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 Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  There was the house, low and long and obscure, with one light burning downstairs, in Sir Clifford's room. But which room she was in, the woman who held the other end of the frail thread which drew him so mercilessly, that he did not know. He went a little nearer, gun in hand, and stood motionless on the drive, watching the house. Perhaps even now he could find her, come at her in some way. The house was not impregnable: he was as clever as burglars are. Why not come to her? He stood motionless, waiting, while the dawn faintly and imperceptibly paled behind him. He saw the light in the house go out. But he did not see Mrs. Bolton come to the window and draw back the old curtain of dark-blue silk, and stand herself in the dark room, looking out on the half-dark of the approaching day, looking for the longed-for dawn, waiting, waiting for Clifford to be really re-assured that it was daybreak. For when he was sure of daybreak, he would sleep almost at once. She stood blind with sleep at the window, waiting. And as she stood, she started, and almost cried out. For there was a man out there on the drive, a black figure in the twilight. She woke up greyly, and watched, but without making a sound to disturb Sir Clifford. The daylight began to rustle into the world, and the dark figure seemed to go smaller and more defined. She made out the gun and gaiters and baggy jacket--it would be Oliver Mellors, the keeper. Yes, for there was the dog nosing around like a shadow, and waiting for him! And what did the man want? Did he want to rouse the house? What was he standing there for, transfixed, looking up at the house like a love-sick male dog outside the house where the bitch is! Goodness! The knowledge went through Mrs. Bolton like a shot. He was Lady Chatterley's lover! He! He! To think of it! Why, she, Ivy Bolton, had once been a tiny bit in love with him herself! When he was a lad of sixteen and she a woman of twenty-six. It was when she was studying, and he had helped her a lot with the anatomy and things she had had to learn. He'd been a clever boy, had a scholarship from Sheffield Grammar School, and learned French and things: and then after all had become an overhead blacksmith shoeing horses, because he was fond of horses, he said: but really because he was frightened to go out and face the world, only he'd never admit it. But he'd been a nice lad, a nice lad, had helped her a lot, so clever at making things clear to you. He was quite as clever as Sir Clifford: and always one for the women. More with women than men, they said.

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

  But unfortunately the current is now-a-days flowing strongly in the opposite direction. We are not ashamed to sacrifice a multitude of other lives in decorating the perishable body and trying to prolong it existence for a few fleeting moments, with the result that we kill ourselves, both body and soul. In trying to cure one old disease. We give rise to a hundred new ones: in trying to enjoy the pleasures of sense, we lose in the end even our capacity for enjoyment. All this is passing before our very eyes, but there are none so blind as those who will not see. Having thus set forth their object and the train of ideas which led up to them, I now propose to describe the dietetic experiments at some length. 107KASTURBAI’S COURAGEThrice in her life my wife narrowly escaped death through serious illness. The cures were due to household remedies. At the time of her first attack Satyagraha was going on or was about to commence. She had frequent haemorrhage. A medical friend advised a surgical operation, to which she agreed after some hesitation. She was extremely emaciated, and the doctor had to perform the operation without chloroform. It was successful, but she had to suffer much pain, she, however, went through it with wonderful bravery. The doctor and his wife who nursed her were all attention. This was in Durban. The doctor gave me leave to go to Johannesburg, and told me not to have any anxiety about the patient. In a few days, however, I received a letter to the effect that Kasturbai was worse, too weak to sit up in bed, and had once become unconscious. The doctor knew that he might not, without my consent, give her wines or meat. So he telephoned to me at Johannesburg for permission to give her beef tea. I replied saying I could not grant the permission, but that, if she was in a condition to express her wish in the matter she might be consulted and she was free to do as she liked. ‘But,’ said the doctor, ‘I refuse to consult the patient’s wishes in the matter. You must come yourself. If you do not leave me free to prescribe whatever diet I like, I will not hold myself responsible for your wife’s life.’ I took the train for Durban the same day, and met the doctor who quietly broke this news to me: ‘I had already given Mrs. Gandhi beef tea when I telephoned to you.’ ‘Now, doctor, I call this a fraud,’ said I. ‘No question of fraud in prescribing medicine or diet for a patient. In fact we doctors consider it a virtue to deceive patients or their relatives, if thereby we can save our patients, said the doctor with determination. I was deeply pained, but kept cool. The doctor was a good man and a personal friend.

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

  I was extremely grateful to this venerable friend. In his presence I found all my fear gone, but as soon as I left him I began to worry again. ‘To know a man from his face’ was the question that haunted me, as I thought of the two books on my way home. The next day I purchased Lavator’s book. Shemmelpennick’s was not available at the shop. I read Lavator’s book and found it more difficult than Snell’s Equity, and scarcely interesting. I studied Shakespeare’s physiognomy, but did not acquire the knack of finding out the Shakespeares walking up and down the streets of London. Lavator’s book did not add to my knowledge. Mr. Pincutt’s advice did me very little direct service, but his kindliness stood me in good stead. His smiling open face stayed in my memory, and I trusted his advice that Pherozeshah Mehta’s acumen, memory and ability were not essential to the making of a successful lawyer; honesty and industry were enough. And as I had a fair share of these last I felt somewhat reassured. I could not read Kaye and Malleson’s volumes in England, but I did so in South Africa as I had made a point of reading them at the first opportunity. Thus with just a little leaven of hope mixed with my despair, I landed at Bombay from S.S. Assam. The sea was rough in the harbour, and I had to reach the quay in a launch. IIIPART II28RAYCHANDBHAII said in the last chapter that the sea was rough in Bombay harbour, not an unusual thing in the Arabian Sea in June and July. It had been choppy all the way from Aden. Almost every passenger was sick; I alone was in perfect form, staying on deck to see the stormy surge, and enjoying the splash of the waves. At breakfast there would be just one or two people besides myself, eating their oatmeal porridge from plates carefully held in their laps, lest the porridge itself find its place there. The outer storm was to me a symbol of the inner. But even as the former left me unperturbed, I think I can say the same thing about the latter. There was the trouble with the caste that was to confront me. I have already adverted to my helplessness in starting on my profession. And then, as I was a reformer. I was taxing myself as to how best to begin certain reforms. But there was even more in store for me than I knew. My elder brother had come to meet me at the dock. He had already made the acquaintance of Dr. Mehta and his elder brother and as Dr. Mehta insisted on putting me up at his house, we went there. Thus the acquaintance begun in England continued in India and ripened into a permanent friendship between the two families. I was pining to see my mother.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  I’ve been more comfortable in a public toilet. This room is a crucifying closet, stifling hot, and lit with ghoulish, humming fluorescent lights. There are no windows—nothing to look at but this big mahogany box of a desk and the Big Box herself—excuse me, I mean the Big Boss—behind it. Normally, I find women of her size attractive. There’s a larger canvas to work on, and more padding. But this woman’s bulk is menacing, and the lack of distance between us isn’t decent. I can see the wax in her ears. I’m confused, crowded, put off my game. I don’t get this close to anybody who isn’t manacled to a wall. I can’t sit down because the chairs are piled with file folders and fat reports that threaten to escape their staples. The knocked-together bookshelves and battered gray file cabinets look too shaky to lean on. I don’t dare lean on anything anyway. The pose might call up sordid reverberations from my checkered past, and we’re going to hear enough about that any second now. The placement of the shrine contributes to my disorientation. The mirror (bigger than usual) is behind and to one side of her desk, right across from me. Above, it says, “Behold the heroine of today!” These damn things are everywhere, so I don’t even have to look below it to know that it says, “In her, the revolution lives on!” I see a woman who has square, but not broad, shoulders, and a body that looks wiry and muscular (I hope). Actually, she is thin and worn out because she’s been living on fifteen hundred calories a day and can’t sleep at night. She is wearing faded khaki pants (army surplus), a leather jacket, laced-up combat boots, a studded belt, and a crewcut. That’s me. The heroine of today, ha-ha. The heat presses in on me. I can feel it beating against my eardrums, but I refuse to take off my jacket. Its fragile, blood-stained lining is ripping out, but if I replace it, I will lose another piece of Jackie. I can still hear the crazy conviction in the voice of our trick-turned-killer, replying to her cool suggestion that we talk about where we were going and what we were going to do when we got there. “You’re going to be whatever I want you to be,” she said, putting a gun to Jackie’s head. Well, people had been telling Jackie that her whole life. Why should she believe it now? She curled her lip in disdain and grabbed for the wheel. These are terrible memories, but if I don’t work hard to keep them fresh, that andro will have won and Jackie will not-be, never will have been her vital, crazed, strung-out self. I am the only one who can keep her alive because I am the only one who knew her and the only one who cared, who cares.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Connie arrived home to an ordeal of cross-questioning. Clifford had been out at teatime, had come in just before the storm, and where was her ladyship? Nobody knew, only Mrs. Bolton suggested she had gone for a walk into the wood. Into the wood, in such a storm! Clifford for once let himself get into a state of nervous frenzy. He started at every flash of lightning, and blenched at every roll of thunder. He looked at the icy thunder-rain as if it were the end of the world. He got more and more worked up. Mrs. Bolton tried to soothe him. "She'll be sheltering in the hut, till it's over. Don't worry, her ladyship is all right." "I don't like her being in the wood in a storm like this! I don't like her being in the wood at all! She's been gone now more than two hours. When did she go out?" "A little while before you came in." "I didn't see her in the park. God knows where she is and what has happened to her." "Oh, nothing's happened to her. You'll see, she'll be home directly after the rain stops. It's just the rain that's keeping her." But her ladyship did not come home directly the rain stopped. In fact time went by, the sun came out for his last yellow glimpse, and there still was no sign of her. The sun was set, it was growing dark, and the first dinner-gong had rung. "It's no good!" said Clifford in a frenzy. "I'm going to send out Field and Betts to find her." "Oh, don't do that!" cried Mrs. Bolton. "They'll think there's suicide or something. Oh, don't start a lot of talk going--Let me slip over to the hut and see if she's not there. I'll find her all right." So, after some persuasion, Clifford allowed her to go. And so Connie had come upon her in the drive, alone and palely loitering. "You mustn't mind me coming to look for you, my Lady! But Sir Clifford worked himself up into such a state. He made sure you were struck by lightning, or killed by a falling tree. And he was determined to send Field and Betts to the wood to find the body. So I thought I'd better come, rather than set all the servants agog." She spoke nervously. She could still see on Connie's face the smoothness and the half-dream of passion, and she could feel the irritation against herself. "Quite!" said Connie. And she could say no more. The two women plodded on through the wet world, in silence, while great drops splashed like explosions in the wood. When they came to the park, Connie strode ahead, and Mrs. Bolton panted a little. She was getting plumper. "How foolish of Clifford to make a fuss!" said Connie at length, angrily, really speaking to herself.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  My paraphernalia is a problem. Some of it is probably illegal. The law is vague. One hustler I know got raided, and the only kinky thing they could find was a riding crop, so they busted him on an old statute against cruelty to animals. Vibrators are okay if they can’t be inserted, but dildoes are “a device which demeans women.” So I’ve got a secret hiding place. It’s actually a crate, but it looks like a window seat. It doubles as a whipping bench. I try to keep everything put away in there under a false bottom. But there’s no way to really hide what I do and still be able to do it. Besides, if the public safety officers want to get you, all they need to do is drop a nickel bag of junk on your pillow and “discover” it. My pride and joy is a complete set of leather restraints. I ripped them off when I left a residential drug-rehab program. It was stupid of me to have ever gone there. I am not an addict. I can stop getting high any time I want to. And if I was hooked on something, well, I wouldn’t do anything but that, would I? I try to be flexible. If you don’t stay flexible the street will eat you up, one big mouthful of crunch and juice. I also have some acupuncture needles, a hairbrush, some candles, clothespins, a riding crop, and a cat-o’-nine tails I braided myself. I’ve gussied up an old ping-pong paddle—drilled holes in it and painted it black—and I have a nice handful of willow switches cut from the vacant lot on the corner. Most of the scene is me, my imagination, and my intuition. Clients give me equipment sometimes, things they get hot for that they don’t dare keep, and I’m always looking around for new gimmicks, but this is not exactly a dungeon. There are some unrealistic M’s who can’t overlook a few flaws in their surroundings. They may see me once but they don’t come back. I don’t know where I’m supposed to find the elaborate costumes and torture devices that some of these janes think you need to do “real” S/M. Sometimes they even bring me pictures of what I’m supposed to look like—and scripts! I prefer the ones who need it to be a little rough and raunchy, who like it impoverished and spontaneous. There must be people doing this who make a lot more money than I do, maybe the people who advertise. I don’t dare run one of those ads. I don’t see how they can get away with it, why they don’t get busted.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Maybe it started in group care. As soon as I learned how to read, I started getting chastised for being verbally aggressive. We had one teacher who kept taking me aside for long talks about the stabilizing and calming influences of manual labor. She gave me biographies of union organizers for holiday gifts. But I knew I wasn’t headed for the fucking proletariat. Nobody wants to be sent to the farms, the road crews, the decon teams, or the factories. But we need farmers and ditch-diggers and machinists very badly. It’s okay to grouse about that kind of work if you’re going to end up doing it. If you ain’t, you better pretend nothin’ could make you happier than throwing a shovel full of mud over your shoulder all day. It was like the future was chasing me. I learned as fast as I could. I used big words like magic spells to keep the other fetuses away from me. (That was what we called each other, and we lost dessert or even got smacked if the teachers heard us.) I couldn’t tolerate the kids who were as smart as me because they were my competition. And the faster I learned, the faster I propelled myself into classes full of older kids who resented the smartass mouth on my pint-sized body. So I learned even faster to stay ahead of them, get away from them— which landed me in a one-year, college-prep program at the ripe old age of fifteen. I wasn’t the youngest one there, but I came close. For a while I thought I would be a historian. But there aren’t many gigs in esoteric fields like history, unless you have a minor in political education. Then you wind up writing draft propaganda for the Ministry of Self-Defense or some eagle job like that. Doctors, though, they always need more doctors. I wasn’t too sharp in the hard sciences, but I had a hell of a class consciousness that I hoped would make up for it. See, doctors are part of the elite. They almost never get remanded to rural re-education even if they get caught doing abortions. Sometimes the courts sentence them to learn to take joy in the dignity of labor, but they usually wind up just doctoring the inmates and guards and any farmer within traveling distance. The powers that be (that-aren’t-supposed-to-be) get worried about subversion and intellectualism in such a powerful profession. I tried to make it clear that wouldn’t be a problem with righteous little jargon-spieling me. The college-prep program was a privileged slot no matter where you were headed. I had a room of my own. This was supposed to leave me with lots of peace and quiet to concentrate on my studies. But it also gave me freedom to do other things, things I had wanted to do since childhood. Like masturbate.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  As a matter of fact, he was tired. This evening had tired him. He would rather have been with his technical books, or his pit manager, or listening-in to the radio. Mrs. Bolton came in with two glasses of malted milk: for Clifford, to make him sleep, and for Connie to fatten her again. It was a regular night-cap she had introduced. Connie was glad to go, when she had drunk her glass, and thankful she needn't help Clifford to bed. She took his glass and put it on the tray, then took the tray, to leave it outside. "Good night Clifford! _Do_ sleep well! The Racine gets into one like a dream. Good night!" She had drifted to the door. She was going without kissing him good night. He watched her with sharp, cold eyes. So! She did not even kiss him good night, after he had spent an evening reading to her. Such depths of callousness in her! Even if the kiss was but a formality, it was on such formalities that life depends. She was a bolshevik, really. Her instincts were bolshevistic! He gazed coldly and angrily at the door whence she had gone. Anger! And again the dread of the night came on him. He was a network of nerves, and when he was not braced up to work, and so full of energy: or when he was not listening-in, and so utterly neuter: then he was haunted by anxiety and a sense of dangerous impending void. He was afraid. And Connie could keep the fear off him, if she would. But it was obvious she wouldn't, she wouldn't. She was callous, cold and callous to all that he did for her. He gave up his life for her, and she was callous to him. She only wanted her own way. "The lady loves her will." Now it was a baby she was obsessed by. Just so that it should be her own, all her own, and not his! Clifford was so healthy, considering. He looked so well and ruddy, in the face, his shoulders were broad and strong, his chest deep, he had put on flesh. And yet, at the same time, he was afraid of death. A terrible hollow seemed to menace him somewhere, somehow, a void, and into this void his energy would collapse. Energyless, he felt at times he was dead, really dead. So his rather prominent pale eyes had a queer look, furtive, and yet a little cruel, so cold: and at the same time, almost impudent. It was a very odd look, this look of impudence: as if he were triumphing over life in spite of life. "Who knoweth the mysteries of the will--for it can triumph even against the angels--"

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "There's a lot of Tevershall men left and gone to Stacks Gate and Whiteover," said Mrs. Bolton. "You've not seen the new works at Stacks Gate, opened after the War, have you Sir Clifford? Oh you must go one day, they're something quite new: great big chemical works at the pit-head, doesn't look a bit like a colliery. They say they get more money out of the chemical by-products than out of the coal--I forget what it is. And the grand new houses for the men, fair mansions! Of course it's brought a lot of riff-raff from all over the country. But a lot of Tevershall men got on there, and doin' well, a lot better than our own men. They say Tevershall's done, finished: only a question of a few more years, and it'll have to shut down. And New London'll go first. My word, won't it be funny, when there's no Tevershall pit working. It's bad enough during a strike, but my word, if it closes for good, it'll be like the end of the world. Even when I was a girl it was the best pit in the country, and a man counted himself lucky if he could get on here. Oh, there's been some money made in Tevershall. And now the men say it's a sinking ship, and it's time they all got out. Doesn't it sound awful! But of course there's a lot as'll never go till they have to. They don't like these new fangled mines, such a depth, and all machinery to work them. Some of them simply dreads those iron men, as they call them, those machines for hewing the coal, where men always did it before. And they say it's wasteful as well. But what goes in waste is saved in wages, and a lot more. It seems soon there'll be no use for men on the face of the earth, it'll be all machines. But they say that's what folks said when they had to give up the old stocking frames. I can remember one or two. But my word, the more machines, the more people, that's what it looks like! They say you can't get the same chemicals out of Tevershall coal as you can out of Stacks Gate, and that's funny, they're not three miles apart. But they say so. But everybody says it's a shame something can't be started, to keep the men going a bit better, and employ the girls. All the girls traipsing off to Sheffield every day! My word, it would be something to talk about if Tevershall Collieries took a new lease on life, after everybody saying they're finished, and a sinking ship, and the men ought to leave them like rats leave a sinking ship. But folks talk so much. Of course there was a boom during the war. When Sir Geoffrey made a trust of himself and got the money safe for ever, somehow. So they say! But they say even the masters and the owners don't get much out of it now. You can hardly believe it, can you! Why I always thought the Pits would go on for ever and ever. Who'd have thought, when I was a girl! But New England's shut down, so is Colwick Wood: yes, it's fair haunting to go through that coppy and see Colwick Wood standing there deserted among the trees, and bushes growing up all over the pit-head, and the lines red rusty. It's like death itself, a dead colliery. Why whatever we should do if Tevershall shut down--? it doesn't bear thinking of. Always that throng it's been, except at strikes, and even then the fanwheels didn't stand, except when they fetched the ponies up. I'm sure it's a funny world, you don't know where you are from year to year, you really don't."

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  But my friend's words seemed to bring my "bad habit" —that solitary life which I had been unconsciously keeping strictly segregated—into an inseparable relationship with this game, with this my communal life. That such a connection had been established in my mind was made certain by the fact that suddenly, whether I would or no, his words "feel and see" had become charged with a special significance for me, a significance that none of my innocent friends would ever have understood.From that time on I no longer participated in games of Dirty. I was fearful of the moment when I might have to attack Omi, and even more of the moment when Omi might attack me. I was always on the lookout, and when there were indications that the game might break out—like a riot or rebellion, it could arise from the most casual event—I would get out of the way and keep my eyes glued on Omi from a safe distance. . . . As a matter of fact, Omi's influence had already begun to seduce us even before we were aware of it. For example, there were the socks. By those days the corrosion of an educational system that aimed at producing soldiers had already reached even our school; General Enoki's deathbed precept—"Be Simple and Manly" —had been reheated and served up ; and such things as gaudy mufflers or socks were taboo. In fact, any muffler at all was frowned upon, and the rule was that shirts be white and socks black, or at least of a solid color. It was Omi alone who never failed to wear a white-silk muffler and bold-patterned socks. This first defier of the taboo possessed an uncanny skill for clothing his wickedness in the fair name of revolt. Through his own experience he had discovered what a weakness boys have for the charms of revolt. In front of the drillmaster—this country bumpkin of a noncommissioned officer was a bosom friend of Omi's or, rather, it seemed, his henchman—he would deliberately take his time in wrapping his muffler about his neck and ostentatiously turning back the lapels of his gold-buttoned overcoat in the Napoleonic manner. As is ever the case, however, the revolt of the blind masses did not go beyond a niggardly imitation. Hoping to escape the dangers entailed and taste only the joys of revolt, we pirated nothing from Omi's daring example except his socks. And, in this instance, I too was one of the crowd. Arriving at school in the morning, we would chatter boisterously in the classroom before lessons began, not sitting in the seats, but on the tops of the desks.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  In the projects, there’s a large bathroom with showers on every floor. That, along with the communal kitchen, is why they call these “luxury individual living quarters” when they put an add in the paper. My floor is pretty good, there’s me, a flock of he-shes, a couple of realmen, a painter, a band that practices infrequently (but for hours at a time), and two would-be junkies who spend most of their time looking for this exotic and scarce drug they’re supposedly hooked on or getting sick on substitutes. So when I go to the bathroom, the shower head usually hasn’t been ripped off and the drain usually hasn’t been clogged up with shit, and I don’t find broken glass on the floor or somebody else’s works in the sink too often. But people come up from other floors or from outside the building and wait in there to rip you off. It’s a problem if I get a jane who wants an enema. The chamber pot isn’t big enough to handle that. I usually give them the bag in my room, then escort them down the hall to get rid of it. We talk about putting a lock on the bathroom, but somebody would have to go out and get some keys made, and I know I’m not going to go to all that trouble. The kitchen, however, is locked, so you will never find any derelicts asleep under the tables in there. Part of our rent pays for the kitchen’s gas and electricity, but nobody can eat down there unless they’ve got a chit that says they contributed to the food and did a shift of cleanup. Sorry, I can’t stomach sermons or housework. The Christers can have it. My room also has a shallow closet that used to hold a folding bed. I tore that out and sold it. I’ll deal with the consequences when I move. I sleep in a homemade mummy bag, stitched together from army blankets and foam rubber that I can roll up and store during the day. Inside the closet there are screw-eyes and ropes, and that’s where I do the bondage. But really, most of my tricks don’t want to be tied up too much. Maybe a little bit so they can pretend. But they’re too scared. A nice jane who panics can do as much damage as an andro. If I was bigger I’d be less worried about being able to handle the ones who flip out, but the really big girls like Black Hawk don’t get as much trade. The janes look them over and drool, but they feel safer being alone with me.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  Both sisters lived in their father's, really their mother's Kensington house, and mixed with the young Cambridge group, the group that stood for "freedom" and flannel trousers, and flannel shirts open at the neck, and a well-bred sort of emotional anarchy, and a whispering, murmuring sort of voice, and an ultra-sensitive sort of manner. Hilda, however, suddenly married a man ten years older than herself, an elder member of the same Cambridge group, a man with a fair amount of money, and a comfortable family job in the government: he also wrote philosophical essays. She lived with him in a smallish house in Westminster, and moved in that good sort of society of people in the government who are not tip-toppers, but who are, or would be, the real intelligent power in the nation: people who know what they're talking about, or talk as if they did. Connie did a mild form of war-work, and consorted with the flannel-trousers Cambridge intransigeants, who gently mocked at everything, so far. Her "friend" was a Clifford Chatterley, a young man of twenty-two, who had hurried home from Bonn, where he was studying the technicalities of coal-mining. He had previously spent two years at Cambridge. Now he had become a first lieutenant in a smart regiment, so he could mock at everything more becomingly in uniform. Clifford Chatterley was more upper-class than Connie. Connie was well-to-do intelligentsia, but he was aristocracy. Not the big sort, but still _it_. His father was a baronet, and his mother had been a viscount's daughter. But Clifford, while he was better bred than Connie, and more "society," was in his own way more provincial and more timid. He was at his ease in the narrow "great world," that is, landed aristocracy society, but he was shy and nervous of all that other big world which consists of the vast hordes of the middle and lower classes, and foreigners. If the truth must be told, he was just a little bit frightened of middle and lower class humanity, and of foreigners not of his own class. He was, in some paralysing way, conscious of his own defencelessness, though he had all the defence of privilege. Which is curious, but a phenomenon of our day. Therefore the peculiar soft assurance of a girl like Constance Reid fascinated him. She was so much more mistress of herself in that outer world of chaos than he was master of himself. Nevertheless he too was a rebel: rebelling even against his class. Or perhaps rebel is too strong a word; far too strong. He was only caught in the general, popular recoil of the young against convention and against any sort of real authority. Fathers were ridiculous: his own obstinate one supremely so. And governments were ridiculous: our own wait-and-see sort especially so. And armies were ridiculous, and old duffers of generals altogether, the red-faced Kitchener supremely. Even the war was ridiculous, though it did kill rather a lot of people.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  By this time it seemed to Calandrino that he had the fevers, when, lo, up came Bruno and the first thing he said was, 'Calandrino, what manner of face is this?' Calandrino, hearing them all in the same tale, held it for certain that he was in an ill way and asked them, all aghast, 'what shall I do?' Quoth Bruno, 'Methinketh thou wert best return home and get thee to bed and cover thyself well and send thy water to Master Simone the doctor, who is, as thou knowest, as our very creature and will tell thee incontinent what thou must do. We will go with thee and if it behoveth to do aught, we will do it.' Accordingly, Nello having joined himself to them, they returned home with Calandrino, who betook himself, all dejected, into the bedchamber and said to his wife, 'Come, cover me well, for I feel myself sore disordered.' Then, laying himself down, he despatched his water by a little maid to Master Simone, who then kept shop in the Old Market, at the sign of the Pumpkin, whilst Bruno said to his comrades, 'Abide you here with him, whilst I go hear what the doctor saith and bring him hither, if need be.' 'Ay, for God's sake, comrade mine,' cried Calandrino, 'go thither and bring me back word how the case standeth, for I feel I know not what within me.'

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Over a truly long period of time I had my erections, and also indulged in that "bad habit" which incited them whenever I was alone, without ever becoming aware of the significance of my actions. Although already in possession of the usual information concerning sex, I was not yet troubled with the sense of being different. I do not mean to say that I viewed those desires of mine that deviated from accepted standards as normal and orthodox; nor do I mean that I labored under the mistaken impression that my friends possessed the same desires. Surprisingly enough, I was so engrossed in tales of romance that I devoted all my elegant dreams to thoughts of love between man and maid, and to marriage, exactly as though I were a young girl who knew nothing of the world. I tossed my love for Omi onto the rubbish heap of neglected riddles, never once searching deeply for its meaning. Now when I write the word love, when I write affection, my meaning is totally different from my understanding of the words at that time. I never even dreamed that such desires as I had felt toward Omi might have a significant connection with the realities of my "life." And yet some instinct within me demanded that I seek solitude, that I remain apart as something different. This compulsion was manifested as a mysterious and strange malaise. I have already described how during my childhood I was weighed down by a sense of uneasiness at the thought of becoming an adult, and my feeling of growing up continued to be accompanied by a strange, piercing unrest. During my growing years a deep tuck was sewn into every pair of new trousers so that they could be lengthened each year, and just as in any other family, my steadily increasing height was recorded by successive pencil marks on one of the pillars of the house. The little ceremony of these periodic measurings always took place in the sitting room under the eyes of all the family, and each time they teased me and found a simpleminded pleasure in the fact that I had grown taller. I would respond with forced smiles. Actually, the thought that I might reach the height of an adult filled me with a foreboding of some fearful danger. On the one hand, my indefinable feeling of unrest increased my capacity for dreams divorced from all reality and, on the other, drove me toward the "bad habit" that caused me to take refuge in those dreams. The restlessness was my excuse. . . . "You'll surely die before you're twenty," a friend once said to me jokingly, referring to my weak constitution. "What an awful thing to say!" I replied, screwing my face up into a bitter smile. But actually his prediction had a strangely sweet and romantic attraction for me.

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

  My father’s friend and adviser, who is a learned Brahman, sees no objection to my gong to England, and my mother and brother have also given me their permission.’ ‘But will you disregard the orders of the caste?’ ‘I am really helpless. I think the caste should not interfere in the matter.’ This incensed the Sheth. He swore at me. I sat unmoved. So the Sheth pronounced his order: ‘This boy shall be treated as an outcaste from today. Whoever helps him or goes to see him off at the dock shall be punishable with a fine of one rupee four annas.’ The order had no effect on me, and I took my leave of the Sheth. But I wondered how my brother would take it. Fortunately he remained firm and wrote to assure me that I had his permission to go, the Sheth’s order notwithstanding. The incident, however, made me more anxious than ever to sail. What would happen if they succeeded in bringing pressure to bear on my brother? Supposing something unforeseen happened? As I was thus worrying over my predicament, I heard that a Junagadh vakil was going to England, for being called to the bar, by a boat sailing on the 4th of September. I met the friends to whose care my brother had commended me. They also agreed that I should not let go the opportunity of going in such company. There was no time to be lost. I wired to my brother for permission, which he granted. I asked my brother-in-law to give me the money. But he referred to the order of the Sheth and said that he could not afford to lose caste. I then sought a friend of the family and requested him to accommodate me to the extent of my passage and sundries, and to recover the loan from my brother. The friend was not only good enough to accede to my request, but he cheered me up as well. I was so thankful. With part of the money I at once purchased the passage. Then I had to equip myself for the voyage. There was another friend who had experience in the matter. He got clothes and other things ready. Some of the clothes I liked and some I did not like at all. The necktie, which I delighted in wearing later, I then abhorred. The short jacket I looked upon as immodest. But this dislike was nothing before the desire to go to England, which was uppermost in me. Of provisions also I had enough and to spare for the voyage. A berth was reserved for me by my friends in the same cabin as that of Sjt. Tryambakrai Mazmudar, the Junagadh vakil. They also commended me to him. He was an experienced man of mature age and knew the world. I was yet a stripling of eighteen without any experience of the world. Sjt. Mazmudar told my friends not to worry about me.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Picking up Macho Sluts again has been a little frightening; maybe because I’m still suffering from a bit of post-traumatic stress disorder after the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1980s in which Patrick Califia’s work figured so prominently. The last time I had the honor of introducing Califia was almost twenty years ago before a talk s/he gave in California; the next day, I found graffiti scrawled on the bathroom wall of my favorite café that read “Wendy Chapkis promotes violence against women.” But my anxiety isn’t entirely about ghosts from the past. It would be daunting in any situation to be asked to write something about Patrick Califia’s work. Califia is one of the most important writers on sexual politics of my generation. Over the past thirty years, I have read and re-read his essays, taught a number of them in college seminars, and referenced them in my own writing. Califia has had a profound effect on my identity, too, on what it means to me to be queer and on how I think of myself as a woman (even as he transitioned out of that shared identity). Califia is also an iconic top who knows exactly how to take down those foolish enough to talk back. But there was an even more basic challenge for me in writing this essay. Despite my constant engagement with his nonfiction work, when I dug out my old copy of Macho Sluts, I was surprised to realize that I hadn’t picked it up in years. As I began re-reading it, I remembered why: Califia’s fiction makes me uncomfortable. It took a couple of stories for me to remember that the discomfort is intentional. In a 1979 essay, “The Secret Side of Lesbian Sexuality,” Califia wrote: “If someone wants to know about my sexuality, she can deal with me on my own terms. I don’t particularly care to make it easy. S/M is scary. That’s at least half its significance … S/M is a deliberate, premeditated, erotic blasphemy. It is a form of sexual extremism and sexual dissent.”1 In the 1980s, when I first read that essay and was introduced to lesbian S/M, Califia’s provocation was nothing less than electrifying. Like many feminists and queer nationals of the time, I was unwilling to see women’s liberation and gay liberation reduced to a polite equal rights campaign—especially if equality was modeled on the lives of those who were straight, male, or conventionally gendered.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "But men and women may have different feelings about the wrong sort of fellow," she said. "No," he replied. "You cared for me. I don't believe you would ever care for a man who was purely antipathetic to me. Your rhythm wouldn't let you." She was silent. Logic might be unanswerable because it was so absolutely wrong. "And should you expect me to tell you?" she asked, glancing up at him almost furtively. "Not at all. I'd better not know.... But you do agree with me, don't you, that the casual sex thing is nothing, compared to the long life lived together? Don't you think one can just subordinate the sex thing to the necessities of a long life? Just use it, since that's what we're driven to? After all, _do_ these temporary excitements matter? Isn't the whole problem of life the slow building up of an integral personality, through the years? living an integrated life? There's no point in a disintegrated life. If lack of sex is going to disintegrate you, then go out and have a love affair. If lack of a child is going to disintegrate you, then have a child if you possibly can. But only do these things so that you have an integrated life, that makes a long harmonious thing. And you and I can do that together ... don't you think? ... if we adapt ourselves to the necessities, and at the same time weave the adaptation together into a piece with our steadily-lived life. Don't you agree?" Connie was a little overwhelmed by his words. She knew he was right theoretically. But when she actually touched her steadily-lived life with him she ... hesitated. Was it actually her destiny to go on weaving herself into his life all the rest of her life? Nothing else? Was it just that? She was to be content to weave a steady life with him, all one fabric, but perhaps brocaded with the occasional flower of an adventure. But how could she know what she would feel next year? How could one ever know? How could one say Yes? for years and years? The little yes, gone on a breath! Why should one be pinned down by that butterfly word? Of course it had to flutter away and be gone, to be followed by other yes's and no's! Like the straying of butterflies. "I think you're right, Clifford. And as far as I can see I agree with you. Only life may turn quite a new face on it all." "But until life turns a new face on it all, you do agree?" "Oh yes! I think I do, really."

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

  MY HELPLESSNESS It was easy to be called, but it was difficult to practise at the bar. I had read the laws, but not learnt how to practise law. I had read with interest ‘Legal Maxims’, but did not know how to apply them in my profession. ‘Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas’ (Use your property in such a way as not to damage that of others) was one of them, but I was at a loss to know how one could employ this maxim for the benefit of one’s client. I had read all the leading cases on this maxim, but they gave me no confidence in the application of it in the practice of law. Besides, I had learnt nothing at all of Indian law. I had not the slightest idea of Hindu and Mahomedan Law. I had not even learnt how to draft a plaint, and felt completely at sea. I had heard of Sir Pherozeshah Mehta as one who roared like a lion in law courts. How, I wondered, could he have learnt the art in England? It was out of the question for me ever to acquire his legal acumen, but I had serious misgivings as to whether I should be able even to earn a living by he profession. I was torn with these doubts and anxieties to some of my friends. One of them suggested that I should seek Dadabhai Naoroji’s advice. I have already said that, when I went to England, I possessed a note of introduction to Dadabhai. I availed myself of it very late. I thought I had no right to trouble such a great man for an interview. Whenever an address by him was announced, I would attend it, listen to him from a corner of the hall, and go away after having feasting my eyes and ears. In order to come in close touch with the students he had founded an association, I used to attend its meeting, and rejoiced at Dadabhai’s solicitude for the students, and the latter’s respect for him in course of time I mustered up courage to present to him the note of introduction. He said: ‘You can come and have my advice whenever you like.’ But I never availed myself of his offer. I thought it wrong to trouble him without the most pressing necessity. Therefore

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

  I dared not venture to accept my friend’s advice to submit my difficulties to Dadabhai at that time. I forget now whether it was the same friend or someone else who recommended me to meet Mr. Frederick Pincutt. He was a Conservative, but his affection for Indian students was pure and unselfish. Many students sought his advice and I also applied to him for an appointment, which he granted. I can never forget that interview. He greeted me as a friend. He laughed away my pessimism. ‘Do you think,’ he said, ‘that everyone must be a Pherozeshah Mehta? Pherozeshahs skill to be an ordinary lawyer. Common honesty and industry are enough to enable him to make a living. All cases are not complicated. Well, let me know the extent of your general reading.’ When I acquainted him with my little stock of reading, he was, as I could see, rather disappointed. But it was only for a moment. Soon his face beamed with a pleasing smile and he said, ‘I understand your trouble. Your general reading is meagre. You have no knowledge of the world, a sine qua non for a vakil. You have not even read the history of India. A vakil should know human nature. He should be able to read a man’s character from his face. And every Indian ought to know Indian history. This has no connection with the practice of law, but you ought to have that knowledge. I see that you have not even read kaye and Malleson’s history of the Mutiny of 1857. Get hold of that at once and also read two more books to understand human nature.’ These were lavator’s and Shemmelpennick’s books on physiognomy. I was extremely grateful to this venerable friend. In his presence I found all my fear gone, but as soon as I left him I began to worry again. ‘To know a man from his face’ was the question that haunted me, as I thought of the two books on my way home. The next day I purchased Lavator’s book. Shemmelpennick’s was not available at the shop. I read Lavator’s book and found it more difficult than Snell’s Equity, and scarcely interesting. I studied Shakespeare’s physiognomy,

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

  conscience was clear. I tried to run away from the Congress and suggested to Pandit Malaviyaji and Motilalji that it would be in the general interest if I absented myself from the Congress for the rest of the session. It would save me from having to make an exhibition of my difference with such esteemed leaders. But my suggestion found no favour with these two seniors. The news of my proposal was somehow whispered to Lala Harkishanlal. ‘This will never do. It will very much hurt the feelings of the Punjabis,’ he said. I discussed the matter with Lokamanya, Deshabandhu and Mr. Jinnah, but no way out could be found. Finally I laid bare my distress to Malaviyaji. ‘I see no prospect of a compromise,’ I told him, ‘and if I am to move my resolution, a division will have to be called and votes taken. But I do not find here any arrangements for it. The practice in the open session of the Congress so far has been to take votes by a show of hands with the result that all distinction between visitors and delegates is lost, while, as for taking a count of votes in such vast assemblies, we have no means at all. So it comes to this that, even if I want to call a division, there will be no facility for it, nor meaning in it.’ But Lala Harkishanlal came to the rescue and undertook to make the necessary arrangements. ‘We will not,’ he said, ‘permit visitors in the Congress pandal on the day on which voting is to take place. And as for taking the count, well, I shall see to that. But you must not absent yourself from the Congress.’ I capitulated; I framed my resolution, and in heart trembling undertook to move it. Pandit Malaviyaji and Mr. Jinnah were to support it. I could notice that, although our difference of opinion was free from any trace of bitterness, and although our speeches too contained nothing but cold reasoning, the people could not stand the very fact of a difference; it pained them. They wanted unanimity. Even while speeches were being delivered, efforts to settle the difference were being made on the platform, and notes were being freely exchanged among the