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 295 of 447 · 20 per page

• From Post Office (1971)

  last night.” “Did she drink all that stuff?” “She had some help.” I ran down the stairway and got into my car. Then I was there. I knew the place well. They told me the room number. There were three or four beds in a tiny room. A woman was sitting up in hers across the way, chewing an apple and laughing with two female visitors. I pulled the drop sheet around Betty’s bed, sat down on the stool and leaned over her. “Betty! Betty!” I touched her arm. “Betty!” Her eyes opened. They were beautiful again. Bright calm blue. “I knew it would be you,” she said. Then she closed her eyes. Her lips were parched. Yellow spittle had caked at the left corner of her mouth. I took a cloth and washed it away. I cleaned her face, hands and throat. I took another cloth and squeezed a bit of water on her tongue. Then a little more. I wet her lips. I straightened her hair. I heard the women laughing through the sheets that separated us. “Betty, Betty, Betty. Please, I want you to drink some water, just a sip of water, not too much, just a sip.” She didn’t respond. I tried for 10 minutes. Nothing. More spittle formed at her mouth. I wiped it away. Then I got up and pulled the drop sheet back. I stared at the three women. I walked out and spoke to the nurse at the desk. “Listen, why isn’t anything being done for that woman in 45-C? Betty Williams.” “We’re doing all we can, sir.” “But there’s nobody there.” “We make our regular rounds.” “But where are the doctors? I don’t see any doctors.” “The doctor has seen her, sir.” “Why do you just let her lay there?” “We’ve done all we can, sir.” “SIR! SIR! SIR! FORGET THAT ‘SIR’ STUFF, WILL YOU? I’ll bet if that were the president or governor or mayor or some rich son of a bitch, there would be doctors all over that room doing something! Why do you just let them die? What’s the sin in being poor?” “I’ve told you, sir, that we’ve done ALL we can.” “I’ll be back in two hours.” “Are you her husband?” “I used to be her common-law husband.” “May we have your name and phone number?” I gave her that, then hurried out.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  few minutes later, neither Ron nor Brady said anything to the other members about the revelation. Ron had brought to that meeting a woman named Becky, whom he’d recently taken as a spiritual wife without benefit of a license or civil ceremony. The couple then went to Wichita, Kansas, for a honeymoon, so Ron wasn’t present when the school met the next time, on March 29; nor was Dan. Watson showed up with a pearl-handled straight razor, however, which he asked the somewhat puzzled members to “dedicate as a religious instrument for destroying the wicked, like the sword of Laban.” “Of course we refused,” says Onias, who did not yet know about the removal revelation. Watson was angered by this rebuff, Onias remembers, and “left the meeting with a bad spirit.” Tensions between Onias and some of the Lafferty brothers—primarily Watson, Ron, and Dan—had been building for several weeks. Soon after he had been appointed bishop of the school, Ron had begun to openly challenge Onias’s authority. Onias noticed a distinct change in Ron’s personality, “from an extremely kind gentleman to a man full of hate and anger. In his position as bishop, he started to dictate to everyone, and would get angry if they didn’t do what he said.” When Onias urged all members of the school to seek gainful employment in order to fund the construction of a “City of Refuge” below the Dream Mine, which was one of the school’s priorities, Ron angrily criticized him, arguing that there was no need for anybody to get a job, because surely God would provide the school with sufficient wealth, through miraculous means, to complete their work. In one of Ron’s revelations, God had, in fact, instructed him to send his brother Mark to Nevada to wager on a horse race to raise funds for the City of Refuge. With the Lord letting Mark know which mount to bet on, it seemed that they couldn’t lose. But they did. Afterward, Onias couldn’t resist telling the brothers, “I told you so,” causing relations between Ron and the prophet to deteriorate even further. Around Thanksgiving of 1983, when Ron had gone to Oregon to visit John Bryant’s polygamist commune, he had been introduced to some new sensual experiences, including intoxicants. As part of their religious rituals, Bryant’s

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  be continued, albeit discreetly, and top leaders of the church secretly performed numerous plural marriages. When this casuistry came to light, it unleashed a nationwide howl of indignation. In October 1910, the Salt Lake Tribune—which had been established as a rabidly anti-Mormon alternative to the church-owned Deseret News—published the names of some two hundred Saints who had taken plural wives after the Manifesto, including six members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. When the church leadership’s deceit about polygamy was made public, it wasn’t just Gentiles who were outraged—a number of prominent Mormons were upset as well, sparking a groundswell within the church to enforce the Manifesto and eradicate polygamy altogether. By the 1920s most Saints, including their leaders, had turned against polygamy and were encouraging the prosecution of cohabs. A significant number of dedicated Saints, however, were convinced that Wilford Woodruff had been grievously mistaken when he’d issued the Manifesto, and that heeding it ran counter to the religion’s most sacred principles. These hard-core polygamists argued that the Manifesto had not revoked Section 132 of The Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith’s 1843 revelation about plural marriage—that it merely suspended the practice under extenuating (and presumably temporary) circumstances. They pointed out that D&C 132 was still an accepted part of Mormon scripture (as, indeed, it remains today). These Mormon Fundamentalists, as they would proudly call themselves, took special inspiration from a revelation dispensed by the Lord to their departed hero John Taylor on September 26, 1886, while he was hiding out from federal cohab hunters. * Perhaps the most contentious revelation in the history of the Mormon Church, it had come in response to a question President Taylor had posed to God, inquiring if His earlier revelation to Joseph concerning the sacred doctrine of plural marriage should be abandoned. God’s reply was clear and unambiguous: Thus saith the Lord All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name unless they are revoked by me or by my authority. . . . I have not revoked this law nor will I

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  He flared up at once because he felt guilty. ‘I don’t care a damn about Martin!’ he said hotly. ‘ All I care about is Stephen, and she’s going to Oxford next year; she’s my child as well as yours, Anna! ’ Then quite suddenly Anna’s self-control left her, and she let him see into her tormented spirit; all that had lain unspoken between them she now put into crude, ugly words for his hearing: ‘ You care nothing for me any more — you and Stephen are en- leagued against me — you have been for years.’ Aghast at herself, she must yet go on speaking: ‘ You and Stephen — oh, I’ve seen it THE WELL OF LONELINESS 123 for years — you and Stephen.’ He looked at her, and there was warning in his eyes, but she babbled on wildly: ‘I’ve seer it for years — the cruelty of it; she’s taken you from me, my own child — the unspeakable cruelty of it!’ ‘ Cruelty, yes, but not Stephen’s, Anna — it’s yours; for in all the child’s life you’ve never loved her.’ Ugly, degrading, rather terrible half-truths; and he knew the whole truth, yet he dared not speak it. It is bad for the soul to know itself a coward, it is apt to take refuge in mere wordy violence. ‘ Yes, you, her mother, you persecute Stephen, you torment her; I sometimes think you hate her! ” ‘ Philip — good God!’ ‘ Yes, I think you hate her; but be careful, Anna, for hatred breeds hatred, and remember I stand for the rights of my child - if you hate her you’ve got to hate me; she’s my child. I won’t let her face your hatred alone.’ Ugly, degrading, rather terrible half-truths. Their hearts ached while their lips formed recriminations. Their hearts burst into tears while their eyes remained dry and accusing, staring in hostility and anger. Far into the night they accused each other, they who before had never seriously quarrelled; and something very like the hatred he spoke of leapt out like a flame that seared them at moments. ‘Stephen, my own child — she’s come between us.’ ‘It’s you who have thrust her between us, Anna.” Mad, it was madness! They were such faithful lovers, and their love it was that had fashioned their child. They knew that it was madness and yet they persisted, while their anger dug out for itself a deep channel, so that future angers might more easily follow. They could not forgive and they could not sleep, for neither could sleep without the other’s forgiveness, and the hatred that leapt out at moments between them would be drowned in the tears that their hearts were shedding. 124 THE WELL OF LONELINESS 3

• From Post Office (1971)

  Most of the boys put their caps up there. It didn’t hurt anything and saved a trip to the locker room. Now after three years of putting my cap up there I was ordered not to do so. Well, I was still coming in hungover and I didn’t have things like caps on my mind. So my cap was up there, the day after the order came out. The Stone came running with his write-up. It said that it was against rules and regulations to have any equipment on top of the case. I put the write-up in my pocket and went on sticking letters. The Stone sat swiveled in his chair, watching me. All the other carriers had put their caps in their lockers. Except me and one other—one Marty. And The Stone had gone up to Marty and said, “Now, Marty, you read the order. Your cap isn’t supposed to be on top of the case.” “Oh, I’m sorry, sir. Habit, you know. Sorry.” Marty took his cap off the case and ran upstairs to his locker with it. The next morning I forgot again. The Stone came with his write-up. It said that it was against rules and regulations to have any equipment on top of the case. I put the write-up in my pocket and went on sticking letters. The next morning, as I walked in, I could see The Stone watching me. He was very deliberate about watching me. He was waiting to see what I would do with the cap. I let him wait awhile. Then I took the cap off my head and placed it on top of the case. The Stone ran up with his write-up. I didn’t read it. I threw it in the wastebasket, left my cap up there and went on sticking mail. I could hear The Stone at his typewriter. There was anger in the sound of the keys. I wondered how he managed to learn how to type? I thought. He came again. Handed me a second write-up. I looked at him. “I don’t have to read it. I know what it says. It says that I didn’t read the first write-up.” I threw the second write-up in the wastebasket. The Stone ran back to his typewriter. He handed me a third write-up. “Look,” I said, “I know what all these things say. The first write-up was for having my cap on top of the case. The second was for not reading the first. This third one is for not reading the first or second write-ups.” I looked at him, and then dropped the write-up into the wastebasket without reading it. “Now I can throw these away as fast as you can type them. It can go on for hours and soon one of us is going to begin looking ridiculous. It’s up to you.” The Stone went back to his chair and sat down. He didn’t type anymore. He just sat looking at me.

• From Post Office (1971)

  11 After nine or ten hours people began getting sleepy and falling into their cases, catching themselves just in time. We were working the zoned mail. If a letter read zone 28 you stuck it to hole no. 28. It was simple. One big black guy leaped up and began swinging his arms to keep awake. He staggered about the floor. “God damn! I can’t stand it!” he said. And he was a big powerful brute. Using the same muscles over and over again was quite tiring. I ached all over. And at the end of the aisle stood a supervisor, another Stone, and he had this look on his face—they must practice it in front of mirrors, all the supervisors had this look on their faces—they looked at you as if you were a hunk of human shit. Yet they had come in through the same door. They had once been clerks or carriers. I couldn’t understand it. They were handpicked screws. You had to keep one foot on the floor at all times. One notch up on the restbar. What they called a “restbar” was a little round cushion set up on a stilt. No talking allowed. Two 10 minute breaks in eight hours. They wrote down the time when you left and the time when you came back. If you stayed 12 or 13 minutes, you heard about it. But the pay was better than at the art store. And, I thought, I might get used to it. I never got used to it. 12 Then the supervisor moved us to a new aisle. We had been there 10 hours. “Before you begin,” the soup said, “I want to tell you something. Each tray of this type of mail must be stuck in 23 minutes. That’s the production schedule. Now, just for fun, let’s see if each of us can meet the production schedule! Now, one, two, three ... GO!” What the hell is this? I thought. I’m tired. Each tray was two feet long. But each tray held different amounts of letters. Some trays had two or three times as much mail in them as others, depending upon the size of the letters. Arms started flying. Fear of failure. I took my time. “When you finish your first tray, grab another! “ They really worked at it. Then they jumped up and grabbed another tray. The supervisor walked up behind me. “Now,” he said, pointing at me, “this man is making production. He’s halfway through his second tray!” It was my first tray. I didn’t know if he were trying to con me or not, but since I was that far ahead of them I slowed down a little more.

• From Post Office (1971)

  16 The riots ended, the baby calmed down, and I found ways to avoid Janko. But the dizzy spells persisted. The doctor wrote me a standing order for the green- white librium capsules and they helped a bit. One night I got up to get a drink of water. Then I came back, worked 30 minutes and took my 10-minute break. When I sat down again, Chambers the supervisor, a high yellow, came running up: “Chinaski! You’ve finally hung yourself! You’ve been gone 40 minutes!” Chambers had fallen on the floor in a fit one night, frothing and twitching. They had carried him out on a stretcher. The next night he had come back, necktie, new shirt, as if nothing had happened. Now he was pulling the old water fountain game on me. “Look, Chambers, try to be sensible. I got a drink of water, sat down, worked 30 minutes, then took my break. I was gone 10 minutes.” “You’ve hung yourself, Chinaski! You’ve been gone 40 minutes! I have seven witnesses!” “Seven witnesses?” “YES, seven!” “I tell you, it was 10 minutes.” “No, we’ve got you, Chinaski! We’ve really got you this time!” Then, I was tired of it. I didn’t want to look at him anymore: “All right, then. I’ve been gone 40 minutes. Have your way. Write it up.” Chambers ran off. I stuck a few more letters, then the general foreman walked up. A thin white man with little tufts of grey hair hanging over each ear. I looked at him and then turned and stuck some more letters. “Mr. Chinaski, I’m sure that you understand the rules and regulations of the post office. Each clerk is allowed two 10-minute breaks, one before lunch, the other after lunch. The break privilege is granted by management: 10 minutes. Ten minutes is—” “GOD DAMN IT!” I threw my letters down. “Now I admitted to a 40-minute break just to satisfy you guys and get you off my ass. But you keep coming around! Now I take it back! I only took 10 minutes! I want to see your seven witnesses! Trot them out!” Two days later I was at the racetrack. I looked up and saw all these teeth, this big smile and the eyes shining, friendly. What was it—with all those teeth? I looked closer. It was Chambers looking at me, smiling and standing in a coffee line. I had a beer in my hand. I walked over to a trashcan, and still looking at him, I spit. Then I walked off. Chambers never bothered me again.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  group administered wine as a sacrament, and Ron partook with the others. Having been raised in a household that was strictly abstemious, this was his first experience with alcohol, and he found it quite agreeable. It gave him a nice, mellow feeling that “heightened his sense of the spirit.” Thereafter Ron described wine as “the gift of God.” Thus introduced to the pleasures of “strong drink” (as alcoholic beverages are negatively characterized in Section 89 of The Doctrine and Covenants), when Ron returned to Utah he insisted that the School of Prophets substitute wine for the juice or water they ordinarily served as a sacrament at the beginning of each meeting. This was another direct challenge to Onias’s authority, and it provoked a dramatic confrontation during the meeting of March 9. On that occasion Ron continued to gulp down glasses of wine after the sacrament was offered, and was soon stinking drunk. He began to mock Onias, who had refused the wine and taken water instead. According to Onias, Ron “kept ridiculing me, saying that I was too old and slow and it was about time I was released. He did this very sarcastically and said that the Lafferty brothers should take over. He was supported by Dan and Watson.” It was in this atmosphere of growing rancor that Ron’s removal revelation was put before the school for evaluation. During the meeting of April 5, he showed a copy of it to all the members and asked them to confirm its validity. The nine men who were present that evening earnestly discussed the revelation, then held a vote to determine its legitimacy as a divine commandment. “Ron, Dan, and Watson were in favor of accepting it as a valid revelation,” says Bernard Brady. “Everybody else said, ‘No way! Don’t even consider it! Forget the whole thing!’ At which point Ron, Dan, and Watson became really angry, got up, and walked out of the meeting, ending their association with the school.” The disagreement among the school’s members that evening underscores the conundrum that inevitably confronts any prophet who encourages his acolytes to engage in dialogue with God: sooner or later, God is apt to command an acolyte to disobey the prophet. And to true believers—to zealots like Ron and Dan Lafferty—the word of God will trump the word of a mere prophet like Onias every time. Worried that Ron might actually attempt to carry out the removal revelation and murder the four named individuals, Brady formally registered his concern in

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But I beseech thee, since God hath preserved thee from shame, that, like as thou hast twice followed my counsel, even so do thou yet this once; to wit, without complaining to any kinsman of thine, leave it to me to see an I can bridle yonder devil broke loose, whom I believed a saint. If I can make shift to turn him from this lewdness, well and good; if not, I give thee leave henceforth to do with him that which thy soul shall judge best, and my benison go with thee.' 'Well, then,' answered the lady, 'for this once I will well not to vex or disobey you; but look you do on such wise that he be ware of annoying me again, for I promise you I will never again return to you for this cause.' Thereupon, without saying more, she took leave of the friar and went away, as if in anger. Hardly was she out of the church when up came the gentleman and was called by the friar, who, taking him apart, gave him the soundest rating ever man had, calling him disloyal and forsworn and traitor. The other, who had already twice had occasion to know to what the monk's reprimands amounted, abode expectant and studied with embarrassed answers to make him speak out, saying, at the first, 'Why all this passion, Sir? Have I crucified Christ?' Whereupon, 'Mark this shameless fellow!' cried the friar. 'Hear what he saith! He speaketh as if a year or two were passed and he had for lapse of time forgotten his misdeeds and his lewdness! Hath it then escaped thy mind between this and matinsong that thou hast outraged some one this very morning? Where wast thou this morning a little before day?' 'I know not,' answered the gentleman; 'but wherever it was, the news thereof hath reached you mighty early.' Quoth the friar, 'Certes, the news hath reached me. Doubtless thou supposedst because her husband was abroad, that needs must the gentlewoman receive thee incontinent in her arms. A fine thing, indeed! Here's a pretty fellow! Here's an honourable man! He's grown a nighthawk, a garden-breaker, a tree-climber! Thinkest thou by importunity to overcome this lady's chastity, that thou climbest up to her windows anights by the trees? There is nought in the world so displeasing to her as thou; yet must thou e'en go essaying it again and again. Truly, thou hast profited finely by my admonitions, let alone that she hath shown thee her aversion in many ways. But this I have to say to thee; she hath up to now, not for any love she beareth thee, but at my instant entreaty, kept silence of that which thou hast done; but she will do so no more; I have given her leave to do what seemeth good to her, an thou annoy her again in aught.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  which God had commanded Onias to “prepare pamphlets to send out to the presidents of stakes and bishops of wards of My church”—the LDS Church—so that those who had committed fornication against Him would “be warned.” The pamphlet consisted of excerpts from Onias’s collected revelations, cautioning the entire LDS leadership—from the president and putative prophet in Salt Lake City down to the bishop of every ward across North America—that God was extremely unhappy with the way they’d been running His One True Church. God was especially steamed, Onias explained, that modern Mormon leaders were blatantly defying some of the most sacred doctrines He had revealed to Joseph Smith in the nineteenth century. Most egregiously, the men at the helm of the church continued to sanction and zealously enforce the government’s criminalization of plural marriage. And only slightly less disturbing, from Onias’s perspective, was the blasphemy perpetrated by LDS President Spencer W. Kimball in 1978 when he decreed that black-skinned men should be admitted into the Mormon priesthood—a historic, earth-shaking turnabout in church policy widely applauded by those outside the church. God had revealed to Onias, however, that blacks were subhuman “beasts of the field, which were the most intelligent of all animals that were created, for they did walk upright as a man doeth and had the power of speech.” † According to the pamphlet, God had given Onias an earful about blacks being ordained as LDS priests: Behold I say unto you, at no time have I given a commandment unto My church, nor shall I . . . that the children of Ham, even the Negro race and all its peoples, should receive My holy Priesthood. . . . And have I not spoken to My servant Joseph Smith, even your head, that none of this race could or would be ordained to My holy Priesthood until the seed of Abel shall rise above the seed of Cain? . . . For Satan was the founder of this black race, for he came to Cain after God had taken away his power to procreate the children of righteousness, and showed him how he could place his seed into animals, and the seed of animals into other animals, for he did corrupt the seed of the earth in this manner, hoping to thwart the works of God. And for this reason the earth was destroyed by the flood, to destroy from the face of the earth these abominations which Cain created, for he had corrupted all flesh. . . . For Satan has infiltrated My church, and seeketh to become its head.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Joseph responded by having Law excommunicated; Law’s reaction to this insult was to declare that Joseph was a “fallen prophet” and then, on May 12, to establish an institution he called the Reformed Mormon Church, which did not sanction polygamy. According to Fawn Brodie, Law had courage, tenacity, and a strange, misguided idealism. Although he was surrounded chiefly by men who believed Joseph to be a base imposter, he clung to the hope that that he could effect a reformation in the church. To this end he set up a church of his own, with himself as president, following faithfully the organization of the main body. This in itself would not have been serious, for Joseph had seen rival prophets spring out of the grass at his feet before and they had come to naught. Usually they tried to imitate him, giving out revelations that sounded stale and flat beside his own. But Law was cut to a different pattern. Actually he was on the road to complete and ugly disillusionment, but he was walking backward away from the church, looking eagerly for something in the landscape to which he could cling, grasping at every tree and hedgerow. His desperate desire to reform the church made him far more formidable than if he had set out to damn the prophet and all his works. Law was also made formidable by dint of being rich, which allowed him to buy his own printing press. On June 7, 1844, the first and only edition of a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor emerged from the new press. Law printed one thousand copies. The lead editorial exclaimed, “We are earnestly seeking to explode the vicious principle of Joseph Smith, and those who practice the same abominations and whoredoms.” The four-page broadsheet railed against Joseph’s disdain for the separation of church and state, his usurpation of political power, and his shady financial dealings, but the paper’s primary objective was to expose the secret doctrine of polygamy. The editors promised that in the coming days, “several affidavits will be published, to substantiate the facts alleged.” Most of Nauvoo’s residents reacted to the publication with anger—directed not at Joseph, to whom they remained devoted, but at the paper and its owners. The prophet was nevertheless worried that the Expositor put his control of the church in dire peril, so he called an emergency meeting of the Nauvoo city council. Warning that the paper threatened to “destroy the peace of the city” and

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  It was just dismal, and one had to put up with it. It was quite true, men had no real glamour for a woman: if you could fool yourself into thinking they had, even as she had fooled herself over Michaelis, that was the best you could do. Meanwhile you just lived on and there was nothing to it. She understood perfectly well why people had cocktail parties, and jazzed, and Charlestoned till they were ready to drop. You had to take it out some way or other, your youth, or it ate you up. But what a ghastly thing, this youth! you felt as old as Methuselah, and yet the thing fizzed somehow, and didn't let you be comfortable. A mean sort of life! And no prospect! She almost wished she had gone off with Mick, and made her life one long cocktail party, and jazz evening. Anyhow that was better than just mooning yourself into the grave. On one of her bad days she went out alone to walk in the wood, ponderously, heeding nothing, not even noticing where she was. The report of a gun not far off startled and angered her. Then, as she went, she heard voices, and recoiled. People! She didn't want people. But her quick ear caught another sound, and she roused; it was a child sobbing. At once she attended; someone was ill-treating a child. She strode swinging down the wet drive, her sullen resentment uppermost. She felt just prepared to make a scene. Turning the corner, she saw two figures in the drive beyond her: the keeper, and a little girl in a purple coat and moleskin cap, crying. "Ah, shut it up, tha false little bitch!" came the man's angry voice, and the child sobbed louder. Constance strode nearer, with blazing eyes. The man turned and looked at her, saluting coolly, but he was pale with anger. "What's the matter? Why is she crying?" demanded Constance, peremptory but a little breathless. A faint smile like a sneer came on the man's face. "Nay, yo' mun ax 'er," he replied callously, in broad vernacular. Connie felt as if he had hit her in the face, and she changed colour. Then she gathered her defiance, and looked at him, her dark-blue eyes blazing rather vaguely. "I asked _you_," she panted. He gave a queer little bow, lifting his hat. "You did, your Ladyship," he said; then, with a return to the vernacular: "but I canna tell yer." And he became a soldier, inscrutable, only pale with annoyance. Connie turned to the child, a ruddy, black-haired thing of nine or ten. "What is it, dear? Tell me why you're crying!" she said, with the conventionalised sweetness suitable. More violent sobs, self-conscious. Still more sweetness on Connie's part. "There, there, don't you cry! Tell me what they've done to you!" ... and intense tenderness of tone. At the same time she felt in the pocket of her knitted jacket, and luckily found a sixpence.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  No one answered. Mellors was slinging his gun over his shoulder, his face queer and expressionless, save for an abstracted look of patience. The dog Flossie, standing on guard almost between her master's legs, moved uneasily, eyeing the chair with great suspicion and dislike, and very much perplexed between the three human beings. The _tableau vivant_ remained set among the squashed bluebells, nobody proffering a word. "I expect she'll have to be pushed," said Clifford at last, with an affectation of _sang froid_. No answer. Mellors' abstracted face looked as if he had heard nothing. Connie glanced anxiously at him. Clifford too glanced round. "Do you mind pushing her home, Mellors!" he said in a cool, superior tone. "I hope I have said nothing to offend you," he added, in a tone of dislike. "Nothing at all, Sir Clifford! Do you want me to push that chair?" "If you please." The man stepped up to it: but this time it was without effect. The brake was jammed. They poked and pulled, and the keeper took off his gun and his coat once more. And now Clifford said never a word. At last the keeper heaved the back of the chair off the ground, and with an instantaneous push of his foot, tried to loosen the wheels. He failed, the chair sank. Clifford was clutching the sides. The man gasped with the weight. "Don't do it!" cried Connie to him. "If you'll pull the wheel that way, so!" he said to her, showing her how. "No! You mustn't lift it! You'll strain yourself," she said, flushed now with anger. But he looked into her eyes and nodded. And she had to go and take hold of the wheel, ready. He heaved and she tugged, and the chair reeled. "For God's sake!" cried Clifford in terror. But it was all right, and the brake was off. The keeper put a stone under the wheel, and went to sit on the bank, his heart beating and his face white with the effort, semi-conscious. Connie looked at him, and almost cried with anger. There was a pause and a dead silence. She saw his hands trembling on his thighs. "Have you hurt yourself?" she asked, going to him. "No. No!" he turned away almost angrily. There was dead silence. The back of Clifford's fair head did not move. Even the dog stood motionless. The sky had clouded over. At last he sighed, and blew his nose on his red handkerchief. "That pneumonia took a lot out of me," he said. No one answered. Connie calculated the amount of strength it must have taken to heave up that chair and the bulky Clifford: too much, far too much! If it hadn't killed him! He rose, and again picked up his coat, slinging it through the handle of the chair. "Are you ready, then, Sir Clifford?" "When you are!"

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Sad! no, bored! I had to go getting summonses for two poachers I caught, and oh well, I don't like people." He spoke cold, good English, and there was anger in his voice. "Do you hate being a gamekeeper?" she asked. "Being a gamekeeper, no! So long as I'm left alone. But when I have to go messing around at the police station, and various other places, and waiting for a lot of fools to attend to me ... oh well, I get mad ..." and he smiled, with a certain faint humour. "Couldn't you be really independent?" she asked. "Me? I suppose I could, if you mean manage to exist on my pension. I could! But I've got to work, or I should die. That is, I've got to have something that keeps me occupied. And I'm not in a good enough temper to work for myself. It's got to be a sort of job for somebody else, or I should throw it up in a month, out of bad temper. So altogether I'm very well off here, especially lately...." He laughed at her again, with mocking humour. "But why are you in a bad temper?" she asked. "Do you mean you are _always_ in a bad temper?" "Pretty well," he said, laughing. "I don't quite digest my bile." "But what bile?" she said. "Bile!" he said. "Don't you know what that is?" She was silent, and disappointed. He was taking no notice of her. "I'm going away for a while next month," she said. "You are! Where to?" "Venice." "Venice! With Sir Clifford? For how long?" "For a month or so," she replied. "Clifford won't go." "He'll stay here?" he asked. "Yes! He hates to travel as he is." "Ay, poor devil!" he said, with sympathy. There was a pause. "You won't forget me when I'm gone, will you?" she asked. Again he lifted his eyes and looked full at her. "Forget?" he said. "You know nobody forgets. It's not a question of memory." She wanted to say: "What then?" but she didn't. Instead, she said in a mute kind of voice: "I told Clifford I might have a child." Now he really looked at her, intense and searching. "You did?" he said at last. "And what did he say?" "Oh, he wouldn't mind. He'd be glad, really, so long as it seemed to be his." She dared not look up at him. He was silent a long time, then he gazed again on her face. "No mention of _me_, of course?" he said. "No. No mention of you," she said. "No, he'd hardly swallow me as a substitute breeder.--Then where are you supposed to be getting the child?" "I might have a love affair in Venice," she said. "You might," he replied slowly. "So that's why you're going?" "Not to have the love affair," she said, looking up at him, pleading. "Just the appearance of one," he said.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "We too have had our mild local excitement. It appears the truant wife of Mellors, the keeper, turned up at the cottage, and found herself unwelcome. He packed her off and locked the door. Report has it, however, that when he returned from the wood he found the no longer fair lady firmly established in his bed, in _puris naturalibu_; or one should say, in _impuris naturalibus_. She had broken a window and got in that way. Unable to evict the somewhat manhandled Venus from his couch, he beat a retreat and retired, it is said, to his mother's house in Tevershall. Meanwhile the Venus of Stacks Gate is established in the cottage, which she claims is her home, and Apollo, apparently, is domiciled in Tevershall. "I repeat this from hearsay, as Mellors has not come to me personally. I had the particular bit of local garbage from our garbage bird, our ibis, our scavenging turkey-buzzard, Mrs. Bolton. I would not have repeated it had she not exclaimed: her Ladyship will go no more to the wood if _that_ woman's going to be about! "I like your picture of Sir Malcolm striding into the sea with white hair blowing and pink flesh glowing. I envy you that sun. Here it rains. But I don't envy Sir Malcolm his inveterate mortal carnality. However, it suits his age. Apparently one grows more carnal and more mortal as one grows older. Only youth has a taste of immortality." This news affected Connie in her state of semi-stupefied well-being with vexation amounting to exasperation. Now she had got to be bothered by that beast of a woman! Now she must start and fret! She had no letter from Mellors. They had agreed not to write at all, but now she wanted to hear from him personally. After all, he was the father of the child that was coming. Let him write! But how hateful! Now everything was messed up. How foul those low people were! How nice it was here, in the sunshine and the indolence, compared to that dismal mess of that English midlands! After all, a clear sky was almost the most important thing in life. She did not mention the fact of her pregnancy, even to Hilda. She wrote to Mrs. Bolton for exact information. Duncan Forbes, an artist, friend of theirs, had arrived at the Villa Esmeralda, coming north from Rome. Now he made a third in the gondola, and he bathed with them across the lagoon, and was their escort: a quiet, almost taciturn young man, very advanced in his art. She had a letter from Mrs. Bolton: "You will be pleased, I am sure, my Lady, when you see Sir Clifford. He's looking quite blooming and working very hard, and very hopeful. Of course he is looking forward to seeing you among us again. It is a dull house without my Lady, and we shall all welcome her presence among us once more.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Then he would arrive late at the office and shout down his secretary, Madeleine, for failing to make his coffee light enough. Get your ass down there and get another cup! He was digging his own grave and holding it like a pearl inside of him. —Clair, George Clair, he said, overfilling his glass, plucking a single ice cube from the silver ice bucket. What a surprise. —Benjie! Firmly they clasped one another’s hands. Clair’s expression was inoffensive and slyly confused. Smile lines skirted the planes of his face. —What the hell has you here in New Canaan? —Well, it’s the funniest thing, Benjamin. I’ve been talking with some investors—a little outside venture, you understand, between you and me—about a scheme to manufacture a new Styrofoam packaging. It’s little S-shaped Styrofoam pieces that can help keep an item free from trauma during shipping. Really miraculous. Really remarkable. Delicate stuff, stuff that can get tossed around by the shippers, still arrives intact. It’s just going nationwide, the way I see it, nationwide. Anyway, it turns out one of the principal thinkers behind the whole project is your neighbor Jim Williams. How about that! Clair hoisted his glass a couple of inches. Benjamin was almost certain: Clair drank club soda and pretended it was gin and tonic. The blood rose in Hood’s face. That Clair and Jim Williams were bedfellows now augured some consolidation of bad energy in the universe. It was evidence of an order that chilled his bones. Either a paranoid assumption about the world was correct and it was filled with plots by human souls, occasionally selfish, occasionally generous human souls—plots that they pursued compulsively, recklessly, without regard for those they might harm—or else there was a force that ordered human society, ordered even the coexistence of plots and meaninglessness, that located oil under Arab countries and dust under Israel, that parched Bangladesh and froze the Baffin Bay, that raised up Richard Nixon from Checkers to dash him at the Watergate Hotel—while he realized the largest margin of victory in a presidential election in decades. Either way, Hood detested George Clair. Detested him. He was the truest suburban phony: without culture, without native character, who was compelled here and there only by expedience. Hood would have liked to yank tight Clair’s squeaky-clean bow tie and to watch him, in the process, swell and burst. —Well, hey, Benjamin said, isn’t that a one-in-a-million coincidence? A real dreamer, Jim Williams. And the sort of guy to turn those dreams into, well, bottom-line realities. —Darned right about that. Look here, Benj, whaddya make of this film of The Exorcist, you know, William Peter Blatty’s novel? You think it’s gonna work? —Don’t see how, Hood said. The star’s a little girl. Just devil-worship stuff. I mean, maybe if the little girl was possessed by an Indian spirit, angered by the white man’s occupation of his native ... ancestral lands or something.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But Violet Antrim, who had also been staying with the Pea- cocks, had arrived home full of importance. She walked in on Stephen one afternoon to announce her engagement to young Alec Peacock. She was so much engaged and so haughty about it ` that Stephen, whose nerves were already on edge, was very soon literally itching to slap her. Violet was now able to look down on Stephen from the height of her newly gained knowledge of men — knowing Alec she felt that she knew the whole species. “It’s a terrible pity you dress as you do, my dear,’ she re- marked, with the manner of sixty, ‘ a young girl’s so much more attractive when she’s soft—don’t you think you could soften your clothes just a little? I mean, you do want to get married, don’t you! No woman’s complete until she’s married. After all, no woman can really stand alone, she always needs a man to protect her.’ Stephen said: ‘I’m all right — getting on nicely, thank you! ’ ‘Oh, no, but you can’t be! ’ Violet insisted. ‘I was talking to Alec and Roger about you, and Roger was saying it’s an awful mistake for women to get false ideas into their heads. He thinks you’ve got rather a bee in your bonnet; he told Alec that you’d be quite a womanly woman if you’d only stop trying to ape what you're not.’ Presently she said, staring rather hard: ‘ That Mrs. Crossby — do you really like her? Of course I know you’re friends and all that — But why are you friends? You’ve got nothing in 196 THE WELL OF LONELINESS common. She’s what Roger calls a thorough man’s woman. I think myself she’s a bit of a climber. Do you want to be used as a scaling ladder for storming the fortifications of the county? The Peacocks have known old Crossby for years, he’s a wonderful shot for an ironmonger, but they don’t care for her very much I believe — Alec says she’s man-mad, whatever that means, anyhow she seems desperately keen about Roger.’ Stephen said: ‘Pd rather we didn’t discuss Mrs. Crossby, because, you see, she’s my friend.’ And her voice was as icy cold as her hands. ‘Oh, of course if you’re feeling like that about it — ° laughed Violet, ‘ no, but honest, she is keen on Roger.’ When Violet had gone, Stephen sprang to her feet, but her sense of direction seemed to have left her, for she struck her head a pretty sharp blow against the side of a heavy book-case. She stood swaying with her hands pressed against her temples. Angela and Roger Antrim — those two — but it couldn’t be, Violet had been purposely lying. She loved to torment, she was like her brother, a bully, a devil who loved to torment — it couldn’t be — Violet had been lying.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  They talk to them contemptuously, and brook no reply or argument. The third class passenger has to obey the official as though he were his servant, and the letter may with impunity belabour and blackmail him, and book him his ticket only putting him to the greatest possible inconvenience, including often missing the train. All this I have seen with my own eyes. No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor, travel third, refuse to enjoy the amenities denied to the poor and, instead of taking avoidable hardships, discourtesies and injustice as a matter of course, fight for their removal. Wherever I went in Kathiawad I heard complaints about the Viramgam customs hardships. I therefore decided immediately to make use of Lord Willingdon’s offer. I collected and read all the literature available on the subject, convinced myself that the complaints were well founded, and opened correspondence with the Bombay Government. I called on the Private Secretary to Lord Willingdon and waited on His Excellency also. The latter expressed his sympathy but shifted the blame on Delhi. ‘If it had been in our hands, we should have removed the cordon long ago. You should approach the Government of India,’ said the secretary. I communicated with the Government of India, but got no reply beyond an acknowledgment. It was only when I had an occasion to meet Lord Chelmsford later that redress could be had. When I placed the facts before him, he expressed his astonishment. He had known nothing of the matter. He gave me a patient hearing, telephoned that very moment for papers about Viramgam, and promised to remove the cordon if the authorities had no explanation or defence to offer. Within a few days of this interview I read in the papers that the Viramgam customs cordon had been removed. I regarded this event as the advent of Satyagraha in India. For during my interview with the Bombay Government the Secretary had expressed his disapproval of a reference to Satyagraha in a speech which I had delivered in Bagasra (in Kathiawad). ‘Is not this a threat?’ he had asked. ‘And do you think a powerful Government will yield to threats?’ ‘This was no threat’, I had replied. ‘It was educating the people. It is my duty to place before the people all the legitimate remedies for grievances. A nation that wants to come into its own ought to know all the ways and means to freedom. Usually they include violence as the last remedy. Satyagraha, on the other hand, is an absolutely non- violent weapon. I regard it as my duty to explain its practice and its limitations. I have no doubt that the British Government is a powerful Government, but I have no doubt also that Satyagraha is a sovereign remedy.’ The clever Secretary sceptically nodded his head and said: ‘We shall see.’ 130SHANTINIKETANFrom Rajkot I proceeded to Shantiniketan. The teachers and students overwhelmed me with affection.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Who's shirking their responsibility now!" he said. "Who is trying to get away _now_ from the responsibility of their own boss-ship, as you call it?" "But I don't want any boss-ship," she protested. "Ah! But that is funk. You've got it: fated to it. And you should live up to it. Who has given the colliers all they have that's worth having: all their political liberty, and their education, such as it is, their sanitation, their health conditions, their books, their music, everything. Who has given it them? Have colliers given it to colliers? No! All the Wragbys and Shipleys in England have given their part, and must go on giving. There's your responsibility." Connie listened, and flushed very red. "I'd like to give something," she said. "But I'm not allowed. Everything is to be sold and paid for now; and all the things you mention now, Wragby and Shipley _sells_ them to the people, at a good profit. Everything is sold. You don't give one heartbeat of real sympathy. And besides, who has taken away from the people their natural life and manhood, and given them this industrial horror? Who has done that?" "And what must I do?" he asked, green. "Ask them to come and pillage me?" "Why is Tevershall so ugly, so hideous? Why are their lives so hopeless?" "They built their own Tevershall, that's part of their display of freedom. They built themselves their pretty Tevershall, and they live their own pretty lives. I can't live their lives for them. Every beetle must live its own life." "But you make them work for you. They live the life of your coal mine." "Not at all. Every beetle finds its own food. Not one man is forced to work for me." "Their lives are industrialised and hopeless, and so are ours," she cried. "I don't think they are. That's just a romantic figure of speech, a relic of the swooning and die-away romanticism. You don't look at all a hopeless figure standing there, Connie my dear." Which was true. For her dark-blue eyes were flashing, her colour was hot in her cheeks, she looked full of a rebellious passion far from the dejection of hopelessness. She noticed, in the tussocky places of the grass, cottony young cowslips standing up still bleared in their down. And she wondered with rage, why it was she felt Clifford was so _wrong_, yet she couldn't say it to him, she could not say exactly _where_ he was wrong. "No wonder the men hate you," she said.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  I ought to have asked your advice about it, but I really did like the girl just at first, and after that, well—I set out to reform her. Oh, I know I’ve been crazy, worse than crazy if you like; it was hopeless right from the very beginning. If I’d only known more about that sort of thing I’d have come to you at once, but I’d never met it. She was our neighbour too, which made it more awkward, and not only that—her position in the county—oh, Ralph, you must help me, I’m completely bewildered. How on earth does one answer this sort of thing? It’s quite mad—I believe the girl’s half mad herself.’ And she handed him Stephen’s letter. He read it slowly, and as he did so his weak little eyes grew literally scarlet—puffy and scarlet all over their lids, and when he had finished reading that letter he turned and spat on the ground. Then Ralph’s language became a thing to forget; every filthy invective learnt in the slums of his youth and later on in the workshops, he hurled against Stephen and all her kind. He called down the wrath of the Lord upon them. He deplored the non-existence of the stake, and racked his brains for indecent tortures. And finally: ‘I’ll answer this letter, yes, by God I will! You leave her to me, I know how I’m going to answer this letter!’ Angela asked him, and now her voice shook: ‘Ralph, what will you do to her—to Stephen?’ He laughed loudly: ‘I’ll hound her out of the county before I’ve done—and with luck out of England; the same as I’d hound you out if I thought that there’d ever been anything between you two women. It’s damned lucky for you that she wrote this letter, damned lucky, otherwise I might have my suspicions. You’ve got off this time, but don’t try your reforming again—you’re not cut out to be a reformer. If there’s any of that Lamb of God stuff wanted I’ll see to it myself and don’t you forget it!’ He slipped the letter into his pocket, ‘I’ll see to it myself next time—with an axe!’ Angela turned and went out of the study with bowed head. She was saved through this great betrayal, yet most strangely bitter she found her salvation, and most shameful the price she had paid for her safety. So, greatly daring, she went to her desk and with trembling fingers took a sheet of paper. Then she wrote in her large, rather childish handwriting: ‘Stephen—when you know what I’ve done, forgive me.’ CHAPTER 27 1 T wo days later Anna Gordon sent for her daughter.