Status Updates From التحول

Soon boxes are flying off the shelves in the sports shop. They choose a sweater in a checkerboard plaid, a chamois belt that cinches the waist, a pair of fawn walking shoes with a pungent new smell, a cap, snug colorful sport stockings, and all sorts of odds and ends. In the fitting room Christine peels off the hated blouse like a dirty rind: the poverty she brought with her is packed out of sight in a cardboard box

Her first reaction is to marvel that anything like this can exist at all, so much gleaming magnificence. Her next thought is one that for years has been indissolubly linked to anything desir-able: what this must cost, how much money, what an incredible amount of money!

Once shame touches your being at any point, even the most distant nerve is implicated, whether you know it or not; any feeting encounter or random thought will rake up the anguish and add to it. This first blow marks the end of Christine's unselfconsciousness.

In the midst of her weeping and carrying on, the old woman suddenly became winded and had to be put to bed, gasping for breath. Christine left her in that condition, and now her worry is becoming a guilty feeling:
"My God, I've never seen her so upset, what if something happens to her and I'm not there? Traveling, that's something for people who don't have someone sick at home, not for people like us”

*harasses partner for the historical context of this section of the book*