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 166 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I am Posdnicheff.” New silence. He blushed, then turned pale again. “What matters it, however?” said he. “Excuse me, I do not wish to embarrass you.” And he resumed his old seat. CHAPTER III. I resumed mine, also. The lawyer and the lady whispered together. I was sitting beside Posdnicheff, and I maintained silence. I desired to talk to him, but I did not know how to begin, and thus an hour passed until we reached the next station. There the lawyer and the lady went out, as well as the clerk. We were left alone, Posdnicheff and I. “They say it, and they lie, or they do not understand,” said Posdnicheff. “Of what are you talking?” “Why, still the same thing.” He leaned his elbows upon his knees, and pressed his hands against his temples. “Love, marriage, family,—all lies, lies, lies.” He rose, lowered the lamp-shade, lay down with his elbows on the cushion, and closed his eyes. He remained thus for a minute. “Is it disagreeable to you to remain with me, now that you know who I am?” “Oh, no.” “You have no desire to sleep?” “Not at all.” “Then do you want me to tell you the story of my life?” Just then the conductor passed. He followed him with an ill-natured look, and did not begin until he had gone again. Then during all the rest of the story he did not stop once. Even the new travellers as they entered did not stop him. His face, while he was talking, changed several times so completely that it bore positively no resemblance to itself as it had appeared just before. His eyes, his mouth, his moustache, and even his beard, all were new. Each time it was a beautiful and touching physiognomy, and these transformations were produced suddenly in the penumbra; and for five minutes it was the same face, that could not be compared to that of five minutes before. And then, I know not how, it changed again, and became unrecognizable. CHAPTER IV. “Well, I am going then to tell you my life, and my whole frightful history,—yes, frightful. And the story itself is more frightful than the outcome.” He became silent for a moment, passed his hands over his eyes, and began:— “To be understood clearly, the whole must be told from the beginning. It must be told how and why I married, and what I was before my marriage. First, I will tell you who I am. The son of a rich gentleman of the steppes, an old marshal of the nobility, I was a University pupil, a graduate of the law school.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I soon feel myself growing faint. "Monsieur, Monsieur," I cry, "have pity on me, I am about to collapse." I sway, totter, am held up by the straps, am unable to fall; but my arms having shifted, and my head slumping upon my shoulder, my face is now washed with blood. The Count is drunk with joy... however, I see nothing like the end of his operation approaching, I swoon before he reaches his goal; he was perhaps only able to attain it upon seeing me in this state, perhaps his supreme ecstasy depended upon this morbid picture.... At any rate, when I returned to my senses I found myself in an excellent bed, with two old women standing near me; as soon as they saw me open my eyes, they brought me a cup of bouillon and, at three-hour intervals, rich broths; this continued for two days, at the end of which Monsieur de Gernande sent to have me get up and come for a conversation in the same salon where I had been received upon my arrival. I was led to him; I was still a little weak and giddy, but otherwise well; I arrived. "Therese," said the Count, bidding me be seated, "I shall not very often repeat such exercises with you, your person is useful for other purposes; but it was of the highest importance I acquaint you with my tastes and the manner in which you will expire in this house should you betray me one of these days, should you be unlucky enough to let yourself be suborned by the woman in whose society you are going to be placed. "That woman belongs to me, Therese, she is my wife and that title is doubtless the most baleful she could have, since it obliges her to lend herself to the bizarre passion whereof you have been a recent victim; do not suppose it is vengeance that prompts me to treat her thus, scorn, or any sentiment of hostility or hatred; it is merely a question of passion. Nothing equals the pleasure I experience upon shedding her blood... I go mad when it flows; I have never enjoyed this woman in any other fashion. Three years have gone by since I married her, and for three years she has been regularly exposed every four days to the treatment you have undergone. Her youth (she is not yet twenty), the special care given her, all this keeps her aright; and as the reservoir is replenished at the same rate it is tapped, she has been in fairly good health since the regime began.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  O thou my friend! The prosperity of Crime is but an ordeal to which Providence would expose Virtue, it is like unto the lightning, whose traitorous brilliancies but for an instant embellish the atmosphere, in order to hurl into death's very deeps the luckless one they have dazzled. And there, before our eyes, is the example of it; that charming girl's incredible calamities, her terrifying reversals and uninterrupted disasters are a warning issued me by the Eternal, Who would that I heed the voice of mine guilt and cast myself into His arms. Ah, what must be the punishment I have got to fear from Him, I, whose libertinage, irreligion, and abandon of every principle have stamped every instant of my life I What must I not expect if 'tis thus He has treated her who in all her days had not a single sin whereof to repent I Let us separate, Corville, the time has come, no chain binds us one to the other, forget me, and approve that I go and by an eternal penance abjure, at the Supreme Being's feet, the infamies wherewith I am soiled absolutely. That appalling stroke was necessary to my conversion in this life, it was needed for the happiness I dare hope for in another. Farewell, Monsieur; the last mark of your friendship I ask is that you institute no perquisitions to discover what shall have become of me. Oh, Corville! I await you in a better world, your virtues should lead you unto it; may the atonements I make, to expiate my crimes, in this place where I go to spend the unhappy years that remain to me, permit me to encounter you again someday."

• From Going Clear (2013)

  “Any buyers here?” “Mostly the slaughterhouse. Fatso in the flat-brim buckaroo.” Doris indicated a corpulent individual down front. “Keep your voice down, Mom. He’s looking at you.” “Horrors.” Bud Schotz slammed his gavel down as the slaughterhouse man took a pencil off his ear and made another mark on his tablet. It was painful to watch. Even Doris was respectfully silent as, one by one, the slaughterhouse man with his scarcely perceptible nod bought the entire lot. There was an air of stultifying indifference about him that wafted through the auditorium like anesthesia. Half an hour later, the first of Sonny’s heifers came up. They were all fine breeding stock, but that didn’t matter now, they were destined for hamburger. In an hour or so they would crowd into a semi and journey to a feedlot in the Panhandle, camp out there about five months, but more likely seven or eight months considering the shape these cows were in, until they reached their ideal weight, around 1,200 to 1,400 pounds. Eat and shit, it wasn’t much different from life on the ranch, except rudely concentrated, just a trough of water and bins of grain, no wandering around the pasture looking for Mom or nosing about with siblings. The smell is worse than anything you’ve ever encountered, which is why the feedlots are set as far as possible from human habitation, God help anyone within a mile of the place. Then it’s off to the packing plant, a polite term for the execution chamber. The cows arrive already washed, as if they’re going on a date, and unfed, to minimize contamination. They smell death ahead as they’re goaded into the chute, which curves to blind them from seeing what’s about to happen, but they know. They moan and weep. And then blackness as a bolt slams square in the middle of the forehead and interrupts their consciousness, a humane gesture that is also thought to enhance the flavor of the meat. A chain grabs hold of the left hind leg, and up they go onto the rail. Throat quickly cut, the bleeding begins, followed by skinning, splitting of the carcass, cooling, then the butcher gets to work. Today a cow; tomorrow, a T-bone. Civilization is built on such. Suddenly the atmosphere in the auction house quickened. “Sonny, is that Joaquin?” Doris asked when the bull charged into the arena as if it belonged to him. It was like seeing a heavyweight champ burst into a club gym. The crowd sat up, abuzz, studying Joaquin’s stats on a screen above the auctioneer’s podium. “All right, all right, very fine bull, two years old, got his papers right here,” Bud said, waving the registration certificate in the air. “This is a foundation animal. Put him in your front pasture and folks will take notice. Start the bidding at ten thousand. TEN-TEN-TEN GIMME TEN-TEN-ten-ten…” Some sales start slow. Bud knew the proper value of every animal that came into the ring.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I, who located all my glory, all my felicity in my virtue, I who thought that, provided I remained well-behaved at all times, I could be consoled for all fortune's ills, I cannot bear the horrible idea of seeing myself so cruelly sullied by those from whom I should have been able to expect the greatest comfort and aid: my tears flowed in abundance, my cries made the vault ring; I rolled upon the floor, I lacerated my breast, tore my hair, invoked my butchers, begged them to bestow death upon me... and, Madame, would you believe it? this terrible sight excited them all the more. "Ah!" said Severino, "I've never enjoyed a finer spectacle: behold, good friends, see the state it puts me in; it is really unbelievable, what feminine anguish obtains from me." "Let's go back to work," quoth Clement, "and in order to teach her to bellow at fate, let the bitch be more sharply handled in this second assault." The project is no sooner conceived than put into execution; up steps Severino, but his speeches notwithstanding, his desires require a further degree of irritation and it is only after having used Clement's cruel measures that he succeeds in marshaling the forces necessary to accomplish his newest crime. Great God! What excess of ferocity! Could it be that those monsters would carry it to the point of selecting the instant of a crisis of moral agony as violent as that I was undergoing, in order to submit me to so barbarous a physical one! "'Twould be an injustice to this novice," said Clement, "were we not to employ in its major form what served us so well in its merely episodic dimension," and thereupon he began to act, adding: "My word upon it, I will treat her no better than did you." "One instant." said Antonin to the superior whom he saw about to lay hands upon me again; "while your zeal is exhaled into this pretty maiden's posterior parts, I might, it seems to me, make an offering to the contrary God; we will have her between us two." The position was so arranged I could still provide Jerome with a mouth; Clement fitted himself between my hands, I was constrained to arouse him; all the priestesses surrounded this frightful group; each lent an actor what she knew was apt to stir him most profoundly; however, it was I supported them all, the entire weight bore down upon me alone; Severino gives the signal, the other three follow close after him and there I am a second time infamously defiled by the proofs of those blackguards' disgusting luxury. "Well," cries the superior, "that should be adequate for the first day; we must now have her remark that her comrades are no better treated than she." I am placed upon an elevated armchair and from there I am compelled to witness those other horrors which are to terminate the orgies.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Our relations being what they are, you perfectly well appreciate why I can neither allow her to go out nor to receive visitors. And so I represent her as insane and her mother, the only living member of her family, who resides in a chateau six leagues from here, is so firmly convinced of her derangement that she dares not even come to see her. Not infrequently the Countess implores my mercy, there is nothing she omits to do in order to soften me; but I doubt whether she shall ever succeed. My lust decreed her fate, it is immutable, she will go on in this fashion so long as she is able; while she lives she will want nothing and as I am incredibly fond of what can be drained from her living body, I will keep her alive as long as possible; when finally she can stand it no more, well, tush, Nature will take its course. She's my fourth; I'll soon have a fifth. Nothing disturbs me less than to lose a wife. There are so many women about, and it is so pleasant to change. Chapter 29 "In any event, Therese, your task is to look after her. Her blood is let once every ninety-six hours; she loses two bowls of it each time and nowadays no longer faints, having got accustomed to it. Her prostration lasts twenty-four hours; she is bedridden one day out of every four, but during the remaining three she gets on tolerably well. But you may easily understand this life displeases her; at the outset there was nothing she would not try to deliver herself from it, nothing she did not undertake to acquaint her mother with her real situation: she seduced two of her maid-servants whose maneuvers were detected early enough to defeat their success: she was the cause of these two unhappy creatures' ruin, today she repents what she did and, recognizing the irremediable character of her destiny, she is co-operating cheerfully and has promised not to make confederates of the help I hire to care for her. But this secret and what becomes of those who conspire to betray me, these matters, Therese, oblige me to put no one in her neighborhood but persons who, like yourself, have been impressed; and thus inquiries are avoided. Not having carried you off from anyone's house, not having to render an account of you to anyone at all, nothing stands in the way of my punishing you, if you deserve to be, in a manner which, although you will be deprived of mortal breath, cannot nevertheless expose me to interrogations or embroil me in any unpleasantnesses. As of the present moment you inhabit the world no longer, since the least impulse of my will can cause you to disappear from it. What can you expect at my hands? Happiness if you behave properly, death if you seek to play me false.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  After the Cairo Agreement of 1969, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was allowed to establish bases in southern Lebanon from which to attack Israel, and once the PLO had been expelled from Jordan in 1970, Lebanon became its main base. In southern Lebanon, therefore, the Shii suffered heavy casualties in Israel’s retaliatory bombardment. The demography of the country had also changed. The Shii birthrate had increased dramatically, with the population rising from 100,000 in 1921 to 750,000 in 1975. Because the Sunni and Maronite birthrates had declined, by the mid-1970s the Shii formed 30 percent of the population and had become the largest confessional community in Lebanon. 39 When both Sunni and Shii Muslims requested a restructuring of political institutions to reflect this change, a catastrophic civil war broke out (1975–78). Lebanon became a dangerously violent place, where fighting was no longer a choice but essential to personal survival. Shii Islam became militant as a result of ubiquitous warfare and the systemic oppression of Lebanese society. Sadr had already established training camps to teach Shii youth self-defense and after the outbreak of the civil war founded AMAL (“Battalions for Lebanese Resistance”), which brought the poorer classes together with the “new men”—Shii businessmen and professionals who had managed to climb the economic ladder. They fought Maronite supremacy alongside the Druze, a small, esoteric Shii sect. The Shii probably suffered more than any other group during the civil war. Their shantytowns were destroyed by the Christian militias, thousands were left homeless, and thousands more had to flee the south of the country during the ongoing struggle between Israel and the PLO. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 to oust the PLO, Shii homes were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands were forced to seek refuge in Beirut. At this crucial moment, Musa al-Sadr made a visit to Libya and disappeared, perhaps murdered by Qaddafi, thus becoming the Lebanese “Hidden Imam.” This loss split AMAL: some followed the secularist, American-educated Nabih Berri, who advocated peaceful action, but the more literate “new men” followed Fadl Allah, a scholar whose views would come to be very controversial in the community of learned authorities. His Islam and the Use of Force (1976), written in a society torn apart by violent conflict, had argued that Muslims must be ready to fight and, if necessary, die like Husain in the struggle for justice and equity.

• From The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967)

  The so-called “Augustinian” solution to the problem of theodicy is not just the presentation of a suffering divinity. We know that the late Greco-Roman era abounded in such notions. The solution rather depends upon the profoundly masochistic shift from the question about the justice of God to that about the sinfulness of man, a shift that, as we indicated, already occurred in the theodicy of the Old Testament. Again, the problem of theodicy is translated into the problem of anthropodicy. But the harshness of this translation is mitigated by the interposition of the suffering God-man between the two partners in the masochistic dialectics of the Book of Job. Put differently, the stark polarization of sovereignty and submission is softened in the figure of the suffering Christ. God suffers in Christ. But Christ’s suffering does not justify God, but man. Through Christ the terrible otherness of the Yahweh of the thunderstorms is mellowed. At the same time, because the contemplation of Christ’s suffering deepens the conviction of man’s unworthiness, the old masochistic surrender is allowed to repeat itself in a more refined, not to say sophisticated, manner. We would contend that the fundamental religious motorics of Christianity cannot be understood if one does not understand this and that, furthermore, the plausibility of Christianity (at least in its major orthodox forms) stands or falls with the plausibility of this theodicy. We shall have occasion later in these considerations to discuss the over-all decline in the plausibility of Christianity. Suffice it to say here that this decline has been accompanied by a steady devaluation of the Christian theodicy. In 1755 an earthquake destroyed most of the city of Lisbon and killed a considerable part of its population. This event, slight as it may seem in comparison with the mass horrors of our own time, was an important event for eighteenth-century thought. 95

• From Going Clear (2013)

  Several times, she came close to jumping off the top floor of the church’s headquarters in Clearwater, but restrained herself because she was worried that it would bring disgrace upon the church and Hubbard’s teachings. It was only when she left the church and began taking Prozac that her headaches and her suicidal thoughts went away. “ It has changed my life,” she claimed. Her friend Mary Florence Barnett, Shelly Miscavige’s mother, had similar symptoms—constant headaches and suicidal thoughts. She confided to Eltringham that she wanted to kill herself in order to stop the suppressive body thetans from taking over her mind. Barnett eventually went outside the official church to receive Scientology counseling, a heretical practice known in Scientology as squirreling. (The church denies that Barnett became involved with dissident Scientologists, but if she had, that would have placed David and Shelly Miscavige in a compromised position with the church. They would have been Potential Trouble Sources if they failed to disconnect from her.) On September 8, 1985, Barnett’s body was found. She had been shot three times in the chest and once through the temple with a rifle. Both of her wrists were slashed. She left two suicide notes. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner ruled her death a suicide. In 2007, Kyle Brennan, twenty years old, who was not a Scientologist, went to stay with his father, a member of the church, in Clearwater. Brennan was taking Lexapro, an antidepressant heavily promoted by its manufacturer, Forest Laboratories. He was also under the care of a psychiatrist. According to court records, Brennan’s father, Thomas, was ordered to “handle” his son. Thomas Brennan’s auditor was Denise Miscavige Gentile, David Miscavige’s twin sister. She spoke on the phone to Kyle’s mother, who was not a Scientologist, and urged her to enroll her son in Narconon, the church’s drug-treatment program. His mother refused, pointing out that the program costs approximately $25,000; moreover, Kyle was not a drug addict. She sued, charging that church officials had ordered Thomas Brennan to lock his son’s Lexapro in the trunk of his car. Days after that, Kyle shot himself to death with a .357 Magnum that his father kept in his bedside table. (The suit was dismissed for lack of evidence.) The long history of humanity’s inadequate attempts to deal with depression, and the manifold ways in which insanity expresses itself, have never yielded a clear path. Tragedies such as the suicide of Kyle Brennan demonstrate the danger of dogmatic interpretations of psychiatry, such as those offered by Tom Cruise and other Scientology celebrities on the subject. The American Psychiatric Association felt so threatened by Cruise’s statements on the Today show that the president of the organization issued a statement affirming that mental illnesses are real medical conditions. “ It is irresponsible for Mr. Cruise to use his movie publicity tour to promote his own ideological views and deter people with mental illness from getting the care they need,” said Steven S.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  "Like Job I felt now that— "'All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.' "'Yea, young children despised me.' "Still I was anxious to know something about Teleny, for terrors made me afraid on every side. Had he gone off with my mother, and not left the slightest message for me? "Still, what was he to write? "If he had remained in town, had I not told him that, whatever his fault might be, I should always forgive him if he sent me back the ring." "And had he sent it back, could you have pardoned him?" "I loved him. "I could not hear this state of things any longer. Truth, however painful, was preferable to this dreadful suspense. "I called on Briancourt. I found his studio shut. I went to his house. He had not been at home for two days. The servants did not know where he was. They thought that he had, perhaps, gone to his father's in Italy. "Disconsolate, I roamed about the streets, and soon I found myself again before Teleny's house. The door downstairs was still open. I stole by the porter's lodge, frightened lest I might be stopped and told that my friend was not at home. No one, however, noticed me. I crept upstairs, shivering, nerveless, sick. I put the key in the lock, the door yielded noiselessly as it had done a few nights before. I went in. "Then I asked myself what I was to do next, and I almost turned on my heels and ran off. "As I stood there wavering, I thought I heard a faint moan. "I listened. All was quiet. "No, there was a groan—a low, dying wail. "It seemed to proceed from the white room. "I shuddered with horror. "I rushed in. "The recollection of what I saw freezes the very marrow in my bones. "'Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold of my flesh.' "I saw a pool of coagulated blood on the dazzling-white, fur carpet, and Teleny, half-stretched, half-fallen, on the bearskin-covered couch. A small dagger was plunged in his breast, and the blood continued to trickle out of the wound. "I threw myself upon him; he was not quite dead; he groaned; he opened his eyes. "Overwhelmed by grief, distracted by terror, I lost all presence of mind. I let go his head, and clasped my throbbing temples between my palms, trying to collect my thoughts and to dominate myself so as to help my friend. "Should I pluck the knife from the wound? No, it might be fatal. "Oh, if I had a slight knowledge of surgery! But having none, the only thing I could do was to call for help. "I ran on the landing; I screamed out with all my might,— "'Help, help! Fire, fire!

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Drunk with love and ferocity, Rodin mingles the expressions and sentiments of each.... "Ah, little weasel!" he cries, "I must avenge myself upon the illusion you create in me." The whips are picked up, Rodin flogs; clearly more excited by the boy than he was by the vestal, his blows become both much more powerful and far more numerous: the child bursts into tears, Rodin is in seventh heaven, but new pleasures call, he releases the boy and flies to other sacrifices. A little girl of thirteen is the boy's successor, and she is followed by another youth who is in turn abandoned for a girl; Rodin whips nine: five boys, four girls; the last is a lad of fourteen, endowed with a delicious countenance: Rodin wishes to amuse himself, the pupil resists; out of his mind with lust, he beats him, and the villain, losing all control of himself, hurls his flame's scummy jets upon his young charge's injured parts, he wets him from waist to heels; enraged at not having had strength enough to hold himself in check until the end, our corrector releases the child very testily, and after warning him against such tricks in the future, he sends him back to the class: such are the words I heard, those the scenes which I witnessed. "Dear Heaven!" I said to Rosalie when this appalling drama came to its end, "how is one able to surrender oneself to such excesses? How can one find pleasure in the torments one inflicts ?" "Ah," replied Rosalie, "you do not know everything. Listen," she said, leading me back into her room, "what you have seen has perhaps enabled you to understand that when my father discovers some aptitudes in his young pupils, he carries his horrors much further, he abuses the girls in the same manner he deals with the boys." Rosalie spoke of that criminal manner of conjugation whereof I myself had believed I might be the victim with the brigands' captain into whose hands I had fallen after my escape from the Conciergerie, and by which I had been soiled by the merchant from Lyon. "By this means," Rosalie continued, "the girls are not in the least dishonored, there are no pregnancies to fear, and nothing prevents them from finding a husband; not a year goes by without his corrupting nearly all the boys in this way, and at least half the other children. Of the fourteen girls you have seen, eight have already been spoiled by these methods, and he has taken his pleasure with nine of the boys; the two women who serve him are submitted to the same horrors....

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

  Ansgar was born about 800 (according to general acceptation Sept. 9, 801) in the diocese of Amiens, of Frankish parents, and educated in the abbey of Corbie, under the guidance of Adalhard. Paschasius Radbertus was among his teachers. In 822 a missionary colony was planted by Corbie in Westphalia, and the German monastery of Corwey or New Corwey was founded. Hither Ansgar was removed, as teacher in the new school, and he soon acquired great fame both on account of his powers as a preacher and on account of his ardent piety. When still a boy he had holy visions, and was deeply impressed with the vanity of all earthly greatness. The crown of the martyr seemed to him the highest grace which human life could attain, and he ardently prayed that it might be given to him. The proposition to follow king Harald as a missionary, among the heathen Danes he immediately accepted, in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, and accompanied by Autbert he repaired, in 827, to Denmark, where he immediately established a missionary station at Hedeby, in the province of Schleswig. The task was difficult, but the beginning was not without success. Twelve young boys were bought to be educated as teachers, and not a few people were converted and baptized. His kindness to the poor, the sick, to all who were in distress, attracted attention; his fervor as a preacher and teacher produced sympathy without, as yet, provoking resistance. But in 829 king Harald was again expelled and retired to Riustri, a possession on the mouth of the Weser, which the emperor had given to him as a fief. Ansgar was compelled to follow him and the prospects of the Danish mission became very dark, the more so as Autbert had to give up any further participation in the work on account of ill health, and return to New Corwey. At this time an invitation from the Swedish king, Björn, gave Ansgar an opportunity to visit Sweden, and he stayed there till 831, when the establishment of an episcopal see at Hamburg, determined upon by the diet of Aix-le-chapelle in 831, promised to give the Danish mission a new impulse. All Scandinavia was laid under the new see, and Ansgar was consecrated its first bishop by bishop Drago of Metz, a brother of the emperor, with the solemn assistance of three archbishops, Ebo of Rheims, Hetti of Treves and Obgar of Mentz. A bull of Gregory IV.128 confirmed the whole arrangement, and Ansgar received personally the pallium from the hands of the Pope. In 834 the emperor endowed the see with the rich monastery of Thorout, in West Flanders, south of Bruges, and the work of the Danish mission could now be pushed with vigor. Enabled to treat with the petty kings of Denmark on terms of equality, and possessed of means to impress them with the importance of the cause, Ansgar made rapid progress, but, as was to be expected, the progress soon awakened opposition. In 834 a swarm of heathen Danes penetrated with a fleet of six hundred small vessels into the Elb under the command of king Horich I., and laid siege to Hamburg. The city was taken, sacked and burnt; the church which Ansgar had built, the monastery in which he lived, his library containing a copy of the Bible which the emperor had presented to him, etc., were destroyed and the Christians were driven away from the place. For many days Ansgar fled from hiding-place to hiding-place in imminent danger of his life. He sought refuge with the bishop of Bremen, but the bishop of Bremen was jealous, because Scandinavia had not been laid under his see, and refused to give any assistance. The revenues of Thorout he lost, as the emperor, Charles the Bald, gave the fief to one of his favorites. Even his own pupils deserted him.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  There is nothing I can do to defend myself, the project is executed, Julien triumphs, and it is not without atrocious agonies I sustain this newest attack: the assailant's exorbitant bulk, the lacerated condition of those parts, the fire with which that accursed ball had devoured my intestines, everything combined to make me suffer tortures which La Rose renewed immediately his companion was finished. Before arriving I was thus yet another time victim of those wretched valets' criminal libertinage; we reached our destination at last. The jailer greeted us, he was alone, it was still night, no one saw me enter. "Go to sleep, Therese," said he, restoring me to my cell, "and if ever you wish to tell, it makes no difference whom, that on this night you left prison, remember that I will contradict you, and that this useless accusation will get you nowhere...." And, said I to myself when I was left alone, I should regret departing this world! I should dread to leave a universe freighted with such monsters! Ah! were the hand of God to snatch me from their clutches at whatever instant and in whatever manner He sees fit! why! I'd complain no more; the unique consolation which may remain to the luckless one bred up in this den of savage beasts, his one comfort is the hope of leaving it soon. The next day I heard nothing and resolved to abandon myself to Providence, I languished and would touch no food. The day after that, Cardoville came to question me; I could not repress a shudder upon beholding the nonchalance wherewith that scoundrel walked in to execute his judiciary duties Ä he, Cardoville, the most villainous of mortals, he who, contrary to every article of the justice in which he was cloaked, had just so cruelly abused my innocence and exploited my misery; it was in vain I pled my cause, the dishonest man's artfulness devised more crimes than I could invent defenses; when all the charges had been well established in the view of this iniquitous judge, and when the case was made, he had the impudence to ask me whether I knew in Lyon one Monsieur de Saint-Florent, a wealthy and estimable citizen; I answered that I knew him, yes. "Excellent," said Cardoville, "no more is needed. This Monsieur de Saint-Florent, whom you declare you know, also has a perfect knowledge of you; he has deposed that he saw you in a band of thieves, that you were the first to steal his money and his pocket- book.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Returning now to me, he spent a moment eyeing those two fatty globes then still intact but about to undergo torture in their turn; he handled them, he could not prevent himself from prying them apart, tickling them, kissing them another thousand times. "Well," said he, "be courageous..." and a hail of blows descended upon these masses, lacerating them to the thighs. Extremely animated by the starts, the leaps, the grinding of teeth, the contortions the pain drew from me, examining them, battening upon them rapturously, he comes and expresses, upon my mouth which he kisses with fervor, the sensations agitating him.... "This girl entertains me," he cries, "I have never flogged another with as much pleasure," and he goes back to his niece whom he treats with the same barbarity; there remained the space between the upper thigh and the calves and this he struck with identical vehemence: first the one of us, then the other. "Ha !" he said, now approaching me, "let's change hands and visit this place here"; now wielding a cat-o'-ninetails he gives me twenty cuts from the middle of my belly to the bottom of my thighs; then wrenching them apart, he slashed at the interior of the lair my position bares to his whip. "There it is," says he, "the bird I am going to pluck": several thongs having, through the precautions he had taken, penetrated very deep, I could not suppress my screams. "Well, well!" said the villain, "I must have found the sensitive area at last; steady there, calm yourself, we'll visit it a little more thoroughly"; however, his niece is put in the same posture and treated in the same manner; once again he reaches the most delicate region of a woman's body; but whether through habit, or courage, or dread of incurring treatment yet worse, she has enough strength to master herself, and about her nothing is visible beyond a few shivers and spasmodic twitchings. However, there was by now a slight change in the libertine's physical aspect, and although things were still lacking in substance, thanks to strokings and shakings a gradual improvement was being registered. "On your knees," the monk said to me, "I am going to whip your titties." "My titties, oh my Father!" "Yes, those two lubricious masses which never excite me but I wish to use them thus," and upon saying this, he squeezed them, he compressed them violently. "Oh Father! They are so delicate! You will kill me!" "No matter, my dear, provided I am satisfied," and he applied five or six blows which, happily, I parried with my hands. Upon observing that, he binds them behind my back; nothing remains with which to implore his mercy but my countenance and my tears, for he has harshly ordered me to be silent.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  While one acts, he has himself sucked by the other, and his tongue wanders to the throne of voluptuousness the agent presents to him. This activity continues a long time, it irritates the Count, he gets to his feet and wishes me to take the Countess' place; I instantly beg him not to require it of me, but he insists. He lays his wife upon her back, has me superimpose myself upon her with my flanks raised in his direction and thereupon he orders his aides to plumb me by the forbidden passage: he brings them up, his hands guide their introduction; meanwhile, I have got to stimulate the Countess with my fingers and kiss her mouth; as for the Count, his offertory is still the same; as each of the boys cannot act without exhibiting to him one of the sweetest objects of his veneration, he turns it all to his profit and, as with the Countess, he who has just perforated me is obliged to go, after a few lunges and retreats, and spill into his mouth the incense I have warmed. When the boys are finished, seemingly inclined to replace them, the Count glues himself to my buttocks. "Superfluous efforts," he cries, "this is not what I must have... to the business... the business... however pitiable my state... I can hold back no longer... come, Countess, your arms!" He seizes her ferociously, places her as I was placed, arms suspended by two black straps; mine is the task of securing the bands; he inspects the knots: finding them too loose, he tightens them, "So that," he says, "the blood will spurt out under greater pressure"; he feels the veins, and lances them, on each arm, at almost the same moment. Blood leaps far: he is in an ecstasy; and adjusting himself so that he has a clear view of these two fountains, he has me kneel between his legs so I can suck him; he does as much for first one and then the other of his little friends, incessantly eyeing the jets of blood which inflame him. For my part, certain the instant at which the hoped for crisis occurs will bring a conclusion to the Countess' torments, I bring all my efforts to bear upon precipitating this denouement, and I become, as, Madame, you observe, I become a whore from kindness, a libertine through virtue. The much awaited moment arrives at last; I am not familiar with its dangers or violence, for the last time it had taken place I had been unconscious... Oh, Madame! what extravagance! Gernande remained delirious for ten minutes, flailing his arms, staggering, reeling like one falling in a fit of epilepsy, and uttering screams which must have been audible for a league around; his oaths were excessive; lashing out at everyone at hand, his strugglings were dreadful.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I swallow and listen. A hum. Oh God. We couldn’t hear that from behind the three inch plated windows. We are caged in like animals. There has to be a way around. An electrical wire we can cut… something. I look at the snow. It covers the trees beyond the fence and falls in a graceful white skirt down a steep ravine that drops off to the left of the house. There are no roads, no houses and no breaks in the cover of white. It never ends. Isaac starts walking back toward the house. “Where are you going?” He ignores me, his head down. The effort it takes to walk through the snow makes it look like he’s climbing stairs. I watch as he circles around the back of the house, not knowing what to do. I linger for a few more minutes before following him, grateful for the path his struggle has cut for me. I find him facing what looks like a shed. Since there are no windows facing this way, it’s the first time I am seeing what’s back there. There is a smaller structure to the right of it. The generator, I realize. When I look at Isaac’s face I see that it’s neither the shed nor the generator he’s looking at. I follow his eyes past the structures and feel my breath seize. I stop shivering, I stop everything. I reach for his hand and we plow together through the snow, our breath returns, laboring from the effort. We stop when we reach the edge of the cliff. Laid out in front of us is a view so sharp and dangerously beautiful I am afraid to blink. The house backs right up to a cliff. One that our captor—our zookeeper—didn’t give us windows to see. It seems like he’s trying to tell us something. Something I don’t want to hear. You are trapped, maybe. Or, You’re not seeing everything. I’m in control. “Let’s go back inside,” Isaac says. His voice is wiped clean of emotion. It’s his doctor’s voice; factual. His hope just fell down that cliff, I think. He heads back without me. I stay to look—look at the spread of mountains. Look at the dangerous drop-off that could turn a falling body into a sack of skin and liquid organs. When I turn around, Isaac is carrying armfuls of wood from the shack and into the house. It’s not a house, I tell myself. It’s a cabin in the middle of nowhere. What happens when we run out of food? Fuel for the generator? I walk back toward the shed and peer inside. There are piles and piles of chopped wood. An axe rests against the wall closest to where I stand to the back of the shed are several large metal containers. I am about to go investigate them when Isaac comes back for more wood. “What are those?” I ask. “Diesel,” he says, without looking up. “For the generator?”

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Isaac doesn’t come down from his room. I put his plate of food in the oven to keep it warm and climb onto the kitchen table. It’s big enough for two people to lie side by side. I curl up in the middle, my face turned toward the window. I can see the window above the sink, and in it the reflection of the doorway. The kitchen is his go-to place. I’ll wait for him here. It feels good to be somewhere I’m not supposed to be. The zookeeper wouldn’t care that I’m lying on his table, but in general, tables aren’t for lying on. So, I feel mildly rebellious. And that helps. No it doesn’t. Who am I kidding? I unroll myself from the ball I’m curled into and jump down from the table. Walking to the silverware drawer, I pull it back forcefully until the silver clatters. I eye its contents, examining the selection: long, short, curved, serrated. I reach for the knife Isaac uses to peel potatoes. I run the tip across my palm, back and forth, back and forth. If I press a little harder I can draw blood. I watch my skin dent underneath the tip as I wait for the puncture, the inevitable sharp pain, the red, red release. “Stop it.” I jump. The knife clatters to the floor. I place my palm over the blood that is beading on my skin. It wells, then flows down my arm. Isaac is standing in the doorway in pajama bottoms and nothing else. I glance at the stove, wondering if he’s come down because he’s hungry. He walks briskly over to where I’m still standing and bends to pick up the knife. Then he does something that makes my brow furrow. He puts it back in my hand. My mouth twitches as he wraps my fingers around the hilt. I watch, numb and wordless, as he points the sharp end at the skin just above his heart. My hand is locked underneath his, gripping the hilt with trepidation. I can’t move my fingers—not even a little bit. He uses his strength against me when I try to pull away, yanking my arm and the blade toward him. I see blood where the knife is pressing into his skin, and I cry out. He’s forcing me to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to see his blood. He pushes harder. “No!” I struggle to break free, pulling my body backwards. “Isaac, no!” He lets go. The knife drops to the floor between us. I stand, riveted, and watch as the red gathers and then trickles down his chest. The cut is no longer than an inch, but it’s deeper than one I would have made on myself.

• From Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence (2014)

  Despite his passion for Uruk, Sin-leqi had to admit that civilization had its discontents. Poets had begun to tell Gilgamesh’s story soon after his death because it is an archetypal tale, one of the first literate accounts of the hero’s journey.4 But it also wrestles with the inescapable structural violence of civilized life. Oppressed, impoverished, and miserable, the people of Uruk begged the gods to grant them some relief from Gilgamesh’s tyranny: The city is his possession, he struts Through it, arrogant, his head raised high, Trampling its citizens like a wild bull. He is king, he does whatever he wants The young men of Uruk he harries without a warrant, Gilgamesh lets no son go free to his father.5 These young men may have been conscripted into the labor bands that rebuilt the city wall.6 Urban living would not have been possible without the unscrupulous exploitation of the vast majority of the population. Gilgamesh and the Sumerian aristocracy lived in unprecedented splendor, but for the peasant masses civilization brought only misery and subjugation. The Sumerians seem to have been the first people to commandeer the agricultural surplus grown by the community and create a privileged ruling class. This could only have been achieved by force. Enterprising settlers had first been drawn to the fertile plain between the Tigris and the Euphrates in about 5000 BCE.7 It was too dry for farming, so they designed an irrigation system to control and distribute the snowmelt from the mountains that flooded the plain each year. This was an extraordinary achievement. Canals and ditches had to be planned, designed, and maintained in a cooperative effort and the water allocated fairly between competing communities. The new system probably began on a small scale, but would have soon led to a dramatic increase in agricultural yield and thus to a population explosion.8 By 3500, Sumer numbered a hitherto unachievable half-million souls. Strong leadership would have been essential, but what actually transformed these simple farmers into city dwellers is a topic of endless debate. Probably a number of interlocking and mutually reinforcing factors were involved: population growth, unprecedented agricultural fecundity, and the intensive labor required by irrigation—not to mention sheer human ambition—all contributed to a new kind of society.9

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Lurking in this forest, like them flying the sight of man, what difference now exists between them and me? Is it worth being born for a fate so pitiable?... And my tears flowed abundantly as I meditated in sorrow; I had scarcely finished with my reflections when I heard sounds somewhere about; little by little, two men hove into view. I pricked up my ears: "Come, dear friend," said one of them, "this place will suit us admirably; the cruel and fatal presence of an aunt I abhor will not prevent me from tasting a moment with you the pleasures I cherish." They draw near, they station themselves squarely in front of me and so proximately that not one of their words, not one of their gestures is able to escape me, and I observe... Just Heaven, Madame, said Therese, interrupting herself, is it possible that destiny has placed me in none but situations so critical that it becomes quite as difficult for Virtue to hear them recited as for modesty to describe them? That horrible crime which equally outrages both Nature and social conventions, that heinous deed, in a word, which the hand of God has so often smitten, rationalized, legitimized by Coeur-de-fer, proposed by him to the unhappy Therese, despite her wishes consummated against her by the butcher who has just immolated her, in brief, I did see that revolting execration carried out before my own eyes, together with all the impure gropings and fumblings, all the frightful episodes the most meditated depravity can devise. One of the men, he who gave himself, was twenty-four years old, of such a bearing and presence one might suppose him of an elevated degree, the other, of about the same age, appeared to be one of his domestics.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Woe unto the depraved one who will be able to suspect pleasures in the womb want consumes, who will seek to gather kisses from lips withered by hunger and which open only to curse him! Tears spilled from my eyes; I should have liked to snatch that victim from the tiger awaiting her; I dared not. Could I have done it? I returned directly to my hotel, quite as humiliated by the misfortune which attracted such proposals as revolted by the opulence which ventured to make them. The following day I left Lyon by way of the road to Dauphine, still filled with the mad faith which allowed me to believe happiness awaited me in that province. Traveling afoot as usual, with a pair of blouses and some handkerchiefs in my pockets, I had not proceeded two leagues when I met an old woman; she approached me with a look of suffering and implored alms. Far from I had just received such cruel examples, and knowing no greater worldly happiness than what comes of obliging a poor person, I instantly drew forth my purse with the intention of selecting a crown and giving it to this woman; but the unworthy creature, much quicker than I, although I had at first judged her aged and crippled, leaps nimbly at my purse, seizes it, aims a powerful blow of her fist at my stomach, topples me, and the next I see of her, she has put a hundred yards betwixt us; there she is, surrounded by four rascals who gesture threateningly and warn me not to come near. "Great God!" I cried with much bitterness, "then it is Impossible for my soul to give vent to any virtuous impulse without my being instantly and very severely punished for it!" At this fatal moment all my courage deserted me; today I beg Heaven's forgiveness in all sincerity, for I faltered; but I was blinded by despair. I felt myself ready to give up a career bese two alternatives: that of going to join the scoundrels who had just robbed me, or that of returning to Lyon to accept Saint-Florent's offer. God had mercy upon me; I did not succumb, and though the fresh hope He quickened in me was misleading, since so many adversities yet lay in store for me, I nevertheless thank Him for having held me upright: the unlucky star which guides me, although innocent, to the gallows, will never lead me to worse than death; other supervision might have brought me to infamy, and the one is far less cruel than the other.