CATHY
: How is your daughter?
ANN
: And during that time . . .
CATHY
: I'm sorry, go ahead.
ANN
: Thank you. And, during that time, you also met with the rabbi.
CATHY
: I met with them all.
ANN
: But, particularly?
CATHY
: The rabbi. Why “particularly?”
ANN
: Because.
CATHY
: Some people. Are born. Into a tradition. In which they perhaps feel other-than-comfortable.
ANN
: They . . .
CATHY
: Or, better, they, later in life, may discover a covenant, in which, for the first time, they find comfort.
ANN
: A covenant? . . .
CATHY
: A
home
. A mate. Or a profession. People, late in life, for example, may discover their true
sexuality
, or . . . the parallels are obvious. Mine dealt with Faith.
ANN
: Your?
CATHY
: Revelation.
ANN
: . . . your revelation.
CATHY
: Of Christ.
ANN
: But you continued . . .
(She consults notes)
During the first years, to meet with the rabbi.
CATHY
: That's right.
ANN
: After you had discovered this new Covenant.
CATHY
: Do you know? I didn't want to insult him.
ANN
: Really . . .
CATHY
: The others came so seldom. And the rabbi was additionally . . .
ANN
: Yes?
CATHY
: A sort of “entertainment,” faute de mieux.
(Pause)
I forgot a French verb. Yesterday.
ANN
: And you were reading . . .?
CATHY
: Actually, I was writing.
ANN
: In French.
CATHY
: Yes.
ANN
: What were you writing?
CATHY
: An attempt at a Translation.
ANN
: Of your book.
CATHY
: Oh very good.
ANN
: That's right?
CATHY
: Yes.
ANN
: An
attempt
at a translation. But you speak French.
CATHY
: I did.
(Pause)
Someone asked me, “Do you play an instrument?” I said, “No,” with some regret, and then remembered that I played the piano all my life. How about that?
(Pause.)
ANN
: You spoke French fluently.
CATHY
: As one does. With the vocabulary of one's interests. A sort of “waiter's French.”
ANN
: And what were your interests?
CATHY
: And the language of theology is rather abstruse.
ANN
: Your interest, then, was in theology?
CATHY
: Well, in hindsight, what else would you call it?
ANN
: You were translating your book.
CATHY
: I was attempting to.
ANN
: And you forgot a verb.
CATHY
: I did.
ANN
: But you must have had a dictionary.
CATHY
: I thought that to use the dictionary, would be admitting, a, a . . . No, I'm getting old. An “unworthiness.”
ANN
: But, you read widely, in French.
CATHY
: Well. That was the Language of the Movement.
ANN
: Of the Movement.
CATHY
: Yes.
(Pause.)
ANN
: Have you read them since? Those books?
CATHY
: Those books.
ANN
: Yes.
CATHY
: Would they be allowed here?
ANN
: Wellâthat's a fair question.
CATHY
: But, do you know. I've
thought
about them.
ANN
: The books.
CATHY
: And, in my
memory
, I couldn't make heads or tails of them.
ANN
:
Today
.
CATHY
: No. Nor sort out their
attraction
. No, that's not true. They were attractive as they were incendiary.
ANN
: “Revolutionary.”
CATHY
: If you will.
ANN
: In their ideas.
CATHY
: Not in their
ideas
, no. What
were
they? Finally?
(Pause)
They were essentially a sort of chant.
ANN
(Reads)
: “Words not meant to misdirect are wasted.”
CATHY
: Well, there you are . . . and their absence of meaning allowed us . . . or, we
understood
them. As a celebration of the transgressive. Because they had no meaning.
(Pause.)
ANN
: They wanted Revolution.
CATHY
: They?
ANN
: The writers.
CATHY
: They wanted . . . I suppose.
ANN
: And you found it attractive.
CATHY
: As the young do. No, it was
thrilling
.
ANN
: And now?
(Pause.)
CATHY
: They're quite immoral. Don't you think? The French.
ANN
: Tell me. Why?
CATHY
: They hold the view the world is an illusion.
ANN
: Is that their view?
CATHY
: Oh, yes. No wonder it sparked terrorism.
ANN
: Did it?
CATHY
: If nothing has meaning save that we ascribe to it. What reality is there, for example, in another's suffering? As a
result of which we find much tragedy.
(Pause)
No wonder they tend to lose wars.
ANN
: As in Algeria.
CATHY
: Well, yes.
(Pause)
Much tragedy . . .
ANN
: As Guillaume's, for example.
CATHY
: “Speaking of Algeria.”
ANN
: That's right.
CATHY
: But the meaninglessnessâlet me be more preciseâit was
facing
the meaninglessness which led me to faith.
ANN
: It led you to faith.
CATHY
: Because, do you see, they're the same two choices.
ANN
: The same two as?
CATHY
: The bureaucrat and her make-work files. To rebel. Or to submit. And each is unacceptable.
ANN
: Is there a third choice?
CATHY
: Thank you. And that is the essence of the book.
ANN
: That the third choice is Faith.
CATHY
: What else could it be? And to believe . . . in the
possibility
of another choice, is to long for God. And to discover it is Faith.
ANN
: Faith without certainty.
CATHY
: If there were certainty, why would it be Faith?
(Pause.)
ANN
: Guillaume had Faith.
CATHY
: Faith. Did he?
ANN
(Takes a book from her desk and reads)
: “The growth . . .”
CATHY
: He had certainty.
ANN
(Continues reading)
: “The growth of consciousness, causing that pain which may only be . . .” Although a better rendering would be “the growth of
conscience
” don't you think?
CATHY
: It's the same word, in French.
ANN
: But “conscience” here would be, the better rendering.
CATHY
: You may be right. Yes. I think you're right.
ANN
: But that was not the translation on the poster.
CATHY
: On the poster, no. Not on the poster.
ANN
: Quote: “The growth of consciousness, causing that pain, which may only be expunged through violence.”
CATHY
: That's what the poster said.
ANN
: “
Consciousness
.”
CATHY
: Yes.
ANN
: Why?
CATHY
: Your point is that a translation as “conscience,” that “âconscience' must lead to violence,” would have been recognized as absurd.
ANN
: That's right.
CATHY
: As absurd and monstrous.
ANN
: Monstrous, yes.
CATHY
: In any case as shocking. Or, say, certainly more
brutal
. The original was shocking.
ANN
: And yet.
CATHY
: Go on.
ANN
: Many were seduced by it.
CATHY
: Many were.
ANN
: And, I would assume. That it was more seductive in French, which, as you say, is the language of Philosophy.
CATHY
: Yes.
ANN
: And which additionally carried the romance of being Foreign.
CATHY
: Well: to the young, the foreign idea is seductive.
ANN
: Why is that?
CATHY
: As to the young, everything is foreign. Which is why they are the revolutionaries.
ANN
: Because?
CATHY
: It's easy. One may easily “make things anew” according to one's insights if one possesses no experience. The French word was “seduire” to seduce.
ANN
: “To seduce.”
CATHY
: “Seduire.” And why would I forget it? It's the same word. Funny.
ANN
: That was the verb.
CATHY
: That's right.
ANN
: And you two spoke it.
CATHY
: French.
ANN
: Yes.
CATHY
: Guillaume and I.
ANN
: In Algeria.
CATHY
: That's right. I wrote of it, in . . .
ANN
: No, I've marked it.
(She reads)
“âEcoute,' he would say, which was, to me, a magic incantation.” You say he affected not to understand English.
CATHY
: That's right.
ANN
: But he did understand.
CATHY
: He spoke it perfectly.
ANN
: But?
CATHY
: He thought it the language of Colonialism.
ANN
: More than French.
CATHY
: That's right.
ANN
: But he was fighting the Colonialism of the French.
CATHY
: Well, retrospectively, of course, it's all irrational. And yet they discount Religion. As based on Faith.
(Pause.)
ANN
: You wrote in French . . .
CATHY
:
Then
.
ANN
: Yes.
CATHY
:
Did
I . . .?
ANN
: The Speech.
CATHY
: . . . in
Algeria
. . .
ANN
: And it was quoted.
CATHY
: All right.
ANN
: And published.
CATHY
:
Published
.