Desire

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 Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Sauntering along the boulevard I had noticed her verging toward me with that curious trot-about air of a whore and the run-down heels and cheap jewelry and the pasty look of their kind which the rouge only accentuates. It was not difficult to come to terms with her. We sat in the back of the little tabac called L’Eléphant and talked it over quickly. In a few minutes we were in a five franc room on the Rue Amelot, the curtains drawn and the covers thrown back. She didn’t rush things, Germaine. She sat on the bidet soaping herself and talked to me pleasantly about this and that; she liked the knickerbockers I was wearing. Très chic! she thought. They were once, but I had worn the seat out of them; fortunately the jacket covered my ass. As she stood up to dry herself, still talking to me pleasantly, suddenly she dropped the towel and, advancing toward me leisurely, she commenced rubbing her pussy affectionately, stroking it with her two hands, caressing it, patting it, patting it. There was something about her eloquence at that moment and the way she thrust that rosebush under my nose which remains unforgettable; she spoke of it as if it were some extraneous object which she had acquired at great cost, an object whose value had increased with time and which now she prized above everything in the world. Her words imbued it with a peculiar fragrance; it was no longer just her private organ, but a treasure, a magic, potent treasure, a God-given thing—and none the less so because she traded it day in and day out for a few pieces of silver. As she flung herself on the bed, with legs spread wide apart, she cupped it with her hands and stroked it some more, murmuring all the while in that hoarse, cracked voice of hers that it was good, beautiful, a treasure, a little treasure. And it was good, that little pussy of hers! That Sunday afternoon, with its poisonous breath of spring in the air, everything clicked again. As we stepped out of the hotel I looked her over again in the harsh light of day and I saw clearly what a whore she was—the gold teeth, the geranium in her hat, the rundown heels, etc., etc. Even the fact that she had wormed a dinner out of me and cigarettes and taxi hadn’t the least disturbing effect upon me. I encouraged it, in fact. I liked her so well that after dinner we went back to the hotel again and took another shot at it. “For love,” this time. And again that big, bushy thing of hers worked its bloom and magic. It began to have an independent existence—for me too. There was Germaine and there was that rosebush of hers. I liked them separately and I liked them together. As I say, she was different, Germaine.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Tania says so that every one may hear: “I love him!” And while Boris scalds himself with whisky she says: “Sit down here! O Boris… Russia … what’ll I do? I’m bursting with it!” At night when I look at Boris’ goatee lying on the pillow I get hysterical. O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how to inflame a cunt. I shoot hot bolts into you, Tania, I make your ovaries incandescent. Your Sylvester is a little jealous now? He feels something, does he? He feels the remnants of my big prick. I have set the shores a little wider, I have ironed out the wrinkles. After me you can take on stallions, bulls, rams, drakes, St. Bernards. You can stuff toads, bats, lizards up your rectum. You can shit arpeggios if you like, or string a zither across your navel. I am fucking you, Tania, so that you’ll stay fucked. And if you are afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear off a few hairs from your cunt and paste them on Boris’ chin. I will bite into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces. … Indigo sky swept clear of fleecy clouds, gaunt trees in-finitely extended, their black boughs gesticulating like a sleepwalker. Somber, spectral trees, their trunks pale as cigar ash. A silence supreme and altogether European. Shutters drawn, shops barred. A red glow here and there to mark a tryst. Brusque the façades, almost forbidding; immaculate except for the splotches of shadow cast by the trees. Passing by the Orangerie I am reminded of another Paris, the Paris of Maugham, of Gauguin, Paris of George Moore. I think of that terrible Spaniard who was then startling the world with his acrobatic leaps from style to style. I think of Spengler and of his terrible pronunciamentos, and I wonder if style, style in the grand manner, is done for. I say that my mind is occupied with these thoughts, but it is not true; it is only later, after I have crossed the Seine, after I have put behind me the carnival of lights, that I allow my mind to play with these ideas. For the moment I can think of nothing—except that I am a sentient being stabbed by the miracle of these waters that reflect a forgotten world. All along the banks the trees lean heavily over the tarnished mirror; when the wind rises and fills them with a rustling murmur they will shed a few tears and shiver as the water swirls by. I am suffocated by it.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  High noon and here I am standing on an empty belly at the confluence of all these crooked lanes that reek with the odor of food. Opposite me is the Hôtel de Louisiane. A grim old hostelry known to the bad boys of the Rue de Buci in the good old days. Hotels and food, and I’m walking about like a leper with crabs gnawing at my entrails. On Sunday mornings there’s a fever in the streets. Nothing like it anywhere, except perhaps on the East Side, or down around Chatham Square. The Rue de l’Echaudé is seething. The streets twist and turn, at every angle a fresh hive of activity. Long queues of people with vegetables under their arms, turning in here and there with crisp, sparkling appetites. Nothing but food, food, food. Makes one delirious. Pass the Square de Furstenberg. Looks different now. at high noon. The other night when I passed by it was deserted, bleak, spectral. In the middle of the square four black trees that have not yet begun to blossom. Intellectual trees, nourished by the paving stones. Like T. S. Eliot’s verse. Here, by God, if Marie Laurencin ever brought her Lesbians out into the open, would be the place for them to commune. Très lesbienne ici. Sterile, hybrid, dry as Boris’ heart. In the little garden adjoining the Eglise St. Germain are a few dismounted gargoyles. Monsters that jut forward with a terrifying plunge. On the benches other monsters—old people, idiots, cripples, epileptics. Snoozing there quietly, waiting for the dinner bell to ring. At the Galerie Zak across the way some imbecile has made a picture of the cosmos—on the flat. A painter’s cosmos! Full of odds and ends, bric-a-bric. In the lower left-hand corner, however, there’s an anchor—and a dinner bell. Salute! Salute! O Cosmos! Still prowling around. Mid afternoon. Guts rattling. Beginning to rain now. Notre-Dame rises tomblike from the water. The gargoyles lean far out over the lace façade. They hang there like an idée fixe in the mind of a monomaniac. An old man with yellow whiskers approaches me. Has some Jaworski nonsense in his hand. Comes up to me with his head thrown back and the rain splashing in his face turns the golden sands to mud. Bookstore with some of Raoul Dufy’s drawings in the window. Drawings of charwomen with rosebushes between their legs. A treatise on the philosophy of Joan Miró. The philosophy, mind you! In the same window: A Man Cut In Slices! Chapter one: the man in the eyes of his family. Chapter two: the same in the eyes of his mistress. Chapter three:— No chapter three. Have to come back tomorrow for chapters three and four. Every day the window trimmer turns a fresh page. A man cut in slices. ... You can’t imagine how furious I am not to have thought of a title like that!

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  In fact, I think you’d like her. With you it’s different. You don’t have to fuck her. You can afford to like her. Maybe you wouldn’t like all those dresses and the bottles and what not, but you could be tolerant. She wouldn’t bore you, that I can tell you. She’s even interesting, I might say. But she’s withered. Her breasts are all right yet—but her arms! I told her I’d bring you around some day. I talked a lot about you. … I didn’t know what to say to her. Maybe you’d like her, especially when she’s dressed. I don’t know. …” “Listen, she’s rich, you say? I’ll like her! I don’t care how old she is, so long as she’s not a hag. …” “She’s not a hag! What are you talking about? She’s charming, I tell you. She talks well. She looks well too… only her arms. …” “All right, if that’s how it is, I’ll fuck her—if you don’t want to. Tell her that. Be subtle about it, though. With a woman like that you’ve got to do things slowly. You bring me around and let things work out for themselves. Praise the shit out of me. Act jealous like. … Shit, maybe we’ll fuck her together… and we’ll go places and we’ll eat together… and we’ll drive and hunt and wear nice things. If she wants to go to Borneo let her take us along. I don’t know how to shoot either, but that doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care about that either. She just wants to be fucked that’s all. You’re talking about her arms all the time. You don’t have to look at her arms all the time, do you? Look at this bedspread! Look at the mirror! Do you call this living? Do you want to go on being delicate and live like a louse all your life? You can’t even pay your hotel bill… and you’ve got a job too. This is no way to live. I don’t care if she’s seventy years old—it’s better than this. …” “Listen, Joe, you fuck her for me… then everything’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll fuck her once in a while too… on my night off. It’s four days now since I’ve had a good shit. There’s something sticking to me, like grapes. …” “You’ve got the piles, that’s what.” “My hair’s falling out too… and I ought to see the dentist. I feel as though I were falling apart. I told her what a good guy you are. … You’ll do things for me, eh? You’re not too delicate, eh? If we go to Borneo I won’t have hemorrhoids any more. Maybe I’ll develop something else… something worse… fever perhaps… or cholera. Shit, it’s better to die of a good disease like that than to piss your life away on a newspaper with grapes up your ass and buttons falling off your pants.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  I told her I’d bring you around some day. I talked a lot about you. ... I didn’t know what to say to her. Maybe you’d like her, especially when she’s dressed. I don’t know. ...” “Listen, she’s rich, you say? I’ll like her! I don’t care how old she is, so long as she’s not a hag. ...” “She’s not a hag! What are you talking about? She’s charming, I tell you. She talks well. She looks well too... only her arms. ...” “All right, if that’s how it is, I’ll fuck her—if you don’t want to. Tell her that. Be subtle about it, though. With a woman like that you’ve got to do things slowly. You bring me around and let things work out for themselves. Praise the shit out of me. Act jealous like. ... Shit, maybe we’ll fuck her together... and we’ll go places and we’ll eat together... and we’ll drive and hunt and wear nice things. If she wants to go to Borneo let her take us along. I don’t know how to shoot either, but that doesn’t matter. She doesn’t care about that either. She just wants to be fucked that’s all. You’re talking about her arms all the time. You don’t have to look at her arms all the time, do you? Look at this bedspread! Look at the mirror! Do you call this living? Do you want to go on being delicate and live like a louse all your life? You can’t even pay your hotel bill... and you’ve got a job too. This is no way to live. I don’t care if she’s seventy years old—it’s better than this. ...” “Listen, Joe, you fuck her for me... then everything’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll fuck her once in a while too... on my night off. It’s four days now since I’ve had a good shit. There’s something sticking to me, like grapes. ...” “You’ve got the piles, that’s what.” “My hair’s falling out too... and I ought to see the dentist. I feel as though I were falling apart. I told her what a good guy you are. ... You’ll do things for me, eh? You’re not too delicate, eh? If we go to Borneo I won’t have hemorrhoids any more. Maybe I’ll develop something else... something worse... fever perhaps... or cholera. Shit, it’s better to die of a good disease like that than to piss your life away on a newspaper with grapes up your ass and buttons falling off your pants. I’d like to be rich, even if it were only for a week, and then go to a hospital with a good disease, a fatal one, and have flowers in the room and nurses dancing around and telegrams coming. They take good care of you if you’re rich. They wash you with cotton batting and they comb your hair for you.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  For a moment I was almost on the point of leaving. How the hell can you climb over a woman when her mother’s dying downstairs, perhaps right beneath you? I put my arms around her, half in sympathy and half determined to get what I had come for. As we stood thus she murmured, as if in real distress, her need for the money I had promised her. It was for “maman.” Shit, I didn’t have the heart to haggle about a few francs at the moment. I walked over to the chair where my clothes were lying and I wiggled a hundred franc note out of my fob pocket, carefully keeping my back turned to her just the same. And, as a further precaution, I placed my pants on the side of the bed where I knew I was going to flop. The hundred francs wasn’t altogether satisfactory to her, but I could see from the feeble way that she protested that it was quite enough. Then, with an energy that astonished me, she flung off her kimono and jumped into bed. As soon as I had put my arms around her and pulled her to me she reached for the switch and out went the lights. She embraced me passionately, and she groaned as all French cunts do when they get you in bed. She was getting me frightfully roused with her carrying on; that business of turning out the lights was a new one to me... it seemed like the real thing. But I was suspicious too, and as soon as I could manage conveniently I put my hands out to feel if my trousers were still there on the chair. I thought we were settled for the night. The bed felt very comfortable, softer than the average hotel bed—and the sheets were clean, I had noticed that. If only she wouldn’t squirm so! You would think she hadn’t slept with a man for a month. I wanted to stretch it out. I wanted full value for my hundred francs. But she was mumbling all sorts of things in that crazy bed language which goes to your blood even more rapidly when it’s in the dark. I was putting up a stiff fight, but it was impossible with her groaning and gasping going on, and her muttering: “Vite chéri! Vite chéri! Oh, c’est bon! Oh, oh! Vite, vite, chéri!” I tried to count but it was like a fire alarm going off. “Vite, chéri!” and this time she gave such a gasping shudder that bango! I heard the stars chiming and there was my hundred francs gone and the fifty that I had forgotten all about and the lights were on again and with the same alacrity that she had bounced into bed she was bouncing out again and grunting and squealing like an old sow.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  It’s drizzling. It’s been drizzling this way for the last five days. “Are we going to the Dôme, Joe?” I call him Joe because he calls me Joe. When Carl is with us he is Joe too. Everybody is Joe because it’s easier that way. It’s also a pleasant reminder not to take yourself too seriously. Anyway, Joe doesn’t want to go to the Dôme—he owes too much money there. He wants to go to the Coupole. Wants to take a little walk first around the block. “But it’s raining, Joe.” “I know, but what the hell! I’ve got to have my constitutional. I’ve got to wash the dirt out of my belly.” When he says this I have the impression that the whole world is wrapped up there inside his belly, and that it’s rotting there. As he’s putting on his things he falls back again into a semi-comatose state. He stands there with one arm in his coat sleeve and his hat on assways and he begins to dream aloud—about the Riviera, about the sun, about lazing one’s life away. “All I ask of life,” he says, “is a bunch of books, a bunch of dreams, and a bunch of cunt.” As he mumbles this meditatively he looks at me with the softest, the most insidious smile. “Do you like that smile?” he says. And then disgustedly—“Jesus, if I could only find some rich cunt to smile at that way!” “Only a rich cunt can save me now,” he says with an air of utmost weariness. “One gets tired of chasing after new cunts all the time. It gets mechanical. The trouble is, you see, I can’t fall in love. I’m too much of an egoist. Women only help me to dream, that’s all. It’s a vice, like drink or opium. I’ve got to have a new one every day; if I don’t I get morbid. I think too much. Sometimes I’m amazed at myself, how quick I pull it off—and how little it really means. I do it automatically like. Sometimes I’m not thinking about a woman at all, but suddenly I notice a woman looking at me and then, bango! it starts all over again. Before I know what I’m doing I’ve got her up to the room. I don’t even remember what I say to them. I bring them up to the room, give them a pat on the ass, and before I know what it’s all about it’s over. It’s like a dream. ... Do you know what I mean?” He hasn’t much use for the French girls. Can’t stand them. “Either they want money or they want you to marry them. At bottom they’re all whores. I’d rather wrestle with a virgin,” he says. “They give you a little illusion. They put up a fight at least.”

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  The princess looked on, heard everything that was said, and then got on her high horse. She was insulted. “Well,” said Fillmore, “you wanted some excitement—you can watch me do it!” She didn’t want to watch him—she wanted to watch a drake. “Well, by Jesus,” he said, “I’m as good as a drake any day... maybe a little better.” Like that, one word led to another, and finally the only way we could appease her was to call one of the girls over and let them tickle each other... When Fillmore came back with the Negress her eyes were smoldering. I could see from the way Fillmore looked at her that she must have given an unusual performance and I began to feel lecherous myself. Fillmore must have sensed how I felt, and what an ordeal it was to sit and look on all night, for suddenly he pulled a hundred franc note out of his pocket and slapping it in front of me, he said: “Look here, you probably need a lay more than any of us. Take that and pick someone out for yourself.” Somehow that gesture endeared him more to me than anything he had ever done for me, and he had done considerable. I accepted the money in the spirit it was given and promptly signaled to the Negress to get ready for another lay. That enraged the princess more than anything, it appeared. She wanted to know if there wasn’t anyone in the place good enough for us except this Negress. I told her bluntly NO. And it was so—the Negress was the queen of the harem. You had only to look at her to get an erection. Her eyes seemed to be swimming in sperm. She was drunk with all the demands made upon her. She couldn’t walk straight any more—at least, it seemed that way to me. Going up the narrow winding stairs behind her I couldn’t resist the temptation to slide my hand up her crotch; we continued up the stairs that way, she looking back at me with a cheerful smile and wiggling her ass a bit when it tickled her too much. It was a good session all around. Everyone was happy. Macha seemed to be in a good mood too. And so the next evening, after she had had her ration of champagne and caviar, after she had given us another chapter out of the history of her life, Fillmore went to work on her. It seemed as though he was going to get his reward at last.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  As she flung herself on the bed, with legs spread wide apart, she cupped it with her hands and stroked it some more, murmuring all the while in that hoarse, cracked voice of hers that it was good, beautiful, a treasure, a little treasure. And it was good, that little pussy of hers! That Sunday afternoon, with its poisonous breath of spring in the air, everything clicked again. As we stepped out of the hotel I looked her over again in the harsh light of day and I saw clearly what a whore she was—the gold teeth, the geranium in her hat, the rundown heels, etc., etc. Even the fact that she had wormed a dinner out of me and cigarettes and taxi hadn’t the least disturbing effect upon me. I encouraged it, in fact. I liked her so well that after dinner we went back to the hotel again and took another shot at it. “For love,” this time. And again that big, bushy thing of hers worked its bloom and magic. It began to have an independent existence—for me too. There was Germaine and there was that rosebush of hers. I liked them separately and I liked them together. As I say, she was different, Germaine. Later, when she discovered my true circumstances, she treated me nobly—blew me to drinks, gave me credit, pawned my things, introduced me to her friends, and so on. She even apologized for not lending me money, which I understood quite well after her maquereau had been pointed out to me. Night after night I walked down the Boulevard Beaumarchais to the little tabac where they all congregated and I waited for her to stroll in and give me a few minutes of her precious time. When some time later I came to write about Claude, it was not Claude that I was thinking of but Germaine. ... “All the men she’s been with and now you, just you, and barges going by, masts and hulls, the whole damned current of life flowing through you, through her, through all the guys behind you and after you, the flowers and the birds and the sun streaming in and the fragrance of it choking you, annihilating you.” That was for Germaine! Claude was not the same, though I admired her tremendously—I even thought for a while that I loved her. Claude had a soul and a conscience; she had refinement, too, which is bad—in a whore. Claude always imparted a feeling of sadness; she left the impression, unwittingly, of course, that you were just one more added to the stream which fate had ordained to destroy her.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  A man with something between his legs that could tickle her, that could make her writhe in ecstasy, make her grab that bushy twat of hers with both hands and rub it joyfully, boastfully, proudly, with a sense of connection, a sense of life. That was the only place where she experienced any life—down there where she clutched herself with both hands. Germaine was a whore all the way through, even down to her good heart, her whore’s heart which is not really a good heart but a lazy one, an indifferent, flaccid heart that can be touched for a moment, a heart without reference to any fixed point within, a big, flaccid whore’s heart that can detach itself for a moment from its true center. However vile and circumscribed was that world which she had created for herself, nevertheless she functioned in it superbly. And that in itself is a tonic thing. When, after we had become well acquainted, her companions would twit me, saying that I was in love with Germaine (a situation almost inconceivable to them), I would say: “Sure! Sure, I’m in love with her! And what’s more, I’m going to be faithful to her!” A lie, of course, because I could no more think of loving Germaine than I could think of loving a spider; and if I was faithful, it was not to Germaine but to that bushy thing she carried between her legs. Whenever I looked at another woman I thought immediately of Germaine, of that flaming bush which she had left in my mind and which seemed imperishable. It gave me pleasure to sit on the terrasse of the little tabac and observe her as she plied her trade, observe her as she resorted to the same grimaces, the same tricks, with others as she had with me. “She’s doing her job!”—that’s how I felt about it, and it was with approbation that I regarded her transactions. Later, when I had taken up with Claude, and I saw her night after night sitting in her accustomed place, her round little buttocks chubbily ensconced in the plush settee, I felt a sort of inexpressible rebellion toward her; a whore, it seemed to me, had no right to be sitting there like a lady, waiting timidly for someone to approach and all the while abstemiously sipping her chocolat . Germaine was a hustler. She didn’t wait for you to come to her—she went out and grabbed you. I remember so well the holes in her stockings, and the torn ragged shoes; I remember too how she stood at the bar and with blind, courageous defiance threw a strong drink down her stomach and marched out again. A hustler!

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  As we swatted away the endless reign of terror from deerflies, horseflies, and mosquitoes, one of the Angels would stand at the end of one of the long rows reading aloud to us stories from the lives of the saints. A midday swimming break in the spring-fed watering hole that Sister Catherine had constructed the year after we moved to Still River was a blessed relief. Each summer also brought with it a challenge—a project hatched by Sister Catherine. One year it might be clearing the brush from acres of land to increase the pastures for our growing herds. Another time we built hermitages, in the image of the early saints who chose to leave society and retire into the desert. This summer we undertook to build a fieldstone chicken coop under the supervision of the Big Sisters. At twenty by forty feet and ten feet high, its construction required an enormous effort. Gathering the building stones entailed dismantling the generations-old stone walls that ran through our property. Despite the backbreaking nature of the work, lugging boulders and rocks to the site, I reveled in the experience, envisioning myself as a frontier woman, a pioneer of sorts, as I learned how to mix cement and use a plumb bob to ensure that the walls would be straight. Recreation that summer included our first horseback riding lessons. As Little Sisters, we were required to ride sidesaddle, while the Little Brothers had both English and western saddles. I didn’t take naturally to horses, but my interest in riding was augmented by our riding instructor, Brother Dominic Maria. Before joining the Center, he had been Temple Morgan (related to the wealthy Astors and Morgans). He’d gone to Groton School and then Harvard College, where he was a member of the prestigious Porcellian Club. Raised on a stately horse farm in Maryland, he was an excellent rider. Until that summer, I’d barely noticed Brother Dominic Maria. But when he took my hands to show me how to hold the reins, I suddenly became aware of him in a different way. At six foot two, rugged and wiry, with jet-black hair and deep brown eyes, he was nothing like Brother Sebastian, my first crush of a year earlier, who was short and delicate looking, played the cello, and did indoor kinds of things like arranging flowers and writing poems. I didn’t understand my own feelings, but my heart skipped a beat each time I put my left foot into Brother Dominic Maria’s cupped hands and hoisted myself up into the sidesaddle. As I sat poised and ready to ride off with my horse, he spoke in a low tone. “Remember, you’re the boss, girl. Don’t let the horse get control of you. He can tell if you’re nervous.” “Girl”—I loved how he said that. No one said that at the Center. I could scarcely concentrate on the horse, as my insides got all fluttery. And “boss”—another word I never heard spoken.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  own feelings, but my heart skipped a beat each time I put my left foot into Brother Dominic Maria’s cupped hands and hoisted myself up into the sidesaddle. As I sat poised and ready to ride off with my horse, he spoke in a low tone. “Remember, you’re the boss, girl. Don’t let the horse get control of you. He can tell if you’re nervous.” “Girl”—I loved how he said that. No one said that at the Center. I could scarcely concentrate on the horse, as my insides got all fluttery. And “boss”— another word I never heard spoken. But I knew its meaning and took pride in it. One day, to impress him, I rode our palomino Regis all the way down to the Nashua River and then cantered back up to the barn through the lower fields and along the rutted road. As the horse panted and dripped with sweat, I sat proudly, waiting to hear what compliment Brother Dominic Maria might have for me. “Girl, you rode like St. Joan of Arc,” he said. My knees began to shake, my heart beat madly, and my mouth became so dry I could barely manage a smile. As he helped me to dismount, I let my body brush up against his. A few evenings later, Sister Catherine made an announcement in our refectory. “Little Sisters and Brothers,” she said, “there are certain words we do not use because they’re not very nice. ‘Boss’ is one of them.” My stomach lurched. She’s talking about Brother Dominic Maria and me, I thought in a panic. I tried to recollect which Angel had been in charge the day he told me I was the boss of the horse. I waited for days, fearing Sister Catherine might call me into her office and tell me that I could no longer take riding lessons. But to my relief, my lessons continued throughout the summer—as did my crush. However, once we were proficient in riding sidesaddle, the lessons tapered off. By the end of August, the ten-week chicken-coop project was nearing completion. Using ropes, we hoisted long roof beams to the top of the ten-foot- tall structure, nailed plywood to the beams, put on a layer of tar paper, and sealed the roof with shingles. The final touches on the henhouse came with whitewashing the interior walls and installing dozens of nesting boxes. By Labor Day, a week before tutoring was to begin, we opened the gates to the enclosure and let in over two hundred pullets, the young hens Sister Teresa had

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Here, at the neck of the bottle, so to speak, there was always a cluster of vultures who croaked and flapped their dirty wings, who reached out with sharp talons and plucked you into a doorway. Jolly, rapacious devils who didn’t even give you time to button your pants when it was over. Led you into a little room off the street, a room without a window usually, and, sitting on the edge of the bed with skirts tucked up gave you a quick inspection, spat on your cock, and placed it for you. While you washed yourself another one stood at the door and, holding her victim by the hand, watched nonchalantly as you gave the finishing touches to your toilet. Germaine was different. There was nothing to tell me so from her appearance. Nothing to distinguish her from the other trollops who met each afternoon and evening at the Café de l’Eléphant. As I say, it was a spring day and the few francs my wife had scraped up to cable me were jingling in my pocket. I had a sort of vague premonition that I would not reach the Bastille without being taken in tow by one of these buzzards. Sauntering along the boulevard I had noticed her verging toward me with that curious trot-about air of a whore and the run- down heels and cheap jewelry and the pasty look of their kind which the rouge only accentuates. It was not difficult to come to terms with her. We sat in the back of the little tabac called L’Eléphant and talked it over quickly. In a few minutes we were in a five franc room on the Rue Amelot, the curtains drawn and the covers thrown back. She didn’t rush things, Germaine. She sat on the bidet soaping herself and talked to me pleasantly about this and that; she liked the knickerbockers I was wearing. Très chic! she thought. They were once, but I had worn the seat out of them; fortunately the jacket covered my ass. As she stood up to dry herself, still talking to me pleasantly, suddenly she dropped the towel and, advancing toward me leisurely, she commenced rubbing her pussy affectionately, stroking it with her two hands, caressing it, patting it, patting it. There was something about her eloquence at that moment and the way she thrust that rosebush under my nose which remains unforgettable; she spoke of it as if it were some extraneous object which she had acquired at great cost, an object whose value had increased with time and which now she prized above everything in the world. Her words imbued it with a peculiar fragrance; it was no longer just her private organ, but a treasure, a magic, potent treasure, a God- given thing—and none the less so because she traded it day in and day out for a few pieces of silver.

• From The Girls (2016)

  tickets: I didn’t think of the gore, the wet insides, but only the ease of the moment before he pulled the trigger, how clean and winnowed the world must have seemed. All the disappointments, all of regular life with its punishments and indignities, made surplus in one orderly motion. — The aisles of the store seemed new to me, my thoughts formless from drinking. The constant flickering of the lights, stale lemon drops in a bin, the makeup arranged in pleasing, fetishistic groupings. I uncapped a lipstick, to test it on my wrist like I’d read I should. The door rang its chime of commerce. I looked up. It was the black-haired girl from the park, in denim sneakers, a dress whose sleeves had been cut at the shoulder. Excitement moved through me. Already I was trying to imagine what I would say to her. Her sudden appearance made the day seem tightly wound with synchronicity, the angle of sunlight newly weighted. The girl wasn’t beautiful, I realized, seeing her again. It was something else. Like pictures I had seen of the actor John Huston’s daughter. Her face could have been an error, but some other process was at work. It was better than beauty. The man behind the counter scowled. “I told you,” he said. “I won’t let any of you in here, not anymore. Get on.” The girl gave him a lazy smile, holding up her hands. I saw a prick of hair in her armpits. “Hey,” she said, “I’m just trying to buy toilet paper.” “You stole from me,” the man said, shading red. “You and your friends. Not wearing shoes, running around with your filthy feet. Trying to confuse me.” I would have been terrified in the focus of his anger, but the girl was calm. Even jokey. “I don’t think that’s true.” She cocked her head. “Maybe it was someone else.” He crossed his arms. “I remember you.” The girl’s face shifted, something hardening in her eyes, but she remained smiling. “Fine,” she said. “Whatever your thing is.” She looked over at me, her glance cool and distant. Like she hardly saw me. Desire moved through me: I surprised myself with how much I didn’t want her

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Moldorf, on the other hand, who suffers too in his peculiar way, is not mad. Moldorf is word drunk. He has no veins or blood vessels, no heart or kidneys. He is a portable trunk filled with innumerable drawers and in the drawers are labels written out in white ink, brown ink, red ink, blue ink, vermilion, saffron, mauve, sienna, apricot, turquoise, onyx, Anjou, herring, Corona, verdigris, gorgonzola. ... I have moved the typewriter into the next room where I can see myself in the mirror as I write. Tania is like Irène. She expects fat letters. But there is another Tania, a Tania like a big seed, who scatters pollen everywhere—or, let us say, a little bit of Tolstoy, a stable scene in which the fetus is dug up. Tania is a fever, too—les voies urinaires, Café de la Liberté, Place des Vosges, bright neckties on the Boulevard Montparnasse, dark bathrooms, Porto Sec, Abdullah cigarettes, the adagio sonata Pathétique, aural amplificators, anecdotal seances, burnt sienna breasts, heavy garters, what time is it, golden pheasants stuffed with chestnuts, taffeta fingers, vaporish twilights turning to ilex, acromegaly, cancer and delirium, warm veils, poker chips, carpets of blood and soft thighs. Tania says so that every one may hear: “I love him!” And while Boris scalds himself with whisky she says: “Sit down here! O Boris... Russia... what’ll I do? I’m bursting with it!” At night when I look at Boris’ goatee lying on the pillow I get hysterical. O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how to inflame a cunt. I shoot hot bolts into you, Tania, I make your ovaries incandescent. Your Sylvester is a little jealous now? He feels something, does he? He feels the remnants of my big prick. I have set the shores a little wider, I have ironed out the wrinkles. After me you can take on stallions, bulls, rams, drakes, St. Bernards. You can stuff toads, bats, lizards up your rectum. You can shit arpeggios if you like, or string a zither across your navel. I am fucking you, Tania, so that you’ll stay fucked. And if you are afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear off a few hairs from your cunt and paste them on Boris’ chin. I will bite into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces. ... Indigo sky swept clear of fleecy clouds, gaunt trees in-finitely extended, their black boughs gesticulating like a sleepwalker. Somber, spectral trees, their trunks pale as cigar ash.

• From The Girls (2016)

  from the floor; the bulk of the dresser, the slivered doorway. I couldn’t imagine Connie in the rooms beyond. Connie mumbling in her sleep, as she often did, sometimes announcing a number like an addled bingo player. “You can get under the blankets if you’re cold,” he said, caping open the covers so I saw his bare chest, his nakedness. I got in beside him with ritual silence. It was as easy as this—I’d entered a possibility that had always been there. He didn’t speak, after that, and neither did I. He hitched me close so my back was pressed against his chest and I could feel his dick rear against my thighs. I didn’t want to breathe, feeling that it would be an imposition on him, even the fact of my ribs rising and falling too much of a bother. I was taking tiny breaths through my nose, a light-headedness overtaking me. The strident rank of him in the dark, his blankets, his sheets—it was what Pamela got all the time, this easy occupation of his presence. His arm was around me, a weight I kept identifying as the weight of a boy’s arm. Peter acted like he was going to sleep, the casual sigh and shuffle, but that kept the whole thing together. You had to act as if nothing strange were happening. When he brushed my nipple with his finger, I kept very still. I could feel his steady breath on my neck. His hand taking an impersonal measurement. Twisting the nipple so I inhaled audibly, and he hesitated for a moment but kept going. His dick smearing at my bare thighs. I would be shunted along whatever would happen, I understood. However he piloted the night. And there wasn’t fear, just a feeling adjacent to excitement, a viewing from the wings. What would happen to Evie? When the floorboards creaked from the hall, the spell cracked. Peter withdrew his hand, rolling abruptly onto his back. Staring at the ceiling so I could see his eyes. “I’ve gotta get some sleep,” he said in a voice carefully drained. A voice like an eraser, its insistent dullness meant to make me wonder if anything had happened. And I was slow to get to my feet, a little stunned, but also in a happy swoon, like even that little bit had fed me. — The boys played the slot machine for what seemed like hours. Connie and

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The Spirit revealed to them the person and work of the Redeemer in the light of his resurrection and exaltation, and took full possession of their mind and heart. They were raised, as it were, to the mount of transfiguration, and saw Moses and Elijah and Jesus above them, face to face, swimming in heavenly light. They had now but one desire to gratify, but one object to live for, namely, to be witnesses of Christ and instruments of the salvation of their fellow-men, that they too might become

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  Falling One by one. 58. Deep Light.I have no wish for A frivolous or coquettish existence, I want the deep life of love. have set up the double screen Against a wind balmed with the plum trees. Come to me and I will love you In the tender light of a veiled moon, I will love you, far from the plum trees. Yet afterwards in bed I know I shall sulk and weep; Frogs in the garden pool All night, all night. 59. Snow Night.There are two in the small room On this cold snow night. Pretty half-meanings As they tease each other, Hair she has just washed And cannot manage. 'You get on my nerves,' she says, 'Always chewing your toothpick.' 60. Spring Night.This dream of a Spring night Grows complicated. The smell of his body lies on the air. The cloudy sky and my ringed eyes Are veiled. Are we not a couple Made of flower and butterfly? Well, well, I mean to say. 61. Love Night.The cuckoo has sung all night And at first they did not sleep at all. There is sweet slumber after love With a rounded arm for pillow. The lamp was fetched away Without their noticing. 62. Moon and Plum Tree. The moon and the plum tree part not On a very clear night, But rather lie smiling to the snow. Not a word is said, But the scent the plum tree cannot hold Goes up toward the moon. And look at the innocent whiteness Of the plum tree. 63. Bamboos and Sparrows. This sparrow lighting Harmoniously On the bamboo. In love things do not go quite so Harmoniously. It is I alone who love and suffer. I hate his beastly face. 64. Sky before Dawn.Sky just at dawn between the trees The cuckoo flies and hides. I comb the wet hair on my temples I am wetted and am happy. I am so wet. It rains this morning. 65. Myosotis.If I clasp my hands, my sleeve: Dew and perfume and colour. His picture remains in absence Myosotis, memory. If he flowered on a branch I would plant him, And love him every Lonely hour. 66. Flower of the Cherry.It is because they fall That they are admirable. What is the good of clinging Without hope? Clinging violently to the branches, Withered on all the branches, Soiled by the birds. 67. Pillow.How many nights We have not come together. The plovers of Awaji island Mingle their crying. I am alone and wretched In this plank custom's hut, Alone and loft. That moonbeam entering to my pillow, Would it were, Just for once. 68. The Pine Tree.The wind in the roof Is playing on three Strings, Moon, snow and flower. Right from the very small Pushing of the Spring The green of the green pine Changes not. What do the infant cranes cry Fluttering from the nest In the green pine top? 'Long live the King! 'they cry. The green pine lives for ever.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  You were awfully scared that first day at The Grange; why were you so scared?’ Stephen answered slowly: ‘I’m frightened now—I’m frightened of you.’ ‘Yet you’re stronger than I am—’ ‘Yes, that’s why I’m so frightened, you make me feel strong—do you want to do that?’ ‘Well—perhaps—you’re so very unusual, Stephen.’ ‘Am I?’ ‘Of course, don’t you know that you are? Why, you’re altogether different from other people.’ Stephen trembled a little: ‘Do you mind?’ she faltered. ‘I know that you’re you,’ teased Angela, smiling again, but she reached out and took Stephen’s hand. Something in the queer, vital strength of that hand stirred her deeply, so that she tightened her fingers: ‘What in the Lord’s name are you?’ she murmured. ‘I don’t know. Go on holding like that to my hand—hold it tighter—I like the feel of your fingers.’ ‘Stephen, don’t be absurd!’ ‘Go on holding my hand, I like the feel of your fingers.’ ‘Stephen, you’re hurting, you’re crushing my rings!’ And now they were under the trees by the lakes, their feet falling softly on the luminous carpet. Hand in hand they entered that place of deep stillness, and only their breathing disturbed the stillness for a moment, then it folded back over their breathing. ‘Look,’ said Stephen, and she pointed to the swan called Peter, who had come drifting past on his own white reflection. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘this is Morton, all beauty and peace—it drifts like that swan does, on calm, deep water. And all this beauty and peace is for you, because now you’re a part of Morton.’ Angela said: ‘I’ve never known peace, it’s not in me—I don’t think I’d find it here, Stephen.’ And as she spoke she released her hand, moving a little away from the girl. But Stephen continued to talk on gently; her voice sounded almost like that of a dreamer: ‘Lovely, oh, lovely it is, our Morton. On evenings in winter these lakes are quite frozen, and the ice looks like slabs of gold in the sunset, when you and I come and stand here in the winter. And as we walk back we can smell the log fires long before we can see them, and we love that good smell because it means home, and our home is Morton—and we’re happy, happy—we’re utterly contented and at peace, we’re filled with the peace of this place—’ ‘Stephen—don’t!’ ‘We’re both filled with the old peace of Morton, because we love each other so deeply—and because we’re perfect, a perfect thing, you and I —not two separate people but one. And our love has lit a great, comforting beacon, so that we need never be afraid of the dark any more— we can warm ourselves at our love, we can lie down together, and my arms will be round you—’ She broke off abruptly, and they stared at each other. ‘Do you know what you’re saying?’ Angela whispered.

• From The Girls (2016)

  Already Guy assumed I’d know her movements. I was flattered to be the keeper of her whereabouts. “Some guy in San Rafael was selling his truck,” I said. “She went with Russell to look at it.” “Hm,” Guy said. Reaching to take his cigarette back. He seemed amused by my professionalism, though I’m sure he saw, too, the worship that hijacked my face whenever I spoke of Suzanne. My half-hitch step those times I hurried to her side. Maybe it confused him not to be the focus of all that desire—he was a handsome boy, used to the attention of girls. Girls who sucked in their stomachs when he put his hand down their jeans, girls who believed the jewelry he wore was the pretty evidence of his untapped emotional depths. “They’re probably at the free clinic,” Guy said. He mimed scratching his crotch, his cigarette waving around. He was trying to get me to snicker at Suzanne, collude in some way—I didn’t respond, beyond a grim smile. He tilted back on the heels of his cowboy boots. Studying me. “You can go on and help Roos,” he said in between the final slugs of his beer. “She’s in the kitchen.” I’d already finished my chores for the day, and working with Roos in the hot kitchen would be tedious, but I nodded with a martyr’s air. Roos had been married to a policeman in Corpus Christi, Suzanne had told me, which seemed about right. She floated around the border with the dreamy solicitude of beaten wives, and even my offer of help with the dishes was met with a mild cower. I scrubbed gelatinous fug from their biggest stew pot, the colorless scraps of food gumming up the sponge. Guy was punishing me in his petty fashion, but I didn’t care. Any irritation was softened by Suzanne’s return. She gusted into the kitchen, breathless. “The guy gave Russell the truck,” Suzanne said, her face bright, casting around for an audience. She opened a cabinet, rooting inside. “It was so perfect,” she said, “ ’cause he wanted, like, two hundred bucks. And Russell said, all calm, You should just give it to us.” She laughed, still residually thrilled, and sat up on the counter. Starting to crack her way through a bag of dusty-looking peanuts. “The guy was real angry, at first, that Russell was just asking for it. For free.” Roos was only half listening, picking through the makings of that