Book of My Mother by Albert Cohen Read Free Book Online

kisses. Nevermore will I see her, never will I be able to wipe away my moments of indifference or anger.
    I was spiteful to her once, and she did not deserve it. Oh, the cruelty of sons! Oh, the cruelty of the absurd scene which I made! And for what reason? Because at four in the morning, worried that I had not yet come home and never able to sleep until her son had come home, she had phoned the smart set who had invited me and who were certainly her inferiors. She had phoned to be reassured, to be sure I had come to no harm. On my return I made an abominable scene. That scene is tattooed on my heart. I can see her now, so humble, my saintly mother, in the face of my stupid scolding, so heartrendingly humble, so conscious of her offense, of what she was sure was an offense. So convinced of her guilt, poor soul who had done no wrong. She was sobbing – my poor little child was sobbing. Oh, her tears that I will never be able not to have caused! Oh, her little hands in despair, on which blue marks had appeared! You see, darling, I am trying to atone by confessing. What deep suffering we can inflict on those who love us, and how awful is our power to hurt them. And what advantage we take of that power. And why was I so shamefully angry? Perhaps because her foreign accent and her incorrect French when she phoned those cultured cretins had embarrassed me. Nevermore will I hear her incorrect French and her foreign accent.
    Avenged on myself, I feel it is right and proper that I should suffer, for that night I caused suffering to a blundering saint – a true saint who was unaware that she was a saint. Brother humans, brothers in wretchedness and in superficiality, what a mockery is our filial love! I stormed at her because she loved me too much, because her heart was too ardent, because she was easily alarmed and overanxious about her son. I can hear her reassuring me. You are right, Maman, I was cruel to you but once, and I asked your forgiveness, which you granted so joyfully. You know, do you not, that I loved you with all my heart. How happy we were together, what chattering accomplices we were – such garrulous good friends, talking interminably. But I could have loved you yet more and written to you each day and given you each day a sense of your importance, which I alone was able to give you and which made you so proud, you who were humble and unacknowledged, my little genius, Maman, my dearest girl.
    I did not write her often enough. I did not have enough love in me to picture her opening her mailbox in Marseilles several times a day and finding it empty. (Now, whenever I open my mailbox and do not find my daughter’s letter – that letter I have been expecting for weeks – there is a faint smile on my face. My mother is avenged.) Worst of all, I was sometimes annoyed by her telegrams. Poor telegrams from Marseilles, always with the same wording: “Worried no news wire health.” I hate myself for having once wired in reply, with the perfume of a nymph still on my face, “I am absolutely fine letter follows.” The letter did not follow very soon. Darling, this book is my last letter.
    I cling to the thought that when I had grown up (it took quite a time) I used to give her money in secret, and with it the disinterested joy of knowing she was being looked after by her son. I should have bought her a vacuum cleaner. It would have given her poetic pleasure. She would have paid it a little visit from time to time, cherished it, and examined it from all angles, taking an artistic little step backward and sighing with satisfaction. Those things mattered to her, gave color to her life. I also clutch at the thought that I so often listened to her and took part hypocritically in the family feuds which she found so absorbing and which bored me rather. I agreed with her, told her she was right to criticize a particular relative who was in her bad books – the very same relative whom she praised to the skies two days later if