between crisply ironed sheets in a quiet Cairo hotel. Rosie nosed beneath the light cotton coverlet and corkscrewed round and round, all the while producing the wheezes and mutterings peculiar to dachshunds attempting to get comfortable for the night. At long last she settled and sighed and slept. I expected to do the same momentarily. I was as tired as I had ever been in my life: the journey, the heat, the novelty, the anxiety, the bliss of arrival! But sleep would not come.
Instead, the scene at the Semiramis played over and over in my head. Humiliation is not the same as embarrassment, I realized. If you know yourself to be clumsy and never pretend otherwise, you might well be embarrassed when you trip over your own feet upon entering a room, but you won’t be ashamed. You can laugh at yourself and shrug the embarrassment off.
Humiliation, by contrast, does not merely require open recognition of an acknowledged foible. Humiliation is public exposure of some secret vanity. You might gaze into a mirror holding your head just so, and your eyes sparkle at your own best self. Then perhaps you leave a bathroom at college, for example, thinking that you really look rather nice this morning, all things considered, only to overhear someone remark, “Good Lord, if I looked that bad, I’d never go out in daylight.” You discover that not even your own modest opinion of yourself is shared. You are not merely homely but also deluded, and vain, and ridiculous. That is humiliation.
And someone had lied to me, but who? Colonel Lawrence or Miss Bell? Was it a short-legged dog or a bare-limbed woman who had aroused such animosity? Was the lie a kind one, told to spare my feelings, or a harsh one, meant to cut a potential rival who had dared to be friendly with Miss Bell’s own dear boy?
Or had each of them told me a part of the truth? Certainly there was something about Lawrence’s tone that might have implied,
Yes, I was lying about why the doorman blocked your way, but I found a perfectly good explanation that saved your pride, and that’s merely good manners, don’t you agree?
And perhaps Miss Bell had provided accurate information about local custom, even though she chose to do so in a way that seemed calculated to inflict as much mortification as possible.
You should have known better than to dress so immodestly,
Mumma said.
None of this would have happened if you’d just stayed home, where you belong.
It doesn’t matter,
Mildred told me.
You’ll probably never see those people again. Just wear that nice silk cardigan when you go out. Or the navy linen jacket—that goes with everything.
Exhaustion eventually claimed me, but during that first night, my sleep was disturbed, perhaps by some unfamiliar sound outside. I rolled over in bed and saw—silhouetted by moonlight—a man standing calmly in my room.
Frightened out of my wits, I screamed and sat up, clutching at the covers, and struggled to turn on the bedside light.
By the time I found the switch, the intruder had disappeared into the darkness. With my heart beating violently, I expected help to arrive at any moment. But the minutes passed. No one came, and this upset me more than the initial fright. I had screamed for help! And no one came!
“Why doesn’t anyone ever come?” I wailed aloud.
Rosie awoke at the sound of my voice, and only then did I realize that she’d been fast asleep. How on earth could she have slept through the shriek that still echoed in my own ears?
Still terrified, I lay back, torn between the utterly convincing nature of my experience and indisputable facts: neither hotel staff nor other guests had arrived to investigate my loud distress, and Rosie had missed the entire drama, if drama it had been.
My pulse slowed. Reason reclaimed me. I eased out of bed, pulled on my robe, went outside to the balcony. Serene starlight revealed nothing of note in the blue-shadowed world beyond. I quietly closed the French doors against a chill
Instead, the scene at the Semiramis played over and over in my head. Humiliation is not the same as embarrassment, I realized. If you know yourself to be clumsy and never pretend otherwise, you might well be embarrassed when you trip over your own feet upon entering a room, but you won’t be ashamed. You can laugh at yourself and shrug the embarrassment off.
Humiliation, by contrast, does not merely require open recognition of an acknowledged foible. Humiliation is public exposure of some secret vanity. You might gaze into a mirror holding your head just so, and your eyes sparkle at your own best self. Then perhaps you leave a bathroom at college, for example, thinking that you really look rather nice this morning, all things considered, only to overhear someone remark, “Good Lord, if I looked that bad, I’d never go out in daylight.” You discover that not even your own modest opinion of yourself is shared. You are not merely homely but also deluded, and vain, and ridiculous. That is humiliation.
And someone had lied to me, but who? Colonel Lawrence or Miss Bell? Was it a short-legged dog or a bare-limbed woman who had aroused such animosity? Was the lie a kind one, told to spare my feelings, or a harsh one, meant to cut a potential rival who had dared to be friendly with Miss Bell’s own dear boy?
Or had each of them told me a part of the truth? Certainly there was something about Lawrence’s tone that might have implied,
Yes, I was lying about why the doorman blocked your way, but I found a perfectly good explanation that saved your pride, and that’s merely good manners, don’t you agree?
And perhaps Miss Bell had provided accurate information about local custom, even though she chose to do so in a way that seemed calculated to inflict as much mortification as possible.
You should have known better than to dress so immodestly,
Mumma said.
None of this would have happened if you’d just stayed home, where you belong.
It doesn’t matter,
Mildred told me.
You’ll probably never see those people again. Just wear that nice silk cardigan when you go out. Or the navy linen jacket—that goes with everything.
Exhaustion eventually claimed me, but during that first night, my sleep was disturbed, perhaps by some unfamiliar sound outside. I rolled over in bed and saw—silhouetted by moonlight—a man standing calmly in my room.
Frightened out of my wits, I screamed and sat up, clutching at the covers, and struggled to turn on the bedside light.
By the time I found the switch, the intruder had disappeared into the darkness. With my heart beating violently, I expected help to arrive at any moment. But the minutes passed. No one came, and this upset me more than the initial fright. I had screamed for help! And no one came!
“Why doesn’t anyone ever come?” I wailed aloud.
Rosie awoke at the sound of my voice, and only then did I realize that she’d been fast asleep. How on earth could she have slept through the shriek that still echoed in my own ears?
Still terrified, I lay back, torn between the utterly convincing nature of my experience and indisputable facts: neither hotel staff nor other guests had arrived to investigate my loud distress, and Rosie had missed the entire drama, if drama it had been.
My pulse slowed. Reason reclaimed me. I eased out of bed, pulled on my robe, went outside to the balcony. Serene starlight revealed nothing of note in the blue-shadowed world beyond. I quietly closed the French doors against a chill
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