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.

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• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  “You must trust me, Martin.” And now she heard herself speaking very gravely: ‘ Would you trust me enough to do any- thing I asked, even although it seemed rather strange? Would you trust me if I said that I asked it for Mary, for her happiness? ’ His fingers tightened: ‘ Before God, yes. You know that I’d trust you! ” ‘ Very well then, don’t leave Paris — not now.’ ‘ You really want me to stay on, Stephen?,’ * Yes, I can’t explain.’ He hesitated, then he suddenly seemed to come to a decision: ‘Allright . . . I'll do whatever you ask me.’ They paid for their coffee and got up to leave: ‘ Let me come as far as the house,’ he pleaded. But she shook her head: ‘ No, no, not now. I’ll write to you - . very soon . . . Good-bye, Martin.’ She watched him hurrying down the street, and when he was THE WELL OF LONELINESS 501 finally lost in its shadows, she turned slowly and made her own way up the hill, past the garish lights of the Moulin de la Galette. Its pitiful sails revolved in the wind, eternally grinding out petty sins — dry chaff blown in from the gutters of Paris. And after a while, having breasted the hill, she must climb a dusty flight of stone steps, and push open a heavy, slow-moving door; the door of the mighty temple of faith that keeps its anxious but tireless vigil. She had no idea why she was doing this thing, or what she would say to the silver Christ with one hand on His heart and the other held out in a patient gesture of supplication. The sound of praying, monotonous, low, insistent, rose up from those who prayed with extended arms, with crucified arms — like the tides of an ocean it swelled and receded and swelled again, bathing the shores of heaven. They were calling upon the Mother of God: ‘ Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu, priez pour nous, pauvres pêcheurs, maintenant et à Pheure de notre mort.’ * Et à Pheure de notre mort,’ Stephen heard herself repeating. He looked terribly weary, the silver Christ: ‘ But then He al- ways looks tired,’ she thought vaguely; and she stood there with- out finding anything to say, embarrassed as one so frequently is in the presence of somebody else’s sorrow. For herself she felt noth- ing, neither pity nor regret; she was curiously empty of all sen- sation, and after a little she left the church, to walk on through the wind-swept streets of Montmartre. “CHAPTER 56 y

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  I hate his guts, and I will not squirm around on this horrid thing while he stands there staring at me and jerking off. Fuck him. “You stubborn, stupid, ungrateful, ill-trained bitch,” he cursed. “I don’t know why I bother. But if you think you’re going to start holding out on me at this stage of the game, shit-head, you better think again.” A puff of air cooled her backside, and she realized she was dripping with sweat and that both of her shining, wet ass cheeks protruded slightly outside the frame of the cell. Then the source of the cool breeze—the doubled-up belt—landed on her butt, and there was no thinking, only pain. Not only was she crying out with each solid, flat impact of the belt, she was moving her ass provocatively, helplessly. He didn’t have much of her to work on, so there was no hope that he would alternate blows upon her thighs and shoulders with the blows to her ass. Concentrated in such a small area, the beating hurt worse than it would have otherwise. There was no respite to gather courage and breath. So she tried to curve her lower back and thrust more of her ass through the bars, adding just another inch of available skin to spread the pain out and make it easier to take. She succeeded (at the cost of drawing her nipples out to maximum tautness in the clamps) in flattening her thighs against the bars, and the belt kissed them for a few seconds, but returned inexorably to her ass. Oh, yes, he was good. Thorough, hard, unstoppable. She had the feeling he could go on and on until she was deeply bruised, then bleeding, then showing bare bone through her flayed and shredded flesh. The pain was lightning in the marrow of her bones. And the animal noises she was making, the sweat flying into her eyes, hurt her pride just as much as the flying belt hurt her ass. Under severe and continuous pain, the soul reaches a certain kind of clarity. Confusion and hope cannot be tolerated. Anything that deflects energy from withstanding the pain becomes useless, impossible to hang onto. Such ballast is jettisoned automatically.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I say, then, that the years [of the era] of the fruitful Incarnation of the Son of God had attained to the number of one thousand three hundred and forty-eight, when into the notable city of Florence, fair over every other of Italy, there came the death-dealing pestilence, which, through the operation of the heavenly bodies or of our own iniquitous dealings, being sent down upon mankind for our correction by the just wrath of God, had some years before appeared in the parts of the East and after having bereft these latter of an innumerable number of inhabitants, extending without cease from one place to another, had now unhappily spread towards the West. And thereagainst no wisdom availing nor human foresight (whereby the city was purged of many impurities by officers deputed to that end and it was forbidden unto any sick person to enter therein and many were the counsels given[4] for the preservation of health) nor yet humble supplications, not once but many times both in ordered processions and on other wise made unto God by devout persons,--about the coming in of the Spring of the aforesaid year, it began on horrible and miraculous wise to show forth its dolorous effects. Yet not as it had done in the East, where, if any bled at the nose, it was a manifest sign of inevitable death; nay, but in men and women alike there appeared, at the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits, whereof some waxed of the bigness of a common apple, others like unto an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils. From these two parts the aforesaid death-bearing plague-boils proceeded, in brief space, to appear and come indifferently in every part of the body; wherefrom, after awhile, the fashion of the contagion began to change into black or livid blotches, which showed themselves in many [first] on the arms and about the thighs and [after spread to] every other part of the person, in some large and sparse and in others small and thick-sown; and like as the plague-boils had been first (and yet were) a very certain token of coming death, even so were these for every one to whom they came. [Footnote 4: Syn. provisions made or means taken (_consigli dati_). Boccaccio constantly uses _consiglio_ in this latter sense.]

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

  operation was abandoned, and various medicines purchased for the purpose were of no account. I have an impression that, if the physician had allowed the operation, the wound would have been easily healed. The operation also was to have been performed by a surgeon who was then well known in Bombay. But God had willed otherwise. When death is imminent, who can think of the right remedy? My father returned from Bombay with all the paraphernalia of the operation, which were now useless. He despaired of living any longer, He was getting weaker and weaker, until at last he had to be asked to perform the necessary functions in bed. But up to the last he refused to do anything of the kind, always insisting on going through the strain of leaving his bed. The Vaishnavite rules about external cleanliness are so inexorable. Such cleanliness is quite essential no doubt, but Western medical science had taught us that all the functions, including a bath, can be done in bed with the strictest regard to cleanliness, and without the slightest discomfort to the patient, the bed always remaining spotlessly clean. I should regard such cleanliness as quite consistent with Vaishnavism. But my father’s insistence on leaving the bed only struck me with wonder then, and I had nothing but admiration for it. The dreadful night came. My uncle was then in Rajkot. I have a faint recollection that he came to Rajkot having had news that my father was getting worse. The brothers were deeply attached to each other. My uncle would sit near my father’s bed the whole day, and would insist on sleeping by his bed-side after sending us all to sleep. No one had dreamt that this was to be the fateful night. The danger of course was there. It was 10-30 or 11 p.m. I was giving the massage. My uncle offered to relieve me. I was glad and went straight to the bed-room. My wife, poor thing, was fast asleep. But how could she sleep when I was there? I woke her up. In five or six minutes. however, the servant knocked at the door. I started with alarm. ‘Get

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  But Jo claimed it was Phoebe who’d first raised questions about Phipps clinic. In the spring, she’d begun asking if they shouldn’t be doing more. Local clinic protests had declined in size. Every few minutes, children died. If they could, for instance, disable abortion facilities, the action would save lives. It would be the rational extension of what they believed. Since no one but John Leal had spoken, to date, with God, Phoebe asked if he’d take the question to Him. Jo didn’t think he would: in general, he’d told them what to do, not the reverse. Jo hadn’t learned what happened next. In mid-April, Jo’s parents, Sybil and Elijah Hilt, had realized that, despite the large allowance she received each month, Jo had drawn extra funds from her trust. Disturbed, suspecting drugs, they drove up to school. While questioning Jo, Sybil had noticed whip marks on the girl’s leg. They disregarded all attempts to explain; against Jo’s will, they’d taken her home, to Darien. She cut her wrists, then was hospitalized. John Leal had rented the upstate cabin to use as a spiritual retreat, starting in June, Jo said. They’d all given their savings to Jejah. Phoebe supplied the most—everything she had, as John Leal pointed out. By then, the group comprised six members, including Eric Cho, the newest recruit. Jo had left the cult before they started using the cabin, but if I tried, I could almost see the place in June. Birch branches gleaming white, like picked bones. They lit bonfires until the sweat flowed into tears. The light tinged the circling trees with blood. They fasted, atoned. Tired bodies ached with hope. Through a haze of smoke, stars smeared like souls fleeing this fallen earth. The night chill pricked Phoebe’s bare arms, as if with pinfeathers, and she felt the rush of flight, lifting up. In that isolated place, the plausible might crack open until she had the revelation she desired, a final, ecstatic fit— But no, she wasn’t the kind to have visions, no more than I’d been. I thought of what she’d said that last night, about acting as if she believed. From the start to the finish, Phoebe’s want of Christ had been based in logic. She wished upon God’s attested promises: the dead alive, a past repealed. This flawed world would pass, yielding to a place of undivided light. Since she lacked real belief, she might have resolved to match His pledge with action, proving the faith she craved. Then, in the final instant, she’d have required but a little hope, a short leap of faith. Soldiers require months of training, years, before they’re fit to battle, while all Phoebe had to do was put a truck in a parking lot. Several minutes’ conviction, and the building falls.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I tell thee that Madam Ginevra thy wife hath under her left pap a pretty big mole, about which are maybe half a dozen little hairs as red as gold.' When Bernabo heard this, it was as if he had gotten a knife-thrust in the heart, such anguish did he feel, and though he had said not a word, his countenance, being all changed, gave very manifest token that what Ambrogiuolo said was true. Then, after awhile, 'Gentlemen,' quoth he, 'that which Ambrogiuolo saith is true; wherefore, he having won, let him come whenassoever it pleaseth him and he shall be paid.' Accordingly, on the ensuing day Ambrogiuolo was paid in full and Bernabo, departing Paris, betook himself to Genoa with fell intent against the lady. When he drew near the city, he would not enter therein, but lighted down a good score miles away at a country house of his and despatched one of his servants, in whom he much trusted, to Genoa with two horses and letters under his hand, advising his wife that he had returned and bidding her come to him; and he privily charged the man, whenas he should be with the lady in such place as should seem best to him, to put her to death without pity and return to him. The servant accordingly repaired to Genoa and delivering the letters and doing his errand, was received with great rejoicing by the lady, who on the morrow took horse with him and set out for their country house. As they fared on together, discoursing of one thing and another, they came to a very deep and lonely valley, beset with high rocks and trees, which seeming to the servant a place wherein he might, with assurance for himself, do his lord's commandment, he pulled out his knife and taking the lady by the arm, said, 'Madam, commend your soul to God, for needs must you die, without faring farther.' The lady, seeing the knife and hearing these words, was all dismayed and said, 'Mercy, for God's sake! Ere thou slay me, tell me wherein I have offended thee, that thou wouldst put me to death.' 'Madam,' answered the man, 'me you have nowise offended; but wherein you have offended your husband I know not, save that he hath commanded me slay you by the way, without having any pity upon you, threatening me, an I did it not, to have me hanged by the neck. You know well how much I am beholden to him and how I may not gainsay him in aught that he may impose upon me; God knoweth it irketh me for you, but I can no otherwise.' Whereupon quoth the lady, weeping, 'Alack, for God's sake, consent not to become the murderer of one who hath never wronged thee, to serve another! God who knoweth all knoweth that I never did aught for which I should receive such a recompense from my husband.

• From Understanding the Old Testament (2019)

  ECCLESIASTES AND THE “VANITY OF VANITIES” LECTURE 23 This lecture focuses on the book of Ecclesiastes. Many people who study this book find little hope in it. However, the book actually has a very profound message to it, which is revealed after the book’s meaning is unpacked. Situating the Book Most Bibles refer to this book as Ecclesiastes, but some Bibles call the book Qohelet. The Hebrew term Qohelet can be translated as meaning “someone who picks at ideas.” And the first-person author in this book is named Qohelet. The book opens with: “The words of David’s son Qohelet, king in Jerusalem.” Qohelet seems to be identified with King Solomon, son of Israel’s king, David. 23 l e CtU re 23 | eCC lesiastes and the “ vanity of v anities” 139 Solomon couldn’t have written this book. Solomon lived in the 9th century BCE. This is a very late book in the Old Testament collection. It was probably written somewhere between 275 and 250 BCE. That’s the Hellenistic period, when Greek rule and Greek culture infiltrated Judea and Jewish society. This raises a question: Why has the author chosen to put Solomon at the beginning of this book? In ancient Israel, the name Solomon meant “wisdom.” He was thought of as an overarching genius. This book is ascribed to Solomon. The book of Proverbs is ascribed to Solomon. An even later book in the Apocrypha is called Wisdom of Solomon. By putting Solomon into verse 1, the book is telling you the book contains practical advice on how to go through life and live happily. Perceived Hopelessness The second verse of the book sets out the argument: “vanity of vanities, says Qohelet; vanity of vanities—all things are vanity.” The term vanity here doesn’t mean obsession over one’s looks; instead it’s referring to futility—that is, doing something in vain. And “vanity of vanities” would be a superlative meaning “complete, utter futility.” Everything is arbitrary. Death cancels everything out. This idea is present in many places throughout Ecclesiastes. This is why many readers find the book hopeless. A Repeating Structure The book has a hidden structure. The pattern begins to emerge in chapter 3, using the phrase “I saw.” In verse 16, there is an experience that challenges Qohelet’s traditional views: “And still under the sun in the judgment place, I saw wickedness, wickedness also in the seat of justice.” He points out something that he has experienced; he saw wickedness in the courtroom, where one would expect there to be justice.

• From Understanding the Old Testament (2019)

  JOB’S SUFFERING AND UNDERSTANDING LECTURE 22 This lecture focuses on the book of Job. It follows the book’s storyline through its climax. At that point, the lecture explores several possibilities about what the text means. The Beginning of the Text Chapter 1 features a character called the Satan, which is not the same Satan as in later Jewish and Christian theology. The term Satan here is a noun that means “accuser.” God praises his servant Job as “blameless and upright, fearing God and avoiding evil.” However, the Satan replies that Job does so because God is rewarding him. 22 l e Ct Ure 22 | Jo B’s sUffering and Understanding 133 The satan’s argument is that sincere love for God is a lie. Religion is a camouflage for motivations that are economic, social, political, psychological, and cultural. God is ready to take him up on this challenge. In verse 12, “The Lord said to the Satan, ‘Very well. All that he has is in your power. Only do not lay a hand on him.’” In the rest of the prologue, all of Job’s children are killed. Job loses all of his property. However, Job is still righteous. The Satan asks for permission to strike him a little closer to home, and Job is hit with great illness. Job’s wife says, “Curse God and die.” Job refuses and says that he will not reject God. The Dialogue Eventually, three friends appear to “comfort” Job. Chapters 4 through 31 are a poetic dialogue between Job and his three friends. The three friends— Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—argue that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people, and so Job must have done something wrong. Job suffering Understanding the o ld testament 134 The argument of Eliphaz accuses Job of undermining religion. In Job 15:4, Eliphaz says, “You, in fact, do away with piety, you lessen devotion towards God.” In other words, if people believe that Job has done no wrong and suffers anyway, then they’re not going to worship God. They’re going to think there’s no reward for being good, and they won’t be good. Job fundamentally agrees with the theology of his friends. He is upset, because he knows he has done no wrong and he is suffering. Job wants a chance to argue his innocence to God directly. God’s Appearance In chapter 38, God appears out of the whirlwind, exactly as Job has asked for. God proceeds over the next several chapters to ask questions that Job cannot possibly answer (but God can). Eventually, though, the book shifts back into prose. God restores Job’s prosperity, gives him a new set of children, and makes him very rich and prosperous. Job lives to be 140 years old and see his great-grandchildren. Job with his children

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  I don’t want to pay any attention to my own body, it’s whining pain and thirst, its nagging need to piss or come. It distracts me. I ignore it. But it clamors louder and louder, and sometimes I am humiliated by yet another orgasm of my own, which takes place in a state of despair and frustration that infuriates and devastates me. Still I work on and on, mechanically, softly, like the Colorado River carving the Grand Canyon one eon at a time, like a bird flying across the ocean that can’t stop no matter how tired she is because there is no place to land. Save me, give it to me, help me, seize my head between your thighs and drown me! Come, come! Sometimes, not all the time, at a time I am never able to predict and for reasons I still do not understand, you promise me a miracle. You begin to talk to me. After your long silence, it feels very odd, being talked to. I pay close attention to what you have to say. It must be important if you can’t keep quiet any more. “Oh, lover,” you say, “I’m going to come. Can you feel it? Lover!” Now I am moving fast and sloppy, but it doesn’t matter, you will come now no matter what I do, and anyway we are finally in sync, finally in this together, your hips pumping into my mouth, my lips slipping up and down your clit and inner lips, my tongue pointed to catch the most sensitive peak of the glans. There is so much sex juice! Slippery mucus slides across my tongue and slips down my throat, oh that welcome, salty taste that proves you are turned on and wanting me, I spread the slipperiness of it across your cunt and smear it all over my face. I wish this happy time could last longer, but I know I am nearly used up, and I am unreasonably terrified that I will still somehow bumble and fail, even now; that what you have promised me will not be delivered through some sin or folly of mine. But you make sure that does not happen. Your thighs cross, my neck in between them, and you roll to the left, pinning me. You are incredibly strong during orgasm. I cannot pry myself loose or escape from you. And I don’t want to. I’m too busy struggling to keep my tongue tucked into the top of your slit, pushing my face up between your convulsing thighs which keep trying to shut me out, push me away from my food, my possession, my cunt.

• From The Ice Storm (1994)

  Then they piled out the door, to menace the neighbors. Janey Williams’s lipstick was a chocolate color, a real earth tone. The long flat stretches of matrimony were over. He was thirty-nine and balding and unattractive and his children wanted to be nothing so much as vagrants. —Let’s fuck, he desperately proposed to his neighbor. He drained a highball. —So romantic, she said. But I think you might have another engagement. —Oh, Janey, he said. You know what I mean. —Boy, do I, she said. —Tell me I’m totally wide of the mark, he said. Tell me it’s all in my head. Janey smiled sadly. She had her own problems. He made it back in time for dinner. The erotics of adultery are well documented. In the guest room, thinking back, Hood drank again. Maybe he honored his wife in this way; maybe it was for her. Maybe he fucked against the notion of family, to escape its constraints. Maybe he adultered because of his keen appreciation of beauty. Maybe he celebrated the freedom of the new sexuality. Maybe he did it to abase himself. Maybe he did it to hurt Janey Williams, or to injure her husband—they were more attractive than he was, they were more at ease. Maybe it was her husband he wanted to fuck, and it was such a terrible, dark secret that it was secret even from Benjamin. Maybe he wanted to get caught. Maybe he did it to escape, from his job, his anxieties, his psychosomatic complaints. Maybe he did it because his parents, too, had done it (or so he supposed) and the desire to cheat boiled in his genes. Maybe, at last, he did it simply because he wanted what he couldn’t have. Touching briefly—in the guest room—on this shortage theory of adultery, Hood arrived at a brilliantly incorrect understanding of Janey’s absence. He believed suddenly that he understood the afternoon. Of course! He was supposed to look for her! In the overdecorated chambers of her house, he was to embark on a quest, a Buzz Aldrin or Neil Armstrong sort of a quest. He would have to work for this oblivion he wanted. He was dressed but ready to disrobe. He poured a fresh tumbler of vodka and set off on the tour. —Janey ...? Janey ...? To the right lay Sandy’s room. Jim and Janey’s prized, brainy, creepy son. The jigsaw-puzzling son. The son who did puzzles of popcorn—just popcorn, or just M&M’s. The brainy son who memorized Nolan Ryan’s E.R.A. going back into the late sixties, who explained the physics of curveballs and kept track of the dead in Vietnam. He wouldn’t permit his photograph to be taken. He was afraid of water.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She longed to leap up in her youth and strength and cast this thing out of her holy of holies. The fire must not die and leave her in darkness. And yet she was utterly helpless, and she knew it. All that she did seemed inadequate and childish: ‘When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.’ Remembering Saint Paul, she decided grimly that surely she had remained as a child. She could sit and stare at them—these poor, stricken lovers—with eyes that were scared and deeply reproachful: ‘You must not let anything spoil your loving, I need it,’ her eyes could send them that message. She could love them in her turn, possessively, fiercely: ‘You’re mine, mine, mine, the one perfect thing about me. You’re one and you’re mine, I’m frightened, I need you!’ Her thoughts could send them that message. She could start to caress them, awkwardly, shyly, stroking their hands with her strong, bony fingers—first his hand, then hers, then perhaps both together, so that they smiled in spite of their trouble. But she dared not stand up before them accusing, and say: ‘I’m Stephen, I’m you, for you bred me. You shall not fail me by failing yourselves. I’ve a right to demand that you shall not fail me!’ No, she dared not stand up and speak such words as these—she had never demanded anything from them. Sometimes she would think them quietly over as two fellow creatures whom chance had made her parents. Her father, her mother—a man, a woman; and then she would be amazed to discover how little she knew of this man and this woman. They had once been babies, and later small children, ignorant of life and utterly dependent. That seemed so curious, ignorant of life—her father utterly weak and dependent. They had come to adolescence even as she had, and perhaps at times they too had felt unhappy. What had their thoughts been, those thoughts that lie hidden, those nebulous misgivings that never get spoken? Had her mother shrunk back resentful, protesting, when the seal of her womanhood had been stamped upon her? Surely not, for her mother was somehow so perfect, that all that befell her must in its turn, be perfect—her mother gathered nature into her arms and embraced it as a friend, as a well loved companion. But she, Stephen, had never felt friendly like that, which must mean, she supposed, that she lacked some fine instinct. There had been those young years of her mother’s in Ireland; she spoke of them sometimes but only vaguely, as though they were now very far away, as though they had never seriously counted.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  All that she had written that day she would destroy, and now it was well past midnight. She turned, looking wearily round the study, and it came upon her with a slight sense of shock that she was seeing this room for the very first time, and that everything in it was abnormally ugly. The flat had been furnished when her mind had been too much afflicted to care in the least what she bought, and now all her possessions seemed clumsy or puerile, from the small, foolish chairs to the large, roll-top desk; there was nothing personal about any of them. How had she endured this room for so long? Had she really written a fine book in it? Had she sat in it evening after evening and come back to it morning after morning? Then she must have been blind indeed—what a place for any author to work in! She had taken nothing with her from Morton but the hidden books found in her father’s study; these she had taken, as though in a way they were hers by some intolerable birthright; for the rest she had shrunk from depriving the house of its ancient and honoured possessions. Morton—so quietly perfect a thing, yet the thing of all others that she must fly from, that she must forget; but she could not forget it in these surroundings; they reminded by contrast. Curious what Brockett had said that evening about putting the sea between herself and England. . . . In view of her own half-formed plan to do so, his words had come as a kind of echo of her thoughts; it was almost as though he had peeped through a secret keyhole into her mind, had been spying upon her trouble. By what right did this curious man spy upon her—this man with the soft, white hands of a woman, with the movements befitting those soft, white hands, yet so ill-befitting the rest of his body? By no right; and how much had the creature found out when his eye had been pressed to that secret keyhole? Clever—Brockett was fiendishly clever— all his whims and his foibles could not disguise it. His face gave him away, a hard, clever face with sharp eyes that were glued to other people’s keyholes. That was why Brockett wrote such fine plays, such cruel plays; he fed his genius on live flesh and blood. Carnivorous genius. Moloch, fed upon live flesh and blood! But she, Stephen, had tried to feed her inspiration upon herbage, the kind, green herbage of Morton. For a little while such food had sufficed, but now her talent had sickened, was dying perhaps—or had she too fed it on blood, her heart’s blood when she had written The Furrow?

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She would think with a kind of despair: ‘ What am I in God’s name — some kind of abomination? ° And this thought would fill her with very great anguish, because, loving much, her love seemed to her sacred. She could not endure that the slur of those words should come anywhere near her love. So now night after night she must pace up and down, beating her mind against a blind problem, beating her spirit against a blank wall — the im- pregnable wall of non-comprehension: ‘Why am I as I am — and what am I?’ Her mind would recoil while her spirit grew faint. A great darkness would seem to descend on her spirit — there would be no light wherewith to lighten that darkness. She would think of Martin, for now surely she loved just as he had loved — it all seemed like madness. She would think of her father, of his comfortable words: ‘ Don’t be foolish, there’s nothing strange about you.’ Oh, but he must have been pitifully mistaken — he had died still very pitifully mistaken. She would think yet again of her curious childhood, going over each detail in an effort to remember. But after a little her thoughts must plunge forward once more, right into her grievous present. With a shock she would realize how completely this coming of love had blinded her vision; she had stared at the glory of it so long that not until now had she seen its black shadow. Then would come the most poignant suffering of all, the deepest, the final humilia- tion. Protection — she could never offer protection to the creature she loved: ‘ Could you marry me, Stephen?’ She could neither protect nor defend nor honour by loving; her hands were com- pletely empty. She who would gladly have given her life, must go empty-handed to love, like a beggar. She could only debase what 172 THE WELL OF LONELINESS she longed to exalt, defile what she longed to keep pure and untarnished. The night would gradually change to dawn; and the dawn would shine in at the open windows, bringing with it the in- tolerable singing of birds: ‘ Stephen, look at us, look at us, we're happy!’ Away in the distance there would be a harsh crying, the wild, harsh crying of swans by the lakes — the swan called Peter protecting, defending his mate against some unwelcome intruder. From the chimneys of Williams’ comfortable cottage smoke would rise — very dark — the first smoke of the morning. Home, that meant home and two people together, respected because of their honourable living. Two people who had had the right ta love in their youth, and whom old age had not divided. Two poor and yet infinitely enviable people, without stain, without shame in the eyes of their fellows. Proud people who could face the world unafraid, having no need to fear that world’s execration.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  I left the house; I drove around. I returned to the church, then again to his house. But I found no sign of him. I passed the light-glossed billboards. In this hot, sun-blanched limbo, I circled back and forth between his house and church until I fell asleep in the front seat. The next morning, the church parking lot sparkled with cars, packed in lines, like sheaved fish. I’d arrived in the middle of a service. I found a stall in front of the church, with a woman sitting behind the table. She smiled as I walked up, but when I asked if Reverend Lin was preaching, she said no. Is he leading services this week? No. When will he be here? He is having break, she said. I went to the airport. The flight I’d scheduled would have taken me straight back to Noxhurst, so I changed the ticket, routing it through San Francisco. I waited to call until I was on my mother’s front stoop. The phone rang from behind the fence. When I said where I was, she rushed out, still in gloves. She wiped her eyes, brushing soil on pale skin. I tried to lighten the mood: I asked if she was in the habit of gardening with a phone in hand. Oh, this, she said. I can’t hear the phone ring from the yard, and I don’t like to miss it when you call. What a surprise. I’m so glad. Let’s go inside. – But do I have it wrong, Phoebe: did you act in faith, not doubt, the clinic bomb a tribute to the God you loved? I’ll say this: I hope so. If I can’t imagine you lit with His fire, it’s possible I’m limited, not you. In the apartment, when I left, I discovered the kidskin journal in which you took notes before Jejah confessions, jotting down what you’d tell them, us. It was stashed behind a pile of books, where Fitz and Hugh, of course, had searched. Soft-leathered, tied with a thong strip, it has the look of a journal. Yet they missed it, a bit of grace I can’t explain. I’ve imagined as I could. I compile what I have of you, parts of it firsthand; the rest, inferred. Details accrue, taking on a living shape. I fill in the clues. I recall what John Leal said, how his shining lies persuaded you. I can’t forget what you said, that I hadn’t even tried to understand. Phoebe, I still don’t think He’s real. I believe that we, in the attempt to live, invented Him. But if I could, I’d ask Him to give you everything. –

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  In time, they’d all want me to explain how I lost my faith. John Leal, the others—they kept asking, and I’d recognize the fascination. Scripture indicates there’s no hope for the apostates, like me: having known His love, then repudiated Him, I’m believed to be past saving. I exist beyond His grace. But I tried: will that count for anything, Lord? In the final lists You won’t compile, allotting a life that You can’t give because, in failing to exist, You’ve left us behind. I’d returned from the Beijing mission trip split with doubt, unable to sleep. I begged His help. It was as I’d told Phoebe. I had no single problem, or quibble; the misgivings had piled up, questions I stifled as long as I could. The last hours I believed, I’d knelt, asking for a sign. He’d assisted others. Old Testament prophets, along with all the pastors who heard God talk. Friends exulting about His presence. This much love, I thought, must have its match in truth. I’d asked Him to help, then waited. Sunlight spilled in from the afternoon. White curtains rippled, a slight late-spring wind. I waited, and by the time I got up I knew I’d been pleading with no one. I dried my hands, and I left the bathroom. I was taking dishes into the kitchen when Paul grabbed my arm. The two-top at table nine, he said, his hard stomach bumping my hip. Give me an update, kid. Tell me there isn’t an issue. I started explaining, but Paul interrupted. I don’t get it, he said. If the kitchen was low, why’d you push the veal? I didn’t. He asked about it, so— But he took the fucking quail. Why didn’t you push the bird from the start? It was a valid question. I knew he had a camera that fed live footage from the dining room to his office; Paul, who missed nothing, would of course have noticed a patron throwing a fit, so why hadn’t I prepared a better explanation? I’d seen him fire people for less. Well, I said, he showed up wanting veal. He’s been here before, said he’s a friend. Miles Harris. But, ah, he asked me to tell you he thinks it’s false advertising to run out of dishes we have on the menu, and that false advertising is illegal. He said it’s a lie. He told you I’m lying. No, the menu, I said. He called the menu a lie. So, who writes this menu, then? Just who talks with Joel to come up with the dishes? Miles Harris. Who the fuck does he think he is? If we were back in the old country, I’d take him out to the street. We’d settle the question of who’s lying.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  40.WILLI rented a station wagon at the airport, then I drove to Phoebe’s father’s church. It was a fifteen-mile drive, with the traffic as hectic as I’d always, in the L.A. I invented, believed it would be. I found the church doors locked, its parking lot vacant. I punched the back wall, several times, until I opened skin. Knuckles burning, I got in the station wagon; I drove toward Reverend Lin’s house. It wasn’t the Sabbath, but still, with his sizable parish, the church should have been open— I parked several houses down from his. The street was quiet, lined with palm trees and tidied hedges. In the pale light, the lawns floated wide, like magic carpets, and I thought of Phoebe living here in the months before Edwards, grieving. She’d longed to escape; as had I, but here I was, still so God-haunted. I walked on blackened palm fronds, a tangled pile: I imagined lifting up the lush jumble of leaves and finding it was Phoebe’s hair, disheveled with morning. The stem of a frond shone as white as the part of her head. She’d raise a hand, then drop it, unwilling. I’d tease her out of bed since, having had the night apart, I’d want Phoebe with me again. No one replied to the bell. When I peered through a glass hexagon into the attached garage, I saw no cars. Taped boxes stood heaped to the ceiling. I wondered about Phoebe’s piano trophies, if she’d kept or trashed them, all those gilded, first-place spoils. Once, I’d made the mistake of asking if her father had also insisted she keep playing. He didn’t attend a single recital, she said. Then, considering, she added, Maybe he wanted to, though. It’s possible he just wasn’t invited. I wouldn’t have cared, not at the time. I slid down, hitting sloped concrete, and then I crawled around to the side of the house, where I’d be less in sight. I didn’t think it was legal, being here. Ivied leaves starred a white lattice. Noticing a scrap beneath a wilted stalk, torn hazard tape, I picked it up. I spat on it, then rubbed it clean. Thin plastic rippled to the touch. I sat against the wall. The day the rest of Jejah’s warrants were issued, Jo Hilt had been located in a private hospital in Lott, Connecticut, receiving in-patient psychiatric care. She released a brief written statement: hoping, she said, to give what answers she could. I’d have predicted that, as he tightened control of his disciples, John Leal would have introduced the idea of public violence. I knew, too, how he’d have convinced them. Privileged childhoods, the lifelong habit of achieving: all the shared Jejah attributes others have found baffling would have helped him instill the bravado to do what God, in His slow-moving wisdom, had not.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  I ran straight here, she panted. Flapping newsprint at me like a broken wing, she told me that, as she passed the Ledig Street kiosk, she’d noticed Phoebe’s name in bold print on the front pages. I took the papers, which showed a blurred photo of a girl who looked like Phoebe, in a baseball cap, the thin face angling up. Puzzled, I examined the picture. In it, a black-haired ponytail curled through the adjustable slot, but Phoebe disliked how she looked in hats. Unless it was so cold that she had no choice, she didn’t use hats, let alone baseball caps. What’s this? I said. It’s a picture from the Noxhurst clinic. The parking-lot camera. Will, they’re saying she planted the explosives. The ones at Phipps clinic. Well, that’s not right. You should look at this. I read the article. It didn’t mention John Leal, let alone his cult. It said that, in the video, the girl in the baseball cap walked up to the clinic, then glanced at the camera. She’d been identified as Phoebe Haejin Lin, an Edwards student. The next morning, five additional Jejah cultists were named, including a new person I didn’t recognize: all suspects, but Phoebe was still the principal culprit implicated in the Noxhurst clinic explosions, and so in the five girls’ deaths. The following manhunt elicited false leads in Philadelphia, then Lihue. In Detroit. Slidell. La Paz. The abandoned house where they’d stayed was discovered sixty miles north of Noxhurst, a shingled rental cabin in a birch clearing. News stations looped its photo. The cabin was still front-page news by the time I received a three-line note from Phoebe. From Fitz, that is, since federal agents had intercepted the mail, opening it. Not long afterward, Reverend Lin, Phoebe’s father, issued his public statement. He explained he’d donated to the extremist cult that called itself Jejah. He’d given his personal savings, as well as, with his board’s approval, church funds. I believed it to be an organization with peaceful aims, he said, reading. To all those who have been hurt, I beg pardon. He gripped a white page, his hands fists. His chin, like Phoebe’s, ended in a point. Tight-jawed, he jutted it out. It was my first time seeing the man. Phoebe hadn’t displayed photos of him. I blamed him; of course, I did. I’d heard the stories. If he’d been less brutish to his then-wife, wouldn’t Phoebe have felt less alone? But also, I thought, if I’d failed less. If and if again. He said nothing in his speech about having received a message from his child. He didn’t want to mention it, perhaps. It was possible, too, that he wasn’t allowed. The police, maybe Fitz, had told him not to. If Phoebe had written to me, she’d have sent him a note, as well. In spite of his faults, she had old-fashioned notions about filial duties, his parental rights.

• From Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions (1939)

  Clearly to understand the emotional process as it proceeds from consciousness, we must remember the dual nature of the body, which on the one hand is an object in the world and on the other is immediately lived by the consciousness. Only then can we grasp what is essential — that emotion is a phenomenon of belief. Consciousness does not limit itself to the projection of affective meanings upon the world around it; it lives the new world it has thereby constituted — lives it directly, commits itself to it, and suffers from the qualities that the concomitant behaviour has outlined. This means that, all ways out being barred, the consciousness leaps into the magical world of emotion, plunges wholly into it by debasing itself. It becomes a different consciousness confronting a different world — a world which it constitutes with its own most intimate quality, with that presence to itself, utterly non-distant, of its point of view upon the world. A consciousness becoming emotional is rather like a consciousness dropping asleep. The one, like the other, slips into another world and transforms the body as a synthetic whole so as to be able to live and to perceive this other world through it. In other words, the consciousness changes its body, or, to put it another way, the body — considered as the point of view upon the universe immediately inherent in consciousness — is raised to the level of the behaviour. That is why the physiological manifestations are, at bottom, disorders of the most ordinary description; they resemble those of fever, of angina pectoris, of artificial over-excitation etc. They merely represent a complete and commonplace upset of the body, such as it is (the behaviour alone will decide whether this disarray is to be a 'diminishment' of life or an 'amplification' of it). In itself it is nothing, it represents no more than an obscuration of the conscious point of view upon the world, in so far as the consciousness realizes and spontaneously lives this obscuration. It is advisable, naturally to understand this obscuration as a synthetic phenomenon, as indivisible. But since, on the other hand, the body is a thing among things, a scientific analysis may be able to distinguish, in the biological body, in the body as a thing, the local disorder of this or that organ. Thus the origin of emotion is a spontaneous debasement lived by consciousness in face of the world. What it is unable to endure in one way it tries to seize in another way, by going to sleep, by reducing itself to the states of consciousness in sleep, dream or hysteria. And the bodily disturbance is nothing else than the belief lived by the consciousness, as it is seen from outside. Only, it must be noted:

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  Joshua 7 Israel Is Defeated at Ai 1 B UT THE sons of Israel acted unfaithfully and violated their obligation in regard to the things [off limits] under the ban [those things belonging to the LORD ], for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, took some of the things under the ban [for personal gain]. Therefore the anger of the LORD burned against the Israelites. 2 Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land.” So the men went up and spied out Ai. 3 Then they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not make all the people go up [to fight]; have only about two thousand or three thousand men go up and attack Ai; do not make the entire army go up there, for they [of Ai] are few.” 4 So about three thousand men from the sons of Israel went up there, but they fled [in retreat] from the men of Ai. 5 The men of Ai killed about thirty-six of Israel’s men, and chased them from the gate as far as [the bluffs of] Shebarim and struck them down as they descended [the steep pass], so the hearts of the people melted [in despair and began to doubt God’s promise] and became like water (disheartened). 6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell face downward on the ground before the ark of the LORD until evening, he and the elders of Israel; and [with great sorrow] they put dust on their heads. 7 Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord a GOD , why have You brought this people across the Jordan at all, only to hand us over to the Amorites, to destroy us? If only we had been willing to live beyond the Jordan! 8 “O Lord, what can I say now that [the army of] Israel has turned back [in retreat and fled] before their enemies? 9 “For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear about it, and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will You do for Your great name [to keep it from dishonor]?” 10 So the LORD said to Joshua, “Get up! Why is it that you have fallen on your face? 11 “Israel has sinned; they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them [to keep]. They have even taken some of the things under the ban, and they have both stolen and b denied [the theft]. Moreover, they have also put the stolen objects among their own things. 12 “That is why the c soldiers of Israel could not stand [and defend themselves] before their enemies; they turned their backs [and ran] before them, because they have become accursed. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy the things under the ban from among you.

• From The Incendiaries (2018)

  We’re living in a time of great evil. Rivers of blood, replenished with children’s bodies, are flooding this nation, and we’ve let the blood spill. If we are lukewarm, the Lord has said, He will spit us out of His mouth. I’ll ask you what I’ve asked myself, late at night, as I wait upon His Spirit: if the likes of you and I won’t be radical for God, who will? While he talked, his voice had risen. He finished with a shout, then he fell silent. The crowd around us was hushed, listening. Raising his head, he asked if he could get an amen. Several people replied; he asked again. This time, the amens belled toward him. I felt my ears ring. Yes, Lord, he said. Oh, Lord, I beg, be here with us. He called out the opening line of a hymn, one I recognized, and the crowd sang it back to him. Phoebe joined in, hands folded. She rocked back and forth, eyes closed, and I thought of the night we’d met, how she’d danced until she gasped for breath, holding the thick hair in a ponytail. It was damp at the tips. Sweat trickled down her slim throat. Phoebe’s rolling hips parodied that night; so, too, the rapt, upheld face. She’d told me, as she apologized, that he’d asked how I was doing with Jejah. He’d spoken with love, she said, and she’d responded in kind, without thinking. I’m not upset with you, I said. I wasn’t: she didn’t have to apologize. I felt a long confusion lifting. If anything, I should be grateful. For some time, I’d also failed to think. The crowd kept singing. I watched, alone. It was a horde, and they all had what I lacked. In what He’s credited to have said, the Lord is explicit. He insists on full, absolute devotion, nothing less. John Leal had that part right. But from the start, I’d obeyed His call. I’d pledged my life to Him, if to no avail, which left me believing God had to be nothing, a fiction; that, or He didn’t want me. Fifteen minutes, a man said. The crowd shifted forward. I put a hand in my pocket, and I felt a twist of plastic wrap I’d forgotten bringing. It was a small bundle of prescribed sedatives, pills I’d grabbed at the last minute because Phoebe and I planned to stay in the city that night. I had enough trouble sleeping that I relied on these pills, the bottle’s festive castanet rattle a promise, preludial to rest. Though I hadn’t tried taking them except at night, before I went to bed, the pills also tranquilized. I could use a little extra calm, I thought. I opened the cellophane. To rush the effect, I chewed the pills. – The march began. We’d been asked to walk in silence.