Myself From Myself

Extracts from Norman Mailer's American Dream:

Did you ever feel the malignity which rises from a swamp? It is real, I could swear it, and some whisper of ominous calm, that heavy air one breathes in the hour before a hurricane, now came to rest between us.

But compassion, the trapped bird of compassion, struggled up from my chest and flew to my throat. "Deborah, I love you," I said. I did not know at that instant if I meant it truly, or was some monster of deception, hiding myself from myself. And having said it, knew the mistake. For all feeling departed from her hand, even that tingling so evil to my flesh, and a left a cool empty touch. I could have been holding a tiny casket in my palm.

The darkness came over like air on a a wound when the dressing is removed. My senses were much too alive...I had one of those anxieties which make it an act of balance to breathe: too little air compresses the sensation of being throttled, but too much - one deep breath - and there is the fear of a fall.

books,literature,Norman Mailer