9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So when I was eight years old,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a new girl came to join the class.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She was so impressive,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
as the new girl always seems to be.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
She had vast quantities of very shiny hair

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and a cute little pencil case,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
super-strong on state capitals,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
just a great speller,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I just curdled with jealousy that year,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
until I hatched my devious plan.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So one day I stayed a little late after school,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a little too late, and I lurked in the girl's bathroom.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
When the coast was clear, I emerged,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
crept into the classroom,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and took from my teacher's desk the grade book.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And then I did it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I fiddled with my rival's grades,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
just a little, just demoted some of those A's.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
all of those A's, and

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
-- (Laughter) --

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I got ready to return the book to the drawer,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
when hang on, some of my other classmates

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
had appallingly good grades too.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
So, in a frenzy,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I corrected everybody's marks,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
not imaginatively, not imaginatively.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I gave everybody a row of D's

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and I gave myself a row of A's,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
just because I was there, you know, might as well.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And I am still baffled by my behavior.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I don't understand where the idea came from.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I don't understand why I felt so great doing it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I felt great. I felt great.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I don't understand why I was never caught.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I mean, it should have been so blatantly obvious.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I was never caught.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But most of all, I am baffled by

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
why did it bother me so much

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that this little girl, this tiny little girl,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
was so good at spelling?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Jealousy baffles me.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
It's so mysterious, and it's so pervasive.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
You know, we know babies suffer from jealousy.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We know primates do. Bluebirds are actually very prone.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
We know that jealousy is the number one cause

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of spousal murder in the United States.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And yet, I have never read a study

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that can parse to me its loneliness

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or its longevity or its grim thrill.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
For that, we have to go to fiction,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because the novel is the lab

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that has studied jealousy

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in every possible configuration.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In fact, I don't know if it's an exaggeration to say

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that if we didn't have jealousy,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
could we even have literature.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Well no faithless Helen, no "Odyssey."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
No jealous king, no "Arabian Knights."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
No Shakespeare.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
There goes high school reading lists,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
because we're losing "Sound and the Fury,"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we're losing "Gatsby," "Son Also Rises,"

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
we're losing "Madame Bovary," "Anna K."

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
No jealousy, no Proust, and now, I mean,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I know it's fashionable to say that Proust

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
has the answers to everything,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but in the case of jealousy, in the case of jealousy

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
he kind of does, he kind of does.