Confusion

Passages

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

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• From Another Country (1962)

  Maybe you can get her at home.” “Thank you,” he said. But the man had already hung up. He felt nothing at all, certainly not astonishment; yet, he leaned against the phone for an instant, freezing and faint. Then he dialed his own number. There was no answer. He walked out of the phone booth into the bar, which was a workingman’s bar, and there was a wrestling match on the TV screen. He ordered a double shot and leaned on the bar. He was surrounded by precisely those men he had known from his childhood, from his earliest youth. It was as though, hideously, after a long and fruitless voyage, he had come home, to find that he had become a stranger. They did not look at him—or did not seem to look at him; but, then, that was the style of these men; and if they usually saw less than was present, they also, often, saw more than one guessed. Two Negroes near him, in working clothes, seemed to have a bet on the outcome of the wrestling match, which they did not, however, appear to be watching very closely. They kept talking to each other in a rumbling, humorous monotone—a smile kept playing on both their faces—and every once in a while they ordered a new round of drinks, or exploded with laughter, or turned their attention again to the screen. All up and down the bar, men stood silently, usually singly, watching the TV screen, or watching nothing. There were booths beside the bar, near the back. An elderly Negro couple and a young Negro couple shared one booth, another booth held three aimless youths, drinking beer, in the very last booth an odd-looking man, who might have been a Persian, was feeling up a pasty-faced, string-haired girl. The Negro couples were in earnest conversation—the elderly Negro woman leaned forward with great vehemence; and the three youths were giggling and covertly watching the dark man and the pasty girl; and if this evening ended as all the others had, they would presently drive off to some haven and watch each other masturbate. The bartender was iron-haired and pablum-faced, with spectacles, and leaned on a barrel at one end of the bar, watching the screen. Vivaldo watched the screen, seeing two ancient, flabby men throwing each other around on a piece of canvas; from time to time a sensually grinning blonde advertised soap—but her grin was far less sensual than the wrestling match—and a strong-jawed neuter in a crew cut puffed rapaciously, with unnerving pleasure, on a cigarette. Then, back to the groaning wrestlers, who really should have been home in bed, possibly with each other. Where was she? Where was she? With Ellis, certainly. Where? She had called the restaurant; but she had not called him.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  The truly great writer does not want to write: he wants the world to be a place in which he can live the life of the imagination. The first quivering word he puts to paper is the word of the wounded angel: pain. The process of putting down words is equivalent to giving oneself a narcotic. Observing the growth of a book under his hands, the author swells with delusions of grandeur. “I too am a conqueror—perhaps the greatest conqueror of all! My day is coming. I will enslave the world—by the magic of words….” Et cetera ad nauseam. The little phrase—Why don’t you try to write?— involved me, as it had from the very beginning, in a hopeless bog of confusion. I wanted to enchant but not to enslave; I wanted a greater, richer life, but not at the expense of others; I wanted to free the imagination of all men at once because without the support of the whole world, without a world imaginatively unified, the freedom of the imagination becomes a vice. I had no respect for writing per se any more than I had for God per se . Nobody, no principle, no idea has validity in itself. What is valid is only that much—of anything, God included—which is realized by all men in common. People are always worried about the fate of the genius. I never worried about the genius: genius takes care of the genius in a man. My concern was always for the nobody, the man who is lost in the shuffle, the man who is so common, so ordinary, that his presence is not even noticed. One genius does not inspire another. All geniuses are leeches, so to speak. They feed from the same source—the blood of life. The most important thing for the genius is to make himself useless, to be absorbed in the common stream, to become a fish again and not a freak of nature. The only benefit, I reflected, which the act of writing could offer me was to remove the differences which separated me from my fellow-man. I definitely did not want to become the artist, in the sense of becoming something strange, something apart and out of the current of life. The best thing about writing is not the actual labor of putting word against word, brick upon brick, but the preliminaries, the spade work, which is done in silence, under any circumstances. in dream as well as in the waking state. In short, the period of gestation. No man ever puts down what he intended to say: the original creation, which is taking place all the time, whether one writes or doesn’t write, belongs to the primal flux: it has no dimensions, no form, no time element.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  However, the epidemic of sexual immorality began long before pornography or the burlesque shows of the early 1900s. Since the very beginning of time, Satan has used sex to create a cultural climate that lures us away from the holiness God calls us to. The book of Genesis reports the distortion of sexuality in seven different ways: polygamy (4:19), homosexuality (19:5), fornication and rape (34:2), prostitution (38:15), incest (38:16-18), and evil seduction (39:7). Sexuality has been one of Satan’s favorite tools to cause believers confusion and moral failure ever since then. A trip back to the Garden of Eden will help us to understand how we’ve given Satan free reign in this world to create such a cultural climate. THE GIFT EVE GAVE AWAY In the first chapter of Genesis, we see that God created man and woman in His image and placed them in the Garden of Eden with the intention of having them rule and reign over everything. To visualize this picture, imagine God’s giving Adam and Eve a beautifully wrapped gift box. Inside is a gift called authority. God gave this gift of authority to Adam and Eve, intending them to act wisely as stewards over all creation. But the crafty serpent, perhaps knowing that the woman is enticed by what she hears, hissed in Eve’s ear something about how she could have the power of God’s wisdom if she took a bite of the forbidden fruit. Because Eve had been given authority to rule and reign over this creature, not the other way around, her response should have been to shut him up and send him packing when he tried to tempt her into disobeying God. But mesmerized by the enticement of power, Eve sank her teeth into the forbidden fruit, making the most bitter mistake of her life, a mistake which resulted in her being the one to have to pack up and leave paradise forever. Her sin was rebellion against her Creator, but the underlying tragedy was that she gave away her gift of authority to the crafty serpent. Once sin entered into the hearts of humans, they no longer possessed the authority to rule and reign in the world. They gave that gift to Satan when they rebelled against God. That is when Satan became the ruler of this world, simply because humanity gave him the authority. Previously Adam and Eve had been at perfect peace in their relationship with God and with each other, but the transfer of this gift from their hands into Satan’s brought all that to an end. They once felt acceptance but now felt rejection. Their sense of belonging turned to loneliness and their feelings of competence gave way to feelings of inadequacy. Their sense of identity turned to confusion and their security faded into anxiety. Whereas they once felt significance, they now felt worthlessness. Their perfect relationship with God dwindled into a spiritual void.

• From Paul and Palestinian Judaism (40th Anniversary Edition) (2017)

  There are basically three positions on the question of Paul's fundamental relationship with Palestinian Judaism: that, because of numerous and important detailed agreements, Paul should be seen as essentially a Rabbi who thought that the Messiah had come (Davies); that, in spite of some agreements in detail, Paul's religion is basically antithetical to that of Palestinian Judaism (probably the majority view); and that Paul had little relationship to Palestinian Judaism one way or another (Sandmel). With regard to Paul's polemical statements about Judaism, there are also basically three positions: that they do not represent his fundamental view 38 Sandmel, The Genius of Paul, p. 223; cf. 'Parallelomania',JBL 81, 1962, p. 4: even 259 parallels (Sandmel's hypothetical number) would not suffice to show that Paul and Rabbinic Judaism were in agreement. Sandmel finds no 'genetic connection' between Paul and Rabbinic literature. 39 The Genius of Paul, p. 59. 12 Introduction and should be discounted as the polemics of the moment (Davies); that they are to the point and represent the basic antithesis of Paul and Judaism (the majority); and that they do not really touch the Judaism which is known from Rabbinic sources, and so must be explained as referring to some other form of Judaism or as arising from an immediate apologetic need (Monte- fiore, Moore). What is unsatisfactory about the state of the question is that all of these views have something to be said for them. Scholarship is stuck between the agreements between Paul and Palestinian Judaism and the patent differences, whether for the differences one points to the problem of faith versus works or to Paul's neglect of the Jewish understanding of atonement and forgive- ness. Reading Schechter and Montefiore, one wonders what Paul found in Judaism to attack; yet attack it he did. Reading Davies, one sees such close agreements between Paul and Judaism that again one wonders how to account for Paul's own statements of his disagreement with Judaism: not whether or not the Messiah had come, but how one gains righteousness. What is needed is a comparison which takes account of both the numerous agreements and the disagreements - not only the disagreements as stated by Paul, but those evident from the Jewish side, the discrepancy between Paul's depiction of Judaism and Judaism as reflected in Jewish sources. What is needed, in other words, is to compare Paul on his own terms with Judaism on its own terms, a comparison not of one-line essences or of separate motifs, but of a whole religion with a whole religion. It is this task which we wish to undertake here, and which now needs to be methodologically described.

• From Push (1996)

  I wanna scream. Oh shut up! Nigger, how you gonna marry me and you is my daddy! I'm your daughter, fucking me illegal. But I keep my mouf shut so's the fucking don't turn into a beating. I start to feel good; stop being a video dancer and start coming. I try to go back to video but coming now, rocking under Carl now, my twat jumping juicy, it feel good. I feel ashamed. "See, see," he slap my thigh like cowboys do horses on TV, then he squeeze my nipple, bite down on it. I come some more. "See, you LIKE it! You jus' like your mama—you die for it!" He pull his dick out, the white cum stuff pour out my hole wet up the sheets. "Are you getting on the bus, young lady?" I blink at bus driver staring down at me. He shake his head, bus door close. I'm leaning against glass panel of bus stop. I stare at 101 bus disappearing down 125th Street. How I git here? What I'm doing on one-two-five at this time of morning? I look down at my feet, my eyes catch on my leggings, NEON YELLOW, of course! Alternative! I'm on my way, was on my way, walking down Lenox when bad thoughts hit me 'n I space out. "You OK?" guy in a uniform for like working in a garage ax me. "I'm OK, I'm OK." People done started to gather 'round me. "That bitch crazy man!" a skinny dude in baggies say real loud to tall boy next to him. "Fuck you narrow behind mutherfucker! Mind your bizness!" I break out from them, cross 125th Street, and head for Hotel Theresa. I done passed it a hunnert times but never been in it. I walk through the doors, past man at desk, he don't say nuffin' to me, I don't say nuffin' to him. It's a elevator wif black doors. I step inside, stand there. Don't go nowhere. Push the button, stupid, I tell myself. I push the button; I'm not stupid, I tell myself. I step out the elevator and see this lady with cornrow hair sitting at desk. White sign black letters on the desk. "This the alternative?" I ax. "The what?" She lift eyebrows. "This the alternative?" That bitch heard me the first time! "What exactly are you looking for?" woman nice talk. "Well, what is this here?" "This is Higher Education Alternative/Each One Teach One." "I'm looking for alternative school." "Well," woman look at me some more, "this is an alternative school." I never seen anybody wif braids that don't hang down. Why git 'em put in if you not gonna get extensions? "What alternative is?" May est wellst gone ask the bitch, fine out now what kinda school this gonna be. "I don't know if I understand what you're asking me." "Alternative—lady from my other school tell me to come here to Hotel Theresa, nineteenth floor, it's 'alternative' school."

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I always thought,” he ventured, “that it was easier for women.” She turned and looked at him; she did not look as young any more. “That what was easier?” “Knowing what to do.” She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Vivaldo. Why?” “I don’t know. Men have to think about so many things. Women only have to think about men.” She laughed again. “What’s so easy about that?” “It isn’t? I guess it isn’t.” “Vivaldo. If men don’t know what’s happening, what they’re doing, where they’re going—what are women to do? If Richard doesn’t know what kind of world he wants, how am I to help him make it? What am I to tell our sons?” The question hung in the air between them; sluggishly (it was ten past seven) it struck echoes in him of Ida’s tone and Ida’s eyes when they quarreled. Oh. All you white boys make me sick. You want to find out what’s happening, baby, all you got to do is pay your dues! Was there, in all that rage, a plea? “I’ll buy you one more drink,” he said. “Yes. Let me go home or do whatever I’m going to do with just a tiny hint of drunkenness. Excuse me a moment.” Jauntily, she signaled the waiter; then gathered up her great handbag and walked to the ladies’ room. All you got to do is pay your dues. He sat, islanded by the vague hum, the meaningless music, of the cocktail lounge, and recalled lapses and errors from his life with Ida which, at the time, he had blamed on her. Their first quarrel had occurred about a month after she had moved in, in April. His mother had called, one Sunday afternoon, to remind him of a birthday party, the following week, for his younger brother, Stevie. His mother assumed that he would not want to come, that he would try to get out of it, and this made her voice, before he could say anything, querulous and complaining. This he could not bear, which made his tone sharp and hostile. And there they were, then, the aging, frightened woman and her grown son, acting out their kindergarten drama. Ida, in the kitchen, watched and listened. Vivaldo, watching her, suddenly laughed and before he realized what he was saying, he asked, “Do you mind if I bring a girl friend?” And, as he said this, he felt Ida stiffen and become absolutely concentrated with rage. “If she’s a nice girl,” his mother was saying. “You know we love to meet your friends.” He felt immediate contrition, seeing, in his mind’s eye, her bewildered face, knowing how she wondered why her eldest son should cause, and appear to wish to cause her, so much pain. At the same time he was aware of Ida’s ominous humming in the kitchen.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Wallace le sent déglutir. Miller se détend. Son corps se relâche et, l’espace d’un court instant, Wallace a peur d’avoir fait une connerie abominable. Il desserre sa prise ; en une fraction de seconde, Miller saisit son poignet et tire sa main au niveau de son ventre, si bien qu’ils se retrouvent le plus près possible l’un de l’autre. Wallace cligne des yeux et, tout à coup, les voilà ensemble, si proches que leurs nez se touchent, leurs lèvres se touchent, leurs joues se touchent. Si proches que Wallace a l’impression de voir les croissants rouges à l’intérieur des paupières de Miller, d’entendre le sang qui circule dans son corps, si proche qu’il pourrait confondre ce sang avec le sien. « Trop facile », fait Wallace, mais il ne parvient pas à se dégager le poignet. Miller le tient bien. Wallace se débat encore un peu, mais sans résultat. Miller est plus fort que lui. Ce n’est pas de la peur, que Wallace éprouve en cet instant, pas exactement. La sensation n’a pas ce goût sauvage, faisandé. Il y a autre chose à la place : du regret. Miller le regarde par-dessous ses paupières lourdes. « Demande ce que tu veux, dit-il. — Va te faire foutre. — Sois gentil. » Gentil . « Je n’ai jamais été gentil. — Moi non plus. — Ouais, c’est ça », raille Wallace, mais Miller se rembrunit légèrement et Wallace se rappelle ce qu’il lui a raconté. Sa mère, qui est morte, et le fait que ça ne s’était pas toujours très bien passé entre eux. « Oh, pardon. Je ne voulais pas dire ça. — Si. Bien sûr que si. — On parlait en l’air. — Parler en l’air, fait Miller d’un ton un peu méchant. C’est ça qu’on faisait ? Qui l’eût cru ? » La prise de Miller se relâche légèrement ; Wallace tente le coup et se dégage. Ses poignets le brûlent à cause de la pression, de la structure de ses os. À l’intérieur de ses bras, plus pâle, il voit l’empreinte rouge sombre des paumes de Miller. Il se laisse glisser sur le sol. Miller a refermé les yeux. C’est comme si les dernières minutes n’avaient pas eu lieu. Wallace se demande si ça signifie qu’il doit s’en aller. Il appuie son pouce sur la main de Miller, posée à plat par terre. Il fouille la peau avec son ongle, et Miller sursaute, se ranime brusquement. C’est comme tout à l’heure, avec Yngve. Pourquoi faut-il toujours qu’il cherche à provoquer les autres comme ça ? se demande Wallace. Qu’est-ce qui le possède en ces moments ? Demande ce que tu veux, lui a dit Miller. C’est maintenant clair pour Wallace. Ça, c’est sa façon de demander. Il ne peut pas tout bonnement dire ce qu’il veut. Parce qu’il ne sait pas ce qu’il veut. « Wallace.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I always thought,” he ventured, “that it was easier for women.” She turned and looked at him; she did not look as young any more. “That what was easier?” “Knowing what to do.” She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, Vivaldo. Why?” “I don’t know. Men have to think about so many things. Women only have to think about men.” She laughed again. “What’s so easy about that?” “It isn’t? I guess it isn’t.” “Vivaldo. If men don’t know what’s happening, what they’re doing, where they’re going—what are women to do? If Richard doesn’t know what kind of world he wants, how am I to help him make it? What am I to tell our sons?” The question hung in the air between them; sluggishly (it was ten past seven) it struck echoes in him of Ida’s tone and Ida’s eyes when they quarreled. Oh. All you white boys make me sick. You want to find out what’s happening, baby, all you got to do is pay your dues! Was there, in all that rage, a plea? “I’ll buy you one more drink,” he said. “Yes. Let me go home or do whatever I’m going to do with just a tiny hint of drunkenness. Excuse me a moment.” Jauntily, she signaled the waiter; then gathered up her great handbag and walked to the ladies’ room. All you got to do is pay your dues. He sat, islanded by the vague hum, the meaningless music, of the cocktail lounge, and recalled lapses and errors from his life with Ida which, at the time, he had blamed on her. Their first quarrel had occurred about a month after she had moved in, in April. His mother had called, one Sunday afternoon, to remind him of a birthday party, the following week, for his younger brother, Stevie. His mother assumed that he would not want to come, that he would try to get out of it, and this made her voice, before he could say anything, querulous and complaining. This he could not bear, which made his tone sharp and hostile. And there they were, then, the aging, frightened woman and her grown son, acting out their kindergarten drama. Ida, in the kitchen, watched and listened. Vivaldo, watching her, suddenly laughed and before he realized what he was saying, he asked, “Do you mind if I bring a girl friend?” And, as he said this, he felt Ida stiffen and become absolutely concentrated with rage. “If she’s a nice girl,” his mother was saying. “You know we love to meet your friends.” He felt immediate contrition, seeing, in his mind’s eye, her bewildered face, knowing how she wondered why her eldest son should cause, and appear to wish to cause her, so much pain. At the same time he was aware of Ida’s ominous humming in the kitchen.

• From Another Country (1962)

  So, there they were, as the ghastly summer groaned and bubbled on, he working in order not to be left behind by her, and she working —in order to be free of him? or in order to create a basis on which they could be, more than ever, together? “I’ve got to make it,” she sometimes said, “I’m going to make it. And you better make it, too, sweetie. I’ve just about had it, down here among the garbage cans.” As for Ellis: “Vivaldo, if you want to believe I’m two-timing you with that man, that’s your problem. If you want to believe it, you’re going to believe it. I will not be put in the position of having to prove a damn thing. It’s up to you. You don’t trust me, well, so long, baby, I’ll pack my bags and go.” Some nights, when Ida came in, from the restaurant, her singing teacher, her parents, wherever she had been, bringing him beer and cigarettes and sandwiches, her face weary and peaceful and her eyes soft with love, it seemed unthinkable that they could ever part. They ate and drank and talked and laughed together, and lay naked on their narrow bed in the darkness, near the open windows through which an occasional limp breeze came, and tasted each other’s lips and caressed each other in spite of the heat, and made great plans for their indisputable tomorrow. And often fell asleep like that, at perfect ease with one another. But at other times they could not find each other at all. Sometimes, unable to reach her and unable to reach the people in his novel, he stalked out and walked the summer streets alone. Sometimes she declared she couldn’t stand him another minute, his grumpy ways, and was going out to a movie. And sometimes they went out together, down to Benno’s, or over to visit Eric—though these days, it was usually Eric and Cass. Ida professed herself very struck by the change in Eric—she meant by this that she disapproved of surprises and that Eric had surprised her—and the implacable, unaccountable Puritan in her disapproved of his new and astonishing affair. She said that Cass was foolish and that Eric was dishonest. Vivaldo’s feelings were much milder—it was not Eric who had surprised him, but Cass. She had certainly jeopardized everything; and he remembered her declaration: No, thank you, Vivaldo, I don’t want to be protected any more. And, insofar as his own confusion allowed him to consider hers at all, he was proud of her—not so much because she had placed herself in danger as because she knew she had.

• From Henry Miller on Writing (1964)

  Before Abraham was … Yes, before the Olympian Goethe, before the great Shakespeare, before the divine Dante or the immortal Homer, there was the Voice and the Voice was with every man. Man has never lacked for words. The difficulty arose only when man forced the words to do his bidding. Be still, and wait the coming of the Lord! Erase all thought, observe the still movement of the heavens! All is flow and movement, light and shadow. What is more still than a mirror, the frozen glassiness of glass—yet what frenzy, what fury, its still surface can yield. “I wish that you would kindly have the men of the Park Department prune, trim and pare off all the dead wood, twigs, sprigs, stumps, stickers, shooters, sucker-pieces, dirty and shaggy pieces, low, extra low and overhanging boughs and branches from the good trees and to prune them extra close to the bark and to have all the good trees thoroughly and properly sprayed from the base to the very top parts and all through along by all parts of each street, avenue, place, court, lane, boulevard and so on … and thereby give a great deal more light, more natural light, more air, more beauty to all the surrounding areas.” That was the sort of message I should like to have dispatched at intervals to the god of the literary realm so that I might be delivered from confusion, rescued from chaos, freed of obsessive admiration for authors living and dead whose words, phrases, images barricaded my way. And what was it prevented my own unique thoughts from breaking out and flooding the page? For many a year now I had been scurrying to and fro like a pack-rat, borrowing this and that from the beloved masters, hiding them away, my treasures, forgetting where I had stored them, and always searching for more, more, more. In some deep, forgotten pit were buried all the thoughts and experiences which I might properly call my own, and which were certainly unique, but which I lacked the courage to resuscitate. Had someone cast a spell over me that I should labor with arthritic stumps instead of two bold fists? Had someone stood over me in my sleep and whispered: “You will never do it, never do it!” (Not Stanley certainly, for he would disdain to whisper. Could he not hiss like a snake?) Who then? Or was it that I was still in the cocoon stage, a worm not yet sufficiently intoxicated with the splendor and magnificence of life? How does one know that one day he will take wing, that like the humming bird he will quiver in mid-air and dazzle with iridescent sheen? One doesn’t. One hopes and prays and bashes his head against the wall. But “it” knows.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Yes,” she said. And they kept walking, neither seeming to have the energy it would have demanded to stop and hail a cab. They could not talk about the funeral now, there was too much to say; perhaps each had too much to hide. They walked down the wide, crowded Avenue, surrounded, it seemed, by an atmosphere which prevented others from jostling them or looking at them too directly or for too long a time. They reached the mouth of the subway at 125th Street. People climbed up from the darkness and a group of people stood on the corner, waiting for the bus. “Let’s get that cab,” she said. Vivaldo hailed a cab and they got in—as, she could not help feeling they had been expected to do—and they began to roll away from the dark, the violent scene, over which, now, a pale sun fell. “I wonder,” he said. “I wonder.” “Yes? What do you wonder?” Her tone was sharper than she had intended, she could not have said why. “What she means when she says she’ll never forget it.” Something was going on in her mind, something she could not name or stop; but it was almost as though she were her mind’s prisoner, as though the jaws of her mind had closed on her. “Well, at least that proves that you’re intelligent,” she said. “Much good may it do you.” She watched the cab roll down the Avenue which would eventually turn into the Avenue she knew. “I’d like to prove to her—one day,” he said; and paused. He looked out of the window. “I’d like to make her know that the world’s not as black as she thinks it is.” “Or,” she said, dryly, after a moment, “as white.” “Or as white,” he said, mildly. She sensed that he was refusing to react to her tone. Then he said, “You don’t like her—Ida.” “I like her well enough. I don’t know her.” “I guess that proves my point,” he said. “You don’t know her and you don’t want to know her.” “It doesn’t matter whether I like Ida or not,” she said. “The point is, you like her. Well, that’s fine. I don’t know why you want me to object. I don’t object. But what difference would it make if I did?” “None,” he said, promptly. Then, “Well, some. I’d worry about my judgment.” “Judgment,” she said, “has nothing to do with love.” He looked at her sharply, but with gratitude, too. “For it’s love we’re talking about—?” “For what you seem to be trying to prove,” she said, “It had better be.” She was silent. Then she said, “Of course, she may also have something to prove.” “I think she has something to forget,” he said. “I think I can help her forget it.”

• From Real Life (2020)

  Des gens entraient et sortaient de leurs voitures, il y avait une certaine animation. Wallace et Miller s’arrêtèrent sous un auvent, à demi plongés dans l’ombre. « Pourquoi tu es parti comme ça ? demanda Miller. C’est à cause de moi ? — Non, je suis fatigué, c’est tout. » Miller fouilla ses yeux pour chercher la vraie réponse. Il se mordillait le coin de la bouche. « Je suis désolé pour ce qui s’est passé dans les toilettes. — Pourquoi ? C’est pas grave. — Si, c’est grave. J’aurais pas dû faire ça. J’ai l’impression d’avoir abusé de ma position. — Oh. — Je ne suis pas attiré par les mecs. Mais je vois la façon dont tu me regardes des fois et genre je me demande : est-ce qu’il me déteste ? Est-ce que je lui plais ? Et je ne voudrais vraiment pas que tu me détestes. Je n’aimerais pas du tout ça. » Wallace garda le silence. Il voyait encore l’eau de là où ils se trouvaient, plus claire au loin et plus sombre près de la rive. « OK. — Je ne sais pas quoi faire de ça », dit Miller, serrant les poings. On aurait dit qu’il était au bord des larmes, mais c’était seulement l’humidité de tout à l’heure. « Il n’y a rien à faire. — C’est vrai, ça ? — C’est pas grave », répéta Wallace. Il le pensait, il aurait voulu que ce soit vrai. « On s’est juste tenu la main. C’est niveau collège. — Je ne sais pas. Putain », dit Miller. Il fit un pas vers Wallace puis recula. Wallace poussa un soupir. « Tu veux passer chez moi ? » Miller lui jeta un regard soupçonneux. « Je suis pas sûr que ce soit une bonne idée. — En tout cas moi, je suis crevé et j’aimerais bien rentrer, là. — Je te raccompagne. — Super. » Le désir d’être chez lui, dans son lit, l’emportait sur tout. Ils prirent la rue, longeant un grand immeuble d’habitations circulaire et un petit bar au coin, qui passait de la musique à tue-tête. Quelques Blancs fumaient devant. Il sentit leurs yeux le suivre dans la rue. Miller marchait tout près de lui, leurs coudes et leurs doigts se frôlaient de temps en temps, et Miller baissait les yeux sur lui à chaque fois. Wallace, à sa décharge, ne lui rendait pas son regard. Qu’était-ce que cette vie, en cet instant ? Quel était ce lieu étrange dans lequel il avait été projeté ? Il regrettait maintenant de s’être rendu au lac. Il regrettait d’avoir rejoint ses amis. Pas parce qu’Emma avait répété à tout le monde ce qu’il lui avait confié, mais parce qu’à présent une chose qui semblait simple auparavant était devenue tortueuse, difficile, complexe.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Rufus’ eyes had trouble adjusting to the yellow light, the smoke, the movement. The place seemed terribly strange to him, as though he remembered it from a dream. He recognized faces, gestures, voices—from this same dream; and, as in a dream, no one looked his way, no one seemed to remember him. Just next to him, at a table, sat a girl he had balled once or twice, whose name was Belle. She was talking to her boy friend, Lorenzo. She brushed her long black hair out of her eyes and looked directly at him for a moment, but she did not seem to recognize him. A voice spoke at his ear: “Hey! Rufus! When did they let you out, man?” He turned to face a grinning chocolate face, topped by processed hair casually falling forward. He could not remember the name which went with the face. He could not remember what his connection with the face had been. He said, “Yeah, I’m straight, how you been making it?” “Oh, I’m scuffling, man, got to keep scuffling, you know”—eyes seeming to press forward like two malevolent insects, hair flying, lips and forehead wet. The voice dropped to a whisper. “I was kind of strung out there for awhile, but I’m straight now. I heard you got busted, man.” “Busted? No, I’ve just been making the uptown scene.” “Yeah? Well, crazy.” He jerked his head around to the door in response to a summons Rufus had not heard. “I got to split, my boy’s waiting for me. See you around, man.” Cold air swept into the bar for a moment, then steam and smoke settled again over everything. Then, while they stood there, not yet having been able to order anything to drink and undecided as to whether or not they would stay, Cass appeared out of the gloom and noise. She was very elegant, in black, her golden hair pulled carefully back and up. She held a drink and a cigarette in one hand and looked at once like the rather weary matron she actually was and the mischievous girl she once had been. “What are you doing here?” asked Vivaldo. “And all dressed up, too. What’s happening?” “I’m tired of my husband. I’m looking for a new man. But I guess I came to the wrong store.” “You may have to wait for a fire sale,” said Vivaldo. Cass turned to Rufus and put her hand on his arm. “It’s nice to have you back,” she said. Her large brown eyes looked directly into his. “Are you all right? We’ve all missed you.” He shrank involuntarily from her touch and her tone. He wanted to thank her; he said, nodding and trying to smile, “I’m fine, Cass.” And then: “It’s kind of nice to be back.”

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  Nor knew I that true inward righteousness which judgeth not according to custom, but out of the most rightful law of God Almighty, whereby the ways of places and times were disposed according to those times and places; itself meantime being the same always and every where, not one thing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, were righteous, and all those commended by the mouth of God; but were judged unrighteous by silly men, judging out of man’s judgment, and measuring by their own petty habits, the moral habits of the whole human race. As if in an armory, one ignorant of what were adapted to each part should cover his head with greaves, or seek to be shod with a helmet, and complain that they fitted not: or as if on a day when business is publicly stopped in the afternoon, one were angered at not being allowed to keep open shop, because he had been in the forenoon; or when in one house he observeth some servant take a thing in his hand, which the butler is not suffered to meddle with; or something permitted out of doors, which is forbidden in the dining-room; and should be angry, that in one house, and one family, the same thing is not allotted every where, and to all. Even such are they who are fretted to hear something to have been lawful for righteous men formerly, which now is not; or that God, for certain temporal respects, commanded them one thing, and these another, obeying both the same righteousness: whereas they see, in one man, and one day, and one house, different things to be fit for different members, and a thing formerly lawful, after a certain time not so; in one corner permitted or commanded, but in another rightly forbidden and punished. Is justice therefore various or mutable? No, but the times, over which it presides, flow not evenly, because they are times. But men whose days are few upon the earth, for that by their senses they cannot harmonise the causes of things in former ages and other nations, which they had not experience of, with these which they have experience of, whereas in one and the same body, day, or family, they easily see what is fitting for each member, and season, part, and person; to the one they take exceptions, to the other they submit.

• From Becoming Myself: A Psychiatrist's Memoir (2017)

  What a double-decker pleasure for him to have learned the cone was meant for my mother—he got us both with a single stroke! This all sounds plausible and makes for a satisfying narrative. How powerful is our drive to fill gestalts and to fashion neatly composed stories! But was it true? Seventy years later I have no hope of excavating the “real” facts, but perhaps the intensity of my feeling in those moments, the desire to fight and the paralysis, has bound them together somehow. True? Alas, I am now uncertain whether it was truly the same boy and whether the time sequence was correct: for all I know the cone-smashing may have preceded the movie incident. As I get older it becomes ever more difficult to verify answers to such questions. I try to recapture parts of my own youth, but when I check with my sister and cousins and friends, I’m shocked at how differently we remember things. And in my daily work, as I help patients reconstruct their early lives, I grow increasingly convinced of the fragile and ever-shifting nature of reality. Memoirs, no doubt this one as well, are far more fictional than we like to think.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  And I strained to perceive what I now heard, that free-will was the cause of our doing ill, and Thy just judgment of our suffering ill. But I was not able clearly to discern it. So then endeavouring to draw my soul’s vision out of that deep pit, I was again plunged therein, and endeavouring often, I was plunged back as often. But this raised me a little into Thy light, that I knew as well that I had a will, as that I lived: when then I did will or nill any thing, I was most sure that no other than myself did will and nill: and I all but saw that there was the cause of my sin. But what I did against my will, I saw that I suffered rather than did, and I judged not to be my fault, but my punishment; whereby, however, holding Thee to be just, I speedily confessed myself to be not unjustly punished. But again I said, Who made me? Did not my God, Who is not only good, but goodness itself? Whence then came I to will evil and nill good, so that I am thus justly punished? who set this in me, and ingrated into me this plant of bitterness, seeing I was wholly formed by my most sweet God? If the devil were the author, whence is that same devil? And if he also by his own perverse will, of a good angel became a devil, whence, again, came in him that evil will whereby he became a devil, seeing the whole nature of angels was made by that most good Creator? By these thoughts I was again sunk down and choked; yet not brought down to that hell of error (where no man confesseth unto Thee), to think rather that Thou dost suffer ill, than that man doth it.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  For hence I believed Evil also to be some such kind of substance, and to have its own foul and hideous bulk; whether gross, which they called earth, or thin and subtile (like the body of the air), which they imagine to be some malignant mind, creeping through that earth. And because a piety, such as it was, constrained me to believe that the good God never created any evil nature, I conceived two masses, contrary to one another, both unbounded, but the evil narrower, the good more expansive. And from this pestilent beginning, the other sacrilegious conceits followed on me. For when my mind endeavoured to recur to the Catholic faith, I was driven back, since that was not the Catholic faith which I thought to be so. And I seemed to myself more reverential, if I believed of Thee, my God (to whom Thy mercies confess out of my mouth), as unbounded, at least on other sides, although on that one where the mass of evil was opposed to Thee, I was constrained to confess Thee bounded; than if on all sides I should imagine Thee to be bounded by the form of a human body. And it seemed to me better to believe Thee to have created no evil (which to me ignorant seemed not some only, but a bodily substance, because I could not conceive of mind unless as a subtile body, and that diffused in definite spaces), than to believe the nature of evil, such as I conceived it, could come from Thee. Yea, and our Saviour Himself, Thy Only Begotten, I believed to have been reached forth (as it were) for our salvation, out of the mass of Thy most lucid substance, so as to believe nothing of Him, but what I could imagine in my vanity. His Nature then, being such, I thought could not be born of the Virgin Mary, without being mingled with the flesh: and how that which I had so figured to myself could be mingled, and not defiled, I saw not. I feared therefore to believe Him born in the flesh, lest I should be forced to believe Him defiled by the flesh. Now will Thy spiritual ones mildly and lovingly smile upon me, if they shall read these my confessions. Yet such was I.

• From Little Women (1868)

  The scientific celebrities, forgetting their mollusks and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy; the young musician, who was charming the city like a second Orpheus, talked horses; and the specimen of the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the party. Before the evening was half over, Jo felt so completely disillusioned, that she sat down in a corner to recover herself. Mr. Bhaer soon joined her, looking rather out of his element, and presently several of the philosophers, each mounted on his hobby, came ambling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess. The conversations were miles beyond Jo's comprehension, but she enjoyed it, though Kant and Hegel were unknown gods, the Subjective and Objective unintelligible terms, and the only thing 'evolved from her inner consciousness' was a bad headache after it was all over. It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces, and put together on new and, according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before, that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God. Jo knew nothing about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort, but a curious excitement, half pleasurable, half painful, came over her as she listened with a sense of being turned adrift into time and space, like a young balloon out on a holiday. She looked round to see how the Professor liked it, and found him looking at her with the grimmest expression she had ever seen him wear. He shook his head and beckoned her to come away, but she was fascinated just then by the freedom of Speculative Philosophy, and kept her seat, trying to find out what the wise gentlemen intended to rely upon after they had annihilated all the old beliefs. Now, Mr. Bhaer was a diffident man and slow to offer his own opinions, not because they were unsettled, but too sincere and earnest to be lightly spoken. As he glanced from Jo to several other young people, attracted by the brilliancy of the philosophic pyrotechnics, he knit his brows and longed to speak, fearing that some inflammable young soul would be led astray by the rockets, to find when the display was over that they had only an empty stick or a scorched hand. He bore it as long as he could, but when he was appealed to for an opinion, he blazed up with honest indignation and defended religion with all the eloquence of truth—an eloquence which made his broken English musical and his plain face beautiful. He had a hard fight, for the wise men argued well, but he didn't know when he was beaten and stood to his colors like a man. Somehow, as he talked, the world got right again to Jo. The old beliefs, that had lasted so long, seemed better than the new.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  Furthermore, what the Manichees had criticised in Thy Scriptures, I thought could not be defended; yet at times verily I had a wish to confer upon these several points with some one very well skilled in those books, and to make trial what he thought thereon; for the words of one Helpidius, as he spoke and disputed face to face against the said Manichees, had begun to stir me even at Carthage: in that he had produced things out of the Scriptures, not easily withstood, the Manichees’ answer whereto seemed to me weak. And this answer they liked not to give publicly, but only to us in private. It was, that the Scriptures of the New Testament had been corrupted by I know not whom, who wished to engraff the law of the Jews upon the Christian faith: yet themselves produced not any uncorrupted copies. But I, conceiving of things corporeal only, was mainly held down, vehemently oppressed and in a manner suffocated by those “masses”; panting under which after the breath of Thy truth, I could not breathe it pure and untainted. I began then diligently to practise that for which I came to Rome, to teach rhetoric; and first, to gather some to my house, to whom, and through whom, I had begun to be known; when to, I found other offences committed in Rome, to which I was not exposed in Africa. True, those “subvertings” by profligate young men were not here practised, as was told me: but on a sudden, said they, to avoid paying their master’s stipend, a number of youths plot together, and remove to another;—breakers of faith, who for love of money hold justice cheap. These also my heart hated, though not with a perfect hatred: for perchance I hated them more because I was to suffer by them, than because they did things utterly unlawful. Of a truth such are base persons, and they go a whoring from Thee, loving these fleeting mockeries of things temporal, and filthy lucre, which fouls the hand that grasps it; hugging the fleeting world, and despising Thee, Who abidest, and recallest, and forgivest the adulteress soul of man, when she returns to Thee. And now I hate such depraved and crooked persons, though I love them if corrigible, so as to prefer to money the learning which they acquire, and to learning, Thee, O God, the truth and fulness of assured good, and most pure peace. But then I rather for my own sake misliked them evil, than liked and wished them good for Thine.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  Lo, are they not full of their old leaven, who say to us, “What was God doing before He made heaven and earth? For if (say they) He were unemployed and wrought not, why does He not also henceforth, and for ever, as He did heretofore? For did any new motion arise in God, and a new will to make a creature, which He had never before made, how then would that be a true eternity, where there ariseth a will, which was not? For the will of God is not a creature, but before the creature; seeing nothing could be created, unless the will of the Creator had preceded. The will of God then belongeth to His very Substance. And if aught have arisen in God’s Substance, which before was not, that Substance cannot be truly called eternal. But if the will of God has been from eternity that the creature should be, why was not the creature also from eternity?” Who speak thus, do not yet understand Thee, O Wisdom of God, Light of souls, understand not yet how the things be made, which by Thee, and in Thee are made: yet they strive to comprehend things eternal, whilst their heart fluttereth between the motions of things past and to come, and is still unstable. Who shall hold it, and fix it, that it be settled awhile, and awhile catch the glory of that everfixed Eternity, and compare it with the times which are never fixed, and see that it cannot be compared; and that a long time cannot become long, but out of many motions passing by, which cannot be prolonged altogether; but that in the Eternal nothing passeth, but the whole is present; whereas no time is all at once present: and that all time past, is driven on by time to come, and all to come followeth upon the past; and all past and to come, is created, and flows out of that which is ever present? Who shall hold the heart of man, that it may stand still, and see how eternity ever still-standing, neither past nor to come, uttereth the times past and to come? Can my hand do this, or the hand of my mouth by speech bring about a thing so great?