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 Macho Sluts (1988)

  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. My paraphernalia is a problem. Some of it is probably illegal. The law is vague. One hustler I know got raided, and the only kinky thing they could find was a riding crop, so they busted him on an old statute against cruelty to animals. Vibrators are okay if they can’t be inserted, but dildoes are “a device which demeans women.” So I’ve got a secret hiding place. It’s actually a crate, but it looks like a window seat. It doubles as a whipping bench. I try to keep everything put away in there under a false bottom. But there’s no way to really hide what I do and still be able to do it. Besides, if the public safety officers want to get you, all they need to do is drop a nickel bag of junk on your pillow and “discover” it. My pride and joy is a complete set of leather restraints.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  The story of Rudolph was menacing. In Rudolph’s ascendance to lead reindeer, Paul sensed the machinations of thought control and government intrusion. He kept coming out of his hallucination to find the abominable snowman threatening the town. He had tried to cheer himself up by singing along with “Silver and Gold,” but it didn’t do the trick. —Hood, someone said. Hood, something wrong? —Don’t interrupt. Concentrating. Or maybe he was feigning romantic transportation. Suddenly. Because the Bear, Carla Bear, not only a fan of Rudolph and his cousin Frosty the Snowman, but the kind of girl who could quote from Miracle on 34th Street and dance along with the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of The Nutcracker, was sitting next to him. And yes, he realized that the Bear was trying to calm him down. Carla Bear, one of the intrepid first women of St. Pete’s. She had enrolled as a third-former in 1971, the first year of coeducation. She was leaning against him on the gray synthetic banquette and comforting him. And during a sequence in which Rudolph was being ridiculed by the other reindeer, or was it later, he encircled her in his arms. It overcame him. He yielded. —It’s okay, kiddo, she said. It’s okay. She had a big maternal heart. —I hate Thanksgiving, too, kiddo, she said. Who wouldn’t? Why would you want to go home? On the other hand, staying here isn’t so great either, y’know? And Paul was sure she was telling the truth. St. Pete’s was where the affluent families of the East unloaded their heirs, where they penned them until college. The Bear knew, because, he had heard, her own mother, her single mother, was ill. Dying. Tumors. Cancer of some kind. There were kids at St. Pete’s whose parents would be removed from this very Thanksgiving table to have their stomachs pumped of sleeping pills. Whose siblings had hanged themselves or gassed themselves or who had driven expensive cars into the ocean. There were kids here whose only relative was a trust-fund officer. These were kids from devastated families. Devastated and wealthy. —Shut up, someone said. Paul couldn’t hear the program. He had his arms around Carla. A little elf cheerfully rode a Norelco cordless razor across a snow-covered landscape. Over a mogul, into the air. Paul wanted this embrace to work magic. He was dimly aware that the common room was full of writhing embraces. He was seized with laughter. Something wasn’t working. So Paul put his hand inside the Bear’s pink button-down shirt and felt the lace margins of her brassiere. There was an overpowering gentleness in the space close to a woman’s heart. He was drawn to it, but at that moment he couldn’t possibly say why. Carla the Bear neither encouraged nor denied. In the next stillness, during the next commercial break, he let his hand stray even further, to her breast—small, serene, and comforting.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Well!" she said. "I had to do a good bit of coaxing, with him too. But he always knew what I was after, I must say that. But he generally gave in to me." "He was never the lord and master thing?" "No! At least there'd be a look in his eyes sometimes, and then I knew _I'd_ got to give in. But usually he gave in to me. No, he was never lord and master. But neither was I. I knew when I could go no further with him, and then I gave in: though it cost me a good bit, sometimes." "And what if you had held out against him?" "Oh, I don't know. I never did. Even when he was in the wrong, if he was fixed, I gave in. You see I never wanted to break what was between us. And if you really set your will against a man, that finishes it. If you care for a man, you have to give in to him once he's really determined; whether you're in the right or not, you have to give in. Else you break something. But I must say, Ted 'ud give in to me sometimes, when I was set on a thing, and in the wrong. So I suppose it cuts both ways." "And that's how you are with all your patients?" asked Connie. "Oh, that's different. I don't care at all, in the same way. I know what's good for them, or I try to, and then I just contrive to manage them for their own good. It's not like anybody as you're really fond of. It's quite different. Once you've been really fond of a man, you can be affectionate to almost any man, if he needs you at all. But it's not the same thing. You don't really _care_. I doubt, once you've _really_ cared, if you can ever really care again." These words frightened Connie. "Do you think one can only care once?" she asked. "Or never. Most women never care, never begin to. They don't know what it means. Nor men either. But when I see a woman as cares, my heart stands still for her." "And do you think men easily take offence?" "Yes! If you wound them on their pride. But aren't women the same? Only our two prides are a bit different." Connie pondered this. She began again to have some misgiving about her going away. After all, was she not giving the man the go-by, if only for a short time? And he knew it. That's why he was so queer and sarcastic. Still! the human existence is a good deal controlled by the machine of external circumstance. She was in the power of this machine. She couldn't extricate herself all in five minutes. She didn't even want to.

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

  The question of the rearing of children had been ever before me. I had two sons born in South Africa, and my service in the hospital was useful in solving the question of their upbringing. My independent spirit was a constant source of trial. My wife and I had decided to have the best medical aid at the time of her delivery, but if the doctor and the nurse were to leave us in the lurch at the right moment, what was I to do? Then the nurse had to be an Indian. And the difficulty of getting a trained Indian nurse in South Africa can be easily imagined from the similar difficulty in India. So I studied the things necessary for safe labour. I read Dr. Tribhuvandas’ book, #Ma-ne Shikhaman# – Advice to a mother – and I nursed both my children according to the instructions given in the book, tempered here and there by experience as I had gained elsewhere. The services of a nurse were utilized-not for more than two months each time-chiefly for helping my wife and not for taking care of the babies, which I did myself. The birth of the last child put me to the severest test. The travail came on suddenly. The doctor was not immediately available, and some time was lost in fetching the midwife. Even if she had been on the spot, she could not have helped delivery. I had to see through the safe delivery of the baby. My careful study of the subject in Dr. Tribhuvandas’ work was of inestimable help. I was not nervous. I am convinced that for the proper upbringing of children the parents ought to have a general knowledge of the care and nursing of babies. At every step I have seen the advantages of my careful study of the subject. My children would not have enjoyed the general health that they do today, had I not studied the subject and turned my knowledge to account. We labour under a sort of superstition that a child has nothing to learn during the first five years of its life. On the contrary the fact is that the child never learns in after life what it does in its first five years. The education of the child begins with conception. The physical and

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

  TREATMENT OF PLEURISY The persistence of the pleurisy caused some anxiety, but I knew that the cure lay not in taking medicine internally but in dietetic changes assisted by external remedies. I called in Dr. Allinson of vegetarian fame, who treated diseases by dietetic modifications and whom I had met in 1890. He thoroughly overhauled me. I explained to him how I had pledged myself not to take milk. He cheered me up and said: ‘You need not take milk. In fact I want you to do without any fat for some days.’ He then advised me to live on plain brown bread, raw vegetables such as beet, radish, onion and other tubers and greens, and also fresh fruit, mainly oranges. The vegetables were not to be cooked but merely grated fine, if I could not masticate them. I adopted this for about three days, but raw vegetables did not quite suit me. My body was not in a condition to enable me to do full justice to the experiment. I was nervous about taking raw vegetables. Dr. Allinson also advised me to keep all the windows of my room open for the whole twenty-four hours, bathe in tepid water, have an oil massage on the affected parts and a walk in the open for fifteen to thirty minutes. I liked all these suggestions. My room had French windows which, if kept wide open, would let in the rain. The fanlight could not be opened. I therefore got the glass broken, so as to let in fresh air, and I partially opened the windows in a manner not to let in rain. All these measures somewhat improved my health, but did not completely cure me.

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

  I saw that brahmacharya, which is so full of wounderful potency, is by no means an easy affair, and certainly not a mere matter of the body. It begins with bodily restraint, but does not end there. The perfection of it precludes even an impure thought. A true brahmachari will not even dream of satisfying the fleshly appetite, and until he is in that condition, he has a great deal of ground to cover. For me the observance of even bodily brahmacharya has been full of difficulties. Today I may say that I feel myself fairly safe, but I had yet to achieve complete mastery over thought, which is so essential. Not that the will or effort is lacking, but it is yet a problem to me wherefrom undersirable thoughts spring their insidious invasions. I have no doubt that there is a key to lock out undersirable thoughts, but every one has to find it out for himself. Saints and seers have left their experiences for us, but they have given us no infallible and universal prescription. For perfection or freedom from error comes only from grace, and so seekers after God have left us mantras, such as Ramanama, hallowed by their own austerities and charged with their purity. Without an unreserved surrender to His grace, complete mastery over thought is impossible. This is the teaching of every great book of religion, and I am realizing the truth of it every moment of my striving after that perfect brahmacharya . But part of the history of that striving and struggle will be told in chapters to follow. I shall conclude this chapter with an indication of how I set about the task. In the first flush of inthusiasm, I found the observance quite easy. The very first change I made in my mode of life was to stop sparing the same bed with my wife or seeking privacy with her. Thus brahmacharya which I had been observing willynilly since 1900, was sealed with a vow in the middle of 1906. 105.

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

  THE FIRST CASE While 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

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

  must voluntarily submit themselves to all the regulations that the poor are subject to, and the officials ought to be impartial. My experience is that the officials, instead of looking upon third class passengers as fellowmen, regard them as so many sheep. They talk to them contemptuously, and brook no reply or argument. The third class passenger has to obey the official as though he were his servant, and the letter may with impunity belabour and blackmail him, and book him his ticket only putting him to the greatest possible inconvenience, including often missing the train. All this I have seen with my own eyes. No reform is possible unless some of the educated and the rich voluntarily accept the status of the poor, travel third, refuse to enjoy the amenities denied to the poor and, instead of taking avoidable hardships, discourtesies and injustice as a matter of course, fight for their removal. Wherever I went in Kathiawad I heard complaints about the Viramgam customs hardships. I therefore decided immediately to make use of Lord Willingdon’s offer. I collected and read all the literature available on the subject, convinced myself that the complaints were well founded, and opened correspondence with the Bombay Government. I called on the Private Secretary to Lord Willingdon and waited on His Excellency also. The latter expressed his sympathy but shifted the blame on Delhi. ‘If it had been in our hands, we should have removed the cordon long ago. You should approach the Government of India,’ said the secretary. I communicated with the Government of India, but got no reply beyond an acknowledgment. It was only when I had an occasion to meet Lord Chelmsford later that redress could be had. When I placed the facts before him, he expressed his astonishment. He had known nothing of the matter. He gave me a patient hearing, telephoned that very moment for papers about Viramgam, and promised to remove the cordon if the authorities had no explanation or defence to offer.

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

  could get in did so by sheer force, often sneaking through windows if the doors were locked. I had to reach Calcutta on the date fixed for the meeting, and if I missed this train I could not arrive in time. I had almost given up hope of getting in. No one was willing to accept me, when porter discovering my plight came to me and said, ‘Give me twelve annas and I’ll get you a seat.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘you shall have twelve annas if you do procure me a seat.’ The young man went from carriage to carriage entreating passengers but no one heeded him. As the train was about to start, some passengers said, ‘There is no room here, but you can shove him in if you like. He will have to stand.’ ‘Well?’ asked the young porter. I readily agreede, and he shoved me in bodily through the window. Thus I got in and the porter earned his twelve annas. The night was a trial. The other passengers were sitting somehow. I stood two hours, holding the chain of the upper bunk. Meanwhile some of the passengers kept worrying me incessantly. ‘Why will you not sit down?’ they asked. I tried to reason with them saying there was no room, but they could not tolerate my standing, though they were lying full length on the upper bunks. They did not tire of worrying me neither did I tire of gently replying to them. This at last mollified them. Some of them asked me my name, and made room for me. Patience was thus rewarded. I was dead tired, and my head was reeling. God sent help just when it was most needed. In that way I somehow reached Delhi and thence Calcutta. The Maharaja of Cassimbazar, the president of the Calcutta meeting, was my host. Just as in Karachi, here also there was unbounded enthusiasm. The meeting was attended by several Englishmen. Before the 31st July the Government announced that indentured emigration from India was stopped. It was in 1894 that I drafted the first petition protesting against the system, and I had then hoped that this ‘semi-slavery,’ as Sir W. W. Hunter used to call the system, would some day be brought to an end. There were many who aided in the agitation which was started in 1894, but I cannot help saying that potential Satyagraha hastened the end. For further details of that agitation and of those who took part in it, I refer the reader to my Satyagraha in South Africa. 138.

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

  operation for fissures. As I recuperated, my desire to live revived, especially because God had kept work in store for me. I had hardly begun to feel my way towards recovery, when I happened casually to read in the papers the Rowlatt Committee’s report which had just been published. Its recommendations startled me. Shankarlal Banker and Umar Sobani approached me with the suggestion that I should take some prompt action in the matter. In about a month I went to Ahmedabad. I mentioned my apprehensions to Vallabhbhai, who used to come to see me almost daily. ‘Something must be done,’ said I to him. ‘But what can we do in the circumstances?’ he asked in reply. I answered, ‘If even a handful of men can be found to sign the pledge of resistance, and the proposed measure is passed into law in defiance of it, we ought to offer Satyagraha at once. If I was not laid up like this, I should give battle against it all alone, and expect others to follow suit. But in my present helpless condition I feel myself to be altogether unequal to the task.’ As a result of this talk, it was decided to call a small meeting of such persons as were in touch with me. The recommendations of the Rowlatt Committee seemed to me to be altogether unwarranted by the evidence published in its report, and were, I felt, such that no self- respecting people could submit to them. The proposed conference was at last held at the Ashram. Hardly a score of persons had been invited to it. So far as I remember, among those who attended were, besides Vallabhbhai, Shrimati Sarojini Naidu, Mr. Horniman, the late Mr. Umar Sobani, Sjt. Shankarlal Banker and Shrimati Anasuyabehn. The Satyagraha pledge was drafted at this meeting, and, as far as I recollect, was signed by all present. I was not editing any journal at that time, but I used occasionally to ventilate my views through the daily press. I followed the practice on this occasion. Shankarlal Banker took up the agitation in right

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

  FAITH ON ITS TRIAL Though I had hired chambers in the fort and a house in Girgaum, God would not let me settle down. Scarcely had I moved into my new house when my second son Manilal, who had already been through an acute attack of smallpox some years back, had a severe attack of typhoid, combined with pneumonia and signs of delirium at night. The doctor was called in. He said medicine would have little effect, but eggs and chicken broth might be given with profit. Manilal was only ten years old. To consult his wishes was out of the question. Being his guardian I had to decide. The doctor was a very good Parsi. I told him that we were all vegetarians and that I could not possibly give either of the two things to my son. Would he therefore recommend something else? ‘Your son’s life is in danger,’ said the good doctor. ‘We could give him milk diluted with water, but that will not give him enough nourishment. As you know, I am called in by many Hindu families, and they do not object to anything I prescribe. I think you will be well advised not to be so hard on your son.’ ‘What you say is quite right,’ said I. ‘As a doctor you could not do otherwise. But my responsibility is very great. If the boy had been grown up, I should certainly have tried to ascertain his wishes and respected them. But here I have to think and decide for him. To my mind it is only on such occasions, that a man’s faith is truly tested Rightly or wrongly it is part of my religious conviction that man may not eat meat, eggs, and the like. There should be a limit even means of keeping ourselves alive. Even for itself we may not so certain things. Religion, as I understand it, does not permit me to use meat or eggs for me or

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  His relatives treated her quite kindly. She knew that the kindliness indicated a lack of fear, and that these people had no respect for you unless you could frighten them a little. But again she had no contact. She let them be kindly and disdainful, she let them feel they had no need to draw their steel in readiness. She had no real connection with them. Time went on. Whatever happened, nothing happened, because she was so beautifully out of contact. She and Clifford lived in their ideas and his books. She entertained ... there were always people in the house. Time went on as the clock does, half-past eight instead of half-past seven. CHAPTER III Connie was aware, however, of a growing restlessness. Out of her disconnection, a restlessness was taking possession of her like madness. It twitched her limbs when she didn't want to twitch them. It jerked her spine when she didn't want to jerk upright but preferred to rest comfortably. It thrilled inside her body, in her womb, somewhere, till she felt she must jump into water and swim to get away from it; a mad restlessness. It made her heart beat violently for no reason. And she was getting thinner. It was just restlessness. She would rush off across the park, and abandon Clifford, and lie prone in the bracken. To get away from the house ... she must get away from the house and everybody. The wood was her one refuge, her sanctuary. But it was not really a refuge, a sanctuary, because she had no connection with it. It was only a place where she could get away from the rest. She never really touched the spirit of the wood itself ... if it had any such nonsensical thing. Vaguely she knew herself that she was going to pieces in some way. Vaguely she knew she was out of connection: she had lost touch with the substantial and vital world. Only Clifford and his books, which did not exist ... which had nothing in them! Void to void. Vaguely she knew. But it was like beating her head against a stone. Her father warned her again: "Why don't you get yourself a beau, Connie? Do you all the good in the world." That winter Michaelis came for a few days. He was a young Irishman who had already made a large fortune by his plays in America. He had been taken up quite enthusiastically for a time by smart society in London, for he wrote smart society plays. Then gradually smart society realised that it had been made ridiculous at the hands of a down-at-heel Dublin street-rat, and revulsion came. Michaelis was the last word in what was caddish and bounderish. He was discovered to be anti-English, and to the class that made this discovery this was worse than the dirtiest crime. He was cut dead, and his corpse thrown into the refuse-can.

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

  It is your mother’s permission which really matters. If she permits you, then godspeed! Tell her I will not interfere. You will go with my blessings.’ ‘I could expect nothing more from you,’ said I. ‘I shall now try to win mother over. But would you not recommend me to Mr. Lely?’ ‘How can I do that?’ said he. ‘But he is a good man. You ask for an appointment telling him how you are connected. He will certainly give you one and may even help you.’ I cannot say why my uncle did not give me a note of recommendation. I have a faint idea that he hesitated to co-operate directly in my going to England, which was in his opinion an irreligious act. I wrote to Mr Lely, who asked me to see him at his residence. He saw me as he was ascending the staircase;and saying curtly, ‘Pass your B.A. fist and then see me. No help can be given you now’, he hurried upstairs. I had made elaborate preparations to meet him. I had carefully learnt up a few sentences and had bowed low and saluted him with both hands. But all to no purpose! I thought of my wife’s ornaments. I thought of my elder brother, in whom I had the utmost faith. He was generous to a fault, and he loved me as his son. I returned to Rajkot from Porbandar and reported all that had happened. I consulted Joshiji, who of course advised even incurring a debt if necessary. I suggested the disposal of my wife’s ornaments, which could fetch about two or three thousand rupees. My brother promised to find the money somehow. My mother, however, was still unwilling. She had begun making minute inquiries. Someone had told her that young men got lost in England. Someone else had said that they took to meat; and yet another that they could not live there

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  The newcomer did not know why he was telling this plain, unsmiling leatherman about his bizarre, secret fantasies, asking him questions and accepting his suggestions. He did not know he was nervous and needed to be patted on the head and pointed in the right direction. It was easy to confess his lack of experience and his longstanding fascination with leather. Like most other raw recruits, he thought leather was synonymous with S/M, and S/M meant being whipped. He did not know how rare this ritual actually is. The grave stranger was knowledgeable and reassuring. He drew verbal thumbnail sketches of the half-dozen tops who were hunting in the bar that night, and told him which one he needed to meet—an older man, graying at the temples, with the build of a boxer and sad eyes. His name was Roger, and he had a protective instinct toward novices; it was almost a reflex for him to take a courteous one home. Before he could say “whips and chains,” Curt was leaning his head on the master’s chest and whispering, “Sir, may I buy you a beer, sir?” The gesture was too touching, the offer too well-bred to be rejected. When the boy returned with the cold, sweaty bottle, he was ordered to tell his story. It came out easily, since he had rehearsed it in the corner with the sympathetic stranger. He was not surprised when the big man put a hand around his throat and guided him down to the floor until he knelt with his cheek pressed against the warm denim that covered the master’s cock. Curt wrapped his arms around the thighs encased in latigo, smelling of motor oil, and felt that he had come home. But he was surprised when the stranger (he had already forgotten exactly what he looked like) loomed near and inquired if he, “the boy,” had given offense to the master. Roger scowled and said he had not known the boy was in anyone else’s service. Before the pawn could deny this, the stranger said, “Sir, he is not in my service. But I pointed you out to him and suggested he introduce himself. I would hold myself responsible if you were not pleased.” Placated, the master relaxed, and the upshot of the matter was that all three of them left the bar together, to game in one of the city’s better-equipped arenas. This master’s forte was whipping. In his black room, he had a large collection of English hunting crops, nautical cats, Scottish tawses, monks’ flails, and Australian quirts on display under glass. The spoiler gave each one a separate scrutiny and made a quiet comment or two that showed his appreciation of their history and construction. These implements were not for use. But the walls of the master’s inner sanctum were hung with enough modern copies to flog the entire mutinous crew of an aircraft carrier.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  [Day the Sixth] CHICHIBIO, COOK TO CURRADO GIANFIGLIAZZI, WITH A READY WORD SPOKEN TO SAVE HIMSELF, TURNETH HIS MASTER'S ANGER INTO LAUGHTER AND ESCAPETH THE PUNISHMENT THREATENED HIM BY THE LATTER Lauretta being silent and Nonna having been mightily commended of all, the queen charged Neifile to follow on, and she said, "Although, lovesome ladies, a ready wit doth often furnish folk with words both prompt and useful and goodly, according to the circumstances, yet fortune whiles cometh to the help of the fearful and putteth of a sudden into their mouths such answers as might never of malice aforethought be found of the speaker, as I purpose to show you by my story. Currado Gianfigliazzi, as each of you ladies may have both heard and seen, hath still been a noble citizen of our city, liberal and magnificent, and leading a knightly life, hath ever, letting be for the present his weightier doings, taken delight in hawks and hounds. Having one day with a falcon of his brought down a crane and finding it young and fat, he sent it to a good cook he had, a Venetian hight Chichibio, bidding him roast it for supper and dress it well. Chichibio, who looked the new-caught gull he was, trussed the crane and setting it to the fire, proceeded to cook it diligently. When it was all but done and gave out a very savoury smell, it chanced that a wench of the neighbourhood, Brunetta by name, of whom Chichibio was sore enamoured, entered the kitchen and smelling the crane and seeing it, instantly besought him to give her a thigh thereof. He answered her, singing, and said, 'Thou shalt not have it from me, Mistress Brunetta, thou shalt not have it from me.' Whereat she, being vexed, said to him, 'By God His faith, an thou give it me not, thou shalt never have of me aught that shall pleasure thee.' In brief, many were the words between them and at last, Chichibio, not to anger his mistress, cut off one of the thighs of the crane and gave it her.

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

  THE FIRST NIGHT It was no easy thing to issue the first number of Indian Opinion from Phoenix. Had I not taken two precautions, the first issue would have had to be dropped or delayed. The idea of having an engine to work the press had not appealed to me. I had thought that hand-power would be more in keeping with an atmosphere where agricultural work was also to be done by hand. But as the idea had not appeared feasible, we had installed an oil-engine. I had, however, suggested to West to have something handy to fall back upon in case the engine failed. He had therefore arranged a wheel which could be worked by hand. The size of the paper, that of a daily, was considered reduced to foolscap size, so that, in case of emergency, copies might be struck off with the help of a treadle. In the initial stages, we all had to keep late hours before the day of publication. Everyone, young and old, had to help in folding the sheets. We usually finished our work between ten o’clock and midnight. But the first night was unforgettable. We had got out an engineer from Durban to put up the engine and set it going. He and West tried their hardest, but in vain. Everyone was anxious. West, in despair, at last came to me, with tears in his eyes, and said, ‘The engine will not work, I am afraid we cannot issue the paper in time.’ ‘If that is the case, we cannot help it. No use shedding tears. Let us do whatever else is humanly possible. What about the handwheel?’ I said, comforting him. ‘Where have we the men to work?’ he replied. ‘We are not enough to cope with the job. It requires relays of four men each, and our own men are all tired.’ Building work had not yet been finished so the carpenters were still with us. They were sleeping on the press floor. I said pointed to them, ‘But can’t we

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Staying at half a block’s distance, on the opposite side of the street, I kept pace through walled alleys. In the dark, it wasn’t hard to keep the girl in sight, the backpack’s plastic bulge jolting ahead like a lamp. I tried to walk quietly. Pigeons flapped down, jingling bells tied to their legs. Cyclists passed. I tripped on a pile of bricks. The girl’s bob leaped along. The streets emptied: to keep up, I had to quicken my stride. She hurried—impatient to be home, I thought; then, turning right, she glanced back. The round face blazing, then gone. Despite the pains I’d taken, she looked afraid. I’d wanted to follow the girl for just a few minutes. But now, accused, I felt insulted. I saw something white, a sheet, flit from the girl’s hand. Thinking it might be a note, a signal, I paused to pick it up, but it was nothing: half the pancake, crumpled into its napkin. I resumed the chase. She doglegged left. I was losing breath. She halted, then bent down. I saw her adjust a sandal strap. She broke into a run, hobbling. Hey, I called. I wanted to explain, so I jogged. With a slam, she rushed into a small house, out of sight. – It was late by the time I returned to the high-rise. I took a pill; I went to bed, but the sedative wasn’t working. In Noxhurst, Phoebe would have been next to me, her back displayed, intimate, the spine like rope. I felt tied to her as though by a physical line, its pull tightening with each night we spent apart. Upright again, I put the electric kettle on to boil. I tapped in the first third of Phoebe’s number before I set the phone down on the table. The last time we talked, she’d told me she wasn’t coming to Beijing. She’d begun spending time with John Leal again, I knew that much. I’d been right when I thought I glimpsed them in the dining hall. Then, while I was in Beijing, she’d gotten in the habit of attending meetings at his house with the group we met last fall, the Christians. On an impulse, she said. She was bored. Noxhurst was so dull, she said. All this, I’d known; now, though, she was also telling me the group had strict rules about attendance. If she missed meetings to travel to China, she wouldn’t be allowed back in. But what are you even doing with these people? I asked. These people? I can’t believe this. Who is John Leal—what is he to you? He’s a friend. You don’t know the first thing about him. I do, though. Fine, I said. Tell me where he grew up. In India. India? His parents built a charitable hospital in Calcutta. . . . because they’re, what, aid workers? Will, they’re missionaries.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  Will, Phoebe called, leaning out from an idling cab. She took me to the station, waiting until the first train that would go north to Noxhurst. Once it pulled in, she talked the attendant into letting her on without a ticket. He doesn’t feel well, and I’m not staying, she explained, giving him her smile. Here, she said, pushing my seat into a recline. I tried to apologize, but she said she had to get back to the protest. She set my phone’s alarm to ring before my stop. What about the apartment? I asked, remembering. Your friend’s place. Oh, that, she said. She took out her phone. I was about to say I could wait in the apartment until the protest finished, but she said, still looking at the phone, I’m staying the night. From the train, I watched Phoebe go, striding fast, horizontal. I’d have left the train, chased Phoebe down, if I’d been less to blame. The train slid into the afternoon, and I slept until the Noxhurst station. – Up through the next morning, in spite of what she’d said, I still thought Phoebe would come back Saturday night. But I woke Sunday to find she wasn’t home. She also hadn’t returned my calls. I should have studied; I opened a book, stared at it as long as I could, then poured a drink. I sat in the apartment through morning: I took a bus to Michelangelo’s. Though I didn’t have a shift, I helped at the front until I noticed a five-top littered with used plates. I carried them back to the kitchen, spilling pesto on my shirt. I dropped a knife. I took the table’s busboy out back, and I yelled at him. I asked what the fuck he’d been thinking. Looking down, he muttered that it wasn’t his table. It’s Gil’s, he said, his childish face bagged with fatigue. I excused him. I left, riding the bus home again. The sun went down, and I called Phoebe. I left a short message asking if she’d let me know she was all right. Relying on the principle that almost nothing happens as I think it will, I started ticking through possible disasters. What I predicted, I’d forestall. I sat at the kitchen table. Each time I emptied a glass, I poured the next drink. It was 3:10 in the morning when the front door swung open. She stood in the hall, half-dissolved in porch light. Easing the lock into its slot, she set down a bag. She turned. Oh, she said, startled. It’s you. What are you doing? I closed the laptop, and, with it, all the light I’d had. I’d been searching traffic-accident reports. She flicked on the hall lamp. I saw Phoebe take in the gin bottle, the knit hat I still hadn’t removed. Will, she said. I told you I was staying the night. I didn’t know when you’d be home. I kept calling.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2 The motoring, of course, was the most tremendous fun, but—and it was a very large but indeed—when Stephen got home to Morton and the schoolroom, a little grey figure would be sitting at the table correcting an exercise book, or preparing some task for the following morning. The little grey figure might look up and smile, and when it did this its face would be charming; but if it refrained from smiling, then its face would be ugly, too hard and too square in formation—except for the brow, which was rounded and shiny like a bare intellectual knee. If the little grey figure got up from the table, you were struck by the fact that it seemed square all over—square shoulders, square hips, a flat, square line of bosom; square tips to the fingers, square toes to the shoes, and all tiny; it suggested a miniature box that was neatly spliced at the corners. Of uncertain age, pale, with iron-grey hair, grey eyes, and invariably dressed in dark grey, Miss Puddleton did not look very inspiring—not at all as one having authority, in fact. But on close observation it had to be admitted that her chin, though minute, was extremely aggressive. Her mouth, too, was firm, except when its firmness was melted by the warmth and humour of her smile—a smile that mocked, pitied and questioned the world, and perhaps Miss Puddleton as well. From the very first moment of Miss Puddleton’s arrival, Stephen had had an uncomfortable conviction that this queer little woman was going to mean something, was going to become a fixture. And sure enough she had settled down at once, so that in less than two months it seemed to Stephen that Miss Puddleton must always have been at Morton, must always have been sitting at the large walnut table, must always have been saying in that dry, toneless voice with the Oxford accent: ‘You’ve forgotten something, Stephen,’ and then, ‘the books can’t walk to the bookcase, but you can, so suppose that you take them with you.’ It was truly amazing, the change in the schoolroom, not a book out of place, not a shelf in disorder; even the box lounge had had to be opened and its dumb-bells and clubs paired off nicely together—Miss Puddleton always liked things to be paired, perhaps an unrecognized matrimonial instinct. And now Stephen found herself put into harness for the first time in her life, and she loathed the sensation. There were so many rules that a very large time-sheet had had to be fastened to the blackboard in the schoolroom. ‘Because,’ said Miss Puddleton as she pinned the thing up, ‘even my brain won’t stand your complete lack of method, it’s infectious; this time-sheet is my anti-toxin, so please don’t tear it to pieces!’ Mathematics and algebra, Latin and Greek, Roman history, Greek history, geometry, botany, they reduced Stephen’s mind to a species of beehive in which every bee buzzed on the least provocation.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Mary would flare out with sudden anger, her mood changing as she felt a slight tug on the bridle. Were they to have no friends? she would ask. Were they to sit still and let the world crush them? If they were reduced to the bars of Paris, whose fault was that? Not hers and not Stephen’s. Oh, no, it was the fault of the Lady Annas and the Lady Masseys who had closed their doors, so afraid were they of contamination! Stephen would sit with her head on her hand, searching her sorely troubled mind for some ray of light, some adequate answer. 4 Tuat winter Barbara fell very ill. Jamie rushed round to the house one morning, hatless, and with deeply tormented eyes: “Mary, please come — Barbara can’t get up, it’s a pain in her side. Oh, my God — we quarrelled . . . Her voice was shrill and she spoke very fast: “ Listen — last night — there was snow on the ground, it was cold—I was angry . . . I can’t remem- ber . . . but I know I was angry —I get like that. She went out — 460 THE WELL OF LONELINESS she stayed out for quite two hours, and when she came back she was shivering so. Oh, my God, but why did we quarrel, what- ever? She can’t move; it’s an awful pain in her side . . Y Stephen said quietly: ‘ We’ll come almost at once, but first I’m going to ring up my own doctor.’ 5 Barsara was lying in the tiny room with the eye-shaped window that would not open. The stove had gone out in the studio, and the air was heavy with cold and dampness. On the piano lay some remnants of manuscript music torn up on the previous evening by Jamie. Barbara opened her eyes: ‘ Is that you, my bairn? ’ They had never heard Barbara call her that before — the great, lumbering, big-boned, long-legged Jamie. SEY Covet Sallie. t “Come here close . . . ’ The voice drifted away. “I’m here — oh, I’m here! I’ve got hold of your hand. Look at me, open your eyes again — Barbara, listen, I’m here — don’t you feel me? ’ Stephen tried to restrain the shrill, agonized voice: ‘ Don’t speak so loud, Jamie, perhaps she’s sleeping;’ but she knew very well that this was not so; the girl was not sleeping now, but unconscious.