Free Hygiene and the Assassin by Amélie Nothomb

balls are an individual’s ability to resist the prevailing bad faith. Sounds scientific, right?”
    â€œGo on.”
    â€œI might as well tell you that almost no one has the balls for it. And the number of people who have both a way with words and the right kind of balls is infinitesimal. That is why there are so few writers on the planet. Particularly as other qualities are also required.”
    â€œSuch as?”
    â€œA prick.”
    â€œAfter balls, a prick: that’s logical. Definition of prick?”
    â€œThe prick is an ability to create. People who are truly capable of creating are rare indeed. Most of them are content with merely copying their predecessors with greater or lesser degrees of talent—and those same predecessors are, most often, copiers themselves. Sometimes you get a writer who has a way with words and a prick but no balls: Victor Hugo, for example.”
    â€œAnd yourself?”
    â€œI may have the face of a eunuch, but I have a big prick.”
    â€œAnd Céline?”
    â€œAh, Céline has everything: he’s a genius with words, and he has big balls, a big prick, and all the rest.”
    â€œThe rest? What else is required? An anus?”
    â€œAbsolutely not! It’s the reader who must have an anus, to be taken for a fool, not the writer. No, a writer also needs lips.”
    â€œDare I even ask you what kind of lips you mean?”
    â€œUpon my word, you are revolting! I’m talking about the lips that are used to close one’s mouth, all right? Disgusting individual!”
    â€œOkay. Definition of lips?”
    â€œLips fulfill two roles. First of all, they make words into a sensual act. Have you ever imagined what words would be were it not for lips? They would quite simply be something cold, dry, without any nuances, like the utterances of a courtroom bailiff. But the second role is even more important: lips are used to prevent what must not be said from getting out. Hands also have lips, the lips that prevent them from writing what must not be written. This is indispensable, beyond all proportion. There are writers who are brimming with talent, who have balls and a prick, yet they failed as writers because they said things they shouldn’t have said.”
    â€œThat’s astonishing, coming from you: it’s not your style to practice self-censorship.”
    â€œWho said anything about self-censorship? The things that must not be said are not necessarily smutty things; on the contrary. The smutty things you have inside you must always be expressed: that’s healthy, lighthearted, invigorating. No, the things that must not be said are of another order—and don’t expect me to explain them to you, because those are precisely the things that must not be said.”
    â€œWell that’s not going to get me very far.”
    â€œDidn’t I warn you, earlier, that my profession consists in not answering questions? Change your profession, young man.”
    â€œSo not answering questions is also one of the roles fulfilled by lips, is that it?”
    â€œNot only lips, balls too. It takes balls not to answer certain questions.”
    â€œA way with words, balls, a prick, lips—anything else?”
    â€œYes, you also need an ear and a hand.”
    â€œThe ear is for hearing?”
    â€œYou heard me. You are a regular genius, young man. In fact, the ear is the sound box of the lips. It’s the inner
gueuloir.
Flaubert struck quite the pose with his
gueuloir
, but did he really think people were going to believe him? He knew it was pointless to holler his words: words holler all by themselves. You just have to listen to them inside.”
    â€œAnd the hand?”
    â€œThe hand is for pleasure. This is devastatingly important. If a writer is not having pleasure, then he must stop immediately. To write without pleasure is immoral. Writing already contains all the seeds of immorality. The writer’s