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From the “How Linux Will Save the World” Series

September 9, 2003 / Jim

The biological human was created to struggle
against chaos, to seek order, put things in their place. It is this
never ending quest that gives us something to do, something to strive
for. It is this quest that will eventually finish us.

We need chaos, the unexpected, the uncontrollable. It is only
through mutation, disorder, messiness that we grow as humans and become
more god like.

Technology will eventually completely rob our souls from us,
dehumanizing others to the point where a point and click will terminate
a relationship.. A point and a click may eventually signify the end of
a life. We are already heading in that direction. Think smart bombs,
cruise missles.

I read today of a 18 foot wide vending machine that basically
replaces a convenience store. It is being field tested here in the US.
The Roboshop is already popular in Japan, where space is at a premium
and wages are high for unskilled labor.

Imagine a world with no convenience stores or more importantly no
convenience store clerks, waiters, service folks. There would be no
friendly hellos, no eye contact, no have a nice day. We will all live
our lives inside the bubble of our needs that are instantaneously
satisfied, gratified, and quelled. We will download our music, order
groceries on the web, pick up milk and eggs from a vending machine,
self check out at K-mart. We won’t go outside to check the weather or
look at the sky. We will watch CNN to tell us what to think. We will
bio-engineer our children, take more pills to delay aging, and seize
more and more control. Like a hungry dictator we will pacify the
masses. Give them what is good for for them. Control is everything.

We have fewer children later in life. We control reproduction. It’s
messy business. The time isn’t right. Well guess what? The time is
never right for messiness. Messiness is something we would never choose
for ourselves. We never choose disorder. It serendipitously finds us.
It must. We need it. It is the guide that we need it to be. Want has
nothing to do with anything. What we think we want trips us up, lets us
down, and never ever meets our expectations.

Yet we want to control. We WANT to know. It’s built in. We classify,
pacify, and create structure. We crave control like crack cocaine. The
more we have the more we want and less satisfied we are.

Here’s the Rub

I sometimes get a glimpse into the world of Microsoft. Why did
Windows succeed so completely, so dominantly? Windows is everywhere. It
is on every new PC. It’s bought stolen, copied, pre-installed. We want
it and we will do anything to get it.

I am more and more convinced that it is because Microsoft gives the
drug addict what he craves so desperately. Control. While the service
centered Unix world was carefully creating interdependence among their
consultants and Value Added Resellers (VARS), Microsoft was out
creating a cheap product individual customers could use and control on
their very own. It was simple. It was not multi-user. It gave the basic
user a sense that it was something they could manage. It did not take a
staff of sysadmins and a ten thousand dollar budget to get it up and
running and do something useful. The PC running Microsoft Windows, gave
us poor humans a bone to chew on. Sure it was just a bone, but
we owned that bone. We bought it and it was ours, and we didn’t have to
depend on ANYONE.

Windows is a technology that is built to satisfy humanity’s all
consuming craving for control. Bill Gates has known this for some time.
Bill knows we want the crack. He supplies the crack. We reward him.
Sure our lives are miserable, but he gives us what we feel is control.
He supplies us with technology to buy and use. We have a problem we
download a patch. We fix the problem. We have a virus, we buy a virus
scanner. We need to create a document, we buy Word. We buy a solution,
prepackaged with all the features Microsoft has told us we would need.
Why deal with the messy details of our particular problem.
Why try to explain it someone and have them help us out. Just buy some
software and all problems fit nicely into its container. All supersets
do not exist. Problems outside the glossy plastic and End User License
Agreement simply cannot be.

Maybe you need to buy another piece of software or wait until Microsoft tells you that the problem exists.

In our culture of self-reliance it was the car that beat out the bus or train.

The Camel of Chaos Puts Its Nose in the Tent

I don’t know if Linux will ever overtake Microsoft. I don’t know if
liberation will ever overtake order. I do know that there has begun a
revolution though. Linux was created by an ethnic swede living in
Finland, named Linus
Torvalds. Linux was created by a person who wanted a Unix machine but
could not afford it. He decided to do something to take control of the
situation. He wrote a version of Unix for himself and named it Linux.
He pacified his need, he created order.

Like a madman though, Linus threw it all away. He threw a monkey
wrench into the mix. He scattered his jigsaw puzzle. He shuffled the
deck. He kicked down the towering cathedral and tossed its pieces to
the hungry mob. You are hungry, he said. Feast on this.

Linus made one particular decision that would plunge the world of
technology into a state of disorder the likes of which have never been
seen. He gave his code away.

The hunger that had consumed so many without them even knowing it,
had left them gaunt, wild-eyed. They had been users, disconnected from
each other, feeding on what they thought would nourish their souls.
They had not realized what the truth was, and how with it, they would
never go hungry again.

Linux just may give us hope afterall.

Linux is about messiness, confusion, interdependence. It is harder
to use, harder to accept. Its Truth is not for the faint of heart.
Linux requires of you. It requires that you deal with people to get it
running to use its potential. Linux requires that you admit your need,
admit your failings, admit your incompleteness. It will never lie to
you. However, should you accept it, Linux will take you to heights that
few users have known.

Linux did not come to conquer Bill Gates. Linux did not come to define your problem and solve it.

Linux came to give you something that you might not want. Linux will set you free.

Now, I don’t know if Linux is the future of computing or not. Will
it be killed not by Microsoft but by the listlessness and smallness of
humanity? Will Linux be struck down by our inability to accept chaos
and its
inability to solve our need for order?

I don’t know the answers. But I do know one thing. If technology
will eventually dehumanize us to the point where life has no meaning,
then Linux is our only hope.

Unintended Consquences of the Proliferation of Security Cameras.

August 30, 2003 / Jim

Just think of all the potential presidential candidates that would be disqualified for being nose-pickers.

Worker on phone with headquarters

"We can’t support that candidate, sir. He was caught on a Walmart security camera rooting around in his nose."

"No, we couldn’t supress it. CNN’s already got copies. You think Ford’s
stumbling was bad… Sir, we’re going to have to dump him. Inviable
candidate. Need to find someone with shorter softer nose hairs and less
mucus buildup."

"We will start looking for a clean nose right away. There’s
nothing more important in a presidential candidate than naturally clean
nasal passages."

Remedial School for the Critical Thinking of Liberals

August 26, 2003 / Jim

www.townhall.com

I read this essay linked from fark.com (silly news site with
interesting links all over the web, highly recommended). Its basic
premise is that liberals are naive and narcissistic. He raises some
interesting points, but I think makes a couple of subtle errors that
conservatives always make when naysaying liberals.

“Liberals are always looking for excuses.” That is,
they excuse bad behavior or failure as the fault of society,
education, television etc. Many liberals will take this sophmoric bashing and fail to achieve an argumentative upper hand.
I sometimes wonder if they have not been properly schooled or had
their weapons sharpened to the precise edges necessary to do battle.
Conservatives love to slice and dice you on the value of your words.
A-ha, I nailed you through that chink in your armor. You must be
precise. Your imprecision is your failing. Your anger unbalances
you, grasshopper, or some such nonsense.

Your taxes benefit the rich!

Who are these rich?

Your policies hurt poor people.

Which policies?

Sometimes liberals have a difficult time answering these
questions. They feel they are right, but haven’t polished their
game. Conservatives know this and set back at a safe distance
hurling precise questions to which they know their opponent has no
answer.

You see, liberals feel things. I’m going to tell you how to feel
things and still make your case. I’m going to give you a tool
straight from the golf bag of your conservative rival. You are going
to use this club and you are going to beat him with it.

Let us begin.

First, yes, I agree with you. There are never excuses. People
make choices and some of them are bad. They sometimes make these
wrong choices because of things in their environment, but there are
never excuses. You are never excused from abiding by the law. You
are never excused for not giving your children all the possible
advantages that they deserve. You are never excused for your
failings. So, yes, I agree with you Mr. Conservative. People should
stop making excuses, looking for ways to peddle cupability to some
other unlucky soul or business or institution. You are not taking
responsibility for yourself and what is worse, you are handing your
power to that which does not have the right to retain power from you.
You are setting yourself up as a hapless victim by continuing to
abdicate your hard earned volition, your precious vehicle for success,
your humanity. You have become just one of “them,” one
of those powerless, victimized masses to whom much happens but the
flurry of motion disguises the true lack of forward movement.

To you, you tragic characters in a tragic play, I say, you are not
absolved. You are not excused. You are not through.

What a wonderful point you make. I couldn’t have made it better
myself.

Good, because now I am going to ask what are you going to do about
it?

Do about it? Why nothing, you said it yourself, people must take
personal responsibility.

But you see, we have a problem. This country has a problem. This
problem is here and now.

A problem created by you liberals. You and your social programs.
You’ve created a cycle of dependency, a cycle of crime, a cycle of
poverty.

It’s OUR fault? I thought it was THEIR fault?

War, what’s it really good for?

March 9, 2003 / Jim

I’ve become increasingly distressed and appalled by the world climate, both for what this administration is trying to do and what everyone else is doing about it (nothing).

I saw a headline yesterday that read: "US Steps Up Diplomacy Efforts for War with Iraq." Does anyone but me see the horrific oxymoron there? Using diplomacy as a tool to consecrate war? Huh? Let’s try an exercise shall we? Every time you see the word WAR replace it with FIRE. And every time you see the word SOLDIER or ARMY replace it with FIREFIGHTER. If you do that, you will not be tricked into seeing something that ain’t there. Let’s use diplomacy to try to convince the world that it’s time to start a fire. Now that doesn’t make sense does it?

A fire is something you don’t want. A fire is a failure, whether it be electrical wiring, a space heater, an accident, or arson. In any of these cases, it’s obvious. You send in the firefighters to put it out. There’s the blaze, let’s put it out. We have to save what people we can, get them out, maybe lose some of our own lives in the process, but in the end we put the fire out and go back to the fire station.

If you see smoke, there’s probably a fire. You send in the firefighters. They put it out. Anything short of that you DO NOT send in firefighters. Let me repeat.

Firefighters fight fires.

Why do I need to say it again? Well, there’s this guy that thinks that firefighters must also fix electrical wiring, stop arsonists, make sure space heaters aren’t next to the drapes, and that people don’t let kids play with matches.

Inspectors inspect wiring to prevent fires. Police arrest arsonists. Manufacturers and good education help people prevent accidental fires from heaters. Parents watch their kids to make sure they don’t play with matches.

Soldiers fight wars.

Soldiers are not police. Soldiers are not parents. Soldiers are not inspectors. Soldiers are not babysitters. We only fight wars when there is one, when diplomacy has FAILED, when an accident has happened, or when an crazy man has done something horrible.

WE GO PUT IT OUT! Then we go home. We leave the job then to the UN (Police), Inspection Teams, International Aid organizations, and other specific international bodies.

Bosnia? We went in, we kicked ass (put out the fire), and then stood down. We now have troops as part of the UN peacekeeping force, but let me be clear. They are not fighting fires. They are firefighters working for the city government trying to see that no more fires break out in this fire torn area. Our soldiers are working for an international body and are NOT fighting a war. The US firefighting team is not there. The UN Police force IS there though, of which we are a member.

Is that clear?

So, let’s summarize. We can’t go into Iraq, until one of the following happens:

There is a fire. Saddam does something stupid.
There is smoke. Saddam does something stupid.

If neither of those things is the case, than the US CANNOT go in as itself, a great firefighting squad.

If there is imminent danger, kid playing with matches, passing them around, a space heater is dangerously close to a drape, a guy buys some gasoline and matches, or we notice that the electrical system is not up to code, then we send in inspectors, police, observers, and a construction crew to make repairs.

We CANNOT do those jobs, no more than a firefighter can wrestle an assailant to the ground, babysit the kids, and be the handyman that puts your house up to code.

Our soldiers stand ready to move at a moment’s notice. We pledge to put out fires whenever the fire house bell rings. We will put out a fire if one erupts. We will put it out quickly, with as little loss of life as possible, and we will do our jobs. But, we DO NOT like to stand idly by while our fire captain runs out of firehouse with a can of gasoline and a match calling to us as he scrambles out, "Hey guys, I’ll have some work for you in a minute."

Watching Spiderman with Olaia

January 7, 2003 / Jim

"Daddy, can we watch the Spiderman DVD?"

"Sure, little girl. Let’s watch Spiderman." I get up and pop the DVD into the player and press play.

"Daddy, why is Peter Parker running after the bus?"

"Because he is late for school and he missed his bus. So he is chasing it to try to catch it."

"Oh"

"Daddy, is that man bad?" pointing at the Norman Osbourne character pre Green Goblin.

"Well, no, not exactly. He has a company like your mommy and daddy,
and he is having problems. He decided to try to test his special
strength formula on himself. It didn’t work right and now he is a bad
guy."

"Oh, how come he’s talking to himself?"

"He has a split personality. He has the Green Goblin inside himself and it is making him be bad. He is crazy."

"He’s not really a bad guy?"

"Not really. He’s sick and needs to see a doctor."

"Oh," she said, satisfied that she had exhausted the topic and
quickly moved onto another. "Daddy, why did that spider bite Peter
Parker?"

"He was hungry. That’s what gave Peter Parker his powers. The spider
was a special spider. It’s just make believe, Olaia, but in the movie
that little spider has special powers and gives special spider powers
to Peter Parker."

"Cool," Olaia said, eyes opening wide.

"Daddy, Peter Parker is climbing up the wall. That’s neat. I wish I was Spiderman."

Chuckle.

"And Daddy, he can jump really really high and shoot those things out of his hands."

"Webs, Olaia," I say.

"Webs, yeah. And swing. He swinged into the sign, didn’t he, Daddy.

"Yeah, hehe."

"Daddy, you can make popcorn now."

Hehe, don’t you just love that little girl. It’s like having my very
own PowerPuff Girl. And it went on and on and on. She loves
Spiderman… a girl after my own heart.

A Taste of Puerto Rico

November 15, 2002 / Jim

You have arrived on the island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory in the Caribbean Sea. You have traveled a long way, about 1000 miles south east of Florida in the Greater Antilles and about 500 miles north of Venezuela. I would love to tell you all about Puerto Rico, but instead of all the basics, I will try to give you the flavor, el sabor, of Puerto Rico. El Sabor means "the flavor" in the local language of Spanish.

Flavor is something that is taken very seriously here.

It is hard to talk about where I live without mentioning food, as it is a central focus of local culture. The other day, I was in a cafeteria ordering food, and there were people around me picking out their lunch items from the displays. They asked for the food to be served on their plates with such cariño (care, or adoration pronounced cahr-EEN-yo), I almost believed they were speaking to a beloved family member, like a dear grandparent, in the most reverent tones. Each dish, yuca in garlic sauce, fried pork, beans liberally applied to the top of the rice, was carefully selected with much respect and devotion.

These were gruff men, in from construction sites, labor jobs, working hard in the hot sun. It was a hot day, as it is hot year around, 85o and with tropical humidity. Some of the men were picking up food for their co-workers, selecting it with the same care as their own. They were on a mission to obtain that special dish, a taste of home-cooked comfort food like mom used to make.

As I watched these men all pick their lunches, I heard them laughing, joking, teasing each other in a jovial manner. Although sweaty from a hard morning of work, they welcomed the rest, air conditioning, and the smells of food that seemed to bring them alegria (happiness pronounced ah-ley-GREE-ya).

Puerto Rican food consists of mainly rice (arroz pronounced ahr-ROHZ) and beans (habichuelas pronounced ah-bee-CHU-ey-las) in a sauce called sofrito. There are many variations of this dish. Sometimes the beans are white, pink, green. Sometimes the sauce has potatoes or another root called yuca or pumpkin (calabasa), and different herbs. I like my rice and beans with an avocado on top. When the avocados are in season, they add a refreshing accent to the dish.

Some other typical Puerto Rican foods are rice and chicken (which is my favorite), fried meat pockets called acapurias (pronounced ah-cah-POO-ree-as), fried fish fritters called bacalaitos (cod fish pronounced bah-cah-lah-EE-toes), plantains (a cousin of the banana that is eaten green here and tastes like potatoes). One of my favorite snack foods is something called tostones (pronounced toe-STONE-ays ) which are fried mashed plantains. They are sort of like round french fries, but tastier.

I picked up my lunch, paid my five dollars, and stepped outside into the hot tropical sun. My car, a little Ford Focus, was like an oven, so I let it cool a bit before getting in. Once back on the road, I realized my oasis of comfort and rest was over, as the cars and hustle and bustle of San Juan closed in around me. San Juan is a very crowded metropolitan city of 2 million people in just a few square miles. I would compare it to Newark, New Jersey in terms of population and crowding. In general, Puerto Rico is a pretty small island, just 100 miles by 35 miles. Oops, I hit a pot hole. I should pay more attention. I sure don’t want to have to change the tire again, especially since it has started to rain heavily. In fact, it rains very heavily almost every day, but only for a short time, and then the hot sun drys it out in just a few minutes. You can watch the steam rise up off of the hot streets. There is so much sunshine and so much rain, that rainbows are a frequent occurrence. I stopped taking pictures of them after about a hundred.

I finally got back to my office where I checked my e-mail and had a cup of coffee. Coffee here in Puerto Rico is truly something to savor. Local culture, as with all things of the palette, holds coffee as one of its most prized possessions. Puerto Ricans will proudly tell you that during the 1600’s to 1800’s Puerto Rico supplied the Pope in Rome with coffee grown here. They will also tell you that la tierra (the earth) in Puerto Rico is better suited for its cultivation than any other coffee growing country, including Colombia. It is just that Puerto Rico doesn’t have as much land to grow coffee as Colombia. Coffee is Puerto Rico’s quiet little secret and is only exported to the finest coffee stores in the US. I drink it every day and consider it one of the finest pleasures.

After a hard week at work, we decided to take a break and head for the beach. You can go the beach and swim every day of the year in Puerto Rico. The heat which makes you sweat, also allows you comfortably enjoy the ocean any time you want. The water in the summer is sometimes as warm as bath water. I prefer swimming in the winter when it is slightly cooler and more refreshing.

You Are the Heart, I am the Body

October 20, 2002 / Jim

You are the heart. I am the body. Without me, there is no action, no
animation, no progress. Without you I cannot live. I cannot respire.

When I was tired, and I closed my eyes, lay in the ditch and waited for
the end, you kept beating, beating, beating, for you knew not what else
to do.

Let’s Settle this OpenOffice vs. MSOffice Debate Once and for All, Shall We?

September 24, 2002 / Jim

Man oh, man, if I hear another person say OpenOffice isn’t ready for prime time, I swear I’m gonna yank out their odbc and hit them over the head with it.

In my experience joe-generic office drone, when faced with OpenOffice or MS Office, is gonna make all the same mistakes independent of brand.

Word vs. Writer

He’s going to double carriage return to put spaces between paragraphs. He’s going to indent with spaces. He’s going to to use the B I U and font settings to change heading’s characteristics (which are double carriage returned as well). He’s going to freak out if you mention ODBC and mail merge. He’s going to tediously type out envelopes and form letters (“testing” them in the printer to align them correctly). After you teach him how to mail merge off of a DB, or that documents are easier to update when you define styles etc., he will thank you. When you return a few weeks later, he will be back to his same tried and true plodding slow-wittedness.

Powerpoint vs. Presenter

He’s going to make a presentation by first deciding on a background and header style. Then he’s going to mess with borders for 30 minutes. Then he’s going to play around with slide transitions. Then he’s going to import some useless graphics. Eventually he will think about content. Once there, he will repeat steps used to make the text document. You doubt me? Tell me if you’ve seen this done before? Gettysburg

Excel vs. Calc:

Will pore over columns of numbers for hours, hand editing and typing values. He will alt-tab between his spreadsheet and his calculator program to add numbers. He will select some columns and make a chart, spending 15 minutes to find the pie/scatter/bar configuration that looks prettiest, and then proceed to misname the dependent and independent axises. Then he will select fonts, backgrounds, borders… and then spend no less then three hours trying to get his 40×129 monstrosity to fit on ONE page. He will waste no less then 40 sheets of paper to accomplish this. Upon success he will make 56 copies for distribution.

Did I miss anything? I’d say both products let people do their work as they normally do. I’ve observed for some time and both products give you equal levels of functionality.

This has been my experience for 95% of all office workers, and I also find that their adamance towards MS is inversely proportional to their competence with it.

Kid’s Say the Darnedest Things

September 10, 2002 / Jim

From being in the grocery store today with Olaia.

Olaia Really loud: Daddy, why does that lady have a sticker on her butt?

I look up, noticing that the woman standing next to me has a tatoo on
her rear, sticking out of the top of her low-rider jeans. I start to
shush Olaia when she finishes her thought.

"Daddy, people shouldn’t put stickers on their butt.

Did I mention that this was really loud? Chuckle. I shushed Olaia and
told her that big people could put stickers on their butts if they
wanted to. However, it was good that she didn’t put stickers on her butt.

Plot is a Four Letter Word

September 9, 2002 / Jim

Plot is a four letter word.
— Alex Keegan

Plot is the picture frame.
— Me

Plot is like the picture frame. A frame is something that all
pictures need to some degree, but a beautiful frame with a black
velvet Elvis painting isn’t going into the Louvre any time soon.
Conversely, the most beautiful, insightful, imaginative painting in
the world isn’t going to suffer much in a weak frame. The picture
makes the frame, the frame accents the picture.

This is forgotten all too much in all forms of storytelling, most
notably movies. Repeat after me. Plot is the picture frame. Take a
look at the most recent Star Wars movies. What could be a
Tolkien-esque epic tale of the rise and fall of empires, people,
relationships, ends up being a b-movie with flat characters, starring
the computer generated imagery. The plot is so intricate, so twisted,
so melodramatic, and overcompensating of a weak painting that is
falls as flat as pastel sailboats hung above the couch.

It’s the characters stupid.

I am re-reading a book at the moment, Stendhal’s The Red and
the Black. Wow, what a plotless book. This kid Julien is
wandering around ala Huck Finn (albeit an adult Huck Finn, ahem),
listlessly, pointlessly. Things happen to him. He winds up with a
rich family in the country. A seminary in the city, and finally as a
rich city family’s secretary. *yawn*. Pretty boring stuff, eh? The
novel is set in the early 1800’s. Perhaps it’s one of the Sense and
Sensibility type period pieces… you know, the ones that women
like. But there’s something about this book, something that grabs me
and won’t let me go. Maybe it’s the unlikely protagonist, Julien, his
inability to be honest with himself, who in the end is honest
with himself despite his attempts to culture cynicism.

The Red and the Black is perhaps the most beautiful
painting in the world placed simply in a beveled piece of matte
paper. It is not dialog driven, plot driven, situationally driven.
Ask me what has happened serially, and I would have problems. It
violates the show, don’t tell rule beaten into all beginning
writers. Perhaps as you mature you get to break some rules, but geez,
it would seem Stendhal’s downright lazy. Note the following passage
as the scene is dictated in the most abstract manner, with little
window into the actual goings on, the details:

I must drink some punch and dance a lot, she told
herself; I’ll pick the best of the crowd, and make an impression at
all costs. Good, here comes that impertinent celebrity the Comte de
Fervaques. She accepted his invitation; they dance. It’s a matter of
seeing, she thought, which of the two of us will be the more
impertinent; but so that I can make proper fun of him, I must get him
talking. Soon all the rest of the quadrille only dance for
appearances’ sake. No one wished to miss any of Mathilde’s stinging
repartee. M. de Fervaques was getting flustered, and as he could only
produce elegant phrases instead of ideas, he was making faces;
Mathilde, who was in a bad mood, was merciless to him and made an
enemy out of him. She danced until daybreak and at length withdrew in
a state of terrible fatigue. But in the carriage she went and used up
the small amount of strength she had left on making herself sad and
miserable. She’d been despised by Julien and couldn’t despise him.

He does this a lot, tells you what the people are talking about,
or hints at some dialog, but never reveals it. It would seem lazy
perhaps. Maybe he couldn’t think of the clever things that he was
putting into people’s mouths. Easier to just talk about them instead
of showing them. It would seem that way, but then there are
passages that suck you over the event horizon into the most awful
wonderful despair. Here the Madam de Rênal the wife of Mousier
de Rênal, the richest most powerful man in Verrières,
has fallen in love with Julien. She is his senior by 10 years and is
now consumed with guilt over her passion.

Shortly after the return to Vergy, Stanislas-Xavier the
youngest child threw a fever; M^me de Rênal was
suddenly overcome by terrible remorse. It was the first time she had
reproached herself for her love with any consistency; she seemed to
understand, as if by a miracle, how gross was the immorality she had
allowed herself to get caught up in. In spite of her deeply religious
nature, up until then she had not considered the enormity of her
crime in the eyes of God.

In the past, at the convent of the Sacred Heart, she had
loved God with passion; she started to fear him likewise in her new
situation. The battles which ravaged her soul were all the more
terrible because there was nothing rational in her fear. Julien
discovered that any attempt at rationalization aggravated rather than
soothed her: she took it as the language of hell. However, since
Julien himself was very fond of little Stanislas, he was more welcome
when talked to her of the boy’s illness. This soon took a very
serious turn. Then unremitting remorse deprived M^me de
Rênal even of the ability to sleep; she retreated into a
desperate silence: had she opened her mouth, it would have been to
confess her crime to God and to mankind.

‘I entreat you,’ Julien would say to her as soon as they
found themselves alone, ‘don’t say anything to anyone; let me be the
only recipient of your troubles. If you still love me, don’t say
anything”: you words can’t take the fever away from our little
Stanislas.’

But his endeavors to console her had no effect; he did
not know that M^me de Rênal had taken it into her
head that to appease the wrath of the jealous Almighty, she had to
hate Julien or else see her son die. It was because she felt she
could not hate her lover that she was wretched.

‘Keep away from me!’ she said one day. ‘In the name of
God, leave this house: it’s your presence here that’s killing my
son.’

‘God is punishing me,’ she added in a low voice, ‘he is
just. I worship his justice; my crime is horrendous, and there I was
living without remorse! It was the first sign of abandoning God”
I must be doubly punished.’

Julien was deeply touched. He could not detect any
hypocrisy of exaggeration in this. She thinks she’s killing her son
by loving me, and yet, poor thing, she loves me more than her son.
This is the source, I’m convinced, of the remorse that’s killing her;
these are truly noble sentiments. But how did I manage to inspire a
love like this: I’m so poor, so badly brought up, so ignorant, even
sometimes so crude in my ways?

One night, the child’s fever was at its height. Around
two in the morning M de Rênal came to see him. The child,
racked with fever, was exceedingly flushed and failed to recognize
his father. Suddenly M^me de Rênal flung herself at
her husband’s fee” Julien saw that she was going to confess
everything and ruin herself forever.

By good luck M de Rênal was very put out by this
strange gesture.

‘Goodnight! Goodnight!’ he said as he turned to leave.

‘No, listen to me!’ exclaimed his wife kneeling before
him and trying to hold him back. ‘You must learn the whole truth.
It’s my fault that my son is dying. I gave life to him, and I am
taking it from him. Heaven is punishing me, in the eyes of God I’m
guilty of murder. I must bring about my own downfall and my own
humiliation; perhaps this sacrifice will appease the Lord.’

If M de Rênal had been a man of any imagination, he
would have understood everything.

‘Romantic nonsense,’ he exclaimed pushing away his wife
who was trying to clasp his knees. ‘This is all a whole lot of
romantic nonsense! Julien, summon the doctor at daybreak.’

And off he went to bed. M^me de Rênal
fell on her knees, half unconscious, thrusting Julien away with a
convulsive gesture when he tried to come to her aid.

Julien stood amazed.

So this is adultery! He said… Could it possibly be that
those two-face priests… are right? That men who commit so many sins
are privileged to know the real workings of sin? What a peculiar
state of affairs!

For twenty minutes now since M de Rênal had
withdrawn Julien had watched the woman he loved kneeling with her
head resting on the child’s little bed, motionless and almost
unconscious. Here’s a woman of superior genius plunged in the very
depths of misery because of knowing me, he said.

Time is racing by. What can I do for her? I must make up
my mind. In this situation it isn’t a question of what I want any
more. What do I care about other people and their insipid little
comedies? What can I do for her… leave her? But I’d be leaving her
alone in the grip of the most appealing grief. Her automaton of a
husband is more of a hindrance than a help to her. He’ll say some
harsh word to her through being so crude; she may go mad and fling
herself out of the window.

If I leave her, if I stop watching over her, she’ll
confess everything to him. And who knows, perhaps in spite of the
inheritance she’s due to bring him he’ll cause a scandal. She may
tell all, great heavens! To that b… idiot of a Father Maslon, who
uses a six-year-old’s illness as an excuse for not budging from this
house, and with an ulterior motive too. In her grief and her fear of
God she forgets everything she knows about the man; she only sees the
priest.

‘Go away!’ said M^me de Rênal to him all
of a sudden, opening her eyes.

‘I’d lay down my life over and over again to know what
would be of greatest help to you,’ Julien replied. ‘I’ve never loved
you so much, my darling angel, or rather it’s only now that I begin
to adore you as you deserve. What will become of me far away from
you, with the knowledge that you’re unhappy through my fault! But
let’s not think about my suffering. All right, I’ll go, my love. But
if I leave you, if I cease to watch over you, to be constantly there
between you and your husband, you’ll tell him all, you’ll ruin
yourself. Just think how ignominiously he’ll drive you from his
house; the whole of Verrières, the whole of Besançon
will talk of this scandal. You’ll be made into the guilty party;
you’ll never get over the shame of it…’

‘That’s what I want,’ she exclaimed, rising to her feet.
‘I shall suffer: so much the better.’

‘But you’ll also bring about his own ruin with this
abominable scandal!’

‘But I’ll be humiliating myself, I’ll be flinging myself
into the mire; and perhaps in so doing I shall save my son perhaps
this humiliation in front of everyone is a form of public penitence?
As far as I can judge in my weakness, isn’t this the greatest
sacrifice I can make to God?… Perhaps he will deign to accept my
humiliation and leave me my son! Show me another more painful
sacrifice and I’m ready for it.’

‘Let me punish myself. I’m guilty too. Do you want me to
retreat to the Trappist monastery? The austerity of life there may
appease your God… Oh heavens! Why can’t I take Stanislas’s illness
upon myself…?’

‘Oh, you really love him, you do!’ said M^me de
Rênal, getting up and flinging herself into his arms.

At the same moment she pushed him away in horror.

‘I believe you! I believe you!’ she went on, sinking to
her knees again. ‘Oh my only friend! Oh why aren’t you Stanislas’s
father? Then it wouldn’t be a horrible crime to love you more than
your son.’

‘Will you allow me to stay, and to love you from now on
just like a brother? It’s the only only expiation that makes sense;
it may appease the wrath of the Almighty.’

‘And what about me?’ she cried, getting up and clasping
Julien’s head in both hands, and gazing at it at arm’s length, ‘what
about me, am I to love you like a brother? Is it in my power to love
you like a brother?’

Tears were starting to run down Julien’s face.

‘I shall obey you,’ he said falling at her feet. ‘I shall
obey you whatever you order me to do; it’s all that’s left for me. My
mind is struck blind; I can’t see what to do. If I leave you, you’ll
tell your husband everything; you’ll ruin yourself and him too.
There’s no way, after this ridicule, that he’ll ever be chosen for
the National Assembly. If I stay, you’ll think me the cause of your
son’s death, and you’ll die of grief. Do you want to try out the
effect of my departure? If you like, I’ll punish myself for your
wrongdoing by leaving you for a week. I’ll go and spend it in a
retreat of your choosing. In the abbey at Bray-le-Haut, for instance:
but swear to me that during my absence you won’t confess anything to
your husband. Just think that I won’t ever be able to come back if
you say anything.’

She promised, he left, but was recalled after two days.

‘It’s impossible for me to keep my oath without you. I
shall tell my husband if you aren’t there constantly to order with
your eyes to keep silent. Each hour of this abominable life seems to
me to last a whole day.’

At last heaven took pity on this wretched mother.
Gradually Stanislas emerged from danger. But the illusion was
shattered, her reason had grasped the extent of her sin; she was
unable to regain her stability. Her remorse remained, and it was as
you would expect in a heart of such sincerity. Her life was heaven
and hell: hell when she did not have Julien with her, heaven when she
was at his feet. ‘I don’t have any illusions left,’ she said to him
even at times when she dared to indulge her love to the full. ‘I’m
damned, damned beyond remission. You are young, you yielded to my
seduction, heaven may forgive you; but I am damned. I know from a
sure sign: I’m afraid. Who wouldn’t be afraid at the sight of hell?
But deep down I don’t repent. I’d commit my sin again if it had to be
committed. If heaven would just refrain from punishing me in this
world and through my children, then I shall have more than I deserve,
but what about you at least, my own Julien,’ she exclaimed at other
moments, ‘are you happy? Do I love you enough for your liking?’

It is in the passage that, I feel that one would have to be dead
to not empathize with such pathos. Sure, who today would really
believe that God would punish them for a transgression of the flesh.
I think most people today would see M^me de Rênal’s
plight and send her for psychological help. However, even within the
story, we note the Julien a seminarian sees her fear as folly, but he
gets sucked in too. He can’t help but feel her anguish, the torment
at the reality that she believes to be true. So it is his love that
allows him to accept her for her beliefs and look for a way to
diminish her grief. I don’t think you have to be a scholar or a
college educated person to get this, do you? It may be old, with
outdated mores, but the timelessness of the love, the undying,
uncompromising love is universal.

That’s what a story is all about… plot? Bah! Plot is a four
letter word. Plot is the frame. This book has no plot. And you know what?
All the greatest works of art don’t need it either. TV show voted to
be the greatest of the century: Seinfeld, a show about nothing: no
plot, just interesting characters. And that, my friends, is that.

El Gringoqueño