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)

  “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.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  24 Ad istum modum praeco ille cachinnos circum- stantibus commovebat. Sed illa fortuna mea saevissima, quam per tot regiones iam fugiens effugere vel praecedentibus malis placare non potui, rursum in me caecos detorsit oculos et emptorem aptissimum duris meis casibus mire repertum obiecit. Scitote qualem: cinaedum et senem cinaedum, calvum quidem sed cincinnis semicanis et pendulis capillatum, unum de triviali popularium faece, qui per plateas: et oppida cymbalis et erotalis personantes deamque Syriam circumferentes mendicare com- pellunt. Is nimio praestinandi studio praeconem rogat cuiatis essem : at ille Cappadocum me et satis forticulum denuntiat. Rursum requirit annos aetatis meae : sed praeco lasciviens: * Mathematicus quidem qui stellas eius disposuit, quintum ei numeravit annum; sed ipse scilicet melius istud de suis novit professionibus. Quanquam enim prudens crimen Corneliae legis incurram, si civem Romanum pro servo tibi vendidero, quin emis bonum et frugi mancipium, quod te et foris et domi poterit iuvare? "' Sed exinde odiosus emptor aliud de alio non desinit quaerere, denique de mansuetudine etiam mea 25 percontatur anxie. At praeco “Vervecem,” inquit *Non asinum vides ad usus omnes quíetum ; non mordacem, nec calcitronem quidem sed prorsus ut in asini corio modestum bominem inhabitare credas. Quae res cognitu non ardua: nam si faciem tuam 384 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VIII we not give him to somebody, if there be any that it shall irk not to find him his hay?”

• From Querelle (1953)

  well that he could still show who was the boss, and thus he dared to treat the one person who could have brought about his own downfall with such supreme scorn. With great nerve and cunning he raised the stakes of the game to a degree where the least mistake would be enough to send the player to his death . Scenting ( the word seems most accurate) the success he was having at it, he decided to play it all the way. "You don't want to piss me off now, do you? Don't start acting the tough guy. Now's the time to listen to my advice.'' Having adopted this stance and tone, he came close to running such grave danger (one lucid moment, and Gil might give in to his mounting desperation ) that he realized with even greater speed, clarity and presence of mind all the thousand little details still requ!rcd to bring about, by Gil's death and his 252 I JEAN GENET silence, Querelle's own salvation. Alert, quick, a winner already, he toned down his scorn and haughtiness, knowing that these might crack or upset the balance now weighted in his favor and indicating that he would gain arid keep his freedom. ( Let us note that Querelle was able to discern the ways and means he had to employ in order to succeed because he was, and knew himself to be, utterly free; thus he saw he could afford to temper his scorn and arrogance with a little buddy-talk. ) With a little, crooked smile_-thus, in his own mind, showing Gil the irony and basic insignihcance of the entire situation-he said : "Hell, come on. You're not the guy who would break down at a time like this. You just have to listen what I tell you to do. D'you understand?" He put his hand on Gil's shoulder, whom he was now addressing like a sick man, someone bound to die, giving his final advice that concerned Gil's soul more than his body. "You get into an empty compartment. Then, first of all, you hide your dough. Just stick it under one of the seat cushions. Just keep some change on you. You see what I mean. You have to take care not to have too much money on you.'' "And what about the clothes?" Gil had thought of saying "So you want me to go in these old rags," but as it indicated too great a degree of intimacy and emotional attachment between the two of them (and he was already ashamed of this ) , he realized that such a way of putting it might irritate Querelle. He said : "They'II recognize me in these." "HeU, no. Don't you worry about that. The cops can't remember what you were wearing then."

• From Querelle (1953)

  find it so easy to consider that idea. Once a murder has been committed, the police habitually put forward the two motives of robbery or jealousy; but as soon as someone who is or has been a sailor is involved, they simply say to themselves : sexual perversion. They cling to that conclusion with almost painful intensity. To society-at-large, the police are what the dream is to the quotidian round of events; what it excludes from its own preoccupations, at least as far as possible, polite society authorizes its police force to deal with. This may account for the combined repulsion and attraction with which that force is regarded. Charged with the drainage of dreams, the police catch them in their filters. And that explains why policemen bear such resemblance to those they pursue. It would be a mistake to believe that it is merely the better to trick, track down, and vanquish it more effectively, that those inspectors blend so well with their quarry. Looking closely at Mario's personal life, we notice first of all his habitual visits to the brothel and his friendship with its proprietor. No doubt he finds Nono ·an informer who is in some ways a useful kind of link between law-abiding society and shady doings, but in talking to him he is also able to acquire (if he did not know them already) the manners and idioms of the underworld-tending to overdo them, later, in moments of danger. Finally, his desire to love Dede in forbidden ways is an indication : this love alienates him from the 79 I QUERELLE police force whose conduct must always be quite beyond reproach. (Those propositions appear contradictory. We shall see how that contradiction resolves itself in actuality.) Up to their necks in work we refuse even to admit, the police live under a curse, particularly the plainclothes men, who, when seen in the middle of (and protected by) the dark blue uniforms of the straight coppers, appear like thin-skinned, translucent lice, small fragile things easily crushed with a fingernail, whose very bodies have become blue from feeding off that other, the dark blue.

• From Querelle (1953)

  The Lieutenant, standing in front of Querelle, whom he desired but did not dare approach, made an almost imperceptible gesture, nervous, quickly withdrawn. Querelle noted all the waves of uneasiness passing across the eyes fixed firmly on his, without letting one of them escape him-and (as if such a weight had, by squashing Querelle, caused his smile to broaden more and more) he kept on smiling under the gaze and the physical mass of the Lieutenant, both bearing down on him so heavily that he had to tense his muscles against them. He understood nonetheless the gravity of that stare, which at that moment expressed total human despair. But at the same time, in his mind, he was shrugging his shoulders and thinking: "Faggot!" 88 I JEAN GENET He despised the officer. He kept on smiling, allowing himself to be lulled by the monstrous and ill-defined notion of "faggot" sweeping back and forth inside his head. · "Faggot, what's a faggot? One who lets other guys screw him in the ass?" he thought. And gradually, while his smile faded, lines of disdain appeared at the comers of his mouth. Then again, another phrase drifted through his mind, inducing a vague feeling of torpor: "Me, I'm one too." A thought he had difficulty in focusing on, though he did not find it repulsive, but of whose sadness he was aware when he realized that he \vas pulling his buttocks in so tight (or so it seemed to him ) that they no longer touched the seat of his trousers. And this fleeting, yet quite depressing thought generated, up his spine, an immediate and rapid series of vibrations which quickly spread out over the entire surface· of his black shoulders and covered them with a shawl woven out of shivers. Querelle raised his arm, to smooth back his hair. The gesture was so beautiful, unveiling, as it did, the armpit as pale and as taut as a trout's belly, that the Lieutenant could not prevent his eyes from betraying how very weary he was of this state of unrequited passion. His eyes cried for mercy. Their expression made him look more humble, even, than if he had fallen on his knees.

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

  From feminist teach-ins at Columbia and Barnard as a student, to Hollywood and beyond as an artist, to teaching young actors in a prestigious public school, I can see the fight for women’s equality remains. I can look at myself in the mirror without shame (but with endless bills to pay) because I circumvented the exploitation rampant in my industry, somehow. But what do I tell my students? How can I tell them to not accept that their success is dependent on their physicality, but also that they may be contributing to the same stereotypes that hold them back? The issues women are facing in the film and television industry are not just about fair pay for famous rich white actresses: I find it shameful when my superwealthy peers complain about being paid only $400,000, though it is, indeed, helpful to illustrate the wage gap between men and women in the industry. It’s more important to tackle the absence of a platform for young women who are extremely talented but who are not thin, blond, white, and/or deemed sexually desirable by the powers that be. It’s more important to tackle the frustrating status quo where the powers that be are still male and take up disproportional space in the audition room and the boardroom. We have to end the system where it is only white men who decide when a woman—in any position, “privileged” or not—is deserving of power and agency. I’m still navigating the sexual appearance standard in professional work. When I am called to consider a role or audition for a role in TV/Hollywood Land, my talent is never in question. The “studio” or the “network” wants me on tape to see what I look like now. I was never alone in a hotel room with Harvey Weinstein, but I’ve been at “dinners” that felt like come-ons and I’ve walked into rooms where I’ve been sized up and then received phone calls or “date” requests that I’ve turned down. Today, if the producer or executive or male director in charge finds me sexually attractive, then I’m on the list. This is how it goes. This is how it IS. If the Harvey Weinstein disaster illustrates anything at all, it illustrates the entirety of the power structure. The lurid details of his rapes are disgusting and yet a shield, in a way, for the greater toxicity of that power structure. His behavior and his crimes are so . . . what? Undeniable? Shocking? Inexcusable? Any culpable man in the entertainment industry can pull up some feigned dignity and state publicly (or privately) “Well, I didn’t do THAT . . . exactly” as a kind of self-protective blanket of denial. There are some actors that have expressed “support” for the women who have spoken up about Harvey Weinstein who are guilty of the same or similar behavior. It’s good PR for them but there are quite a few liars.