Partir avant le jour

Written in the early 1960s, this book is rich in childhood memories of Julian's Paris upbringing by his mother from the Old South in the States. It's much more colorful than monotonous Vol. III, his 3 years at the University of Virginia. Having borne five daughters, Mother had a special place in her heart for her son-at-last, but how to raise him was unfamiliar. She drilled him in Protestant religion. But her attitude toward his flesh was negative. When she saw his hand busy beneath the blanket, she pulled back the cover and said of his noodle, I'll cut it off. After bathing him, she said of his thing, Oh how ugly it is. Having seen museums and an art book or two, he repeatedly sketched heroic nudes, but without sex organs. Sensitized to pure versus impure, he felt simple nakedness was an infraction. When Julian was 14, his mother died. He felt loss but not tearful dissolution. And there were still sisters to care for him. Now that Julian was pubescent, several brutes at the lycee persuaded him to manipulate himself. The result was "stupor and dizziness." He seldom gave in to this particular impurity thereafter. Also, a Catholic instructor (Julian's father had already converted to Catholicism) planted the idea that Julian was well suited to becoming a monk. But it was 1914 and the World War commenced, and by 1916 the cannon sounds from 60 miles away were reaching Paris. At his father's suggestion, too-young Julian joined the ambulance corps to do his best with the steering wheel. And this leads to Vol. II, the war and aftermath, 1916-1920.