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 The Master and Margarita (1966)

  At the very first shout from the conductress, he halted his advance, got off the footboard, and sat down at the stop, rubbing his whiskers with the ten-kopeck piece. But as soon as the conductress yanked the cord and the tram-car started moving off, the cat acted like anyone who has been expelled from a tram-car but still needs a ride. Letting all three cars go by, the cat jumped on to the rear coupling-pin of the last one, wrapped its paws around some hose sticking out of the side, and rode off, thus saving himself ten kopecks. Occupied with the obnoxious cat, Ivan almost lost the main one of the three—the professor. But, fortunately, the man had not managed to slip away. Ivan saw the grey beret in the throng at the head of Bolshaya Nikitskaya, now Herzen, Street. In the twinkling of an eye, Ivan arrived there himself. However, he had no luck. The poet would quicken his pace, break into a trot, shove passers-by, yet not get an inch closer to the professor. Upset as he was, Ivan was still struck by the supernatural speed of the chase. Twenty seconds had not gone by when, after the Nikitsky Gate, Ivan Nikolaevich was already dazzled by the lights of the Arbat Square. Another few seconds, and here was some dark lane with slanting sidewalks, where Ivan Nikolaevich took a tumble and hurt his knee. Again a lit-up thoroughfare—Kropotkin Street—then a lane, then Ostozhenka, then another lane, dismal, vile and sparsely lit. And it was here that Ivan Nikolaevich definitively lost him whom he needed so much. The professor disappeared. Ivan Nikolaevich was perplexed, but not for long, because he suddenly realized that the professor must unfailingly be found in house no. 13, and most assuredly in apartment 47. Bursting into the entrance, Ivan Nikolaevich flew up to the second floor, immediately found the apartment, and rang impatiently. He did not have to wait long. Some little girl of about five opened the door for Ivan and, without asking him anything, immediately went away somewhere. In the huge, extremely neglected front hall, weakly lit by a tiny carbon arc lamp under the high ceiling, black with grime, a bicycle without tyres hung on the wall, a huge iron-bound trunk stood, and on a shelf over the coat rack a winter hat lay, its long ear-flaps hanging down. Behind one of the doors, a resonant male voice was angrily shouting something in verse from a radio set. Ivan Nikolaevich was not the least at a loss in the unfamiliar surroundings and rushed straight into the corridor, reasoning thus: ‘Of course, he’s hiding in the bathroom.’ The corridor was dark.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  He won’t stint on money.’ Koroviev looked around and then whispered into the chairman’s ear: ‘A millionaire!’ The interpreter’s offer made clear practical sense, it was a very solid offer, yet there was something remarkably unsolid in his manner of speaking, and in his clothes, and in that loathsome, worthless pince-nez. As a result, something vague weighed on the chairman’s soul, but he nevertheless decided to accept the offer. The thing was that the tenants’ association, alas, had quite a sizeable deficit. Fuel had to be bought for the heating system by fall, but who was going to shell out for it—no one knew. But with the foreign tourist’s money, it might be possible to wriggle out of it. However, the practical and prudent Nikanor Ivanovich said he would first have to settle the question with the foreign tourist bureau. ‘I understand!’ Koroviev cried out. ‘You’ve got to settle it! Absolutely! Here’s the telephone, Nikanor Ivanovich, settle it at once! And don’t be shy about the money,’ he added in a whisper, drawing the chairman to the telephone in the front hall, ‘if he won’t pay, who will! You should see the villa he’s got in Nice! Next summer, when you go abroad, come especially to see it—you’ll gasp!’ The business with the foreign tourist bureau was arranged over the phone with an extraordinary speed, quite amazing to the chairman. It turned out that they already knew about Mr Woland’s intention of staying in Likhodeev’s private apartment and had no objections to it. ‘That’s wonderful!’ Koroviev yelled. Somewhat stunned by his chatter, the chairman announced that the tenants’ association agreed to rent apartment no. 50 for a week to the artiste Woland, for . . . Nikanor Ivanovich faltered a little, then said: ‘For five hundred roubles a day.’ Here Koroviev utterly amazed the chairman. Winking thievishly in the direction of the bedroom, from which the soft leaps of a heavy cat could be heard, he rasped out: ‘So it comes to three thousand five hundred for the week?’ To which Nikanor Ivanovich thought he was going to add: ‘Some appetite you’ve got, Nikanor Ivanovich!’ but Koroviev said something quite different: ‘What kind of money is that? Ask five, he’ll pay it.’ Grinning perplexedly, Nikanor Ivanovich, without noticing how, found himself at the deceased’s writing desk, where Koroviev with great speed and dexterity drew up a contract in two copies. Then he flew to the bedroom with them and came back, both copies now bearing the foreigner’s sweeping signature. The chairman also signed the contract. Here Koroviev asked for a receipt for five . . . ‘Write it out, write it out, Nikanor Ivanovich! . . . thousand roubles . . .’

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

  55 Christians in the late 2 nd century, it was a religion of women and slaves. • As we have already seen, although formal state persecutions were sporadic and interspersed with relatively long periods of neglect, they were direct attempts to suppress the movement by violence and even death. o The very uncertainty of the breakout of persecution was a contributing factor to the tension felt by Christians during these centuries. It could happen suddenly and without warning. o The actual number of Christians killed is not the whole story; the oppression of believers included the expropriation of property, economic marginalization, exile, and social ostracism. • Two responses to this context of tribulation characterize the 2 nd and 3rd centuries: martyrdom and apologetic. Both had roots in Judaism, and each developed in distinctive ways during these centuries when Christians endured repression. The Tradition of Martyrdom • The term “martyr” (martys) means “witness,” and the ideal of witnessing to one’s convictions even to the point of death arose within Judaism; for Christ-believers, martyrdom found its perfect realization in the innocent suffering and death of Jesus. • In the early 2 nd century B.C.E., the Maccabees resisted efforts by the Syrian king Antiochus IV Epiphanes to impose syncretistic worship, symbolized by the eating of pork forbidden by Torah. o The elderly Eleazar and seven sons with their mother publicly refused to submit, even when threatened by death, and were executed one after the other. o Their witness to Torah was also a witness to the fidelity of God and to faith in a future resurrection: God will reward those who honor him. The fourth son cries out before his execution, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the God-given hope

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  At first, Laura said this plan would never do. But, as we could devise nothing else, on my pressing her a little on the subject she admitted that before I came she had made up her mind to accept him if he proposed, but that she was afraid to do so now for two reasons: first, she feared he might discover on his first attack that someone had had access before him to the sanctuary of love, and secondly, from the dread that in the event of a child coming before the usual time he might denounce her and turn her adrift. I considered a little, and then asked her whether if these difficulties could be got over she would still be disposed to marry him. She said it was no use thinking of it, but that if it were not for the objections she had mentioned, she certainly would, as she thought she could live happily with him. I then told her that as to the first objection she might set her mind perfectly at ease, for from what I had already seen of Sir Charles, his instrument I knew was so much larger than anything that had found its way into her and he would find so much difficulty in getting it in for the first time that he would never suspect any intruder had been before him, and that if, as she easily might, she insisted in the operation being performed in the dark, I could supply her with a contrivance by which a little red liquid might be applied so as to produce the natural appearance of an effusion of blood. Then as to the second objection, I told her I thought there would be little fear of his making any complaint at least in public on the subject, if she had the power to hold out to him that she could bring forward a matter which it would be equally unpleasant for him to have disclosed. She said that in such a case the matter might perhaps be arranged, but she could not imagine how she was to obtain such a hold over him. I told her I thought she might leave that to me. I then explained to her that Sir Charles had taken a fancy to me on my arrival, and had shown me every kindness and attention, evidently wishing to be on an intimate footing with me.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  offence meriting death into something marginalized by social disapproval. Among the major Enlightenment voices, only the English rationalist Jeremy Bentham properly applied Enlightenment principles of happiness, rationality and passion to the question, and ‘sat down cool’ to make the acerbic observation with which I opened this book. It has to be admitted that, in life, Bentham did not extend his thoughts into publication. [24] Equally difficult for Enlightenment writers was the universal and ancient human activity of masturbation. It is intriguing that masturbation should suddenly seem a huge and threatening problem in eighteenth-century Europe. It had not been a particular concern for Graeco-Roman medicine or society generally; we have noted Diogenes the Cynic deploying it as a mild form of social satire (above, Chapter 7). Traditional Christian condemnation of masturbation was generally part of wider preoccupations about monastic discipline, and even Peter Damian did not let it distract him overmuch from his more energetic diatribes on sexual deviations. That remained the general pattern, for Protestant theologians as much as for Thomas Aquinas: any exceptional emphasis on masturbation suggests personal furies or insecurities in particular Christian commentators. Orthodox penitential practice was similarly low-key. Most Orthodox discussion was in relation to clergy misbehaviour, particularly in imposing different scales of penance on those clergy who properly understood that what they were doing was sinful. Now the laity of Christendom were going to have to experience a more general neurosis. [25] A significant feature of the masturbation panic is that it began in the same places and at much the same time as the public emergence of homosexuality and the furious reaction to that phenomenon. In a similar fashion, it united Church and Enlightenment society in outrage, together with a third, distinctly less horrified, constituency in pornographic publication. First, in 1676, the Church of England was represented by Letters of Advice from Two Reverend Divines, to a Young Gentleman , published in London. In 1698, Hadriaan Beverland, a rackety Dutchman with an Oxford education, published a Latin tract that spent thirty pages denouncing masturbation. Three years later a vernacular work appeared in England from the prolific pen of Josiah Woodward, clergyman of the established Church and one of the leaders of the Societies for the Reformation of Manners: A Rebuke to the Sin of Uncleanness . This gained a popularity Beverland had failed to achieve, running to five more editions. Woodward followed it up with two further treatments of the theme, one of them in the much republished though incautiously titled The Seaman’s Monitor (1705). [26] Woodward’s efforts laid the ground for the publication in 1716 of Onania; or, The Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution . Its author, still not conclusively identified, published it anonymously to give it greater authority, with startling success: it ran to sixty English editions in ninety years and pursued a career in other languages.

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  21. Padre Pio: The Science of Miracles While the provincial minister saw them as a gift, the order’s leader and minister general urged caution. They quietly arranged an appointment with a professor of pathology at an elite university, who suggested the wounds had both natural and artificial causes: neurotic necrosis maintained and shaped with caustic substances. It took only a few months for news to circulate around San Giovanni Rotondo about the quiet friar’s miraculous wounds. And a few months later, word spread that Padre Pio had performed a miracle, healing a young veteran made lame by grenade shrapnel. An article in a major Neapolitan paper brought public attention to the friar, and the story was picked up by other national newspapers. Padre Pio was said to levitate, to survive on almost no food, and to have miraculous visions and prophecies. An enthusiastic group of worshippers sought him out as their spiritual director and confessor, and letters began to pour in daily from the poor and sick. Lay prayer groups began to spring up, inspired by him but outside Padre Pio’s stigmata the direction of any cleric. A new was questioned provincial minister wrote worriedly to his superiors—he had been repeatedly threatened by a group of locals throughout his against removing Padre Pio from lifetime and was the convent, the first of many such conflicts over the next decade. only fully put to The church’s old anxiety about rest with the formal unapproved and unregulated cults reared its head, and the new minister canonization took steps to contain the friar’s process in the late growing cult following. 20th century. Pio’s Investigations Floods of mail deluged the convent, followers begged for meetings, and skeptical churchmen descended to investigate the convent’s theological and financial soundness. An inquisitor was dispatched from Rome in the summer of 1921 and found the friar full of vague statements: He frequently claimed he was “hazy” or couldn’t remember a particular point. Pio stated 160

• From The Girls (2016)

  My mother furrowed her brows. “Listen,” she said. “Sal saw you out on Adobe Road this morning. Alone.” I tried to keep my face blank, but I was relieved—it was just one of Sal’s bovine observations. I’d been telling my mother I’d been at Connie’s house. And I was still home some nights, trying to keep the balance in check. “Sal said there’s some very strange people out there,” my mother said. “Some kind of mystic or something, but he sounds”—her face screwed up. Of course—she would love Russell if he lived in a mansion in Marin, had gardenias floating in his pool, and charged rich women fifty dollars for an astrology reading. How transparent she seemed to me then, always on constant guard against anything lesser than, even as she opened the house up to anyone who smiled at her. To Frank and his shiny-buttoned shirts. “I’ve never met him,” I said, my voice impassive. So my mother would know I was lying. The fact of the lie hovered there, and I watched her till for a response. “I just wanted to warn you,” she said. “So you know that this guy is out there. I expect you and Connie to take care of each other, understand?” I could see how badly she wanted to avoid a fight, how she strained for this middle ground. She’d warned me, so she had done what she was supposed to do. It meant she was still my mother. Let her feel this was true—I nodded and she relaxed. My mother’s hair was growing out. She was wearing a new tank top with knit straps, and the skin of her shoulders was loose, showing a tan line from a swimsuit—I had no idea when or where my mother had been swimming. How quickly we’d become strangers to each other, like nervous roommates encountering each other in the halls. “Well,” she said. I saw, for a moment, my old mother, the cast of weary love in her face, but it disappeared when her bracelets made a tinny sound, falling down her arms. “There’s rice and miso in the fridge,” she said, and I made a noise in my throat like I might eat it, but we both knew I wouldn’t. 8The police photos of Mitch’s house make it look cramped and spooky, as if destined for its fate. The fat splintered beams along the ceiling, the stone fireplace, its many levels and hallways, like something in the Escher lithographs Mitch collected from a gallery in Sausalito. The first time I encountered the house, I remember thinking it was as spare and empty as a coastal church. There was very little furniture, the big windows in the shape of chevrons. Herringbone floors, wide and shallow steps. From the front door, you could already see the black plane of bay spreading past the house, the dark, rocky bank. The houseboats knocking peaceably against each other, like cubes of ice.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Pretty sat across from him and inched back slowly, never once letting his eyes leave his boss. His voice was considerate. “You wanted to see me, sir.” His “sir” was forced. Almost massa-like. Mr. Patterson whipped a pack of cigarettes from his suit jacket’s inner pocket and began banging them against his fat palms. He unwrapped the package with anticipation. His lips quivered; his squinting eyes helped his hands unwrap his craving. He pulled one out and slammed it five quick times against his desk. He leaned back, opened a drawer and pulled out a lighter. The blue got bluer and he eased his face to it. He blew out smoke. “I need you to do something for me.” Pretty pushed away a cloud that neared. “What is that, sir?” His “sir” flowed easier than the first. “Are you street?” Pretty choked on his own air. “What?” Mr. Patterson hustled slowly to the edge of his seat. “I said, are you street?” Pretty put his defenses up. His tone echoed his mood. “Am I street?” Mr. Patterson laughed. His laugh was throaty, loud and full of machismo. “Yeah. Street? Like um . . .” He snapped his fingers to jar his memory. “Fifty coins.” “You mean cents?” He threw his hand at Pretty. “Coins, cents, it’s all the same thing. Anyway, are you street like him?” Pretty thought about it. He wasn’t street like the thugs he knew that sold drugs. Pretty thought of himself as the ultimate individual. He had his own street credibility. “I’m street enough. Why?” He had no clue what this meeting was about. He made sure his braids were always tight. His edge up was always maintained. His pants sagged a little from time to time, but it shouldn’t have been anything to write home about. Maybe I do present myself in a thuggish manner, he thought. He didn’t want to lose the best job he ever had due to some cornrows and saggy jeans. He humbled himself and steadied for the blow. Mr. Patterson struggled to lift himself from his chair. His ascent was slower than most, but when he stood he was steadier than a rock. “I bet you’re wondering why I had you come into my office this morning, right?” He walked to the door and opened it swiftly, and then shut it just as fast. Pretty remained cool. His temples throbbed as he bit down. He didn’t struggle to stand. He didn’t rock when he began his rise. He turned around to face Mr. Patterson. He didn’t feel comfortable with someone behind him that he didn’t trust. “You can say that.” “I’ll tell you. I have a proposition for you, Jarvis.” He came back to his seat and flopped into his chair. The cushion held his body like a mother would a fallen child.

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

  Already in the 4th century, then, the lines of what would be o called “caesaropapism”—the merging of imperial and religious power—were established. Internal Stresses • The challenge of being a state religion put severe internal stress on Christianity. Despite the impressive institutional and intellectual developments it had accomplished in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, it remained ill-prepared for the task of providing the glue for a society. Starting as a sect with a distinct countercultural disposition, o it was eschatologically oriented: This world is not permanent or even necessarily valuable. There is much in this religion that argues against stability and good order: Celibacy is better than marriage, poverty than wealth, humility than arrogance, obedience to God over obedience to humans. The canonical writings of Christianity are far from providing o a consistent code of behavior even for religious matters, much less directions for a civilization to organize itself. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries, radical impulses continued to o flourish under the name of Christianity, despite the efforts to shape a centrist orthodoxy. • Especially in the East, where imperial rule remained more stable, the precedents of pagan culture provided much of the form for the Christian empire. The basic forms of Greek paideia—though suffused with o biblical content—remained consistent: logic, philosophy, rhetoric, and the plastic arts. As the imperial religion, Christianity was a Greco-Roman o religion, with only vestigial connections to Judaism. Even Scripture was in Greek and interpreted through Greek rhetoric. • The increased instability of the empire in the West, in turn, would force Christianity both to engage new cultural realities and to forge 103 104 hcruhC dehsilbatsE eht dna enitnatsnoC :41 erutceL a distinctively Christian culture as an instrument of civilization among barbarians. This would evoke flexibility and creativity rather than stagnation. Suggested Reading Dorries (Bainton, trans.), Constantine and Religious Liberty. Holloway, Constantine and Rome. Questions to Consider 1. How does the short reign of the emperor Julian illustrate the fragility of Constantine’s initiative with regard to Christianity? 2. Discuss the ways in which “empire” and “Christian” do not necessarily make a good match.

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

  91 o The church, which had flourished as a religious movement during centuries of oppression and persecution—flourished, moreover, as a religion committed to peace, nonviolence, and other countercultural values—found itself the pillar and support of the world’s mightiest military and political power. It never did completely resolve the internal tensions its new status created. Diocletian’s Reforms • In some respects, Diocletian was as important as Constantine for the shaping of imperial Christianity because he gave a new shape to imperial politics. It is against the backdrop of Diocletian’s reforms, as well as his persecution, that we can best understand the significance of Constantine’s initiative. • After a “golden age” in the 2 nd century—the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian in particular seemed a high watermark for enlightened imperial rule—the empire suffered severe internal and external threats throughout the 3 rd century, especially from 235 to 285, when it was in almost a condition of anarchy. o The Sassanid Empire (224–651) brought Persian/Parthian power to a threatening position in the east, reaching as far west as Antioch in the 250s. o Germanic peoples on the Danube and the Rhine had begun the “invasions”—more properly, migration—that exercised increasing pressure on the empire in the west. o The empire was in a bad financial state. Rome had always depended on conquest for the acquisition of new wealth; with the face of victory turning away from the empire, such easy wealth was less available. The economic situation was made worse by famine, plague, and monetary inflation. o From within, there was political unrest, with imperial pretenders contending for power. Since the time of Augustus, the usual way to become an emperor was through acclamation

• From Naked Lunch (1959)

  They go through his papers with a magnifying glass. "Sometimes they slip dirty limericks between the lines." "Maybe he figures to sell them for toilet paper. Is this crap for your own personal use?" "Yes." "He says yes." "And how do we know that?" "I gotta affidavit." "Wise guy. Take off your clothes." "Yeah. Maybe he got dirty tattoos." They paw over his body probing his ass for contraband and examine it for evidence of sodomy. They dunk his hair and send the water out to be analyzed. "Maybe he's got dope in his hair." Finally, they impound his suitcase; and he staggers out of the shed with a fifty pound bale of documents. A dozen or so Recordites sit on the Old Court House steps of rotten wood. They watch his approach with pale blue eyes, turning their heads slow on wrinkled necks (the wrinkles full of dust) to follow his body up the steps and through the door. Inside, dust hangs in the air like fog, sifting down from the ceiling, rising in clouds from the floor as he walks. He mounts a perilous staircase -- condemned in 1929. Once his foot goes through, and the dry splinters tear into the flesh of his leg. The staircase ends in a painter's scaffold, attached with frayed rope and pullies to a beam almost invisible in dusty distance. He pulls himself up cautiously to a ferris wheel cabin. His weight sets in motion hydraulic machinery (sound of running water). The wheel moves smooth and silent to stop by a rusty iron balcony, worn through here and there like an old shoe sole. He walks down a long corridor lined with doors, most of them nailed or boarded shut. In one office, Near East Exquisitries on a green brass plaque, the Mugwump is catching termites with his long black tongue. The door of the County Clerk's office is open. The County Clerk sits inside gumming snuff, surrounded by six assistants. Lee stands in the doorway. The County Clerk goes on talking without looking up. "I run into Ted Spigot the other day... a good old boy, too. Not a finer man in the Zone than Ted Spigot. ...Now it was a Friday I happen to remember because the Old Lady was down with the menstrual cramps and I went to Doc Parker's drugstore on Dalton Street, just opposite Ma Green's Ethical Massage Parlor, where Jed's old livery stable used to be.... Now, Jed, I'll remember his second name directly, had a cast in the left eye and his wife came from some place out East, Algiers I believe it was, and after Jed died she married up again, and she married one of the Hoot boys, Clem Hoot if my memory serves, a good old boy too, now Hoot was around fifty-four fifty-five year old at the time.... So I says to Doc Parker: 'My old lady is down bad with the menstrual cramps. Sell me two ounces of paregoric.'

• From Naked Lunch (1959)

  The blood and substance of many races, Negro, Polynesian, Mountain Mongol, Desert Nomad, Polyglot Near East, Indian, races as yet unconceived and unborn, passes through the body.... Migrations, incredible journeys through deserts and jungles and mountains (stasis and death in closed mountain valley where plants grow out of genitals, vast crustaceans hatch inside and break the shell of body) across the Pacific in an outrigger canoe to Easter Island,... (It occurs to me that preliminary Yage nausea is motion sickness of transport to Yage state...) "All medicine men use it in their practice to foretell the future, locate lost or stolen objects, to diagnose and treat illness, to name the perpetrator of a crime." Since the Indian (straitjacket for Herr Boas -- trade joke -- nothing so maddens an anthropologist as Primitive Man) does not regard any death as accidental, and they are unacquainted with their own self-destructive trends referring to them contemptuously as "our naked cousins," or perhaps feeling that these trends above all are subject to the manipulation of alien and hostile wills, any death is murder. The medicine man takes Yage and the identity of the murderer is revealed to him. As you may imagine, the deliberations of the medicine man during one of these jungle inquests give rise to certain feelings of uneasiness among his constituents. "Let's hope Old Xiuptutol don't wig and name one of the boys." "Take a curare and relax. We got the fix in..." "But if he wig ? Picking up on that Nateema all the time he don't touch the ground in twenty years.... I tell you, Boss, nobody can hit the stuff like that.... It cooks the brains...." "So we declare him incompetent...." So Xiuptutol reels out of the jungle and says the boys in the Lower Tzpino territory done it, which surprises no one.... Take it from an old Brujo, dearie, they don't like surprises.... A funeral passes through the market. Black coffin -- Arabic inscriptions in filigreed silver -carried by four pallbearers. Procession of mourners singing the funeral song... Clem and Jody fall in beside them carrying coffin, the corpse of a hog bursts out of it.... The hog is dressed in a jellaba, a keif pipe juts from its mouth, one hoof holds a packet of feelthy pictures, a mezuzzoth hangs about its neck.... Inscribed on the coffin: "This was the noblest Arab of them all." They sing hideous parody of the funeral song in false Arabic. Jody can do a fake Chinese spiel that'll just kill you -- like a hysterical ventriloquist's dummy. In fact, he precipitated an anti-foreign riot in Shanghai that claimed 3,000 casualties. "Stand up, Gertie, and show respect for the local gooks." "I suppose one should ." "My dear, I'm working on the most marvelous invention... a boy who disappears as soon as you come leaving a smell of burning leaves and a sound effect of distant train whistles."

• From Naked Lunch (1959)

  The flare went out. Some huge insect was squirming in his hand. His whole being jerked away in an electric spasm of revulsion. Carl got to his feet shaking with rage. "What are you writing there?" he demanded. "Do you often doze off like that?? in the middle of a conversation... ?" "I wasn't asleep that is." "You weren't?" "It's just that the whole thing is unreal.... I'm going now. I don't care. You can't force me to stay." He was walking across the room towards the door. He had been walking a long time. A creeping numbness dragged his legs. The door seemed to recede. "Where can you go, Carl?" The doctor's voice reached him from a great distance. "Out... Away... Through the door..." "The Green Door, Carl?" The doctor's voice was barely audible. The whole room was exploding out into space. HAVE YOU SEEN PANTOPON ROSE Stay away from Queens Plaza, son.... Evil spot haunted by dicks scream for dope fiend lover.... Too many levels.... Heat flares out from the broom closet high on ammonia... like burning lions... fall on poor old lush worker scare her veins right down to the bone. ...Her skin-pop a week or do that five-twenty-nine kick handed out free and gratis by NYC to jostling junkies.... So Fag, Beagle, Irish, Sailor beware.... Look down, look down along that line before you travail there.... The subway sweeps by with a black blast of iron.... -- Queens Plaza is a bad spot for lush workers.... Too many levels and lurking places for subway heat, and impossible to cover when you put the hand out.... Five months and twenty-nine days: sentence given for "jostling," that is, touching a flop with obvious intent.... Innocent people may be convicted of murder but not of jostling. Fag, Beagle, Irish, Sailor, old time, junkies and lush-workers of my acquaintance.... The old 103rd street klatch.... Sailor and Irish hanged themselves in the Tombs.... The Beagle is dead of an overdose and the Fag went wrong.... "Have you seen Pantopon Rose?" said the old junky. ..."Time to cosq," put on a black overcoat and made the square.... Down skid road to Market Street Museum shows all kinds masturbation and self-abuse. Young boys need it special.... The gangster in concrete rolls down the river channel.... They cowboyed him in the steam room.... Is this Cherry Ass Gio the Towel Boy or Mother Gillig, Old Auntie of Westminster Place?? Only dead fingers talk in Braille.... The Mississippi rolls great limestone boulders down the silent alley.... "Clutter the glind!" screamed the Captain of Moving Land.... Distant rumble of stomachs.... Poisoned pigeons rain from the Northern Lights.... The reservoirs are empty.... Brass statues crash through the hungry squares and alleys of the gaping city.... Probing for a vein in the junk-sick morning....

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  But, as you see, none of it happened, no nymphs came running to him, and the muses paid him no tribute, and he raised no mansions, but, on the contrary, ended quite badly, died of a stroke, devil take him, on his chest of currency and jewels. I warn you that the same sort of thing, if not worse, is going to happen to you if you don’t turn over your currency!’ Whether Pushkin’s poetry produced such an effect, or it was the prosaic speech of the master of ceremonies, in any case a shy voice suddenly came from the house: ‘I’ll turn over my currency.’ ‘Kindly come to the stage,’ the master of ceremonies courteously invited, peering into the dark house. On-stage appeared a short, fair-haired citizen, who, judging by his face, had not shaved in about three weeks. ‘Beg pardon, what is your name?’ the master of ceremonies inquired. ‘Kanavkin, Nikolai,’ the man responded shyly. ‘Ah! Very pleased, Citizen Kanavkin. And so? . . .’ ‘I’ll turn it over,’ Kanavkin said quietly. ‘How much?’ ‘A thousand dollars and twenty ten-rouble gold pieces.’ ‘Bravo! That’s all, then?’ The programme announcer stared straight into Kanavkin’s eyes, and it even seemed to Nikanor Ivanovich that those eyes sent out rays that penetrated Kanavkin like X-rays. The house stopped breathing. ‘I believe you!’ the artiste exclaimed finally and extinguished his gaze. ‘I do! These eyes are not lying! How many times have I told you that your basic error consists in underestimating the significance of the human eye. Understand that the tongue can conceal the truth, but the eyes—never! A sudden question is put to you, you don’t even flinch, in one second you get hold of yourself and know what you must say to conceal the truth, and you speak quite convincingly, and not a wrinkle on your face moves, but—alas—the truth which the question stirs up from the bottom of your soul leaps momentarily into your eyes, and it’s all over! They see it, and you’re caught!’ Having delivered, and with great ardour, this highly convincing speech, the artiste tenderly inquired of Kanavkin: ‘And where is it hidden?’ ‘With my aunt, Porokhovnikova, on Prechistenka.’ ‘Ah! That’s . . . wait . . . that’s Klavdia Ilyinishna, isn’t it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes! A separate little house? A little front garden opposite? Of course, I know, I know! And where did you put it there?’ ‘In the cellar, in a candy tin . . .’ The artiste clasped his hands. ‘Have you ever seen the like?’ he cried out, chagrined. ‘Why, it’ll get damp and mouldy there! Is it conceivable to entrust currency to such people? Eh? Sheer childishness!

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  And with words somehow unsuited to serious business—‘Ein, zwei, drei!’—he laid out for the chairman five stacks of new banknotes. The counting-up took place, interspersed with Koroviev’s quips and quiddities, such as ‘Cash loves counting’, ‘Your own eye won’t lie’, and others of the same sort. After counting the money, the chairman received from Koroviev the foreigner’s passport for temporary registration, put it, together with the contract and the money, into his briefcase, and, somehow unable to help himself, sheepishly asked for a free pass . . . ‘Don’t mention it!’ bellowed Koroviev. ‘How many tickets do you want, Nikanor Ivanovich—twelve, fifteen?’ The flabbergasted chairman explained that all he needed was a couple of passes, for himself and Pelageya Antonovna, his wife. Koroviev snatched out a notebook at once and dashed off a pass for Nikanor Ivanovich, for two persons in the front row. And with his left hand the interpreter deftly slipped this pass to Nikanor Ivanovich, while with his right he put into the chairman’s other hand a thick, crackling wad. Casting an eye on it, Nikanor Ivanovich blushed deeply and began to push it away. ‘It isn’t done . . .’ he murmured. ‘I won’t hear of it,’ Koroviev whispered right in his ear. ‘With us it’s not done, but with foreigners it is. You’ll offend him, Nikanor Ivanovich, and that’s embarrassing. You’ve worked hard . . .’ ‘It’s severely punishable,’ the chairman whispered very, very softly and glanced over his shoulder. ‘But where are the witnesses?’ Koroviev whispered into his other ear. ‘I ask you, where are they? You don’t think . . . ?’ Here, as the chairman insisted afterwards, a miracle occurred: the wad crept into his briefcase by itself. And then the chairman, somehow limp and even broken, found himself on the stairs. A whirlwind of thoughts raged in his head. There was the villa in Nice, and the trained cat, and the thought that there were in fact no witnesses, and that Pelageya Antonovna would be delighted with the pass. They were incoherent thoughts, but generally pleasant. But, all the same, somewhere, some little needle kept pricking the chairman in the very bottom of his soul. This was the needle of anxiety. Besides, right then on the stairs the chairman was hit by the thought: ‘But how did the interpreter get into the study if the door was sealed?! And how was it that he, Nikanor Ivanovich, had not asked about it?’ For some time the chairman stood staring like a sheep at the steps of the stairway, but then he decided to spit on it and not torment himself with intricate questions . . . As soon as the chairman left the apartment, a low voice came from the bedroom: ‘I didn’t like this Nikanor Ivanovich. He is a chiseller and a crook. Can it be arranged so that he doesn’t come any more?’ ‘Messire, you have only to say the word . . .’

• From Soaking Wet: Lesbian Sex Stories (2014)

  As requested, I’m not wearing any panties, although this time it’s not because of the length of my skirt, of course, but because of other constraints of the scene. Namely, he wants quick and easy access to my cunt; he wants to fuck me quickly and then leave me to go back to his friends at the club. It’s all been prearranged. We move like we’re dancing. Only there’s no music, just the sound of leather rubbing against vinyl, and breathing. His breath and mine—mostly mine as he’s fucking me hard and I’m struggling to endure it, to take it all in. He’s packing this time, all right, using one of his biggest cocks. The day was hot but the night is cold. The windows steam over, and, as I’m parked illegally in a one-way dimly lit alley, I’m beginning to worry if we’ll attract any unwanted attention. He doesn’t seem to be concerned. He was cavalier from the moment he entered the car. He hasn’t said a word to me, in fact. Just leapt in, closed and locked the door behind him, shoved me down onto my stomach, and used one hand to pull his cock out while the other pushed my skirt up. He’s gripping my skirt, the thin leather bunched into his fist. One of my arms is pinned under me, but with my other I start to reach out and run my hand along his pant leg. I discover he’s wearing leather chaps over his jeans, and that they fit nice and snug. I try to reach far enough to get to the edge of the leather, so I can stroke his crotch. But he’s not having any of this, doesn’t want me to move. He rams his cock into me to the hilt and uses both his arms to hold me down, immobilizing me. My face is buried in the vinyl of the seat, my legs spread wide with one on the seat and the other leaning over the side toward the floor, and all else is sound and heat and motion and fullness. His chaps are rubbing the vinyl, my skirt is rubbing the vinyl, and there’s no room to breathe. I’m gasping for air, wondering which one of us will come first, when suddenly, without warning, he pulls out. He pulls out, and pulls back, and I can finally catch my breath. But I’m confused. I shift around to see what’s going on, and witness him pulling two things out of his pockets. My eyes go wide as I see that one is a rubber ball gag, and the other is a small packet of my favorite anal-sex lube. He lays the lube packet on my bare ass and speaks for the first time all night. “Open up.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But the resolution waned because of Anna, who would surely join hands with the conspiracy of silence. She would never con- done such fearless plain-speaking. If it came to her knowledge she would turn Puddle out bag and baggage, and that would leave Stephen alone. No, she dared not speak plainly because of the girl for whose sake she should now, above all, be outspoken. But supposing the day should arrive when Stephen herself thought fit to confide in her friend, then Puddle would take the bull by the horns: ‘ Stephen, I know. You can trust me, Stephen.’ If only that day were not too long in coming — For none knew better than this little grey woman, the agony of mind that must be endured when a sensitive, highly organized 174 THE WELL OF LONELINESS nature is first brought face to face with its own affliction. None knew better the terrible nerves of the invert, nerves that are al- ways lying in wait. Super-nerves, whose response is only equalled by the strain that calls that response into being. Puddle was well acquainted with these things — that was why she was deeply con- cerned about Stephen. But all she could do, at least for the present, was to be very gentle and very patient: ‘Drink this cocoa, Stephen, I made it myself -° And then with a smile, ‘I put four lumps of sugar!’ Then Stephen was pretty sure to turn contrite: * Puddle — I’m a brute — you’re so good to me always.’ ‘ Rubbish! I know you like cocoa made sweet, that’s why I put in those four lumps of sugar. Let’s go for a really long walk, shall we, dear? I’ve been wanting a really long walk now for weeks.’ Liar — most kind and self-sacrificing liar! Puddle hated long walks, especially with Stephen who strode as though wearing seven league boots, and whose only idea of a country walk was to take her own line across ditches and hedges — yes, indeed, a most kind and self-sacrificing liar! For Puddle was not quite so young as she had been; at times her feet would trouble her a little, and at times she-would get a sharp twinge in her knee, which she shrewdly suspected to be rheumatism. Nevertheless she must keep close to Stephen because of the fear that tightened her heart -the fear of that questioning, wounded expression which now never left the girl’s eyes for a moment. So Puddle got out her most practical shoes — her heaviest shoes which were said to be damp-proof — and limped along bravely by the side of her charge, who as often as not ignored her existence.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  He had been quite free, dear citizens, not to begin it. Before the seal, this conversation would undoubtedly have been considered a perfect trifle, but now, after the seal . . . ‘Ah, Berlioz, Berlioz!’ boiled up in Styopa’s head. ‘This is simply too much for one head!’ But it would not do to grieve too long, and Styopa dialled the number of the office of the Variety’s findirector, Rimsky. Styopa’s position was ticklish: first, the foreigner might get offended that Styopa was checking on him after the contract had been shown, and then to talk with the findirector was also exceedingly difficult. Indeed, he could not just ask him like that: ‘Tell me, did I sign a contract for thirty-five thousand roubles yesterday with a professor of black magic?’ It was no good asking like that! ‘Yes!’ Rimsky’s sharp, unpleasant voice came from the receiver. ‘Hello, Grigory Danilovich,’ Styopa began speaking quietly, ‘it’s Likhodeev. There’s a certain matter . . . hm . . . hm . . . I have this . . . er . . . artiste Woland sitting here . . . So you see . . . I wanted to ask, how about this evening? . . .’ ‘Ah, the black magician?’ Rimsky’s voice responded in the receiver. ‘The posters will be ready shortly.’ ‘Uh-huh . . .’ Styopa said in a weak voice, ‘well, ’bye . . .’ ‘And you’ll be coming in soon?’ Rimsky asked. ‘In half an hour,’ Styopa replied and, hanging up the receiver, pressed his hot head in his hands. Ah, what a nasty thing to have happen! What was wrong with his memory, citizens? Eh? However, to go on lingering in the front hall was awkward, and Styopa formed a plan straight away: by all means to conceal his incredible forgetfulness, and now, first off, contrive to get out of the foreigner what, in fact, he intended to show that evening in the Variety, of which Styopa was in charge. Here Styopa turned away from the telephone and saw distinctly in the mirror that stood in the front hall, and which the lazy Grunya had not wiped for ages, a certain strange specimen, long as a pole, and in a pince-nez (ah, if only Ivan Nikolaevich had been there! He would have recognized this specimen at once!). The figure was reflected and then disappeared. Styopa looked further down the hall in alarm and was rocked a second time, for in the mirror a stalwart black cat passed and also disappeared. Styopa’s heart skipped a beat, he staggered. ‘What is all this?’ he thought. ‘Am I losing my mind? Where are these reflections coming from?!’ He peeked into the front hall and cried timorously: ‘Grunya! What’s this cat doing hanging around here?! Where did he come from? And the other one?!’ ‘Don’t worry, Stepan Bogdanovich,’ a voice responded, not Grunya’s but the visitor’s, from the bedroom. ‘The cat is mine.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Styopa asked quietly. ‘Please do, please do . . .’ Styopa looked at the paper and froze. Everything was in place: first of all, Styopa’s own dashing signature . . . aslant the margin a note in the hand of the findirector 4 Rimsky authorizing the payment of ten thousand roubles to the artiste Woland, as an advance on the thirty-five thousand roubles due him for seven performances. What’s more, Woland’s signature was right there attesting to his receipt of the ten thousand! ‘What is all this?!’ the wretched Styopa thought, his head spinning. Was he starting to have ominous gaps of memory? Well, it went without saying, once the contract had been produced, any further expressions of surprise would simply be indecent. Styopa asked his visitor’s leave to absent himself for a moment and, just as he was, in his stocking feet, ran to the front hall for the telephone. On his way he called out in the direction of the kitchen: ‘Grunya!’ But no one responded. He glanced at the door to Berlioz’s study, which was next to the front hall, and here he was, as they say, flabbergasted. On the door-handle he made out an enormous wax seal 5 on a string. ‘Hel-lo!’ someone barked in Styopa’s head. ‘Just what we needed!’ And here Styopa’s thoughts began running on twin tracks, but, as always happens in times of catastrophe, in the same direction and, generally, devil knows where. It is even difficult to convey the porridge in Styopa’s head. Here was this devilry with the black beret, the chilled vodka, and the incredible contract . . . And along with all that, if you please, a seal on the door as well! That is, tell anyone you like that Berlioz has been up to no good—no one will believe it, by Jove, no one will believe it! Yet look, there’s the seal! Yes, sir . . . And here some most disagreeable little thoughts began stirring in Styopa’s brain, about the article which, as luck would have it, he had recently foisted on Mikhail Alexandrovich for publication in his journal. The article, just between us, was idiotic! And worthless. And the money was so little . . . Immediately after the recollection of the article, there came flying a recollection of some dubious conversation that had taken place, he recalled, on the twenty-fourth of April, in the evening, right there in the dining room, while Styopa was having dinner with Mikhail Alexandrovich. That is, of course, this conversation could not have been called dubious in the full sense of the word (Styopa would not have ventured upon such a conversation), but it was on some unnecessary subject.

• From The Girls (2016)

  Across from a Denny’s, the Portofino Apartments as blocky and empty as my mother’s house was sprawling and dense. Tamar and my father had moved into the biggest unit, and everywhere were the still lifes of adulthood she had so obviously arranged: a bowl of waxed fruit on the counter, the bar cart with its unopened bottles of liquor. The carpet that held the bland tracks of the vacuum. Suzanne would forget me, I thought, the ranch would hurtle on without me and I’d have nothing. My sense of persecution gobbled up and grew fat off these worries. Suzanne was like a soldier’s hometown sweetheart, made gauzy and perfect by distance. But maybe part of me was relieved. To take some time away. The Dutton house had spooked me, the blank cast I’d seen in Suzanne’s face. These were little bites, little inward shifts and discomforts, but even so, they were there. What had I expected, living with my father and Tamar? That my father would try to sleuth out the source of my behavior? That he would punish me, act like a father? He seemed to feel punishment was a right he’d relinquished and treated me with the courtly politeness you’d extend to an aging parent. He startled when he first saw me—it had been over two months. He seemed to remember that he should hug me and made a lurching step in my direction. I noticed a new bunching at his ears, and his cowboy shirt was one I had never seen before. I knew I looked different, too. My hair was longer and wild at the edges, like Suzanne’s. My ranch dress was so worn I could hook my thumb through the sleeve. My father made a move to help me with my bag, but I’d already hefted it into the backseat before he reached me. “Thanks, though,” I said, trying to smile. His hands spread at his sides, and when he smiled back, it was with the helpless apology of a foreigner who needed directions repeated. My brain, to him, was a mysterious magic trick that he could only wonder at. Never bothering to puzzle out the hidden compartment. As we took our seats, I could sense that he was gathering himself to invoke the parental script. “I don’t have to lock you in your room, do I?” he said. His halting laugh. “No breaking in to anyone’s house?” When I nodded, he visibly relaxed. Like he’d gotten something out of the way. “It’s a good time for you to visit,” he went on, as if this were all voluntary. “Now that we’re settled. Tamar’s real particular about the furniture and stuff.” He started the ignition, already beyond any mention of trouble.