This insight is a gift we receive at Baptism, but it is only a foundation. We must strive, with God’s grace, to build on it, throughout our lives. We do so by the gifts of chastity, purity of intention, purity of vision, and prayer. The family in 1980, the year Thy Neighbor's Wife was published. Photo: Thomas Victor/Courtesy of Gay Talese

By way of explaining how he felt about his wife-to-be, he tells me about his first love, a girl he met in college in Alabama. “She was my Zelda Fitzgerald,” he says wistfully. Gay was devastated when she dumped him. “When I met Nan, I thought, this is a person that I’m not going to be dumped by. And that mattered to me. In a practical sense, I wanted to succeed, and I wanted to have someone who cared about me personally, and Nan did. And I cared about her as well. I just felt I could grow with her. I’m not sure I could have grown with little Miss Zelda Fitzgerald.”You are not to desire your neighbor's wife nor covet your neighbor's house, his fields, his male and female servants, his ox, his donkey, nor anything that concerns your neighbor.'" Neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's wife; neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour's house, his field, or his man-servant, or his maid-servant, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour's. He remembers discussing his problems with Nora Ephron one night when she had come to the townhouse for dinner. “This is the shittiest year I’ve ever had in my life,” he told her. “What are you going to do next?” she asked.

To be modest means to be a subject, an individual willing to live under a law higher than our own wants and needs. And this awareness should lead us to an appreciation of the value of the other individuals with whom we share citizenship in the Kingdom of God. All the commandments on the “second” tablet of the law govern our relations with others; the Ninth reminds us that our bodies are precious, far too precious to be sacrificed to the whims of fashion or misunderstood notions of human freedom. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not desire your neighbor’s house or field, his male or female slave, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor. You shall not covet [that is, selfishly desire and attempt to acquire] your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” Our Catechism quotes the Book of Wisdom, which – rather ominously – warns, “Appearance arouses yearning in fools.” The Ninth Commandment’s close relation with the virtue of Temperance, and the union of both with a desire for simplicity and purity of heart, urges us to strive for what religious superiors have historically termed “chastity of the eyes.” It didn’t even enter your mind at the time,” says Pamela, matter-of-factly. “At about 8 or 9 or 10 years old, you began to tell me—with some pride, I now realize—that this book was going to get a tremendous amount of attention. And that we had to be prepared for it, but I actually don’t think that you yourself were prepared for the kind of reaction the book would get.”

St. Thomas Aquinas describes modesty as “moderation and restraint” in bodily movement and action, and he discerns three aspects of the virtue: method, which is the capacity to grasp what we should do, or avoid doing, refinement or decorum in what we do, and gravity – the manner and quality of our conversation with our friends. (ST, II-II, 143) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” Renewal theology: systematic theology from a charismatic perspective, J. Rodman Williams, 1996 p.240; Making moral decisions: a Christian approach to personal and social ethics, Paul T. Jersild, 1991, p. 24 Thou dost not desire the house of thy neighbour, thou dost not desire the wife of thy neighbour, or his man-servant, or his handmaid, or his ox, or his ass, or anything which is thy neighbour's.' The Ninth and Tenth Commandments sound so similar – “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife… Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods” – we may wonder what distinguishes them. Our theology teaches that concupiscence is the distinguishing characteristic.