Contempt

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 Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Oh, these farmers!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch playfully. “Your tone of contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But when it comes to business, we do it better than anyone. I assure you I have reckoned it all out,” he said, “and the forest is fetching a very good price—so much so that I’m afraid of this fellow’s crying off, in fact. You know it’s not ‘timber,’” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, hoping by this distinction to convince Levin completely of the unfairness of his doubts. “And it won’t run to more than twenty-five yards of fagots per acre, and he’s giving me at the rate of seventy roubles the acre.” Levin smiled contemptuously. “I know,” he thought, “that fashion not only in him, but in all city people, who, after being twice in ten years in the country, pick up two or three phrases and use them in season and out of season, firmly persuaded that they know all about it. ‘_Timber, run to so many yards the acre._’ He says those words without understanding them himself.” “I wouldn’t attempt to teach you what you write about in your office,” said he, “and if need arose, I should come to you to ask about it. But you’re so positive you know all the lore of the forest. It’s difficult. Have you counted the trees?” “How count the trees?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing, still trying to draw his friend out of his ill-temper. “Count the sands of the sea, number the stars. Some higher power might do it.” “Oh, well, the higher power of Ryabinin can. Not a single merchant ever buys a forest without counting the trees, unless they get it given them for nothing, as you’re doing now. I know your forest. I go there every year shooting, and your forest’s worth a hundred and fifty roubles an acre paid down, while he’s giving you sixty by installments. So that in fact you’re making him a present of thirty thousand.” “Come, don’t let your imagination run away with you,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch piteously. “Why was it none would give it, then?” “Why, because he has an understanding with the merchants; he’s bought them off. I’ve had to do with all of them; I know them. They’re not merchants, you know: they’re speculators. He wouldn’t look at a bargain that gave him ten, fifteen per cent. profit, but holds back to buy a rouble’s worth for twenty kopecks.” “Well, enough of it! You’re out of temper.” “Not the least,” said Levin gloomily, as they drove up to the house.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Once when I stayed awake long enough to admire the olive twill pants of a flight attendant’s uniform, she let me order a pair at her discount, thus combining shopping with travel. It was the beginning of a lifetime of finding girlfriends in the sky. I noticed that stewardesses were all young—and all female—but I assumed they wanted a few years of travel before doing something else, or this was an entry-level job and a pipeline for airline executives. I only began to pay attention when I was shuttling constantly between the start-up of Ms. magazine in New York and the organizing of the National Women’s Political Caucus in Washington. Once when exhaustion caused me to fall asleep with my credit card in my hand, a kindhearted stewardess removed the card, ran it through the onboard ticket machine—the way one paid for the shuttle in those days—and put it back in my hand without waking me. Neither she nor others knew who I was or why I was such a frequent-flying oddity among the mostly male passengers going to our nation’s capital, but we seemed to share a sense of being outsiders. On longer trips with various airlines, I began to hang out in the galley, where I could ask questions and listen. I learned that the first stewardesses had been registered nurses hired to make passengers feel safe at a time when flying was new, airsickness was frequent, and passengers were fearful. Some pilots resented this female invasion of their macho air space so much that they quit. Like the first American astronauts who compared sending a Soviet woman into space with sending up a monkey, the presence of any woman devalued a masculine domain. Once male business travelers became the airlines’ bread and butter, everything changed. Stewardesses were hired as decorative waitresses with geishalike instructions. There were even “executive flights” for men only, complete with steaks, brandy, and cigars lit by stewardesses. Though they still had to know first aid, evacuation procedures for as many as seventy-five kinds of planes, underwater rescue, emergency signaling, hijacking precautions, and other skills that took six weeks of schooling—not to mention how to handle passengers and fend off some—their appearance was prescribed down to age, height, weight (which was governed by regular weigh-ins), hairstyle, makeup (including a single shade of lipstick), skirt length, and other physical requirements that excluded such things as “a broad nose”—only one of many racist reasons why stewardesses were overwhelmingly white. They had to be single as well as young, and were fired if they married or aged out at over thirty or so. Altogether the goal of airline executives seemed to be to hire smart and ornamental young women, to use them as advertising come-ons, to work them hard, and to age them out soon. Flight schedules were so merciless that on some airlines, the average stewardess lasted only eighteen months.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  She was nothing to this woman who was dressed and a Lady and free to do all that she pleased, while Beauty was an abject naked slave who could do nothing but kneel before her. "Ah, but there she is, that wicked Lizetta," said the Lady, and the cheerfulness when out of her face as her lips quivered slightly. There were two little dots of color in her cheeks as she drew near the doubled Princess. "And she has been so spoilt and bad today." "Well, she is being severely punished for it, my Lady," said Lord Gregory. "Thirty-six hours here should greatly improve her disposition." The Lady took several delicate steps forward and peered at Princess Lizetta's exposed sex. And to Beauty's amazement, Princess Lizetta did not try to hide her face but stared into the Lady's eyes imploringly. She gave several imploring groans as clearly supplicating as the earlier moans of the Prince beside her. And as she writhed on her hook, her body rocked slightly forward. "You're a bad girl, you are," whispered the Lady as though reproving a small child. "And you disappointed me. I had prepared the Hunt for the amusement of the Queen and chosen you specially." Princess Lizetta's groans grew more insistent. She seemed now without hope or pride or anger. Her face was knotted and pink, and her gag looked most painful, her huge eyes flashing as they implored the Lady. "Lord Gregory," the Lady said, "you must think of something special." Then to Beauty's horror, the lady reached out delicately and fastidiously and pinched Princess Lizetta's pubic lips hard so that they exuded moisture. Then she pinched the right lip and the left, and the girl winced with pain and misery. Lord Gregory had meantime snapped his fingers for the Lord with the iron clawlike hand, and whispered something Beauty could not hear. "It will strengthen her punishment." And now the Lord appeared with a little pot and a brush and as the Lady stepped back, he took brush and bathed Princess Lizetta's naked organ in a heavy syrup. A few droplets fell to the floor, and the Princess again made known her misery. She sobbed softly and shook her head. "It will attract any flies we have about," Lord Gregory said, "and if we have none it shall produce its inevitable itching as it dries. It is quite uncomfortable." The Lady did not seem satisfied. Her pretty and innocent face was smooth however and she sighed. "I suppose it will do for now, but I wish she were bound with her legs apart to a stake in the garden. Then let the flies and the little insects of the air find her honeyed mouth. She deserves it." She turned to express her thanks to Lord Gregory, and again Beauty was struck by her bright ruddy face.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  Here saw I too many more than elsewhere, both on the one side and on the other, with loud howlings, rolling weights by force of chests; they smote against each other, and then each wheeled round just there, rolling aback, shouting “Why holdest thou?” and “Why throwest thou away?” Thus they returned along the gloomy circle, on either hand, to the opposite point, again shouting at each other their reproachful measure. Then every one, when he had reached it, turned through his half-circle towards the other joust. And I, who felt my heart as it were stung, said: “My Master, now show me what people these are, and whether all those tonsured on our left were of the clergy.” 4 And he to me: “In their first life, all were so squint-eyed in mind, that they made no expenditure in it with moderation. Most clearly do their voices bark out this, when they come to the two points of the circle, where contrary guilt divides them. These were Priests, that have not hairy covering on their heads, and Popes and Cardinals, in whom avarice does its utmost.” And I: “Master, among this set, I surely ought to recognize some that were defiled by these evils.” And he to me: “Vain thoughts combinest thou: their undiscerning life, which made them sordid, now makes them too obscure for any recognition. To all eternity they shall continue butting one another; these shall arise from their graves with closed fists; and these with hair shorn off. Ill-giving, and ill-keeping, has deprived them of the bright world, and put them to this conflict; what a conflict it is, I adorn no words to tell. But thou, my Son, mayest now see the brief mockery of the goods that are committed unto Fortune, for which the human kind contend with one another. For all the gold that is beneath the moon, or ever was, could not give rest to a single one of these weary souls.” “Master,” I said to him, “now tell me also: this Fortune, 5 of which thou hintest to me; what is she, that has the good things of the world thus within her clutches?” And he to me: O foolish creatures, how great is this ignorance that falls upon ye! Now I wish thee to receive my judgment of her. He whose wisdom is transcendent over all, made the heavens and gave them guides, so that every part shines to every part, equally distributing the light; in like manner, for worldly splendours, he ordained a general minister and guide, 6 to change betimes the vain possession, from people to people, and from one kindred to another, beyond the hindrance of human wisdom: hence one people commands, another languishes; obeying her sentence, which is hidden like the serpent in the grass. Your knowledge cannot understand her: she provides, judges, and maintains her kingdom, as the other Gods do theirs.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  We came to know—nous connûmes, to use a Flaubertian intonation—the stone cottages under enormous Chateaubriandesque trees, the brick unit, the adobe unit, the stucco court, on what the Tour Book of the Automobile Association describes as “shaded” or “spacious” or “landscaped” grounds. The log kind, finished in knotty pine, reminded Lo, by its golden-brown glaze, of fried-chicken bones. We held in contempt the plain whitewashed clapboard Kabins, with their faint sewerish smell or some other gloomy self-conscious stench and nothing to boast of (except “good beds”), and an unsmiling landlady always prepared to have her gift (“… well, I could give you …”) turned down. Nous connûmes (this is royal fun) the would-be enticements of their repetitious names—all those Sunset Motels, U-Beam Cottages, Hillcrest Courts, Pine View Courts, Mountain View Courts, Skyline Courts, Park Plaza Courts, Green Acres, Mac’s Courts. There was sometimes a special line in the write-up, such as “Children welcome, pets allowed” (You are welcome, you are allowed). The baths were mostly tiled showers, with an endless variety of spouting mechanisms, but with one definitely non-Laodicean characteristic in common, a propensity, while in use, to turn instantly beastly hot or blindingly cold upon you, depending on whether your neighbor turned on his cold or his hot to deprive you of a necessary complement in the shower you had so carefully blended. Some motels had instructions pasted above the toilet (on whose tank the towels were unhygienically heaped) asking guests not to throw into its bowl garbage, beer cans, cartons, stillborn babies; others had special notices under glass, such as Things to Do (Riding: You will often see riders coming down Main Street on their way back from a romantic moonlight ride. “Often at 3 A.M.,” sneered unromantic Lo). Nous connûmes the various types of motor court operators, the reformed criminal, the retired teacher and the business flop, among the males; and the motherly, pseudo-ladylike and madamic variants among the females. And sometimes trains would cry in the monstrously hot and humid night with heartrending and ominous plangency, mingling power and hysteria in one desperate scream.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “That will come,” was the consoling reassurance given him by Golenishtchev, in whose view Vronsky had both talent, and what was most important, culture, giving him a wider outlook on art. Golenishtchev’s faith in Vronsky’s talent was propped up by his own need of Vronsky’s sympathy and approval for his own articles and ideas, and he felt that the praise and support must be mutual. In another man’s house, and especially in Vronsky’s palazzo, Mihailov was quite a different man from what he was in his studio. He behaved with hostile courtesy, as though he were afraid of coming closer to people he did not respect. He called Vronsky “your excellency,” and notwithstanding Anna’s and Vronsky’s invitations, he would never stay to dinner, nor come except for the sittings. Anna was even more friendly to him than to other people, and was very grateful for her portrait. Vronsky was more than cordial with him, and was obviously interested to know the artist’s opinion of his picture. Golenishtchev never let slip an opportunity of instilling sound ideas about art into Mihailov. But Mihailov remained equally chilly to all of them. Anna was aware from his eyes that he liked looking at her, but he avoided conversation with her. Vronsky’s talk about his painting he met with stubborn silence, and he was as stubbornly silent when he was shown Vronsky’s picture. He was unmistakably bored by Golenishtchev’s conversation, and he did not attempt to oppose him. Altogether Mihailov, with his reserved and disagreeable, as it were, hostile attitude, was quite disliked by them as they got to know him better; and they were glad when the sittings were over, and they were left with a magnificent portrait in their possession, and he gave up coming. Golenishtchev was the first to give expression to an idea that had occurred to all of them, which was that Mihailov was simply jealous of Vronsky. “Not envious, let us say, since he has _talent_; but it annoys him that a wealthy man of the highest society, and a count, too (you know they all detest a title), can, without any particular trouble, do as well, if not better, than he who has devoted all his life to it. And more than all, it’s a question of culture, which he is without.” Vronsky defended Mihailov, but at the bottom of his heart he believed it, because in his view a man of a different, lower world would be sure to be envious.

• From Querelle (1953)

  It had been his intention to demonstrate his contempt for the fellow who kept on staring at him, but he did not care to define that contempt too pointedly. He did not even dare so much as indicate Mario to the boss with his $!yes. "Dealing with me you don't have to worry. You'll get your dough. All you've got to do is bring those five kilos here, and you'll receive your pennies. OK? So get cracking.'' With a very slow, almost imperceptible movement of the head the boss nodded toward the counter against which Mario was leaning. "That's Mario, over there. Don't worry about him, he belongs to the family." Without one twitch of his face muscles, Mario held out his hand. It was hard, solid, armored rather than ornamented with three gold rings. Querelle's waist was trimmer than Mario's, by an inch or so. He knew that the very moment he set eyes on the 29 I QUERELLE splendid rings: they seemed to be signs of great masculine strength. He had no doubt ·that the realm over which this character lorded it was a terrestrial one. Suddenly, and with a twinge of melancholy, Querelle was reminded that he possessed, hidden forr'ard in the soaking despatch-boat out in the Roads, all it needed to be this man's equal. The thought calmed him down a little. But was it really possible for a policeman to be so handsome, so wealthy? And was it possible that he would join forces with, no, join his beauty to the power of an outlaw (because that is what Querelle liked to think the brothelkeeper was) ? But that thought, slowly unfolding in Querelle's mind, did not set it at rest, and his disdain yielded to his admiration. "Hello." Mario's voice was large and thick like his hands-except that it carried no sparkle. It struck Querelle slap in the face. It was a brutal, callous voice, like a big shovel. Speaking of it, a few days later, Querelle said to the detective : "Your pound of flesh, every time you hit me in the face with it ... " Querelle gave him a broad smile and held out his hand, but without saying anything. To the proprietor he said : "My brother isn't coming, is he? " "Haven't seen him. Dunno where he is."

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Lidia Ivanovna made inquiries through her friends as to what those _infamous people_, as she called Anna and Vronsky, intended doing, and she endeavored so to guide every movement of her friend during those days that he could not come across them. The young adjutant, an acquaintance of Vronsky, through whom she obtained her information, and who hoped through Countess Lidia Ivanovna to obtain a concession, told her that they had finished their business and were going away next day. Lidia Ivanovna had already begun to calm down, when the next morning a note was brought her, the handwriting of which she recognized with horror. It was the handwriting of Anna Karenina. The envelope was of paper as thick as bark; on the oblong yellow paper there was a huge monogram, and the letter smelt of agreeable scent. “Who brought it?” “A commissionaire from the hotel.” It was some time before Countess Lidia Ivanovna could sit down to read the letter. Her excitement brought on an attack of asthma, to which she was subject. When she had recovered her composure, she read the following letter in French: “Madame la Comtesse, “The Christian feelings with which your heart is filled give me the, I feel, unpardonable boldness to write to you. I am miserable at being separated from my son. I entreat permission to see him once before my departure. Forgive me for recalling myself to your memory. I apply to you and not to Alexey Alexandrovitch, simply because I do not wish to cause that generous man to suffer in remembering me. Knowing your friendship for him, I know you will understand me. Could you send Seryozha to me, or should I come to the house at some fixed hour, or will you let me know when and where I could see him away from home? I do not anticipate a refusal, knowing the magnanimity of him with whom it rests. You cannot conceive the craving I have to see him, and so cannot conceive the gratitude your help will arouse in me. “Anna.” Everything in this letter exasperated Countess Lidia Ivanovna: its contents and the allusion to magnanimity, and especially its free and easy—as she considered—tone. “Say that there is no answer,” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, and immediately opening her blotting-book, she wrote to Alexey Alexandrovitch that she hoped to see him at one o’clock at the levee. “I must talk with you of a grave and painful subject. There we will arrange where to meet. Best of all at my house, where I will order tea _as you like it_. Urgent. He lays the cross, but He gives the strength to bear it,” she added, so as to give him some slight preparation. Countess Lidia Ivanovna usually wrote some two or three letters a day to Alexey Alexandrovitch. She enjoyed that form of communication, which gave opportunity for a refinement and air of mystery not afforded by their personal interviews. Chapter 24

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Landau looked round hurriedly, came up, and smiling, laid his moist, lifeless hand in Stepan Arkadyevitch’s outstretched hand and immediately walked away and fell to gazing at the portraits again. The countess and Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at each other significantly. “I am very glad to see you, particularly today,” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, pointing Stepan Arkadyevitch to a seat beside Karenin. “I introduced you to him as Landau,” she said in a soft voice, glancing at the Frenchman and again immediately after at Alexey Alexandrovitch, “but he is really Count Bezzubov, as you’re probably aware. Only he does not like the title.” “Yes, I heard so,” answered Stepan Arkadyevitch; “they say he completely cured Countess Bezzubova.” “She was here today, poor thing!” the countess said, turning to Alexey Alexandrovitch. “This separation is awful for her. It’s such a blow to her!” “And he positively is going?” queried Alexey Alexandrovitch. “Yes, he’s going to Paris. He heard a voice yesterday,” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, looking at Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Ah, a voice!” repeated Oblonsky, feeling that he must be as circumspect as he possibly could in this society, where something peculiar was going on, or was to go on, to which he had not the key. A moment’s silence followed, after which Countess Lidia Ivanovna, as though approaching the main topic of conversation, said with a fine smile to Oblonsky: “I’ve known you for a long while, and am very glad to make a closer acquaintance with you. _Les amis de nos amis sont nos amis._ But to be a true friend, one must enter into the spiritual state of one’s friend, and I fear that you are not doing so in the case of Alexey Alexandrovitch. You understand what I mean?” she said, lifting her fine pensive eyes. “In part, countess, I understand the position of Alexey Alexandrovitch....” said Oblonsky. Having no clear idea what they were talking about, he wanted to confine himself to generalities. “The change is not in his external position,” Countess Lidia Ivanovna said sternly, following with eyes of love the figure of Alexey Alexandrovitch as he got up and crossed over to Landau; “his heart is changed, a new heart has been vouchsafed him, and I fear you don’t fully apprehend the change that has taken place in him.” “Oh, well, in general outlines I can conceive the change. We have always been friendly, and now....” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, responding with a sympathetic glance to the expression of the countess, and mentally balancing the question with which of the two ministers she was most intimate, so as to know about which to ask her to speak for him. “The change that has taken place in him cannot lessen his love for his neighbors; on the contrary, that change can only intensify love in his heart. But I am afraid you do not understand me. Won’t you have some tea?” she said, with her eyes indicating the footman, who was handing round tea on a tray.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “And how strong they all are, how sound physically,” thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, looking at the powerfully built gentleman of the bedchamber with his well-combed, perfumed whiskers, and at the red neck of the prince, pinched by his tight uniform. He had to pass them on his way. “Truly is it said that all the world is evil,” he thought, with another sidelong glance at the calves of the gentleman of the bedchamber. Moving forward deliberately, Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed with his customary air of weariness and dignity to the gentleman who had been talking about him, and looking towards the door, his eyes sought Countess Lidia Ivanovna. “Ah! Alexey Alexandrovitch!” said the little old man, with a malicious light in his eyes, at the moment when Karenin was on a level with them, and was nodding with a frigid gesture, “I haven’t congratulated you yet,” said the old man, pointing to his newly received ribbon. “Thank you,” answered Alexey Alexandrovitch. “What an _exquisite_ day today,” he added, laying emphasis in his peculiar way on the word _exquisite_. That they laughed at him he was well aware, but he did not expect anything but hostility from them; he was used to that by now. Catching sight of the yellow shoulders of Lidia Ivanovna jutting out above her corset, and her fine pensive eyes bidding him to her, Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled, revealing untarnished white teeth, and went towards her. Lidia Ivanovna’s dress had cost her great pains, as indeed all her dresses had done of late. Her aim in dress was now quite the reverse of that she had pursued thirty years before. Then her desire had been to adorn herself with something, and the more adorned the better. Now, on the contrary, she was perforce decked out in a way so inconsistent with her age and her figure, that her one anxiety was to contrive that the contrast between these adornments and her own exterior should not be too appalling. And as far as Alexey Alexandrovitch was concerned she succeeded, and was in his eyes attractive. For him she was the one island not only of goodwill to him, but of love in the midst of the sea of hostility and jeering that surrounded him. Passing through rows of ironical eyes, he was drawn as naturally to her loving glance as a plant to the sun. “I congratulate you,” she said to him, her eyes on his ribbon. Suppressing a smile of pleasure, he shrugged his shoulders, closing his eyes, as though to say that that could not be a source of joy to him. Countess Lidia Ivanovna was very well aware that it was one of his chief sources of satisfaction, though he never admitted it. “How is our angel?” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, meaning Seryozha.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  And the other said to him: “Why did he conceal the name of that river, even as one does of horrible things?” And the shade who was asked this question, acquitted him thus: “I know not, but verily ’tis meet that the name of such a vale perish; for from its beginning (where the rugged mountain-chain, whence Pelorus is cut off, is so fruitful that in few places it exceeds that mark) as far as there where it yields itself to restore that which the sky soaks up from the sea, whence rivers have that which flows with them, virtue is driven forth as an enemy by all, even as a snake, either because of the ill-favoured place or of evil habit which incites them; wherefore the dwellers in the wretched vale have so changed their nature that it seems as if Circe had them in her pasturing.3 Among filthy hogs, more worthy of acorns than of other food made for use of man, it first directs its feeble course. Then, coming downward it finds curs snarling more than their power warrants, and from them scornfully turns aside its snout. On it goes in its descent, and, the greater its increase, the more it finds the dogs growing to wolves, this accurst and ill-fated ditch. Having then descended through many deep gorges, it finds the foxes, so full of fraud that they fear no wit that may trap them. Nor will I cease speaking, for all that another may hear me; and it will be well for him if he mind him again of what true prophecy unfolds to me. I see thy grandson,4 who is becoming a hunter of those wolves on the bank of the fierce river, and strikes them all with terror. He sells their flesh while yet alive; then slaughters them like worn-out cattle: many he deprives of life and himself of honour. He cometh forth bloody from the sad wood; he leaves it such, that hence a thousand years it re-woods not itself to its primal state.” As at the announcement of grievous ills the face of him who listens is troubled, from whatever side the peril may assault him, so saw I the other soul, that had turned round to hear, grow troubled and sad, after it had gathered these words to itself. The speech of the one and the other’s countenance made me long to know their names, and question I made of them mingled with prayers: wherefore the spirit that first snake to me, began again: “Thou wouldst that I condescen in doing that for thee which thou wilt not do for me; but since God wills that so much of his grace shine forth in thee, I will not be chary with thee; therefore know that I am Guido del Duca. My blood was so inflamed with envy, that if I had seen a man make him glad, thou wouldst have seen me suffused with lividness.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  [image file=image_rsrcA5N.jpg] INSENSATE care of mortals! Oh how false the arguments which make thee downward beat thy wings! One was following after law, and one aphorisms,1 one was pursuing priesthood, and one dominion by violence or by quibbles, and another plunder, and another civil business, and one, tangled in the pleasures of the flesh, was moiling, and one abandoned him to ease; the whilst, from all these things released, with Beatrice up in heaven thus gloriously was I received. When each had come again to that point of the circle whereat he was before, he stayed him, as the taper in its stand. And within that light which first had spoken to me I heard smiling begin, as it grew brighter: “Even as I glow with its ray, so, gazing into the Eternal Light, I apprehend whence thou dost take occasion for thy thoughts. Thou questionest and wouldst fain discern, in such open and dispread discourse as may be level to thine understanding, my utterance wherein I said but now: Where is good fattening, and wherein I said: No second ever rose; and here we need to make precise distinction.3 The providence which governeth the world,—with counsel wherein every creature’s gaze must stay, defeated, e’er it reach the bottom,— in order that the spouse of him, who with loud cries espoused her with the blessed blood, might go toward her delight, secure within herself and faithfuller to him, two Princes did ordain on her behalf, who on this side and that should be for guides. The one was all seraphic in his ardour, the other by his wisdom was on earth a splendour of cherubic light.4 Of one will I discourse, because of both the two he speaketh who doth either praise, which so he will; for to one end their works. Between Tupino and the stream5 that drops from the hill chosen by the blessed Ubaldo,6 a fertile slope hangs from a lofty mount, wherefrom Perugia feeleth cold and heat through Porta Sole,7 and behind it waileth Nocera, for the heavy yoke, and Gualdo.8 From this slope, where most it breaks the steepness of decline, was born into the world a sun, even as is this some whiles from Ganges. Wherefore who speaketh of that place, let him not say Assisi,9 ’twere to speak short, but Orient, would he name it right Not yet was he far distant from his rising when he began to make the earth to feel from his great power a certain strengthening; for in his youth10 for such a lady did he rush into war against his father,11 to whom, as unto death, not one unbars the gate of his good pleasure; and in the spiritual court that had rule over him, and in his father’s presence he was united to her, and then from day to day loved her more strongly. She, reft of her first husband,12 a thousand and a hundred years and more, despised, obscure, even till him stood without invitation.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  [image file=image_rsrcA5N.jpg] AGAINST A BETTER will fights ill, wherefore, against my pleasure, to please him, I drew the sponge from the water unfilled. I moved on, and my Leader moved on by the free spaces, ever along the rock, as one goes by a wall close to the battlements; for the people who distil through their eyes, drop by drop, the evil that fills the whole world, on the other side approach too near the edge. Accurst be thou, she-wolf of old, that hast more prey than all the other beasts, for thy hunger endlessly deep! O heaven, in whose revolution it seems that conditions here below are thought to be changed, when will he come through whom she shall depart?1 We went on, with steps slow and scant, and I intent on the shades that I heard piteously weeping and complaining; and by chance I heard one in front of us calling with tears: “Sweet Mary,” even as a woman who is in travail; and continuing: “So poor wast thou, as may be seen by that hostelry where thou didst lay down thy holy burden.”2 Following I heard: “O good Fabricius, thou didst desire to possess virtue with poverty, rather than great riches with iniquity.”3 These words were so pleasing to me, that I drew me forward to have knowledge of that spirit, from whom they seemed to have come. It went on to speak of the bounty which Nicholas gave to the maidens, to lead their youth to honour.4 “O spirit, that discoursest so much of good, tell me who thou wast,” said I, “and wherefore thou alone renewest these worthy lauds? Thy words shall not be without reward, if I return to complete the short way of that life which is flying to its end.” And he:5 “I will tell it thee, not for any solace that I expect from yonder, but because so much grace shineth in thee ere thou art dead. I was the root of the evil tree which o’ershadows all Christian lands, so that rarely is good fruit plucked therefrom. But if Douay, Lille, Ghent and Bruges had power, soon were vengeance taken for it,6 and I beseech this from him who judgeth all. Hugh Capet was I called yonder; of me are born the Philips and the Lewises by whom of late France is ruled.7 Son was I of a butcher of Paris. When the ancient kings came to an end, all save one given over to grey garments,8 I found tight in my hands the reins of the government of the realm, and so much power from new possessions, and so rich in friends, that to my son’s head the widowed crown was promoted from whom began the consecrated bones of those. So long as the great dowry of Provence9 had not taken shame from my race, it was of little worth, but yet it did no evil.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “I have met him. But he’s a queer fish, and quite without breeding. You know, one of those uncouth new people one’s so often coming across nowadays, one of those free-thinkers you know, who are reared _d’emblée_ in theories of atheism, scepticism, and materialism. In former days,” said Golenishtchev, not observing, or not willing to observe, that both Anna and Vronsky wanted to speak, “in former days the free-thinker was a man who had been brought up in ideas of religion, law, and morality, and only through conflict and struggle came to free-thought; but now there has sprung up a new type of born free-thinkers who grow up without even having heard of principles of morality or of religion, of the existence of authorities, who grow up directly in ideas of negation in everything, that is to say, savages. Well, he’s of that class. He’s the son, it appears, of some Moscow butler, and has never had any sort of bringing-up. When he got into the academy and made his reputation he tried, as he’s no fool, to educate himself. And he turned to what seemed to him the very source of culture—the magazines. In old times, you see, a man who wanted to educate himself—a Frenchman, for instance—would have set to work to study all the classics and theologians and tragedians and historians and philosophers, and, you know, all the intellectual work that came in his way. But in our day he goes straight for the literature of negation, very quickly assimilates all the extracts of the science of negation, and he’s ready. And that’s not all—twenty years ago he would have found in that literature traces of conflict with authorities, with the creeds of the ages; he would have perceived from this conflict that there was something else; but now he comes at once upon a literature in which the old creeds do not even furnish matter for discussion, but it is stated baldly that there is nothing else—evolution, natural selection, struggle for existence—and that’s all. In my article I’ve....” “I tell you what,” said Anna, who had for a long while been exchanging wary glances with Vronsky, and knew that he was not in the least interested in the education of this artist, but was simply absorbed by the idea of assisting him, and ordering a portrait of him; “I tell you what,” she said, resolutely interrupting Golenishtchev, who was still talking away, “let’s go and see him!” Golenishtchev recovered his self-possession and readily agreed. But as the artist lived in a remote suburb, it was decided to take the carriage.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  Violence may be done against the Deity, in the heart denying and blaspheming Him; and disdaining Nature and her bounty: and hence the smallest round seals with its mark both Sodom and Cahors, 4 and all who speak with disparagement of God in their hearts. Fraud, which gnaws every conscience, a man may practise upon one who confides in him; and upon him who reposes no confidence. This latter mode seems only to cut off the bond of love which Nature makes: hence in the second circle nests hypocrisy, flattery, sorcerers, cheating, theft and simony, panders, barrators, 5 and like filth. In the other mode is forgotten that love which Nature makes, and also that which afterwards is added, giving birth to special trust: hence in the smallest circle, at the centre of the universe and seat of Dis, every traitor is eternally consumed.” And I: “Master, thy discourse proceeds most clearly, and excellently distinguishes this gulf, 6 and the people that possess it. But tell me: Those of the fat marsh; those whom the wind leads, and whom the rain beats; and those who meet with tongues so sharp, — why are they not punished in the red city, 6 if God’s anger be upon them? and if not, why are they in such a plight?” And he said to me: “Wherefore errs thy mind so much beyond its wont? or are thy thoughts turned somewhere else? Rememberest thou not the words wherewith thy Ethics treat of the three dispositions 7 which Heaven wills not, incontinence, malice, and mad bestiality? and how incontinence less offends God, 8 and receives less blame? If thou rightly considerest this doctrine, and recallest to thy memory who they are that suffer punishment above, without, thou easily wilt see who they are separated from these fell spirits, and why, with less anger, Divine Justice strikes them.” “O Sun! who healest all troubled vision, thou makest so glad when thou resolvest me, that to doubt is not less grateful than to know. Turn thee yet a little back,” I said, “to where thou sayest that usury offends the Divine Goodness, and unravel the knot.” He said to me: “Philosophy, to him who hears it, points out, not in one place alone, how Nature takes her course from the Divine Intellect, and from its art; and if thou note well thy Physics, 9 thou wilt find, not many pages from the first, that your art, as far as it can, follows her, as the scholar does his master; so that your art is, as it were, the grand-child of the Deity. 10 By these two, if thou recallest to thy memory Genesis at the beginning, it behoves man to gain his bread and to prosper. 11 And because the usurer takes another way, he contemns Nature in herself and in her follower, placing elsewhere his hope.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  He criticizes the solution given by the theological poets. First (252:C 468), he gives their solution. Second (253:C 470), he argues against it ( “ And it is clear that ” ). Third (254:C 471), he gives the reason why he does not criticize this position with more care ( “ But with regard to those ” ). Concerning the first (252) it Must be noted that there were among the Greeks, or philosophers of nature, certain students of wisdom, such as Orpheus, Hesiod and certain others, who were concerned with the gods and hid the truth about the gods under a cloak of fables, just as Plato hid philosophical truth under mathematics, as Simplicius says in his Commentary on the Categories. ’ Therefore he says that the followers of Hesiod, and all those who were called theologians, paid attention to what was convincing to themselves and have neglected us, because the truth which they understood was treated by them in such a way that it could be known only to themselves. For if the truth is obscured by fables, then the truth which underlies these fables can be known only to the one who devised them. Therefore the followers of Hesiod called the first principles of things gods, and said that those among the gods who have not tasted a certain delectable food called nectar or manna became mortal, whereas those who had tasted it became immortal. 469. But some part of the truth could lie hidden under this fable, provided that by nectar or manna is understood the supreme goodness itself of the first principle. For all the sweetness of love and affection is referred to goodness. But every good is derived from a first good. Therefore the meaning of these words could be that some things are incorruptible by reason of an intimate participation in the highest good, as those which participate perfectly in the divine being. But certain things because of their remoteness from the first principle, which is the meaning of not to taste manna and nectar, cannot remain perpetually the same in number but only in species, as the Philosopher says in Book II of Generation. But whether they intended to treat this obscurely or something else, cannot be perceived any more fully from this statement. 470. And it is clear (253).

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  At about drinks time I began to want to do something. I wrapped up my trunks in a towel, flung them in my sports bag with my goggles and soap-box and an American ‘gay thriller’ I had been loaned by Nigel the pool attendant, and trotted off out. The pavements and gardens were exuding their summer smells, and as I approached the Tube station I walked against the current of people coming home, youngsters in pinstripes from the City fanning out from the gates, jackets here and there hooked over a shoulder, smart clippety-clop of old-fashioned City shoes. They were quite handsome, some of these boys, public-school types with peachy complexions and contemptuous eyes. Already they commanded substantial salaries, took long, overpriced lunches, worked out perhaps in private City gyms. In many ways they were like me; yet as they ambled home in the benign and ordered vastness of the evening, as I fleetingly caught their eye or felt them for a moment aware of me, they were an alien breed. And then I was a loafer who had hardly ever actively earned money, and they were the eager initiates, the coiners of the power and the compromise in which I had unthinkingly been raised. My disaffected mood persisted in the sweaty train. Goldie was one of the poorer accessions of the swimming-pool library. It was not, alas, about the Cambridge second eight, but about rent-boys, blackmail and murder in Manhattan; Goldie was the gay police officer who got to buy the favours of the chief suspect, and seemed bound to fall in love with him before the sorry end. The book’s formula was to alternate blocks of fast, bloodthirsty action with exhaustive descriptions of sexual intercourse. Nigel, night-sighted in the pool’s subterranean gloom, had said it was a good one; but I resented its professional neatness and its priapic attempts to win me over. The trouble was that, as attempts, they were half-successful: something in me was pained and removed; but something else, subliterate, responded to the book’s bald graffiti. ‘Fuck me again, Goldie,’ the slender, pleading Juan Bautista would cry; and I thought, ‘Yeah, give it to him! Give it to him good ’n’ hard!’

• From Querelle (1953)

  145 I QUERELLE "Well, there's the lady. Surely you know her?" Having said that, lVlario looked Querelle in the eye and curled his lips in a light sneer. But if the mouth expressed mere irony, t n e eyes were hard and pitiless. But Quere11e did not suspect anything. "Yeah ... " He drawled out th at affirmative, making it seem a matter so self-evident that it was not worth talking about. At the same time he crossed his legs and took out a cigarette. His whole demeanor seemed an attempt to prove, though it wasn't clear to whom, that the importance of the moment did not lie in his affirmative answer, but in the most trivial gesture. ''Smoke?" "Why not." They lit their cigarettes, took a first puff, and Querelle re turned his forcefully through the nose, expressing by those tough smoke-spewing nostrils his sense of victory over himself, a well-kept secret th at permitted him to deal so familiarly with a cop-after all, something almost like an officer. The police authorities quickly reached th e assumption that both th e murders had been comm�tted by Gil. Their belief was confirmed when the other masons saw, and identified, the cigarette lighter found lying in the grass near the assassinated sailor. At first, the police considered a revenge motive; then they thought of the possibility of some love dr a ma; and finally arrived at th e notion of sexual aberration plain and simple. All the rooms in the Brest Police Headquarters emanated an effiu vium of despair, yet it was of a peculiarly consoling kind. The walls were decorated with some photographs provided by the Department of Criminal Anthropometry, and with a few "Wanted" notices for unapprehended criminals, specifically those who were suspected of having reached some port town. The tables and desks were laden with dossiers containing state ments and important memoranda. From the moment he en tered th e office, Gil felt like sinking in an ocean of gravity. He

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O X I X In the Third chasm are the Simonists. The heart of Dante seems almost too full for utterance when he comes in sight of them. To him they are, as it were, a more hateful species of panders and seducers than those he has just left; and they lie beneath the vile flatterers “that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness.” It is they who have prostituted the things of God for gold and silver, and made “His house a den of thieves.” They are all fixed one by one in narrow round holes, along the sides and bottom of the rock, with the head downwards, so that nothing more than the feet and part of the legs stands out. The soles of them are tormented with flames, which keep flickering from the heels to the toes, and burn with a brightness and intensity proportioned to the different degrees of guilt. Dante is carried down by his Guide to the bottom of the chasm; and there finds Tope Nicholas III, who, with a weeping voice, declares his own evil ways, and those of his successors Boniface VIII and Clement V. The Poet answers with a sorrow and indignation proportionate to his reverence for the Mystic Keys, speaking as if under the pressure of it. Virgil then lifts him up again, and lightly carriers him to the rough summit of the arch which forms a passage over the next chasm. O SIMON MAGUS! 1 O wretched followers of his and robbers ye, who prostitute the things of God, that should be wedded unto righteousness, for gold and silver! now must the trump sound for you: for ye are in the third chasm. Already we had mounted to the following grave, on that part of the cliff which hangs right over the middle of the fosse. O Wisdom Supreme, what art thou showest in heaven, on earth and in the evil world, and how justly thy Goodness dispenses! I saw the livid stone, on the sides and on the bottom, full of holes, all of one breadth; and each was round. Not less wide they seemed to me, nor larger, than those that are in my beauteous San Giovanni made for stands to the baptizers; 2 one of which, not many years ago, I broke to save one that was drowning in it: and be this a seal to undeceive all men. From the mouth of each emerged a sinner’s feet, and legs up to the calf; and the rest remained within. The soles of all were both on fire: wherefore the joints quivered so strongly, that they would have snapped in pieces withes and grass- ropes. As the flaming of things oiled moves only on their outer surface: so was it there, from the heels to the points. “Master!

• From Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018)

  The only one of us who could have been called cool was Josh. Tall, leather jacket, hair dripping with grease, he was our grunge god. From him I learned to swear like a man, to drop the words fuck, bitch, and pussy in my sentences as smoothly and as frequently as the word the. He was a hard boy, even in his button-down shirts and clip-on ties. He smacked us on the backs and asses at every opportunity, then called out to passing math geeks, “Off to your formulas and butt sex, fags? Wanna take Skinny with you?” he’d say, pointing at me. “Fucking pussies.” “God, how old are the Olsen twins now?” he asked at lunch halfway through our freshman year, pushing his hair behind his ears. “I’m too ready to jerk off to them.” I stared out the window and watched as the groundskeeper circled the lawn on his riding mower. Josh looked around the table at us while drumming his fingers on the table. “Come on, they’re still jailbait, right? Don’t tell me none of you haven’t thought about it.” Someone murmured that if it’s in our heads, there can’t be anything wrong and a debate over pubic hair quickly raged next to me. Josh looked across the table at me: he couldn’t have known that my stomach was tightening, that the night before I’d dreamed of razor blades and of a man masturbating me, or that whenever I touched myself I couldn’t help but think about the moon and fireworks. “Which one do you jerk off to, Skinny? And don’t try saying they look the same or I’ll know for sure you’re a fag.” I pushed my lunch across the table toward him. “Come on, we all know you’re doing it.” Could I tell him? I’d had four years to figure out how to tell someone, anyone, what had happened to me, but Josh didn’t give me the chance. “Yeah, I knew it,” he said, without waiting for me to answer. He pointed and laughed, “You love to jerk off, don’t you, you sick shit?” IT’S HARD TO DESCRIBE WHAT WE DID AS HAZING, AT LEAST AT first. Two other sophomores were just messing around a little with Stephen, the smallest freshman on our cross-country team. Waiting for our parents outside the school building, we pushed him aside as he was changing from his cleats to his tennis shoes. Fred held him against the wall while I grabbed a shoe and tossed it to Matt. We played keep-away for a couple minutes, Stephen trying to catch the shoe as it floated above his head. He was laughing, enjoying the game, or at least enjoying being somehow included.