Anxiety

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 Going Clear (2013)

  [image file=Image00022.jpg] Priscilla Presley, John Travolta, and Kelly Preston at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre’s thirty-seventh-anniversary gala, Hollywood, August 2006 The following Monday, when Schulman came into the production office, she found Haggis there, alone. “What are you doing?” she asked. “I’m prepping the movie.” Yari agreed to keep the office open for one more week, and then another, as each Monday Schulman would find Haggis at work preparing for a movie that now had no budget at all. Gradually, other people began working with him, for no pay. “If you get Sandy Bullock, you got a green light,” Schulman told him. Haggis got Sandra Bullock for the role of the district attorney’s wife, a brittle, racist socialite, a role far from the plucky gamines she had played in the past. In the movie, she’s the one who gets carjacked at gunpoint. But the producers wanted one more name: Brendan Fraser. Haggis thought he was much too young for the part, as did Fraser, but he agreed to do it. The movie was finally green-lit, just four weeks before the shooting started. Only now, the ten million dollars had shrunk to six and a half. For Haggis, everything was riding on this film. He mortgaged his house three times; he also used it as a set, in order to save on his location budget. He canceled many of the exterior scenes and borrowed the set of the television show Monk to film interiors. He was eating carelessly and smoking constantly. He lost weight. He desperately needed more time. When he finished shooting a scene in Chinatown, Cathy Schulman caught up with him to ask about the next day’s shoot. “You look like you’re clutching your chest,” she observed. Haggis admitted that he was having some pains. “Sharp pains?” Schulman urged him to see a doctor. He didn’t want to hear that. He went home. He woke the next morning in agony. He called his doctor, who told him it was probably stress but agreed to see him just to set his mind at ease. By now, Paul was short of breath, so Deborah drove him to the doctor’s office. The doctor did a few tests and said yes, it was stress and muscle fatigue. “But we’ll do an electrocardiogram just in case.” A few moments later the doctor returned. His face was snow white. “Don’t stand up!” he said in a professionally measured voice. “You’ve had a heart attack!” That night in the hospital, Haggis suffered another cardiac failure. He received three stents in the arteries to his heart in an emergency operation. He was able to watch the entire procedure on the monitor. It was really like an out-of-body experience, watching his own fragile heart being repaired. The movie he was making didn’t seem so important anymore. That changed as soon as the operation was over. Schulman arrived with some more bad news. “I talked to your doctor,” she told Haggis.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Pish, d'ye know, it's all the same to me if you fancy yourself a princess. To my consideration you have the look and more or less the costume of a servant, and as such you may enter my hire, if it suits you. However," the hard-hearted man continued, "your welfare, your happiness Ä they are your concern, they depend on your performance: a little patience, some discretion, and in a few years you will be sent forth in a way to avoid further service." Then he took one after the other of my arms, rolled my sleeves to the elbows, and examined them attentively while asking me how many times I had been bled. "Twice, Monsieur," I told him, rather surprised at the question, and I mentioned when and under what circumstances it had happened. He pressed his fingers against the veins as one does when one wishes to inflate them, and when they were swollen to the desired point, he fastened his lips to them and sucked. From that instant I ceased to doubt libertinage was involved in this dreadful person's habits, and tormenting anxieties were awakened in my heart. "I have got to know how you are made," continued the Count, staring at me in a way that set me to trembling; "the post you are to occupy precludes any corporeal defects; show me what you have about you." I recoiled; but the Count, all his facial muscles beginning to twitch with anger, brutally informed me that I should be ill-advised to play the prude with him, for, said he, there are infallible methods of bringing women to their senses. "What you have related to me does not betoken a virtue of the highest order; and so your resistance would be quite as misplaced as ludicrous." Whereupon he made a sign to his young boys who, approaching immediately, fell to undressing me. Against persons as enfeebled, as enervated as those who surrounded me, it is certainly not difficult to defend oneself; but what good would it have done? The cannibal who had cast me into their hands could have pulverized me, had he wished to, with one blow of his fist. I therefore understood I had to yield: an instant later I was unclothed; 'twas scarcely done when I perceived I was exciting those two Ganymedes to gales of laughter. "Look ye, friend," said the younger, "a girl's a pretty thing, eh ? But what a shame there's that cavity there."

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  What need has he of a third woman ? I asked myself, and why does he wish them all to be pretty? Assuredly, I continued, there is something in all this that little conforms with the regular manners from which I wish never to stray; we'll see. In consequence, I besought Monsieur Rodin to allow me to extend my convalescence at his home for yet another week, declaring that, at the end of this time, he would have my reply to what he had very kindly proposed. I profited from this interval by attaching myself more closely to Rosalie, determined to establish myself in her father's house only if there should prove to be nothing about it whence I might be obliged to take umbrage. With these designs, I cast appraising glances in every direction, and, on the following day, I noticed that this man enjoyed an arrangement which straightway provoked in me furious doubts concerning his behavior. Chapter 16 Monsieur Rodin kept a school for children of both sexes; during his wife's lifetime he had obtained the required charter and they had not seen fit to deprive him of it after he had lost her. Monsieur Rodin's pupils were few but select: in all, there were but fourteen girls and fourteen boys: he never accepted them under twelve and they were always sent away upon reaching the age of sixteen; never had monarch prettier subjects than Rodin. If there were brought to him one who had some physical defect or a face that left something to be desired, he knew how to invent twenty excuses for rejecting him, all his arguments were very ingenious, they were always colored by sophistries to which no one seemed able to reply; thus, either his corps of little day students had incomplete ranks, or the children who filled them were always charming. These youngsters did not take their meals with him, but came twice a day, from seven to eleven in the morning, from four to eight in the afternoon. If until then I had not yet seen all of this little troupe it was because, having arrived at Rodin's during the holidays, his scholars were not attending classes; toward the end of my recovery they reappeared. Rodin himself took charge of the boys' instruction, his governess looked after that of the girls, whom he would visit as soon as he had completed his own lessons; he taught his young pupils writing, arithmetic, a little history, drawing, music, and for all that no other master but himself was employed.

• From The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967)

  sees these developments in a sociology-of-knowledge perspective. It is not completely clear that the ecclesiastical emphasis had to follow logically from the theological presuppositions of neo-orthodoxy. One only has to recall that Kierkegaard, after all, was one of the inspirers of the movement. As the movement progressed, it dissociated itself increasingly from its “existentialist” roots (a dissociation very marked in Barth’s own theological development), to the point where today “existentialism” is mainly a weapon in the arsenal of its opponents. We would contend that this fact makes much more sense when one reflects about the “social engineering” imperative intrinsic to the maintenance of cognitive deviance—to wit, the imperative of constructing firm plausibility structures in the face of general social disconfirmation of the deviant definitions of reality that are to be maintained. Put crudely, if one is to believe what neo- orthodoxy wants one to believe, in the contemporary situation, then one must be rather careful to huddle together closely and continuously with one’s fellow believers. The reaffirmation of orthodox objectivities in the secularizing-pluralizing situation, then, entails the maintenance of sectarian forms of socio-religious organization. The sect, in its classical sociology-of-religion conception, serves as the model for organizing a cognitive minority against a hostile or at least non-believing milieu. This imperative manifests itself quite independently of any theological notions on the nature of the church—it may be seen in the Catholic case (despite the universalistic, profoundly anti-sectarian character of Catholic ecclesiology), wherever Catholicism seeks to maintain itself in a massively non-Catholic milieu, and it may be seen in cases where orthodoxy or neo-orthodoxy are maintained in Protestant groups with a free-church tradition (where, of course, there 188

• From Going Clear (2013)

  “I would say Scientology put me in the big time.” Gillham adored Travolta and constantly told him he was going to be a star. To prove it, she gave him Spanky. Although Travolta craved fame, he was taken aback by the clamor that came along with it. Spanky managed his relationship with his fans. She went to the tapings of his television show, accompanied him to his many public appearances, and persuaded Paramount Pictures to buy a large block of Scientology auditing for his birthday. She was his liaison with the church—in Scientology language, his terminal (“ any person who receives, relays or sends communications”). She also became a conduit between the rising young star and other Scientologists in the industry, such as Paul Haggis, who gave Spanky a spec script for Welcome Back, Kotter to pass on to Travolta (it was never made). Travolta generously credited the church for advancing his career and giving him the poise to handle his burgeoning celebrity. “ You always have the fear, ‘Success is terrific now, but will it last forever?’ ” he observed in one interview. “When you hit it quickly, you don’t know where it will go.… Scientology makes it all a lot saner.” He introduced a number of fellow actors to Scientology, including Forest Whitaker, Tom Berenger, and Patrick Swayze, as well as the great Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. (Travolta’s friend Priscilla Presley was the only one who actually stuck with the church.) Spanky Taylor was a visible reminder of Travolta’s increasing devotion to Scientology, as well as the church’s investment in his fame, which could be jeopardized by the indiscreet behavior of a talented but entitled movie star. When the FBI raid on the Church of Scientology took place on July 8, 1977, Taylor was six months pregnant and living with her husband, Norman, in the squalid Wilcox Hotel. Norm was an executive in the legal bureau. Early on the morning of the raid, he frantically called Spanky and told her to get over to Yvonne’s office right away to get the loaded gun she had been given by a friend, which she kept in her desk. By the time Taylor arrived, there were FBI agents everywhere—more than 150 of them at two Scientology buildings, the Advanced Org and Château Élysée. It was the largest FBI raid in history, and it went on all day and night. They brought battering rams and sledgehammers to break the locks and knock down walls. In addition to the 200,000 documents they were carting off—many of them purloined by Guardian’s Office operatives from government workplaces—they found burglar tools and eavesdropping equipment. Taylor dutifully made her way through the chaos to Yvonne’s office and slipped the gun into her purse. She didn’t allow herself to think how crazy it was to be carrying a weapon past all these lawmen. Outside the gates, reporters were clamoring to get in.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  “ Why aren’t you all over this mess?” Miscavige demanded, when Rathbun answered the call. “The police are poking around. Do something.” Rathbun discovered that church officials in Clearwater had already lied in two sworn statements to the police, claiming that McPherson hadn’t been subjected to an Introspection Rundown. The church’s official response, under Rathbun’s direction, was to continue to lie, stating that McPherson had been at the church’s Fort Harrison Hotel only for “rest and relaxation” and there was nothing unusual about her stay. In the meantime, Rathbun went through the logs that McPherson’s attendants had kept. As many as twenty people had been rotating in and out of McPherson’s room; some of them were scratched and bruised from trying to subdue her; that was hardly the isolation and absolute silence and calm that the Introspection Rundown called for. Rathbun noted that, among other entries in the logs, one of the caretakers admitted that the situation was out of control and that McPherson needed to see a doctor. In the presence of a Scientology lawyer, Rathbun handed several of the most incriminating logs to a church executive and said, “ Lose ’em.” The McPherson case loomed over the church for five years, with an ongoing police investigation, protests in front of Scientology facilities, lawsuits on the part of the family, and endless unwanted press. Embarrassing details emerged, including the fact that McPherson had spent $176,700 on Scientology services in her last five years, but she had died with only $11 in her savings account. Rathbun and Mike Rinder, the church’s spokesman, were responsible for managing the situation, but Miscavige supervised every detail. The level of tension was nearly unbearable. Rinder had the particularly unrewarding task of defending the church to the public. He was articulate and seemingly unflappable, and he had a talent for disarming hostile interviewers. He had been a Scientologist since he was five years old, in South Australia, when the religion was banned. He had sailed with Hubbard aboard the Apollo . Few had a deeper experience of the religion than he and no one was more publicly identified with it. But even Rinder could not quell the furor that arose from the McPherson affair. Perhaps because of Rinder’s lifelong service to the church, Miscavige saw him as a rival; or perhaps the leader’s frustration with the continual bad press made his spokesperson a particular object of his wrath. At any rate, Marty Rathbun got a call from Shelly Miscavige around Christmas in 1997, the first year of the protests over Lisa McPherson’s death. Rathbun was back at Gold Base. Shelly said that Dave wanted him to report to his quarters right away. Rathbun rushed down the hill to Miscavige’s bungalow, where Shelly was waiting just outside the screen door. A moment later, Mike Rinder, who had also been summoned, came racing around the corner of the house. According to both men, the screen door suddenly flew open and Miscavige came out, wearing a terry-cloth bathrobe.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  At odd, unpredictable hours, often in the middle of the night, Miscavige would show up in the Hole, accompanied by his wife, Shelly, and his Communicator, Laurisse Stuckenbrock, each of whom carried a tape recorder to take down whatever Miscavige had to say. The detainees could hear the drumbeat of the shoes as Miscavige’s entourage marched toward the trailers. The leader demanded that the executives engage in what were termed “ séances”—endless hours of confessions about their crimes and failures, in this and previous lives, as well as whatever dark thoughts—“ counter-intentions”—they might be harboring against him. If someone was not forthcoming with such confessions, the group would harass that person until he produced a confession. Sometimes these were sexual fantasies. That would be written up in a report, which Miscavige would then read aloud to other church officials. The entire base became paralyzed with anxiety about being thrown into the Hole. People were trying desperately to police their thoughts, but it was difficult to keep secrets when staff members were constantly being security-checked with E-Meters. Even confidences whispered to a spouse were regularly betrayed. After one of COB’s lengthy rants, recordings of his statement would be sent to a steno pool, then transcripts were delivered to the executives in the Hole, who had to read them aloud to one another repeatedly. Mike Rinder was in the Hole for two years, even though he continued to be the church’s chief spokesperson. Bizarrely, he would sometimes be pulled out and ordered to conduct a press conference, or to put on a tuxedo and jet off to a Scientology gala; then he would be returned to confinement. He and other executives were made to race around the room on their hands and bare knees, day after day, tearing open scabs on their knees and leaving permanent scars. Miscavige once directed De Vocht to rough up Rinder, because “ he’s just an SP.” De Vocht took Rinder outside and gave him a going-over. But De Vocht was also frightened of Miscavige. He took to sleeping with a broken broom handle. When another executive spoke up about the violence, he was beaten by two of Miscavige’s assistants and made to mop the bathroom floor with his tongue. [image file=Image00023.jpg] Mike Rinder, former chief spokesperson for the church, in Florida, 2012 The detainees developed a particular expression whenever Miscavige came in, which he took note of. He called them “ Pie Faces.” To illustrate what he meant, Miscavige drew a circle with two dots for eyes and a straight line for a mouth. He had T-shirts made up with the pie face on it. Rinder was “the Father of Pie Faces.” People didn’t know how to react. They didn’t want to call attention to themselves, but they also didn’t want to be a Pie Face. In Scientology, there is a phrase that explains mob psychology: Contagion of Aberration, meaning that groups of people can stimulate one another to do things that are insane.

• From Manhunt (2022)

  Her eyes widened with disbelief before the “oh, right, trans men” switch flipped and she collected herself. She was pretty—petite, his grandfather would have called her—with ever so slightly crooked teeth, the front two overlapping, and freckles on her shoulders and across the bridge of her long nose. Dark hair fell pin-straight to her shoulders. “Is she all right?” he asked, not knowing what else to say. “There’s a duffel bag in the living room. It has my first aid stuff. I need to keep pressure on her leg; can you get it?” Robbie looked down at the blood welling between her fingers from the unconscious girl’s calf. He took off, rounding the corner of the house to where a man lay dead in the ruined front doorway, an arrow buried in his face just under his nose. The living room was trashed, furniture broken, rotten carpet ripped up by the claws of running men. He found the duffel bag by the wreckage of a moldering overstuffed couch. One of his own jars of canned mushrooms stared up at him from between the zipper’s parted teeth. Are you kidding me? He ran back, trying not to let the cosmic irony of rescuing the idiots who’d robbed his campsite get to him, and dropped the bag beside the brunette. She snatched out a scrap of cloth, sniffed it, and then doused it in hydrogen peroxide from a half-liter bottle and set to cleaning the other girl’s wounds. She started with the leg. Robbie squatted beside her to watch. She had steady hands and strong, slender fingers. “Get a T-shirt out of the bag,” she said, not looking up from her work. She swabbed each cut with businesslike efficiency, bending low to inspect her work before setting the girl’s leg across her lap and twisting at the waist to fish for something in the duffel. Robbie stared at the thing she drew out. A surgical stapler, a white plastic rectangle with a fat handle and adjustable jaws. The girl pinched the sides of one of the gashes on her friend’s calf and positioned the stapler’s teeth. He felt the world start to close in. His mouth was dry. His heart hammered. “Shirt,” she repeated. “Now.” He shook himself and found a grimy shirt in the duffel, which was weighed down with unwashed clothes and layers of old newspapers over what smelled like dry ice. He sat down to work in silence, his back turned. At regular intervals the ka-chunk of the stapler raised the hair on the back of his neck. Black flies crawled over him. He wondered when he’d gotten so used to being covered in insects. The T-shirt, half rotten with years of soaked-in sweat, tore easily. “Sorry.” He still felt a little faint. “I’m not great with open wounds. Surgery. That kind of thing.”

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  And Penelope suddenly realized we’d forgotten to get our picture taken by the professional dude. “Oh, my God!” she yelled. “We forgot to get our picture taken! That sucks!” She was sad for a moment, but then she realized that she’d had so much fun that a photograph of the evening was completely beside the point. A photograph would be just a lame souvenir. I was completely relieved that we’d forgotten. I wouldn’t have been able to pay for the photographs. I knew that. And I’d rehearsed a speech about losing my wallet. I’d made it through the evening without revealing my poverty. I figured I’d walk Penelope out to the parking lot, where her dad was waiting in his car. I’d give her a sweet little kiss on the cheek (because her dad would have shot me if I’d given her the tongue while he watched). And then I’d wave good-bye as they drove away. And then I’d wait in the parking lot until everybody was gone. And then I’d start the walk home in the dark. It was a Saturday, so I knew some reservation family would be returning home from Spokane. And I knew they’d see me and pick me up. That was the plan. But things changed. As things always change. Roger and a few of the other dudes, the popular guys, decided they were going to drive into Spokane and have pancakes at some twenty-four–hour diner. It was suddenly the coolest idea in the world. It was all seniors and juniors, upperclassmen, who were going together. But Penelope was so popular, especially for a freshman, and I was popular by association, even as a freshman, too, that Roger invited us to come along. Penelope was ecstatic about the idea. I was sick to my stomach. I had five bucks in my pocket. What could I buy with that? Maybe one plate of pancakes. Maybe. I was doomed. “What do you say, Arnie?” Roger asked. “You want to come carbo-load with us?” “What do you want to do, Penelope?” I asked. “Oh, I want to go, I want to go,” she said. “Let me go ask Daddy.” Oh, man, I saw my only escape. I could only hope that Earl wouldn’t let her go. Only Earl could save me now. I was counting on Earl! That’s how bad my life was at that particular moment! Penelope skipped over toward her father’s car. “Hey, Penultimate,” Roger said. “I’ll go with you. I’ll tell Earl you guys are riding with me. And I’ll drive you guys home.” Roger’s nickname for Penelope was Penultimate. It was maybe the biggest word he knew. I hated that he had a nickname for her. And as they walked together toward Earl, I realized that Roger and Penelope looked good together. They looked natural. They looked like they should be a couple. And after they all found out I was a poor-ass Indian, I knew they would be a couple. Come on, Earl!

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  My absolute biggest concern was to make Arnold’s comics look authentic. I was afraid my work would look too polished and professional, or maybe too goofy, but I also didn’t want to dumb it down or stiffen it up. I briefly tried to draw like some of my teenage boy students, but that didn’t work at all—you could tell I was trying too hard and it was obvious that it wasn’t my style. So I talked about it with Sherman, and he thought it’d be fine if I just drew like me. What’s the most difficult part of the process: sketching the artwork or inking? My process for this book was different from usual. In most of my work, doing the thumbnails is hard (writing and drawing my brainstorming ideas), sketching is easier (penciling and polishing up what I’ve laid out in the thumbnails), and inking is easiest (I use a brush and india ink). For this book, the thumbnails were hard because I had to stay in Arnold’s mindset, and I was interpreting someone else’s work. Sketching was weird because I had to remember to keep the looseness of the thumbnails, and inking was REALLY HARD! The drawings needed to look like Arnold just sat down and drew them, boom. This may sound counterintuitive, but it takes way more concentration and confidence to make fast lines and swoops than my usual slow and deliberate inking. Also, Arnold wouldn’t use a brush in his sketchbook, so I used a felt-tip pen. So not only was I using an unfamiliar tool, I was trying to make labored drawings look spontaneous. I got cramps in my hand a lot. Why did you use so many different drawing styles? I used three drawing styles. In my own sketchbooks (and scraps of paper and backs of envelopes), I use different styles for different purposes, and I felt that Arnold would, too. Arnold’s artwork needed to span different situations and moods, so his drawing style needed change as well. [image "A drawing of a pair of simple drawings used as a base for final illustrations within the book." file=image_rsrc4TV.jpg] First, the more scribbled-looking illustrations and comics suggest that Arnold is jotting down his thoughts in an immediate way, like he’d just had an idea and quickly wrote it down. Most of the artwork is like that. Second, the slightly more realistic cartoons, like the annotated portraits of his family, suggest that he’s giving more thought to what he’s doing. Certain ideas would have been rumbling around his head and were well-developed by the time he put them on the page.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Let me see it.’ Woland held out his hand, palm up. ‘Unfortunately, I cannot do that,’ replied the master, ‘because I burned it in the stove.’ ‘Forgive me, but I don’t believe you,’ Woland replied, ‘that cannot be: manuscripts don’t burn.’ 2 He turned to Behemoth and said, ‘Come on, Behemoth, let’s have the novel.’ The cat instantly jumped off the chair, and everyone saw that he had been sitting on a thick stack of manuscripts. With a bow, the cat gave the top copy to Woland. Margarita trembled and cried out, again shaken to the point of tears: ‘It’s here, the manuscript! It’s here!’ She dashed to Woland and added in admiration: ‘All-powerful! All-powerful!’ Woland took the manuscript that had been handed to him, turned it over, laid it aside, and silently, without smiling, stared at the master. But he, for some unknown reason, lapsed into anxiety and uneasiness, got up from the chair, wrung his hands, and, quivering as he addressed the distant moon began to murmur: ‘And at night, by moonlight, I have no peace . . . Why am I being troubled? Oh, gods, gods . . .’ Margarita clutched at the hospital robe, pressing herself to him, and began to murmur herself in anguish and tears: ‘Oh, God, why doesn’t the medicine help you?’ ‘It’s nothing, nothing, nothing,’ whispered Koroviev, twisting about the master, ‘nothing, nothing . . . One more little glass, I’ll keep you company . . .’ And the little glass winked and gleamed in the moonlight, and this little glass helped. The master was put back in his place, and the sick man’s face assumed a calm expression. ‘Well, it’s all clear now,’ said Woland, tapping the manuscript with a long finger. ‘Perfectly clear,’ confirmed the cat, forgetting his promise to be a silent hallucination. ‘Now the main line of this opus is thoroughly clear to me. What do you say, Azazello?’ he turned to the silent Azazello. ‘I say,’ the other twanged, ‘that it would be a good thing to drown you.’ ‘Have mercy, Azazello,’ the cat replied to him, ‘and don’t suggest the idea to my sovereign. Believe me, every night I’d come to you in the same moonlight garb as the poor master, and nod and beckon to you to follow me. How would that be, Azazello?’ ‘Well, Margarita,’ Woland again entered the conversation, ‘tell me everything you need.’ Margarita’s eyes lit up, and she said imploringly to Woland: ‘Allow me to whisper something to him.’ Woland nodded his head, and Margarita, leaning to the master’s ear, whispered something to him. They heard him answer her. ‘No, it’s too late. I want nothing more in my life, except to see you.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Of course, he forgot about the mad German and tried to figure out one thing only: how it could be that he had just been talking with Berlioz, and a moment later—the head . . . Agitated people went running down the walk past the poet, exclaiming something, but Ivan Nikolaevich was insensible to their words. However, two women unexpectedly ran into each other near him, and one of them, sharp-nosed and bare-headed, shouted the following to the other, right next to the poet’s ear: ‘. . . Annushka, our Annushka! From Sadovaya! It’s her work . . . She bought sunflower oil at the grocery, and went and broke the whole litre-bottle on the turnstile! Messed her skirt all up, and swore and swore! . . . And he, poor man, must have slipped and—right on to the rails . . .’ Of all that the woman shouted, one word lodged itself in Ivan Nikolaevich’s upset brain: ‘Annushka . . .’ ‘Annushka . . . Annushka?’ the poet muttered, looking around anxiously. ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute . . .’ The word ‘Annushka’ got strung together with the words ‘sunflower oil’, and then for some reason with ‘Pontius Pilate’. The poet dismissed Pilate and began linking up the chain that started from the word ‘Annushka’. And this chain got very quickly linked up and led at once to the mad professor. ‘Excuse me! But he did say the meeting wouldn’t take place because Annushka had spilled the oil. And, if you please, it won’t take place! What’s more, he said straight out that Berlioz’s head would be cut off by a woman?! Yes, yes, yes! And the driver was a woman! What is all this, eh?!’ There was not a grain of doubt left that the mysterious consultant had known beforehand the exact picture of the terrible death of Berlioz. Here two thoughts pierced the poet’s brain. The first: ‘He’s not mad in the least, that’s all nonsense!’ And the second: ‘Then didn’t he set it all up himself?’ ‘But in what manner, may we ask?! Ah, no, this we’re going to find out!’ Making a great effort, Ivan Nikolaevich got up from the bench and rushed back to where he had been talking with the professor. And, fortunately, it turned out that the man had not left yet. The street lights were already lit on Bronnaya, and over the Ponds the golden moon shone, and in the ever-deceptive light of the moon it seemed to Ivan Nikolaevich that he stood holding a sword, not a walking stick, under his arm.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  It was said that Nikanor Ivanovich looked awful, staggered like a drunk man as he passed, and was muttering something. And an hour after that an unknown citizen appeared in apartment no. 11, just as Timofei Kondratievich, spluttering with delight, was telling some other tenants how the chairman got pinched, motioned to Timofei Kondratievich with his finger to come from the kitchen to the front hall, said something to him, and together they vanished. CHAPTER 10: News from Yalta, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA CHAPTER 10 News from Yalta At the same time that disaster struck Nikanor Ivanovich, not far away from no. 302-bis, on the same Sadovaya Street, in the office of the financial director of the Variety Theatre, Rimsky, there sat two men: Rimsky himself, and the administrator of the Variety, Varenukha. 1 The big office on the second floor of the theatre had two windows on Sadovaya and one, just behind the back of the findirector, who was sitting at his desk, facing the summer garden of the Variety, where there were refreshment stands, a shooting gallery and an open-air stage. The furnishings of the office, apart from the desk, consisted of a bunch of old posters hanging on the wall, a small table with a carafe of water on it, four armchairs and, in the corner, a stand on which stood a dust-covered scale model of some past review. Well, it goes without saying that, in addition, there was in the office a small, shabby, peeling fireproof safe, to Rimsky’s left, next to the desk. Rimsky, now sitting at his desk, had been in bad spirits since morning, while Varenukha, on the contrary, was very animated and somehow especially restlessly active. Yet there was no outlet for his energy. Varenukha was presently hiding in the findirector’s office to escape the seekers of free passes, who poisoned his life, especially on days when the programme changed. And today was precisely such a day. As soon as the telephone started to ring, Varenukha would pick up the receiver and lie into it: ‘Who? Varenukha? He’s not here. He stepped out.’ ‘Please call Likhodeev again,’ Rimsky asked vexedly. ‘He’s not home. I even sent Karpov, there’s no one in the apartment.’ ‘Devil knows what’s going on!’ Rimsky hissed, clacking on the adding machine. The door opened and an usher dragged in a thick stack of freshly printed extra posters; in big red letters on a green background was printed: Today and Every Day at the Variety Theatre an Additional Programme PROFESSOR WOLAND Séances of Black Magic and Its Full Exposure Varenukha stepped back from the poster, which he had thrown on to the scale model, admired it, and told the usher to send all the posters out immediately to be pasted up. ‘Good . . . Loud!’

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Boris is on pins and needles. At any moment now his wife may appear on the scene. She weighs well over 180 pounds, that wife of his. And Boris is only a handful. There you have the situation. He tries to explain it to me on our way home at night. It is so tragic and so ridiculous at the same time that I am obliged to stop now and then and laugh in his face. “Why do you laugh so?” he says gently, and then he commences himself, with that whimpering, hysterical note in his voice, like a helpless wretch who realizes suddenly that no matter how many frock coats he puts on he will never make a man. He wants to run away, to take a new name. “She can have everything, that cow, if only she leaves me alone,” he whines. But first the apartment has to be rented, and the deeds signed, and a thousand other details for which his frock coat will come in handy. But the size of her!—that’s what really worries him. If we were to find he And now we have Elsa. She was playing for us this morning while we were in bed. Step softly for a few days Good! Elsa is the maid and I am the guest. And Boris is the big cheese. A new drama is beginning. I’m laughing to myself as I write this. He knows what is going to happen, that lynx, Boris. He has a nose for things too. Step softly. …

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  Jews in Palestine • Because of a different set of circumstances, Jews in Palestine experienced greater tensions with Gentiles, as well as greater and sharper divisions among themselves. • The dominant cultural and political forces of Greece and Rome were experienced as an “irresistible force” from the outside against the “immovable object” that had been post-Exilic Judaism in Palestine. The reform of Judaism after the Exile had connected religious o devotion to the Lord with specific social and political institutions: king, land, Torah as law of the land, and temple. Religious observance, then, was intimately connected to specific social institutions. Thus, the pressure of Greek language, culture, and religion o could be regarded as a fundamental threat, and Roman rule (abetted by taxation and military presence) could be regarded as oppressive. • The same tensions of assimilation and separation were, therefore, more fraught because they involved material realities rather than simply ideas. Some Jews, especially those among the aristocrats, were o comfortable with Hellenization and advocated a policy of accommodation. Others, such as the Maccabees and their descendants, identified o loyalty to Torah (and God) with Jewish possession of social and political institutions. To be a Jew meant having a Jewish king. To be a Jew meant having a safe and holy temple. To be a Jew meant having Torah as the law of the land, not simply something that is read in the synagogue. These Jews resisted “outsider” influence. As philosophical schools, the “sects” described by the Jewish o historian Josephus, represented distinct political and religious positions. For example, the Essenes and Zealots were militantly 21

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  CHAPTER XII. “Strange theory!” cried I. “Strange in what? According to all the doctrines of the Church, the world will have an end. Science teaches the same fatal conclusions. Why, then, is it strange that the same thing should result from moral Doctrine? ‘Let those who can, contain,’ said Christ. And I take this passage literally, as it is written. That morality may exist between people in their worldly relations, they must make complete chastity their object. In tending toward this end, man humiliates himself. When he shall reach the last degree of humiliation, we shall have moral marriage. “But if man, as in our society, tends only toward physical love, though he may clothe it with pretexts and the false forms of marriage, he will have only permissible debauchery, he will know only the same immoral life in which I fell and caused my wife to fall, a life which we call the honest life of the family. Think what a perversion of ideas must arise when the happiest situation of man, liberty, chastity, is looked upon as something wretched and ridiculous. The highest ideal, the best situation of woman, to be pure, to be a vestal, a virgin, excites fear and laughter in our society. How many, how many young girls sacrifice their purity to this Moloch of opinion by marrying rascals that they may not remain virgins,—that is, superiors! Through fear of finding themselves in that ideal state, they ruin themselves. “But I did not understand formerly, I did not understand that the words of the Gospel, that ‘he who looks upon a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery,’ do not apply to the wives of others, but notably and especially to our own wives. I did not understand this, and I thought that the honeymoon and all of my acts during that period were virtuous, and that to satisfy one’s desires with his wife is an eminently chaste thing. Know, then, that I consider these departures, these isolations, which young married couples arrange with the permission of their parents, as nothing else than a license to engage in debauchery. “I saw, then, in this nothing bad or shameful, and, hoping for great joys, I began to live the honeymoon. And very certainly none of these joys followed. But I had faith, and was determined to have them, cost what they might. But the more I tried to secure them, the less I succeeded. All this time I felt anxious, ashamed, and weary. Soon I began to suffer. I believe that on the third or fourth day I found my wife sad and asked her the reason. I began to embrace her, which in my opinion was all that she could desire. She put me away with her hand, and began to weep. “At what? She could not tell me. She was filled with sorrow, with anguish.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  My hands are steady, but my heart won’t stop racing. One day (evening?), Isaac climbs up the ladder and lowers himself next to where I am sitting, cross-legged in front of the fire. I have been thinking about suicide. Not my own, just suicide. There are so many ways. I don’t know why people are so uncreative when they kill themselves. We usually don’t leave the front door unguarded, but I can tell he wants to talk. I unfold my legs and stretch them toward the fire, wiggling my toes. We are running out of firewood, and Isaac says he’s not sure how big the generator is, but we could be running out of fuel in that too. “What are you thinking?” I ask, watching his face. “The carousel room, Senna. I think it means something.” “I don’t want to talk about the carousel room. It freaks me out.” His head snaps sharply toward me. “We’re gonna talk about it. Unless you’d like to stay locked up here forever.” I shake my head, twist my skunk streak around my finger. “It’s a coincidence. It doesn’t mean anything.” He pulls his lips back from his teeth and his head rocks from side to side. “Daphne is pregnant.” It’s that silent moment when you hear the rushing of water in your eyes. My eyes jerk to his face. “Eight weeks the last time I saw her.” He licks his lips and turns to look at me. “We did three rounds of in vitro to get pregnant, had two miscarriages.” He rubs his forehead. “Daphne is pregnant and I need to talk about the carousel room.” I nod dumbly. I feel something. I push it away. Bury it. “Who knows about what happened?” he asks, gently. I watch the fire eat the logs. For a minute I’m not sure which instance he’s referring to. There were so many. The carousel, I remind myself. It’s such a strange memory. Nothing fancy. But private. “Only you. That’s why it seems unlikely…” I look at him. “Did you—?” “No … no, Senna, never. That was our moment. I didn’t even want to think about it after.” I believe him. For a long second our eyes are locked and the past seems to float between us—a frail soap bubble. I break eye contact first, looking down at my socks. Patterned socks, not white. I searched for white, but all that was stocked for me were knee length patterned socks. A deviation from my character. I wear my new, colorful socks over my tights. Today, they are purple and grey. Diagonal stripes. “Senna…?” “Yes, sorry. I was thinking about my socks.” He laughs through his nose, like he’d rather not laugh. I’d rather he not laugh, too. “Isaac, what happened on the carousel was … personal. I don’t tell people things.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  She only remarked my paleness a few moments afterwards. I therefore told her that I was not feeling well, and seeing me retching she believed me; in fact, she was afraid I had caught some illness." "And Teleny—what did he say?" "I did not go to him that day, I only sent him word that I would see him on the morrow. "What a night I passed! First I kept up as long as I could, for I dreaded going to bed. At last, weary and worn out, I undressed and laid down; but my bed seemed electrified, for all my nerves began to twitch, and a feeling of creepiness came over me. "I felt distracted. I tossed about for some time; then, frightened lest I should grow mad, I got up, went stealthily to the dining-room and got a bottle of cognac, and returned to my bedchamber. I drank down about half a tumbler, and then went again to bed. "Unaccustomed to such strong drinks I went off to sleep; but was it sleep? "I awoke in the middle of the night, dreaming that Catherine, our maid, had accused me of having murdered her, and that I was about to be tried. "I got up, poured myself another glass of spirits, and again found oblivion if not rest. "On the morrow I again sent word to Teleny that I could not see him, although I longed to do so; but the day after that, seeing that I did not come to him as usual, he called upon me. "Surprised at the physical and moral change which had come over me, he began to think that some mutual friend had been slandering him, so to reassure him, I—after much pressing and many questions—took out that loathsome letter which I as much dreaded to touch as if it had been a viper, and gave it to him. "Although more than myself inured to such matters, his brow grew cloudy and thoughtful, and he even went pale. Still, after pondering over over it for a moment, he began to examine the paper on which those horrible words were written; then he lifted up both card and envelope to his nose, and smelt them both. A merry expression came all at once over his face. 'I have it—I have it—you need not be afraid! They smell of attar of roses,' cried he; 'I know who it is.' "'Who?' "'Why! can't you guess?' "'The Countess?' "Teleny frowned. "'How is it you know about her?' "I told him all. When I had finished, he clasped me in his arms and kissed me again and again. "'I tried in every way to forget you, Camille, you see if I succeeded.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  As soon as Clement was asleep, Armande came near to me. "He will awake shortly," she said; "he will behave like a madman: Nature only puts his senses to sleep in order to give them, after a little rest, a much greater energy; one more scene and we will have peace until tomorrow." "But you," I said to my companion, "aren't you going to sleep a little while ?" "How can I ?" Armande replied, "when, were I not to remain awake and standing by his side, and were my negligence to be perceived, he would be the man to stab me to death." "O Heaven!" I sighed, "why! even as he sleeps the villain would that those around him remain in a state of suffering !" "Yes," my companion responded, "it is the very barbarity of the idea which procures the furious awakening you are going to witness; upon this he is like unto those perverse writers whose corruption is so dangerous, so active, that their single aim is, by causing their appalling doctrines to be printed, to immortalize the sum of their crimes after their own lives are at an end; they themselves can do no more, but their accursed writings will instigate the commission of crimes, and they carry this sweet idea with them to their graves: it comforts them for the obligation, enjoined by death, to relinquish the doing of evil." "The monsters!" I cried.... Armande, who was a very gentle creature, kissed me as she shed a few tears, then went back to pacing about the roue's bed. Two hours passed and then the monk did indeed awake in a prodigious agitation and seized me with such force I thought he was going to strangle me; his respiration was quick and labored, his eyes glittered, he uttered incoherent words which were exclusively blasphemous or libertine expressions; he summoned Armande, called for whips, and started in again with his flogging of us both, but in a yet more vigorous manner than before having gone to sleep. It seemed as if he wished to end matters with me; shrill cries burst from his mouth; to abridge my sufferings, Armande excited him violently, he lost his head entirely, and finally made rigid by the most violent sensations, the monster lost both his ardor and his desires together with smoking floods of semen. Nothing transpired during the rest of the night; upon getting up, the monk was content to touch and examine each of us; and as he was going to say Mass, we returned to the seraglio. The superintendent could not be prevented from desiring me in. the inflamed state she swore I must be in; exhausted I indeed was and, thus weakened, how could I defend myself ? She did all she wished, enough to convince me that even a woman, in such a school, soon losing all the delicacy and restraint native to her sex, could only, after those tyrants' example, become obscene and cruel.

• From The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007)

  “Are you sure?” my parents asked. “You could maybe wait until the semester break. Or until next year. Get a fresh start.” “No, if I don’t go now, I never will. I have to do it now.” “Okay,” they said. Yep, it was that easy with my parents. It was almost like they’d been waiting for me to ask them if I could go to Reardan, like they were psychics or something. I mean, they’ve always known that I’m weird and ambitious, so maybe they expect me to do the weirdest things possible. And going to Reardan is truly a strange idea. But it isn’t weird that my parents so quickly agreed with my plans. They want a better life for my sister and me. My sister is running away to get lost, but I am running away because I want to find something. And my parents love me so much that they want to help me. Yeah, Dad is a drunk and Mom is an ex-drunk, but they don’t want their kids to be drunks. “It’s going to be hard to get you to Reardan,” Dad said. “We can’t afford to move there. And there ain’t no school bus going to come out here.” “You’ll be the first one to ever leave the rez this way,” Mom said. “The Indians around here are going to be angry with you.” Shoot, I figure that my fellow tribal members are going to torture me. [image "A hand-drawn illustration depicts a person with glasses who is partially buried, surrounded by ants. A thought bubble reads ‘Hope?’" file=image_rsrc4S2.jpg] Rowdy Sings the Blues [image file=image_rsrc4RJ.jpg] So the day after I decided to transfer to Reardan, and after my parents agreed to make it happen, I walked over to the tribal school, and found Rowdy sitting in his usual place on the playground. He was alone, of course. Everybody was scared of him. “I thought you were on suspension, dickwad,” he said, which was Rowdy’s way of saying, “I’m happy you’re here.” “Kiss my ass,” I said. I wanted to tell him that he was my best friend and I loved him like crazy, but boys didn’t say such things to other boys, and nobody said such things to Rowdy. “Can I tell you a secret?” I asked. “It better not be girly,” he said. “It’s not.” “Okay, then, tell me.” “I’m transferring to Reardan.” Rowdy’s eyes narrowed. His eyes always narrowed right before he beat the crap out of someone. I started shaking. “That’s not funny,” he said. “It’s not supposed to be funny,” I said. “I’m transferring to Reardan. I want you to come with me.” “And when are you going on this imaginary journey?” “It’s not imaginary. It’s real. And I’m transferring now. I start school tomorrow at Reardan.” “You better quit saying that,” he said. “You’re getting me mad.”