tonguebreaks:milforg:Isabelle Adjani listening to a man with bangs speak, 1977 1.Her attention wande
tonguebreaks:milforg:Isabelle Adjani listening to a man with bangs speak, 1977 1.Her attention wandered. She had heard it all before. I, I, I–he went on. It was like a vulture’s beak pecking, or a vacuum-cleaner sucking, or a telephone bell ringing. I, I, I. But he couldn’t help it, not with that nerve-drawn egotist’s face, she thought, glancing at him. He could not free himself, could not detach himself. He was bound on the wheel with tight iron hoops. He had to expose, had to exhibit. But why let him? she thought, as he went on talking. For what do I care about his “I, I, I”? Or his poetry? Let me shake him off then, she said to herself, feeling like a person whose blood has been sucked, leaving all the nerve-centres pale. She paused. He noted her lack of sympathy. He thought her stupid, she supposed.“I’m tired,” she apologised. “I’ve been up all night,” she explained. “I’m a doctor–”The fire went out of his face when she said “I.” That’s done it–now he’ll go, she thought. He can’t be “you”–he must be “I.” She smiled. For up he got and off he went. Virginia Woolf, The Years2. “Oh my, really?” I said. (I don’t know at what.) He beamed. He began to tell me about a grant he was going to get. He told me this in a confidential way (leaning very close across the table) and I thought in a confused fashion–or my manners must have been slipping–or I’d been watching the front window too long–anyway, one ought to help, oughtn’t one?–so I answered without thinking (my analyst and I worked on this too but we didn’t get anywhere):“Don’t do it. Just don’t do it. They make you work too hard for your money. I know; I’ve gotten grants from them twice.”There was a strained silence. Perhaps I’d discouraged him. He told me the names of his last four articles, which had been published in various places; he told me where, and then he told me what editors had said about them (the articles). He was talking with that edge in his voice that means I’ve provoked something or done something impolite or failed to do something I should’ve done…Joanna Russ, On Strike Against God3. “I never had a mother, as I told you. Now I find that everyone else has had something that I missed.” He smiled at her. “I am entirely selfish,” he said ruefully, “and always hoping that someone will tell me to behave, someone will make herself responsible for me and make me be grown-up.”He is altogether selfish, she thought in some surprise, the only man I have ever sat and talked to alone, and I am impatient; he is simply not very interesting. “Why don’t you grow up by yourself?” she asked him, and wondered how many people—how many women—had already asked him that.“You’re clever.” And how many times had he answered that way?This conversation must be largely instinctive, she thought with amusement, and said gently, “You must be a very lonely person.” All I want is to be cherished, she thought, and here I am talking gibberish with a selfish man. “You must be very lonely indeed.”He touched her hand, and smiled again. “You were so lucky,” he told her. “You had a mother.”Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House4. She had not realized before that she hated men. But she did, and this was one of the reasons why: this incessant demand for sympathy and interest from every woman in the vicinity. Jungsheng did not like Siew Tsin, he did not even know her, and yet he was extending his appeal to her. It was a sticky thing, his need, with tentacles that would strangle her if they could.Zen Cho, The Terracotta Bride -- source link