Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  I don’t see how they could miss them. What kind should we do? —Seconal, definitely, Paul said. —Hey, as long as it does the job, Davenport said. I am not picky. —You don’t think this is going to, you know, be a problem with the beers? —Check the expiration date, Paul said. I thought they looked pretty cool. The need behind teen oblivion overcame any reservations. Which was the way Paul figured it would go. Soon the three of them were crowded into the bathroom, around the medicine cabinet, looking at the little prescription containers. Libbets’s hands were shaking as she handed around the reds. And Paul was moved by this. He put his hand lightly around her shoulder, her soft and fragrant shoulder. Did she notice? They were each embarked on a solitary narrative of intoxication. Repartee wasn’t part of the whole thing. Davenport looked the capsules over admiringly, like a collector of fine wines. Paul let his settle under his tongue. He felt a little bad about how easy it was, leading Davenport down this road, but in the long run, by late next week, they would forgive one another. —Hey, maybe you should only take a half, old lady, Hood said to Libbets. Why don’t you put half in a glass of orange juice or something? You don’t weigh as much as we do. —You guys aren’t trying to rip me off or anything, are you? Libbets said. It was almost like she was going to cry for a second. Paul was shaking his head, he was trying to wave her off. She swallowed the whole thing. —No way, Davenport said. You mean so we could have our way with your sleeping body? Davenport laughed grimly. Libbets had breasts and hips—she was curvy in fact, she was all gentle curves—hidden under her baggy army fatigues and sweatshirt. Two against one, that was Davenport’s idea. Her parents wouldn’t be home for days. No, Paul would defend her against Davenport. Take me, but leave the girl alone. She was friendlier than she wanted to be, she smiled more than she wanted to smile. The fact that she’d permitted losers like Hood and Davenport into her manse proved it. Thank God these exceptions arose. Thank God for drinking a bottle of wine with Liza during first class Friday morning. Thank God for snorting speed with Laura and Dave and going to the Tuck Shop to eat malted milk balls. Thank God for the confraternity of burnouts. —Naw, Davenport said, we had a period in which we loved unconscious women, but we’re over that now. Time stretched out. The world was full of information, but it was all happening more slowly. Paul buried his capsule in a potted palm by the window. But he was succumbing to the pot and beer. Some labyrinthine and endless decision was being made about whether or not to go to a nightclub called Max’s something or other.

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

  There was thus little fear of being plucked, and examinations were held not once but four times in the year. They could not be felt as a difficulty. But I succeeded in turning them into one. I felt that I should read all the text-books. It was a fraud, I thought, not to read these books. I invested much money in them. I decided to read Roman Law in Latin. The Latin which I had acquired in the London Matriculation stood me in good stead. And all this reading was not without its value later on in South Africa, where Roman Dutch is the common law. The reading of Justinian, therefore, helped me a great deal in understanding the South African law. It took me nine months of fairly hard labour to read through the Common Law of England. For Broom’s Common Law, a big but interesting volume, took up a good deal of time. Snell’s Equity was full of interest, but a bit hard to understand. White and Tudor’s LeadingCases, from which certain cases were prescribed, was full of interest and instruction. I read also with interest Williams’ and Edwards’ Real Property, and Goodeve’s Personal Property. Williams’ book read like a novel. The one book I remember to have read on my return to India, with the same unflagging interest, was Mayne’s Hindu Law. But it is out of place to talk here of Indian law-books. I passed my examinations, was called to the bar on the 10th of June 1891, and enrolled in the High Court on the 11th. On the 12th sailed for home. But notwithstanding my study there was no end to my helplessness and fear. I did not feel myself qualified to practise law. But a separate chapter is needed to describe this helplessness of mine. 27MY HELPLESSNESSIt 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?

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

  I saw that my voice could reach only a few. I was trembling as I began to read my speech. Sir Pherozeshah cheered me up continually by asking me to speak louder and still louder. I have a feeling that, far from encouraging me, it made my voice sink lower and lower. My old friend Sjt. Keshavrao Deshpande came to my rescue. I handed my speech to him. His was just the proper voice. But the audience refused to listen. The hall rang with the cries of ‘Wacha,’ ‘Wacha.’ So Mr. Wacha stood up and read the speech, with wonderful results. The audience became perfectly quiet, and listened to the speech to the end, punctuating it with applause and cries of ‘shame’ where necessary. This gladdened my heart. Sir Pherozeshah liked the speech. I was supremely happy. The meeting won me the active sympathy of Sjt. Deshpande and a Parsi friend, whose name I hesitate to mention, as he is a high-placed Government official today. Both expressed their resolve to accompany me to South Africa. Mr. C. M. Cursetji, who was then Small Causes Court Judge, however, moved the Parsi friend from his resolve as he had plotted his marriage. He had to choose between marriage and going to South Africa, and he chose the former. But Parsi Rustomji made amends for the broken resolve, and a number of Parsi sisters are now making amends for the lady who helped in the breach by dedicating themselves to Khadi work. I have therefore gladly forgiven that couple, Sjt. Deshpande had no temptations of marriage, but he too could not come. Today he is himself doing enough reparation for the broken pledge. On my way back to South Africa I met one of the Tyabjis at Zanzibar. He also promised to come and help me, but never came. Mr. Abbas Tyabji is atoning for that offence. Thus none of my three attempts to induce barristers to go to South Africa bore any fruit. In this connection I remember Mr. Pestonji Padshah. I had been on friendly terms with him ever since my stay in England. I first met him in a vegetarian restaurant in London. I knew of his brother Mr. Barjorji padshah by his reputation as a ‘crank’. I had never met him, but friends said that he was eccentric. Out of pity for the horses he would not ride in tram-cars, he refused to take degrees in spite of a prodigious memory, he had developed an independent spirit, and he was a vegetarian, though a Parsi. Pestonji had not quite this reputation, but he was famous for his erudition even in London. The common factor between us, however, was vegetarianism, and not scholarship in which it was beyond my power to approach him. I found him out again in Bombay. He was Prothonotary in the High Court. When I met him he was engaged on his contribution to a Higher Gujarati Dictonary.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "You must have a nurse or somebody, to look after you personally. You should really have a manservant," said Hilda as they sat, with apparent calmness, at coffee after dinner. She spoke in her soft, seemingly gentle way, but Clifford felt she was hitting him on the head with a bludgeon. "You think so?" he said coldly. "I'm sure! It's necessary. Either that, or father and I must take Connie away for some months. This can't go on." "What can't go on?" "Haven't you looked at the child?" asked Hilda, gazing at him full stare. He looked rather like a huge, boiled crayfish, at the moment; or so she thought. "Connie and I will discuss it," he said. "I've already discussed it with her," said Hilda. Clifford had been long enough in the hands of nurses; he hated them, because they left him no real privacy. And a manservant! ... he couldn't stand a man hanging round him. Almost better any woman. But why not Connie? The two sisters drove off in the morning, Connie looking rather like an Easter lamb, rather small beside Hilda, who held the wheel. Sir Malcolm was away, but the Kensington house was open. The doctor examined Connie carefully, and asked her all about her life. "I see your photograph, and Sir Clifford's, in the illustrated papers sometimes. Almost notorieties, aren't you? That's how the quiet little girls grow up, though you're only a quiet little girl even now, in spite of the illustrated papers. No, no! There's nothing organically wrong, but it won't do! it won't do! Tell Sir Clifford he's got to bring you to town, or take you abroad, and amuse you. You've got to be amused, got to! Your vitality is much too low; no reserves, no reserves. The nerves of the heart a bit queer already: oh, yes! Nothing but nerves; I'd put you right in a month at Cannes or Biarritz. But it mustn't go on, _mustn't_, I tell you, or I won't be answerable for consequences. You're spending your life without renewing it. You've got to be amused, properly, healthily amused. You're spending your vitality without making any. Can't go on, you know. Depression! avoid depression!" Hilda set her jaw, and that meant something.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Bruno and Buffalmacco and Nello were like to burst with laughter, hearing Calandrino's words; however, they contained themselves, but Doctor Simple-Simon[427] laughed so immoderately that you might have drawn every tooth in his head. Finally, Calandrino commending himself to the physician and praying him give him aid and counsel in this his strait, the latter said to him, 'Calandrino, I will not have thee lose heart; for, praised be God, we have taken the case so betimes that, in a few days and with a little trouble, I will deliver thee thereof; but it will cost thee some little expense.' 'Alack, doctor mine,' cried Calandrino, 'ay, for the love of God, do it! I have here two hundred crowns, wherewith I was minded to buy me an estate; take them all, if need be, so I be not brought to bed; for I know not how I should do, seeing I hear women make such a terrible outcry, whereas they are about to bear child, for all they have ample commodity therefor, that methinketh, if I had that pain to suffer, I should die ere I came to the bringing forth.' Quoth the doctor, 'Have no fear of that; I will let make thee a certain ptisan of distilled waters, very good and pleasant to drink, which will in three mornings' time carry off everything and leave thee sounder than a fish; but look thou be more discreet for the future and suffer not thyself fall again into these follies. Now for this water it behoveth us have three pairs of fine fat capons, and for other things that are required thereanent, do thou give one of these (thy comrades) five silver crowns, so he may buy them, and let carry everything to my shop; and to-morrow, in God's name, I will send thee the distilled water aforesaid, whereof thou shalt proceed to drink a good beakerful at a time.' 'Doctor mine,' replied Calandrino, 'I put myself in your hands'; and giving Bruno five crowns and money for three pairs of capons, he besought him to oblige him by taking the pains to buy these things. [Footnote 427: _Scimmione_ (lit. ape), a contemptuous distortion of _Simone_.]

• 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 Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Probably it was more a mental vertigo, an uneasiness in which my inner equilibrium was on the point of being destroyed by the sight of his every perilous movement.And this instability was made even more precarious by the fact that within it two contrary forces were pulling at me, contending for supremacy. One was the instinct of self-preservation. The second force—which was bent, even more profoundly, more intensely, upon the complete disintegration of my inner balance—was a compulsion toward suicide, that subtle and secret impulse to which a person often unconsciously surrenders himself. "What's the matter with you, you bunch of cowards! Isn't there anyone else?" Omi's body was gently swinging to the right and left, his hips bending with the motions of the log. He placed his white-gloved hands on his hips. The gilded badge on his cap glittered in the morning sun. I had never seen him so handsome as at that moment. "I'll do it!" I cried. My heartbeats had steadily increased in violence, and using them as a measure, I had exactly estimated the moment when I would finally say these words. It has always been thus with moments in which I yield to desire. It seemed to me that my going and standing against Omi on that log was a predestined fact, rather than merely an impulsive action. In later years, such actions as this misled me into thinking I was "a man of strong will." "Watch out! Watch out! You'll get licked," everyone shouted.Amid their cheers of derision I climbed up on one end of the log. While I was trying to get up, my feet began slipping, and again the air was full of noisy jeers. Omi greeted me with a clowning face. He played the fool with all his might and pretended to be slipping. Again, he would tease me by fluttering his gloved fingers at me. To my eyes those fingers were the sharp points of some dangerous weapon, about to run me through. The palms of our white-gloved hands met many times in stinging slaps, and each time I reeled under the force of the blow. It was obvious that he was deliberately holding back his strength, as though wanting to make sport of me to his heart's content, postponing what would otherwise have been my quick defeat. "Oh! I'm frightened—How strong you are!—I'm licked. I'm just about to fall—look at me!" He stuck out his tongue and pretended to fall. It was unbearably painful for me to see his clownish face, to see him unwittingly destroy his own beauty. Even though I was now gradually being forced back along the log, I could not keep from lowering my eyes. And just at that instant I was caught by a swoop of his right hand.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  “There’s no mandatory age for completion of that requirement.” I wonder if I can get away with that line when I’m thirty-five. How about when I’m sixty-five? Of course, I could cut through this shit, pretending to look for a job, if I would let the agency put me on a baby farm, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. I can’t imagine telling some little shaver why Mommy sleeps until dark and then goes for long, long walks with a riding crop stuck down her pants leg. Even if I didn’t have to raise the rug rat (and, come to think of it, I doubt they’d let me), it makes me nervous to think about bequeathing my genes to some poor kid who might get fucked up by them. I didn’t ask to have these exotic sexual preferences or this rebellious streak that’s always doing an eagle on society’s expectations. I cope with myself as best I can; I won’t willingly pass the same problems on to someone else. “Well, technically, I suppose you’re right … ” She finally turned the page over. I can’t believe how long this is taking. Once again, my exasperating need to survive has trapped me in very unpleasant circumstances. In order to qualify for rehabilitation, I must demonstrate that our equal-opportunity economy has no use for skills I presently possess. This is the fourth interview my case worker has sent me to, and if they reject me, I can go on the dole and get assigned to some sort of technical training. This amounts to a monthly pittance that will barely pay my rent. But, hey, I could wind up back here, fixing the air conditioner. I try not to think about how I’m going to feed myself now that I’ve fallen into the clutches of the welfare bureaucracy. That tofu-faced social worker is already talking about how I can’t really afford the luxury of an individual cubicle and if I am sincere about rehabilitation I should remove myself from the influence of anti-social elements and live in a dorm. I just play dumb, and she patiently, sweetly explains it all over again. I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ll go on, somehow, I’ll find another chink to slip through, another crack in the system just big enough for my escape. “Is Mann your real surname?” “Well, it’s not my original name. But it’s a legal change. I wanted to anticipate questions about my gender.” She doesn’t get the joke. (My first name is Noh.) She shakes her head, disgusted. I am in bad taste. I have abused a fine feminist law that allowed the daughters of the revolution to sever their identities from the syringe full of soldier’s semen that begat them. She resumes reading. It occurred to me that I should be gentle with her. This may be our first time. She’s moving her lips. Our literacy rate isn’t what it should be.

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

  Otherwise agriculture is of course there for me.’ So I had to be Ravishankar’s teacher. Time I had enough. I began to do half the cooking myself and introduced the English experiments in vegetarian cookery. I invested in a stove, and with Ravishankar began to run the kitchen. I had no scruples about interdining, Ravishankar too came to have none, and so we went on merrily together. There was only one obstacle. Ravishankar had sworn to remain dirty and to keep the food unclean! But it was impossible for me to get along in Bombay for more than four or five months, there being no income to square with the ever- increasing expenditure. This was how I began life. I found the barrister’s profession a bad job – much show and little knowledge. I felt a crushing sense of my responsibility. 30THE FIRST CASEWhile in Bombay, I began, on the one hand, my study of Indian law and, on the other, my experiments in dietetics in which Virchand Gandhi, a friend, joined me. My brother, for his part, was trying his best to get me briefs. The study of Indian law was a tedious business. The Civil Procedure Code I could in no way get on with. Not so however, with the Evidence Act. Virchand Gandhi was reading for the Solicitor’s Examination and would tell me all sorts of stories about barristers and vakils. ‘Sir Pherozeshah’s ability,’ he would say, ‘lies in his profound knowledge of law. He has the Evidence Act by heart and knows all the cases on the thirty- second section. Badruddin Tyabji’s wonderful power of argument inspires the judges with awe.’ The stories of stalwarts such as these would unnerve me. ‘It is not unusual,’ he would add, ‘for a barrister to vegetate for five or seven years. That’s why I have signed the articles for solicitorship. You should count yourself luckly if you can paddle your own canoe in three years’ time.’ Expenses were mounting up every month. To have a barister’s board outside the house, whilst still preparing for the barrister’s profession inside, was a thing to which I could not reconcile myself. Hence I could not give undivided attention to my studies. I developed some liking for the Evidence Act and read Mayne’s Hindu Law with deep interest, but I had not the courage to conduct a case. I was helpless beyond words, even as the bride come fresh to her father-in- law’s house! About this time, I took up the case of one Mamibai. It was a ‘small cause.’ ‘You will have to pay some commission to the tout,’ I was told. I emphatically declined. ‘But even that great criminal lawyer Mr. So-and-So, who makes three to four thousand a month, pays commission!’ ‘I do not need to emulate him,’ I rejoined. ‘I should be content with Rs. 300 a month. Father did not get more.’ ‘But those days are gone. Expenses in Bombay have gone up frightfully.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  The next afternoon she went to the wood again. She followed the broad riding that swerved round and up through the larches to a spring called John's Well. It was cold on this hillside, and not a flower in the darkness of larches. But the icy little spring softly pressed upwards from its tiny well-bed of pure, reddish-white pebbles. How icy and clear it was! brilliant! The new keeper had no doubt put in fresh pebbles. She heard the faint tinkle of water, as the tiny overflow trickled over and down hill. Even above the hissing boom of the larchwood, that spread its bristling, leafless, wolfish darkness on the downslope, she heard the tinkle as of tiny water-bells. This place was a little sinister, cold, damp. Yet the well must have been a drinking-place for hundreds of years. Now no more. Its tiny cleared space was lush and cold and dismal. She rose and went slowly towards home. As she went she heard a faint tapping away on the right, and stood still to listen. Was it hammering, or a woodpecker? It was surely hammering. She walked on, listening. And then she noticed a narrow track between young fir trees, a track that seemed to lead nowhere. But she felt it had been used. She turned down it adventurously, between the thick young firs, which gave way soon to the old oak-wood. She followed the track, and the hammering grew nearer, in the silence of the windy wood, for trees make a silence even in their noise of wind. She saw a secret little clearing, and a secret little hut made of rustic poles. And she had never been here before! She realised it was the quiet place where the growing pheasants were reared; the keeper in his shirtsleeves was kneeling, hammering. The dog trotted forward with a short, sharp bark, and the keeper lifted his face suddenly and saw her. He had a startled look in his eyes. He straightened himself and saluted, watching her in silence, as she came forward with weakening limbs. He resented the intrusion, he cherished his solitude as his only and last freedom in life. "I wondered what the hammering was," she said, feeling weak and breathless, and a little afraid of him, as he looked so straight at her. "Ah'm gettin' th' coops ready for th' young bods," he said, in broad vernacular. She did not know what to say, and she felt weak. "I should like to sit down a bit," she said. "Come and sit 'ere i' th' 'ut," he said, going in front of her to the hut, pushing aside some timber and stuff, and drawing out a rustic chair, made of hazel sticks. "Am Ah t' light yer a little fire?" he asked, with the curious naiveté of the dialect. "Oh, don't bother," she replied.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  No one answered. Mellors was slinging his gun over his shoulder, his face queer and expressionless, save for an abstracted look of patience. The dog Flossie, standing on guard almost between her master's legs, moved uneasily, eyeing the chair with great suspicion and dislike, and very much perplexed between the three human beings. The _tableau vivant_ remained set among the squashed bluebells, nobody proffering a word. "I expect she'll have to be pushed," said Clifford at last, with an affectation of _sang froid_. No answer. Mellors' abstracted face looked as if he had heard nothing. Connie glanced anxiously at him. Clifford too glanced round. "Do you mind pushing her home, Mellors!" he said in a cool, superior tone. "I hope I have said nothing to offend you," he added, in a tone of dislike. "Nothing at all, Sir Clifford! Do you want me to push that chair?" "If you please." The man stepped up to it: but this time it was without effect. The brake was jammed. They poked and pulled, and the keeper took off his gun and his coat once more. And now Clifford said never a word. At last the keeper heaved the back of the chair off the ground, and with an instantaneous push of his foot, tried to loosen the wheels. He failed, the chair sank. Clifford was clutching the sides. The man gasped with the weight. "Don't do it!" cried Connie to him. "If you'll pull the wheel that way, so!" he said to her, showing her how. "No! You mustn't lift it! You'll strain yourself," she said, flushed now with anger. But he looked into her eyes and nodded. And she had to go and take hold of the wheel, ready. He heaved and she tugged, and the chair reeled. "For God's sake!" cried Clifford in terror. But it was all right, and the brake was off. The keeper put a stone under the wheel, and went to sit on the bank, his heart beating and his face white with the effort, semi-conscious. Connie looked at him, and almost cried with anger. There was a pause and a dead silence. She saw his hands trembling on his thighs. "Have you hurt yourself?" she asked, going to him. "No. No!" he turned away almost angrily. There was dead silence. The back of Clifford's fair head did not move. Even the dog stood motionless. The sky had clouded over. At last he sighed, and blew his nose on his red handkerchief. "That pneumonia took a lot out of me," he said. No one answered. Connie calculated the amount of strength it must have taken to heave up that chair and the bulky Clifford: too much, far too much! If it hadn't killed him! He rose, and again picked up his coat, slinging it through the handle of the chair. "Are you ready, then, Sir Clifford?" "When you are!"

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Until then she had been so frightened by the frequent attacks of autointoxication I have already mentioned that she had forbidden me to eat all "blue-skinned" fish. My diet had been carefully limited: of fish, I was allowed only such white-flesh kinds as halibut, turbot, or red snapper; of potatoes, only those mashed and strained through a colander; of sweets, all bean-jams were forbidden and there were only light biscuits, wafers, and other such dry confections; and of fruits, only apples cut in thin slices, or small portions of mandarin oranges. Hence it was on this visit that I ate my first blue-skinned fish—a yellowtail—which I devoured with immense satisfaction. Its delicate flavor signified for me that I had finally been accorded the first of my adult rights, but at the same time it left a rather bitter tang of uneasiness upon the tip of my tongue—uneasiness at becoming an adult—which still recalls me to a feeling of discomfort whenever I taste that flavor. Sugiko was a healthy girl, overflowing with life. I myself had never been able to go to sleep easily, and when staying at her house and lying in the same room on the pallet next to hers, I would watch with a mixture of envy and admiration how Sugiko always fell asleep instantly upon lowering her head to the pillow, exactly like a machine. I had many times more freedom at Sugiko's house than at my own. As the imaginary enemies who must want to steal me away—my parents, in short—were not present, my grandmother had no qualms about giving me more liberty. There was no need to keep me always within reach of her eyes, as when at home. And yet I was unable to take any great pleasure in this freedom that was allowed me. Like an invalid taking his first steps during convalescence, I had a feeling of stiffness as though I were acting under the compulsion of some imaginary obligation. I missed my bed of idleness. And in this house it was tacitly required that I act like a boy. The reluctant masquerade had begun. At about this time I was beginning to understand vaguely the mechanism of the fact that what people regarded as a pose on my part was actually an expression of my need to assert my true nature, and that it was precisely what people regarded as my true self which was a masquerade. It was this unwilling masquerade that made me say: "Let's play war."

• 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.