After she finishes working on me, I religiously wonder if the tip I hand the Polish aesthetician is sufficient, but I can't figure out precisely the right gratuity, not being privy to her salary, and how much I'm meant to augment it, I may give her too much or too little, and I'm also not sure whether to offer her the same amount each time. On my second visit, I felt I had given her too little, when I had little cash with me, and the next day I returned, ringing the doorbell, which she had to answer, as she's alone in the cramped salon most of the time, and when she came to the door, her skin flushed from her exertions over another client, I couldn't discern whether my unannounced appearance was an annoyance or simply one more neutral incident in her workday. She unlocked and opened the heavy, glass door, I slipped my hand into hers, with a five dollar bill in it, and said, "I believe I didn't give you enough yesterday," but nothing registered on her vacant face, so I can't record a reaction, since the vacant expression that usually is hers didn't change, not even infinitesimally. I have no idea if she appreciated my returning, disliked it, or if making the effort to bring her a larger tip might have in some way humiliated her, since people are quickly humiliated. Humiliation colors the skin, floods it, actually, with blood, or unwanted feeling, and few escape its ravishments.
The English built a society around and against embarrassment, since they fear it, no one of them wants to be embarrassed or to embarrass others, but it's more than not wanting, it's a potent, silent anxiety, so subtlety condemns them to understatement, but when at parties they drink heavily, rage, make false or true accusations, or behave licentiously, they forget embarrassment, and their bad acts are usually forgotten the next day when no one mentions the other's objectionable behavior, since they aren't Puritans. Persecuted Puritans fled England for America, where they thrived, and in America conversations and news about crimes, sinful nights, or a sinner's bad acts are received with a thrill, since the wickedness of others invigorates Puritans, and many go West, young men and others, to be lawless, since outlaws are Puritan Antichrists. As a consequence of their sins, sinners-Methodists believe everyone is a sinner-who bring shame to themselves and their families will just work harder, supposedly, to overcome their weaknesses. The English upper classes especially don't want to appear to work hard or to be called intellectuals, and they despise Puritans. Here, in this place for serenity and repose, not a day goes by when I'm not privy to some small shameful or shameless episode, loose talk, or am established even briefly as a subject of conversation, of which I am mostly unaware, happily. One resident or guest, who prefers "guest" as she insists she makes her own decisions, complains incessantly about her closest friends, who are not here, and I am glad not to be one of them, and in her complaints, like most sensitive people, she is blameless. But I am a Puritan who also has ignoble and disgraced thoughts. Separatists chose to be Congregationalists rather than Presbyterians whose church had a hierarchy; the Separatists formed individual congregations with as few as four members, on the basis that sainthood could be divined from those who desired to be members, a tautological wish. The Separatists wanted a holy kingdom, and probably most English people thought theirs was holy enough and felt bothered, since another's righteousness is a nuisance and insulting. In the New World, the Puritans strove for salvation, unimpeded by Parliament, the king, and venerable and rigid traditions, though they knew sin was inevitable, that no matter how hard they worked, they would never have certainty of God's love or if they were good, which was anyway preordained. Still, they had to prove their virtue in this life to achieve a place in heaven, and so they praised rectitude and accumulated, and the more they had, the more they decided God had demonstrated his love to them. They saved and prayed they were saved and followed their God's law, and, far away from the landed gentry they once feared or honored, they took possession and claimed the land, directing a furious violence against its brown- and red-skinned possessors, the earlier claimants, whom they smote with the vindictiveness and passion they felt toward the English and other Europeans who'd persecuted them. The Puritans slaughtered without compunction, because they would not be stopped in the creation of their heaven on earth. Manifest Destiny is also a Puritan's idea, and the history of civilization is dominated by the missions of righteous conquerors.
Acceptance is American love, shunning is a Puritan's punishment, animals do it regularly, mother cats shun their three-month-old kittens from one day to the next-I have witnessed this ordinary crueltyturning away from or hissing at them, but human mothers shouldn't, though some do in other ways, and mammals such as humans are both obvious and subtle, like people at parties who turn toward and away abruptly, who search crowds for a partner, for sex, friendship, advancement, or to wile away time, and there is an imposingly tall woman here, the acerbic one who now leads the women's table, occasionally there is one, who peers intently over the tops of people's heads, seeking a better connection, since love and acceptance, like fame, are also pursued in this secluded place where residents hope to make themselves into something, or to escape something or themselves, or to realize themselves in a novel guise, and where some seek renown, goodness, or worthiness, while others seek calm, peace, and quiet. The Count may just want peace, he's had the other. His Calvinist relatives speak ill of him, or don't speak to him, his wife may have abandoned him, his Parisian gang deserted him, all of which is etched in deep creases on his skin, in the deep lines on his high forehead, around his mouth, and on his chin, but time is his constant friend, even if it passes and is ambivalent.
Puritanism successfully infiltrated America, nowhere else so completely, and in this country fame is a visible proof of God's love, it sits beside material wealth, intangible but a form of temporary approval, and may be gained and lost, possibly the devil's work, whose business easily fools sinners, and so the famous, whose celebrity rests on the effervescent fascination and mood of non-famous others, must maintain that goodwill through incessant appearance and reappearance, to fix their stars in a worldly firmament and also in limited imaginations. The famous become paranoid. Celebrity is coruscating and fleeting, since its value isn't attached to anything, there is no logic to fame and no use to it, except for exciting suffocated imaginations that consume hope. Dante's paradise became tiresome, blandly beautiful, because in it there was nothing left to hope for, while hell was vivid and detailed. I'm an American Calvinist who rebukes herself, also with other lives, a desperate convict on death row or an escaped slave, Harriet Jacobs, caged for years in an attic hardly bigger than her body, whose authorship was disputed because she was black, but I still can't discount all lesser anguish, and I also don't believe I should, though others' pain overwhelms or even shames mine, but relativity is also historical, so my ethical compass wobbles. It must be why a dark night is endless, when I often remind myself that I must unmake everything, but the best I can achieve is a temporary, furtive indifference to myself, the others around me, and my projects on the floor.