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 Another Country (1962)

  It’ll never work.” “What’re you people going to do?” the driver asked. “I ain’t got all day.” “I’ll have to buy something,” Cass said. “We’ll be late.” “Well, you go on in. I’ll just drive to a store somewhere and I’ll come right back.” “Ain’t no stores around here, lady,” the driver said. “Of course there are stores somewhere near here,” Cass said, sharply. “You go on in, Vivaldo; I’ll come right back. What’s the address here?” Vivaldo gave her the address and said, “You’ll have to go to 125th Street, that’s the only place I know where there are any stores.” Then he took his change from the driver and tipped him. “The lady wants to go to 125th street,” he said. The driver turned in his seat resignedly, and turned on his meter. “You go on in, Vivaldo,” Cass said again. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.” “You have enough money on you?” “Yes. Go on in.” He got out of the cab, looking helpless and annoyed, and turned into the chapel as the cab pulled away. The driver left her at the corner of 125th Street and Eighth Avenue and she realized, as she hurried down the wide, crowded street, that she was in a strange, unnameable state, neither rage nor tears but close to both. One small, lone, white woman hurrying along 125th Street on a Saturday morning was apparently a very common sight, for no one looked at her at all. She did not see any stores with ladies hats in the window. But she was hurrying too fast and looking too hard. If she did not pull herself together, she might very well spend the day wandering up and down this street. For a moment she thought to stop one of the women—one of the women whose faces she watched as though they contained something it was necessary for her to learn—to ask directions. Then she realized that she was mysteriously afraid: afraid of these people, these streets, the chapel to which she must return. She forced herself to walk more slowly. She saw a store and entered it. A Negro girl came toward her, a girl with red, loosely waved hair, who wore a violently green dress and whose skin was a kind of dusty copper. “Can I help you?” The girl was smiling, the same smile—as Cass insisted to herself—that all salesgirls, everywhere, have always worn. This smile made Cass feel poor and shabby indeed. But now she felt it more vehemently than she had ever felt it before. And though she was beginning to shake with a thoroughly mysterious anger, she knew that her dry, aristocratic sharpness, however well it had always worked downtown, would fail of its usual effect here. “I want,” she stammered, “to see a hat.” Then she remembered that she hated hats and never wore them.

• From Little Women (1868)

  "Wouldn't it comfort you to tell me what it is?" "Not now, not yet." "Then I won't ask, but remember, Bethy, that Mother and Jo are always glad to hear and help you, if they can." "I know it. I'll tell you by-and-by." "Is the pain better now?" "Oh, yes, much better, you are so comfortable, Jo." "Go to sleep, dear. I'll stay with you." So cheek to cheek they fell asleep, and on the morrow Beth seemed quite herself again, for at eighteen neither heads nor hearts ache long, and a loving word can medicine most ills. But Jo had made up her mind, and after pondering over a project for some days, she confided it to her mother. "You asked me the other day what my wishes were. I'll tell you one of them, Marmee," she began, as they sat along together. "I want to go away somewhere this winter for a change." "Why, Jo?" and her mother looked up quickly, as if the words suggested a double meaning. With her eyes on her work Jo answered soberly, "I want something new. I feel restless and anxious to be seeing, doing, and learning more than I am. I brood too much over my own small affairs, and need stirring up, so as I can be spared this winter, I'd like to hop a little way and try my wings." "Where will you hop?" "To New York. I had a bright idea yesterday, and this is it. You know Mrs. Kirke wrote to you for some respectable young person to teach her children and sew. It's rather hard to find just the thing, but I think I should suit if I tried." "My dear, go out to service in that great boarding house!" and Mrs. March looked surprised, but not displeased. "It's not exactly going out to service, for Mrs. Kirke is your friend—the kindest soul that ever lived—and would make things pleasant for me, I know. Her family is separate from the rest, and no one knows me there. Don't care if they do. It's honest work, and I'm not ashamed of it." "Nor I. But your writing?" "All the better for the change. I shall see and hear new things, get new ideas, and even if I haven't much time there, I shall bring home quantities of material for my rubbish." "I have no doubt of it, but are these your only reasons for this sudden fancy?" "No, Mother." "May I know the others?" Jo looked up and Jo looked down, then said slowly, with sudden color in her cheeks. "It may be vain and wrong to say it, but—I'm afraid—Laurie is getting too fond of me." "Then you don't care for him in the way it is evident he begins to care for you?" and Mrs. March looked anxious as she put the question. "Mercy, no!

• From Little Women (1868)

  I hope I shall go abroad some day, but I'd rather go to Rome than the Row," said Amy, who had not the remotest idea what the Row was and wouldn't have asked for the world. Frank, sitting just behind the little girls, heard what they were saying, and pushed his crutch away from him with an impatient gesture as he watched the active lads going through all sorts of comical gymnastics. Beth, who was collecting the scattered Author cards, looked up and said, in her shy yet friendly way, "I'm afraid you are tired. Can I do anything for you?" "Talk to me, please. It's dull, sitting by myself," answered Frank, who had evidently been used to being made much of at home. If he asked her to deliver a Latin oration, it would not have seemed a more impossible task to bashful Beth, but there was no place to run to, no Jo to hide behind now, and the poor boy looked so wistfully at her that she bravely resolved to try. "What do you like to talk about?" she asked, fumbling over the cards and dropping half as she tried to tie them up. "Well, I like to hear about cricket and boating and hunting," said Frank, who had not yet learned to suit his amusements to his strength. My heart! What shall I do? I don't know anything about them, thought Beth, and forgetting the boy's misfortune in her flurry, she said, hoping to make him talk, "I never saw any hunting, but I suppose you know all about it." "I did once, but I can never hunt again, for I got hurt leaping a confounded five-barred gate, so there are no more horses and hounds for me," said Frank with a sigh that made Beth hate herself for her innocent blunder. "Your deer are much prettier than our ugly buffaloes," she said, turning to the prairies for help and feeling glad that she had read one of the boys' books in which Jo delighted. Buffaloes proved soothing and satisfactory, and in her eagerness to amuse another, Beth forgot herself, and was quite unconscious of her sisters' surprise and delight at the unusual spectacle of Beth talking away to one of the dreadful boys, against whom she had begged protection. "Bless her heart! She pities him, so she is good to him," said Jo, beaming at her from the croquet ground. "I always said she was a little saint," added Meg, as if there could be no further doubt of it. "I haven't heard Frank laugh so much for ever so long," said Grace to Amy, as they sat discussing dolls and making tea sets out of the acorn cups. "My sister Beth is a very fastidious girl, when she likes to be," said Amy, well pleased at Beth's success. She meant 'facinating', but as Grace didn't know the exact meaning of either word, fastidious sounded well and made a good impression.

• From Little Women (1868)

  It aches so, I can hardly stand, and I don't know how I'm ever going to get home," she said, rocking to and fro in pain. "I knew you'd hurt your feet with those silly shoes. I'm sorry. But I don't see what you can do, except get a carriage, or stay here all night," answered Jo, softly rubbing the poor ankle as she spoke. "I can't have a carriage without its costing ever so much. I dare say I can't get one at all, for most people come in their own, and it's a long way to the stable, and no one to send." "I'll go." "No, indeed! It's past nine, and dark as Egypt. I can't stop here, for the house is full. Sallie has some girls staying with her. I'll rest till Hannah comes, and then do the best I can." "I'll ask Laurie. He will go," said Jo, looking relieved as the idea occurred to her. "Mercy, no! Don't ask or tell anyone. Get me my rubbers, and put these slippers with our things. I can't dance anymore, but as soon as supper is over, watch for Hannah and tell me the minute she comes." "They are going out to supper now. I'll stay with you. I'd rather." "No, dear, run along, and bring me some coffee. I'm so tired I can't stir." So Meg reclined, with rubbers well hidden, and Jo went blundering away to the dining room, which she found after going into a china closet, and opening the door of a room where old Mr. Gardiner was taking a little private refreshment. Making a dart at the table, she secured the coffee, which she immediately spilled, thereby making the front of her dress as bad as the back. "Oh, dear, what a blunderbuss I am!" exclaimed Jo, finishing Meg's glove by scrubbing her gown with it. "Can I help you?" said a friendly voice. And there was Laurie, with a full cup in one hand and a plate of ice in the other. "I was trying to get something for Meg, who is very tired, and someone shook me, and here I am in a nice state," answered Jo, glancing dismally from the stained skirt to the coffee-colored glove. "Too bad! I was looking for someone to give this to. May I take it to your sister?" "Oh, thank you! I'll show you where she is. I don't offer to take it myself, for I should only get into another scrape if I did." Jo led the way, and as if used to waiting on ladies, Laurie drew up a little table, brought a second installment of coffee and ice for Jo, and was so obliging that even particular Meg pronounced him a 'nice boy'. They had a merry time over the bonbons and mottoes, and were in the midst of a quiet game of Buzz , with two or three other young people who had strayed in, when Hannah appeared.

• From Little Women (1868)

  I advise you to be off as soon as you can, for scarlet fever is no joke, miss." "But it's dull at Aunt March's, and she is so cross," said Amy, looking rather frightened. "It won't be dull with me popping in every day to tell you how Beth is, and take you out gallivanting. The old lady likes me, and I'll be as sweet as possible to her, so she won't peck at us, whatever we do." "Will you take me out in the trotting wagon with Puck?" "On my honor as a gentleman." "And come every single day?" "See if I don't!" "And bring me back the minute Beth is well?" "The identical minute." "And go to the theater, truly?" "A dozen theaters, if we may." "Well—I guess I will," said Amy slowly. "Good girl! Call Meg, and tell her you'll give in," said Laurie, with an approving pat, which annoyed Amy more than the 'giving in'. Meg and Jo came running down to behold the miracle which had been wrought, and Amy, feeling very precious and self-sacrificing, promised to go, if the doctor said Beth was going to be ill. "How is the little dear?" asked Laurie, for Beth was his especial pet, and he felt more anxious about her than he liked to show. "She is lying down on Mother's bed, and feels better. The baby's death troubled her, but I dare say she has only got cold. Hannah says she thinks so, but she looks worried, and that makes me fidgety," answered Meg. "What a trying world it is!" said Jo, rumpling up her hair in a fretful way. "No sooner do we get out of one trouble than down comes another. There doesn't seem to be anything to hold on to when Mother's gone, so I'm all at sea." "Well, don't make a porcupine of yourself, it isn't becoming. Settle your wig, Jo, and tell me if I shall telegraph to your mother, or do anything?" asked Laurie, who never had been reconciled to the loss of his friend's one beauty. "That is what troubles me," said Meg. "I think we ought to tell her if Beth is really ill, but Hannah says we mustn't, for Mother can't leave Father, and it will only make them anxious. Beth won't be sick long, and Hannah knows just what to do, and Mother said we were to mind her, so I suppose we must, but it doesn't seem quite right to me." "Hum, well, I can't say. Suppose you ask Grandfather after the doctor has been." "We will. Jo, go and get Dr. Bangs at once," commanded Meg. "We can't decide anything till he has been." "Stay where you are, Jo. I'm errand boy to this establishment," said Laurie, taking up his cap. "I'm afraid you are busy," began Meg. "No, I've done my lessons for the day." "Do you study in vacation time?" asked Jo.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Richard looked as though he thoroughly agreed with this; and he said, “Look. You’ve been to the police. You’ve told everyone you could. You’ve checked the hospitals, and”—he looked at her questioningly—“the morgue”—and she nodded, not dropping her eyes. “Well. I don’t see any point in rushing out in this damn Sunday-afternoon rain, when you hardly even know where you’re going. And we all saw him last night. So we know he’s around. So why not relax for a couple of hours? Hell, in a couple of hours you may find out you haven’t got to go anywhere, he’ll turn up.” “Really,” said Cass, “there’s a very good chance he’ll turn up here today.” Ida looked at Cass. Then Cass realized that something in Ida was enjoying this—the attention, the power she held for this moment. This made Cass angry, but then she thought: Good. It means that whatever’s coming, she’ll be able to get through it. Without quite knowing it, from the moment Ida stepped through the door, she was preparing herself for the worst. “Well,” said Ida, looking at Vivaldo, “I asked Mama to call me here—just in case.” “Well, then,” said Cass, “it seems to me it’s settled.” She looked at the clock. “The boys should be home in about another hour. I think what I’ll do is fix us all a fresh drink.” Ida grinned. “That’s a very friendly idea.” She was terribly attractive when she grinned. Her face, then, made one think of a mischievous street boy. And at the same time there glowed in her eyes a marvelously feminine mockery. Vivaldo kept watching her, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth. The snow which had been predicted for the day before Thanksgiving did not begin to fall until late in the evening—slow, halfhearted flakes, spinning and gleaming in the darkness, melting on the ground. All day long a cold sun glared down on Manhattan, giving no heat . Cass woke a little earlier than usual, and fed the children and sent them off to school. Richard ate his breakfast and retired into his study—he was not in a good mood. Cass cleaned the house, thinking of tomorrow’s dinner, and went out in the early afternoon to shop and to walk for a little while alone. She was gone longer than she had intended, for she loved to walk around this city. She was chilled when at last she started home. They lived just below Twenty-third Street, on the West Side, in a neighborhood that had lately acquired many Puerto Ricans. For this reason it was said that the neighborhood was declining; from what previous height it would have been hard to say. It seemed to Cass very much as it always had, run-down, and with a preponderance of very rough-looking people. As for the Puerto Ricans, she rather liked them.

• From The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1915)

  In any case, it is clear that the act of offering naturally arouses in the mind the idea of a moral subject, whom this offering is destined to please. The ritual acts which we have described become more intelligible when it is believed that they are addressed to persons. So the practices of the Intichiuma, while actually putting only impersonal forces into play, prepare the way for a different conception.[1157] Of course they were not sufficient to form the idea of mythical personalities by themselves, but when this idea had once been formed, the very nature of these rites made it enter into the cult; thus, taking a more direct interest in action and life, it also acquired a greater reality. So we are even able to believe that the cult favoured, in a secondary manner, no doubt, but nevertheless one which is worthy of attention, the personification of the religious forces. V But we still have to explain the contradiction in which Robertson Smith saw an inadmissible logical scandal. If the sacred beings always manifested their powers in a perfectly equal manner, it would appear inconceivable that men should dream of offering them services, for we cannot see what need they could have of them. But in the first place, in so far as they are confused with things, and in so far as they are regarded as principles of the cosmic life, they are themselves submitted to the rhythm of this life. Now this goes in oscillations in contrary directions, which succeed one another according to a determined law. Sometimes it is affirmed in all its glory; sometimes it weakens to such an extent that one may ask himself whether it is not going to fade away. Vegetation dies every year; will it be reborn? Animal species tend to become extinguished by the effect of natural and violent death; will they be renewed at such a time and in such a way as is proper? Above all, the rain is capricious; there are long periods during which it seems to have disappeared for ever. These periodical variations of nature bear witness to the fact that at the corresponding periods, the sacred beings upon whom the plants, animals, rain, etc., depend are themselves passing through grave crises; so they, too, have their periods of giving way. But men could not regard these spectacles as indifferent spectators. If he is to live, the universal life must continue, and consequently the gods must not die. So he seeks to sustain and aid them; for this, he puts at their service whatever forces he has at his disposition, and mobilizes them for this purpose. The blood flowing in his veins has fecundating virtues; he pours it forth. From the sacred rocks possessed by his clan he takes those germs of life which lie dormant there, and scatters them into space. In a word, he makes oblations.

• From Little Women (1868)

  Serve me right, selfish pig, to let you go, and stay writing rubbish myself!" muttered Jo, as she went to consult Hannah. The good soul was wide awake in a minute, and took the lead at once, assuring that there was no need to worry; every one had scarlet fever, and if rightly treated, nobody died, all of which Jo believed, and felt much relieved as they went up to call Meg. "Now I'll tell you what we'll do," said Hannah, when she had examined and questioned Beth, "we will have Dr. Bangs, just to take a look at you, dear, and see that we start right. Then we'll send Amy off to Aunt March's for a spell, to keep her out of harm's way, and one of you girls can stay at home and amuse Beth for a day or two." "I shall stay, of course, I'm oldest," began Meg, looking anxious and self-reproachful. "I shall, because it's my fault she is sick. I told Mother I'd do the errands, and I haven't," said Jo decidedly. "Which will you have, Beth? There ain't no need of but one," aid Hannah. "Jo, please." And Beth leaned her head against her sister with a contented look, which effectually settled that point. "I'll go and tell Amy," said Meg, feeling a little hurt, yet rather relieved on the whole, for she did not like nursing, and Jo did. Amy rebelled outright, and passionately declared that she had rather have the fever than go to Aunt March. Meg reasoned, pleaded, and commanded, all in vain. Amy protested that she would not go, and Meg left her in despair to ask Hannah what should be done. Before she came back, Laurie walked into the parlor to find Amy sobbing, with her head in the sofa cushions. She told her story, expecting to be consoled, but Laurie only put his hands in his pockets and walked about the room, whistling softly, as he knit his brows in deep thought. Presently he sat down beside her, and said, in his most wheedlesome tone, "Now be a sensible little woman, and do as they say. No, don't cry, but hear what a jolly plan I've got. You go to Aunt March's, and I'll come and take you out every day, driving or walking, and we'll have capital times. Won't that be better than moping here?" "I don't wish to be sent off as if I was in the way," began Amy, in an injured voice. "Bless your heart, child, it's to keep you well. You don't want to be sick, do you?" "No, I'm sure I don't, but I dare say I shall be, for I've been with Beth all the time." "That's the very reason you ought to go away at once, so that you may escape it. Change of air and care will keep you well, I dare say, or if it does not entirely, you will have the fever more lightly.

• From Another Country (1962)

  3On a Saturday in early March, Vivaldo stood at his window and watched the morning rise. The wind blew through the empty streets with a kind of dispirited moan; had been blowing all night long, while Vivaldo sat at his worktable, struggling with a chapter which was not going well. He was terribly weary—he had worked in the bookstore all day and then come downtown to do a moving job—but this was not the reason for his paralysis. He did not seem to know enough about the people in his novel. They did not seem to trust him. They were all named, more or less, all more or less destined, the pattern he wished them to describe was clear to him. But it did not seem clear to them. He could move them about but they themselves did not move. He put words in their mouths which they uttered sullenly, unconvinced. With the same agony, or greater, with which he attempted to seduce a woman, he was trying to seduce his people: he begged them to surrender up to him their privacy. And they refused—without, for all their ugly intransigence, showing the faintest desire to leave him. They were waiting for him to find the key, press the nerve, tell the truth. Then, they seemed to be complaining, they would give him all he wished for and much more than he was now willing to imagine. All night long, in an increasing rage and helplessness, he had walked from his worktable to his window and back again. He made himself coffee, he smoked cigarettes, he looked at the clock—and the night wore on, but his chapter didn’t and he kept feeling that he ought to get some sleep because today, for the first time in several weeks, he was seeing Ida. This was her Saturday off, but she was having a cup of coffee with one of her girl friends in the restaurant where she worked. He was to meet her there, and then they were to visit Richard and Cass. Richard’s novel was about to be published, and it promised to be very successful. Vivaldo, to his confusion and relief, had not found it very remarkable. But he had not had the courage to say this to Richard or to admit to himself that he would never have read the novel if Richard had not written it. All the street sounds eventually ceased—motors, and the silky sound of tires, footfalls, curses, pieces of songs, and loud and prolonged good nights; the last door in his building slammed, the last murmurs, rustling, and creaking ended. The night grew still around him and his apartment grew cold. He lit the oven. They swarmed, then, in the bottom of his mind, his cloud of witnesses, in an air as heavy as the oven heat, clustering, really, around the desired and unknown Ida. Perhaps it was she who caused them to be so silent.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The gray pavements danced and gleamed and sloped. Nothing moved—not a car, not a person, not a cat; and the rain was the only sound. He forgot about going to the store, and merely watched the rain, comforted by the anonymity and the violence—this violence was also peace. And just as the speeding rain distorted, blurred, blunted, all the familiar outlines of walls, windows, doors, parked cars, lamp posts, hydrants, trees, so Eric, now, in his silent watching, sought to blur and blunt and flee from all the conundrums which crowded in on him. How will I ever get to the museum in all this rain? he wondered: but did not dare to wonder what he would say to Cass, what she would say to him. He thought of Yves, thought of him with a sorrow that was close to panic, feeling doubly faithless, feeling that the principal support of his life had shifted—had shifted and would shift again, might fail beneath the dreadful, the accumulating and secret weight. Faintly, from the closed door behind him, he heard Vivaldo whistling. How could he not have known what he was capable of feeling for Vivaldo? And the answer drummed at him as relentlessly as the falling rain fell: he had not known because he had not dared to know. There were so many things one did not dare to know. And were they all patiently waiting, like demons in the dark, to spring from hiding, to reveal themselves, on some rainy Sunday morning? He dropped the blind and turned back into the room. The telephone rang. He stared at it sourly, thinking More revelations , and picked up the receiver. His agent, Harman, shouted in his ear. “Hello there—Eric? I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning, but you’re a pretty hard man to reach. I was thinking of sending you a telegram.” “ Am I hard to find? I’ve just been staying home, it seems to me, curled up with that lovely script. ” “Don’t shit me , sweetheart. I know you’ve got a hard on for that play, but it’s not that big. You just haven’t been answering your phone. Listen——” “Yes?” “About your screen test—you got a pencil?” “Wait a minute.” He found a pencil on his desk, and a scrap of paper, and returned to the phone. “Go ahead, Harman.” “You’re not going to the Coast. It’s fixed up for you to do it here. You know where the Allied Studios are?” “Yes, naturally.” “Well, it’s set for Wednesday morning. Allied, at ten. Listen. Can you have lunch with me tomorrow?” “Yes. I’d love to.” “Good. I’ll fill you in on all the details. Downey’s okay?” “Right. What time?” “One o’clock. Now—you still with me?” “All ears, baby.” “Well, we finally got that meshugena of a broken-down movie star in town and the rehearsal date is definitely set for a week from tomorrow.” “Next week?” “Right.” “Wonderful.

• From Push (1996)

  I sure am. Miz Rain say on Wednesday she gonna talk to us about keeping a journal. Tell us again we gotta bring in another notebook for to be our journal. How is a journal different from a notebook I wanna ask but I never asked a question before in school. I feels little music in my head. I know I'm tripping. I feel the baby in my stomach. Don't feel good. I try not to think about my stomach big like this— the heavy pressing down on my bladder parts, like a fucking watermelon under my skin. See a doctor? My muver want me to go get on welfare. But I'm on welfare—hers. It's like you know, I know she ain't gonna get money for me I am' in school; she gonna always get money for my daughter 'cause she retarded. Maybe somethin' gonna be wrong wif this baby too. I don't care, maybe if new baby Down Sinder I can get my own check. But I don't know if I want check. I wonder what reading books be like. Miz Rain say we almost finished for the day, say she wanna spend some time with each student in little office room to side before we go. Say she gonna call us out one by one in alphabetical order. I feel panicking panicking— I don't know alphabetical order—whas that! Miz Rain say she be in little office, get up, then say unsure like, I never seen teacher unsure ('less you gettin' ready to hit 'era). She say, "Yall can call me Blue if you want." I look her like she crazy—why we want that? I might say some bad things I get mad or somebody fuck with me or somethin', but I try to show respect for peoples. So I say to myself, No, Miz Rain, I don't want call you Blue. "Or ... or," she says, "Rain, some people jus' call me Rain." Her voice got a country soun' to it. Jermaine says, "I like that, Rain." Don' nobody else say nothing. Rhonda git up after Miz Rain gone. Rhonda something. "OK, look at alphabets," she say loud. I wanna say you am' got to talk so loud, but I don't. "OK," she say, "which name go first." Consuelo say, "I guess that's me." I wanna know why but I don't ask. I see Rhonda somethin' else of a lady. Wifout me axin', she say, "You git it Precious?" I says, "No." She say, "Look at the alphabets—anybody name start wif A in here." I shake my head. "Z??" I shake my head no. "C?" Don't shake my head. "Good!" she say. She say, "Consuelo start wif C, she first." She write: 1. Consuelo Who next? she axes me. I don't know. She point to D, E, F, G. I look Jermaine.

• From Wild (2012)

  The Modoc Plateau was different from the Mojave Desert, but it didn’t feel different. Both teemed with jagged desert plants while being entirely inhospitable to human life. Tiny gray and brown lizards either zipped across the trail as I approached or held their position as I passed. Where did they get water? I wondered, trying to stop myself from thinking about how hot and thirsty I was. Where would I? I was three miles away from the water tank, I reckoned. I had eight ounces of water left. Then six. Then four. I forced myself not to drink the last two until I had the water tank in sight and by 4:30 there it was: the stilted legs of the burned fire lookout on a rise in the distance. Nearby was a metal tank propped up against a post. As soon as I saw it, I pulled out my bottle and drank the last of my water, thankful that in a matter of minutes I’d be able to drink my fill from the tank. As I approached, I saw that the wooden post near the tank was covered with something that flapped in the wind. It looked like several shredded ribbons at first and then a ripped cloth. It wasn’t until I got up close that I saw they were tiny scraps of paper—notes stuck to the post with duct tape and now fluttering in the wind. I lurched forward to read them, knowing what they would say even before my eyes met the paper. They said what they said in various ways, but they all bore the same message: NO WATER. I stood motionless for a moment, paralyzed with dread. I gazed into the tank to confirm what was true. There was no water. I had no water. Not even a sip. Nowat​ernow​atern​owate​rnowa​terno​water​nowater. I kicked the dirt and grabbed fistfuls of sage and threw them, furious with myself for yet again doing the wrong thing, for being the same idiot I’d been the very day I set foot on the trail. The same one who had purchased the wrong size boots and profoundly underestimated the amount of money I’d need for the summer, and even maybe the same idiot who believed I could hike this trail.

• From Wild (2012)

  I knew snow. I had grown up in Minnesota, after all. I’d shoveled it, driven in it, and balled it up in my hands to throw. I’d watched it through windows for days as it fell into piles that stayed frozen for months on the ground. But this snow was different. It was snow that covered the Sierra Nevada so indomitably that the mountains had been named for it—in Spanish, Sierra Nevada means “the snowy range.” It seemed absurd to me that I’d been hiking in that snowy range all along—that the arid mountains I’d traversed since the moment I set foot on the PCT were technically part of the Sierra Nevada. But they weren’t the High Sierras—the formidable range of granite peaks and cliffs beyond Kennedy Meadows that mountaineer and writer John Muir had famously explored and adored more than a hundred years before. I hadn’t read Muir’s books about the Sierra Nevada before I hiked the PCT, but I knew he was the founder of the Sierra Club. Saving the Sierra Nevada from sheepherders, mining operations, tourist development, and other encroachments of the modern age had been his lifelong passion. It’s thanks to him and those who supported his cause that most of the Sierra Nevada is still wilderness today. Wilderness that was now apparently snowbound. I wasn’t entirely taken by surprise. The authors of my guidebook had warned me about the snow I might encounter in the High Sierras, and I’d come prepared. Or at least the version of prepared I’d believed was sufficient before I began hiking the PCT: I’d purchased an ice ax and mailed it to myself in the box I would collect at Kennedy Meadows. It had been my assumption when I purchased the ice ax that I’d need it only occasionally, for the highest stretches of trail. The guidebook assured me that in a regular year most of the snow would be melted by the time I hiked the High Sierras in late June and July. It hadn’t occurred to me to investigate whether this had been a regular year. I found a phone book in the bedside table and paged through it, then dialed the number for the local office of the Bureau of Land Management. “Oh, yes, there’s lots of snow up there,” said the woman who answered. She didn’t know the specifics, she told me, but she knew for certain it had been a record year for snowfall in the Sierras. When I told her I was hiking the PCT, she offered to give me a ride to the trail. I hung up the phone feeling more relieved that I didn’t have to hitchhike than worried about the snow. It simply seemed so far away, so impossible.

• From Wild (2012)

  I’ve never gone backpacking! I thought with a rueful hilarity now. I looked suddenly at my pack and the plastic bags I’d toted with me from Portland that held things I hadn’t yet taken from their packaging. My backpack was forest green and trimmed with black, its body composed of three large compartments rimmed by fat pockets of mesh and nylon that sat on either side like big ears. It stood of its own volition, supported by the unique plastic shelf that jutted out along its bottom. That it stood like that instead of slumping over onto its side as other packs did provided me a small, strange comfort. I went to it and touched its top as if I were caressing a child’s head. A month ago, I’d been firmly advised to pack my backpack just as I would on my hike and take it on a trial run. I’d meant to do it before I left Minneapolis, and then I’d meant to do it once I got to Portland. But I hadn’t. My trial run would be tomorrow—my first day on the trail. I reached into one of the plastic bags and pulled out an orange whistle, whose packaging proclaimed it to be “the world’s loudest.” I ripped it open and held the whistle up by its yellow lanyard, then put it around my neck, as if I were a coach. Was I supposed to hike wearing it like this? It seemed silly, but I didn’t know. Like so much else, when I’d purchased the world’s loudest whistle, I hadn’t thought it all the way through. I took it off and tied it to the frame of my pack, so it would dangle over my shoulder when I hiked. There, it would be easy to reach, should I need it. Would I need it? I wondered meekly, bleakly, flopping down on the bed. It was well past dinnertime, but I was too anxious to feel hungry, my aloneness an uncomfortable thunk that filled my gut. “You finally got what you wanted,” Paul had said when we bade each other goodbye in Minneapolis ten days before. “What’s that?” I’d asked. “To be alone,” he replied, and smiled, though I could only nod uncertainly. It had been what I wanted, though alone wasn’t quite it. What I had to have when it came to love was beyond explanation, it seemed. The end of my marriage was a great unraveling that began with a letter that arrived a week after my mother’s death, though its beginnings went back further than that.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Nothing. Will you please call the doctor?” Michael’s voice broke in, high and breaking, with a child’s terror. “Why, that’s the silliest thing I ever heard,” Cass said, in another tone and with great authority; “of course no one’s going to come in here while you’re asleep. Mama and Daddy are here and so is Paul.” Michael’s voice interrupted her again. “It’s all right, we aren’t going out,” Cass said. “We aren’t going out tonight,” Richard said, “and Paul and I are going to teach you some tricks so kids won’t be bothering you any more. By the time we get through, those guys will be afraid of you. If they just see you coming, boy, they’ll take off in a cloud of dust.” He heard Michael’s unsteady laugh. Then he heard the sound of the phone being dialed, and Richard’s voice, and the small ring of the phone as Richard hung up. “I guess we won’t be going downtown with you, after all,” Richard said, coming back into the room. “I’m sorry. I’m sure they’re all right but Cass wants the doctor to look at them and we have to wait for him to get here. Anyway, I don’t think we should leave them alone tonight.” He took Eric’s glass from his hand. “Let me spike this for you.” He walked over to the bar; he was not as calm as he pretended to be. “Little black bastards,” he muttered, “they could have killed the kid. Why the hell can’t they take it out on each other, for Christ’s sake!” “They beat Michael pretty badly?” “Well—they loosened one of his teeth and bloodied his nose—but, mainly, they scared the shit out of him. Thank God Paul was with him.” Then he was silent. “I don’t know. This whole neighborhood, this whole city’s gone to hell. I keep telling Cass we ought to move—but she doesn’t want to. Maybe this will help her change her mind.” “Change my mind about what?” Cass asked. She strode to the low table before the sofa, picked up her cigarettes, and lit one. “Moving out of town,” Richard said. He watched her as he spoke and spoke too quietly, as though he were holding himself in. “I’ve no objection to moving. We just haven’t been able to agree on where to move.” “We haven’t agreed on where to move because all you’ve done is offer objections to every place I suggest. And, since you haven’t made any counter-suggestions, I conclude that you don’t really want to move.” “Oh, Richard.

• From Wild (2012)

  When I was done, I sat on the floor, sweaty from my exertions, and stared peaceably at my pack. And then I remembered one last thing: water. I’d chosen to begin my hike where I had simply because from there I estimated it would take me about a hundred days to walk to Ashland, Oregon—the place I’d originally planned to end my hike because I’d heard good things about the town and thought I might like to stay there to live. Months ago, I’d traced my finger southward down the map, adding up the miles and the days, and stopped at Tehachapi Pass, where the PCT crosses Highway 58 in the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert, not far from the town of Mojave. What I hadn’t realized until a couple of weeks before was that I was beginning my hike on one of the driest sections of the trail, a section where even the fastest, fittest, and most seasoned hikers couldn’t always get from one water source to another each day. For me, it would be impossible. It would take me two days to reach the first water source seventeen miles into my hike, I guessed, so I would have to carry enough to get me through. I filled my 32-ounce bottles in the bathroom sink and put them in my pack’s mesh side pockets. I dug out my dromedary bag from the place I’d crammed it in my pack’s main compartment and filled up all 2.6 gallons of it. Water, I later learned, weighs 8.3 pounds a gallon. I don’t know how much my pack weighed on that first day, but I do know the water alone was 24.5 pounds. And it was an unwieldy 24.5 pounds. The dromedary bag was like a giant flattish water balloon, sloshing and buckling and slipping out of my hands and flipping itself onto the floor as I attempted to secure it to my pack. The bag was rimmed with webbing straps; with great effort I wove the bungee cords through them, next to the camera bag and sandals and the insulated cup and candle lantern, until I grew so frustrated that I pulled out the insulated cup and threw it across the room. Finally, when everything I was going to carry was in the place that I needed to carry it, a hush came over me. I was ready to begin. I put on my watch, looped my sunglasses around my neck by their pink neoprene holder, donned my hat, and looked at my pack. It was at once enormous and compact, mildly adorable and intimidatingly self-contained. It had an animate quality; in its company, I didn’t feel entirely alone. Standing, it came up to my waist. I gripped it and bent to lift it. It wouldn’t budge.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She turned back to wave at him and the cab turned west. It was like waving good-bye to land: and she could not guess what might have befallen her when, and if, she ever saw land again. At Twelfth Street and Seventh Avenue she made the driver carry her one block more, to the box office of the Loew’s Sheridan; then she paid him and walked out and actually climbed the stairs to the balcony of this hideous place of worship, and sat down. She lit a cigarette, glad of the darkness but not protected by it; and she watched the screen, but all she saw were the extraordinarily unconvincing wiggles of a girl whose name, incredibly enough, appeared to be Doris Day. She thought, irrelevantly, I never should come to movies, I can’t stand them, and then she began to cry. She wept looking straight ahead, this latter rain coming between her and James Cagney’s great, red face, which seemed, at least, thank heaven, to be beyond the possibilities of make-up. Then she looked at her watch, noting that it was exactly eight o’clock. Is that good or bad? she wondered idiotically—knowing, which was always part of her trouble, that she was being idiotic. My God, you’re thirty-four years old, go on downstairs and call him. But she forced herself to wait, wondering all the time if she were waiting too long or would be calling too early. Finally, during the heaviest of the wide screen’s technicolored stormy weather, she walked down the stairs and entered the phone booth. She dialed his number and got the answering service. She crawled back upstairs and found her seat again. But she could not bear the movie, which showed no signs of ever ending. At nine o’clock, she walked downstairs again, intending to walk and have a drink somewhere and go home. Home. And she dialed the number again. It rang once, twice; then the receiver was picked up; there was a silence. Then, in an aggressive drawl, “Hello?” She caught her breath. “Hello?” “Hello. Eric?” “Yes.” “Well, it’s me. Cass.” “Oh,” and then, quickly, “How are you, Cass, it’s good of you to call me. I’ve been sitting here trying to read this play and going out of my mind and feeling suicidal.” “I imagine,” she said, “that you may have been expecting this call.” For never let it be said, she thought, now really in the teeth of irreality and anguish, that I don’t lay my cards on the table. “What did you say, Cass?” But she knew, from the rhythm of his question, that he had understood her. “I said, ‘You may have been expecting this call.’ ” After a moment, he said, “Yes. In a way.” Then, “Where are you, Cass?” “I’m around the corner from your house. Can I come up?” “Please do.” “All right.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Once or twice a week, sometimes, or once every two or three weeks, she went to Harlem, never inviting him to come along. Or she was sitting in with some musicians in Peekskill or Poughkeepsie or Washington or Philadelphia or Baltimore or Queens. He drove down with her once, with the other musicians, to a joint in Washington. But the atmosphere was deadly; the musicians had not wanted him along. The people in the joint had liked him well enough but had also seemed to wonder what he was doing there—or perhaps it was only he who wondered it; and Ida had sung only two songs, which did not seem much after such a long trip, and she had not sung them well. He felt that this had something to do with the attitude of the musicians, who seemed to want to punish her, and with the uneasy defiance with which she forced herself to face their judgment. It was only too clear that if he had been a powerful white man, their attitudes would have been modified by the assumption that she was using him; but it was obvious that, as things were, he could do her no good whatever and, therefore, he must be using her. Neither did Ida have the professional standing which would force them to accept him as the whim, the house pet, or husband of a star. He had no function, they did: they pulled rank on him, they closed ranks against him. There was speedily accumulating, then, between Ida and Vivaldo, great areas of the unspoken, vast minefields which neither dared to cross. They never spoke of Washington, nor did he ever again accompany her on such out-of-town jaunts. They never spoke of her family, or of his. After his long, tormenting Wednesday night, Vivaldo found that he lacked the courage to mention the name of Steve Ellis. He knew that Ellis was sending her to a more exclusive and celebrated singing teacher, as well as to a coach, and intended to arrange a recording date for her. Ida and Vivaldo buried their disputes in silence, in the mined field. It seemed better than finding themselves hoarse, embittered, gasping, and more than ever alone. He did not wish to hear himself accused, again, of trying to stand between her and her career—did not wish to hear it because there was more than a little truth to this accusation. Of course, he also felt that she, although unconsciously, was attempting to stand between himself and his fulfillment. But he did not want to say this. It would have made too clear their mutual panic, their terror of being left alone.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The rice came to a boil and she moved hastily away from him to turn down the flame. “My Mama always told me, honey, you can’t cook and talk.” “Well, stop cooking!” She gave him that look, coquettish, wide-eyed, and amused, which he had known so long. But now there was something desperate in it; had there always been something desperate in this look? “But you said you were hungry!” “Stop that. It’s not funny, okay?” He led her to the table. “I want to know what’s happening. Is it something Richard said?” “I am not trying to be funny. I would like to feed you.” Then, with a sudden burst of anger, “It’s got nothing to do with Richard. What, after all, can Richard say?” He had had some wild idea that Richard had made up a story about himself and Eric, and he had been on the point of denying it. He recovered, hoping that she had not been aware of his panic; but his panic increased. He said, very gently, “Well, then, what is it, Ida?” She said, wearily, “Oh, it’s too many things, it goes too far back, I can never make you understand it, never.” “Try me. You say you love me. Why can’t you trust me?” She laughed. “Oh. You think life is so simple.” She looked up at him and laughed again And this laughter was unbearable. He wanted to strike her, not in anger, only to make the laughter stop; but he forced himself to stand still, and did nothing. “Because—I know you’re older than I am—I always think of you as being much younger. I always think of you as being a very nice boy who doesn’t know what the score is, who’ll maybe never find out. And I don’t want to be the one to teach you.” She said the last in a venomous undertone, looking down again at her hands. “Okay. Go on.” “Go on?” She looked up at him in a strange, wild way. “You want me to go on?” He said, “Please stop tormenting me, Ida. Please go on.” “Am I tormenting you?” “You want it in writing?” Her face changed, she rose from the table and walked back to the stove. “I’m sure it must seem like that to you,” she said—very humbly. She moved to the sink and leaned against it, watching him. “But I wasn’t trying to torment you—whenever I did. I don’t think that I thought about that at all. In fact, I know I didn’t, I’ve never had the time.” She watched his face. “I’ve just realized lately that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, certainly more than I can swallow.” He winced.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “You can say that the Silenskis, that model couple, were having their Sunday fight,” said Richard; his face very white, breathing hard, staring at Cass. Eric set his drink down, carefully; he wanted to run. “I’ll just say you had to stay in on account of the kids.” “Tell Vivaldo to take it as a warning. This is what happens if you have kids, this is what happens if you get what you want.” And, for a moment, he looked utterly baffled and juvenile. Then, “Hell, I’m sorry, Eric. We never meant to submit you to such a melodramatic afternoon. Please come and see us again; we don’t do this all the time, we really don’t. I’ll walk you to the door.” “It’s all right,” Eric said. “I’m a big boy, I understand.” He walked over to Cass and they shook hands. “It was nice seeing you.” “It was good seeing you. Don’t let all that light fade.” He laughed, but these words chilled him, too. “I’ll try to keep burning,” he said. He and Richard walked to the hall door. Cass stood still in the center of the living room. Richard opened the door. “So long, kid. Can we call you—has Cass got your number?” “Yes. And I have yours.” “Okay. See you soon.” “Sure thing. So long.” “So long.” The door closed behind him. He was again in the anonymous, breathing corridor, surrounded by locked doors. He found his handkerchief and wiped his forehead, thinking of the millions of disputes being waged behind locked doors. He rang for the elevator. It arrived, driven by another, older man who was eating a sandwich; he was dumped into the streets again. The long block on which Cass and Richard lived was quiet and empty now, waiting for the night. He hailed a cab on the Avenue and was whirled downtown. His destination was a bar on the eastern end of the Village, which had, until recently, been merely another neighborhood bar. But now it specialized in jazz, and functioned sometimes as a showcase for younger but not entirely untried or unknown talents or personalities. The current attraction was advertised in the small window by a handprinted, cardboard poster; he recognized the name of a drummer he and Rufus had known years ago, who would not remember him; in the window, too, were excerpts from newspaper columns and magazines, extolling the unorthodox virtues of the place. The unorthodox, therefore, filled the room, which was very small, low-ceilinged, with a bar on one side and tables and chairs on the other. At the far end of the bar, the room widened, making space for more tables and chairs, and a very narrow corridor led to the rest rooms and the kitchen; and in this widened space, catty-corner to the room, stood a small, cruelly steep bandstand.