Too Much

by Rachel Vorona Cote

  But according to a glut of narratives across modern Western culture, my conscience awoke relatively on schedule, and my brush with death was inevitable. After a married woman consummates her infidelity, or perhaps immediately beforehand, we often expect some degree of emotional dissolution. In the 1996 film adaptation of The English Patient, a married Katherine confronts Almásy in his room, distraught by her longing for him, and by the deceit that now seems inevitable. She assails him with loud smacks until, finally overcome, she vigorously returns his kisses, and the two fall to the floor entangled. It’s a fittingly violent beginning to a doomed affair. In an especially grim foretelling, Tolstoy invokes the specter of death as Anna Karenina and Vronsky grapple with the aftermath of their first sexual encounter. Vronsky, we are told, has the distinct sense that a corpse—not a living woman—kneels before him. For his part, he “[feels] what a murderer must feel when he looks at the body he has deprived of life.”5 The novel implies what Vronsky perceives: that Anna’s illicit passion for him is fatal. Certainly it brings about her social “death.” After the scandal of her affair, Anna is subjected to the vicious, shaming gossip of the Russian aristocracy. A so-called fallen woman, other respected personages, especially women, shun her company.

  Vronsky’s perception of Anna as a corpse draws on the trajectory of the unfaithful woman’s catastrophe narrative, but in this case, the catastrophe seems untethered to any condemnation from the narrator. The text does not necessarily articulate a desire for the bad woman to pay for her sins. For if other characters recoil from Anna, Tolstoy’s narrator does not. Likewise, The English Patient does not condemn Katherine and Almásy for their love; indeed, it is romanticized and presented as fundamentally tragic. We are invited to mourn with them deeply in a way we are not even when Unfaithful’s Connie, after hearing about Paul’s murder, penitently yet sorrowfully burns his pictures in her fireplace. But in both cases, nineteenth-century novel and late twentieth-century adapted film, the narrative universe cannot reconcile the breach of marital vows with a joyful, or even peaceful, outcome. Each work seems organized by an ambiguous higher power that demands, if not moral retribution, then adherence to the logic that a wife’s infidelity catalyzes entropic misery.

  Anna, for one, intuits a wretched end just as she comprehends the social isolation that her trespass ensures: “She felt herself so criminal and guilty that the only thing left for her was to humble herself and beg forgiveness; but as she had no one else in her life now except [Vronsky], it was also to him that she addressed her plea for forgiveness. Looking at him, she physically felt her humiliation and could say nothing more.”6 The practice of mercy, while so often inscribed in religious doctrine, will not, Anna knows, influence her peers even if their treatment of Vronsky remains unchanged. In fact, so lopsided is the parceling of social stigma that Anna, wracked with guilt, seeks deliverance from the person with whom she has committed this transgression.

  But perhaps this is not so curious. Anna’s survival depends upon Vronsky’s continued affection; he must remain sturdy in his conviction that their love absolves them—that, critically, it absolves Anna, or else she will be utterly bereft. In the female infidelity narrative, we rarely make space for more than one villain, and if, in the case of Temptation’s Harley, we do, the burden of morality rests on the shoulders of their female conquest.

  Cheating wives rarely see a happy ending. Many, perhaps, would argue that they do not deserve one. Some, regardless of their sympathy, might see domestic tranquility as impossible when it has been so irrevocably destroyed in one domain. “A woman who cheats often ends up alone,” I recall being told—with, of course, the implication that I would never choose an unpartnered life. I expect some others might protest that for me to take such a defiant tone in this chapter is both insolent and unremorseful. If I am not confessing my sins, what here is worth telling? And why should I, then, the perpetrator, be the one to tell it? How could someone like me—someone so at the mercy of her riotous emotions—be trusted? Of the texts I have mentioned, none are narrated in the first person.

  I would never diminish the toll infidelity can take, but I also refuse to diminish myself for having been, as it were, unfaithful. No woman’s character begins and ends with a solitary oath, and her self-possession cannot be so swiftly denied. Our fingers were not crafted so that they could be cinched by wedding bands: the union between body and the marriage industrial complex is one ushered by capitalism, not destiny. Whatever symbolism we embrace, or promises we utter, these are choices that must conform to our desires, fragmented, fraught, and contradictory though they may be. The long grind of history might declare that a woman can do no worse than change her mind, at least when that change signals a turn from heteronormative domesticity. I say that a woman’s volatility is her prerogative, and that her happiness is not for others to adjudicate.

  In Augusta Webster’s 1870 poem “A Castaway,” we encounter another fallen woman: a prostitute who has cobbled together a living by sleeping with all manner of men, a number of them married. Without question, the speaker is a marginalized figure, a specter at society’s spokes, barred from conventional pleasures, including a relationship with her family. The poem aches with self-doubt, as our speaker struggles to assemble a coherent vision of herself—one apart from what society has designated. But suddenly, her cadence steadies like a piercing gaze. She declares in succinct defiance, “Aye let their virtuous malice dribble on— / mock snowstorms on the stage—I’m proof long since / I have looked coolly on my what and why / and I accept myself.”

  I read this poem for the first time while I was studying for my oral exams, a year or so after the events of that December night. One of my sisters had only just begun speaking to me again—circumstances I understood, though they broke my heart. I had lost a few friends in the English department, too, ever since the May afternoon when Paul had stuck his head into my door, after five months of silence, and asked if we could find a less clumsy way of coexisting in the same hallways.

  To persevere in my relationship with Nick, I had initially resolved to cut Paul out of my life. The resolve did not last. That afternoon in May, I stood up from my desk, and I went to him. When we awoke the next morning, nestled into each other, my wedding ring no longer throbbed upon my finger.

  Chapter Ten

  Loud

  In college I worked as a writing tutor at my school’s Writing Resources Center, and while the pay was meager, the work was pleasing to me, and the job came with a perk: each tutor was entrusted with a key to the center, which meant we could study there after hours. This privilege brought convenience, not to mention the touch of warm pride that accommodates an illusion of low-level elitism. Besides, the tutoring cohort was a small and relatively close-knit group; nights spent toiling in their company were preferable to trudging through homework alone.

  But there was one tutor, Tara, who I knew wasn’t particularly fond of me. I knew this because we were in the same sorority, and it had been communicated to me that she had vehemently protested my admittance. This, of course, was her right, and she had committed no meaningful crime against me. We are not for everyone; I certainly am not, though I have always struggled to accept this truth, and I certainly railed against it then. Mostly, I avoided her—I’m intimidated by those I am unable to charm—yet I also harbored a puppyish yearning for approval, particularly from people like Tara, who were disinclined to give it. So when I was in near proximity to her, I attempted to self-monitor, hoping that if I was sufficiently agreeable, her opinion of me would soften.

  One evening, a small group of us were working in the center, but of course, the primary hazard of a study party is that it will develop into, well, a party. A gentle tone still prevailed across the room, but a few of us had nudged our work aside and begun chatting. I became distracted by the conversation and, as can be the case with me, my accelerating loquaciousness was accompanied by a significantly raised volume. I didn’t realize this had happened—I very rarely do—
until Tara snapped, in exasperation, “Rachel, you’re SO LOUD!”

  Tara was attempting to finish her honors thesis, no small task, and it must have been aggravating to have her focus broken by my exclamations. Still, I suspected that if she had liked me better, she wouldn’t have responded so harshly, and as I folded into myself, chastened and shamed, I arrived at a glum conclusion: “She will never like me because she finds me obnoxious—and too loud.”

  Since girlhood I had squirmed with humiliation whenever I was told to lower my voice—by relatives, by teachers, by peers—and if I was not rigorously mindful, it was bound to happen. I am, and have always been, talkative and demonstrative; my every attempt at a poker face is doomed to failure by what seems to be a genetic disinclination. And until recent years, I was loud. I was loud until I finally, desperately, trained myself to mitigate some of my more bombastic tendencies, no longer willing to be addressed as if I were a perturbing child who, after chugging a case of Mountain Dew, had rocketed to hyperactivity. But even then, I was dogged by an ever-deepening sense that my voice and general disposition were disagreeably excessive—that others, particularly in professional circumstances, would always find the bigness of my expressions off-putting if I did not take care to modulate them.

  * * *

  It can be blisteringly painful to be an exuberant woman in a public setting, particularly a professional one. Oftentimes, we are positioned as if we’re at odds with the environment. Exuberant women laugh loudly, whistle, and sing in the office. They are rarely blasé about their circumstances, nor are they concerned with appearing “chill” in the interest of keeping up appearances. If the exuberant woman finds reason to be excited, she will express it—that is, until she is maligned as immature, unprofessional, or even annoying. Somehow, expressions of joy and pleasure have become damning markers of stunted growth. If exuberance is not checked in youth, surely it will unsettle conventional expectations of womanhood. How could a thirty-year-old woman who has recognized the weight of her gendered responsibilities not sound jaded and sardonic and world-weary? But despite what American society insists, exuberance is not at odds with emotional and sexual maturity. Exuberant women can demand respect without forsaking their buoyancy and playfulness.

  Yet women in traditional office environments know all too well the necessity of muting their vibrancy. Already at risk of being treated like little girls playing pretend, an exuberant woman in a male-dominated workplace risks upward mobility and certainly the respect of upper management. We walk a fine line: after all, projecting confidence—an especial necessity for women in the professional world—requires women to gulp back any vestiges of meekness. We must demonstrate ourselves to be just as witty as our male colleagues, and after hours, we gain respect by holding our liquor at raucous happy hours. But for women, the line between confidence and exuberance is a fraught and muddied one indeed. One false step is damning, and we’re never precisely sure where the traps are laid.

  After I graduated college, I worked for one year as an administrative assistant at a private security company. It was a small, predominantly male office. The politics were overwhelmingly conservative, and much of the staff hailed from the military. I was twenty-two and blonde, my enthusiasm and naïveté palpable in equal measure. The purpose of the job for me was to fill a gap—I needed to make money while I applied to graduate school—but I was nonetheless determined, as usual, to impress. I wore suits during my first week. The heels of my shoes ascended to a sensible height.

  But very quickly it became all too clear to me that I was something of a joke, not because I was incompetent (I wasn’t) or because I was very young (although that was a contributing factor) but because it never occurred to me to mask my delight when the CEO brought her dog to the office or to refrain from hugging a friendly colleague. I was a joke because I was young and feminine and unaware that my wide-eyed and acutely earnest demeanor was incommensurate with the corporate vision of professionalism.

  And to be sure, I was still a fledgling employee. When I worked in the company’s human resources department and was responsible for fielding employee phone calls, I tripped over rhetoric and grappled wildly for relevant information. When one security guard called and told me that he wanted to quit, I exclaimed, before I could stop myself, “Oh, no! Don’t quit!” My confidence in these endeavors lessened considerably after a coworker told me that our boss, while listening to me fumble through a call one day, said with a sigh, “I hate when Rachel answers the phone.” To my recollection, she never attempted to mentor me in this regard. She had her own freight of responsibilities, but I believe she found me irritating and would have simply fired me if given the opportunity. But as it was, the turnover rate in that human resources department was flagrantly high; everyone was miserable and those who could afford to leave did precisely that. For my part, I dashed off to the bathroom to sob on more than one occasion because this boss spoke to me harshly. I felt silly and sophomoric for doing so, but navigating inhospitable circumstances demands a pressure valve of some sort.

  After one year in this dismal corporate quagmire, I eagerly returned to school in order to pursue graduate studies in English literature. I fancied myself better suited for the “life of the mind,” a phrase I relished in my early twenties and internalized with great solemnity and self-seriousness. Academia’s liberal arts’ quarter would be a harbor, I reassured myself, a sanctuary for a bookish girl who blundered in endeavors of emotional self-moderation. And in some ways, this was the case. I befriended likeminded classmates whose dispositions were similar to mine or who were amenable to my emotional largesse. When I began teaching college courses, which is its own sort of performance, I found that exuberance could be a boon, even if my students smiled indulgently and thought I was a bit of a goof.

  But academia, in its own way, fetishizes a culture of flinty, productivity-absorbed coolness that often ground against my sensibilities. Being a focused and ambitious student did not suffice: what was preferable, it seemed, was to project the demeanor of someone who not only relished endless workdays, but who was blasé about it, too. Among a trusted inner sanctum I could reveal my insecurities and exhaustion—to the rest, I essayed an attitude of militant and self-punishing sangfroid (and was, I’m sure, lacking in my attempts).

  I loved graduate school, and my tenure there was largely successful. I belong to that variety of person who assesses all of her achievements in terms of grades: as the saying goes, I’m still hoping to earn an A-plus in therapy, and I compulsively check my ride-share ratings. And so it smarted all the more when my too muchness resulted in the “wrong” sort of scholarly behavior: tears at an inopportune time, my failure to conceal distress during a serious meeting. During the opening statement of my doctoral oral exam, where I was tasked with delivering a presentation and answering questions from a committee of faculty members, I burst into tears—nothing had gone wrong, but the stress of the ordeal had quickened my pulse to a rabbit’s pace and at last burst from my tear ducts. Everyone on my committee responded with perfect kindness, but I was mortified all the same. Lousy with chagrin, I would relive this scene, and so many others, ad infinitum. I had, after all, already internalized specific expectations of deportment, and even if an authority figure wasn’t invested in them, I was. Gradually, as I checked my exuberance and gulped down my predisposition for soggy eyes, I put myself to the test, hoping that I would impress others with a veneer of stoicism. But I hardly triumphed; on this sort of examination I never could.

  * * *

  Docile quietude has long been wielded by conduct books as a specifically feminine virtue. In 1946, the magazine Photoplay published the article “That Romantic Look,” an instructional piece for women who were aiding their soldier husbands in acclimating to civilian life after the Second World War. The paramount goal was to minister to one’s head of household without injuring his proud masculinity:

  Listen to your laughter too. Let it come easily, especially when you’re with boys who
had little to laugh at for too long. Laugh at the silly things you used to do together. Laugh for the sweet sake of laughter. And if you hear your laugh sound hysterical, giddy, or loud, tone it down, oh do tone it down!

  Easy enough to say, “Speak gently. Laugh softly,” I know. The tone of our voice and laughter generates within us. When we’re worried or rushed, it’s in our voice and laughter that hysteria will manifest itself…Serenity is the very wellspring of a romantic look. In it you have the beginning of the smooth brow, the easy carriage, the low voice, the gentle smile. This Christmas with our men home, surely we should know serenity. So let us look happy and contented and starry-eyed.1

  Historical context aside, these directives might have come from a Victorian lady’s etiquette book. Mid-century America draws liberally upon the rhetoric of hysteria in admonishing its women to cultivate placid demeanors and soft, dulcet tones. And yet, with a more modern and progressive approach, this conversation—how to aid someone in the transition from a violent, traumatic context to the routines of daily life—would be a productive one. It would not be until the Vietnam War that we began even to discuss how to engage with those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder: these early efforts to soothe those who had recently endured the unthinkable are well intentioned but, unsurprisingly, entrenched in gender-normative philosophies regarding femininity and distribution of emotional labor. Oh, do tone it down, ladies.

  As for nineteenth-century etiquette books, their positions on women’s voices and general dispositions are what you might suppose: if, as the old chestnut goes, children were to be seen and not heard, women’s guidelines hardly differed. Feminine exuberance would have been received as unseemly at best when so much as opening one’s mouth demanded special care and modulation. As in all other topics, Ella Adelia Fletcher’s The Woman Beautiful takes a maniacally specific approach to addressing how a woman should speak without afflicting the genteel ears of those present. After instructing her readers in how to beautify their mouths and lips, Fletcher proceeds to tackle voice: