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 Anna Karenina (1877)

  “A ballot! A ballot! Every nobleman sees it! We shed our blood for our country!... The confidence of the monarch.... No checking the accounts of the marshal; he’s not a cashier.... But that’s not the point.... Votes, please! Beastly!...” shouted furious and violent voices on all sides. Looks and faces were even more violent and furious than their words. They expressed the most implacable hatred. Levin did not in the least understand what was the matter, and he marveled at the passion with which it was disputed whether or not the decision about Flerov should be put to the vote. He forgot, as Sergey Ivanovitch explained to him afterwards, this syllogism: that it was necessary for the public good to get rid of the marshal of the province; that to get rid of the marshal it was necessary to have a majority of votes; that to get a majority of votes it was necessary to secure Flerov’s right to vote; that to secure the recognition of Flerov’s right to vote they must decide on the interpretation to be put on the act. “And one vote may decide the whole question, and one must be serious and consecutive, if one wants to be of use in public life,” concluded Sergey Ivanovitch. But Levin forgot all that, and it was painful to him to see all these excellent persons, for whom he had a respect, in such an unpleasant and vicious state of excitement. To escape from this painful feeling he went away into the other room where there was nobody except the waiters at the refreshment bar. Seeing the waiters busy over washing up the crockery and setting in order their plates and wine-glasses, seeing their calm and cheerful faces, Levin felt an unexpected sense of relief as though he had come out of a stuffy room into the fresh air. He began walking up and down, looking with pleasure at the waiters. He particularly liked the way one gray-whiskered waiter, who showed his scorn for the other younger ones and was jeered at by them, was teaching them how to fold up napkins properly. Levin was just about to enter into conversation with the old waiter, when the secretary of the court of wardship, a little old man whose specialty it was to know all the noblemen of the province by name and patronymic, drew him away. “Please come, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” he said, “your brother’s looking for you. They are voting on the legal point.”

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  I’d stopped in Albany for the opening ceremony—and then I was going home to write and make a living, but I ended up staying for two days and two nights without bed or toothbrush, helping with the voting lines. Events in some other states made us realize that we’d been living in a fool’s paradise. To represent majority views was definitely not everybody’s goal. For instance, only about 2 percent of the population of Washington state was Mormon, but nearly half the women attending that state’s conference were. Such disproportion also turned up in Michigan and Missouri, part of a massive Mormon effort to head off the Equal Rights Amendment, then in its ratification process and sure to be voted on in Houston.11 Though over 60 percent of Americans supported it, one Mormon woman was about to be excommunicated for campaigning for the ERA.12 Some said this opposition came from a fear that the ERA would take women out of a traditional role by offering them equality outside the home; others pointed out that Mormon-owned insurance companies would lose money if gender-rated actuarial tables were outlawed, as race-rated ones had been. (For instance, a woman who didn’t smoke often paid higher premiums than a man who did smoke. Why? Because on the average, women live longer.) Opposition literature also said the ERA could mean integrated restrooms, women in combat, husbands who no longer had to support wives, and more—none of which was accurate. On the theory that exposure cures many ills, Bella called a press conference to disclose this attempt to overrepresent one religious group. Congress members from states where Mormons had political power accused Bella of religious bias, demanding she apologize in public—and she had to. It was the only time I ever saw her give in to power. Some other religious groups were just as opposed to representative conferences. In Missouri, church buses brought five hundred or so Christian fundamentalist women and men to the state conference—in time to vote but not long enough to be tainted by open discussion. In many states, Catholic groups brought anti-abortion and anti-birth-control pamphlets and picket signs, even though—or perhaps because—Catholic women were at least as likely as non-Catholics to use both. In Oklahoma, Christian fundamentalists voted to call homemaking “the most vital and rewarding career for women” and then to end the meeting. I began to see that for some, religion was just a form of politics you couldn’t criticize. In Mississippi, the Ku Klux Klan grew so alarmed at a multiracial conference that its members called in reinforcements and elected an almost totally white delegation in a state that was at least a third African American.13 Finally we ruled what we should have in the first place: registrants for the conferences had to sign up individually in advance, not at the door by the busload.

• From Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018)

  “In a civil case, the court may admit evidence offered to prove a victim’s sexual behavior or sexual predisposition if its probative value substantially outweighs the danger of harm to any victim and of unfair prejudice to any party. The court may admit evidence of a victim’s reputation only if the victim has placed it in controversy.” FEDERAL RULES OF EVIDENCE 412(A)(B)(2) In the beginning of law school, you have a pervasive idealism about the law. Fresh off writing an essay about justice for all and changing the world using the rule of law for the admissions committee, you are thrown into classrooms with peers who ostensibly want the same—teachers and debaters, Peace Corps members and journalists. It doesn’t take more than a week with the Socratic classes and the formulaic writing and the memorizing of case law for that initial unbridled idealism and passion to slip away.3 I, however, clung to the ideal of law school despite my bad grades and the professors asking why I wasn’t in law review or mock trial or moot court, despite the classes that I walked out of and in which I couldn’t will my hands to stop shaking. In Criminal Law, there was an entire chapter devoted to rape. It was my second semester, almost two years after I’d been raped. Around that time, the debate on the merit of trigger warnings was becoming mainstream, and it was present in our classrooms. My fellow law students were more than happy to chime in with a First Amendment or “slippery slope” defense; I didn’t engage and I didn’t care. I didn’t reflect on my past experience as it interacted with my present: Trigger warnings were an academic debate, not a practical one. Distilling two pages of facts into a pithy “issue is how to define force” note was how I was going to be a lawyer, not how I was going to finally come to terms with my own rape. We barely got to the second case in class, before the questions—repetitive and probing—began to chip away at the protective dissociation I used to stay disengaged. How do we define force? What does it mean to “resist to the utmost”? How do we define consent? From an evidentiary perspective, can we ask what she was wearing? When can we ask about previous sexual partners, experiences, and proclivities? With each question, each case, and each eagerly volunteered comment, I got colder and colder. I could not stop shaking. The room was eighty degrees and I was wearing a winter coat. I told myself I was just angry. There was so much to be angry about: the patriarchy, the precedent of rape law, the slow strides of legal reform. I had so many reasons that were not “I was raped.” I had so many reasons that were not remembered trauma. That night, I cried while talking to my girlfriend and I wasn’t able to explain why.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “I think I should bounce, you guys,” he said. Charles did not look at him. Sophie frowned. “Didn’t I say to stay right where you are?” “It’s getting a little weird, Sophie, isn’t it?” he asked, trying to be funny, but sounding only desperate to himself. “No,” she said. Charles knocked back the entire boot of tonic. “You don’t have to prove anything to her, Lionel. If you want to go, you can go.” Charles pointed to the door over Lionel’s shoulder. Sophie turned her head then, and she put her arm around Charles’s neck in a gesture that was at once playful and threatening. She was smaller than he was, but her arms were taut and strong. She clenched and Charles reached down, lifted her up, and settled her on his lap with no more effort than moving a coat from a chair. “Behave,” Charles said. “You behave,” was Sophie’s reply, but Lionel did see her arm slacken. “Where did you go earlier?” Charles sighed. “Rehearsal. For the spring shows.” “Who’s choreographing?” “Farnland,” Charles groaned, closing his eyes. “I don’t know they let him choreograph still. After the incident.” She said the word with cartoonish exaggeration, turning to Lionel and giving him a very pointed look. “It wasn’t an incident,” Charles said. “Come on. Don’t spread rumors.” She looked at Lionel. “Farnland—allegedly—had an affair with one of the high school boys.” “Sophie, be serious.” The tension in the conversation cut against the casualness of their physical closeness. Sophie’s arm dangled around Charles’s shoulders. He had one arm wrapped around her waist, holding her steady, but with his free hand he swirled the espresso, breaking up the crema. Their limbs were loose and relaxed. But it was clear that this was a thing they disagreed about, and not for the first time, which made Lionel wonder why Sophie had brought it up in the first place. In front of him. “I’m just reporting the facts.” “You mean gossip,” Charles said. “Why’d you go with him, anyway? You could have danced in the stupid classical piece with the rest of us. You don’t even like contemporary.” “It’s neoclassical inspired, for one thing. Don’t be a bitch about it.” “Ah, yes, his Balanchine homage,” Sophie said. Charles closed his eyes again. “And for two, he asked me. Plus, he knows that guy in Seattle.” “PNB? You were serious about PNB?” “I need a job, Sophie.” “Or it’s back to the paper mill,” she said, slapping his chest. Then, looking back at Lionel, she said, “Charlie comes from paper folk.” “Why are you being such a bitch today?” Charles said. Sophie got off his lap. The table rocked from her motion. “I’m not,” she said. “You’re the one who intruded on my coffee date with Lionel.” “Oh, I’m intruding?” Charles made a big show of looking between Lionel and Sophie, and Lionel once again pulled his coat from the back of his chair. “He’s fine, actually,” Lionel said.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  Lady Juliana hinted that Beauty was but a virgin in some respects, that she was being tried very slowly. And Beauty feared Lord Gregory too, who was always watching her. One morning when she stumbled on the Bridle Path, Lady Juliana threatened her with the Hall of Punishments. Beauty fell to her hands and knees at once, kissing Lady Juliana's slippers. And though Lady Juliana relented at once with a smile and a toss of her pretty braids, Lord Gregory, nearby, showed his disapproval. Beauty's heart was a throbbing pain in her chest as she was led away for grooming. If only she could see Alexi, she mused, and yet he had lost some of his charm for her, and why, she was not certain. Even as she lay on her bed that afternoon, she thought of the Prince, and Lady Juliana. "My Lords and Masters," she whispered to herself, and wondered why Leon had given her nothing to make her sleep when she was not tired at all and tortured by the little throb of passion between her legs as always. But she had been resting only an hour when Lady Juliana came for her. "I don't much approve of it myself," Lady Juliana said, as she forced Beauty out into the garden, "but his Highness must let you see those poor slaves being packed off to the village." Again, the village. Beauty tried to conceal her curiosity. Lady Juliana thrashed her idly with the leather belt, light but stinging blows, as they moved down the path together. Finally they reached an enclosed garden full of low limbed flowering trees, and on a stone bench Beauty saw the Prince and a handsome young Lord at his side who was talking to the Prince earnestly. "That is Lord Stefan," Lady Juliana confided in a hushed voice, "and you must show him the utmost respect. He is the Prince's favorite cousin. Besides, he is quite miserable today. It is his precious and disobedient Prince Tristan who is the cause of it." "Ah, and if I could only see Prince Tristan," Beauty thought. She had not forgotten Alexi's mention of him, an incomparable slave who knew the meaning of yielding. So he had caused trouble, had he? She could not help but observe that Lord Stefan was very handsome. Golden-haired and gray-eyed, his youthful face was heavy with brooding and unhappiness. His eyes rested on Beauty only for a second as she drew near, and though he seemed to acknowledge her charms, he lapsed again into listening to the Prince, who lectured him sternly. "You bear him too much love, it's the same with me and this Princess you see before you. You must curb your love as I must curb mine. Believe me, I understand even as I condemn you."

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  He was not a quarter of a mile from home when he saw Grisha and Tanya running to meet him. “Uncle Kostya! mamma’s coming, and grandfather, and Sergey Ivanovitch, and someone else,” they said, clambering up into the trap. “Who is he?” “An awfully terrible person! And he does like this with his arms,” said Tanya, getting up in the trap and mimicking Katavasov. “Old or young?” asked Levin, laughing, reminded of someone, he did not know whom, by Tanya’s performance. “Oh, I hope it’s not a tiresome person!” thought Levin. As soon as he turned, at a bend in the road, and saw the party coming, Levin recognized Katavasov in a straw hat, walking along swinging his arms just as Tanya had shown him. Katavasov was very fond of discussing metaphysics, having derived his notions from natural science writers who had never studied metaphysics, and in Moscow Levin had had many arguments with him of late. And one of these arguments, in which Katavasov had obviously considered that he came off victorious, was the first thing Levin thought of as he recognized him. “No, whatever I do, I won’t argue and give utterance to my ideas lightly,” he thought. Getting out of the trap and greeting his brother and Katavasov, Levin asked about his wife. “She has taken Mitya to Kolok” (a copse near the house). “She meant to have him out there because it’s so hot indoors,” said Dolly. Levin had always advised his wife not to take the baby to the wood, thinking it unsafe, and he was not pleased to hear this. “She rushes about from place to place with him,” said the prince, smiling. “I advised her to try putting him in the ice cellar.” “She meant to come to the bee-house. She thought you would be there. We are going there,” said Dolly. “Well, and what are you doing?” said Sergey Ivanovitch, falling back from the rest and walking beside him. “Oh, nothing special. Busy as usual with the land,” answered Levin. “Well, and what about you? Come for long? We have been expecting you for such a long time.” “Only for a fortnight. I’ve a great deal to do in Moscow.” At these words the brothers’ eyes met, and Levin, in spite of the desire he always had, stronger than ever just now, to be on affectionate and still more open terms with his brother, felt an awkwardness in looking at him. He dropped his eyes and did not know what to say. Casting over the subjects of conversation that would be pleasant to Sergey Ivanovitch, and would keep him off the subject of the Servian war and the Slavonic question, at which he had hinted by the allusion to what he had to do in Moscow, Levin began to talk of Sergey Ivanovitch’s book. “Well, have there been reviews of your book?” he asked. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled at the intentional character of the question.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  The beautiful orgasm he shared in the park earlier with the muscular man—that does not matter either. It doesn't matter that he knows he could not have become less desirable in minutes, does not matter that Saturday's early-night hours are slow in certain areas in preparation for the late-night surfeit. It doesn't even matter that he has not encountered many hunters yet. No, none of that matters. What matters is the empty reality of these moments, wiping out past and future, each vacant minute a failed test stirring doubts. He flees the desolate garage. He drives past two subway tunnels and a back lot where hunters gather. No one there. Back to Greenstone. He curses the stoplights along the short distance. The anxiety to be desired—to be rendered alive—swells. Three cars are parked across the road from the concrete house in the park. At least three outlaws are here, and probably more. Jim parks hurriedly and walks into the stone grotto. No one there. He waits in the dirty light. A shadow materializes by the wall below him. Making himself further visible, Jim mounts the ledge overlooking the path. The shadow advances toward him. Desperate to end the sexless spell, Jim cups his own groin in signal—not yet even seeing what the advancing shadow looks like. The man moves closer, steps over the stone hedge. Jim's body strains. The shadow moves on, away. Another man passes, walks on too. Why! He evokes explanations stored from what some have told him about other times. “You look so hung up on yourself.” “I thought you were hustling.” (Though this is not hustling turf.) “I didn't think you'd be interested in me.” But no “reason” works, none contains the growing panic. Nothing short of the needed contact will lift the steely depression. He sees a man suddenly in the grotto with him. Jim removes his vest, stretches his bare torso. But this man too walks on. The icy stasis hardens. A new car parks on the arc across the road. Jim locates himself so that his body is highlighted. The driver of the car gets out. Jim sees him crossing the road, an attractive man with longish dark hair. In the grotto, the man looks closely at Jim. Jim touches his own groin. The man squats in the shadows. Warmth begins to course throughout Jim's body. Life! He unbuttons his pants, pulls out his cock, and brings it to the man's mouth. The man's lips part, and then, violent in its abruptness, the moment bursts—the man turns his head away swiftly rejecting Jim's cock, stands up, spits harshly, and rushes back to his car. Mysterious and powerful, the rejection brings Jim crashing. Suddenly he despises the beloved world of the hunt. He walks along the silent path, along ashy trees. A slender youngman approaches.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  At noon I would accompany her on walks in the garden. In the late afternoons, I would play games of fetch for her. In the evening I should be spanked for her amusement while she took supper. There were many positions for me to assume. She liked to see me opened wide in the squat, but there were even better attitudes in which she chose to study me. She squeezed my buttocks then and said these above all belonged to her, as it was her delight to punish these more than anything else. But to complete the day's regimen in the future, I should undress her for bed, and sleep in her chamber. "To all this, I said 'Yes, your Highness.' I would have done anything to retain her favor. Now she said my buttocks would be subjected to the greatest tests to ascertain their limits. "She had me unshackled, and drove me herself on the phallus rod through the garden and into the castle. We went into her chambers. "I knew now she meant to place me over her lap and spank me as intimately as she had done with Prince Gerald. I was in a welter of anticipation. I didn't know how I should keep my penis from discharging its craving. But she had thought of this. She inspected me and said that the cup needed draining just now so that it might fill again. It was not that I was to be rewarded. Yet she sent for a magnificent little Princess. The girl at once took my organ in her mouth, and as soon as she began to suck it, my passion exploded in her. The Queen observed all this; she stroked my face and examined my eyes, and my lips, and then bid the Princess to awaken me again quickly. "This was its own form of torture. But I was soon enough as unsatisfied as before, and ready for the Queen to begin her test of endurance. I was placed over her lap, just as I had suspected I might be. "'You've been soundly spanked by Squire Felix,' she said. 'You've been well spanked by the stable boys and the cooks in the kitchen. Do you think a woman can spank as hard as a man?' I was weeping already. I cannot anatomize the emotion I felt. Perhaps you felt it when you were over her lap earlier tonight. Or when the Prince had laid you down in the same position. It is not worse than being slung over a Page's knee, or tied with your hands over your head, or even pressed flat to a bed or table. I cannot explain it. But one feels so much more helpless across the lap of the master or mistress." Beauty nodded. It was very true.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Without noticing the omission, Robert pulled the drawstring of the curtains. The pale daylight undid the room, as one says someone's face is "undone" by the signs of a grave disease, by great nausea. She felt the need to die, that is to say, her left ann turned into a huge shark's fin, and she longed to wrap herself in it. Thus Lieutenant Seblon dreamt of wearing a wide black cape, in which he could wrap himself, and under the folds of which he could masturbate. Such a garment would set him apart, give him a hieratic and mysterious appearance. A creature without arms . . . We read, in his diary : To wear a pelerinc, a cape. To have no arms any longer, hardly any legs. To become a larva again, a pupa, while secretly retain- 192 I JEAN GENET ing all one's limbs. In such a garment I would feel roiled up inside a wave, carried by it, curled up in its curve. The world and its incidents would cease at my door. The murders Querelle had committed, his feeling of security among them, the calm with which he executed them, and his tranquility in the midst of such dark shadows-these had turned him into a serious-minded man. Querelle was so certain of having attained the limits of danger that he had nothing to fear from a revelation of his habits. There was nothi�g anyone could do about him. No one could have discovered his errors, for example, by finding out the meaning of certain markings on trees along the old ramparts. Sometimes he took his knife and cut a highly stylized design of his initials into the humid bark of an acacia. Thus all around the secret hiding place where his treasure slept-like a dragon-there stretched a net, whose impenetrability was due to the special secret of its fabrication. Querelle kept a double watch on himself. He returned their significance to degenerate rites. The oriflamme, the embroidered altar cloths used to be a continuous offering·: the number of points and of threads corresponded to so many thoughts offered up to the Holy Virgin. Around his own altar, Querelle embroidered a protective veil, with his own monogram on it, equivalent to the gold-thread "M" on blue altar cloths. When Madame Lysiane found herself confronted with Querelle in the flesh, ·she could not help staring at his crotch. She knew her vision could not pierce that navy cloth, yet her eyes had to reassure themselves of that impossibility. Perhaps, tonight, the material would be of a lesser density, perhaps cock and balls would be outlined clearly, and Madame Lysiane would thus be able to note the profound difference between the two brothers. She also wished that the sailor's member would 193 I QUERELLE tum out to be smaller than Robert's; yet there were times when she imagined the reverse, even dared to hope for it.

• From Escape (2007)

  When the first meeting with the guardian ad litem was a few days away, Merril pulled out all the stops. Two of his older daughters, Esther and Merrilyn, found a way to get onto Dan Fisher’s property and find my Betty and LuAnne. They took them for a walk down the road and showed them how to give themselves hickies on their arms. Two days later when they met with the guardian ad litem they said the hickies were from my hitting them. The guardian knew it was a lie. I found out about this when Patrick and Andrew showed me how Betty had taught them to put hickies on themselves. She said that Esther had taught her how to do it on Merril’s orders. He wanted all of the children to give themselves hickies and then tell the guardian ad litem that I was hurting them. As the weeks wore on, I became distraught about what was happening in the custody case. I knew Merril would spend unlimited sums of money to destroy my credibility in court and convince a judge that I was an unfit mother—the only way he could win sole custody in Utah. Dan Fisher was upset that my case was going so badly. He knew that unless I got a first-rate attorney, I would lose custody of my children. We looked at one of the major family law firms in town. The attorney we spoke with was blunt: the firm did not want to take on a cult. The FLDS had been in court before and won their cases by financially wearing out their opponents. “This cult will dump a million dollars into this case before they’ll walk away from it,” the attorney said. “Carolyn is a hole in the dike for them, and there is no way they will ever let her get these kids.” Dan said he’d pay my legal bills. But then we got a big break. Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, agreed to meet with me. I had been meeting regularly with the investigator from Shurtleff’s office about the extremism and abuse that had taken hold in the FLDS. But Dan and I both felt the attorney general needed to become more actively involved. Now we had our chance. Dan and his brother Shem came with me. I brought a two-page list summarizing the abuse that was occurring in the FLDS because of Warren Jeffs. I organized my thoughts and composed myself. I did not want Mark Shurtleff to think I was some insane woman who’d grabbed her children and fled in the middle of the night. When I shook his hand I looked him directly in the eye and asked him how much time I had. “Thirty minutes,” he said. We sat around a table in a conference room. Dan said we were here because of the human rights violations that were taking place within the FLDS community. He said he felt the attorney general’s office had to intervene.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  All this happened so fast that once, I was plucked off a train from New York to Philadelphia at the wrong stop by a group that thought it should be the NWPC affiliate, not the one meeting me at the next stop. Fortunately, the two groups later merged. At home, I went to the founding of the Manhattan Women’s Political Caucus, where at least six hundred women showed up for a daylong meeting chaired by Eleanor Holmes Norton, then the head of New York City’s commission on human rights. At least a third of those attending were black, Latina, Asian, and more. It was the only meeting I’d ever seen in Manhattan that looked like Manhattan. Once chapters were established and a structure was in place, NWPC’s goal was to increase the number and diversity of women delegates to both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions of 1972, and to get the Equal Rights Amendment, reproductive freedom, and other basic issues of equality written into both parties’ platforms. It was a task worthy of years. By the time all the state chapters of the NWPC were up and running, the first convention was less than two months away. At that Democratic Convention held in July in Miami, political women were in the national spotlight for the first time since suffrage. All of us were some mixture of excited and scared. Conventions then were still working meetings at which critical decisions were made, not just televised political showcases. We needed places where hundreds of women delegates could gather each morning to make such tactical decisions as whether to challenge the seating of unrepresentative delegations, plus fighting for minority platform planks, answering media queries, and other daily dilemmas on which our fates might rest. In addition to Bella, Shirley, and other leaders, the NWPC had elected one spokeswoman for each party’s convention so the press and other outsiders would know who to go to. That job sounded like the last thing I wanted to do, so I had asked not to be nominated and stayed away from an earlier NWPC meeting where those elections were to happen. Unfortunately, as I learned, a reluctant spokeswoman was considered more likely to represent the group, while an eager one might seek the spotlight. Betty Friedan was at the meeting and among those campaigning to be elected, but I was elected in absentia. As I was to learn, avoiding conflict causes conflict to seek you out. And conflict there was. I’d seen Friedan only in group meetings. Contrary to myth, all feminists don’t know each other, and we were different ages and from different parts of a diverse movement. I understood that running for spokeswoman and losing would be painful for anyone, but especially for Friedan.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  To the left, the botanical gardens, Bascom’s high hill. Lionel hung back a little behind Sophie and Charles. They were talking about the rehearsal again. Sophie seemed kinder about it now. She listened to Charles with narrowed eyes. “It could be good for me,” Charles said. “Like, really good.” “Sure,” Sophie said. Their shoes scraped over the dry sidewalk. No trace of snow or ice here. The branches hanging over the sidewalk moved in the breeze from the cars. “I’m not being a bitch. I really mean it.” “Whatever, Sophie.” “Tell me about the piece.” “I really don’t feel like hearing you make fun of it,” he said quietly. “It’s embarrassing.” “If you’re embarrassed, it’s not because I made fun of it—not that I did. I mean, I said nothing about it, Charlie.” Charles grunted. Lionel felt a pang of sympathy for him. There were a million tiny ways to make someone feel bad about something that didn’t involve saying anything directly. “Come on,” Sophie said. She pulled on Charles’s arm, but he wouldn’t budge. They were passing into downtown proper then. Instead of going directly across East Campus Mall, Sophie wanted them go through the archways at the liberal arts building. Into its slanted catacombs. She pulled Charles, and while he continued to resist her, he shifted his hips slightly, pointing himself in her direction. Lionel followed, wondering still why he had let Sophie convince him that it was a good idea that he go back to her place for dinner. She had said to him, upon leaving the café, Don’t make it weird! It’ll be weird if you leave now. Charles had said nothing, had not looked at Lionel as they went down the stairs outside and into the snowy quad. Evening was rapidly closing in on them, and because Lionel didn’t want to make it weird, didn’t have anywhere else to be, he had walked with them without saying he’d follow them all the way. He had said yes only in action, reserving the right to change his mind and vanish while they were distracted. The liberal arts building was a pyramid of nested concrete rectangles connected by an interior set of stairs rising at steep angles, as if meant to discourage a siege by unruly masses. It posed an accessibility nightmare. In the summer, students used the steep interior walls for ramps, leaping up on the railings with their skateboards and bikes. People roamed the outside layers, setting up picnics in the shade of the buildings while they watched swallows and gulls shoot from terrace to terrace.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Burner means that there will be ten to fifteen people they vaguely know and kerosene-soaked rags torched in metal barrels. Cheap whiskey, cheap beer for the Christians. Coke, molly, and weed for the true believers. Heavy bass pumping from the mudder trucks—Kendrick and Luke Bryan in some kind of awful mash-up like a diversity poster. Tommy Boy cologne, white polos, Wallabees, and dark denim turned white in the crotch and ass from wear. Exhausting. “Unless you wanna waste a good high in your fucking basement,” Nolan says, his gaze leveled on Milton. “It’s whatever.” “You’re such a little girl sometimes.” Milton shimmies his jeans up over his basketball shorts and pulls on a gray sweater made for him by his grandmother from the wool of Sturdy Matilda, her bossy ewe. “Get up, lazy.” Nolan is already dressed in his jeans and eye-searing orange hoodie. They’re almost the same height, and people sometimes mistake them for siblings. Nolan is beige and drenched in freckles. Milton has only one black grandparent, but Nolan calls him a pale-ass nigga just the same. Milton doesn’t see a resemblance except for the parts of them that aren’t white. On his feet, Nolan punches Milton in the gut, then bounds up the stairs. Milton stomps after him, grabbing at his heels. They emerge into the back hall, and Nolan jerks the door open and sprints out through the garage to the safety of the driveway. Milton catches sight of his mother in the living room. “Where you boys off to?” The gentle music of her voice makes Milton shift awkwardly near the door. He rests his hand on the outside knob. She’s folding a thick blanket. “The hill, I guess.” “Make sure you’re back before too late.” There’s something else, he knows, but she won’t bring it up. “All right, yes, ma’am,” he says. “Milton,” his father says from the kitchen. The news plays through the ending credits. Wheel of Fortune will be on soon. His father’s tall and solid. He watches Milton over his glasses and that long straight nose of his. “Sir?” Milton asks. Nolan kicks a pinecone from foot to foot at the end of the driveway. Milton waits for his father to say what he needs to say. “Having a good one?” “Yes, Pop,” Milton says. “I am.” “Get back safe.” “Yes, Pop.” “Milton.” “Yep?” Milton puts his forehead to the white grain of the door. Nolan’s on his phone in the yard. His father twists a white towel around the inside of a glass bowl, though it must certainly be dry by now. The opening music of Wheel of Fortune enters the living room, and the glow from the television illuminates the side of his mother’s face. Her pale brown eyes are on him, too. He thinks for a moment that they’re going to stop him. It’s his birthday. Let me have this one thing, he thinks. This one thing. Before it’s all gone. His eyes sting a little. “Have fun.”

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  No trace of snow or ice here. The branches hanging over the sidewalk moved in the breeze from the cars. “I’m not being a bitch. I really mean it.” “Whatever, Sophie.” “Tell me about the piece.” “I really don’t feel like hearing you make fun of it,” he said quietly. “It’s embarrassing.” “If you’re embarrassed, it’s not because I made fun of it—not that I did . I mean, I said nothing about it, Charlie.” Charles grunted. Lionel felt a pang of sympathy for him. There were a million tiny ways to make someone feel bad about something that didn’t involve saying anything directly. “Come on,” Sophie said. She pulled on Charles’s arm, but he wouldn’t budge. They were passing into downtown proper then. Instead of going directly across East Campus Mall, Sophie wanted them go through the archways at the liberal arts building. Into its slanted catacombs. She pulled Charles, and while he continued to resist her, he shifted his hips slightly, pointing himself in her direction. Lionel followed, wondering still why he had let Sophie convince him that it was a good idea that he go back to her place for dinner. She had said to him, upon leaving the café, Don’t make it weird! It’ll be weird if you leave now . Charles had said nothing, had not looked at Lionel as they went down the stairs outside and into the snowy quad. Evening was rapidly closing in on them, and because Lionel didn’t want to make it weird, didn’t have anywhere else to be, he had walked with them without saying he’d follow them all the way. He had said yes only in action, reserving the right to change his mind and vanish while they were distracted. The liberal arts building was a pyramid of nested concrete rectangles connected by an interior set of stairs rising at steep angles, as if meant to discourage a siege by unruly masses. It posed an accessibility nightmare. In the summer, students used the steep interior walls for ramps, leaping up on the railings with their skateboards and bikes. People roamed the outside layers, setting up picnics in the shade of the buildings while they watched swallows and gulls shoot from terrace to terrace. Charles squared his shoulders to the wind that funneled down onto them. Sophie jumped up against the steep wall and walked it tightrope style, her arms out for balance, going a ways up until she had to turn back, stuttering down like a windup toy going over a patch of concrete. She darted between columns, her voice doubling, echoing, bounding back to them. Charles had hung back and Lionel caught up to him. “Did you really have an okay morning?” Lionel asked. Charles regarded him carefully, his curls hanging down to the bridge of his nose.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “But she has a daughter: no doubt she’s busy looking after her?” said Levin. “I believe you picture every woman simply as a female, _une couveuse,_” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “If she’s occupied, it must be with her children. No, she brings her up capitally, I believe, but one doesn’t hear about her. She’s busy, in the first place, with what she writes. I see you’re smiling ironically, but you’re wrong. She’s writing a children’s book, and doesn’t talk about it to anyone, but she read it to me and I gave the manuscript to Vorkuev ... you know the publisher ... and he’s an author himself too, I fancy. He understands those things, and he says it’s a remarkable piece of work. But are you fancying she’s an authoress?—not a bit of it. She’s a woman with a heart, before everything, but you’ll see. Now she has a little English girl with her, and a whole family she’s looking after.” “Oh, something in a philanthropic way?” “Why, you will look at everything in the worst light. It’s not from philanthropy, it’s from the heart. They—that is, Vronsky—had a trainer, an Englishman, first-rate in his own line, but a drunkard. He’s completely given up to drink—delirium tremens—and the family were cast on the world. She saw them, helped them, got more and more interested in them, and now the whole family is on her hands. But not by way of patronage, you know, helping with money; she’s herself preparing the boys in Russian for the high school, and she’s taken the little girl to live with her. But you’ll see her for yourself.” The carriage drove into the courtyard, and Stepan Arkadyevitch rang loudly at the entrance where sledges were standing. And without asking the servant who opened the door whether the lady were at home, Stepan Arkadyevitch walked into the hall. Levin followed him, more and more doubtful whether he was doing right or wrong. Looking at himself in the glass, Levin noticed that he was red in the face, but he felt certain he was not drunk, and he followed Stepan Arkadyevitch up the carpeted stairs. At the top Stepan Arkadyevitch inquired of the footman, who bowed to him as to an intimate friend, who was with Anna Arkadyevna, and received the answer that it was M. Vorkuev. “Where are they?” “In the study.”

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  The girl lies on her back, as if the words have passed completely over her. In the light, Sylvia can now see that there are bugs, small green grubby things, among the tangled blond hair. Sylvia can smell the urine. It’s dried in ugly patches on her thighs. She is never like this with her parents. With them, she’s quiet, almost sullen. It’s only when they leave that she gets unhinged this way. Sylvia thinks that she should say something, but it feels somehow like a betrayal. “You have to try,” Sylvia says. • • • Sylvia sits on the edge of the tub, pulling her fingers through the girl’s hair, freeing bits of detritus. Where has she gotten this filthy? How has she managed to get herself into such a mess? The girl fidgets in the water, reaching for her bath toys, moving away when Sylvia’s hands snag on tangles. She has already been still for longer than she likes, and Sylvia can feel the energy coiling inside her like a snake about to strike. “Where did you get all these things?” “My closet,” she says, the first words she has spoken all day. “I keep them in my closet.” “Why?” The girl shrugs and the bugs writhe as they drown. Sylvia rinses her fingers in the water and goes back to soaping the girl’s hair. The bathroom is the same plush velvet as the bedroom. There’s an insulated, womblike quality to the acoustics. The light is comforting in its haziness. “Why do you live with us now?” the girl asks. Sylvia considers her answer to this question. She could give the kind of gummy non-answer that children chew on for years before realizing there’s nothing to it, or she could say the truth of it, but that might involve having to answer more questions, worse questions. “Well,” Sylvia starts. “I broke up with my boyfriend, and I needed a place to stay, so your parents are letting me stay here.” “Why?” “Why what?” “Why do you break up?” The girl turns to look at her, her eyes wide and blue. “Oh, that’s a boring story,” Sylvia says. “Nobody wants to hear that story.” “I do,” the girl says. “I want to hear.” “Well,” Sylvia says, scooping up handfuls of water and letting them drizzle into the girl’s hair. “He was not well. He was sick. And I was sick. And we weren’t very good together.” “You’re sick?” the girl asks. Oh, yes, Sylvia almost says. I’m fucking sick. “Just a little bit—I’m getting better.” “What’s wrong?” “Hard to say,” Sylvia says. More water drizzling down the girl’s face, across her cheeks. There’s shampoo in her eyes, and it must burn, but she does not look away from Sylvia. How does she explain it? To this child? To herself? To Hammond—oh, Hammond.

• From Escape (2007)

  Barbara’s tyranny had ruled the family for fourteen years. Everyone in the family feared her and no one dared stand up to her. Audrey said the family’s only hope was that their father would fall in love with another woman and that the new relationship would strip Barbara of her absolute power. I asked Audrey, “How could your father ever fall in love with a new wife if he’s never allowed even to be around her and if she’s forced to submit to Barbara’s abuse?” Audrey was silent. She had no answer to that question. But she was sure of one thing: “You have to find a way to get Father to have feelings for you. If you don’t, then you will not survive any better than Ruth or my mother.” I was touched by Audrey’s willingness to map out the family dynamics for me. At least I had one friend in the family. But as we pedaled back home from the reservoir I knew I didn’t want Merril to fall in love with me. The last thing I wanted to do was be strapped down to a man nearly three times older than I was. In my heart of hearts, I just wanted to go to school. But I didn’t say this to Audrey. Despite everything she’d told me, I knew she worshipped her father. I had to start school as soon as possible. I would see if there were classes I could take that summer at the university in Cedar. If I waited until fall, I might be forced into working full-time for Merril or Barbara, which would be a disaster. My only real hope was carving out some semblance of a career that would enable me to keep my life separate from Barbara and Merril’s. When Audrey and I got back home, Merril was upstairs in his office drinking coffee. When he saw me he said, “Hello, Carolyn. I have been looking for you this morning. Where have you been?” Barbara, who was beside him, stiffened. I could tell by the look on her face that she couldn’t stand the idea that her husband was concerned about my whereabouts. “Oh, Audrey and I went for a long bike ride and stopped off at the reservoir for a while.” Merril nodded. I was determined to talk to him that weekend about school. Sunday night was my first opportunity. He came into my room and said he would be staying there that night. This was my moment. I told Merril there was a two-week course at Southern Utah University. I could stay at my uncle’s and everything would be safe and simple.

• From Escape (2007)

  School had given me a good focus. I’d finished my two-week class and was about to start the summer quarter. I told Audrey I thought it was a great idea. Her little sister Lenore was going to be living with me, but more as a spy. The idea of living with a friend seemed almost too good to be true. Audrey told her husband that this was something she’d always wanted to do, and moved ahead without getting his consent. He wanted Audrey to be happy and didn’t give her a hard time. Merril was another story. He had somehow learned that after her marriage Audrey had been writing letters to the man she really loved. He was outraged. Once he’d driven by the man’s house and saw Audrey standing next to her bike and talking to him. Merril told her God had chosen a good man for her and she needed to give up her idea of running away to college. But Merlin saved her. He told Merril he had no objections to her going to school and thought a little space might help her. Merlin was basically a very decent guy who seemed to genuinely care about Audrey. Merril’s opposition dissolved, and Audrey made plans to start college with me in September. I still had to survive the summer. Lenore was making my life difficult. She monitored everything I did and would report back to her father, hoping to score points with him. We lived about five miles from school, and one of the things Lenore did to pick fights with me was to “forget” to pick me up even though we were sharing my car. The first few times it happened I was annoyed. Once I saw that it had become a pattern, I realized it was deliberate and abusive. I told Merril that Lenore was trying to hurt my grades. He said my accusations were unjust. Merril and I had several more heated discussions about this over the phone. Conflict between Merril and me created glory for Lenore in the family. When we went home on weekends, Barbara would reward her by taking her shopping and treating Lenore like her best friend. Lenore now had status in the family. She’d gone from a nobody to someone special. Lenore soon started bragging to her sisters about how she had been treating me at college. They envied the attention she was getting from Merril as a result. Merril seemed obsessed with the idea that I’d get in trouble at school and damage his reputation within the community. After a few weeks I changed my strategy. Complaining about Lenore was backfiring. It gave Lenore attention she craved and gave Merril a reason to scold me and say I was a bad person. Instead, I put on a happy face, and when I spoke to Merril by phone I told him everything was fine, just fine.

• From Querelle (1953)

  166 I JEAN GENET his smile which kept him down to earth. Now Roger stopped, turned: "Wait here. I'll be back." Thus the kid departed on his diplomatic mission from an emperor to his own . lord, in order to make sure that all was prepared for this meeting between two great ones. Querelle's musings took a new tum. He had not expected this precaution ary measure. He could not see an entrance to any cavern there. The path simply turned and disappeared behind a small mound. The trees were no denser nor less dense than before. Nevertheless, as soon as Roger vanished, he became for Querelle a "mysterious link," more precious than he had real ized until then. It was his absence that gave the b oy such a rare quality and sudden importance. Querelle smiled, but could not help being worried by the fact that the boy was the go-between of two murderers, and, it seemed, a quick and lively one. He was now running along the imaginary connecting line whose very spirit he was, and he could choose to extend or shorten it, at his pleasure. Roger was, in fact, walking briskly. His separa tion from Querelle made him feel more solemn than before, because he knew that he was bringing Gil the essence of Querelle, in other words that in Querelle which he vaguely und erstood to be the motive force that propelled Querelle in Gil's direction. He knew that in him, a mere boy in short pants whose cuffs had been turned up over the solid thighs, now was vested all the pomp and circumstance due to ambassadors-and seeing the child's serious demeanor one could well understand why such delegates are always more heavily decorated than their mast ers. On his frail person, laden down .with a thousand ceremonial chains, converged Gil's almost haggard attention, as he sat there in his lair, and Querelle's patience, as he stood waiting by the gateway to the domain. Querelle took out a cigarette and lit it, then stuck both his hand s back in the

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “I don’t know anything about any of this,” Marta said, making a circle with her hand to indicate Sigrid, Sigrid’s half-eaten twenty-dollar orecchiette, her own empty bowl, which had contained a fifteen-dollar Bolognese, and their table and their breadsticks. All of it. “I don’t know how to do it. These aren’t even my pants.” She had borrowed the wool slacks from her roommate, Katie, and Sigrid had complimented them when they’d first met outside the restaurant. She had felt guilt then, but had also felt good. It had been a long time since someone had complimented her. Even Peter, by the end of it, had stopped telling her she was pretty. He used to do it just before he slid inside her. He’d kiss her cheeks and say, “You’re so pretty,” and there he’d be, the blunt end of him, jabbing at the inside of her thigh, and she’d nudge herself apart to accommodate him, the way you might make room in the next chair for a stranger at the doctor’s office. But Sigrid, outside the restaurant, earlier that evening, the blue veil of late winter’s twilight falling all around them, wind in her curly hair, had called her pretty and complimented her outfit. She felt itchy and anxious, like a librarian—dressed as she was in a cardigan and a nice blouse and the wool slacks—but she normally wore carpenter pants or stiff polyester to the plant. Sigrid had on leggings and a skirt and a magenta top. Marta had spent the evening admiring the slim, smooth column of her neck, the way the blouse fluttered open just a little, revealing a mole on her chest, just below her collar. But Sigrid must not have remembered complimenting the pants, because she blinked once or twice and then smiled. Marta felt a plunging sense of dread, which had also made her smile back nervously, and it was like something cracked open. The rest of the night was easy. • • •