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.

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• From Querelle (1953)

  the course of action he had initiated, he would lose his special standing as a cop. All Querelle saw in him was a cop trying to spy on him. With a shrewdness he wasn't quite conscious of, Querelle decided to counter any suspicions of smuggling, or even theft (the only ones this cop might have come up with while visiting La Feria, maybe one of the girls had been gossiping ) , by piling on the most tragic elements. He had to make the most out of this one simple opportunity, in order to hide the murder-the idea of which, however fleetingly, always is on a cop's mind. He had to provoke the detective in the lower regions, then to defend himself with bravura. Thus Querelle started out by appearing vulnerable in a certain way. He engaged Mario's attention by a thousand pyrotechnics: in the tone of his voice, the clenching of his jaws, his dark look, the furrows on his face. "Well . . . Would you explain that?" Mario could have restored peace by simply saying something along the lines of "I just wanted to know if you had any goodies for me," but the strength he sensed in Querelle communicated itself to him and gave him, if no greater degree of physical vigor, more courage and a greater sense of purpose. Querelle's attitude, frightening in its unexpectedness, his resolute "cool" bespoke a manliness Mario welcomed, and fervently, as it prevented him from just fading away on some noncommittal note of retreat. Querelle reinforced the cop in him. Looking Querelle straight in the eye, the sparks flying off his voice to mingle with those that had issued out of Querelle's mouth and �till hung in the air (as it were) , Mario gave an answer: . "I said what I said." There was no immediate reaction to that from Querelle. Tight-lipped he stood there, breathing heavily through his nose, making the nostrils quiver. Mario thought how wonderful it would be to stick one's prick into such an angry tiger. Querelle allowed himself a few seconds to scrutinize Mario, to hate him a little more, and to limber up his physical and moral muscles 195 I QUERELLE ,.. before the real fight. It was necessary, he knew, to concentrate all his energy on this incident, caused by a suspicion that he was a thief or a smuggler, so that any idea of his being a real crimi· nal would expire of its own accord, for lack of sustenance, the other one's energy having been used up on those other, boring ideas. He parted his lips and the wind rushed in with torrential strength, \Vith the plenitude and cylindrical exactitude of a nice large·caliber prick. "Is that so." C4Yeah." Querelle's stare poked Mario in the eyes like the spoke of an umbrella : "If that's all right with you, maybe you can step outside. I've got to talk to you." "Sure, let's go."

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “No!” Konstantin Levin broke in with still greater heat; “the emancipation of the serfs was a different matter. There self-interest did come in. One longed to throw off that yoke that crushed us, all decent people among us. But to be a town councilor and discuss how many dustmen are needed, and how chimneys shall be constructed in the town in which I don’t live—to serve on a jury and try a peasant who’s stolen a flitch of bacon, and listen for six hours at a stretch to all sorts of jabber from the counsel for the defense and the prosecution, and the president cross-examining my old half-witted Alioshka, ‘Do you admit, prisoner in the dock, the fact of the removal of the bacon?’ ‘Eh?’” Konstantin Levin had warmed to his subject, and began mimicking the president and the half-witted Alioshka: it seemed to him that it was all to the point. But Sergey Ivanovitch shrugged his shoulders. “Well, what do you mean to say, then?” “I simply mean to say that those rights that touch me ... my interest, I shall always defend to the best of my ability; that when they made raids on us students, and the police read our letters, I was ready to defend those rights to the utmost, to defend my rights to education and freedom. I can understand compulsory military service, which affects my children, my brothers, and myself, I am ready to deliberate on what concerns me; but deliberating on how to spend forty thousand roubles of district council money, or judging the half-witted Alioshka—I don’t understand, and I can’t do it.” Konstantin Levin spoke as though the floodgates of his speech had burst open. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled. “But tomorrow it’ll be your turn to be tried; would it have suited your tastes better to be tried in the old criminal tribunal?” “I’m not going to be tried. I shan’t murder anybody, and I’ve no need of it. Well, I tell you what,” he went on, flying off again to a subject quite beside the point, “our district self-government and all the rest of it—it’s just like the birch branches we stick in the ground on Trinity Day, for instance, to look like a copse which has grown up of itself in Europe, and I can’t gush over these birch branches and believe in them.” Sergey Ivanovitch merely shrugged his shoulders, as though to express his wonder how the birch branches had come into their argument at that point, though he did really understand at once what his brother meant. “Excuse me, but you know one really can’t argue in that way,” he observed. But Konstantin Levin wanted to justify himself for the failing, of which he was conscious, of lack of zeal for the public welfare, and he went on.

• From Querelle (1953)

  33 I QUERELLE Suddenly the young man, polite, buffeted, thrown aside by th e wake of Querelle's impassive shoulder, realized that he was being insulted. He said: "At least you could be civil about itl Or open your eyesl" If he meant "Keep your eyes open," for Querelle the message was "Light up the course, use your running light." He spun around: "What about my lights?"" His voice was harsh, decisive, ready for combat. He was carrying a cargo of explosives. He didn't recognize himself any more. He hoped to appeal to Mario and Norbert-no longer to th at fa ntastic compound creature that consisted of the sum of th eir virtues-but in reality he had placed himse1f under the protection of th at very idol. However, he did not yet admit this t o himself, and for th e first time in his life he invoked the Navy. "Lookahere, buddy, I hope you ain't trying to get my goat, or are you? Because, let me tell you, us sailors won't let anybody get away wi th that kind of shit. Understand?" "But I'm not trying to do anything, I was just passing ... " Querelle looked at him. He felt safe in his uniform. He clenched his fists and immediately knew that every muscle, every nerve was taking up its battle station. He was shong, ready to pounce. His calves and arms were vibrating. His body was flexed for a fight in which he would measure up to an adversary-not this young man intimidated by his nerve-but to the power that had subjugated him in the brothel �parlor. Querelle did not know that he wanted to do battle for Mario, and for Norbert, the way one would do battle for a king's daughter and against the dragons. This fight was a trial. HDon't you know you can't push us around, not us Navy guys?' ' Never before had Querelle applied such a label to himself. Those sailors proud of being sailors, animated by the esprit de corps, had always seemed comical to him. In his eyes they were

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Oh, I meant to tell you yesterday, the harrows want repairing. Here it’s time they got to work in the fields.” “But what were they doing in the winter, then?” “But what did you want the carpenter for?” “Where are the hurdles for the calves’ paddock?” “I ordered them to be got ready. What would you have with those peasants!” said the bailiff, with a wave of his hand. “It’s not those peasants but this bailiff!” said Levin, getting angry. “Why, what do I keep you for?” he cried. But, bethinking himself that this would not help matters, he stopped short in the middle of a sentence, and merely sighed. “Well, what do you say? Can sowing begin?” he asked, after a pause. “Behind Turkin tomorrow or the next day they might begin.” “And the clover?” “I’ve sent Vassily and Mishka; they’re sowing. Only I don’t know if they’ll manage to get through; it’s so slushy.” “How many acres?” “About fifteen.” “Why not sow all?” cried Levin. That they were only sowing the clover on fifteen acres, not on all the forty-five, was still more annoying to him. Clover, as he knew, both from books and from his own experience, never did well except when it was sown as early as possible, almost in the snow. And yet Levin could never get this done. “There’s no one to send. What would you have with such a set of peasants? Three haven’t turned up. And there’s Semyon....” “Well, you should have taken some men from the thatching.” “And so I have, as it is.” “Where are the peasants, then?” “Five are making compôte” (which meant compost), “four are shifting the oats for fear of a touch of mildew, Konstantin Dmitrievitch.” Levin knew very well that “a touch of mildew” meant that his English seed oats were already ruined. Again they had not done as he had ordered. “Why, but I told you during Lent to put in pipes,” he cried. “Don’t put yourself out; we shall get it all done in time.” Levin waved his hand angrily, went into the granary to glance at the oats, and then to the stable. The oats were not yet spoiled. But the peasants were carrying the oats in spades when they might simply let them slide down into the lower granary; and arranging for this to be done, and taking two workmen from there for sowing clover, Levin got over his vexation with the bailiff. Indeed, it was such a lovely day that one could not be angry. “Ignat!” he called to the coachman, who, with his sleeves tucked up, was washing the carriage wheels, “saddle me....” “Which, sir?” “Well, let it be Kolpik.” “Yes, sir.” While they were saddling his horse, Levin again called up the bailiff, who was hanging about in sight, to make it up with him, and began talking to him about the spring operations before them, and his plans for the farm.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Yes, something is seriously wrong. The American Medical Association reports that some 42 percent of American women suffer from sexual dysfunction, while Viagra breaks sales records year after year. Worldwide, pornography is reported to rake in anywhere from fifty-seven billion to a hundred billion dollars annually. In the United States, it generates more revenue than CBS, NBC, and ABC combined and more than all professional football, baseball, and basketball franchises. According to U.S. News and World Report, “Americans spend more money at strip clubs than at Broadway, off-Broadway, regional and nonprofit theaters, the opera, the ballet and jazz and classical music performances—combined.”3 There’s no denying that we’re a species with a sweet tooth for sex. Meanwhile, so-called traditional marriage appears to be under assault from all sides—as it collapses from within. Even the most ardent defenders of normal sexuality buckle under its weight, as never-ending bipartisan perp-walks of politicians (Clinton, Vitter, Gingrich, Craig, Foley, Spitzer, Sanford) and religious figures (Haggard, Swaggert, Bakker) trumpet their support of family values before slinking off to private assignations with lovers, prostitutes, and interns. Denial hasn’t worked. Hundreds of Catholic priests have confessed to thousands of sex crimes against children in the past few decades alone. In 2008, the Catholic Church paid $436 million in compensation for sexual abuse. More than a fifth of the victims were under ten years old. This we know. Dare we even imagine the suffering such crimes have caused in the seventeen centuries since a sexual life was perversely forbidden to priests in the earliest known papal decree: the Decreta and Cum in unum of Pope Siricius (c. 385)? What is the moral debt owed to the forgotten victims of this misguided rejection of basic human sexuality? On threat of torture, in 1633, the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church forced Galileo to state publicly what he knew to be false: that the Earth sat immobile at the center of the universe. Three and a half centuries later, in 1992, Pope John Paul II admitted that the scientist had been right all along, but that the Inquisition had been “well-intentioned.” Well, there’s no Inquisition like a well-intentioned Inquisition! Like those childishly intransigent visions of an entire universe spinning around an all-important Earth, the standard narrative of prehistory offers an immediate, primitive sort of comfort. Just as pope after pope dismissed any cosmology that removed humankind from the exalted center of the endless expanse of space, just as Darwin was (and, in some crowds, still is) ridiculed for recognizing that human beings are the creation of natural laws, many scientists are blinded by their emotional resistance to any account of human sexual evolution that doesn’t revolve around the monogamous nuclear family unit.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Well, that’s a thing I’ve never understood,” Levin replied with heat. “In what way are schools going to help the people to improve their material position? You say schools, education, will give them fresh wants. So much the worse, since they won’t be capable of satisfying them. And in what way a knowledge of addition and subtraction and the catechism is going to improve their material condition, I never could make out. The day before yesterday, I met a peasant woman in the evening with a little baby, and asked her where she was going. She said she was going to the wise woman; her boy had screaming fits, so she was taking him to be doctored. I asked, ‘Why, how does the wise woman cure screaming fits?’ ‘She puts the child on the hen-roost and repeats some charm....’” “Well, you’re saying it yourself! What’s wanted to prevent her taking her child to the hen-roost to cure it of screaming fits is just....” Sviazhsky said, smiling good-humoredly. “Oh, no!” said Levin with annoyance; “that method of doctoring I merely meant as a simile for doctoring the people with schools. The people are poor and ignorant—that we see as surely as the peasant woman sees the baby is ill because it screams. But in what way this trouble of poverty and ignorance is to be cured by schools is as incomprehensible as how the hen-roost affects the screaming. What has to be cured is what makes him poor.” “Well, in that, at least, you’re in agreement with Spencer, whom you dislike so much. He says, too, that education may be the consequence of greater prosperity and comfort, of more frequent washing, as he says, but not of being able to read and write....” “Well, then, I’m very glad—or the contrary, very sorry, that I’m in agreement with Spencer; only I’ve known it a long while. Schools can do no good; what will do good is an economic organization in which the people will become richer, will have more leisure—and then there will be schools.” “Still, all over Europe now schools are obligatory.” “And how far do you agree with Spencer yourself about it?” asked Levin. But there was a gleam of alarm in Sviazhsky’s eyes, and he said smiling: “No; that screaming story is positively capital! Did you really hear it yourself?” Levin saw that he was not to discover the connection between this man’s life and his thoughts. Obviously he did not care in the least what his reasoning led him to; all he wanted was the process of reasoning. And he did not like it when the process of reasoning brought him into a blind alley. That was the only thing he disliked, and avoided by changing the conversation to something agreeable and amusing.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The wagons were to begin carting manure earlier, so as to get all done before the early mowing. And the ploughing of the further land to go on without a break so as to let it ripen lying fallow. And the mowing to be all done by hired labor, not on half-profits. The bailiff listened attentively, and obviously made an effort to approve of his employer’s projects. But still he had that look Levin knew so well that always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency. That look said: “That’s all very well, but as God wills.” Nothing mortified Levin so much as that tone. But it was the tone common to all the bailiffs he had ever had. They had all taken up that attitude to his plans, and so now he was not angered by it, but mortified, and felt all the more roused to struggle against this, as it seemed, elemental force continually ranged against him, for which he could find no other expression than “as God wills.” “If we can manage it, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” said the bailiff. “Why ever shouldn’t you manage it?” “We positively must have another fifteen laborers. And they don’t turn up. There were some here today asking seventy roubles for the summer.” Levin was silent. Again he was brought face to face with that opposing force. He knew that however much they tried, they could not hire more than forty—thirty-seven perhaps or thirty-eight—laborers for a reasonable sum. Some forty had been taken on, and there were no more. But still he could not help struggling against it. “Send to Sury, to Tchefirovka; if they don’t come we must look for them.” “Oh, I’ll send, to be sure,” said Vassily Fedorovitch despondently. “But there are the horses, too, they’re not good for much.” “We’ll get some more. I know, of course,” Levin added laughing, “you always want to do with as little and as poor quality as possible; but this year I’m not going to let you have things your own way. I’ll see to everything myself.” “Why, I don’t think you take much rest as it is. It cheers us up to work under the master’s eye....” “So they’re sowing clover behind the Birch Dale? I’ll go and have a look at them,” he said, getting on to the little bay cob, Kolpik, who was led up by the coachman. “You can’t get across the streams, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” the coachman shouted. “All right, I’ll go by the forest.”

• From Querelle (1953)

  "I'm fine, kiddo. Shipshape. That old fucker, he's out of it now. It won't take much. He better not mess around with me. I wasn't born yesterday, you know. He ain't no man, anyway, he's a faggot! A goddamn faggot! D'you hear me, Roger, a dirty faggot! Or a fairy, if you prefer. But us, we're buddies, we're like brothers. We can do as we damn well please. We have a right, being like brothers-in-law. It's all in the family. But that one, he's just a faggot!" He talked fast so as not to falter, he walked fast so as not to stumble. "Listen, Gil, haven't you had a few too many?" "Don't you worry, kid. Paid for 'em meself. Don't need his shitty dough. But like I said, now we're gonna have a drink. Come on." Roger smiled. He was happy. His neck felt proud under Gil's calloused and gentle hand. "No room for him, no more. He's a mosquito. I tell you, that's what he is, just a damn little skeeter. And I'll swat him." 112 I JEAN GENET "\Vho is it you're talking about?" " 'Bout a dirty shit, if you want to know. Don't you worry. You'll see him. See for yourself. I'm telling you, he won't be no problem to us, no more." They went down the Rue du Sac and turned into the Rue B . . . Gil was heading for the bistro where he was sure to find Theo. They went in. As they heard the glass door opening, the patrons of the place turned their heads to look at them. As if in a cloud, and very far away from him, Gil saw the mason, alone in front of a glass and a liter bottle of wine, sitting at the table next to the door. Gil dug his hands deep into his pockets and - said to Roger: "You see that one? That's him." And to Theo : "Hi there." He went up to him. Theo was smiling. "But aren't you going to ask us to join you in a glass, Theo? This here's my buddy." And, before he had done talking, he grabbed the bottle by the neck and with a motion swift as forked lightning broke it against the table. With the jagged bottleneck, twisting it like a drill, he stabbed the mason through the throat and yelled : "I told you, there's no longer any room for you!" By the time the patronne and the drinkers, stupefied, stupid, thought to interven-e, Gil was outside. He disappeared in the fog. Round about ten P.M. the police came to see Roger at his mother's house. They let him go again the following morning.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Through the denim of Querelle's bell-bottoms Dede could well imagine the workings of those muscles he knew so well-in Robert. He knew the reactions of those buttocks, thighs, calves; and he could see, despite the thick peacoat material, that tense back, those shoulders and arms. Querelle seemed to be fighting himself. Two women had appeared on the scene. At first they did not say a word. They clutched their shopping nets, filled with provisions, and long thin loaves of fancy bread close to their bodies. After a while they wanted to know why these two were fighting. No one had any idea. Family affair, most likely. The women were reluctant to continue on their way, as the street was blocked by the action, and they stood hypnotized by this knot of disheveled, sweating manhood. Closer and closer grew the resemblance between the two brothers. The expression on their faces had lost its cruelty. Dede remained calm. It seemed hardly important to him who won-whatever the outcome, it would 123 I QUERELLE be the same face and the same body would pick itself up, dust off its torn and dirty garments, use a hand for a comb, quite carelessly, before putting one or the other of those caps on a still tousled head. Those two faces so exactly alike had j ust finished a heroic and idealistic struggle-of which this brawl was only a vulgar projection visible to ordinary h uman eyes-for their very singularity. Rather than trying to destroy one another they seemed to want to become united, to fuse into what would surely be, given these two specimens, an even rarer animal. Their fight was a lovers' quarrel, and no one dared any serious intervention. It was apparent that the two combatants would at once join forces against any n1ediator, who, after all, would intervene only in order to get a piece of the action for himself. Dede was dimly aware of this. He was equally jealous of both of the brothers. They charged and spun, turned and twisted with the desire to incorporate each other, trying to batter down the resistance of their doubles. Querelle was the stronger one. \Vhen he was sure he had gained the upper hand, he whispered in his brother's ear : "Say it again. Go on, say it." Robert was panting in Querelle's powerful hold, struggling in the heavy coils of his muscles. He stared down at the ground. He was biting the dust, all right. His conqueror, flames, smoke and lightning issuing from nostrils, mouth and eyes, murmured into the nape of his neck : "Repeat what you said." "No, I won't." Querelle was ashamed. Still retaining his hold, he hit his brother the harder for his own shame at having hit him at all.

• From Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1996)

  The subcommittee’s legal counsel asked Ben Weingart what would happen if any of the dummy corporations defaulted on his $112 million in FHA mortgages. Weingart said, “I will make the mortgages good.” The subcommittee counsel asked, “Then you will personally endorse the mortgages?” Weingart said angrily, “No, I will not.” 300 According to their Senate testimony, Louis Boyar and Ben Weingart made more than $2 million from constructing just two tracts of “mutual homes” under their interpretation of Section 213. They made another $1 million on each 600-acre section of empty land they sold to the nonprofit cooperatives they controlled. The three developers may have made as much as $12 million by the time they dissolved their corporation. 301 Louis Boyar died in 1976, after he had raised billions of dollars for Israel as a cofounder and chairman of Israel Bonds. He built a high school for gifted children in Jerusalem and named it for his wife. He built the Truman Center for the Advancement of Peace at Hebrew University. Ben Weingart died in 1980. The charitable foundation he and his wife set up in 1951 gave my city at least $12 million in cash grants and land. The foundation’s gifts came after Weingart had been declared incompetent by a judge, and after his business associates took control of his charitable foundation. Some of the foundation’s gifts came after Weingart was dead. Weingart’s foundation helped construct a community center, a senior citizens center, a library, and a new YMCA. Mark Taper died in 1994. Boyar is remembered at the synagogue in my city because his first contributions were to its building fund. Weingart is remembered because the city gratefully put his name on the community facilities his foundation financed. Taper is remembered for his gift of either a fish tank—or the fish—at the county library next to city hall. The librarians don’t know which. 302 Mark Taper’s charitable foundation donated $1.5 million toward the construction of one of the theaters in the Los Angeles County Music Center. Ben Weingart’s charitable foundation turned the El Rey Hotel on skid row into a shelter and rehabilitation center for the homeless. 303 In 1936, Miriam Clark, the wife of J. Ross Clark, provided the cost of construction for a church in the suburban development her nephew was building. The Montana Land Company provided the site on Arbor Road. She gave the church in memory of her son, Walter Clark, who had died on the Titanic . It was a nondenominational church. 304 Some of the men and women in my neighborhood had lived part of their childhood on the outskirts of cotton towns in tents provided by the federal Farm Security Administration. Some had lived in tarpaper shacks among the oil fields outside of Bakersfield. The shacks didn’t have indoor plumbing. Some had been the first of their family to graduate from high school. Okies who grew up in California learned to hide their border state twang.

• From Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1996)

  Boyar’s original plan thoughtfully located no more than a fifteen-minute walk from any house. 298 Louis Boyar and Ben Weingart invested $15,000 of their own money in 1949 to begin building houses on the farmland they had bought with financing from the Prudential Insurance Company. Robert Young, a railroad financier, and Clint Murchison, the owner of the Del Mar racetrack, put up $300,000 through a syndicate based in Minneapolis. In return, the mortgage syndicate became the exclusive mortgage lender for the houses. The federal government put up more than $100 million in construction loans and mortgage guarantees. The transaction was risk-free for Young and Murchison. Both the construction loans and the mortgages were guaranteed under Section 213. The syndicate made more than $1 million as its share of the profits in developing the subdivision. It also made 4 percent interest on the money it loaned to the three developers. It made another $450,000 in service charges on managing the money it loaned to buyers. 299 Louis Boyar reminded the Senate subcommittee that he had begun his business in 1939 with just $700 in borrowed money. The subcommittee’s legal counsel then asked him to calculate the total value of Boyar’s FHA mortgages since 1946. Boyar calculated rapidly and set the figure at $105 million. The subcommittee’s legal counsel asked Ben Weingart what would happen if any of the dummy corporations defaulted on his $112 million in FHA mortgages. Weingart said, “I will make the mortgages good.” The subcommittee counsel asked, “Then you will personally endorse the mortgages?” Weingart said angrily, “No, I will not.”

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “I think of the children, and for that reason I would do anything in the world to save them, but I don’t myself know how to save them. By taking them away from their father, or by leaving them with a vicious father—yes, a vicious father.... Tell me, after what ... has happened, can we live together? Is that possible? Tell me, eh, is it possible?” she repeated, raising her voice, “after my husband, the father of my children, enters into a love affair with his own children’s governess?” “But what could I do? what could I do?” he kept saying in a pitiful voice, not knowing what he was saying, as his head sank lower and lower. “You are loathsome to me, repulsive!” she shrieked, getting more and more heated. “Your tears mean nothing! You have never loved me; you have neither heart nor honorable feeling! You are hateful to me, disgusting, a stranger—yes, a complete stranger!” With pain and wrath she uttered the word so terrible to herself—_stranger_. He looked at her, and the fury expressed in her face alarmed and amazed him. He did not understand how his pity for her exasperated her. She saw in him sympathy for her, but not love. “No, she hates me. She will not forgive me,” he thought. “It is awful! awful!” he said. At that moment in the next room a child began to cry; probably it had fallen down. Darya Alexandrovna listened, and her face suddenly softened. She seemed to be pulling herself together for a few seconds, as though she did not know where she was, and what she was doing, and getting up rapidly, she moved towards the door. “Well, she loves my child,” he thought, noticing the change of her face at the child’s cry, “my child: how can she hate me?” “Dolly, one word more,” he said, following her. “If you come near me, I will call in the servants, the children! They may all know you are a scoundrel! I am going away at once, and you may live here with your mistress!” And she went out, slamming the door. Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed, wiped his face, and with a subdued tread walked out of the room. “Matvey says she will come round; but how? I don’t see the least chance of it. Ah, oh, how horrible it is! And how vulgarly she shouted,” he said to himself, remembering her shriek and the words—“scoundrel” and “mistress.” “And very likely the maids were listening! Horribly vulgar! horrible!” Stepan Arkadyevitch stood a few seconds alone, wiped his face, squared his chest, and walked out of the room.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Nonsense, Kitty. Do you suppose I could help knowing? I know all about it. And believe me, it’s of so little consequence.... We’ve all been through it.” Kitty did not speak, and her face had a stern expression. “He’s not worth your grieving over him,” pursued Darya Alexandrovna, coming straight to the point. “No, because he has treated me with contempt,” said Kitty, in a breaking voice. “Don’t talk of it! Please, don’t talk of it!” “But who can have told you so? No one has said that. I’m certain he was in love with you, and would still be in love with you, if it hadn’t....” “Oh, the most awful thing of all for me is this sympathizing!” shrieked Kitty, suddenly flying into a passion. She turned round on her chair, flushed crimson, and rapidly moving her fingers, pinched the clasp of her belt first with one hand and then with the other. Dolly knew this trick her sister had of clenching her hands when she was much excited; she knew, too, that in moments of excitement Kitty was capable of forgetting herself and saying a great deal too much, and Dolly would have soothed her, but it was too late. “What, what is it you want to make me feel, eh?” said Kitty quickly. “That I’ve been in love with a man who didn’t care a straw for me, and that I’m dying of love for him? And this is said to me by my own sister, who imagines that ... that ... that she’s sympathizing with me!... I don’t want these condolences and humbug!” “Kitty, you’re unjust.” “Why are you tormenting me?” “But I ... quite the contrary ... I see you’re unhappy....” But Kitty in her fury did not hear her. “I’ve nothing to grieve over and be comforted about. I am too proud ever to allow myself to care for a man who does not love me.” “Yes, I don’t say so either.... Only one thing. Tell me the truth,” said Darya Alexandrovna, taking her by the hand: “tell me, did Levin speak to you?...” The mention of Levin’s name seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestige of self-control. She leaped up from her chair, and flinging her clasp on the ground, she gesticulated rapidly with her hands and said: “Why bring Levin in too? I can’t understand what you want to torment me for. I’ve told you, and I say it again, that I have some pride, and never, _never_ would I do as you’re doing—go back to a man who’s deceived you, who has cared for another woman. I can’t understand it! You may, but I can’t!” And saying these words she glanced at her sister, and seeing that Dolly sat silent, her head mournfully bowed, Kitty, instead of running out of the room as she had meant to do, sat down near the door, and hid her face in her handkerchief.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Yes, it was the same thing over and over again. Everyone, his mother, his brother, everyone thought fit to interfere in the affairs of his heart. This interference aroused in him a feeling of angry hatred—a feeling he had rarely known before. “What business is it of theirs? Why does everybody feel called upon to concern himself about me? And why do they worry me so? Just because they see that this is something they can’t understand. If it were a common, vulgar, worldly intrigue, they would have left me alone. They feel that this is something different, that this is not a mere pastime, that this woman is dearer to me than life. And this is incomprehensible, and that’s why it annoys them. Whatever our destiny is or may be, we have made it ourselves, and we do not complain of it,” he said, in the word _we_ linking himself with Anna. “No, they must needs teach us how to live. They haven’t an idea of what happiness is; they don’t know that without our love, for us there is neither happiness nor unhappiness—no life at all,” he thought. He was angry with all of them for their interference just because he felt in his soul that they, all these people, were right. He felt that the love that bound him to Anna was not a momentary impulse, which would pass, as worldly intrigues do pass, leaving no other traces in the life of either but pleasant or unpleasant memories. He felt all the torture of his own and her position, all the difficulty there was for them, conspicuous as they were in the eye of all the world, in concealing their love, in lying and deceiving; and in lying, deceiving, feigning, and continually thinking of others, when the passion that united them was so intense that they were both oblivious of everything else but their love. He vividly recalled all the constantly recurring instances of inevitable necessity for lying and deceit, which were so against his natural bent. He recalled particularly vividly the shame he had more than once detected in her at this necessity for lying and deceit. And he experienced the strange feeling that had sometimes come upon him since his secret love for Anna. This was a feeling of loathing for something—whether for Alexey Alexandrovitch, or for himself, or for the whole world, he could not have said. But he always drove away this strange feeling. Now, too, he shook it off and continued the thread of his thoughts. “Yes, she was unhappy before, but proud and at peace; and now she cannot be at peace and feel secure in her dignity, though she does not show it. Yes, we must put an end to it,” he decided.

• From Querelle (1953)

  being identical, the fight had started out with a series of ridiculously hesitant attacks. Rather than wanting to fight they seemed to be backing away and avoiding each other with considerable success. Then things changed. Querelle stumbled, slipped and managed to grab hold of Robert's ankle. From that moment on it was an all-out brawl. Dede jumped to one side, wanting to prove to the full-fledged man within him, still • slumbering and germinating there, that nothing can be gained from interfering in a showdown between two men. The street was transformed into a passage from the B�ble in which two brothers, guided by two fingers of a single God, insult each other and fight to the death for two reasons which are really but one. For Dede, the city of Brest did not exist now, only this street. He was waiting for one soul to rise heavenwards from it. The two men fought in silence, their rage increasing in proportion to that very silence : it excited them, being punctuated only by the noise of their punches and counterpunches, their own huffing and puffing; increasing, too, as they felt themselves slowing down, which held the threat they might both go under, both resort to the one final dirty blow, delivered slowly, almost tenderly, that would wipe out the exhausted winner as well. Three dockers stood watching them, smoking. Silently they were placing bets with themselves, first on one, then on the other. It was hard to predict the outcome, the combatants were so equally matched; this impression was enhanc�d by their close resemblance to each other which made the fight look as balanced and harmonious as a dance. Dede stood and watched. Though he knew his friend's muscles in repose, he did not dare guess at their efficiency in a brawl-especially not one with Querelle whom he had never seen fight before. Suddenly Querelle bent over and rammed Robert in the stomach with his head, but was instantly knocked flat on his back. When he had decided to strike his brother, Robert had experienced an instant of sheer freedom, a very brief instant, hardly enough for any kind of decision. The sailor's cap fell to one side of the flailing pair, 121 I QUERELLE Robert's to the other. In order to gain the might of right, to justify his actions, Robert took it into his head to proclaim out loud, in the midst of battle, his scorn for his brother and its reasons. The first words that came to mind were : '·You dirty faggot." They came out as a hoarse, rattling sound. Then an entire confused discourse ran through his head, be�.rely audible under his breath : ,. "Let a brothel boss screw you, hey! You dirty swine! And so high and mighty, too. How does that make me look, hey, a brother whose asshole's for sale."

• From Querelle (1953)

  bunch. They had all ganged up on him. They were all excited by that swarm of flies, now dispersed in the sunshine, singing their lively airs. His anger looked for revenge : all the masons wo�ld have to die. Gil thought of setting fire to their q�arters. That idea did not last long. It was too slow for his rage and rancor. He had to express them in some act, and immediately, even if this might tum against him and ravage his insides. Thea went on : "\Veil, hell, you know? There's some who like it. They like taking in things through that hole." Gil's urge to piss grew even stronger. It was now about as powerful as the pressure in a steam engine. He would have to be quick about it. He realized, even if dimly, that all his courage, his audacity, would have to depend on speed and obedience toward a pressing obligation. He was now sitting on his bed with his feet on the floor, and the look in his eye grew more human as he slowly let it come to rest on Thea. "So you've really made up your mind now, Theo?'' He pursed his lips as he pronounced the name, and gave his head a slight toss : "Or haven't you? You've been giving me all this shit, and I'm tired of it." "Oh no I haven't, kiddo. I wish you'd shit a little less, though." 102 I JEAN GENET And when the rather shifty laughter this answer had caused to reverberate round each mason's head had died away : "Because there's times it seems you don't mind taking it, and for my part, I ain't saying I wouldn't enjoy giving it to you." Gil stood up. He had only his shirt on. In his stockinged feet he went across to Thea and then, turning to face him squarely, pale, icy, terrifying, he said : "You? Well, let's get on with it, and don't you back out of it now." And in a continuous movement he swiveled round, pulled up his shirt, bent over and held out his backside. The masons were watching. Only yesterday Gilbert had been a workman like the rest of them, neither more nor less than any of them. They felt no hatred for him, rather a faint sense of friendship. They could not see the desperation in the young man's face. They laughed. Gil straightened up again, looked at each and every one of them and said : "Having a good time, eh? You've decided to gang up on me. Well, who wants to take a shot at it?" The words were spoken in a loud, scathing voice. And Gil repeated his. performance in front of the masons, aggravating it by spreading his buttocks apart with both hands, and by shouting, in a pained voice directed down at the floor, as if through heavy fumes :

• From Querelle (1953)

  "So what have you got to lose? If you pull a stick-up job, and they catch you at it, that won't make any difference at aU. \\'hat's a stick-up compared to murder?" Quere11e no longer mentioned the murder of the sailor so as not to ca11 forth Gil's denials, not to rouse that sense of true justice that lives in everyone and that might cause him to go and give himself up. Coming from the outside world as he did, calm and co11ected, Querelle knew that the young mason dung to him with anguished intensity. His anxiety betrayed Gil, betrayed the slightest inner tremor and amplified it, played it out loud, like the needle passing over the grooves of a record. Querelle was able to register aU these shifts and fluctuations and made use of them. "If I wasn't just a sailor . . . but, that's what I am, and there's little I can do to help you. But there's one thing, I can give you some advice. And I believe you can do it." Gil listened, in silence. By this time it had become clear to him that the sailor would never bring him anything else but a chunk of bread, a can of sardines, a pack of cigarettes, but never any money. Hanging his head, his mouth bitter, he feU to pondering the notion of those two murders. An enormous weariness forced him to resign himself to them, to admit them, to admit that he would henceforth travel the high road to he11. Toward Querelle he felt great anger and at the same time he 224 I JEAN GENET had absolute confidence in him, though this was strangely intermingled with a fear that Querelle might "turn him in.'' "Soon as you got some dough and some new clothes you'll be ready to take the trip.'' It looked like a great adventure, and one that the murders had led up to. Thanks to them, Gil would have to dress smartly, more so than he had ever done in his life, not even on Sundays. Buenos Aires, here I come. "I can certainly hear what you're saying; '! sure would like to pull a job, make some dough. But where? Do you know?" "Right now, here in Brest, I know only one place, a simple breaking and entering scene. There's better ones elsewhere, but here in Brest that's the only thing I'm hep to. I'll go case the joint, and then, if you're ready, we can go do the job together. No sweat. I'll be right there with you." "I couldn't do it by myself? Perhaps that would be better?" "You crazy? Forget it. I want to go with you. First thne out, you need a buddy.''

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Darwin’s eureka moment was a gift from two terrible Thomases and one friendly Fred: Hobbes, Malthus, and Flintstone, respectively. By articulating a detailed (albeit erroneous) description of human nature and the sorts of lives humans lived in prehistory, Hobbes and Malthus provided the intellectual context for Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Unfortunately, their thoroughly Flintstoned assumptions are fully integrated into Darwin’s thinking and persist to the present day. The sober tones of serious science often mask the mythical nature of what we’re told about prehistory. And far too often, the myth is dysfunctional, inaccurate, and self-justifying. Our central ambition for this book is to distinguish some of the stars from the constellations. We believe that the generally accepted myth of the origins and nature of human sexuality is not merely factually flawed, but destructive, sustaining a false sense of what it means to be a human being. This false narrative distorts our sense of our capacities and needs. It amounts to false advertising for a garment that fits almost no one. But we’re all supposed to buy and wear it anyway. Like all myths, this one seeks to define who and what we are and thus what we can expect and demand from one another. For centuries, religious authorities disseminated this defining narrative, warning of chatty serpents, deceitful women, forbidden knowledge, and eternal agony. But more recently, it’s been marketed to secular society as hard science. Examples abound. Writing in the prestigious journal Science, anthropologist Owen Lovejoy suggested, “The nuclear family and human sexual behavior may have their ultimate origin long before the dawn of the Pleistocene [1.8 million years ago].”14 Well-known anthropologist Helen Fisher concurs, writing, “Is monogamy natural?” She gives a one-word answer: “Yes.” She then continues, “Among human beings…monogamy is the rule.”15 Many different elements of human prehistory seem to nest neatly into each other in the standard narrative of human sexual evolution. But remember, that Indian seemed to answer Cortés’s question, and it seemed indisputable to Pope Urban VIII and just about everyone else that the Earth remained solidly at the center of the solar system. With a focus on the presumed nutritional benefits of pair-bonding, zoologist and science writer Matt Ridley demonstrates the seduction in this apparent unity: “Big brains needed meat…[and] food sharing allowed a meaty diet (because it freed men to risk failure in pursuit of game)…[and] food sharing demanded big brains (without detailed calculating memories, you could easily be cheated by a free-loader).” So far, so good. But now Ridley inserts the sexual steps in his dance: “The sexual division of labor promoted monogamy (a pair bond now being an economic unit); monogamy led to neotenous sexual selection (by putting a premium on youthfulness in mates).” It’s a waltz, with one assumption spinning into the next, circling round and round in “a spiral of comforting justification, proving how we came to be as we are.”16

• From Querelle (1953)

  Roger went to see Gil every day. He brought him bread, butter, cheese, things he bought in a distant dairy close to the church of Saint-ivfartin, in a quarter where nobody knew him. Gil became more and more demanding. He knew that he was wealthy. His fortune, hidden close by, gave him sufficient authority to tyrannize Roger. He had finally become accustomed to his recluse existence, made himself comfortable in it, moved within its limits with total confidence. The day after his attack on the Lieutenant he tried to find out from Roger what the newspapers were saying. Querelle, however, had told him not to tell the young kid anything about these jobs. Not being able to tell him, nor to get anything out of him, Gil grew furious with Roger. Then he realized that the boy was withdrawing from him. "I've got to go now." ''Sure, sure. Now you're just dropping me!" "I am not dropping you, Gil. I come here every single day. But my old lady gives me a rough time whenever I come home 232 I JEAN GENET late. It wouldn't be so great if she decided to lock me up in the house." "Yeah, yeah, that's just bullshit. You know what I have to say about all that . . . But get me a liter of red wine tomorrow, all right?" "All right, I'll try." "I wasn't telling you to try. I told you to bring me a liter of the red." Roger did not feel in the least hurt by all this bullying. Like the pestiferous air in the cave, the bad temper emanating from Gil grew thicker every day, so that Roger was unable to distinguish the progression of its density. Had he still been in love, he would no doubt have found a vantage point from which to assess the changes in his friend's attitude, but now he just arrived there every evening like an automaton, obeying some kind of rite whose profound and imperious meaning has been forgotten. He did not even think of breaking out of this drudgery, he only thought about Robert's and ·Querelle's double countenance. He lived in the hope of one day encountering the brothers together. "I've seen Jo. He tells you not to worry. He said everything's hunky-dory. He'll come and. see you the next two or three days." "Where did you meet him?" "He was coming out of La Feria." "What the hell are you hanging out there for?" "I wasn't, I was just passing by . . . " "You've got no business there, it ain't even on your way. Maybe you're thinking of getting in with the tough guys, eh? That's no place for a little shitter like you, La Feria ain't." "I told you I just happened to walk past it, Gil." "Tell that to the Marines."

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “What? I’ll tell you what!” shouted the prince, waving his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrel-lined dressing-gown round him again. “That you’ve no pride, no dignity; that you’re disgracing, ruining your daughter by this vulgar, stupid matchmaking!” “But, really, for mercy’s sake, prince, what have I done?” said the princess, almost crying. She, pleased and happy after her conversation with her daughter, had gone to the prince to say good-night as usual, and though she had no intention of telling him of Levin’s offer and Kitty’s refusal, still she hinted to her husband that she fancied things were practically settled with Vronsky, and that he would declare himself so soon as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the prince had all at once flown into a passion, and began to use unseemly language. “What have you done? I’ll tell you what. First of all, you’re trying to catch an eligible gentleman, and all Moscow will be talking of it, and with good reason. If you have evening parties, invite everyone, don’t pick out the possible suitors. Invite all the young bucks. Engage a piano player, and let them dance, and not as you do things nowadays, hunting up good matches. It makes me sick, sick to see it, and you’ve gone on till you’ve turned the poor wench’s head. Levin’s a thousand times the better man. As for this little Petersburg swell, they’re turned out by machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish. But if he were a prince of the blood, my daughter need not run after anyone.” “But what have I done?” “Why, you’ve....” The prince was crying wrathfully. “I know if one were to listen to you,” interrupted the princess, “we should never marry our daughter. If it’s to be so, we’d better go into the country.” “Well, and we had better.” “But do wait a minute. Do I try and catch them? I don’t try to catch them in the least. A young man, and a very nice one, has fallen in love with her, and she, I fancy....” “Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love, and he’s no more thinking of marriage than I am!... Oh, that I should live to see it! Ah! spiritualism! Ah! Nice! Ah! the ball!” And the prince, imagining that he was mimicking his wife, made a mincing curtsey at each word. “And this is how we’re preparing wretchedness for Kitty; and she’s really got the notion into her head....” “But what makes you suppose so?” “I don’t suppose; I know. We have eyes for such things, though women-folk haven’t. I see a man who has serious intentions, that’s Levin: and I see a peacock, like this feather-head, who’s only amusing himself.” “Oh, well, when once you get an idea into your head!...” “Well, you’ll remember my words, but too late, just as with Dolly.” “Well, well, we won’t talk of it,” the princess stopped him, recollecting her unlucky Dolly.