Giovanni’s Room

by James Baldwin

perhaps it was because he was so much smaller than me; my own body suddenly seemed gross and crushing and the desire which was rising in me seemed monstrous.

The island of the city widened away from us, bearing the weight of the cathedral; beyond this, dimly, through speed and mist, one made out the individual roofs of Paris, their myriad, squat chimney stacks very beautiful and varicolored under the pearly sky. Mist clung to the river, softening that army of trees, softening those stones, hiding the city’s dreadful corkscrew alleys and dead-end streets, clinging like a curse to the men who slept beneath the bridges—one of whom flashed by beneath us, very black and lone, walking along the river.

Behind the counter sat one of those absolutely inimitable and indomitable ladies, produced only in the city of Paris, but produced there in great numbers, who would be as outrageous and unsettling in any other city as a mermaid on a mountaintop.

I was the only person on God’s cold, green earth who cared about him, who knew his speech and silence, knew his arms, and did not carry a knife. The burden of his salvation seemed to be on me and I could not endure it.

Facing him, I faltered. “I don’t hate it. I—I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” His hands dropped to his sides. His eyes grew big. He laughed. “Hurt my feelings! Am I now a stranger that you speak to me like that, with such an American politeness?”

I kept kissing her and holding her, trying to find my way in her again, as though she were a familiar, darkened room in which I fumbled to find the light.

the look in his eyes was so bottomlessly bitter it was almost benevolent.

Then I wanted to beg him to forgive me. But this would have been too great a confession;