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 The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  The next day, I announced this to all my friends. But a new disappointment awaited me on my return from school: as the twins were too weak, the mohel had asked for an additional delay to circumcise the boy. So my bar mitzvah, of course, was delayed too, until the child would be stronger. I would gladly have stuck my finger into the eye of this larval being. Fortunately, the delay was not long, and the great day soon came. Our apartment was already invaded at dawn by all the women of our family and of the building. There was work enough for all: food had to be prepared, furniture moved out, Mother and the babies to be looked after, our terrace to be decorated. But there were too many women around and they all got in each other’s way, took nasty cracks at each other, and then sulked, finally uttering sudden cries of joy. I was already aware of my own dignity as a man and despised these women who were all noisy and changing in their moods like children. Their pointless excitement was like that of hens, especially when, looking up and staring straight ahead, with the chin thrust forward, they suddenly uttered long and loud cries of joy in the Oriental manner. At first, I thought of trying to be useful, but they soon steered me away toward the street. I would never have obeyed them had I really thought that they had come together in my honor. Besides, the presence of all these strangers, busied with tasks that were normally my mother’s, irritated me considerably. The comings and goings of aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors, through the wide-open door, never ceased. I no longer felt at all at home. Because it was so public, my party seemed no longer to be so much my own. Toward the beginning of the afternoon, I had to go through the great ritual of washing and dressing. To avoid the expense of the public bath, to which I would have had to invite as my guests all the neighborhood boys, Aunt Noucha had allowed us to use her own bathroom. As none of our families had a private bathroom and none of us had ever seen one before, the mere use of this one gave the occasion a peculiar solemnity. But, to my great disappointment, it was on Aunt Rbiqua that the sacred honor of washing me was conferred, to compensate her never having had any children. I had never stood naked before anybody and now tied a towel securely around my loins while she went down on her knees because her sore back made it difficult for her to bend forward. Then she proceeded to rub my back and chest up and down and down and up with big sweeps of the sponge, as if she were a machine. Finally, she ordered me to remove the towel. I shook my head, without uttering an answer.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  A LORD of Grignaux, gentleman, of honour to Anne, Duchess of Brittany and Queen of France, returning home after an absence of more than two years, found his wife at another estate he had, not far from that in which he usually resided. He asked the reason of this, and was told that the house was haunted by a spirit, which made such a disturbance that no one could live in it. Monsieur de Grignaux, who was not a man to give credit to these fancies, replied that if it was the devil himself he should not fear him, and took his wife home with him to their usual abode. At night he had plenty of torches lighted, the better to see this spirit; but, after watching a long time without seeing or hearing anything, he at last fell asleep. No sooner had he done so than he was awakened by a sound box on the ears, after which he heard a voice crying, " Brenigne, Brenigne," which was the name of his deceased grandmother. He called to a woman who slept in the chamber to light a candle, for he had had all the torches put out, but she durst not rise. At the same time, Monsieur de Grignaux felt his bed-clothes pulled off, and heard a great noise of tables, trestles, and stools tumbled about the room with a din that lasted until day. But he never believed that it was a spirit ; he was not so frightened as vexed at losing his night's rest. On the following night, being resolved to catch Master Goblin, he had no sooner lain down than he pretended Fourth Jay. QUEEN OF NAVARRE. 34.1 to snore with all his might, keeping his open hand ovei his face. While thus awaiting the arrival of the spirit, he heard something approach, and began to snore louder than ever. The spirit, which by this time had become familiar, gave him a great thump, whereupon Monsieur de Grignaux seized its hand, crying out, " Wife, I have caught the spirit." His wife rose instantly, lighted a candle, and behold you, it turned out that the spirit was the girl who slept in their chamber. She threw herself at their feet, begging to be forgiven, and promised to tell them the truth, which was, that the love she long entertained for a domestic had made her play this trick in order to drive the master and mistress out of the house, and that they two, who had charge of it, might make good cheer, which they failed not to do when they were alone. Monsieur de Grignaux, who was not a man to be trifled with, had them both beaten in a manner they never forgot, and then turned them both out of doors. In this way he got rid of the spirits who had haunted his house for two years.

• From The Prophetic Imagination (1978)

  Oppressive Social Policy The Solomonic achievement was in part made possible by oppressive social policy . Indeed, this was the foundation of the regime and surely the source of the affluence just mentioned. That affluence was undoubtedly hierarchical and not democratic in its distribution. Obviously some people lived well off the efforts of others, for we are reminded that there were those “who built houses and did not live in them, who planted vineyards, and did not drink their wine.” Fundamental to social policy was the practice of forced labor, in which at least to some extent subjects existed to benefit the state or the political economy. It is not terribly important or helpful to determine if the forced labor policy included all subjects, as suggested in 1 Kgs 5:13-18, or if the people of Israel were exempted from the general levy of the empire, as contended in 1 Kgs 9:22. In any case, it was unmistakably the policy of the regime to mobilize and claim the energies of people for the sake of the court and its extravagant needs. As we know from our own recent past, such an exploitative appetite can develop insatiable momentum so that, no matter how much in the way of goods or power or security is obtained, it is never enough. The rebellion announced in 1 Kgs 11:28 and the dispute of 1 Kings 12 concerning the nature of government and the role of people and leaders both show the struggle with a new self- understanding. In that new consciousness on which the regime was built but which was also created by the regime, the politics of justice and compassion has completely disappeared. The order of the state was the overriding agenda, and questions of justice and freedom, the main program of Moses, were necessarily and systematically subordinated. Justice and freedom are inherently promissory; but this regime could not tolerate promises, for they question the present oppressive ordering and threaten the very foundations of current self-serving.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  Sometimes it’s therapy; other times it could be a day off, a good cry, a much-needed infusion of joy. It’s easy to get pissed off when you’re in a joy famine or you’ve been ignoring your own needs for too long. Don’t shoot the messenger, but in these cases, you’re probably most angry with yourself. Journal it out: Get your tumultuous thoughts out of your head and onto a piece of paper. What happened? How did it make you feel? What other feelings came up? How did you respond? How could you have responded instead? What will you do now to feel better? What can you do next time to avoid being in this situation or a situation like this? (Because, believe me, there will be a next time.) Freewrite whatever comes to mind. Too afraid someone will see your deepest, darkest thoughts? Lock them up. Put barbed wire around them. Set a solid boundary: “Don’t read my shit!” Channel your fury: Give your anger something constructive to do—a job, a project, a workout, an artistic outlet. Channel that energy into something that makes a positive difference. Protest. Volunteer. Donate. Write. Sing. Move. Make art. Basically, choose a healthy action to help move your big, intense feelings through and out of your body. Say you’re sorry: Sometimes our anger is 100 percent appropriate. Other times, we’ve messed up. If you made a mistake, or hurt someone, own up to it —without caveats. Sorry for calling you a dirtbag, but you were being a dirtbag. Nope. That’s not it. When you recognize that you were out of line, just say you’re sorry, full stop. Forgive yourself: Don’t beat yourself up, pal. It’s over. Let yourself off the hook. Give yourself the grace to move on, knowing that by being accountable you’ve acted with integrity. You’re doing the best you can during a shitty time. None of this is easy, but this work can actually make your relationships stronger. YOU’VE GOT THIS This is big stuff, and I’m superproud of you/us for exploring it. And guess what? You don’t have to continue this on your own. Work with a therapist, ask for help from a trusted friend, join a support group. There are so many outlets available to us now. Above all, make a promise to yourself (repeat after me): I will not punish myself for my feelings. I will release myself from torturing myself over past behaviors. I will remember that I am doing the best I can. I will move forward with love. Anger is healthy. If it wasn’t for anger, many of the freedoms we hold dear wouldn’t exist. Remember, when we have the courage to explore our unbecoming feelings, a world of healing opens up to us. We experience better health, deeper intimacy, and stronger connections, which opens the door to a whole lot more love.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  She shuddered. She still remembered my touch with revulsion. It made me dizzy with hatred. This was my mother. The woman who raised me. What chance could I ever have had. “How long were you gone?” My voice sounded flat and dead in my own ears. “A year,” she said quietly. “Give or take a few months.” And I believed it. Everything in my body told me that was right. All those nights, waiting for her to come home, listening for her key in the lock. No wonder. No wonder they had to tear me away from her when I started school. No wonder I always worried she was going to leave me one night. She already had. “But you’re asking the wrong question,” she said. “Don’t ask me why I left. Ask me why I came back.” A truck with a four-horse trailer rattled up the road toward the highway. We could smell the horses, see their sleek rumps over the rear gate, and I thought about that day at the races, Medea’s Pride. “You should have been sterilized.” Suddenly she was up, pinning me by my shoulders to the tree trunk. Her eyes were a sea in fog. “I could have left you there, but I didn’t. Don’t you understand? For once, I did the right thing. For you.” I was supposed to forgive her now, but it was too late. I would not say my line. “Bully. For. You,” I replied dryly. She wanted to slap me, but she couldn’t. They’d end the visit right now. I lifted my head, knowing the white scars were gleaming. She dropped her grip on my arms. “You were never like this before,” she said. “You’re so hard. Susan told me, but I thought it was just a pose. You’ve lost yourself, your dreaminess, that tender quality.” I stared at her, not letting her look away. We were the same height, eye to eye, but I was bigger-boned, I probably could have beaten her in a fair fight. “I would have thought you’d approve. Wasn’t that the thing you hated about Claire? Her tenderness? Be strong, you said. I despise weakness.” “I wanted you to be strong, but intact,” she said. “Not this devastation. You’re like a bomb site. You frighten me.” I smiled. I liked the idea that I frightened her. The tables were truly turned. “You, the great Ingrid Magnussen, goddess of September fires, Saint Santa Ana, ruler over life and death?” She reached out her hand, as if to touch my face, like a blind woman, but she couldn’t reach me. I would burn her if she touched me. The hand stayed in the air, hovering in front of my face. I saw, she was afraid. “You were the one thing that was entirely good in my life, Astrid. Since I came back for you, we’ve never been apart, not until this.” “The murder, you mean.” “No, this.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  And I thought, prisoners probably traded just that glance, when they met on the outside. When I got home, Yvonne was in front of the TV on the figured green velvet couch, watching a talk show for teenagers. “This is the mother,” she told me, not taking her eyes from the screen. “She gave up the daughter when she was sixteen. They never saw each other before this second.” Big child’s tears dripped down her face. I didn’t know how she could stand to watch this, it was as phony as an ad. I couldn’t help thinking of the adopted mother who’d raised the girl, how sick it must make her feel to see her carefully raised daughter in the arms of a stranger, applauded by the talk show audience. But I knew Yvonne was imagining herself coming back into her baby’s life twenty years from now, slim, confident, dressed in a blue suit with high heels and perfect hair, her grown child embracing her, forgiving her everything. And what were the chances of that. I sat down next to Yvonne and looked through my mother’s letters, opened one. Dear Astrid, Why don’t you write? You cannot possibly hold me responsible for Claire Richards’s suicide. That woman was born to overdose. I told you the first time I saw her. Believe me, she’s better off now. On the other hand, I am writing from Ad Seg, prison within a prison. This is what is left of my world, an 8x8 cell shared with Lunaria Irolo, a woman as mad as her name. During the day, the crows caw, dissonant and querulous, a perfect imitation of the damned. Of course, nothing that sings would alight near this place. No, we are left quite alone with our unholy crows and the long-distance cries of the gulls. The buzz and slam of the gates reverberate in this great hollow chamber, roll across poured cement floors to where we crouch behind a chain-link fence, behind the slitted doors, plotting murder, plotting revenge. I am behind the fence, they say. They handcuff us even to shower. Well they should. I liked that idea, my mother behind the fence, handcuffed. She couldn’t hurt me from there. From the slitted window in the door, I can see the COs at their desks in the middle of the unit. Our janitors of penitence, eating doughnuts. Keys glitter important at their waists. It’s the keys I watch. I am hypnotized by keys, thick fistfuls of them, I can taste their acid galvanization, more precious than wisdom. Yesterday, Sgt. Brown decided my half hour in the shower counts as part of the hour I’m permitted out of my cell each day. I remember when I had hoped he would be a reasonable man, black, slender, well-spoken. But I should have known.

• From White Oleander (1999)

  She was wearing a silver-gray satin nightgown and peignoir. She’d been listening to the music I’d heard that first night, the woman with tears in her voice. Olivia sat on the couch and tugged at my hand but I resisted her. She could hardly look at me. Scarface, the kids said. Frank N. Stein. “Good God, what happened?” I wanted to think of something clever, something cool and sarcastic. I wanted to hurt her. She’d let me down, she’d abandoned me. She didn’t think twice. “Where were you?” I asked. “England. What happened to your face?” “Did you have a good time in England?” I picked up the CD box on the table, a black woman with a face full of light, white flower behind her ear. She sang something sad, about moonlight through the pines. Billie Holiday, it said. I could feel Olivia staring at my face, the scars on my arms where my sleeves crept up. I wasn’t beautiful anymore. Now I looked like what I was, a raw wound. She wouldn’t want me around. “Astrid, look at me.” I put the box down. There was a new paperweight, grainy French blue with white raised figures. It was heavy and cool in my hand. I wondered what she’d do if I dropped it on the stone tabletop, let it go smash. I was drunk but not drunk enough. I put it down. “Actually, it’s a dog’s world. Did you know that? They do anything they want. It was my birthday too. I’m fifteen.” “What do you want, Astrid?” she asked me quietly, beautiful as always, still elegant, that smooth unbroken face. I didn’t know what I wanted. I wanted her to hold me, feel sorry for me. I wanted to hit her. I wanted her not to know how much I needed her, I wanted her to promise never to go away again. “I’m so sorry.” “You aren’t really,” I said. “Don’t pretend.” “Astrid! What did I do, go out of town?” Her pink palms were cupped, what was she expecting, for me to fill them? With what? Water? Blood? She smoothed her satin skirt. “It’s not a crime. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, okay? But it’s not like I did something wrong.” I sat down on the couch, put my feet on the coffee table among the antiques. I felt like a spoiled child, and I liked it. She shifted toward me on the couch, I could smell her perfume, green and familiar. “Astrid, look at me. I am sorry. Why can’t you believe me?” “I don’t buy magic. I’m not one of your tricks. Look, you got something to drink? I want to get really drunk,” I said. “I was going to have a coffee and cognac, and I’ll let you have a small one.” She left me there listening to Billie Holiday sing while she made clicks and clatters in the kitchen. I didn’t offer to help.

• From In an Unspoken Voice (2010)

  His wife, after a trying day herself, wishes to make some contact with her husband. She wants him to share something about his day or how he is feeling and asks if anything is wrong. He utters, “Nothing, I’m just tired,” and turns his attention to the raw, sour, burning taste of gastric juices in his throat. Jane smolders, accusing him of being distant and remote. She laments that she cannot get a feel for where he is at; she complains that she “cannot feel him.” He withdraws further. Alternatively, they might have an attacking/counterattacking fight that culminates in her remembering something he did to upset her two years ago … To this perceived blaming he replies that he doesn’t even remember what she is talking about; and so far as he is concerned it never even happened. “What is wrong with you?” he murmurs under his breath. He is unaware that (1) when a woman becomes (emotionally) activated, she remains stressed for a much longer time than a man. The woman’s pounding heart and racing thoughts remain stuck. And (2) in her racing thoughts, Jane tries to locate an explanation for her runaway heart, believing that if she can find the cause (identifying it as a real external threat—as is biologically intended), then she could settle down. In scanning her memory banks in this activated state, she stumbles across the time when (she perceived) Bob hurt her. Seizing on this “explanation” for her distress, she feels compelled to act upon it, “throwing it in Bob’s face.” In this way, Jane is doing what her physiology compels while he perceives that “she is blaming him for nothing.” This dance of daggers intensifies his defensiveness and seething anger. Locked in mortal combat, they both reach for a Valium. As the Valium (which relaxes their muscles) kicks in, they both feel better—it seems to both of them that the blowup was over nothing. Bob hopes that tomorrow will be a clean slate, and Jane wonders why in the world she dragged up that two-year-old event, no less beating Bob over the head with it. However, when they awake the next morning, they are disconnected physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. Furthermore, research shows that this type of unresolved conflict impairs the couple’s immune system, depressing it and reducing the capacity for wound healing over the next several days. ‖ Rewind and replay: Bob comes into the house. Faced with the chaos, he feels angry, but neither suppresses nor explodes. This time, supported by his wife’s centered, calm presence, he attends tentatively to his body. He notices his heart racing, while the muscles of his arms, shoulders, back, neck and jaw are tightening. After sharing his awareness with his wife, Bob has the fleeting glimpse of a bomb ready to explode. He feels the impulse to punch with his fists; his anger intensifies momentarily but then subsides.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  2 Kings 21 Manasseh Succeeds Hezekiah 1 M ANASSEH WAS twelve years old when he a became king, and he reigned for fifty-five years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah. 2 He did [great] evil in the sight of the LORD , in accordance with the [idolatrous] repulsive acts of the [pagan] nations whom the LORD dispossessed before the sons (descendants) of Israel. 3 For he rebuilt the high places [for the worship of pagan gods] which his father Hezekiah had destroyed; and he set up altars for Baal and made an [image of] Asherah, just as Ahab king of Israel had done, and he worshiped all the [starry] host of heaven and served them. 4 And he built [pagan] altars in the house (temple) of the LORD , of which the LORD had said, “In Jerusalem I will put My b Name (Presence).” 5 And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courtyards of the house of the LORD . 6 He made his son pass through the fire and burned him [as an offering to Molech]; he practiced witchcraft and divination, and dealt with mediums and soothsayers. He did great evil in the sight of the LORD , provoking Him to anger . 7 He made a carved image of the [goddess] Asherah and set it up in the house (temple), of which the LORD said to David and to his son Solomon, “In this house and in Jerusalem [in the tribe of Judah], which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel, I will put My Name forever. 8 “And I will not make the feet of Israel wander anymore from the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will be careful to act in accordance with everything that I have commanded them, and with all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.” 9 But they did not listen; and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations whom the LORD destroyed before the sons (descendants) of Israel. The King’s Idolatries Rebuked 10 Now the LORD spoke through His servants the prophets, saying, 11 “Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these repulsive acts, having done more evil than all the Amorites did who were before him, and has also made Judah sin with his idols; 12 therefore thus says the LORD , the God of Israel: ‘Behold, I am bringing such catastrophe on Jerusalem and Judah, that everyone who hears of it, both of his ears will ring [from the shock]. 13 ‘I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem clean just as one wipes a [dirty] bowl clean, wiping it and turning it upside down.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "'Elp yerselves!" he said. "'Elp yerselves! Dunna wait f'r axin!" He cut the bread, then sat motionless. Hilda felt, as Connie once used to, his power of silence and distance. She saw his smallish, sensitive, loose hand on the table. He was no simple working-man, not he: he was acting! acting! "Still!" she said, as she took a little cheese. "It would be more natural if you spoke to us in normal English, not in vernacular." He looked at her, feeling her devil of a will. "Would it?" he said in the normal English. "Would it? Would anything that was said between you and me be quite natural, unless you said you wished me to hell before your sister ever saw me again: and unless I said something almost as unpleasant back again? Would anything else be natural?" "Oh yes!" said Hilda. "Just good manners would be quite natural." "Second nature, so to speak!" he said: then he began to laugh. "Nay," he said. "I'm weary o' manners. Let me be!" Hilda was frankly baffled and furiously annoyed. After all, he might show that he realized he was being honoured. Instead of which, with his play-acting and lordly airs, he seemed to think it was he who was conferring the honour. Just impudence! Poor misguided Connie, in the man's clutches! The three ate in silence. Hilda looked to see what his table manners were like. She could not help realizing that he was instinctively much more delicate and well-bred than herself. She had a certain Scottish clumsiness. And moreover, he had all the quiet self-contained assurance of the English, no loose edges. It would be very difficult to get the better of him. But neither would he get the better of her. "And do you really think," she said, a little more humanly, "it's worth the risk." "Is what worth what risk?" "This escapade with my sister." He flickered his irritating grin. "Yo' maun ax 'er!" Then he looked at Connie. "Tha comes o' thine own accord, lass, doesn't ter? It's non me as forces thee?" Connie looked at Hilda. "I wish you wouldn't cavil, Hilda." "Naturally I don't want to. But someone has to think about things. You've got to have some of continuity in your life. You can't just go making a mess." There was a moment's pause. "Eh, continuity!" he said. "An' what by that? What continuity 'ave yer got i' _your_ life? I thought you was gettin' divorced. What continuity's that? Continuity o' yer own stubbornness. I can see that much. An' what good's it goin' to do yer? Yo'll be sick o' yer continuity afore yer a fat sight older. A stubborn woman an' 'er own self-will: ay, they make a fat continuity, they do. Thank heaven, it isn't me as 'as got th' andlin' of yer!" "What right have you to speak like that to me?" said Hilda.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Oh, you know what men are! They like working themselves up. But he'll be all right as soon as he sees your ladyship." Connie was very angry that Mrs. Bolton knew her secret: for certainly she knew it. Suddenly Constance stood still on the path. "It's monstrous that I should have to be followed!" she said, her eyes flashing. "Oh! your Ladyship, don't say that! He'd certainly have sent the two men, and they'd have come straight to the hut. I didn't know where it was, really." Connie flushed darker with rage, at the suggestion. Yet, while her passion was on her, she could not lie. She could not even pretend there was nothing between herself and the keeper. She looked at the other woman, who stood so sly, with her head dropped: yet somehow, in her femaleness, an ally. "Oh well!" she said. "If it is so, it is so. I don't mind!" "Why, you're all right, my Lady! You've only been sheltering in the hut. It's absolutely nothing." They went on to the house. Connie marched in to Clifford's room, furious with him, furious with his pale, over-wrought face and prominent eyes. "I must say, I don't think you need send the servants after me!" she burst out. "My God!" he exploded. "Where have you been, woman? You've been gone hours, hours, and in a storm like this! What the hell do you go to that bloody wood for? What have you been up to? It's hours even since the rain stopped, hours! Do you know what time it is? You're enough to drive anybody mad. Where have you been? What in the name of hell have you been doing?" "And what if I don't choose to tell you?" She pulled her hat from her head and shook her hair. He looked at her with his eyes bulging, and yellow coming into the whites. It was very bad for him to get into these rages: Mrs. Bolton had a weary time with him, for days after. Connie felt a sudden qualm. "But really!" she said, milder, "Anyone would think I'd been I don't know where! I just sat in the hut during all the storm, and made myself a little fire, and was happy." She spoke now easily. After all, why work him up any more! He looked at her suspiciously. "And look at your hair!" he said; "look at yourself!" "Yes!" she replied calmly. "I ran out in the rain with no clothes on." He stared at her speechless. "You must be mad!" he said. "Why? To like a shower-bath from the rain?" "And how did you dry yourself?" "On an old towel and at the fire." He still stared at her in a dumbfounded way. "And supposing anybody came," he said. "Who would come?" "Who? Why anybody! And Mellors. Does he come? He must come in the evenings." "Yes, he came later, when it had cleared up, to feed the pheasants with corn."

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I don’t intend to go, but I couldn’t say no.” “You must go, now that you said yes,” I said angrily, and then the literalness and stupidity of this statement nauseated me. I took June’s arm and said almost in a sob, “I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it.” I was angry at some undefinable thing. I thought of the prostitute, honest because in exchange for money she gives her body. June would never give her body. But she would beg as I would never beg, promise as I would not promise unless I were to give. June! There was such a tear in my dream. She knew it. So she took my hand against her warm breast and we walked, I feeling her breast. She was always naked under her dress. She did it perhaps unconsciously, as if to soothe an angry child. And she talked about things that were not to the point. “Would you rather I had said no, brutally, to the man? I am sometimes brutal, you know, but I couldn’t be in front of you. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He had been very helpful.” And as I did not know what angered me, I said nothing. It was not a question of accepting or refusing a cocktail. One had to go back to the root of why she should need the help of that man. A statement of hers came back to me: “However bad things are for me I always find someone who will buy me champagne.” Of course. She was a woman accumulating huge debts which she never intended to pay, for afterwards she boasted of her sexual inviolability. A gold digger. Pride in the possession of her own body but not too proud to humiliate herself with prostitute eyes over the counter of a steamship company. She was telling me that she and Henry had quarreled over buying butter. They had no money and . . .“No money?” I said. “But Saturday I gave you 400 francs, for you and Henry to eat with. And today is Monday.” “We had things to pay up that we owed. . . . ” I thought she meant the hotel room. Then suddenly I remembered the perfume, which cost 200 francs. Why didn’t she say to me, “I bought perfume and gloves and stockings Saturday.” She did not look at me when she intimated they had the rent to pay. Then I remembered another thing she had said. “People say to me that if I had a fortune, I could spent it in a day, and no one would ever know how. I can never account for the way I spend money.” This was the other face of June’s fantasy. We walked the streets, and all the softness of her breast could not lull the pain. I went home and was very heavy in Hugo’s arms.

• From The Day the Revolution Began (2016)

  Theologians will almost always say, “But of course this was because of God’s love for us.” But at a popular level, in sermons and talks to young people, enthusiastic preachers will often throw caution to the winds and use illustrations or explanatory stories that fall into this trap. The day after I wrote that last sentence I received an e-mail that included a link to a short video claiming to sum up the gospel in a way that, I was told, I would find refreshing. It would build up my faith. Intrigued, I watched it. It was well put together, with clever sequences and plenty of hi-tech touches. But at the center of the message was a line that made my blood run cold. The video had described how we all mess up our lives, how we all do things that spoil God’s world, and so on. Then said the narrator, “Someone has to die,” and it turned out, of course, to be Jesus. That sums up the problem. What kind of “good news” is that? What kind of God are we talking about once we say that sort of thing? If God wants to forgive us, why can’t he just forgive us? (Heinrich Heine famously suggested God would indeed forgive us, since after all that was his job.) Why does “someone have to die”? Why death? Why would that help? And could it just be “someone,” anyone? Did it have to be God’s own son? How does it all work ? The danger with this kind of popular teaching—and examples of it are not hard to come by—is that ultimately we end up rewriting one of the most famous verses in the Bible. I already quoted the King James Version of John 3:16: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.” Look at the two verbs: God so loved the world that he gave his son. The trouble with the popular version I have described is that it can easily be heard as saying, instead, that God so hated the world, that he killed his only son. And that doesn’t sound like good news at all. If we arrive at that conclusion, we know that we have not just made a trivial mistake that could easily be corrected, but a major blunder. We have portrayed God not as the generous Creator, the loving Father, but as an angry despot. That idea belongs not in the biblical picture of God, but with pagan beliefs. There are many reasons, most of them good ones, why people want to reject the picture of God-the-angry-despot.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  I have returned, by very devious roads, to Allendy’s simple statement that love excludes passion and passion love. The only time Hugo’s love and mine turned to passion was during our desperate quarrels after our return from New York, and in the same way June has given Henry the maximum of passion. I could give him the maximum of love. But I refuse to because at the moment passion seems of greater value. Perhaps I am blind just now to deeper values. There was danger in my reconciliation with Henry the other day, the danger of falling in love. I should not only have let him be jealous of Allendy, but I should have deceived him with Allendy. That would have raised our love to passion. Even Henry’s vocabulary changes when he writes to me or about me; his tone is less extravagant, more profound. And I am opposed to this treatment, because I myself am whipped up to a paroxysm. Nothing less than passion can satisfy me now. Yet I cannot act according to my ravings. Allendy has made me afraid of premeditated acts. My instincts lead me to love over and over again. After a long weekend, Henry telephones that he will not come to see me until Wednesday. I had been expecting him all day. I told him I couldn’t see him until Thursday, that I was working for Allendy. I wanted to hurt him. And when I mentioned our plans for Spain, he said, “Under the circumstances it is better not to go.” I knew then that he loved me only to console himself for his loss of June, to help himself to live, only for the happiness I could give him. Even the trip to Spain was planned to save himself from June, not to be with me. As soon as Allendy returns, I will give myself to him. Hugo reads my thirty pages on June and exclaims they are good. Again I wonder if he is only half alive or simply inarticulate. I ask him this and hurt him. He makes a remarkable statement: “If this is your real self, the one you are asserting, I say it is a very hard self.” Yes. This assertion is the beginning of June, of another volcano. I have been sweetly asleep for a few centuries, and I am erupting without warning. The hardness in me, an inexhaustible amount, has slowly accumulated through the efforts I made to subdue the voraciousness of my ego. Henry is going to suffer, too. I asked him to come today.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  I hesitated and was still standing in the doorway when my mother, apparently in complete control of herself, motioned me to go into the next room where the men were gathered. Had her cheeks not been savagely torn with red scratches, I would have sworn that my mother had played no part in my emotion. I passed along the women and went into the next room where the corpse lay on the floor, covered by a somber red cloth while, on either side of it, a candle flickered its yellow light. The same attendance, but more orderly, more silent. The men, my uncles, cousins, aunts’ husbands. This room, where shadows merged, shifted, trembled jerkily at the mercy of the small flames, was also empty of all furniture, sinister. I sat down timidly under everyone’s convergent and reproachful gaze. No one was missing; I had really been the only male in the family to fail at this collective duty. My father looked at me angrily, but was so ashamed of me that he said nothing. Then they began to talk softly; so they had stopped at the sound of our steps. I noticed that most of the men were freshly shaved, and some had obviously just had their hair cut: what an excellent precaution against the month to come when they would no longer be able to go to the barber-shop! They were all, like their wives, dressed in black. The nervousness I had felt gave place to anger. How stupid I was to have turned cold to the roots of my hair, to have allowed myself to be impressed by this parlor game, this collective hypocrisy! From the other room there came the lively chatter of the women, free to talk until the next visitor arrived. On account of the presence of the corpse and their own nature, the men were restrained; though they whispered, they seemed hardly upset. How ridiculous it was, after all, that I had been more deeply upset than they! An interminable ceremony of several hours then began, and to my great fury, I was trapped. There was no way to escape from this room of naked walls, without corners, where everyone watched all the others. And my oral examination had to wait! Whenever a step sounded on the landing, the two gatherings immediately became still. Visitors, wrapped in silence, confused before faces closed in uniform mourning, stuttered their condolences, shook countless hands, and disappeared. I pitied them and felt almost guilty to have participated in their discomfort without feeling more afflicted. My hand was shaken dozens and dozens of times before the hearse finally arrived. The undertakers entered, faceless and insignificant, and we all stood up. When they lifted the limp corpse, it dangled from their arms, and I left the room.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  He reminded me of his own father’s death and of their shop that had been looted and burned. The whole of Bissor’s face, his hard and energetic jaw and his big and bright hazelnut eyes expressed complete refusal and an incomprehension that was almost despair. “We would only be polite to each other until the day when they will inevitably fall upon us again. I cannot forget it,” he said darkly. Yet it was necessary to forget and to pull down those old walls. I too knew some nasty tales and had even had one or two experiences of my own. One day, in Tarfoune Street, in the middle of a game, a little Jewish boy had caught at a Moslem girl’s earring. The violence of the children’s movements had caused the jewel to split the lobe of her ear. For three days the street had been in an uproar while the Moslems besieged the Jewish home, refusing all offers of a money indemnity and demanding that the little boy be handed over so that his ear could be torn off. Another time, after a quarrel between the local Jewish carpenter and a Moslem customer, the latter, having exhausted all his patience, had thrown the carpenter flat on the floor and tried to saw his throat. The victim had been saved only thanks to the screams of his womenfolk, all crazed with fear. But one had to forget and act. Only action could deliver both sides from their mutual isolation. It was then only a few weeks before our school certificate examinations, and soon we would be distracted from these problems by reviewing. Ben Smaan was again on duty with me as a boarding-school prefect. I decided to go with him the day Poinsot, in his endless curiosity, wanted to find out the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. He thought he had found the answer, but his curiosity made me angry. I had too much confidence in his intelligence and, as Poinsot was well-meaning and incapable of prejudice, there surely existed a gulf between us, if he saw one.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  One day, and I recall it with terror, my exasperation almost made me lose my head. We were climbing the steps to the new science wing in our school. Behind me, I could hear a political discussion between Dunand, one of the few French Socialists in our class, and Papachino, a French boy of Italian origin. Those whose naturalization is recent or whose family background is vague are always more involved in race prejudice and more nationalistic than others. I detested Papachino, with his head that leaned over on one shoulder, and his yellow face full of a snarling craftiness. Although the discussion was violent, I was not paying much attention to it, until suddenly the word Jew struck my ear. I might be anywhere in the world, surrounded by respect and confidence and enjoying every honor, but the slippery sound of the word would still make me prick up my ears and listen. Papachino’s bitter, whining voice concluded: “It is they who are ruining France.” In a second, I had whipped around and grabbed him by the neck with my tense fingers. I was two steps above him, and my rigid fist forced him to look up as I strangled him in his own shirt collar: “Repeat that! Repeat it, and I’ll throw you over the railing.” He hesitated, wondering whether to take it as a joke or to be angry. “Say it again,” I repeated, furious. Around us, everything had stopped. The look on my face could not have been very reassuring. From above, I could see Papachino’s eyes rolling in his motionless face as he tried to measure the fall in the stairwell. He must also have felt the trembling of my hand around his neck, as I could too, and he muttered: “You’re mad... you’re mad...” I let go, suddenly afraid myself; my fear was greater than my anger. Dunand had said nothing during all this scene. I only noticed the color come back to his cheeks as he smiled and said, at last: “Chicken shit!” Papachino was stammering, trying to explain what he had meant and what he had not. I turned my back on him and went on up the stairs, without quite understanding my sudden exasperation. But I could not be continually defending myself against the constant hostility and slyness, the very atmosphere of the place. Every time a native, whether Jewish or Moslem, said something silly, our mathematics teacher, a fat and placid Alsatian, would declare in a radio-announcer’s voice: “This is the Voice of Africa calling!” He thought he was funny, and the Europeans laughed noisily while the others smiled to show their willingness to play the game. We would then stare at each other and swallow our pride.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  With a simplicity that tried to be cunning, she attempted to give me some advice. Really, she’d never seen my father in such a state; true, Uncle Joseph had given him his education and been a father to him and such a father had the right to all honors. So it would be better if I acted as if the deceased were my own father (God forbid!); then I would show my father how I would act when his time came too. As I said nothing, she finally came around to mentioning what was obviously the most difficult thing: naturally, as a sign of mourning, I wouldn’t shave for a month. This time I emerged from my torpor and angrily refused. No, they couldn’t count on that. I couldn’t go to school unshaven. She heaved a deep sigh, half-sincere, half-feigned. My God! What a son she had! “I can well see,” she said bitterly, “how your father and I will be mourned when we pass on too!” (I promised myself I would certainly avoid going through these histrionics when they too passed away!) The front door of the apartment house was hung with two black drapes which were powdered with the dry dust from the street. As we entered the main door, I was struck at once by the awful odor which, for me, is always linked with death: that of hot black cloth. I signed my name in the mourners’ book that lay on a table, also draped with a black cloth. The few hurried passers-by stopped a moment to press their curious and sullenly solemn noses against the little funeral notice, black-bordered, that was pasted there to announce the age, profession, and numerous and notable merits of the deceased, and also the immense grief of all the branches of the family, carefully named and listed. Several people took the trouble to go as far as the hallway to sign the register of mourners. This would always give pleasure to the bereaved and put them in the obligation of some day returning the compliment: honor the dead and you will be honored in turn. Well, when I die, I shall be sitting pretty, with a collection of all the city’s signatures! My mother lowered her voice but continued gossiping as we climbed the stairs: “Don’t forget to kiss your uncle’s wife and your father! Don’t leave the funeral service until it’s over! Show that you’re...”

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  He used to mimic, with cruel insights, the tics of each one of them, the terrifying sneezes of Uncle Aroun, the “D’yer get me?” that Chmyane, the half-wit, kept on repeating, or Aunt Abbou’s lisp. Not even the children escaped his sarcasm, including Georges whom he so often quoted to us as an example, and whose small head seemed to be melting away as a consequence of his constant work. My mother never accepted my father’s jokes about her family, and he never forgave her her constant defense of her family, even when it was in the wrong. This atmosphere of wrangling at home, the pettiness of our tribal community, its futile arguments and treacherous or even friendly gossip, this talk that never ceased but was always untimely, with everybody watched by everyone else, this petty business of petty souls, all of it certainly contributed a lot to the feeling of being stifled that soon overcame me at home and that I later experienced throughout my native city. To the horror of my mother and the delight of my father, I rejected with anger the sickly-sweet advice dispensed to me at our evening sessions around Uncle Aroun’s table. It upset me that they should talk about me, as if it were a violation of my privacy. My reaction was one of revolt and exasperation, and I earned the reputation of being heartless and insubordinate. During those years that we lived in the Passage, I continued to withdraw into myself, ever more and more, and was finally so tense that I became a creature of sheer nerves, as unbearable to myself as to others. But my studies and the profound modification of my stock-in-trade of ideas then established, once and for all time, a distance between myself and the tribe, the members of which, on the contrary, had already found fulfillment in themselves as they were destined eternally to remain. Eight years after we had moved into the rebuilt laundry-rooms, they still had, all of them, the same opinions and the same tics. My cousins, once grown up as young men, all retained the features of their childhood, scarcely hardened at all.

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  Finally, he demanded of me simply that I balance my accounts with him: “I paid for your food and your clothes, and I permitted you to go ahead and study when the sons of all my colleagues were already working in their father’s shops and getting calloused fingers from handling the leather.” He could not pretend that he was paying for my studies and that he lacked this last argument made him all the more angry. But he was claiming returns now for all the years I had failed to earn my own living and for my childhood too. This made me so furious that I could find no reply. He was handing me the check, that was all: “Who was responsible for your upbringing?” “Yes, you were,” I admitted. “But your father was responsible for yours, and you had a debt to pay. I’ll bring up my own kids in turn, and then I’ll be quits.” For a long while we refused to speak to each other, and it did not cause me much unhappiness, I admit. Had it taken such a quarrel to terminate this whole chapter of my life? PART THREE The World ~ 1. THE RED-LIGHT DISTRICT ~ The merest glimpse of a woman’s skin upset me. An uncovered knee or an open blouse caused me such embarrassment that I was forced to look away. But my embarrassment itself was so obvious, and my efforts to keep from looking so violent, that they made the women far more self-conscious than if I had insistently stared. Their quick defensive gestures of pulling down a skirt or fixing a blouse told me that my involuntary aggressiveness had been perfectly well noticed. This left me feeling miserably guilty, so that I found it painful to approach any woman. I had never been able to participate in the sexual games of boys. When I was told that one of the older pupils offered to caress, with enough skill to cause an orgasm, anyone who wished, I refused with scorn and horror. My comrades organized these parties of collective pleasure out on a vacant lot not far from the school. Apparently, they all lined up with their back to the wall and Giacomo passed up the row one by one. I was the only one in the boarding-school common room not to talk of my adventures or to describe with delectation the sexual attributes of men and women a thousand times a day. To me, such promiscuity was repulsive; besides, what had I to tell?