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I was now very conscious of my self, but the self of which I was conscious – timid, morose – was not worthy of myself. I cherished a photo in which I was running fast, laughing rapturously, probably being chased by my father or mother. That, I liked to think, was what I looked like – not the glum depressing object that I saw for so many years. I never again saw anything else. Yet there was that snapshot; I must have looked like it only for those one or two moments of my life. My character, when I glimpsed it, was horrible – in contrast with my wishes.
My sister and I played to, but not with, each other. Each was an obstruction to the other, a sentient piece of furniture. Even when I discovered the pleasure of masturbation by lying on my stomach on the floor and wriggling, she could make nothing of it. She tried, but had to report failure. I think I attempted to persuade my mother of the importance of my discovery; she must have sneaked to my father, for to my acute embarrassment, and theirs, they came silently into the room and found me at it. They thus actually discovered me doing what I had tried to share with my sister. Indeed, they not so much discovered me doing it as caught me at it. I felt horribly guilty. I had an impulse to look at what they had found but I could not find it quickly enough, for the guilty sense of imminent danger was overwhelmed by the fear that they were looking at me. Yet I knew that this could not be true. I was picked up and kissed, so clearly it was not me they had seen when … well, when what? Their expressions had frozen into a form I had never before seen; nor horror or dismay, but silent, undramatic.
The experience had a peculiar, adhesive quality like fluff on clothes. There were bits of the Bible – the last place where you would
expect it – where there were ‘things’ which had this same quality. ‘Giggling’ too; that was mixed up with it. The grown-ups didn't giggle; they laughed in a peculiar way. My parents didn't giggle; they wer