Joe’s Reviews > Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter > Status Update
Joe
is 31% done
I infinitely preferred the prospect of working for a living to that of marriage: at least it offered some hope. There had to be people who had done things: I, too, would do things. I didn't quite know what; astronomy, archeology, and palaeontology had in their turn appealed to me, and I was still toying vaguely with the idea of writing.
— Apr 28, 2019 01:19PM
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Joe
is 73% done
I had never set foot in a café before, and now here I was in a bar, at night, with two young men; this was something really extraordinary for me. The pale or violently coloured bottles, the bowls of olives and salted almonds, the little tables--it all filled me with wonder. I quickly knocked back my cocktail, and as I had never touched alcohol before, not even wine, which I didn't like, I was soon pretty high.
— Apr 30, 2019 05:29PM
Joe
is 48% done
That evening, as usual, he treated me like a little girl; but there was such kindness in his voice and in his smiles that I felt very glad simply to have seen him again. When I laid my head on my pillow that night, my eyes filled with tears. 'I weep, therefore I love,' I told myself, with rapturous melancholy. I was seventeen: it was the age for that sort of thing.
— Apr 29, 2019 10:49PM
Joe
is 47% done
My father, the majority of writers, and the universal consensus of opinion encouraged young men to sow their wild oats. When the time came, they would marry a young woman of their own social class; but in the meanwhile it was quite in order for them to amuse themselves with women of easy virtue, young milliners' assistants, work-girls, sewing-maids, shopgirls. This custom made me feel sick.
— Apr 29, 2019 10:22PM
Joe
is 47% done
The information Madeleine proffered was always rather odd: she explained to me that physical pleasure depends on one's personal tastes: her friend Nini couldn't do anything unless her partner kissed or tickled the soles of her feet. I wondered, with sickening curiosity, whether my own body contained hidden springs from which one day unpredictable sensations would suddenly leap to life.
— Apr 29, 2019 10:02PM
Joe
is 44% done
I would get Papa's opera glasses, take them out of their case and spy on the lives of strangers; I was--I still am--very conscious of the fascination of these little peep-shows, these lighted rooms hanging in the night. My gaze would wander from house to house, and I would tell myself, deeply affected by the balmy airs of the summer evening: 'Soon I'll be living my own life ... really living."
— Apr 29, 2019 09:08PM
Joe
is 35% done
Papa used to say with pride: 'Simone has a man's brain; she thinks like a man; she is a man.' And yet everyone treated me like a girl. But I did not give up all hope. I had confidence in my future. Women, by the exercise of talent or knowledge, had carved out a place for themselves in the universe of men. But I felt impatient of the delays I had to endure.
— Apr 28, 2019 01:56PM
Joe
is 23% done
All day long, I felt that people’s eyes were upon me; I liked and even loved the people around me, but when I went to bed at night I felt a sharp sense of relief at the idea of being able to live at least for a little while without being watched by others; then I could talk to myself, allow my emotions a free reign and hearken to those tender inner promptings which are stifled by the presence of grown-ups.
— Apr 27, 2019 10:30PM
Joe
is 21% done
People said sometimes in front of my sister and myself: "They are lucky to be children! They don't realize ..." But deep inside I would be shouting: "Grown-ups don't understand anything at all about us!" Sometimes I would feel overwhelmed by something so bitter and so very definite that no one, I was sure, could ever have known distress worse than mine. Why should there be so much suffering? I would ask myself.
— Apr 27, 2019 08:59PM
Joe
is 15% done
Without striving to imitate her, I was conditioned by her. She inculcated in me a sense of duty as well as teaching me unselfishness and austerity. My father was not averse to the limelight, but I learnt from Mama to keep in the background, to control my tongue, to moderate my desires, to say and do exactly what ought to be said and done.
— Apr 27, 2019 06:12PM
Joe
is 14% done
My father treated me like a fully developed person; my mother watched over me as a mother watches over a child; and a child I still was. She was more indulgent toward me than he: she found it quite natural that I should be a silly little girl, whereas my stupidity only exasperated my father; she was amused by my childish sayings and scribblings; he found them quite unfunny.
— Apr 27, 2019 05:31PM
