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 Decameron (1353)

  Delectable ladies, it is no easy matter for a man to decide what is in his best interests. For as we have often had occasion to observe, there are many who have considered that only their poverty stood between themselves and a secure, trouble-free life, and they have not only prayed to God for riches, but sought deliberately to acquire them, sparing themselves neither effort nor danger in the process. And no sooner have they succeeded, than the prospect of a substantial legacy has frequently caused them to be murdered by people who, before they had become rich, had never dreamed of doing them any harm. Others have risen from low estate to the dizzy heights of kingship through a thousand dangerous battles, spilling the blood of their nearest and dearest as they went along, thinking sovereign power represented the peak of happiness. But as they could have seen and heard for themselves, it was a happiness fraught with endless fear and worry, and at the cost of their lives they came to realize that the chalice at a royal table may sometimes be poisoned, even though it is made of gold. Again, there have been many people who have ardently yearned for bodily strength and beauty, whilst others have longed with equal intensity for bodily ornaments, only to discover too late that the very things they so unwisely desired were the cause of their death or unhappiness. But in order not to become involved in a detailed review embracing the whole range of human desires, I will merely affirm that no man can, with complete confidence, elect any one of them as being wholly immune from the accidents of Fortune. For if we were to proceed at all times in a correct manner, we would have to resign ourselves to the acquisition and possession of whatever has been granted to us by the One who alone knows what we need and has the power to provide it for us. However, there are many ways in which people sin through their desires, and you, gracious ladies, sin above all in one particular way, which is in your desiring to be beautiful, inasmuch as, being dissatisfied with the attractions bestowed upon you by Nature, you go to extraordinary lengths in trying to improve them. And therefore I would like to tell you a story about a Saracen girl’s ill-starred beauty, which in the space of about four years caused her to be newly married on nine separate occasions.

• From Trash (1988)

  “I don’t remember. That was a long time ago.” “Only a moment in the mind, girl. Think about it. All those details you produce on prompting, the feel of the mesh, and the stink of the fish, all that story stuff that rolls out of you so easily when you got an audience around. Bet you got that monkey in your mind all the time.” “You jealous?” “More like you’re guilty? Guilty ’bout how you play up to any and everybody, but got so little time for the folks who really care about you?” “You, huh? You want me to believe you just live for me, huh?” “Hell, me and the monkeys, girl. Me and the monkeys.” She was teasing and she wasn’t. It was the end of the semester, and for weeks she’d been trying to talk me into moving out of the dorm and into an apartment with her for the beginning of the next term. “Think about it. We’d have a door we could lock against the world.” I thought about it. I thought about never being alone when I wanted to be, about Toni keeping track of where I went and what I did, of her sudden angers and drunken tirades. But I also thought about all those Sunday mornings lying against Toni’s thigh out in front of the dormitory, reading the paper and swapping nasty stories until we were both squirming in our jeans with nowhere to go to have sex. Then I thought about making love anytime I wanted until I would get to needing it, having to have it, and only Toni to provide it. I thought about getting to where I trusted her and what she might do then. A kind of terror came up from my belly and strangled me. I’d never trusted anybody in my life. How could I trust Toni? “No,” I told her. “I don’t want to move in with you.” Toni’s black eyes narrowed, and her left hand slapped the monkey cage, sending its captive into shrieking hysterics. “Shit, bitch. You just want your stuff taken care of and never having to trade nothing for it. You tell yourself it’s just sex, and sex an’t nothing but itch-scratching. You tell yourself lies, girl. You live your life on lies.” She grabbed my wrists and pulled me close to her. I pulled back, and we both almost fell. For a moment we stood close, trembling, then she threw my hands down. “Even monkeys take mating seriously.” Her anger and hurt and outrage seemed to vibrate right through me. My own anger came rolling back. “What do you know about monkeys? What do you know about anything?” “More than your stories, girl. More than your stories tell anyone. I know who I am. I know what I want. And I know what an’t worth my trouble, what an’t worth another minute of my time.”

• From Trash (1988)

  Junior year my scholarship was cut yet again, and I became nervous that working in the mailroom wouldn’t pay for all I needed. St. Vincent de Paul offered me a ransom, paying a dime apiece for plates and trays carted off from the cafeteria. Glasses were only good for three cents and hard to carry down on the bus without breaking, but sheets from the alumni guest room provided the necessary padding. My roommate complained that I made her nervous, always carrying boxes in and out. She moved out shortly after Christmas, and I chewed my nails trying to figure out how to carry her mattress down to St. Vincent de Paul. I finally decided it was hopeless, and spent the rest of the holidays reading Jean Genet and walking through the art department hallways. They had hardwood stools in the studios, and stacking file boxes no one had opened in years. I wore a cloth cap when I took them, and my no-nonsense expression. I was so calm that one of the professors helped me clear paper off the third one. He was distracted, discussing Jackson Pollock with a very pale woman whose hands were marked with tusche. “Glad they finally decided to get these out of here” was all he said to me, never once looking up into my face. My anger came up from my stomach with an acid taste. I went back for his clipboard and papers, but his desk was locked and my file broke on the rim. In compensation I took the silk lining out of the pockets of the corduroy coat he’d left thrown over a stool. The silk made a lemongrass sachet I gave my mother for her birthday, and every time I saw him in that jacket I smiled. My sociology professor had red hair, forty shelves of books, four children, and an entirely cordial relationship with her ex-husband. When she invited me to dinner, I did not understand what she wanted with me. I watched her closely and kept my hands in my pockets. She talked about her divorce and the politics in the department, how she had worked for John F. Kennedy in 1960 and demonstrated for civil rights in Little Rock in ’65. There were lots of books she could lend me, she insisted, but didn’t say exactly which ones. She poured me Harveys Bristol Cream, trailing her fingers across my wrist when I took the glass. Then she shook her head nervously and tried to persuade me to talk about myself, interrupting only to get me to switch topics as she moved restlessly from her rocking chair to a bolster to the couch beside me. She did not want to hear about my summers working in the mop factory, but she loved my lies about hitchhiking cross-country.

• From Trash (1988)

  God knows I hate that job, but thinking about looking for another one makes my stomach ache and my throat go dry. It makes me want to drink lots of beer and smoke endless cigarettes. What I’ve actually been doing is staying up late baking coffee-fudge cookies, eating them till I puke, and then going to bed to cry myself to sleep. I get to work late, barely able to sit at my keyboard. If they weren’t already going to lay me off, they’d fire me. “You haven’t quit yet, huh?” Paula waves her hand as if warding off smoke, though the air conditioner over our heads has already sucked up the thin blue cloud. It’s the reason I got here first and sat in just this seat—now I can just smile and not reply. I’ve known Paula a long time, and no response is always best with her unless you’re prepared to sit still for several hours of exhaustive argument, something I haven’t wanted to do since we left the feminist collective where we both used to live. “You’ve got such an addictive personality. Can’t you see what those cigarettes are doing to you?” I smile determinedly and take another drag. About five years ago Paula won an award for her presentation to the therapists’ collective on how fingernail biting was a form of subliminal alcoholic behavior. Since then she’s become the world’s expert on addictive behavior, talking on the radio and writing a pithy little column for the local women’s paper. Margaret jokes that Paula can spot addiction indicators faster than most people can locate a taxi. It gets tiresome for her old friends, but most of us pretend to ignore it. Occasionally Margaret and I even talk about how tolerant we all seem to have become of each other. “It’s getting older,” Margaret thinks. I tell her that all that has happened is that we’ve worn each other down. It’s a conversation we have often, every time Paula or Jackie does something that gets us mad, and Margaret and I have a tacit agreement to head off arguments when we can. This time Margaret fails me. “Paula’s right,” she says, pausing to lick salt off the rim of her glass. “You really ought to take a close look at yourself, girl.” “Don’t want to get too introspective.” I pull smoke deep into my lungs and try to look amused rather than brooding. Margaret’s eyebrows go up quizzically, and I know it’s time to get to the point of this little gathering. “I thought we were here to talk about Jackie.” That sets Margaret to nodding. “Oh Lord, don’t tell me.” Paula leans forward in her seat and grips her wineglass more tightly. “What’s she done now?” “It’s the worst. You won’t believe it.” Margaret’s voice is a little loud and excited.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  He hesitated: ‘ Won’t you shake hands? ° ‘ Of course,’ she smiled; ‘ aren’t you my very good friend? But you know, you really must leave me now, Martin.’ 494 THE WELL OF LONELINESS 3 Arter he had gone she lit a cigarette; the action was purely auto- matic. She felt strangely excited yet strangely numb -a most ) curious synthesis of sensations; then she suddenly felt deathly sick and giddy. Going up to her bedroom she bathed her face, sat down on the bed and tried to think, conscious that her mind was completely blank. She was thinking of nothing — not even of Mary. CHAPTER 55 I BITTER and most curious warfare it was that must now be waged between Martin and Stephen, but secretly waged, lest because of them the creature they loved should be brought to suffer; not the least strange aspect being that these two must quite often take care to protect each other, setting a guard upon eyes and lips when they found themselves together with Mary. For the sake of the girl whom they sought to protect, they must actually often protect each other. Neither would stoop to detraction or malice, though they fought in secret they did so with honour. And all the while their hearts cried out loudly against this cruel and in- sidious thing that had laid its hand upon their doomed friendship - verily a bitter and most curious warfare. And now Stephen, brought suddenly face to face with the menace of infinite desolation, fell back upon her every available weapon in the struggle to assert her right to possession. Every link that the years had forged between her and Mary, every tender and passionate memory that bound their past to their ardent pres- ent, every moment of joy — aye, and even of sorrow, she used in sheer self defence against Martin. And not the least powerful of all her weapons, was the perfect companionship and understand- ing that constitutes the great strength of such unions. Well armed she was, thanks to both present and past— but Martin’s sole weapon lay in the future. With a new subtlety that was born of his love, he must lead the girl’s thoughts very gently forward towards a life of security and peace; such a life as marriage with him would offer. In a thousand little ways must redouble his efforts to make himself indispensable to her, to surround her with the warm, happy cloak of protection that made even a hostile world seem friendly. And although he forbore to speak openly as yet, playing his hand with 496 THE WELL OF LONELINESS much skill and patience — although before speaking he wished to be certain that Mary Llewellyn, of her own free will, would come when he called her, because she loved him — yet nevertheless she divined his love, for men cannot hide such knowledge from women.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  On finding himself in the midst of all this commotion, Ruggieri very nearly collapsed with astonishment. He was in no condition to make a dash for it, and in any case he could see that escape was impossible; so he was seized and handed over to the chief magistrate’s officers, who had meanwhile rushed to the scene, having been attracted by all the noise. He was then taken before the chief magistrate, and since he had a very bad reputation he was immediately put to the torture and forced to confess that he had broken into the money-lenders’ house with intent to rob, whereupon the magistrate resolved to have him hanged by the neck at the earliest opportunity. During the course of the morning, the news that Ruggieri had been caught red-handed burgling the money-lenders’ house spread like wildfire through the whole of Salerno. And when the lady and her maid came to hear of it, they were so bewildered and astonished that they almost began to think that instead of actually doing what they had done the night before they had merely been dreaming. What was more, the lady was nearly out of her mind with anxiety at the thought of the danger that Ruggieri was in. Halfway through the morning, the doctor returned from Amalfi and sent someone to fetch his potion so that he could operate on his patient, and when the bottle was found to be empty he made a great commotion and protested that he could not leave anything in his own house without people interfering with it. The lady, who had troubles of her own to think about, lost her temper with him and said: ‘I wonder what you would say if something really terrible had happened, when you create so much fuss over a spilled bottle of water? Isn’t there plenty more of it about?’ ‘My dear,’ said the surgeon, ‘you seem to think that it was ordinary water, but that is not the case. On the contrary, it was a potion specially prepared for putting people to sleep.’ He then told her what he needed it for, and it immediately dawned upon the lady that Ruggieri must have drunk the potion, which explained why they had thought he was dead. ‘We knew nothing of all that,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to make yourself some more of it.’ Seeing that he had no alternative, the surgeon sent out for a second bottle of the stuff, and shortly afterwards the maid, who on the lady’s instructions had gone out to discover what people were saying about Ruggieri, returned to her mistress, saying:

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  I’d somehow even balance a stretched canvas. I didn’t have to think about it. It was a natural dance. But this time I was alone; the children were already home. I thought about what I was going to cook for dinner. Was the hamburger meat thawed, and did we have enough potatoes? And what about salad? It would be dark soon. Was my mother doing all right? Then, without warning, I was gutted by panic. It coiled around me and opened uncountable hungry mouths. I would die if I continued to stand in the middle of the avenue. I would die if I continued my way through traffic. As I press the pulse of memory, I tell myself that if I knew exactly the direction the darkness came from and the shape of the clouds forming in the sky when the panic found me, then I might be able to stop it, even now. If I am going to die, will I explode into millions of pieces? Will I evaporate? Or will I rabbit out into traffic and be run over? When there was an opening in the traffic, I sprinted across the street. My lungs were panicked butterflies in gale-force winds. I made it to the telephone booth outside Jack’s Bar. I hugged myself. I was alive, but, to my dismay, so was the panic. I’d only succeeded in running from one island of panic to the next. I dug through my pockets for change to call home, to tell my daughter’s father that I couldn’t make it. I shook as I deposited the coin and dialed. “Please come and get me,” I told him. “I can’t make it home.” How could I tell him that to make even one step was incomprehensible? That to make it the several thousand steps to go a mile up the road was beyond incomprehensible? I would die. “Of course you can make it home.” “Please,” I pleaded. “I don’t know how.” He told me they were all waiting for me. I was late; he’d already started the potatoes. And then he hung up. I can hear my voice now as I spoke into the telephone. It was flat, a dry plain. In the distance was the muscle of a whirling black tornado. How could he or anyone know? No one watching this slim young woman with her jacket hugged close would have any idea she was dying. I had no choice but to try to make it home. I didn’t have money for a taxi, or even to call a taxi. I was terrified. I had to reach with my mind to imagine each step. I walked a tightrope over an abyss that whirred with the sound of a thousand bullroarers. All around me students walked by to classes, to study, to dinner or home. Cars went up and down Central. The sun continued to fall toward the sea, into the west of endings.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘And so, lest by pretending to be above such things or by becoming complacent we should succumb to that which we might possibly avoid if we so desired, I would think it an excellent idea (though I do not know whether you would agree with me) for us all to get away from this city, just as many others have done before us, and as indeed they are doing still. We could go and stay together on one of our various country estates, shunning at all costs the lewd practices of our fellow citizens and feasting and merrymaking as best we may without in any way overstepping the bounds of what is reasonable. ‘There we shall hear the birds singing, we shall see fresh green hills and plains, fields of corn undulating like the sea, and trees of at least a thousand different species; and we shall have a clearer view of the heavens, which, troubled though they are, do not however deny us their eternal beauties, so much more fair to look upon than the desolate walls of our city. Moreover the country air is much more refreshing, the necessities of life in such a time as this are more abundant, and there are fewer obstacles to contend with. For although the farmworkers are dying there in the same way as the townspeople here in Florence, the spectacle is less harrowing inasmuch as the houses and people are more widely scattered. Besides, unless I am mistaken we shall not be abandoning anyone by going away from here; on the contrary, we may fairly claim that we are the ones who have been abandoned, for our kinsfolk are either dead or fled, and have left us to fend for ourselves in the midst of all this affliction, as though disowning us completely. ‘Hence no one can reproach us for taking the course I have advocated, whereas if we do nothing we shall inevitably be confronted with distress and mourning, and possibly forfeit our lives into the bargain. Let us therefore do as I suggest, taking our maidservants with us and seeing to the dispatch of all the things we shall need. We can move from place to place, spending one day here and another there, pursuing whatever pleasures and entertainments the present times will afford. In this way of life we shall continue until such time as we discover (provided we are spared from early death) the end decreed by Heaven for these terrible events. You must remember, after all, that it is no more unseemly for us to go away and thus preserve our own honour than it is for most other women to remain here and forfeit theirs.’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Howard had begun to be irritating, with her passion for tending her beautiful hair. She would sit in the corner of her dug-out as calmly as though she were sitting at a Bond Street hairdresser’s; and having completed the ritual brushing, she would gaze at herself in a pocket mirror. With a bandage over her unfortunate eye, Blakeney looked more like a monkey than ever, a sick monkey, and her strictly curtailed conversation was not calculated to enliven the Unit. She seemed almost entirely bereft of speech these days, as though reverting to species. Her one comment on life was: ‘Oh, I dunno . . .’ always said with a jaunty, rising inflexion. It meant everything or nothing as you chose to take it, and had long been her panacea for the ills of what she considered a stupid Creation. ‘Oh, I dunno. . . .’ And indeed she did not; poor, old, sensitive, monosyllabic Blakeney. The Poilu who served out the Unit’s rations—cold meat, sardines, bread and sour red Pinard—was discovered by Stephen in the very act of attempting to unload an aerial bomb. He explained with a smile that the Germans were sly in their methods of loading: ‘I cannot discover just how it is done.’ Then he showed his left hand—it was minus one of the fingers: ‘That,’ he told her, still smiling, ‘was caused by a shell, a quite little shell, which I was also unloading.’ And when she remonstrated none too gently, he sulked: ‘But I wish to give this one to Maman!’ Every one had begun to feel the nerve strain, except perhaps Blakeney, who had done with all feeling. Shorthanded by two, the remaining members of the Unit must now work like veritable niggers—on one occasion Stephen and Mary worked for seventy hours with scarcely a respite. Strained nerves are invariably followed by strained tempers, and sudden, hot quarrels would break out over nothing. Bless and Howard loathed each other for two days, then palled up again, because of a grievance that had recently been evolved against Stephen. For every one knew that Stephen and Blakeney were by far the best drivers in the Breakspeare Unit, and as such should be shared by all the members in turn; but poor Blakeney was nursing a very sore eye, while Stephen still continued to drive only with Mary. They were splendidly courageous and great-hearted women, every one of them, glad enough as a rule to help one another to shoulder burdens, to be tolerant and kind when it came to friendships. They petted and admired their youngest recruit, and most of them liked and respected Stephen, all the same they had now grown childishly jealous, and this jealousy reached the sharp ears of Mrs. Breakspeare.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Barbara had wept. ‘Jamie, let’s go away . . . they hate us. Let’s go where nobody knows us. I’m twenty-one now, I can go where I like, they can’t stop me. Take me away from them, Jamie!’ Miserable, angry, and sorely bewildered, Jamie had put her arm round the girl. ‘Where can I take you, you poor little creature? You’re not strong, and I’m terribly poor, remember.’ But Barbara had continued to plead. ‘I’ll work, I’ll scrub floors, I’ll do anything, Jamie, only let’s get away where nobody knows us!’ So Jamie had turned to her music master in Inverness, and had begged him to help her. What could she do to earn her living? And because this man believed in her talent, he had helped her with advice and a small loan of money, urging her to go to Paris and study to complete her training in composition. ‘You’re really too good for me,’ he had told her; ‘and out there you could live considerably cheaper. For one thing the exchange would be in your favour. I’ll write to the head of the Conservatoire this evening.’ That had been shortly after the Armistice, and now here they were together in Paris. As for Pat, she collected her moths and her beetles, and when fate was propitious an occasional woman. But fate was so seldom propitious to Pat—Arabella had put this down to the beetles. Poor Pat, having recently grown rather gloomy, had taken to quoting American history, speaking darkly of blood-tracks left on the snow by what she had christened: ‘The miserable army.’ Then too she seemed haunted by General Custer, that gallant and very unfortunate hero. ‘It’s Ouster’s last ride, all the time,’ she would say. ‘No good talking, the whole darned world’s out to scalp us!’ As for Margaret Roland, she was never attracted to anyone young and whole-hearted and free—she was, in fact, a congenital poacher. While as for Wanda, her loves were so varied that no rule could be discovered by which to judge them. She loved wildly, without either chart or compass. A rudderless bark it was, Wanda’s emotion, beaten now this way now that by the gale, veering first to the normal, then to the abnormal; a thing of torn sails and stricken masts, that never came within sight of a harbour. 3These, then, were the people to whom Stephen turned at last in her fear of isolation for Mary; to her own kind she turned and was made very welcome, for no bond is more binding than that of affliction. But her vision stretched beyond to the day when happier folk would also accept her, and through her this girl for whose happiness she and she alone would have to answer; to the day when through sheer force of tireless endeavour she would have built that harbour of refuge for Mary.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  He swore roundly. ‘Damn the thing, it’s too utterly bloody! It’s ruined my gloves, and now look at the table!’ In grim silence the cook repaired the damage. This mishap appeared to have damped his ardour, for he sighed and removed his cap and apron. ‘Can anyone open this bottle of olives? And the cocktails? Here, Stephen, you can tackle the cheese; it seems rather shy, it won’t leave its kennel.’ In the end it was Stephen and the cook who must do all the work, while Brockett sat down on the floor and gave them ridiculous orders. 3Brockett it was who ate most of the dinner, for Stephen was too over-tired to feel hungry; while Puddle, whose digestion was not what it had been, was forced to content herself with a cutlet. But Brockett ate largely, and as he did so he praised himself and his food between mouthfuls. ‘Clever of me to have discovered this pâté—I’m so sorry for the geese though, aren’t you, Stephen? The awful thing is that it’s simply delicious—I wish I knew the esoteric meaning of these mixed emotions!’ And he dug with a spoon at the side that appeared to contain the most truffles. From time to time he paused to inhale the gross little cigarettes he affected. Their tobacco was black, their paper was yellow, and they came from an unpropitious island where, as Brockett declared, the inhabitants died in shoals every year of some tropical fever. He drank a good deal of the Rose’s lime-juice, for this strong, rough tobacco always made him thirsty. Whiskey went to his head and wine to his liver, so that on the whole he was forced to be temperate; but when he got home he would brew himself coffee as viciously black as his tobacco. Presently he said with a sigh of repletion: ‘Well, you two, I’ve finished—let’s go into the study.’ As they left the table he seized the mixed biscuits and the caramel creams, for he dearly loved sweet things. He would often go out and buy himself sweets in Bond Street, for solitary consumption. In the study he sank down on to the divan. ‘Puddle dear, do you mind if I put my feet up? It’s my new bootmaker, he’s given me a corn on my right little toe. It’s too heart-breaking. It was such a beautiful toe,’ he murmured; ‘quite perfect—the one toe without a blemish!’ After this he seemed disinclined to talk. He had made himself a nest with the cushions, and was smoking, and nibbling rich-mixed biscuits, routing about in the tin for his favourites. But his eyes kept straying across to Stephen with a puzzled and rather anxious expression. At last she said: ‘What’s the matter, Brockett? Is my necktie crooked?’ ‘No—it’s not your necktie; it’s something else.’ He sat up abruptly. ‘As I came here to say it, I’ll get the thing over!’ ‘Fire away, Brockett.’ ‘Do you think you’ll hate me if I’m frank?’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Ten days later Stephen was saying to her mother: ‘I’ve been needing a change for a very long time. It’s rather lucky that a girl I met in the Unit is free and able to go with me. We’ve taken a villa at Orotava, it’s supposed to be furnished and they’re leaving the servants, but heaven only knows what the house will be like, it belongs to a Spaniard; however, there'll be sunshine.’ “I believe Orotava’s delightful,’ said Anna. But Puddle, who was looking at Stephen, said nothing. That night Stephen knocked at Puddle’s door: ‘May I come in?” ‘ Yes, come in do, my dear. Come and sit by the fire — shall I make you some cocoa? ’ “No, thanks.’ A long pause while Puddle slipped into her dressing-gown of soft, grey Viyella. Then she also drew a chair up to the fire, and after a little: ‘ It’s good to see you — your old teacher’s been miss- ing you rather badly.’ ‘Not more than I’ve been missing her, Puddle.’ Was that quite true? Stephen suddenly flushed, and both of them grew very silent. Puddle knew quite well that Stephen was unhappy. They had not lived side by side all these years, for Puddle to fail now in intuition; she felt certain that something grave had happened, and her instinct warned her of what this might be, so that she secretly trembled a little. For no young and inexperienced girl sat beside 346 THE WELL OF LONELINESS her, but a woman of nearly thirty-two, who was far beyond the reach of her guidance. This woman would settle her problems for herself and in her own way — had indeed always done so. Puddle must try to be tactful in her questions. She said gently: ‘ Tell me about your new friend. You met her in the Unit?’ ‘ Yes — we met in the Unit, as I told you this evening — her name’s Mary Llewellyn.’ ‘ How old is she, Stephen? ° ‘ Not quite twenty-two.’ Puddle said: ‘ Very young — not yet twenty-two . . .’ then she glanced at Stephen, and fell silent. But now Stephen went on talking more quickly: ‘I’m glad you asked me about her, Puddle, because I intend to give her a home. She’s got no one except some distant cousins, and as far as I can see they don’t want her. I shall let her have a try at typing my work, as she’s asked to, it will make her feel independent; otherwise, of course, she'll be perfectly free — if it’s not a success she can always leave me — but I rather hope it will be a success. She’s companionable, we like the same things, anyhow she'll give me an interest in life... .’ Puddle thought: ‘ She’s not going to tell me.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Federigo, who desired this beyond measure, taking his opportunity, repaired thither on the day appointed him towards vespers and Gianni not coming thither that evening, supped and lay the night in all ease and delight with the lady, who, being in his arms, taught him that night a good half dozen of her husband's lauds. Then, neither she nor Federigo purposing that this should be the last, as it had been the first time [of their foregathering], they took order together on this wise, so it should not be needful to send the maid for him each time, to wit, that every day, as he came and went to and from a place he had a little farther on, he should keep his eye on a vineyard that adjoined the house, where he would see an ass's skull set up on one of the vine poles, which whenas he saw with the muzzle turned towards Florence, he should without fail and in all assurance betake himself to her that evening after dark; and if he found the door shut he should knock softly thrice and she would open to him; but that, whenas he saw the ass's muzzle turned towards Fiesole, he should not come, for that Gianni would be there; and doing on this wise, they foregathered many a time. But once, amongst other times, it chanced that, Federigo being one night to sup with Mistress Tessa and she having let cook two fat capons, Gianni, who was not expected there that night, came thither very late, whereat the lady was much chagrined and having supped with her husband on a piece of salt pork, which she had let boil apart, caused the maid wrap the two boiled capons in a white napkin and carry them, together with good store of new-laid eggs and a flask of good wine, into a garden she had, whither she could go, without passing through the house, and where she was wont to sup whiles with her lover, bidding her lay them at the foot of a peach-tree that grew beside a lawn there. But such was her trouble and annoy that she remembered not to bid the maid wait till Federigo should come and tell him that Gianni was there and that he should take the viands from the garden; wherefore, she and Gianni betaking themselves to bed and the maid likewise, it was not long before Federigo came to the door and knocked softly once. The door was so near to the bedchamber that Gianni heard it incontinent, as also did the lady; but she made a show of being asleep, so her husband might have no suspicion of her. After waiting a little, Federigo knocked a second time, whereupon Gianni, marvelling, nudged his wife somewhat and said, 'Tessa, hearest thou what I hear? Meseemeth there is a knocking at our door.'

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Dan, Ron, and Knapp stole a hundred-dollar bill, a watch, car keys, and some jewelry, and then, in an act of spite, Ron destroyed Chloe Low’s collection of porcelain figurines from Dresden, Germany, which he knew she treasured for sentimental reasons. The burglars exited the home via a back window, picked up Carnes, who was still hiding in the scrub, and drove off. The next item of business on their agenda was the murder of Richard Stowe. Knapp was driving. Ron gave him directions to Stowe’s home, but the route was complicated and Knapp missed one of the turns. According to Dan, “Ron yelled something to Ricky like, ‘Hey, that’s where we were supposed to turn!’ But by that point there wasn’t much enthusiasm for continuing to fulfill the revelation right then.” The four men briefly discussed whether to turn around and go back to the Stowe home. Carnes, who was growing increasingly anxious, begged Ron to forget about the remainder of the revelation. “If the Lord wanted you to kill someone else today,” Carnes pleaded, “you’d already be there.” To his surprise and immense relief, Ron concurred without argument and told Knapp to continue in the direction he was heading, which would take them to Interstate 15. Had they turned around and driven to President Stowe’s residence that afternoon, they would have found him, unlike Chloe Low, at home. He was taking advantage of the holiday to do some work on his house with his son, using a tractor to remove a set of concrete steps. It’s impossible to know what would have occurred had the Lafferty brothers gone on to Stowe’s property, but considering the number of guns in their possession, it’s not difficult to imagine the bloodshed that might have ensued if Ricky Knapp hadn’t missed the turn. But he did miss the turn, so instead of going back to kill Stowe, the four men drove on to Salt Lake City, where Knapp exited Interstate 15 and steered the car west onto Interstate 80. As they drove, Dan held the sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun in his lap so it would be ready in case they were pulled over by the police. Their destination was Reno, Nevada. As the Impala sailed down the freeway, Knapp finally mustered the courage to ask Ron and Dan what, exactly, had happened inside the apartment of Allen and Brenda Lafferty, back in American Fork. According to Dan, he described to Knapp in considerable detail how he had killed Brenda and her baby, recounting the murders exactly as he would later recount them in chapter 16 of this book—which also matches his sworn testimony during a 1996 trial in every important detail. Dan says he made it very clear to Knapp and Carnes that he, not Ron, actually wielded the knife that ended the lives of both Brenda and Erica. But Chip Carnes remembers this episode differently.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Now listen, Jehannot, you would like me to become a Christian, and I am prepared to do so on one condition: that first of all I should go to Rome, and there observe the man whom you call the vicar of God on earth, and examine his life and habits together with those of his fellow cardinals; and if they seem to me such that, added to your own arguments, they lead me to the conclusion that your faith is superior to mine, as you have taken such pains to show me, then I shall do as I have promised; but if things should turn out differently. I shall remain a Jew as I am at present.’ When Jehannot heard this, he was thrown into a fit of gloom, and said to himself: ‘I have wasted my energies, which I felt I had used to good effect, thinking I had converted the man; for if he goes to the court of Rome and sees what foul and wicked lives the clergy lead, not only will he not become a Christian, but, if he had already turned Christian, he would become a Jew again without fail.’ And turning to Abraham, he said: ‘Come now, my friend, why should you want to put yourself to the endless trouble and expense involved in going all the way from here to Rome? Besides, for a rich man like yourself, the journey both by sea and land is full of dangers. Do you suppose you will not find anyone here to baptize you? If by chance you have any doubts concerning the faith as I have outlined it to you, where else except in Paris will you find greater and more learned exponents of Christian doctrine, capable of answering your questions and resolving your difficulties?1 Hence in my opinion this journey of yours is quite unnecessary. You must remember that the Church dignitaries in Rome are no different from the ones you have seen and can still see here, except that they are the better for being closer to the chief shepherd. And so if you will take my advice, you will save your energy for a pilgrimage on some later occasion, when perhaps I will keep you company.’ ‘Jehannot,’ replied the Jew, ‘I believe it to be just as you say it is, but to put the matter in a nutshell, if you really want me to do as you have urged me with so much insistence, I am fully prepared to go there. Otherwise, I shall do nothing about it.’ ‘Go then, and good luck to you,’ said Jehannot, seeing that the Jew had made up his mind. He was quite certain that Abraham would never become a Christian, once he had seen the court of Rome; but since it would make no difference, he did not insist any further.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Having thus cemented his love for the lady by means of these verbal protestations, Salabaetto began once more to play the gallant with her, whilst for her part she entertained and solaced him for all she was worth, pretending to love him to the point of distraction. However, Salabaetto was determined that his own duplicity should punish hers, and one evening, having received an invitation from her earlier in the day to sup and spend the night with her, he turned up at her house looking so distraught and miserable that it seemed he was about to die at any moment. Jancofiore, hugging and kissing him, began to question him about the reasons for his sadness, and after allowing her to wheedle him for a while, he replied: ‘I am utterly ruined, for the ship carrying the goods I was expecting has been seized by Monegasque pirates.6 They are demanding a ransom of ten thousand gold florins, of which I have to pay a thousand, and I haven’t a penny to my name, because as soon as you paid me back those five hundred florins, I sent them to Naples to be invested in a consignment of linen which is now on its way to Palermo. If I were to sell the goods I have in store here at the moment, I should lose half their true value, because it’s the wrong time to sell. On the other hand, I can’t find anyone here to lend me the money, because I am still not well enough known in the city. Hence I have no idea what to do or what to say; if I don’t send the money soon, my merchandise will be shipped to Monaco and I shall never see it again.’ These tidings were highly irritating to the lady, for it seemed she was about to lose everything; but perceiving what she must do to prevent the goods going to Monaco, she said: ‘God knows I love you so dearly that I am very sorry to hear of your misfortune. But what’s the use of becoming so upset about it? If I had the money to lend you, God knows that I should let you have it here and now, but I haven’t got it. It’s true that I know of someone who might help – the person who lent me the remaining five hundred florins I needed the other month – but he charges a high rate of interest. You’d have to pay him at least thirty per cent if you were to borrow the money from him, and he would want something substantial by way of security. Now I personally would be prepared for your sake to offer him all I possess, myself included, as security for whatever sum he will lend, but how are you going to guarantee the rest of the loan?’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  So now there were quite different folk at The Grange, folk very much more to the taste of the county—Admiral Carson and his apple-cheeked wife who, childless herself, adored Mothers’ Meetings. Stephen must sometimes go to The Grange with Anna, who liked the Carsons. Very grave and aloof had Stephen become; too reserved, too self-assured, thought her neighbours. They supposed that success had gone to her head, for no one was now allowed to divine the terrible shyness that made social intercourse such a miserable torment. Life had already taught Stephen one thing, and that was that never must human beings be allowed to suspect that a creature fears them. The fear of the one is a spur to the many, for the primitive hunting instinct dies hard—it is better to face a hostile world than to turn one’s back for a moment. But at least she was spared meeting Roger Antrim, and for this she was most profoundly thankful. Roger had gone with his regiment to Malta, so that they two did not see each other. Violet was married and living in London in the: ‘perfect duck of a house in Belgravia.’ From time to time she would blow in on Stephen, but not often, because she was very much married with one baby already and another on the way. She was somewhat subdued and much less maternal that she had been when first she met Alec. If Anna was proud of her daughter’s achievement she said nothing beyond the very few words that must of necessity be spoken: ‘I’m so glad your book has succeeded, Stephen.’ ‘Thank you, mother—’ Then as always these two fell silent. Those long and eloquent silences of theirs were now of almost daily occurrence when they found themselves together. Nor could they look each other in the eyes any more, their eyes were for ever shifting, and sometimes Anna’s pale cheeks would flush very slightly when she was alone with Stephen—perhaps at her thoughts. And Stephen would think: ‘It’s because she can’t help remembering.’ For the most part, however, they shunned all contact by common consent, except when in public. And this studied avoidance tore at their nerves; they were now well-nigh obsessed by each other, for ever secretly laying their plans in order to avoid a meeting. Thus it was that these obligatory visits to Morton were a pretty bad strain on Stephen. She would get back to London unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to write, and with such a despairing and sickening heart-ache for the grave old house the moment she had left it, that Puddle would have to be very severe in order to pull her together. ‘I’m ashamed of you, Stephen; what’s happened to your courage? You don’t deserve your phenomenal success; if you go on like this, God help the new book.

• From Trash (1988)

  That could have been dust in the machine. I read about this case where that was what happened—dust and fingerprints on X-rays.” She tore at a pack of Salems, ripping one cigarette in half before she could get another out intact. “God, Arlene.” “Don’t start.” “Look, we have to make some decisions.” I was thinking if I could speak quietly enough, Arlene would hear what I was saying. “We have to take care of Mama, not talk about stuff that’s going to get in the way of that.” Arlene’s voice was as loud as mine had been soft. “Mama needs our support, not you going on about death and doom.” Sympathetic magic, Jaybird called it. Arlene believed in the power of positive thinking the way some people believed in saints’ medals or a Santeria’s sacrificed chicken. Stopping us talking about dying was the thing she believed she was supposed to do. I dropped into one of the plastic chairs. Arlene’s head kept jerking restlessly, but she managed not to look into my face. This is how she always behaved. “Mama’s gonna beat this thing,” she’d announced when I had first come home, as if saying it firmly enough would make it so. She was the reason Mama had gone to MacArthur in the first place. Jo and I had wanted the hospice that Mama’s oncologist had recommended. But Arlene had refused to discuss the hospice or to look at the results of the brain scan. Those little starbursts scattered over Mama’s cranium were not something Arlene could acknowledge. “We could keep Mama at home,” she’d told the hospital chaplain. “We could all move back home and take care of her till she’s better. ” “Lord God!” I had imagined Jo’s response to that. “Move back home? Has she gone completely damn crazy?” The chaplain told Arlene that some people did indeed take care of family at home, and if that was what she wanted, he would help her. I had watched Arlene’s face as he spoke, the struggle that moved across her flattened features. “It might not work,” she had said. She had looked at me once, then dropped her head. “She might need more care than we could give, all of us working you know.” She had dropped her face into her hands. I signed off on the bills where the insurance didn’t apply. For the rental on a wheelchair and a television, I used a credit card. Jo laughed at me when she saw them. “You are a pure fool,” she said. “Send back the wheelchair, but let’s keep the TV. It’ll give us something to watch when Arlene starts going on about how good Mama’s doing.” Mama had had three years of pretty good health before this last illness. It was a remission that we almost convinced ourselves was a cure. The only thing she complained about was the ulcer that kept her from ever really putting back on any weight.

• From Trash (1988)

  I’m just a passenger in here. I got to do something about the muscles of the mind. I watch myself in the wall of glass above me, watch my back as I turn and lift my arms. I make my trembling muscles coil and reach, hoping desperately that the magic will come, that the kata will become sex for me the way it sometimes does. I slip into stance, determinedly loose, trying to thoughtlessly snap out the tension, to turn and jerk crisply, sharply, my shadow under me a pinpoint like the light in the pupils of Liz’s eyes. I push and sweat but my mind won’t let go. My feet keep slipping in the grass. The sun slanting up through the dogwood trees stabs my eyes. I lose my place in the kata and can’t remember the next sequence of moves. “Goddamn it!” I shout, and my voice echoes back to me off the building. I see myself again, my mouth open like any screaming woman, the dizzy images of window after window reflecting figure after figure. I watch myself, the way I saw myself last night in the bathroom at the Overpass, reflected in the ammonia-stained tiles in the bathroom, my wrists coming up to face-punch the mirror. The morning sunlight was brighter than the fluorescent lights in the bathroom had been. I had been wavy and indistinct in the tiles. Now I was crisp and sharp in the mirrored windows. There were dozens of me up there, all open-mouthed and sunlit, bleached nails in the ground, not rising up, being hammered down. I lean over, seeing myself lean over, and remember Roxanne at the concert, the way she kept dropping her head so her hair fell across her face, the same posture I have in every picture I’ve got from high school. “Maybe you an’t so bad,” Roxanne had told me when we’d gone off to the bathroom together at the concert. “But you really ought to think about using a little makeup. Cass is known for taking up with good-looking women—women who know how to present themselves, you know?” I’d just nodded and said nothing. I could touch Roxanne’s shoulder, share a sip of whiskey with her, but I didn’t know how to begin to talk to her, how to say I wasn’t looking to hold on to Cass the way she wanted to cling to Billy. But then I hadn’t known how to talk to Liz last night either, to tell her what to do. I don’t want to be poor myself. At bottom maybe it’s all about what you can stand and what you can’t. Certainly I wouldn’t be able to stand living with Richard any more than I could Billy, but I can imagine things that might help Liz—starting with a decent income, day care for Mikey and Janine, work that wouldn’t leave her exhausted and crazy—all the things none of us can give her.

• From Trash (1988)

  Of course,” she had to add, “don’t go ’round like a grinning fool. Just smile like you know what you’re doing, and never look like you’re in a hurry.” I found it difficult to keep from looking like I was in a hurry, especially when I got out of breath running from steam table to counter. Worse, moving at the speed I did, I tended to sway a little and occasionally lost control of a plate. “Never,” my mama told me, “serve food someone has seen fall to the floor. It’s not only bad manners, it’ll get us all in trouble. Take it in the back, clean it off, and return it to the steam table.” After a while I decided I could just run to the back, count to ten, and take it back out to the customer with an apology. Since I usually just dropped biscuits, cornbread, and baked potatoes—the kind of stuff that would roll on a plate—I figured brushing it off was sufficient. But once, in a real rush to an impatient customer, I watched a ten-ounce T-bone slip right off the plate, flip in the air, and smack the rubber floor mat. The customer’s mouth flew open, and I saw my mama’s eyes shoot fire. Hurriedly I picked it up by the bone and ran to the back with it. I was running water on it when Mama came in the back room. “All right,” she snapped, “you are not to run, you are not even to walk fast. And,” she added, taking the meat out of my fingers and dropping it into the open waste can, “you are not, not ever to drop anything as expensive as that again.” I watched smoky frost from the leaky cooler float up toward her blond curls, and I promised her tearfully that I wouldn’t. The greater skills Mama taught me were less tangible than rules about speed and smiling. What I needed most from her had a lot to do with being as young as I was, as naive, and quick to believe the stories put across the counter by all those travelers heading north. Mama always said I was the smartest of her daughters and the most foolish. I believed everything I read in books, and most of the stuff I heard on the TV, and all of Mama’s carefully framed warnings never seemed to quite slow down my capacity to take people as who they wanted me to think they were. I tried hard to be like my mama, but, as she kept complaining, I was just too quick to trust—badly in need of a little practical experience. My practical education began the day I started work. The first comment by the manager was cryptic but to the point. “Well, sixteen.” Harriet smiled, looking me up and down. “At least you’ll up the ante.” Mama’s friend Mabel came over and squeezed my arm. “Don’t get nervous, young one. We’ll keep moving you around.