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 219 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Summer Sisters (1998)

  Lamb HE LIVES WITH A terrible feeling in his gut twenty-four hours a day. He gobbles Maalox tablets by the handful. He cries at the drop of a hat. He can’t understand what’s happened. Abby is careful not to blame him, not to blame anyone. Phoebe calls it wanderlust. Some people are born with it, she tells him. Whatever it is, he’s not sure he can bear it. She refused to see him in Barcelona. Sent a messenger to his hotel with the name and address of a lawyer in New York instead. Refused to see him! His precious daughter. How can he help her if she won’t let him? He’ll forgive her anything. He just wants her to come home. Come home, Caitlin, and be a mother to your baby! Sharkey What did they expect? Abby SHE THINKS OF Grandmother Somers in her forties, taking in Dorset and Lamb. She’s past fifty, menopausal, but feels young, younger than she has in years. And more relaxed. Maybe it’s the hormones. Maybe it’s Maizie. It’s as if she and Lamb have changed places. He’s the anxious one now, carrying around a baby monitor, checking on Maizie three or four times during the night. Sometimes she’ll find him standing over Maizie’s crib, watching her breathe, tears streaming down his face. He’s listening to the Beatles again, for the first time since John Lennon was killed. She tries to reassure him. Maizie will be fine. She’ll grow up strong and confident, surrounded by loving adults, with cousins and step-siblings for company. They’ll set limits, guide her, teach her to be responsible. But the way he looks at her when she talks about Maizie’s future breaks her heart. She dreads the day Caitlin comes waltzing back into their lives, expecting to take Maizie away with her. Even though Caitlin has signed the papers relinquishing all rights—giving her and Lamb physical custody, while they share legal custody with Bru—she knows biological mothers have an edge in court. But she won’t give up Maizie easily! Well, Abby ... her own mother says, you’ve finally got your little girl.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  She pushed me to the doorway, but here I held fast to the gate, and begged her. ‘Please, Diana! Let me only collect my things!’ I looked past her, to Dickie, and Maria: the gazes they turned upon me were livid and blurred, with the wine and with the chase, and held not one soft spark of sympathy. I looked at all the ogling ladies in their fluttering costumes. ‘Help me, can’t you?’ I cried to them. ‘Help me, for God’s sake! How many times have you not gazed at me and wanted me! How many times have you not come to say how handsome I am, how much you envy Diana the owning of me. Any one of you might have me now! Any one of you! Only, don’t let her put me into the street, into the dark, without a coin on me! Oh! Dam’ you all for a set of bitches, if you let her do such a thing, to me!’ So I cried out, weeping all the time I spoke, then turning to wipe my running nose on the sleeve of my cheap frock. My cheek felt twice its ordinary size, and my hair was matted where I had lain upon it; and at last, the ladies turned their eyes from me in a kind of boredom - and I knew myself done for. My hands slid from the gate, Diana pushed me, and I stumbled into the alleyway beyond. Behind me came my sailor’s bag, to land with a smack on the cobbles at my feet. I raised my eyes from it to look once more upon Diana’s house. The windows of the drawing-room were rosy with light, and ladies were already picking their way across the grass towards them. I caught a glimpse of Mrs Hooper; of Dickie, fixing her monocle to her watery eye; of Maria; and of Diana. A few strands of her dark hair had come loose from their pins, and the wind was whipping them about her cheeks. Her housekeeper said something to her, and she laughed. Then she closed the door, and turned the key in it; and the lights and the laughter of Felicity Place were lost to me, for ever. Chapter 4 T he Star, when we reached it at noon the next day, turned out to be not a tenth as smart as those marvellous West End halls before which we had leaned, with Mr Bliss, to dream of Kitty’s triumph; even so, however, it was quite alarmingly handsome and grand. Its manager at this time was a Mr Ling; he met us at the stage door and took us to his office, to read aloud the terms of Kitty’s contract and secure her signature upon it; but then he rose and shook our hands and shouted for the call-boy, and had us shown, rather briskly, to the stage.

• From City of Night (1963)

  And I was thinking: It has to happen—I have to be liberated again. No matter what kind of whirling his words have set off within me, I must undo it all. Yes, I knew suddenly... as if it would be the last time... that he must want me again, on my own terms—and that, then, his probing words, their impact on me (my own dangerous thoughts, even now, slowly threatening to succumb to what everything in the world indicates is the most murderous of all myths... Love)—all will be erased.... I took the money he had placed earlier on the table for me—the money which, I knew clearly now, had rested there as a test, and I put it into the pocket of my pants on the floor. Then I lay beside him. I reached again for his hand, and I placed it again on my body. And this time his hand was very, very, cold.... His hand didnt move. And then I pushed it with mine. He turned sideways, toward me, and our bodies touched closely.... For a moment I didnt move—and then I turned away quickly. I leaned back. Now the movements of his hands are his own. “This is the answer?” he asked, smiling strangely. “Yes,” I said. And this time, beyond what I was coaxing him to do, it had to be something else. The symbolic significance! I thought—echoing his words and many other words? And so it had to be this: He turned over on his stomach. My body pressed against his, entering him.... Then it was over. The orgasms have made us strangers again. All the words between us are somehow lost, as if, at least for this moment, they have never been spoken. I washed slowly and dressed. The sound of the anarchy outside is beating on my senses, summoning me. If only for this dangerous time, something vastly important, for me, had been reestablished, I told myself. And yet—... Yet, instead of triumph... I felt abject, crushing defeat. I stood over Jeremy still lying in bed. Complete strangers. I looked at the crumpled white sheets. But was that so? Were we indeed strangers? Or had we, rather, known each other too intimately? Had we searched too hard and found too much of the despised world in each of us? He was looking at me smiling. Smiling at me, perhaps. Perhaps smiling at himself. Smiling wryly maybe at the whole world which had determined all that had been said in this room—by him, by me. All that had happened. That wry smile seemed to be a judgment on the world. I leaned over him and I kissed him on the lips. And I was thinking: Yes, maybe youre right. Maybe I could love you. But I wont. The grinding streets awaited me. CITY OF NIGHT

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  When the coasts are clear, I will be yours. I swear it.’ ‘Is there no other way?’ he asked her. ‘None. I know that it is never going to happen. Don’t dwell upon the possibilities. It just can’t be done. In any case what kind of a person are you, to have designs upon another man’s wife? My body is not for auction.’ Aurelius sighed very deeply. He was depressed by what he had heard, and with sorrowful countenance he replied to her. ‘Ma dame,’ he said, ‘you have set me an impossible task. There is no choice for me now. I must die a piteous death.’ And with these words he turned and walked away. Now the rest of the company came and joined them, not realizing the conversation that had passed between them. They paraded through the garden walks, and soon began singing and dancing again until the setting of the sun. The horizon dimmed its light. The night came upon them. So they went back to their homes in peace and happiness - all except Aurelius, of course, who returned to a house of woe. He saw no remedy but in death. He felt his breast, and it was as cold as ice. He fell down on his knees and raised his hands to heaven. He prayed - he knew not what. He was out of his mind with grief. He did not know what to say or what to do, so instead he set up a long low complaint to the gods in heaven. He addressed the sun first of all. ‘Fair Apollo,’ he prayed, ‘you are god and governor of every living thing on earth. You lend the time and give the season for every plant and flower and tree. Just as you take care of Nature, great god, will you take care of your poor servant Aurelius? Cast your eye upon the wretch who kneels before you. Oh god above! I am lost. My lady has condemned me to death, but I am innocent. Through your divine kindness have some pity on my plight. I know well enough, great Phoebus, that you could help me best - next to Dorigen, of course. I know that you can work all things to your will. Please tell me what I ought to do. Please give me hope. ‘I know that your sister, Lucina, full of grace, is the mistress of the moon. She is also the principal goddess of the sea and the tides; she has dominion even over Neptune in the affairs of the deep. You know better than I do, Lord Phoebus, that she likes nothing better than to be lit by your fire. So she follows you through the firmament, and in turn the mighty seas follow her as their lawful protector and deity; she holds sway over every stream and brook. So this is my request to you, great lord. Perform this miracle for me, or I will die.

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  But so far they have been able to talk one another into sticking it out. For instance, one of the members, the one who’d had the article published, called me last week and told me she was on the verge of giving up because she hadn’t sold anything else in the months since her piece came out. She said in an Eeyore-like voice that she thought she could drink again safely now that she’d been sober for seven years, and she’d decided that I could, too, since I’d also been sober for seven years. Her plan was to come pick me and Sam up, and then we’d drive around until we found a biker bar with child care. I made sounds of empathy and reminded her that she’d been this stuck before. Short assignments, I whispered. Shitty first drafts. She mewled. I asked if there was anyone in her writing group who might be helpful. But she said no, she couldn’t call them, she knew they were all doing well, that they’d all had a great week, and that anyway they probably got together every few days without telling her and exchanged their favorite derisive stories about her and rolled their eyes. I told her to sit down and write about how she felt, and that maybe all her loneliness and paranoia would turn out to be great material. She said she wasn’t paranoid. She just worried that all her friends got together in small groups and talked meanly about her. But right then she got a call on the other line. It turned out to be someone in her writing group who was also really depressed, and she asked me if she could call right back. Then I didn’t hear from her the rest of the day. Finally I called her back, worried that she was sitting in her car in the garage with the engine running and an old Leslie Gore tape on the stereo. But it turned out that the person who’d called her was really on the ward, really depressed, and he is a wonderful, beautiful, funny writer who was badly abused as a child. She deeply believes in him, so she gave him a rousing pep talk, and right after hanging up, she got back to work on her book, and she had in fact been working ever since until I’d called and interrupted her. Someone to Read Your DraftsThere’s an old New Yorker cartoon of two men sitting on a couch at a busy cocktail party, having a quiet talk. One man has a beard and looks like a writer. The other seems like a normal person. The writer type is saying to the other, “We’re still pretty far apart. I’m looking for a six-figure advance, and they’re refusing to read the manuscript.” Now, I’ve been wrong before, but I’d bet you anything that this guy never shows his work to other writers before trying to get someone to buy it.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  ‘Almighty God, through whose will and foresight the whole world is governed, You create nothing without a purpose. Yet why, then, did You create these fearful rocks below me? They are so dark and so destructive. They seem more like a foul fault in creation than the work of a wise and benevolent deity. Why did You let them issue from Your hand? There is no living thing that cannot be harmed by them. Any man or bird or beast - from any point of the compass - can be broken against them. These sinister rocks do nothing but harm. Do You know, Lord, how many men and women have been shipwrecked? Of course You do. The rocks of the ocean have killed many hundreds of thousands of people, all of them lost and forgotten. It is said that You loved humankind so much that You fashioned it in Your own image. It seemed then that You were bestowing a great boon. How then is it possible that You should create these evil rocks that do nothing but provoke death and disaster? No possible good can come from them. ‘I believe theologians argue that Your providence is such that all things turn out for the best. I myself cannot follow their arguments about destiny and free will. I say only this. May the God who made the winds blow, preserve my husband! That is all. The scholars can dispute as much as they like. I pray only that all the rocks in the world are consigned to hell for my husband’s sake.’ So Dorigen, in tears, would express her grief. Her friends began to realize that these walks by the sea were not doing her any good. Quite the opposite. So they set about finding some other place to entertain her. They took her to cool rivers and to holy wells; they took her to dances and other celebrations; they taught her to play chess and backgammon. Then one morning, at the rising of the sun, they came into a garden where they had laid out food and drink to accompany their revels all that day. This was on 6 May, a fair morning when the sweet showers had brought forth the leaves and flowers of early spring; they had been arrayed so carefully throughout the garden that there was no other display like it in the world. It was like a garden in paradise. The scent and brightness of the flowers would have lightened any heart, except for one bowed down with sorrow or distress. It was a place of beauty and delight. After they had eaten, the lords and ladies set out to sing and dance - all of them, that is, except for Dorigen, who still made her moan. There was no dancing for her if her husband was not part of the happy company. Still she sat on one side, not in solitary retreat, and hoped that her sorrow might lessen a little.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  He took his leave of her, and she stood there astonished. All the blood drained from her face. She had never believed that it would come to this. She was trapped. ‘How could this happen?’ she asked herself. ‘How could he have performed such a miracle? Or monstrosity? It is against the course of nature.’ She returned to her home in sorrow and perplexity. She could hardly make her way back. For two days she wept and wailed. She cried aloud, and on occasions fainted away. It was pitiful to see her. She could confide in no one, of course. And, as it happened, Arveragus was away from home. She could speak only to herself and, in the privacy of her own chamber, with pale and sorrowful face, she uttered her lament. ‘Alas, Dame Fortune, I am caught upon your wheel. You have trapped me unawares, and there is no escape. There is no conclusion for me but death or dishonour. I must choose one or the other. The truth is that I would rather forfeit my life than my honour. Death would be preferable to the loss of virtue and the loss of name. I would be quiet and sinless in the grave. Have not many noble wives, and young maidens, killed themselves rather than sacrifice their bodies? I know many examples. ‘When the thirty cursed tyrants of Athens slew Phidon at a feast, they ordered his daughters to be stripped naked and brought before them. They were forced to dance and perform like prostitutes, slipping in their father’s blood, so that the foul lust of the tyrants could be satisfied. God curse the wicked men! The poor maidens were filled with shame and horror and, rather than lose their virginity, they broke away and rushed to a well in a nearby courtyard. They plunged in, and drowned themselves.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Arcite would be free to go wherever he wished, but there was one condition to his liberty. It was agreed that, if Arcite were ever found and caught in Athenian territory, he would be instantly beheaded. Whatever the pretext and whatever the time of his incursion, he would die. What did Arcite do? What else but leave Athens at once and return to Thebes? There was no safer course. But he had best beware. He had left his head as his pledge. Yet, in truth, he suffered more keenly than before. He felt all the pangs of death. He wept; he wailed; he groaned; he lamented. He secretly longed for an occasion to kill himself. ‘Alas,’ he cried, ‘that I was ever born! My prison now is darker and more dreary than my cell. I am now forced to endure the torments of hell, not of purgatory as before. I wish that I had never known Perotheus. Then I could still lie imprisoned with Palamon. Then I would have been in bliss and not in woe. For then, even fettered and immured, I could have enjoyed the sight of the mistress I adore. I may never have enjoyed her favour, but at least I could have looked upon her. Oh Palamon, dear cousin, you have been awarded the palm of victory. You may endure the pain of imprisonment - endure, no, enjoy. Compared to me, you are in paradise. Fortune has turned the dice for you. You have the sight of her while I am rendered blind. And since you have the blessing of her presence near at hand it is possible that you, a worthy and a handsome knight, might one day attain that goal you so fervently desire. Fortune is ever turning like the wheel. But I, living in barren exile, have no such expectation of grace. I am deprived of all hope, in such despair that no creature on earth can comfort me. There is nothing made of fire, of earth, or water, or of air, that can console me. So I must live, and die, in misery and distress. I must say farewell to joy and happiness.’ He broke down weeping, before he once more resumed his lament. ‘Why do so many people complain of the actions of providence, or the decisions of God Himself, when their eventual fate is better than any they could possibly have imagined? Some men long for riches, but at the expense of their health and even of their lives. Some men desire to escape from prison, as I once did, only to be murdered in the households of their kin. In hope and ambition there lie infinite harms. We do not know the answers to our prayers. We fare as one who wanders drunk through the streets; he knows that he has a house, somewhere, but he cannot remember the name of the street. His is a long and wayward journey. So do we fare in this fallen world.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  forced into prostitution and winding up a drug addict like all those runaway teenagers. “I’m only telling you this because I love you,” he said. “And I don’t want to see you hurt.” One evening in May, when we’d been saving our money for almost nine months, I came home with a couple of dollars I’d made babysitting and went into the bedroom to stash them in Oz. The pig was not on the old sewing machine. I began looking through all the junk in the bedroom and finally found Oz on the floor. Someone had slashed him apart with a knife and stolen all the money. I knew it was Dad, but at the same time, I couldn’t believe he’d stoop this low. Lori obviously didn’t know yet. She was in the living room humming away as she worked on a poster. My first impulse was to hide Oz. I had this wild thought that I could somehow replace the money before Lori discovered it was missing. But I knew how ridiculous that was; three of us had spent the better part of a year accumulating the money. It would be impossible for me to replace it in the month before Lori graduated. I went into the living room and stood beside her, trying to think of what to say. She was working on a poster that said TAMMY! in Day-Glo colors. After a moment, she looked up. “What?” she said. Lori could tell by my face that something was wrong. She stood up so abruptly she knocked over a bottle of india ink, and ran into the bedroom. I braced myself, expecting to hear a scream, but there was only silence and then a small, broken whimpering. • • • Lori stayed up all night to confront Dad, but he didn’t come home. She skipped school the following day in case he returned, but Dad was AWOL for three days before we heard him climbing the rickety staircase to the porch. “You bastard!” Lori shouted. “You stole our money!” “What the goddamn hell are you talking about?” Dad asked. “And watch your language.” He leaned against the door and lit a cigarette. Lori held up the slashed pig and threw it as hard as she could at Dad, but it was empty and nearly weightless. It struck his shoulder lightly, then bounced to the floor. He bent down carefully, as if the floor beneath him could shift at any moment, picked up our ravaged piggy bank, and turned it over in his hands. “Someone sure as

• From Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (1994)

  So I wrote all this down in my letter to Sam, and little by little memory and detail and fact and feeling wove themselves together. Like a Polaroid, the letter emerged, and from it the essay, clear and bright, full of smells and sounds, and full of hope, because baseball, like life, throbs with hope, or it wouldn’t exist—and full of me, for Sam and his children to read one day. Writer’s BlockThere are few experiences as depressing as that anxious barren state known as writer’s block, where you sit staring at your blank page like a cadaver, feeling your mind congeal, feeling your talent run down your leg and into your sock. Or you look at the notes you’ve scribbled recently on yellow legal pads or index cards, and they look like something Richard Speck jotted down the other night. And at the same time, as it turns out, you happen to know that your closest writing friend is on a roll, has been turning out stories and screenplays and children’s books and even most of a novel like he or she is some crazy pot-holder factory, pot holders pouring out the windows because there is simply not enough room inside for such glorious productivity. Writer’s block is going to happen to you. You will read what little you’ve written lately and see with absolute clarity that it is total dog shit. A blissfully productive manic stage may come to a screeching halt, and all of a sudden you realize you’re Wile E. Coyote and you’ve run off the cliff and are a second away from having to look down. Or else you haven’t been able to write anything at all for a while. The fear that you’ll never write again is going to hit you when you feel not only lost and unable to find a few little bread crumbs that would identify the path you were on but also when you’re at your lowest ebb of energy and faith. You may feel a little as if writing a novel is like trying to level Mount McKinley with a dentist’s drill. Things feel hopeless, or at least bleak, and you are not imaginative or organized enough to bash your way through to a better view, let alone some interesting conclusion. You know where every idea, quote, and image came from; none of them is fresh. You’re so familiar with what you’re saying that your words all sound utterly commonplace. Writers are like vacuum cleaners, sucking up all that we can see and hear and read and think and feel and articulate, and everything that everyone else within earshot can hear and see and think and feel. We’re mimics, we’re parrots—we’re writers.

• From City of Night (1963)

  In absolute depression, Miss Destiny flung herself on the couch crying oh no, “Miss Thing, what are we doing here?”—clinging to a Poor Pitiful Pearl doll on the couch—a sadeyed orphan doll—but everyone was talking and moving and no one paid her any attention. So she freshened up her makeup peering into a tiny stonestudded compact saying shes a mess, and please, to me, sit beside her, please! Then she imagined she saw Darling Dolly in the mirror making sex-eyes at me, and Miss Destiny says Well That Is The Limit! “Darling Dolly Dane is a common whore!” Miss Destiny almost-shouted at me and no one hears her but me, the radio turned on to one of those California night-stations with the smothered rock-n-roll sexmoans, “and all of you! especially you! are just bums! nogood lowlife hobos! who will end up! on Thunderbird! or worse than hobos: hypes! hopelessly hung up and cant get it!” and shes going on very unlike the gay Miss swinging Destiny. “And I! dont! know! what! Iamdoing! here! amongst all this: tuh-rash! I! Went!! To College!!! And Read Shakespeare!!!!” I whispered dont tell anyone, but me too. “Next youll be the Prince of Wales,” she says bitchily, glowering at Chuck and Buddy making up to the nympho, who was fanning herself with her slip now. And Miss Destiny goes on haughtily—sure of her ground: “Then—tell—me: if you read Shakespeare, Who Is Des-demona?” doubting it superiorly, giving me The Supreme Test: Shakespeare and his queenly he-roines who were first, remember, played by men. I answered (and remember the pills, the liquor, the mary-jane): “Desdemona was a swinging queen in the French Quarter who married a spadestud who dug her until a jealous pusher turned him on that his queen was making it with a studsailor, and the spade smothered the queen Desdemona and the heat came for him and he killed himself....” Miss Destiny stared at me a long while—not speaking. And as she was staring at me like that, Lola—who had gone to the head outside, Destiny’s being occupied—returned howling theres a man in the head outside and he aint got no pants! Miss Destiny sprang up, rushed at Darling Dolly Dane: “You dizzy silly cunt! you brought him here didnt you?” “Where else, Miss Destiny?” Darling Dolly Dane pleads helplessly, covering her face dramatically. “Go give him his pants!” “How can I, Destiny? I dont know where I left them!” “Miss Destiny!” Miss Destiny screamed. “Miss Destiny dammit!” Darling Dolly Dane shrieked back. “Here!” Miss Destiny rushes into the other room, comes back with a pair of pants (which turn out later to be Buddy’s, who is with the nympho in the other room), empties the pockets on the floor, tosses the pants at Darling Dolly Dane, shouting: “Throw them through the transom!” Darling Dolly rushes out whimpering. “Silly bitch,” says Miss Destiny, glaring at her when she returns giggling now the man must have thought the pants came from Heaven.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The Monk’s Tale Heere bigynneth the Monkes Tale De Casibus Virorum Illustrium So I will lament, in the manner of tragedy, the fate of those who once stood in high degree. They fell so far that they could not be rescued from the darkness. When the doom of Fortune has been decided, no one can avert its course. Never rely upon prosperity. That is the lesson of these little histories. Lucifer I will begin with Lucifer. I know that he is an angel rather than a man, but he is a very good example to us all. Fortune cannot help or harm an angel, of course. Nevertheless he fell from heaven into hell, where he still resides. Oh Lucifer, son of the morning, you can never escape from the flames of the inferno. You have become Satan. How you have fallen! Adam Behold Adam, lying in Eden (now known as Damascus). He was not made from human seed, but wrought by God’s own finger. He ruled over all of Paradise, with the exception of one tree. No human being has ever been so blessed as Adam. Yet for one bad act he fell from grace. He was consigned to a fallen world of labour and misery. Sampson Behold great Sampson, heralded by an angel before his birth, consecrated to Almighty God! While he retained his sight, he was the noblest of all. No one in the world was stronger or more courageous. Yet foolishly he told the secret of his strength to his wife. In doing so, he condemned himself to death. This mighty champion slew a lion, and tore it to pieces with his bare hands. He was on his way to his own wedding, and he had no weapons. His wife knew how to please him, with her wicked wiles, and could coax all of his confidences out of him. Then she betrayed him to his enemies, and took another man in his place. In his anger he took up three hundred foxes and bound them together by their tails. Then he set the tails on fire, with a burning torch tied to each one, and with them he set ablaze all the cornfields in the land. He destroyed the olive trees and the vineyards. In his rage he killed a thousand men, although his only weapon was the jawbone of an ass. After they were slain he was tortured by a thirst so great that he turned to God for help. He prayed Him to send water, or else he would die. Lo and behold, a miracle occurred. From the molar tooth of this dry jawbone there sprang forth a fountain of water, with which Sampson refreshed himself. So God saved him. All this really happened. You can read about it in the Book of Judges. Then one night in Gaza, despite the presence of all the Philistines in that city, he tore up the entrance gates and carried them on his back.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Su mirada cae, y puedo ver todo lo que siento en su rostro. Él no odia su vida, adora a su esposa e hijos, pero si pudiéramos regresar y hacer al menos una cosa diferente, sé que ambos lo haríamos. Aquí estamos, sentados, y no estamos seguros de qué más tenemos que esperar. —Mira, hombre. —Levanta sus ojos hacia mí—. Te divertiste con ella. No digo que hayas hecho nada malo. Si el sexo es bueno, entonces disfrutan el uno del otro. Pero debes pensar en el futuro y sabes que no siempre se sentirá así. —Hace una pausa, frunciendo el ceño—. Se despertará en diez años y verá en línea una foto de un amigo de la escuela que está recorriendo Nepal o alguna mierda y mirará su propia vida y pensará en cómo se enganchó con dos niños en esta pequeña ciudad y se casó con un hombre de casi cincuenta años cuya vida está a más de la mitad de camino. Permanezco en silencio, y el peso de sus palabras en mis entrañas es como ladrillos. —¿Crees que no se arrepentirá de elegirte, sabiendo que sus mejores años casi se han ido? —pregunta. Pero no tengo que responder. Él sabe que tiene razón. En diez años, aún será joven y hermosa, y voy a merecerla incluso menos que ahora. No puedo darle todo lo que ella quiere sin importar lo mucho que mi ego piense lo contrario. Nació para grandes cosas. Es inteligente, fuerte y se merece el mundo. Merece una vida que me pasó hace mucho tiempo. Otro hombre será para ella todo lo que no soy y nunca seré, y aunque esa idea es como ácido en mi boca, estará más feliz por ello. Y sobre todo lo demás, eso es lo que quiero. Ella se hará mayor con otra persona, y esa es la vida que merece. Dutch se va, y cierro el garaje, me dirijo a la casa e inmediatamente subo las escaleras. Me detengo en el dormitorio de Jordan, la puerta se abre y la ligera brisa que sopla fuera de su ventana sopla las hojas del árbol en el patio trasero. Su leve aroma permanece, y la marca que su cuerpo hizo todavía está grabada en la almohada apoyada en su silla. Sin embargo, no entro. No es mi habitación, ya no es mi chica y está por ahí en algún lado, siguiendo con su vida, y necesito hacer lo mismo. Suficiente. Haz lo correcto. Alcanzando la perilla, inhalo su perfume por última vez. Y cierro la puerta. Dos meses después Enrollando la delgada cuerda blanca alrededor de la rueda, tiro de ella viendo como se mueve hacia mí sobre la polea. Me muevo al otro poste de madera que coloqué en el jardín y tiro de esa cuerda, probándola. No tengo idea de por qué estoy poniendo un tendedero.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  He was so gentlemanly, so modest in demeanour, that his reputation spread throughout the royal court. Everyone said that it would be an act of charity on the part of Theseus to give him more honourable employment, in a post where his particular virtues might be nourished and displayed. So his good deeds and eloquence were spread abroad. Theseus himself came to hear of them. What was his response? He made him squire of the chamber, and gave him enough gold to maintain his new position. But Arcite also had another source of gold. He received rental income from his lands in Thebes. It was brought to him privately and secretly, by agents from his home city, and they were so discreet that no one in Athens ever guessed the truth. He spent it wisely, too, and avoided gossip. In this manner he spent the next three years of his life. He worked so well, both in peace and war, that Theseus held no man in higher regard. Now I will leave Arcite for a little while, and turn my attention to Palamon. Oh dear. What a difference. While Arcite dwelled in bliss, Palamon lived in hell. For seven years he had lain in darkness and despair, fettered in the dark tower, wasted by suffering and suffused with woe. He endured double distress, with his unfulfilled love for Emily increasing his burden of imprisonment. He would never leave his cell. He would never kneel before her or address her. He was close to madness. Who could describe, in plain English, his suffering? I am not the man. So, if you don’t mind, I will pass on. ‘Take your time,’ our Host told him, ‘for this day has been a green day. It will stay fresh in our imaginations.’ ‘I thank you. But I must move on.’ In the seventh year of his imprisonment - on 3 May, to be exact - the wheel turned for Palamon. That is the date given in the old books, at least, which are more to be trusted than I am. I have no skill at narration. Whether by fortune or by destiny - if there is any difference, actually - when something is meant

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  Erma relegated us to the basement after that. A door in the basement led directly outside, so we never went upstairs. We weren't even allowed to use Erma's bathroom, which meant we either had to wait for school or go outside after dark. Uncle Stanley sometimes sneaked down beans he'd boiled for us, but he was afraid if he stayed talking, Erma would think he'd taken our side and get mad at him, too. The following week, a storm hit. The temperature dropped, and a foot of snow fell on Welch. Erma wouldn't let us use any coal—she said we didn't know how to operate the stove and would burn the house down—and it was so cold in the basement that Lori, Brian, Maureen, and I were glad we all shared one bed. As soon as we got home from school, we'd climb under the covers with our clothes on and do our homework there.

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

  Oh, Madame! never had anything similar soiled my gaze, and whatever may have been my previous representations, what now I beheld surpassed everything I have been able to describe until the present: 'tis like unto the ascendancy the imperious eagle enjoys over the dove. Our two debauchees soon laid hands upon those menacing spears: they caressed them, polluted them, drew them to their mouths, and the combat straightway became more in earnest. SaintFlorent crouches upon the armchair supporting me; he is so adjusted my widespread buttocks are on an exact level with his mouth; he kisses them, his tongue penetrates into first one then the other temple. Saint-Florent provided Cardoville with amusement, the latter offers himself to the pleasures of La Rose whose terrific member instantly vanishes into the redoubt dressed before him, and Julien, situated beneath Saint-Florent, excites him with his mouth the while grasping his haunches and modulating them before the resolute blows of Cardoville who, treating his friend with intransigent rudeness, does not quit him before having wetted the sanctuary with his incense. Nothing could equal Cardoville's transports when the crisis deprives him of his senses; softly abandoning himself to the man who is serving as husband to him, but pressing hard after him of whom he is making a wife, this dastardly libertine, with hoarse gasps like unto those of a dying man, thereupon pronounces indescribable blasphemies; as for Saint-Florent, measure governs his evolutions, he restrains himself, and the tableau is dissolved without his having performed his beau geste. "Truly," Cardoville says to his comrade, "you still give me as much pleasure as you did when you were fifteen.... Indeed," he continues, turning and kissing La Rose, " 'tis true this fine lad knows how to arouse me too.... Have you not found me rather gulfy this evening, angelic boy?... would you believe it, Saint- Florent? 'tis the thirty-sixth time I've had it today... only natural that the thing be somewhat dilated; I'm all yours, dear friend," the abominable man pursues, fitting himself into Julien's mouth, his nose glued to my behind, and his own offered to Saint-Florent, "I'm yours for the thirty-seventh." Saint-Florent takes his pleasure with Cardoville, La Rose his with Saint-Florent, and after a quick skirmish the latter burns in his friend the same offering his friend had burned in him. If Saint-Florent's ecstasy was of briefer duration, it was no less intense, less noisy, less criminal than Cardoville's; the one shouted, roared out everything that came to his mouth, the other restricted his transports' scope without their being the less energetic for that; Saint-Florent chose his words with care, but they were simply yet filthier and more impure: distraction and rage, to select precise terms, seemed to characterize the delirium of the one, wickedness and ferocity were the eminent qualities announced in the other's. "To work, Therese, revive us," says Cardoville; "you see the lamps are extinguished, they've got to be lit again."

• From Going Clear (2013)

  4 When McPherson entered room 174, she was a lovely, shapely young woman. She underwent an Introspection Rundown, the same procedure that Hubbard had developed on the Apollo two decades earlier to treat psychotic behavior. It involved placing McPherson in solitary confinement and providing her with water, food, and vitamin supplements. All communication had to be in writing. Instead of calming down, McPherson stopped eating. She screamed, she clawed her attendants, she spoke in gibberish, she fouled herself, she banged her head against the wall. Staff members strapped her down and tried to feed her with a turkey baster. On December 5, McPherson slipped into a coma. When church members decided to take her to the hospital that night, they bypassed the Morton Plant Hospital, just down the street, where McPherson had originally been seen, and drove her forty-five minutes away, passing four other hospitals, to the Columbia New Port Richey Hospital, where there was a doctor affiliated with the church. The woman they finally wheeled into the emergency room was skeletally thin and covered with scratches, bruises, and dark brown lesions. She was also dead. She had suffered a pulmonary embolism on the way to the hospital. In the eyes of the world press, Scientology had murdered Lisa McPherson. She was one of nine Scientologists who had died under mysterious circumstances at the Clearwater facility. The night after McPherson died, Rathbun got word from church officials to wait for a call at a pay phone at a nearby Holiday Inn. “Why aren’t you all over this mess?” Miscavige demanded, when Rathbun answered the call. “The police are poking around. Do something.” Rathbun discovered that church officials in Clearwater had already lied in two sworn statements to the police, claiming that McPherson hadn’t been subjected to an Introspection Rundown. The church’s official response, under Rathbun’s direction, was to continue to lie, stating that McPherson had been at the church’s Fort Harrison Hotel only for “rest and relaxation” and there was nothing unusual about her stay. In the meantime, Rathbun went through the logs that McPherson’s attendants had kept. As many as twenty people had been rotating in and out of McPherson’s room; some of them were scratched and bruised from trying to subdue her; that was hardly the isolation and absolute silence and calm that the Introspection Rundown called for. Rathbun noted that, among other entries in the logs, one of the caretakers admitted that the situation was out of control and that McPherson needed to see a doctor. In the presence of a Scientology lawyer, Rathbun handed several of the most incriminating logs to a church executive and said, “Lose ’em.” The McPherson case loomed over the church for five years, with an ongoing police investigation, protests in front of Scientology facilities, lawsuits on the part of the family, and endless unwanted press.

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

  They thrust me toward him, I was everywhere more furiously harassed, and his ecstasy supervened.... The third bade me mount upon and straddle two somewhat separated chairs and, seating himself betwixt them, excited by Dubois, lying in his arms, he had me bend until his mouth was directly below the temple of Nature; never will you imagine, Madame, what this obscene mortal took it into his head to do; willy-nilly, I was obliged to satisfy his every need.... Just Heaven! what man, no matter how depraved, can taste an instant of pleasure in such things.... I did what he wished, inundated him, and my complete submission procured this foul man an intoxication of which he was incapable without this infamy. The fourth attached strings to all parts of me to which it was possible to tie them, he held the ends in his hands and sat down seven or eight feet from my body; Dubois' touches and kisses excited him prodigiously; I was standing erect: 'twas by sharp tugs now on this string, now on some other that the savage irritated his pleasures; I swayed, I lost balance again and again, he flew into an ecstasy each time tottered; finally, he pulled all the cords at once, I fell to the floor in front of him: such was his design: and my fore-head, my breast, my cheeks received the proofs of a delirium he owed to none but this mania. That is what I suffered, Madame, but at least my honor was respected even though my modesty assuredly was not. Their calm restored, the bandits spoke of regaining the road, and that same night we reached Tremblai with the intention of approaching the woods of Chantilly, where it was thought a few good prizes might be awaiting us. Nothing equaled my despair at being obliged to accompany such persons, and I was determined to part with them as soon as I could do so without risk. The following day we fell hard by Louvres, sleeping under haystacks; I felt in need of Dubois' support and wanted to pass the night by her side; but it seemed she had planned to employ it otherwise than protecting my virtue from the attacks I dreaded; three of the thieves surrounded her and before my very eyes the abominable creature gave herself to all three simultaneously. The fourth approached me; it was the captain. "Lovely Therese," said he, "I hope you shall not refuse me at least the pleasure of spending the night with you?" and as he perceive my extreme unwillingness, "fear not," he went on; "we'll have a chat together, and I will attempt nothing without your consent. "O Therese," cried he, folding me in his arms, " 'tis all foolishness, don't you know, to be so pretentious with us.

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

  Therese must surely sense we have amused ourselves with her person for the natural, common, and uncomplex reason which engages might to abuse feebleness; she must surely sense she can-not escape her sentence, that it must be undergone, that she will undergo it, that it would be in vain she might divulge this evening's absence from jail; she'd not be believed; the jailer Ä for he's ours Ä would deny it at once. And so may this lovely and gentle girl, so penetrated with the grandeur of Providence, peacefully offer up to Heaven all she has just suffered and all that yet awaits her; these will be as so many expiations for the frightful crimes which deliver her into the hands of the law; put on your clothes, Therese, day is not yet come, the two men who brought you hither are going to conduct you back to your prison." I wanted to say a word, I wanted to cast myself a suppliant at these ogres' feet, either to unbend their hearts, or ask that their hands smite away my life. But I am dragged off, pitched into a cab, and my two guides climb in after me; we had hardly started off when infamous desires inflamed them again. "Hold her for me," quoth Julien to La Rose, "I simply must sodomize her; I have never laid eyes on a behind which could squeeze me so voluptuously; I'll render you the same service." 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!

• From St. Augustine's Confessions (2004)

  Lecture Eleven Book V—From Carthage to Rome Scope: In this section of the Confessions, Augustine moves from North Africa to Italy, first Rome, then Milan. Two powerful encounters define this part of Augustine’s journey. For quite some time, he has been told by his Manichean colleagues that any questions they could not answer could be addressed to Faustus when he came to visit them. Although Augustine found Faustus personable and articulate, this Manichee “bishop” really had no substantive answers to the questions he asked. Hence, Augustine reflects on the relationship of form to substance, the way something is said and the truth it may contain. After Faustus’s visit, Augustine begins to despair that humans are unable to grasp what he has been searching for—those things that last forever. For professional reasons, Augustine departs for Italy. When he arrives in Milan, he goes to hear Bishop Ambrose speak, because the bishop has a reputation for his rhetorical skills. Despite his lack of interest in the substance of Ambrose’s sermons, Augustine finds himself drawn in. In particular, Ambrose interprets certain biblical passages allegorically. On hearing what Ambrose has to say, Augustine begins to realize that Christians are not so primitive and literal as he had imagined. This discovery would soon lead Augustine to return to Scripture and to give Christianity another look. Outline I. In this book, Augustine moves from North Africa (Carthage) to Italy (Rome, then Milan). A. In this journey, he is following the path of Aeneas after his affair with Queen Dido of Carthage. B. This move indicates the success Augustine is having in his career as a teacher of rhetoric. C. In fact, Milan, not Rome, was the seat of the Roman Empire at this time. D. Thus, Augustine is practicing his craft at the center of power. ©2004 The Teaching Company. 33