Anger

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 239 of 447 · 20 per page

• From Push (1996)

  I usually do. I just wanna gone get the fuck out of I.S. 146 and go to high school and get my diploma. Anyway I'm in Mrs Lichenstein's office. She's looking at me, I'm looking at her. I don't say nuffin'. Finally she say, "So Claireece, I see we're expecting a little visitor." But it's not like a question, she's telling me. I still don't say nuffin'. She staring at me, from behind her big wooden desk, she got her white bitch hands folded together on top her desk. "Claireece." Everybody call me Precious. I got three names— Claireece Precious Jones. Only mutherfuckers I hate call me Claireece. "How old are you Claireece?" White cunt box got my file on her desk. I see it. I ain't that late to lunch. Bitch know how old I am. "Sixteen is ahh rather ahh"—she clear her throat — "old to still be in junior high school." I still don't say nuffin'. She know so much let her ass do the talking. "Come now, you are pregnant, aren't you Claireece?" She asking now, a few seconds ago the hoe just knew what I was. "Claireece?" She tryin' to talk all gentle now and shit. "Claireece, I'm talking to you." I still don't say nuffin'. This hoe is keeping me from maff class. I like maff class. Mr Wicher like me in there, need me to keep those rowdy niggers in line. He nice, wear a dope suit every day. He do not come to school looking like some of these other nasty ass teachers. "I don't want to miss no more of maff class," I tell stupid ass Mrs Lichenstein. She look at me like I said I wanna suck a dog's dick or some shit. What's with this cunt bucket? (That's what my muver call women she don't like, cunt buckets. I kinda get it and I kinda don't get it, but I like the way it sounds so I say it too.) I get up to go, Mrs Lichenstein ax me to please sit down, she not through with me yet. But I'm through with her, thas what she don't get. "This is your second baby?" she says. I wonder what else it say in that file with my name on it. I hate her. "I think we should have a parent-teacher conference Claireece—me, you, and your mom." "For what?" I say. "I am' done nuffin'. I doose my work. I am' in no trouble. My grades is good." Mrs Lichenstein look at me like I got three arms or a bad odor out my pussy or something. What my muver gon' do I want to say. What is she gonna do? But I don't say that. I jus' say, "My muver is busy." "Well maybe I could arrange to come to your house—" The look on my face musta hit her, which is what I was gonna do if she said one more word. Come to my house!

• From Real Life (2020)

  Son travail est une insulte pour les autres. Elle le déteste parce qu’il travaille, mais il travaille seulement pour éviter que les gens le haïssent et résilient sa place dans le monde. Il travaille seulement pour s’en sortir dans la vie avec les moyens qui sont les siens. Rien de tout cela ne le sauvera, il le voit maintenant. Rien de tout cela ne peut le sauver. Wallace tourne le bouton et éteint sa flamme, craignant un instant d’avoir appuyé trop fort sur la manette et brisé l’interrupteur. Mais la manette supporte son poids. Il se tourne ensuite vers Dana, qui halète, pathétique. Elle a le visage rouge. Les yeux luisants. Il s’approche d’elle, toujours assise sur le bureau. Le bout de ses chaussures touche le devant de son pantalon. Ce n’est pas de la haine. Il ne la hait pas. Parce qu’elle compte si peu pour lui. Ce serait comme haïr une enfant. Cela le rendrait pareil à ses parents qui, sans nul doute, l’avaient haï, lui, à leur manière. Et il ne veut pas être comme eux. Mais il ne parvient pas à se forcer à la bonté. À la générosité. « Je t’emmerde, Dana », dit-il enfin, et ça le soulage, à tel point qu’il lui est brièvement reconnaissant d’avoir rendu ça possible. « Franchement, je t’emmerde. » Une bouffée d’air le ragaillardit. Il récupère son étui à raquette dans l’étagère au sol, et pendant tout ce temps, elle le fixe comme si elle venait de recevoir une gifle. Il se redresse. Ils échangent un nouveau regard. Elle semble sur le point d’ajouter quelque chose, mais il tourne les talons et s’éloigne dans l’ombre bleue qui a envahi le labo maintenant que les lumières sont éteintes. Le capteur de mouvements ne se met pas en marche, comme si Wallace faisait partie intégrante de ce lieu, comme s’il était un fantôme. Dana crie après lui, qu’elle n’a pas terminé, qu’il n’a pas le droit de couper court à la conversation sans la laisser s’exprimer. Elle hurle parce qu’elle ne sait pas quoi faire d’autre de sa peur et de sa colère, et bien vite ses cris se transforment en sanglots. Mais Wallace traverse déjà le hall. Le hall est trop éclairé, aveuglant. Ses pas résonnent. Il marche vigoureusement. Il a le pas lourd. Sa mère se moquait tout le temps de lui. Tu piétines ; tu ne regardes jamais où tu mets les pieds. Maintenant il le fait. Il voit le voile mince de son ombre sur le sol. Dépasse la cuisine, dépasse la porte du labo de Miller. « Hé ! », lance Miller.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  Pause. “What I’d like to do with this bloody novel—only Pop might not feel the same way—is to charge through it like a drunken Cossack. Russia, Russia, where are you heading? On, on, like the whirlwind! The only way I can be myself is to smash things. I’ll never write a book to suit the publishers. I’ve written too many books. Sleep-walking books. You know what I mean. Millions and millions of words—all in the head. They’re banging around up there, like gold pieces. I’m tired of making gold pieces. I’m sick of these cavalry charges … in the dark. Every word I put down now must be an arrow that goes straight to the mark. A poisoned arrow. I want to kill off books, writers, publishers, readers. To write for the public doesn’t mean a thing to me. What I’d like is to write for madmen—or for the angels.” I paused and a curious smile came over my face at the thought which had entered my head. “That landlady of ours, I wonder what she’d think if she heard me talking this way? She’s too good to us, don’t you think? She doesn’t know us. She’d never believe what a walking pogrom I am. Nor has she any idea why I’m so crazy about Sirota and that bloody synagogue music.” I pulled up short. “What the hell has Sirota got to do with it anyway?” “Yes, Val, you’re excited. Put it in the book. Don’t waste yourself in talk!” Such Exquisite Torture—NexusSometimes I would sit at the machine for hours without writing a line. Fired by an idea, often an irrelevant one, my thoughts would come too fast to be transcribed. I would be dragged along at a gallop, like a stricken warrior tied to his chariot. On the wall at my right there were all sorts of memoranda tacked up: a long list of words, words that bewitched me and which I intended to drag in by the scalp if necessary; reproductions of paintings, by Uccello, della Francesca, Breughel, Giotto, Memling; titles of books from which I meant to deftly lift passages; phrases filched from my favorite authors, not to quote but to remind me how to twist things occasionally; for example: “The worm that would gnaw her bladder” or “the pulp which had deglutinized behind his forehead.” In the Bible were slips of paper to indicate where gems were to be found. The Bible was a veritable diamond mine. Every time I looked up a passage I became intoxicated. In the dictionary were place marks for lists of one kind or another: flowers, birds, trees, reptiles, gems, poisons, and so on. In short, I had fortified myself with a complete arsenal. But what was the result? Pondering over a word like praxis, for example, or pleroma, my mind would wander like a drunken wasp.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  In my early twenties, confined to my father’s shop, a slave to the most idiotic kind of routine imaginable, I broke out—inside. Inwardly I was a perpetual volcano. I will never forget the walks to and from my father’s shop every day: the tremendous dialogues I had with my “characters,” the scenes I portrayed, and so on. And never a line of any of this ever put to paper. Where would you begin if you were a smothered volcano? And then, after the first attempt at a book—when with the Western Union and married to that woman B——, my first wife—I dream of making my entry into the lists—by the back door. To write something that will sell, that people will read, that will permit me to say—“There is my name signed to it, you see.” Proof. And then the break, thanks to June, the plunge. And I am free, spoon-fed, have leisure, paper, everything, but can’t do it. Oh yes, I do write, but how painfully, and how poorly, how imitatively. And then when June left for France with her friend Jean Kronski, then I broke, then I mapped out my whole career. And even then, think of it, even after leaving for France, three years later, I still do not begin that great work. I write Tropic of Cancer , which was not in the schema—but of the moment. I suppose one could liken it to the volcano’s eruption, or the breaking of the crust. (Only, let me say it as knows, it was such a feeble eruption compared to those imaginary street-walking ones I had every day, inwardly, walking to and from my father’s shop!) How well I know the tremendous décalage between what one wishes to do and what one does! Nowhere in my work have I come anywhere near to expressing what I meant to express. Now, if you can believe this, and I am sure you must because you must also suffer it, then imagine what sort of beast it is that a woman, any woman, has to live with who marries a writer. Imagine what happens to one who never says all, never does all, who smiles and nods his head in that civilized way and is all the while a raging bull. Well, what happens is that either the writer gains the upper hand eventually, or the man. One or the other must take the lead. My effort has been to give the lead to the man in me. (With what success others know best.) But there is no war involved, you must understand. It is rather a matter of leaning more this way than that, of shifting the emphasis and so forth. And I do not want to be a saint! Morality, in fact, drops out of the picture. Maybe the writer will drop out too. Or the man.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  I fumed for several days until I finally blew my top while standing in the kitchen crying into my tuna salad. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve stopped sending you cards each week! You’ve never once sent me a card! Do you know how much that hurts? Or do you even care?” My outburst shocked Greg, who waited until my screaming silenced to softly respond, “But I mow your yard each week…and I wash your car…and I…” “Well of course you do those things,” I interrupted, “You live here too! Those are your responsibilities!” “But I do them out of love for you, Shannon!” I wasn’t convinced until Greg brought home the book I mentioned in chapter 6, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. We read the book together and I realized that Greg was right. “Acts of service” is a legitimate love language and although it isn’t my primary love language (mine is gifts), it is Greg’s primary way of expressing love to me. I also learned that the same way Greg’s acts of service didn’t fill my love tank, my Hallmark cards weren’t really floating his boat either. Our love languages are opposite each other—his highest (acts of service and physical touch) are my lowest, and my highest (gifts and words of affirmation) are his lowest. We’ve had to be very intentional about speaking and understanding the other person’s love language so that we can recognize each other’s loving expressions. One anniversary not long afterward, Greg gave me a gift that I will never forget. It was a Hallmark card (finally!), but this one was full of hundreds of little pink squares of paper. At first I thought this was his meager attempt at surprising me with homemade confetti, but as I read the card, it touched me far more deeply than confetti ever could. It read: Shannon, I know that I don’t do near as good of a job expressing my love to you as you want me to. I’m not making any excuses, but my one desire is to be able to recognize when you need affirmation of my love without you having to feel neglected or angry. So I’m giving you all these slips of paper and asking you to please drop one where I’ll see it whenever I’m falling down on the job of making you feel as special as you really are to me. Whenever I see a little pink slip of paper, I’ll be reminded of your need for me to express my love and commitment to you. Hopefully there are enough slips to get us through this lifetime, but if not, I’ll cut some more. Your loving husband, Greg

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now Nello, whom Calandrino mistrusted, had as much diversion of the matter as the others and bore a hand with them in making sport of him: wherefore, of accord with Bruno, he betook himself to Florence to Calandrino's wife and said to her, 'Tessa, thou knowest what a beating Calandrino gave thee without cause the day he came back, laden with stones from the Mugnone; wherefore I mean to have thee avenge thyself on him; and if thou do it not, hold me no more for kinsman or for friend. He hath fallen in love with a woman over yonder, and she is lewd enough to go very often closeting herself with him. A little while agone, they appointed each other to foregather together this very day; wherefore I would have thee come thither and lie in wait for him and chastise him well.' When the lady heard this, it seemed to her no jesting matter, but, starting to her feet, she fell a-saying, 'Alack, common thief that thou art, is it thus that thou usest me? By Christ His Cross, it shall not pass thus, but I will pay thee therefor!' Then, taking her mantle and a little maid to bear her company, she started off at a good round pace for the mansion, together with Nello.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Wallace fit hmm , comme plongé dans ses pensées, le temps de laisser retomber la bouffée d’agacement et d’humiliation. Vincent arborait une expression patiente, dans l’expectative. Wallace remarqua de l’agitation à la table voisine : les footballeurs avaient commencé à se bousculer et, avec le blanc de leurs tee-shirts qui brillait dans le noir, on aurait dit une avalanche de rectangles lumineux qui s’effondraient les uns sur les autres, comme dans un tableau d’après-guerre. « Je travaillais, surtout. C’est tout, en fait. — On adore les martyrs, dit Vincent. Je suis sûr qu’on va en parler toute la soirée. Notre Dame du Labo perpétuel. — On ne parle pas tout le temps du labo », protesta Yngve, mais Wallace ne put que rire, même si c’était à ses propres dépens. C’était vrai : le labo était leur seul sujet de conversation. Quel que soit le sujet d’origine, la discussion ne manquait jamais de revenir là-dessus : je faisais une chromatographie, l’autre jour, et tu vas pas me croire, si, j’ai élué avant d’avoir fini pour dernier bain. Quelqu’un n’avait pas pensé à remplir les boîtes à pipettes, donc devine qui a passé quatre heures à l’autoclave ? C’est trop demander que les gens remettent ma pipette où ils l’ont trouvée ? À tous les coups, ils les prennent, et on les revoit jamais . Wallace pouvait comprendre l’agacement de Vincent. Celui-ci était allé s’installer en ville au cours de leur deuxième année pour être avec Cole et, la semaine où ils attendaient tous leurs notes d’examen, il avait fait une pendaison de crémaillère, pendant les fêtes. Au lieu de boire de la bière bon marché et d’admirer le canapé d’angle design en chrome et cuir, ils s’étaient entassés dans un coin pour discuter à voix basse de l’examen 610, avec sa question inattendue sur l’hélice à la fin, et le 508, qui comprenait une question sur le changement d’enthalpie libre dans différents états osmotiques, laquelle avait demandé à Wallace cinq feuilles de papier, et des calculs infinitésimaux qu’il n’avait pas pratiqués depuis sa licence. Vincent avait passé la soirée à décorer le sapin lui-même pendant qu’ils s’angoissaient et gémissaient sur leur sort, et Wallace avait eu de la peine pour lui. Mais c’était automatique, ce réflexe de se tourner vers le labo, car tant qu’ils parlaient de science, ils n’avaient pas à se coltiner d’autres questions. C’était comme si le troisième cycle avait effacé les individus qu’ils étaient avant. Pour Wallace, du moins, c’était tout l’intérêt. Et cependant, il avait commencé à éprouver, cet été tout spécialement, un sentiment qu’il n’avait jamais éprouvé auparavant : qu’il voulait autre chose. Il n’était pas heureux et, pour la première fois de sa vie, cette condition ne semblait pas entièrement nécessaire. Parfois, il avait envie de faire confiance à son impulsion, de sortir d’un bond de sa vie pour plonger dans le vide vaste, incalculable du monde. « Je travaille aussi, mais vous ne m’entendez pas en parler constamment.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “No, man, they love them, too. Like they never heard of Freud.” Harold laughed. “They’ll take you home and feed you, they’ll share anything they’ve got with you and they’ll be hurt if you don’t take it.” “Mothers, sisters, or brothers,” Harold said. “Take them away. Open up that window and let that foul air out.” Lorenzo ignored this, looking around the table and nodding gravely. “That’s the truth, men, they’re great people.” “What about Franco?” Belle asked. She seemed rather proud to know that Franco existed. “Oh, Franco’s an asshole, he doesn’t count.” “Bullshit he doesn’t count,” cried Harold, “you think all those uniforms that we help Franco pay for are walking around Spain just for kicks? You think they don’t have real bullets in those guns? Let me tell you, dad, those cats are for real, they shoot people!” “Well. That doesn’t have anything to do with the people,” said Lorenzo. “Yeah. But I bet you wouldn’t like to be a Spaniard,” Harold said. “I’m sick of all this jazz about the happy Spanish peasant,” Vivaldo said. He thought of Ida. He leaned over to Lorenzo. “I bet you you wouldn’t want to be a nigger here, would you?” “Oh!” laughed Lorenzo, “your chick sure has you brainwashed!” “Brainwashed, hell. You wouldn’t want to be colored here and you wouldn’t want to be Spanish there.” There was a curious tension in his chest and he took a large swallow of his whiskey. “The question is—what do we want to be?” “I want to be me,” said Belle, with an unexpected ferocity, and chewed at her thumbnail. “Well,” asked Vivaldo, and looked at her, “what’s stopping you?” She giggled and chewed; she looked down. “I don’t know. It’s hard to get straight.” She looked over at him as though afraid he might reach over and strike her. “You know what I mean?” “Yes,” he said, after a long moment and a long sigh, “I sure do know what you mean.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  “We haven’t agreed on where to move because all you’ve done is offer objections to every place I suggest. And, since you haven’t made any counter-suggestions, I conclude that you don’t really want to move.” “Oh, Richard. I simply am not terribly attracted to any of those literary colonies you want us to become a part of—–” Richard’s eyes turned as dark as deep water. “Cass doesn’t like writers,” he said, lightly, to Eric, “not if they make a living at it, anyway. She thinks writers should never cease starving and whoring around, like our good friend, Vivaldo. That’s fine, boy, that’s really being responsible and artistic. But all the rest of us, trying to love a woman and raise a family and make some loot—we’re whores.” She was very pale. “I have never said anything at all like that.” “No? There are lots of ways of saying”—he mimicked her—“things like that. You’ve said it a thousand times. You must think I’m dumb, chicken.” He turned again to Eric, who stood near the window, wishing he could fly out of it. “If she was stuck with a guy like Vivaldo—” “Leave Vivaldo out of this! What has he got to do with it?” Richard gave a surprisingly merry laugh, and repeated, “If she was stuck with a guy like that, maybe you wouldn’t hear some pissing and moaning! Oh, what a martyrdom! And how she’d love it!” He took a swallow of his drink and crossed the room toward her. “And you know why? You want to know why?” There was a silence. She lifted her enormous eyes to meet his. “Because you’re just like all the other American cunts. You want a guy you can feel sorry for, you love him as long as he’s helpless. Then you can pitch in, as you love to say, you can be his helper. Helper!” He threw back his head and laughed. “Then, one fine day, the guy feels chilly between his legs and feels around for his cock and balls and finds she’s helped herself to them and locked them in the linen closet.” He finished his drink and, roughly, caught his breath. His voice changed, becoming almost tender with sorrow. “That’s the way it is, isn’t it, sugar? You don’t like me now as well as you did once.” She looked terribly weary; her skin seemed to have loosened. She put one hand lightly on his arm. “No,” she said, “that’s not the way it is.” Then a kind of fury shook her and tears came to her eyes. “You haven’t any right to say such things to me; you’re blaming me for something I haven’t anything to do with at all!” He reached out to touch her shoulder; she moved away. “You’d better go, Eric, this can’t be much fun for you. Make our excuses, please, to Vivaldo and Ida.”

• From Real Life (2020)

  Son cœur s’est arrêté trois fois dans l’ambulance. — Attends, Miller… Pourquoi ? — Je ne sais pas – c’est comme ça. Le traumatisme, l’arythmie. Il a fait une hémorragie cérébrale quand je l’ai cogné. Il en a gardé des séquelles pendant longtemps. — Non. Enfin – c’est pas ce que je voulais dire. » Miller se recule. Wallace l’imite. Miller se lève. Wallace se lève. Il prend Miller par le coude, s’efforce de le faire se tourner vers lui. « Pourquoi tu lui as fait ça ? » Miller a les yeux tristes, les yeux baissés. Il tourne le dos à Wallace. Renverse le verre posé par terre. De l’eau froide se répand sur leurs pieds. Sur le sol. Le verre se fendille, mais ne se casse pas. « Merde », fait Miller. Wallace respire fort. Le vent se calme dans les arbres. Il fait froid et sombre. « Ferme, tu veux ? » Wallace hoche la tête et tire la porte coulissante tandis que Miller ramasse le verre. Une fois la porte fermée, la pièce est soudain silencieuse. « C’est ça, ta réponse ? demande Wallace. — Je n’en ai pas, dit-il en s’appuyant sur le plan de travail. Je n’ai pas de réponse. C’était un petit mec de chez nous. Il nous suivait partout, moi et mes potes. C’était pas comme ici. Je suis pas comme Yngve. Ou Lukas, ou Emma. Je ne viens pas de ça . » Il fait un geste large embrassant la maison, le jardin et leurs voisins qui dorment à poings fermés, un geste qui comprend le Capitole, la place, et les lacs, et les arbres, et le monde entier, vibrant. « Mais bref, son père était ingénieur dans l’usine où travaillait mon père, et tout ce qu’il avait à la bouche, ce mec, c’était Purdue. Il irait à Purdue. Décision précoce. » Le visage de Miller est complètement fermé. Comme s’il revoyait la scène telle quelle. « C’était juste un minus, ce gamin, Wallace. Tellement sûr de lui. — Tu as attaqué un mec parce qu’il était sûr de lui ? — Non. Non, c’est pas ça. Enfin si, en un sens. Au fond ça revient à ça. Il était sûr de lui, oui. Le seul avenir qui m’attendait, moi, c’était un boulot à faire des patins de frein comme mon daron. Et ce petit con, il se pavanait en proclamant : Je vais aller à Purdue ! Je vais devenir ingénieur ! Et moi , j’étais juste furieux, parce que personne ne voulait de moi. Partout où je voulais aller, on ne voulait pas de moi. — Je comprends. — Ah bon ? Un jour, on a volé des cigarettes, tu vois le genre. On s’est tous installés devant la vieille épicerie pour fumer en se racontant des conneries.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Il l’a posée à la table. Sa voix est un murmure rauque. « Est-ce que ça doit changer les choses ? Ça doit changer quoi ? — Eh bien, tout », fait Vincent avec un petit rire. « Franchement, si mon père mourait, je serais dévasté. » Wallace hoche la tête. Il y a un sifflement creux au-dessus de leur tête. Maintenant qu’ils sont tous silencieux, il l’entend parfaitement. Qu’est-ce que c’est que ça, se demande-t-il. On dirait quelque chose qui s’échappe, une fuite. « Tout doit changer », dit-il au bout d’un moment, en souriant, en riant – il sourit toujours, l’imbécile heureux, le poisson dans l’eau. Ses yeux se plissent. L’assemblée se détend. Roman fronce les sourcils. « C’est vrai ? Que tu penses laisser tomber ? » Wallace pense à trois verbes français en succession rapide : partir, sortir, quitter.* Il a appris le français au lycée, il en a fait quatre ans. Puis à la fac, encore trois ans. À la fac, il était aussi copain avec les joueurs de tennis nord-africains, mais ça l’intimidait toujours de parler français en dehors des cours. Sauf dans des moments d’audace inhabituelle, où il leur posait des questions sur eux, leurs pays, leurs familles, leurs vies. Et il y avait un garçon, Peter, avec qui il avait failli coucher plusieurs fois. Peter lui disait au revoir en employant le mot casser : Je me casse . C’est à ce mot que pense maintenant Wallace. Il l’a sur le bout de la langue, mais il le retient. C’est un mot intime. Il appartient à Peter. Wallace fait hmm. « Eh bien, je ne dirais pas que je veux laisser tomber, mais j’y ai pensé, oui. — Pourquoi tu ferais ça ? Je veux dire, les perspectives d’avenir pour… les Noirs, tu vois ? — C’est quoi, les perspectives d’avenir pour les Noirs ? » demande Wallace, bien qu’il sache qu’il va être considéré comme l’agresseur à cause de cette question. Déjà, ils prennent acte de la tension dans son front, ses mains, dans ses yeux qui se durcissent. La tension qui crispe les coins de sa bouche. « Eh bien, fait Roman en haussant les épaules, avec un doctorat, tu as de meilleures perspectives d’avenir, un meilleur boulot, de meilleures chances. Sans ça… les statistiques sont ce qu’elles sont. — Fascinant, fait Wallace. — En plus, ils ont dépensé tellement d’argent pour ta formation. Ça paraît un peu ingrat de renoncer. — Donc je devrais rester par gratitude ? — Je veux dire, si vraiment tu n’arrives pas à suivre, alors OK, va-t’en. Mais ils t’ont fait venir en connaissant tes déficiences, et… — Mes déficiences ? — Oui. Tes déficiences. Je ne dirais pas lesquelles. Tu le sais. Tu viens d’un milieu difficile.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Wallace en a assez de l’inquiétude des autres, assez de leur sollicitude. Elle le poursuit depuis vendredi comme une toux sèche persistante. « Salut Wallace », dit quelqu’un à sa gauche. C’est Katie, qui longe sa paillasse avec une expression de détermination farouche. « Je voulais voir où tu en étais avec ces résultats ? Quel est le statut ? — Ah, Katie. J’essaie de limiter la casse. Je fais de mon mieux pour récupérer la souche, quoi. » Il déteste l’incertitude dans sa propre voix, qui tremblote. Il hausse les épaules. « OK, mais on en est où, sur le plan global, si je puis dire ? — Pardonne-moi, mais je ne comprends pas la question », répond-il avec une panique grandissante. La patience de Katie faiblit déjà, son visage aux traits fins se contracte. Elle appuie une hanche contre la paillasse et croise les bras. « Tu te préparais à faire des tests de coloration, c’est ça ? » Wallace acquiesce. « OK, donc ce que je te demande c’est, où tu les vois s’intégrer dans ce projet ? Je suis en train d’essayer de finaliser des trucs pour cet article, et je viens de me rendre compte que je ne sais même pas ce que tu fabriques, à la base. — La coloration est censée récapituler les résultats précédents », explique-t-il au bout d’un instant, lentement, réfléchissant à la question, tentant de se rappeler pourquoi il a lancé l’expérience. « Ceux de ton travail de l’an dernier. On avait besoin de les reproduire, alors c’est ce que je faisais… je reproduisais l’expérience. — Et ça t’a pris un mois ? — Oui, Katie, ça a pris un mois. — J’ai juste l’impression que je pourrais le faire moi-même, plus vite, au lieu d’être bloquée à attendre. — Eh bien, oui, tu pourrais, mais c’est mon projet. — Mais ce n’est pas toi qui signes l’article de ton nom, Wallace, je me trompe ? Ce n’est pas ta thèse. — Mon nom figure sur l’article. — En troisième position. — Oui, n’empêche que ça reste mon nom. Ça reste mon travail. — Mais en fait tu n’as pas… tu n’es pas… » Katie ne le regarde pas exactement d’un air courroucé. Elle ne le fusille pas exactement du regard. Wallace sait qu’elle tente simplement de mettre au clair un truc qui la déconcerte, qu’elle n’arrive pas à comprendre. C’est le regard de quelqu’un qui trie ses pensées, qui retourne les choses dans sa tête. Ce qu’elle veut dire, il le voit, c’est qu’il ne travaille pas assez, que son engagement est insuffisant d’une manière ou d’une autre.

• From Another Country (1962)

  More chatter from his mother: it was as though each of her contacts with Vivaldo was so brief and so menaced that she tried to establish in minutes a communion which had not been accomplished in years. “I’ll be there,” he said, “good-bye,” and hung up. Yet, he had loved her once, he loved her still, he loved them all. He looked at the silent telephone, then looked over at Ida. “Want to come to a birthday party?” “No, thank you, sweetie. You want to educate your family, you get them some slides, you hear? Colored slides,” and she raised her eyes, mockingly, from the magazine. He laughed, but felt so guilty about Ida and about his mother that he was unable to let well enough alone. “I’d like to take you over with me one of these days. It might do them some good. They’re such cornballs.” “What might do them some good?” Her attention was still on her magazine. “Why—meeting you. They’re not bad people. They’re just very limited.” “I’ve told you, I’m not at all interested in the education of your family, Vivaldo.” Obscurely, deeply, he was stung. “Don’t you think there’s any hope for them?” “I don’t give a damn if there’s any hope for them or not. But I know that I am not about to be bugged by any more white jokers who still can’t figure out whether I’m human or not. If they don’t know, baby, sad on them, and I hope they drop dead slowly, in great pain.” “That’s not very Christian,” he said, lightly. But he was ready to drop it. “It’s the best I can do. I learned all my Christianity from white folks.” “Oh, shit,” he said, “here we go again.” The magazine came flying at him and hit him across the bridge of the nose. “What do you mean, you white motherfucker!” She mimicked him. “Here we go again! I’ve been living in this house for over a month and you still think it would be a big joke to take me home to see your mother! Goddammit, you think she’s a better woman than I am, you big, white, liberal asshole?” She caught her breath and started toward him, crouching, her hands on her hips. “Or do you think it would serve your whore of a mother right to bring your nigger whore home for her to see? Answer me, goddamnit!” “Will you shut up? You’re going to have the police down here in a minute.” “Yes, and when they come, I’m going to tell them you dragged me in off the streets and refused to pay me, yes, I am. You think I’m a whore, well, you treat me like a whore, goddamn your white prick, pay!” “Ida, it was a dumb thing to say, and I’m sorry, all right.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He looked up. “Do you?” Don’t be so sure, Vivaldo thought, but said nothing. But this had struck some nerve in him and he felt himself beginning to be angry again. “Suppose I told you that that was my sister,” the man said, gesturing toward the girl. “What would you do if you found me with your sister?” I wouldn’t give a damn if you split her in two, Vivaldo thought, promptly. At the same time this question made him tremble with rage and he realized, with another part of his mind, that this was exactly what the man wanted. There remained at the bottom of his mind, nevertheless, a numb speculation as to why this question should make him angry. “I mean, what would you do to me?” the man persisted, still holding Vivaldo’s wallet and looking at him with a smile. “I want you to name your own punishment.” He waited. Then: “Come on. You know what you guys do.” And then the man seemed, oddly, a little ashamed, and at the same time more dangerous than ever. Vivaldo said at last, tightly, “I haven’t got a sister” and straightened his tie, willing his hands to be steady, and began looking around for his jacket. The man considered him a moment more, looked at the girl, then looked down to the wallet again. He took out all the money. “This all you got.” In those days Vivaldo had been working steadily and his wallet had contained nearly sixty dollars. “Yes,” Vivaldo said. “Nothing in your pockets?” Vivaldo emptied his pockets of bills and change, perhaps five dollars in all. The man took it all. “I need something to get home on, mister,” Vivaldo said. The man gave him his wallet. “Walk,” he said. “You lucky that you can. If I catch your ass up here again, I’ll show you what happened to a nigger I know when Mr. Charlie caught him with Miss Anne.” He put his wallet in his back pocket and picked up his jacket from the floor. The man watched him, the girl watched the man. He got to the door and opened it and realized that his legs were weak. “Well,” he said, “thanks for the buggy ride,” and stumbled down the stairs. He had reached the first landing when he heard a door above him open and quick, stealthy footsteps descending. Then the girl stood above him, stretching her hand over the banister. “Here,” she whispered, “take this,” and leaned dangerously far over the banister and stuffed a dollar into his breast pocket. “Go along home now,” she said, “hurry!” and rushed back up the stairs. The man’s eyes remained with him for a long time after the rage and the shame and terror of that evening. And were with him now, as he climbed the stairs to Rufus’ apartment. He walked in without knocking. Rufus was standing near the door, holding a knife. “Is that for me or for you?

• From Real Life (2020)

  Sans raison apparente, alors que celles de tous les autres dans cet incubateur étaient – Non, j’en ai trop dit. » Elle met son bras devant ses yeux, fait mine d’être bouleversée, pousse un soupir. « Qu’est-ce que tu veux dire ? Leurs lames sont restées saines ? » La chaleur et le murmure lent de la rage. Il fait pivoter sa chaise à 90 degrés. Brigit est brune avec des taches de rousseur, un peu plus petite que Wallace. Elle est sino-américaine, de Palo Alto, où sa mère est cardiologue et son père a pris sa retraite anticipée après une carrière dans une des start-ups des débuts, celles qui ont été phagocytées par Google. Elle a été danseuse avant de se rabattre sur la science – problèmes de ligaments, dit-elle – et elle en garde une souplesse de chewing-gum, et une grande solidité malgré sa bonhommie et sa bienveillance. En ce moment, c’est une expression de conspiratrice, pleine de jubilation mauvaise, qu’elle arbore. Ils ont tendance à aimer les ragots, ces deux-là. « Rien de concret. Non. Pas du tout, mais j’ai entendu Soo-Yin, qui comme tu le sais range ses lames sur les grilles juste à côté des tiennes, dire que les siennes étaient totalement intactes. Pas de problème. Même pas un grain de poussière. — Ça n’a aucun sens. » Wallace parle d’une voix rauque, comme désaccordée, même à ses propres oreilles. Brigit hausse les sourcils et les épaules. Mais son expression se durcit, se ferme un peu. Elle retire ses pieds du bureau et fait rouler le fauteuil jusqu’à lui. De près, la lumière crue du labo se reflète dans ses cheveux bruns remontés en chignon flou. Elle parle à voix basse. « Je crois que quelqu’un a bousillé volontairement tes cultures, Wally. Je ne dis pas que j’ai vu la scène. Ni rien de tel. Mais je ne serais pas étonnée. Parce que Fay a vu tu-sais-qui traîner ici tard toute la semaine, or tu sais bien que tu-sais-qui déteste travailler après 17 heures tapantes. — Tu-sais-qui , c’est Dana ? » Brigit lui fait chut bruyamment, et jette des regards autour d’eux avec ostentation. « À ton avis ? » Dana, qui vient de Portland, de Seattle, ou d’une petite ville de cette région. Un jour, peu après son arrivée au labo, Wallace l’a vue entrer ses préparations de protéines dans la mauvaise colonne. Elle s’était servie des kits pour extraction d’ADN. Il était allé la trouver et lui avait dit, d’un ton aussi neutre que possible : « On dirait que tu t’es trompée de boîte, là – c’est une erreur facile, elles se ressemblent beaucoup, je sais. » Dana avait posé sa main à plat sur la boîte bleue et blanche et l’avait regardé l’air mauvais. « Non, je ne me suis pas trompée. — Ah, dit Wallace.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Oh, hell, Cass, I can have a damn baby, and then I’ll know. Babies aren’t my kick, but, you know, I can find out if I want to. The way Vivaldo carries on, I’m likely to find out, whether I want to or not,” and, incongruously, she giggled. “But”—she sighed—“it doesn’t work the other way around. You don’t know, and there’s no way in the world for you to find out, what it’s like to be a black girl in this world, and the way white men, and black men, too, baby, treat you. You’ve never decided that the whole world was just one big whorehouse and so the only way for you to make it was to decide to be the biggest, coolest, hardest whore around, and make the world pay you back that way.” They were in the park. Ida leaned forward and lit a cigarette with trembling hands, then gestured out the window. “I bet you think we’re in a goddam park. You don’t know we’re in one of the world’s great jungles. You don’t know that behind all them damn dainty trees and shit, people are screwing and sucking and fixing and dying. Dying, baby, right now while we move through this darkness in this man’s taxicab. And you don’t know it, even when you’re told; you don’t know it, even when you see it.” She felt very far from Ida, and very small and cold. “How can we know it, Ida? How can you blame us if we don’t know? We never had a chance to find out. I hardly knew that Central Park existed until I was a married woman.” And she, too, looked out at the park, trying to see what Ida saw; but, of course, she saw only the trees and the lights and the grass and the twisting road and the shape of the buildings beyond the park. “There were hardly any colored people in the town I grew up in—how am I to know?” And she hated herself for her next question, but she could not hold it back: “Don’t you think I deserve some credit, for trying to be human, for not being a part of all that, for—walking out?” “What the hell,” asked Ida, “have you walked out on, Cass?” “That world,” said Cass, “that empty life, that meaningless life!” Ida laughed. It was a cruel sound and yet Cass sensed, very powerfully, that Ida was not trying to be cruel. She seemed to be laboring, within herself, up some steep, unprecedented slope. “Couldn’t we put it another way, honey—just for kicks? Couldn’t we, sort of, blame it on nature? and say that you saw Richard and he got you hot, and so you didn’t really walk out—you just got married?”

• From Real Life (2020)

  Quand ils se sont quittés tout à l’heure, les choses étaient tendues mais ça allait, franchement. Il n’imaginait pas, c’est vrai, que Miller puisse abriter une telle frustration ou une telle colère à son égard. Il a pris leur au revoir agréable comme un signe que tout allait bien, sans problème, entre eux. Mais, comme le dit Miller, il n’a pensé qu’à lui, à son propre sentiment d’être inadapté, d’être trop abîmé. Il ne s’est pas arrêté pour réfléchir au fait que Miller, venant de révéler ses violences passées, puisse se sentir vulnérable lui aussi. Il ne s’est pas arrêté pour se demander comment Miller avait pu se sentir en se réveillant dans un lit vide, pour la seconde fois. C’est vrai qu’il est coupable de myopie, et cette prise de conscience le plombe. « Mais comment tu t’es retrouvé dans une bagarre ? Pourquoi tu t’es battu, Miller ? Ça, c’est pas ma faute. — Tu as raison. Tu as raison, Wallace, c’est pas ta faute. Un mec m’est rentré dedans sans le faire exprès, je lui ai dit : Attention , et il m’a traité de pédé. T’imagines ? » Encore un rire, bref et lugubre. « Il m’a traité de pédé, alors fallait que je le corrige. Parce que je ne suis pas un pédé, Wallace, je te jure. » À chaque fois qu’il prononce le mot pédé, c’est comme s’il le crachait, comme s’il balançait un coup de poing dans le ventre à Wallace. Le mot s’enfonce en lui. « Non, c’est vrai. Tu as été très clair là-dessus. — Bon, tant mieux. — Pourquoi t’es venu ici, alors ? Juste pour me gueuler dessus ? Tu es juste venu pour me traiter de pédé égoïste ? Tu veux me cogner, moi aussi ? » Wallace lève enfin la tête, écarquille les yeux, entrouvrant à peine les lèvres, comme il a appris à le faire en Alabama, cherchant l’attention et la violence des hommes dans les bois. Il écarte ses épaules, avance d’un pas. « Tu veux me cogner aussi ? Tu es venu me casser la gueule ? C’est ça ? » Une veine épaisse palpite dans le cou de Miller, et se tord comme un vermisseau sous sa peau. Wallace le voit dans la flaque de lumière qui éclaire son épaule et sa gorge, par le col ouvert de son pull. Miller montre les dents, et prend une longue inspiration rauque. Ses narines se dilatent. « Me tente pas. Me tente pas, Wallace. — Vas-y, alors. Vas-y, si t’en as envie. » La main de Miller jaillit si vite que Wallace parvient à peine à suivre des yeux son geste. Il empoigne la gorge de Wallace. Sa paume rugueuse est brûlante sur sa peau. Ses doigts s’enfoncent, sans le faire saigner, mais il serre, il appuie.

• From Push (1996)

  I haul off and hit that bitch so hard whole room could hear her nose go CRUNCH. At the Y this woman from Trinidad tell me about ol' white bitch in Brighton Beach she taking care of but she gonna hafta quit cause she got something better on Upper West Side wheeling some doctor's children to the park. Say she recommend me, don't need no social security card and all that. So I work for ol' white woman with degenerative disease and mind to equal. HATE black people, always a "you people this" and "you people that." Call me to her daughter Swortkraus! "Swortkraus is a little slow today," what kinda goddam shit is that. But you know she ol' and helpless I forgive a lot. I think I could put a pillow over her face and no one know, no one care. But I would know, plus I be out of a job. I leave when she throw, try to, throw bed pan at me (end up spilling it on her self) cause she grandson, who she putting through NYU medical school did not come to see her when he say he would. She good and crazy. I go back to welfare, this time I say to myself, some money or jail. All the Porta Ricans and American niggers can get something—white people is getting it too. Why can't I? The security guards get me while my thumbs is closing down on this white devil's throat. Tell me cool down mama! I'm not your mama! Everything is red, I go end this cracker's days! They pull me off, take four of 'em. I don't go to jail though. They get me job! One of the black guys, not even a desk to himself, hand me a three by five card with a name and address on it, tell me, go there. I get position looking after ol' white man, tubes all in him. He not so bad, but he nasty. Want me to wash his penis and carry on. On all the walls, I mean on every wall, is a picture, I mean a big picture of Michael Jordan. OK, 16 walls, you got it, 16 pictures of Michael Jordan. But he pay me. I get room with bathroom, things looking up for awhile, you know. Then the ol' mutherfucker die. After a while it's pretty hard again. I get three day notice to pay or quit my room. What I'm gonna do? I'm a person don't just like to sit there. Just sit there I be throw out for sure. I get couple of big big garbage bags and start going from trash can to trash can collecting aluminum cans. To fill the bags take awhile cause is some competition out on the Harlem streets for these bottles and cans. But I am strong and desperate. I'm looking like a beetle bug or something, hunched over with two huge black garbage bags on my back.

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  And when sin and unrighteousness and blasphemy And violence in all kinds of deeds increase, And apostasy and transgression and uncleanness increase, A great chastisement shall come from heaven upon all these, And the holy Lord will come forth with wrath and chastisement To execute judgement on earth. In those days violence shall be cut off from its roots, And the roots of unrighteousness together with deceit, And they shall be destroyed from under heaven. And all the idols of the heathen shall be abandoned, And the temples burned with fire, And they shall remove them from the whole earth, And they (i.e. the heathen) shall be cast into the judgement of fire, And shall perish in wrath and in grievous judgement for ever. And the righteous shall arise from their sleep, And wisdom shall arise and be given unto them. (91.6-10) The sinners are repeatedly condemned for being rich (cf. also 94.8; 100.6; 104.6), doubtless because their gold and silver has been acquired 'in unrighteousness' (97.8), which apparently involves not just dishonest dealings (they 'build their houses with sin' and acquire gold and silver in judgment, 94.7), but plundering the righteous (104.3). They have behaved violently (91.6; 104.6; cf. 92.18). Those who plunder the righteous do so with the support of the rulers (104.3). They are the 'mighty' (96.8). They persecute the righteous (95.7), rejoice in their tribulation (98.13), and behave unrighteously towards them, or oppress them. 'Oppression' is mentioned in Charles's translation in 94.6; 96.8; 98.6; 98.8; 99.15 (the list is not necessarily 2] I Enoch 353 exhaustive). For 94.6 and 96.8 there is no Greek fragment extant. In 98.6, 'oppression' is in Greek adikon, which is parallel to ta ponera, 'evil deeds'. In 98.8 the Greek word is adikemata; in 99.15 it is apparently adikia; only adi-is left. The Greek could just as well imply other kinds of unrighteousness than 'oppression'. Yet it is clear in any case that the wicked did oppress the righteous. We have already seen that they are violent. They are also said to slay their neighbours (99.15), to 'afflict the righteous and burn them with fire' (100.7), and to 'execute judgement on the righteous' (100.10). It is difficult to determine whether those who so treat the righteous are Gentiles, unrighteous Jews or both. Charles thought that the righteous were the Pharisees and the wicked an alliance of 'the Sadducees, sinners, apostates, and paganizers'.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “No, baby, you sure don’t,” Ida said, “not unless you’re really willing to ask yourself how you’d have made it, if they’d dumped on you what they dumped on Rufus. And you can’t ask yourself that question because there’s no way in the world for you to know what Rufus went through, not in this world, not as long as you’re white.” She smiled. It was the saddest smile Cass had ever seen. “That’s right, baby. That’s where it’s at.” The cab stopped in front of Small’s. “Here we go,” said Ida, jauntily, seeming, in an instant, to drag all of herself up from the depths, as though she were about to walk that mile from the wings to the stage. She glanced quickly at the meter, then opened her handbag. “Let me,” said Cass. “It’s just about the only thing that a poor white woman can still do.” Ida looked at her, and smiled. “Now, don’t you be like that,” she said, “because you can suffer, and you’ve got some suffering to do, believe me.” Cass handed the driver a bill. “You stand to lose everything—your home, your husband, even your children.” Cass sat very still, waiting for her change. She looked like a defiant little girl. “I’ll never give up my children,” she said. “They could be taken from you.” “Yes. It could happen. But it won’t.” She tipped the driver, and they got out of the cab. “It happened,” said Ida, mildly, “to my ancestors every day.” “Maybe,” said Cass, with a sudden flash of anger, and very close to tears, “it happened to all of us! Why was my husband ashamed to speak Polish all the years that he was growing up?—and look at him now, he doesn’t know who he is. Maybe we’re worse off than you.” “Oh,” said Ida, “you are. There’s no maybe about that.” “Then have a little mercy.” “You’re asking a lot.” The men on the sidewalk looked at them with a kind of merciless calculation, deciding that they were certainly unattainable, that their studs or their johns were waiting inside; and, anyway, three white policemen, walking abreast, came up the Avenue. Cass felt, suddenly, exposed, and in danger, and wished she had not come. She thought of herself, later, alone, looking for a taxi; but she did not dare say anything to Ida. Ida opened the doors, and they walked in. “We’re really not dressed for this place,” Cass whispered. “It doesn’t matter,” Ida said. She stared imperiously over the heads of the people at the bar, into the farther room, where the bandstand seemed to be, and the raised dance floor. And her arrogance produced, out of the smoke and confusion, a heavy, dark man who approached them with raised eyebrows. “We’re with Mr. Ellis’s party,” said Ida. “Will you lead us to him, please?”