Despair

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.

Page 124 of 267 · 20 per page

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

  [29] So, considering these evil effects of tyranny King Solomon says [Prov 28:12]: “When the wicked reign, men are ruined” because, forsooth, through the wickedness of tyrants, subjects fall away from the perfection of virtue. And again he says [Prov 29:2]: “When the wicked rule the people shall mourn, as though led into slavery.” And again [Prov 28:28]: “When the wicked rise up men shall hide themselves”, that they may escape the cruelty of the tyrant. It is no wonder, for a man governing without reason, according to the lust of his soul, in no way differs from the beast. Whence Solomon says [Prov 28:15]: “As a roaring lion and a hungry bear, so is a wicked prince over the poor people.” Therefore men hide from tyrants as from cruel beasts and it seems that to be subject to a tyrant is the same thing as to lie prostrate beneath a raging beast. CHAPTER 5 WHY THE ROYAL DIGNITY IS RENDERED HATEFUL TO THE SUBJECTS[30] Because both the best and the worst government are latent in monarchy, i.e. in the rule of one man, the royal dignity is rendered hateful to many people on account of the wickedness of tyrants. Some men, indeed, whilst they desire to be ruled by a king, fall under the cruelty of tyrants, and not a few rulers exercise tyranny under the cloak of royal dignity. [31] A clear example of this is found in the Roman Republic. When the kings had been driven out by the Roman people, because they could not bear the royal, or rather tyrannical, arrogance, they instituted consuls and other magistrates by whom they began to be ruled and guided. They changed the kingdom into an aristocracy, and, as Sallust relates [Bellum Catilinae VI, 7]: “The Roman city, once liberty was won, waxed incredibly strong and great in a remarkably short time.” For it frequently happens that men living under a king strive more sluggishly for the common good, inasmuch as they consider that what they devote to the common good, they do not confer upon themselves but upon another, under whose power they see the common goods to be. But when they see that the common good is not under the power of one man, they do not attend to it as if it belonged to another, but each one attends to it as if it were his own.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Stephen turned and fled from them wildly. Away and away, anyhow, anywhere, so long as she need not see them] 24 THE WELL OF LONELINESS She sobbed as she ran and covered her eyes, tearing her clothes on the shrubs in passing, tearing her stockings and the skin of her legs as she lunged against intercepting branches. But sud- denly the child was caught in strong arms, and her face was pressing against her father, and Sir Philip was carrying her back to the house, and along the wide passage to his study. He held her on his knee, forbearing ta question, and at first she crouched there like a little dumb creature that had somehow got itself wounded. But her heart was too young to contain this new trouble — too heavy it felt, too much over-burdened, so the trouble came bubbling up from her heart and was told on Sir Philip’s shoulder. He listened very gravely, just stroking her hair. “ Yes — yes —’ he said softly; and then, ‘ go on, Stephen.’ And when she had finished he was silent for some moments, while he went on stroking her hair. Then he said: ‘ I think I understand, Stephen — this thing seems more dreadful than anything else that has ever happened, more utterly dreadful—but you'll find that it will pass and be completely forgotten — you must try to believe me, Stephen. And now I’m going to treat you like a boy, and a boy must always be brave, remember. Im not going to pretend as though you were a coward; why should I, when I know that you’re brave? I’m going to send Collins away to-morrow; do you understand, Stephen? I shall send her away. I shan’t be unkind, but she’ll go away to-morrow, and meanwhile I don’t want you to see her again. You'll miss her at first, that will only be natural, but in time you'll find that you'll forget all about her; this trouble will just seem like nothing at all. I am telling you the truth, dear, I swear it. If you need me, remember that I’m always near you — you can come to my study whenever you like. You can talk to me about it whenever you’re unhappy, and you want a companion to talk to.’ He paused, then finished rather abruptly: “ Don’t worry your mother, just come to me, Stephen.” And Stephen, still catching her breath, looked straight at him. She nodded, and Sir Philip saw his own mournful eyes gazing back from his daughter’s tear-stained face. But her lips THE WELL OF LONELINESS 25 set more firmly, and the cleft in her chin grew more marked with a new, childish will to courage. Bending down, he kissed her in absolute silence —it was like the sealing of a sorrowful pact. 6 Anna, who had been out at the time of the disaster, returned to find her husband waiting for her in the hall.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  responsibility for my life and my children, and quit pretending that God ever had anything to do with the pain I was in.” Debbie spent the day of February 7, 1988, cleaning the house with obsessive thoroughness. It was Sunday. She put a turkey in the oven to bake. A strange feeling came over her, like she was walking around in a dream. It was a frigid, foggy day, with snow blanketing the ground, but she didn’t notice the cold. “I got the kids all to bed really early,” she remembers. “On some level I guess I knew what I was about to do just before I put the kids to bed. I suddenly realized, ‘Everything is ready now. The house is perfect.’ I chopped a big pile of cedar kindling, put it in a corner cupboard with some fire paper, and put a match to it. Then I went into my bedroom at the other end of the house and shut the door. I got out the photo albums that told the story of my life. I sat on the bed and looked at them for a long time, then put them back on the shelf. And then I sat down to wait. “I thought about the kids. I tried thinking about leaving Bountiful and moving to Calgary and trying to make it on my own, but it made my head hurt too much. It was a blinding pain—I couldn’t think about it. I just stayed in my room with the door shut until I could hear the crackling of the flames. At that point I walked to the bedroom door and opened it without really even being conscious of doing it. Down the long hallway, the kitchen was alive with licking, twisting flames dancing across the ceiling toward me. I knew then that I had to get the children out. As I ran downstairs to wake them, I could feel my heart throbbing in my ears.” After Debbie ushered all the children outside, Winston arrived and drove them all down the hill to his own house. A policeman from Creston came over and asked Debbie how the fire had started. “I was cooking a turkey in the oven,” she lied convincingly, “and must have forgotten to turn it off.” This seemed to satisfy him, and after a few minutes he left. Debbie found herself alone in Winston’s kitchen. After a while she went back out into the raw night and walked up the hill to where her home was burning. “The firemen were there by then,” she says, “running all over the place. Suddenly they all came pouring out of the house, yelling that it was at flash point. A second later the whole thing exploded in flames, and all the windows blew out. “I stood a short distance away in a field, next to a barbwire fence, watching

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

  I answer that, In using the keys, the priest acts as the instrument and minister of God. Now no instrument can have an efficacious act, except in so far as it is moved by the principal agent. Wherefore, Dionysius says (Hier. Eccl. cap. ult.) that “priests should use their hierarchical powers, according as they are moved by God.” A sign of this is that before the power of the keys was conferred on Peter (Mat. 16:19) mention is made of the revelation vouchsafed to him of the Godhead; and the gift of the Holy Ghost, whereby “the sons of God are led” (Rom. 8:14), is mentioned before power was given to the apostles to forgive sins. Consequently if anyone were to presume to use his power against that Divine motion, he would not realize the effect, as Dionysius states (Hier. Eccl., cap. ult.), and, besides, he would be turned away from the Divine order, and consequently would be guilty of a sin. Moreover, since satisfactory punishments are medicinal, just as the medicines prescribed by the medical art are not suitable to all, but have to be changed according to the judgment of a medical man, who follows not his own will, but his medical science, so the satisfactory punishments appointed by the canons are not suitable to all, but have to be varied according to the judgment of the priest guided by the Divine instinct. Therefore just as sometimes the physician prudently refrains from giving a medicine sufficiently efficacious to heal the disease, lest a greater danger should arise on account of the weakness of nature so the priest, moved by Divine instinct, some times refrains from enjoining the entire punishment due to one sin, lest by the severity of the punishment, the sick man come to despair and turn away altogether from repentance. Reply to Objection 1: This judgment should be guided entirely by the Divine instinct. Reply to Objection 2: The steward is commended also for having done wisely. Therefore in the remission of the due punishment, there is need for discretion. Reply to Objection 3: Christ had the power of “excellence” in the sacraments, so that, by His own authority, He could remit the punishment wholly or in part, just as He chose. Therefore there is no comparison between Him and those who act merely as ministers. OF THE MINISTERS OF THE KEYS (SIX ARTICLES)We must now consider the ministers and the use of the keys: under which head there are six points of inquiry: (1) Whether the priest of the Law had the keys? (2) Whether Christ had the keys? (3) Whether priests alone have the keys? (4) Whether holy men who are not priests have the keys or their use? (5) Whether wicked priests have the effective use of the keys? (6) Whether those who are schismatics, heretics, excommunicate, suspended or degraded, have the use of the keys?

• From Post Office (1971)

  The furniture was old and ripped, the rug almost colorless. Empty beercans on the floor. I was in the right place. I took off my clothes, climbed into bed alone and cracked another beer. 7While working Dorsey Station I heard some of the old timers needling Big Daddy Greystone about how he’d had to buy a tape recorder in order to learn his schemes. Big Daddy had read the scheme sheet breaks onto the tape and listened to it as it played back. Big Daddy was called Big Daddy for obvious reasons. He’d put three women in the hospital with that thing. Now he’d found some roundeye. A fag named Carter. He’d even ripped Carter up. Carter had gone to a hospital in Boston. The joke was that Carter had to go all the way to Boston because there wasn’t enough string on the West Coast to sew him up after Big Daddy finished with him. True or not, I decided to try the tape recorder. My worries were over. I could leave it on while I was sleeping. I had read somewhere that you could learn with your subconscious while sleeping. That seemed the easiest way out. I bought a machine and some tape. I read the scheme sheet onto the tape, got into bed with my beer and listened: “NOW, HIGGINS BREAKS 42 HUNTER, 67 MARKLEY, 71 HUDSON, 84 EVERGLADES! AND NOW, LISTEN, LISTEN, CHINASKI, PITTSFIELD BREAKS 21 ASHGROVE, 33 SIMMONS, 46 NEEDLES! LISTEN, CHINASKI, LISTEN, WESTHAVEN BREAKS 11 EVERGREEN, 24 MARKHAM, 55 WOODTREE! CHINASKI, ATTENTION, CHINASKI! PARCHBLEAK BREAKS …” It didn’t work. My voice put me to sleep. I couldn’t get past the third beer. After a while I didn’t play the recorder or study the scheme sheet. I just drank my six tall cans of beer and went to sleep. I couldn’t understand it. I even thought about going to see a psychiatrist. I envisioned the thing in my mind: “Yes, my boy?” “Well, it’s like this.” “Go ahead. You need the couch?” “No, thanks. I’d fall asleep.” “Go ahead, please.” “Well, I need my job.” “That’s rational.” “But I have to study and pass three more schemes in order to keep it.” “Schemes? What are these ‘schemes’?” “That’s when people don’t put down zone numbers. Somebody has to stick that letter. So we have to study these scheme sheets after working 12 hours a night.” “And?” “I can’t pick the sheet up. If I do, it falls from my hand.” “You can’t study these schemes?” “No. And I have to throw 100 cards in a glass cage in eight minutes to at least an accuracy of 95 percent or I’m out. And I need the job.” “Why can’t you study these schemes?” “That’s why I’m here. To ask you . I must be crazy. But there are all these streets and they all break in different ways.

• From Post Office (1971)

  5 It was 12 hours a night, plus supervisors, plus clerks, plus the fact that you could hardly breathe in that pack of flesh, plus stale baked food in the “non- profit” cafeteria. Plus the CP1. City Primary 1. That station scheme was nothing compared to the City Primary 1. Which contained about one-third of the streets in the city and how they were broken up into zone numbers. I lived in one of the largest cities in the U.S. That was a lot of streets. After that there was CP2. And CP3. You had to pass each test in 90 days, three shots at it, 95 percent or better, 100 cards in a glass cage, eight minutes, fail and they let you try for President of General Motors, as the man said. For those who got through, the schemes would get a little easier, the second or third time around. But with the 12-hour night and canceled days off, it was too much for most. Already, out of our original group of 150 to 200, there were only 17 or 18 of us left. “How can I work 12 hours a night, sleep, eat, bathe, travel back and forth, get the laundry and the gas, the rent, change tires, do all the little things that have to be done and still study the scheme?” I asked one of the instructors in the scheme room. “Do without sleep,” he told me. I looked at him. He wasn’t playing Dixie on the harmonica. The damn fool was serious.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  160‘NAVAJIVAN’ AND ‘YOUNG INDIA’Thus, whilst this movement for the preserva- tion of non-violence was making steady though slow progress on the one hand, Government’s policy of lawless repression was in full career on the other, and was manifesting itself in the Punjab in all its na- kedness. Leaders were put under arrest, martial law, which in other words meant no law, was proclaimed, special tribunals were set up. These tribunals were not courts of justice but instruments for carrying out the ar- bitrary will of an autocrat. Sentences were passed un- warranted by evidence and in flagrant violation of jus- tice. In Amritsar innocent men and women were made to crawl like worms on their bellies. Before this outrage the Jalianwala Bagh tragedy paled into insignificance in my eyes, though it was this massacre principally that attracted the attention of the people of India and of the world. I was pressed to proceed to the Punjab immediately in disregard of consequences. I wrote and also telegraphed to the Viceroy asking for permission to go there, but in vain. If I proceeded without the necessary permission, I should not be allowed to cross the boundary of the Punjab, but left to find what satisfaction I could from civil disobedience. I was thus confronted by a serious dilemma. As things stood, to break the order against my entry into the Punjab could, it seemed to me, hardly be classed as civil disobedience, for I did not see around me the kind of peaceful atmosphere that I wanted, and the unbridled repression in the Punjab had further served to aggravate and deepen the feelings of resentment. For me, therefore, to offer cicil disobedience at such a time, even if it were possible, would have been like fanning the flame. I therefore decided not to proceed to the Punjab in spite of the suggestion of friends. It was a bitter pill for me to swallow. Tales of rank injustice and oppression came pouring in daily from the Punjab, but all I could do was to sit helplessly by and gnash my teeth. Just then Mr. Horniman, in whose hands The Bombay Chronicle had became a formidable force, was suddenly spirited away by the authorities. This act of the Government seemed to me to be surrounded by a foulness which still stinks in my nostrils. I know that Mr. Horniman never desired lawlessness. He had not liked my breaking the prohibitory order of the Punjab Government without the permission of the Satyagraha Committee, and had fully endorsed the decision to suspend civil disobedience. I had even announced my decision to that effect. Only owing to the distance between Bombay and Ahmedabad I got the letter after the announcement. His sudden deportation therefore caused me as much pain as surprise. As a result of these developments I was asked by the directors of The Bombay Chronicle to take up the responsibility of conducting that paper. Mr.

• From Post Office (1971)

  He was too tired to get a haircut and had worn the same pair of pants for three years. He changed shirts twice a week and he walked very slow. They had murdered him. He was 55. He had seven years to go until retirement. “I’ll never make it,” he told me. They either melted or they got fat, huge, especially around the ass and the belly. It was the stool and the same motion and the same talk. And there I was, dizzy spells and pains in the arms, neck, chest, everywhere. I slept all day resting up for the job. On weekends I had to drink in order to forget it. I had come in weighing 185 pounds. Now I weighed 223 pounds. All you moved was your right arm. 2I walked into the counselor’s office. It was Eddie Beaver sitting behind the desk. The clerks called him “Skinny Beaver.” He had a pointed head, pointed nose, pointed chin. He was all points. And out for them too. “Sit down, Chinaski.” Beaver had some papers in his hand. He read them. “Chinaski, it took you 28 minutes to throw a 23-minute tray.” “Oh, knock off the bullshit. I‘m tired.” “What?” “I said, knock off the bullshit! Let me sign the paper and go back. I don’t want to hear it all.” “I‘m here to counsel you, Chinaski!” I sighed. “O.K., go ahead. Let’s hear it.” “We have a production schedule to meet, Chinaski.” “Yeh.” “And when you fall behind on production that means that somebody else is going to stick your mail for you. That means overtime.” “You mean I am responsible for those three and one half hours overtime they call almost every night?” “Look, you took 28 minutes on a 23-minute tray. That’s all there is to it.” “You know better. Each tray is two feet long. Some trays have three, even four times as many letters than others. The clerks grab what they call the ‘fat’ trays. I don’t bother. Somebody has to stick with the tough mail. Yet all you guys know is that each tray is two feet long and that it must be stuck in 23 minutes. But we’re not sticking trays in those cases, we’re sticking letters.” “No, no, this thing has been time-tested!” “Maybe it has. I doubt it. But if you’re going to time a man, don’t judge him on one tray. Even Babe Ruth struck out now and then. Judge a man on 10 trays, or a night’s work. You guys just use this thing to hang anybody who gets in your craw.” “All right, you’ve had your say, Chinaski. Now, I‘m telling YOU: you stuck a 28-minute tray. We go by that. NOW, if you are caught on another slow tray you will be due for ADVANCED COUNSELING!” “All right, just let me ask you one question?” “All right.” “Suppose I get an easy tray. Once in a while I do.

• From Post Office (1971)

  6 One night I was coming around the corner after sneaking down to the cafeteria for a pack of smokes. And there was a face I knew. It was Tom Moto! The guy I had subbed with under The Stone! “Moto, you motherfuck!” I said. “Hank!” he said. We shook hands. “Hey, I was thinking of you! Jonstone is retiring this month. Some of us are holding a farewell party for him. You know, he always liked to fish. We’re going to take him out in a rowboat. Maybe you’d like to come along and throw him overboard, drown him. We’ve got a nice deep lake.” “No, shit, I just don’t even want to look at him.” “But you’re invited.” Moto was grinning from asshole to eyebrow. Then I looked at his shirt: a supervisor’s badge. “Oh no, Tom.” “Hank, I’ve got four kids. They need me for bread and butter.” “All right, Tom,” I said. Then I walked off. 7 I don’t know how it happens to people. I had child support, need for something to drink, rent, shoes, socks, all that stuff. Like everyone else I needed an old car, something to eat, all the little intangibles. Like women. Or a day at the track. With everything on the line and no way out, you don’t even think about it. I parked across the street from the Federal Building and stood waiting for the signal to change. I walked across. Pushed through the swinging doors. It was as if I were a piece of iron drawn to the magnet. There was nothing I could do. It was on the second floor. I opened the door and they were in there. The clerks of the Federal Building. I noticed one girl, poor thing, only one arm. She’d be there forever. It was like being an old wino like me. Well, as the boys said, you had to work somewhere. So they accepted what there was. This was the wisdom of the slave. A young black girl walked up. She was well-dressed and pleased with her surroundings. I was happy for her. I would have gone mad with the same job. “Yes?” she asked. “I’m a postal clerk,” I said, “I want to resign.” She reached under the counter and came up with a stack of papers. “All these?” She smiled, “Sure you can do it?” “Don’t worry,” I said, “I can do it.”

• From Post Office (1971)

  10 The rainy season began. Most of the money went for drink so my shoes had holes in the soles and my raincoat was torn and old. In any steady downpour I got quite wet, and I mean wet—down to soaked and soggy shorts and stockings. The regular carriers called in sick, they called in sick from stations all over the city, so there was work every day at Oakford Station, at all the stations. Even the subs were calling in sick. I didn’t call in sick because I was too tired to think properly. This particular morning I was sent to Wently Station. It was one of those five-day storms where the rain comes down in one continuous wall of water and the whole city gives up, everything gives up, the sewers can’t swallow the water fast enough, the water comes up over the curbings, and in some sections, up on the lawn and into the houses. I was sent off to Wently Station. “They said they need a good man,” the Stone called after me as I stepped out into a sheet of water. The door closed. If the old car started, and it did, I was off to Wently. But it didn’t matter—if the car didn’t run, they threw you on a bus. My feet were already wet. The Wently soup stood me in front of this case. It was already stuffed and I began stuffing more mail in with the help of another sub. I’d never seen such a case! It was a rotten joke of some sort. I counted 12 tie-outs on the case. That case must have covered half the city. I had yet to learn that the route was all steep hills. Whoever had conceived it was a madman. We got it up and out and just as I was about to leave the soup walked over and said, “I can’t give you any help on this.” “That’s all right,” I said. All right, hell. It wasn’t until later that I found out he was Jonstone’s best buddy. The route started at the station. The first of 12 swings. I stepped into a sheet of water and worked my way downhill. It was the poor part of town—small houses and Courts with mailboxes full of spiders, mailboxes hanging by one nail, old

• From Post Office (1971)

  Finally I was so wet I thought I was drowning. I found a front porch that only leaked a little and stood there and managed to light a cigarette. I had about three quiet puffs when I heard a little old lady’s voice behind me: “Mailman! Mailman!” “Yes, ma’am?” I asked. “YOUR MAIL IS GETTING WET!” I looked down at my pouch and sure enough, I had left the leather flap open. A drop or two had fallen in from a hole in the porch roof. I walked off. That does it, I thought, only an idiot would go through what I am going through. I am going to find a telephone and tell them to come get their mail and jam their job. Jonstone wins. The moment I decided to quit, I felt much better. Through the rain I saw a building at the bottom of the hill that looked like it might have a telephone in it. I was halfway up the hill. When I got down I saw it was a small cafe. There was a heater going. Well, shit, I thought, I might as well get dry. I took off my raincoat and my cap, threw the mailpouch on the floor and ordered a cup of coffee. It was very black coffee. Remade from old coffeegrounds. The worst coffee I had ever tasted, but it was hot. I drank three cups and sat there an hour, until I was completely dry. Then I looked out: it had stopped raining! I went out and walked up the hill and began delivering mail again. I took my time and finished the route. On the 12th swing I was walking in twilight. By the time I returned to the station it was night. The carrier’s entrance was locked. I beat on the tin door. A little warm clerk appeared and opened the door. “What the hell took you so long?” he screamed at me. I walked over to the case and threw down the wet pouch full of go-backs, miscased mail and pickup mail. Then I took off my key and flipped it against the case. You were supposed to sign in and out for your key. I didn’t bother. He was standing there. I looked at him. “Kid, if you say one more word to me, if you so much as sneeze, so help me God, I am going to kill you!” The kid didn’t say anything. I punched out. The next morning I kept waiting for Jonstone to turn and say something. He acted as if nothing had happened. The rain stopped and all the regulars were no longer sick. The Stone sent three subs home without pay, one of them me. I almost loved him then. I went on in and got up against Betty’s warm ass. 11But then it began raining again. The Stone had me out on a thing called Sunday Collection, and if you’re thinking of church, forget it.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Therewithal she fell into such a passion of woe that she was like to cast herself down from the tower to the ground; but, the sun being now risen and she drawing near to one side of the walls of the tower, to look if any boy should pass with cattle, whom she might send for her maid, it chanced that the scholar, who had slept awhile at the foot of a bush, awaking, saw her and she him; whereupon quoth he to her, 'Good day, madam; are the damsels come yet?' The lady, seeing and hearing him, began afresh to weep sore and besought him to come within the tower, so she might speak with him. In this he was courteous enough to comply with her and she laying herself prone on the platform and showing only her head at the opening, said, weeping, 'Assuredly, Rinieri, if I gave thee an ill night, thou hast well avenged thyself of me, for that, albeit it is July, I have thought to freeze this night, naked as I am, more by token that I have so sore bewept both the trick I put upon thee and mine own folly in believing thee that it is a wonder I have any eyes left in my head. Wherefore I entreat thee, not for the love of me, whom thou hast no call to love, but for the love of thyself, who are a gentleman, that thou be content, for vengeance of the injury I did thee, with that which thou hast already done and cause fetch me my clothes and suffer me come down hence, nor seek to take from me that which thou couldst not after restore me, an thou wouldst, to wit, my honour; for, if I took from thee the being with me that night, I can render thee many nights for that one, whenassoever it liketh thee. Let this, then, suffice and let it content thee, as a man of honour, to have availed to avenge thyself and to have caused me confess it. Seek not to use thy strength against a woman; no glory is it for an eagle to have overcome a dove, wherefore, for the love of God and thine own honour, have pity on me.'

• From Post Office (1971)

  Didn’t ANYBODY want to shit, piss or goof-off? Twenty-five minutes. Then I saw a face. I tapped on the glass. “Hey, buddy! HEY, BUDDY!” He didn’t hear me, or pretended not to hear me. He marched into the crapper. Five minutes. Then another face came by. I rapped hard. “HEY, BUDDY! HEY. YOU COCK-SUCKER!” I guess he heard me. He looked at me from behind the wired glass. I said, “OPEN THE DOOR! CAN’T YOU SEE ME IN HERE? I’M LOCKED IN, YOU FOOL! OPEN THE DOOR!” He opened the door. I went in. The guy was in a trance-like state. I squeezed his elbow. “Thanks, kid.” I walked back to the magazine case. Then the soup walked past. He stopped and looked at me. I slowed down. “How are you doing, Mr. Chinaski?” I growled at him, waved a magazine in the air as if I were going insane, said something to myself, and he walked on. 9Fay was pregnant. But it didn’t change her and it didn’t change the post office either. The same clerks did all the work while the miscellaneous crew stood around and argued about sports. They were all big black dudes—built like professional wrestlers. Whenever a new one came into the service he was tossed into the miscellaneous crew. This kept them from murdering the supervisors. If the miscellaneous crew had a supervisor you never saw him. The crew brought in truckloads of mail that arrived via freight elevator. This was a five minute on the hour job. Sometimes they counted the mail, or pretended to. They looked very calm and intellectual, making their counts with long pencils behind one ear. But most of the time they argued the sports scene violently. They were all experts—they read the same sports writers. “All right, man, what’s your all time outfield?” “Well, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Cobb.” “What? What?” “That’s right, baby!” “What about the Babe? Whatta ya gonna do with the Babe?” “O.K., O.K., who’s your all star outfield?” “All time, not all star!” “O.K., O.K., you know what I mean, baby, you know what I mean!” “Well, I’ll take Mays, Ruth and Di Maj!” “Both you guys are nuts! How about Hank Aaron, Baby? How about Hank?” At one time, all miscellaneous jobs were put on bid. Bids were filled mostly on a basis of seniority. The miscellaneous crew went about and ripped the bids out of the order books. Then they had nothing to do. Nobody filed a complaint. It was a long dark walk to the parking lot at night. 10I began getting dizzy spells. I could feel them coming. The case would begin to whirl. The spells lasted about a minute. I couldn’t understand it. Each letter was getting heavier and heavier. The clerks began to have that dead grey look. I began to slide off my stool. My legs would barely hold me up. The job was killing me. I went to my doctor and told him about it.

• From Post Office (1971)

  “Look, Chinaski, everytime I see you, you’re walking!” “That’s nothing,” I said, “everytime I see you, you’re walking.” “But that’s part of my job. Walking is part of my job. I have to do it.” “Look,” I said, “it’s part of my job too. I have to do it. If I stay on that stool much longer I am going to leap up on top of those tin cases and start running around whistling Dixie from my asshole and Mammy’s Little Children Love Shortnin’ Bread through the frontal orifice.” “All right, Chinaski, forget it.” 6One night I was coming around the corner after sneaking down to the cafeteria for a pack of smokes. And there was a face I knew. It was Tom Moto! The guy I had subbed with under The Stone! “Moto, you motherfuck!” I said. “Hank!” he said. We shook hands. “Hey, I was thinking of you! Jonstone is retiring this month. Some of us are holding a farewell party for him. You know, he always liked to fish. We’re going to take him out in a rowboat. Maybe you’d like to come along and throw him overboard, drown him. We’ve got a nice deep lake.” “No, shit, I just don’t even want to look at him.” “But you’re invited.” Moto was grinning from asshole to eyebrow. Then I looked at his shirt: a supervisor’s badge. “Oh no, Tom.” “Hank, I’ve got four kids. They need me for bread and butter.” “All right, Tom,” I said. Then I walked off. 7I don’t know how it happens to people. I had child support, need for something to drink, rent, shoes, socks, all that stuff. Like everyone else I needed an old car, something to eat, all the little intangibles. Like women. Or a day at the track. With everything on the line and no way out, you don’t even think about it. I parked across the street from the Federal Building and stood waiting for the signal to change. I walked across. Pushed through the swinging doors. It was as if I were a piece of iron drawn to the magnet. There was nothing I could do. It was on the second floor. I opened the door and they were in there. The clerks of the Federal Building. I noticed one girl, poor thing, only one arm. She’d be there forever. It was like being an old wino like me. Well, as the boys said, you had to work somewhere. So they accepted what there was. This was the wisdom of the slave. A young black girl walked up. She was well-dressed and pleased with her surroundings. I was happy for her. I would have gone mad with the same job. “Yes?” she asked. “I’m a postal clerk,” I said, “I want to resign.” She reached under the counter and came up with a stack of papers.

• From Post Office (1971)

  The Wently soup stood me in front of this case. It was already stuffed and I began stuffing more mail in with the help of another sub. I’d never seen such a case! It was a rotten joke of some sort. I counted 12 tie-outs on the case. That case must have covered half the city. I had yet to learn that the route was all steep hills. Whoever had conceived it was a madman. We got it up and out and just as I was about to leave the soup walked over and said, “I can’t give you any help on this.” “That’s all right,” I said. All right, hell. It wasn’t until later that I found out he was Jonstone’s best buddy. The route started at the station. The first of 12 swings. I stepped into a sheet of water and worked my way downhill. It was the poor part of town—small houses and Courts with mailboxes full of spiders, mailboxes hanging by one nail, old women inside rolling cigarettes and chewing tobacco and humming to their canaries and watching you, an idiot lost in the rain. When your shorts get wet they slip down, down down they slip, down around the cheeks of your ass, a wet rim of a thing held up by the crotch of your pants. The rain ran the ink on some of the letters; a cigarette wouldn’t stay lit. You had to keep reaching into the pouch for magazines. It was the first swing and I was already tired. My shoes were caked with mud and felt like boots. Every now and then I’d hit a slippery spot and almost go down. A door opened and an old woman asked the question heard a hundred times a day: “Where’s the regular man, today?” “Lady, PLEASE, how would I know? How in the hell would I know? I’m here and he’s someplace else!” “Oh, you are a gooney fellow!” “A gooney fellow?” “Yes.” I laughed and put a fat water-soaked letter in her hand, then went on to the next. Maybe uphill will be better, I thought. Another Old Nelly, meaning to be nice, asked me, “Wouldn’t you like to come in and have a cup of tea and dry off?” “Lady, don’t you realize we don’t even have time to pull up our shorts?” “Pull up your shorts?” “YES, PULL UP OUR SHORTS!” I screamed at her and walked off into the wall of water. I finished the first swing. It took about an hour. Eleven more swings, that’s eleven more hours. Impossible, I thought. They must have hung the roughest one on me first. Uphill was worse because you had to pull your own weight. Noon came and went. Without lunch. I was on the fourth or fifth swing. Even on a dry day the route would have been impossible. This way it was so impossible you couldn’t even think about it.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  To comprehend why Lee—an American citizen—would be leading an attack on an American wagon train, one has to look back to the beginning of that summer and consider the shock waves of panic and fury that roiled Deseret when word arrived that a hostile army was amassing to the east. Porter Rockwell was carrying a load of mail from Utah to Missouri when he learned of the impending American military action against the Saints. Near what is now the eastern border of Wyoming, he encountered the mayor of Great Salt Lake City (as the capital of Utah was then known), his friend Abraham Smoot, who was headed west with a herd of cattle. Smoot told Rockwell that the Mormons’ mail contract with the U.S. Postmaster had been abruptly canceled, and that federal troops were mustering at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with orders to march on the Kingdom of God. Rockwell immediately turned around and, accompanied by Smoot and two other companions, headed back to Utah to alert Brigham. Pausing at Fort Laramie, the Destroying Angel hitched a buckboard to the two fastest horses in the Mormon corral, then drove the animals hard all the way to Great Salt Lake, making the 513-mile trip in just over five days. On July 24, Pioneer Day, Rockwell and Smoot told Brigham of the coming invasion just as the Saints were kicking off a huge celebration to mark the tenth anniversary of their arrival in Zion; Brigham announced the electrifying news to the Pioneer Day gathering just after sunset. The crowd reeled, reacting with a mix of confusion, apprehension, and rage. Standing before twenty-five hundred of his subjects, Brigham assured them that they need not fear the army of the United States, for the Saints were sure to prevail. “We have borne enough of their oppression and hellish abuse,” he bellowed, “and we will not bear any more of it. . . . In the name of Israel’s God, we ask no odds of them.” The commonwealth of the Latter-day Saints, he brashly declared, “henceforth constituted a new and independent state, to be known no longer as Utah, but by their own Mormon name of Deseret.” Brigham had actually been aware for more than a month that federal troops were en route to Utah, but had withheld the news until Pioneer Day for maximum dramatic effect. For the better part of a year, in fact, he’d been stockpiling arms and drilling his crack militia, the Nauvoo Legion. After the Pioneer Day announcement, he simply accelerated preparations for the defense

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Andreuccio, affrighted, crept into the tomb, saying in himself the while, 'These fellows will have me go in here so they may cheat me, for that, when I shall have given them everything, they will begone about their business, whilst I am labouring to win out of the tomb, and I shall abide empty-handed.' Accordingly, he determined to make sure of his share beforehand; wherefore, as soon as he came to the bottom, calling to mind the precious ring whereof he had heard them speak, he drew it from the archbishop's finger and set it on his own. Then he passed them the crozier and mitre and gloves and stripping the dead man to his shirt, gave them everything, saying that there was nothing more. The others declared that the ring must be there and bade him seek everywhere; but he replied that he found it not and making a show of seeking it, kept them in play awhile. At last, the two rogues, who were no less wily than himself, bidding him seek well the while, took occasion to pull away the prop that held up the lid and made off, leaving him shut in the tomb. What became of Andreuccio, when he found himself in this plight, you may all imagine for yourselves. He strove again and again to heave up the lid with his head and shoulders, but only wearied himself in vain; wherefore, overcome with chagrin and despair, he fell down in a swoon upon the archbishop's dead body; and whoso saw him there had hardly known which was the deader, the prelate or he. Presently, coming to himself, he fell into a passion of weeping, seeing he must there without fail come to one of two ends, to wit, either he must, if none came thither to open the tomb again, die of hunger and stench, among the worms of the dead body, or, if any came and found him there, he would certainly be hanged for a thief.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  who’ve reported being sexually abused as girls and insist that pedophilia is rampant within the community. “I don’t doubt their stories are true,” he acknowledges. “I know for a fact there’s men in the priesthood who have slept with their own daughters, which is horrible. But that kind of thing goes on everywhere, and I actually think there’s less of it here than in the outside world.” In any case, it wasn’t the culture’s sexual customs or its lifestyle constraints that finally induced DeLoy to apostatize. Rather, he says, “It just got to be where I could no longer ignore that the religion is a lie. It’s not like the prophets that control everybody are intentionally fooling the people—as far as I can tell Rulon and Warren and Winston and them sincerely believe the lie themselves. I’m not sure about that, but I think so. And it’s not just their religion that’s a lie. I’ve really come to believe that all religions are lies. Every single one of ’em. “Could there be supreme power out there somewhere? Is there a grand plan behind the big bang, the creation of the universe, the evolution of species? I don’t know, I suppose it’s possible; I guess I’d like to at least allow for the possibility in the back of my mind. But common sense tells me otherwise.” Although DeLoy says that he was “extremely religious” throughout his youth, he also had a probing, unremittingly curious mind. “Even as a young boy,” he says, “I remember wondering about contradictions between what the religion taught and scientific truth. But Uncle Roy told us that the way to handle that was just to avoid asking certain kinds of questions. So I trained myself to ignore the contradictions. I got good at not letting myself think about them.” Because DeLoy was smart and the religion needed educators for its school, when he turned eighteen the prophet—his adoptive grandfather, Uncle Roy— sent him to Southern Utah State College, an hour up the road in Cedar City, to become a teacher. “I was sent with him,” recalls DeLoy’s first wife, Eunice Bateman, who had been commanded by the prophet to marry DeLoy a short while earlier. “Neither of us had ever lived outside of Colorado City. Our second child was born a year after he started school. I felt so different from everyone there—I felt like an outcast. I was homesick for Colorado City the whole time Dee was in college. But I kept pretty busy raising babies and doing his typing and helping with his homework.” After getting his degree, DeLoy returned to Colorado City and went to work educating the town’s youth.

• From Post Office (1971)

  “And you’ve been talking to this lady next to you.” I lit a cigarette. “Chinaski, come here a minute.” He stood at the front of the tin cases and pointed. All the clerks were sticking very fast now. I watched them swinging their right arms frantically. Even the plump girl was jamming them home. “See these numbers painted on the end of the case?” “Yeh.” “Those numbers indicate the number of pieces that must be stuck in a minute. A two-foot tray must be stuck in 23 minutes. You ran five minutes over.” He pointed to the 23. “Twenty-three minutes is standard.” “That 23 doesn’t mean anything,” I said. “Whadda ya mean?” “I mean a man came along and painted that 23 on there with a can of paint.” “No, no, this is time-tested over the years and rechecked. “ What was the use? I didn’t answer. “I’m going to have to write you up, Chinaski. You will be counseled on this.” I went back and sat down. Eleven years! I didn’t have a dime more in my pocket than when I had first walked in. Eleven years. Although each night had been long, the years had gone fast. Perhaps it was the night work. Or doing the same thing over and over and over again. At least with The Stone I had never known what to expect. Here there weren’t any surprises. Eleven years shot through the head. I had seen the job eat men up. They seemed to melt. There was Jimmy Potts of Dorsey Station. When I first came in, Jimmy had been a well-built guy in a white T-shirt. Now he was gone. He put his seat as close to the floor as possible and braced himself from falling over with his feet. He was too tired to get a haircut and had worn the same pair of pants for three years. He changed shirts twice a week and he walked very slow. They had murdered him. He was 55. He had seven years to go until retirement. “I’ll never make it,” he told me. They either melted or they got fat, huge, especially around the ass and the belly. It was the stool and the same motion and the same talk. And there I was, dizzy spells and pains in the arms, neck, chest, everywhere. I slept all day resting up for the job. On weekends I had to drink in order to forget it. I had come in weighing 185 pounds. Now I weighed 223 pounds. All you moved was your right arm.

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

  Christianity could not prevent the irruption of the Northern barbarians and the collapse of the Roman empire. The process of internal dissolution had gone too far; nations as well as individuals may physically and morally sink so low that they, are beyond the possibility of recovery. Tacitus, the heathen Stoic in the second century, and Salvianus, the Christian presbyter in the fifth, each a Jeremiah of his age, predicted the approaching doom and destruction of Roman society, looked towards the savage races of the North for fresh blood and new vigor. But the Keltic and Germanic conquerors would have turned Southern Europe into a vast solitude (as the Turks have laid waste the fairest portions of Asia), if they had not embraced the principles, laws, and institutions of the Christian church. CHAPTER IX.ASCETIC TENDENCIES.§ 104. Ascetic Virtue and Piety. Ad. Möhler (R.C.): Geschichte des Mönchthums in der Zeit seiner ersten Entstehung u. ersten Ausbildung, 1836 ("Vermischte Schriften," ed. Döllinger. Regensb. 1839, II. p. 165 sqq.). Is. Taylor (Independent): Ancient Christianity, 4th ed. London, 1844, I. 133–299 (anti-Puseyite and anti Catholic). H. Ruffner (Presbyt.): The Fathers of the Desert; or an Account of the Origin and Practice of Monkery among heathen nations; its passage into the church; and some wonderful Stories of the Fathers concerning the primitive Monks and Hermits. N. York, 1850. 2 vols. Otto Zöckler (Lutheran): Kritische Geschichte der Askese. Frkf. and Erlangen, 1863 (434 pages). P. E. Lucius Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung in der Geschichte der Askese. Strasburg, 1879. H. Weingarten: Ueber den Ursprung des Mönchthums im nach-Konstantinischen Zeittalter. Gotha, 1877. And his article in Herzog’s "Encykl." new ed. vol. X. (1882) p. 758 sqq. (abridged in Schaff’s Herzog, vol. II. 1551 sqq. N. Y. 1883). Ad. Harnack: Das Mönchthum, seine Ideale und seine Geschichte. Giessen, 1882. The general literature on Monasticism is immense, but belongs to the next period. See vol. III. 147 sq., and the list of books in Zöckler, l.c. p. 10–16.