Lucien suspected him of inventing them, or at least enlarging them. But they got along well and approached the most delicate subjects with objectivity; they confessed to each other that they wore a mask of gaiety to deceive their associates but at heart were terribly tormented. Lucien was freed from his worries. He threw himself greedily into psychoanalysis.
Hers, his lips still wet from kisses, refusing the humble happiness she offered him: alone. Then he clasped Maud’s fingers tightly and tears came to his eyes: he would have liked to make her happy. One morning in December, Lemordant came up to Lucien; he held a paper. “You want to sign?” he asked. “What is it?” “Because of the kikes at the Normale Sup; they sent the Oeuvre a petition against compulsory military training with 200 signatures. So we’re protesting; we need a thousand names at least:.