Despair

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale Heere bigynneth the Chanouns Yeman his Tale PART ONE I have lived with this Canon for seven years, but I am nowhere near to understanding the secret. I have lost everything I owned, as have many others. Once upon a time I was clean, cheerful and well dressed. Can you believe it? I now use an old sock as my hat! I used to be plump and ruddy-cheeked. Now I am thin and sallow. I am losing my eyesight through all the hard work. Stay away from alchemy at all costs. Where is the benefit in trying to transmute metals? The sliding science has left me penniless and in despair. Nothing good has come of it. I have borrowed so much gold that I will never be able to repay my debts. Let me stand as a warning to everyone else, like a wolf’s head. If anyone were foolish enough to practise alchemy, it will prove to be his undoing. He will not succeed. He will empty his purse. He will addle his wits. But there is worse. As soon as he has lost all of his money, through his stupidity, he will try to persuade others to follow his example and try their hand at the black art. ‘Misery loves company.’ That is the proverb, is it not? Well, enough said. Now I will tell you all about our work. When we practise in our laboratory we look very wise and learned; we use high terms and rarefied phrases to explain our mysterious labours. Then I blow upon the coals until there is no breath left in my body. Is there any need to explain the exact proportions of the dark materials that we use? There is always the silver, of course. We would normally put in five or six ounces of it. We compound this with arsenic, with burned bones and iron filings. Then we grind the mixture to a powder, and put it in a little earthenware pot. Add a little salt, and some paper. Place a sheet of glass over the pot, sealing glass and vessel with some clay so that no air will escape from it. We can change and moderate the fire at will. Then begins the hard labour, the watching and the calculating. We are supposed to purify, to blend and to disperse all of the ingredients. We use quicksilver, too, which is the name for unrefined mercury. But for all our tricks and devices we never got anywhere. We used lead and arsenic, ground together with a marble pestle in a marble mortar. It made no difference. There was no result. We boiled volatile spirits - again to no effect. We experimented with the residue left at the bottom of the flask. But it did no good. Our labour was in vain. All the money we spent was lost, too. There are many other aspects of the art of alchemy.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Clear was the day, and bright the trembling air, when Theseus rode out. He was in the highest spirits, accompanied as he was by his queen, Hippolita, and by fair Emily dressed all in green. He had been told by his men that there was a hart lurking in a nearby wood, and with all speed he rode up to the spot; he knew well enough that this was the place where the beast might break cover, and fly across the stream to make its escape. So he slipped the leashes of the hounds in preparation for pursuit. Yet wait. Call off the dogs. Where, under the sun, was this wood? You have guessed it. No sooner did Theseus ride up among the trees than he saw Palamon and Arcite, the two wild boars, still in ferocious battle. They wielded their bright swords with such power that the least stroke from one of them might have felled an oak. He had no idea, as yet, who they were. But he spurred on his horse and, riding between the two combatants, he unsheathed his sword and called out to them, ‘Hoo! Stop this, on pain of losing your head! By mighty Mars, I will slay the next man who raises his sword! Now tell me, what rank or estate are you? How do you dare to fight in my land without judge or officer, as you must do in a legal duel?’ Palamon answered directly. ‘Sire, there is nothing we can say. Both of us deserve the punishment of death. We are two woeful wretches, two slaves of destiny already overburdened by our own lives; as you are a rightful lord and judge, show us neither mercy nor refuge. Yet show some charity to me. Kill me first. But then kill him as well. On second thoughts, you might as well kill him first. It makes no difference. Shall I tell you who he is? Here stands Arcite, your mortal enemy, who was banished from Athens on pain of death. Surely, now, death is the fate that he deserves. You may know him by another name. This is the man that came to your court and called himself Philostratus. Do you recognize him? He has fooled you for many years. You even made him your principal squire. This is the man, also, who declares himself to be the lover of Emily! Well. Enough of that. Since the day has come when I must die, I will make a full confession to you. I am woeful Palamon, the man who unlawfully escaped from your prison. I am your mortal enemy, too, and I also profess myself to be the lover of fair Emily. Let me die before her now. That is all I wish. So I ask for the sentence of death to be carried out on me and my companion. Both of us have deserved our fate.’

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

  He isn’t going to come forward. Maybe this is not only vengeance; maybe it is just wanting to tell the truth as it really happened. Maybe it is also about trying to find some meaning in the suffering. Well. Whatever. Here is a poem by Sharon Olds, called “I Go Back to May 1937,” that I pass out to every class: I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges , I see my father strolling out under the ochre sandstone arch, the red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood behind his head, I see my mother with a few light books at her hip standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its sword-tips black in the May air , they are about to graduate, they are about to get married , they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are innocent, they would never hurt anybody . I want to go up to them and say Stop , don’t do it—she’ s the wrong woman , he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things you cannot imagine you would ever do , you are going to do bad things to children , you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of , you are going to want to die. I want to go up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it , her hungry pretty blank face turning to me , her pitiful beautiful untouched body , his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me , his pitiful beautiful untouched body , but I don’t do it. I want to live. I take them up like the male and female paper dolls and bang them together at the hips like chips of flint as if to strike sparks from them, I say Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it . I know that if you write a novel about your marriage, and your spouse is a public figure—a politician, say, or a therapist—and you say really awful inflammatory things about this person, all of which may be true, including the part about his wearing the little French maid’s outfit when you made love and that awful business with the Brylcreem, you will get a visit from your publisher’s lawyer, who will be very anxious and unamused. The problem is that the publishing house will be liable for millions of dollars in damages if this spouse of yours can convince a jury that he or she has been libeled.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  point. He taught that the dragon could be slain only by the death of its brother. By the dragon, he meant mercury. The dragon’s brother is also known as sulphur. Both of them issue from the influence of the sun and the moon, from gold and from silver. ‘And therefore,’ he wrote in warning, ‘let no unlearned man attempt to practise this art. If he has not understood the words of the philosophers, he is not fit to experiment. He is a fool and a charlatan. The work of the alchemist is the great secret of the world, the mystery of mysteries.’ One of Plato’s disciples once asked him a pertinent question. It is recorded in the Theatrum Chemicum, if you care to look it up. ‘Tell me, sir,’ the disciple asked him, ‘the name of the secret stone?’ ‘You must take up,’ Plato replied, ‘the stone known to humankind as Titan.’ ‘What is that?’ ‘It is also called Magnasia.’ ‘I am afraid, sir, that I am not following you. These terms are unknown to me. Can you tell me the nature of this Magnasia?’ ‘It is a liquid made out of the four elements.’ ‘Can you tell me the source of this liquid? Can you tell me its root?’ ‘No. Certainly not. The true philosophers have sworn never to divulge the secret, in speech or in writing. It is so dear to Christ that He has forbidden us to reveal it to anyone. He will only allow it to be told to those whom He holds most dear. It is a form of holy revelation. That is all I have to say.’ So I conclude from this that God Himself guards the secret of the stone. What is the point, therefore, in persisting? Abandon your quest. You may alchemize all of your life, and still end your days in suffering. Whoever makes God his enemy will pay dearly for it. If he goes against God’s will, he merits severe punishment. At that point I must stop. Farewell to you all. May God send every true man comfort and consolation! Heere is ended the Chanouns Yemannes Tale

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  I do not know the reason. I do not know the killer. Ugolino, count of Pisa Who can relate the suffering of Ugolino, count of Pisa? There was a dark tower, a little way out of the city, to which he was consigned. He was imprisoned there with his three children, the oldest of whom was only five years old. What cruel Fortune shut these little birds within a cage? He was destined to die in that prison. The bishop of Pisa, Roger Ubaldini, had borne false witness and had stirred up the people against him; so Ugolino was confined, with so little meat and drink that he despaired of his life. There was a certain time each day when the gaoler brought his food into the cell. Ugolino was waiting for him at that time when, suddenly, he heard the great door of the tower closing. He heard the sound clearly, but he said not a word to his children. But he knew in his heart that they would all now starve to death. ‘I wish that I had never been born,’ he said to himself. And he wept. His youngest son, three years old, crept upon his lap. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘why are you crying? When will the gaoler bring us our food? Do you not have

• 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

• From City of Night (1963)

  And was it only the sudden, ramming violence, the sudden smashing fist prepared to crush again and again, the sudden threatening image of this queen? Or was it, instead—or at least partly—Chi-Chi’s shouting for an instant acknowledgment of dignity? Or was it a swift glimpse, by that man now cringing stonecold-afraid beside his wife, of himself in Chi-Chi, not of the woman in himself, but of the hopelessness of his own sad fate, mirrored in his wife’s tired face, the frigid body—whatever shape that fate may have assumed for him, whatever destiny hovering over him—over us—like a dreadful cloud? What is it that makes that man, his face imprinted with the terrible impact of Chi-Chi’s giant fist, what is it that makes him turn to his wife and to the others with him, away from this menacing-eyed Cassandra whose message of doom, through violence, has finally flashed out—and, after looking at Chi-Chi in amazement and, now, with only the barest, flimsiest imitation of derision—that derision so carefully taught and practiced, seeded, cultivated, nurtured—what is it that makes that man, rising from the ground, retreat and say to his wife, as he covers his face where the blood is now coming—what is it—really—that makes him say—almost sadly: “Lets get away from here and leave them alone.” Oh, soon.... Very soon now it will be just another of many incidents quickly to be forgotten by those who have witnessed it ( but remembered, perhaps—perhaps remembered, unmentioned, unacknowledged but festering in the cobweb-infested shadows of their minds—by that fleeting man, that woman). Already the cleared space about Chi-Chi is being filled. Already the crowds are milling, the horns are blaring again, the streamers floating, the confetti falling, the couples making love.... Already the queens are squealing.... And already, Whorina, fluttering a huge ostrich fan, is saying in a husky siren voice: “Never, never, never try to dish a queen, babies—thats the moral of this story!” And now! Now—that mere interlude of his life over—Chi-Chi again leaned languidly, calmly, demurely against the wall, adjusting her dress with auspicious care, arranging the false breasts. Missing her cigarette holder, she spotted it on the ground; and in a composed queenvoice, softly, she says to a man standing next to her: “Baby—sweetheart—would you mind retrieving her fairy-wand... please... for a Lady?” But despite the composure, there is a note of frightened, melancholy pleading in her voice. A noble cavalier, the man bends, picks up the cigarette holder, and presents it to Chi-Chi with a deep, deep acknowledging bow.... Smiling gratefully at him, Chi-Chi clenched the retrieved cigarette holder between those second and fourth fingers. She puffs a long billowing stream of smoke into the air. Then gazing savage-eyed at the hectic crowds, she defied the world in a loud, clear voice: “Hey, world!” she shouted. And she punctured the dark air sharply with the beaded cigarette holder. CITY OF NIGHT PHANTOM CLOUDS SEARCH THE DAWNING SKY.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  Pero es lo que quise decir, ¿verdad? Si no puedo decírselo ahora, ¿alguna vez planeaba hacerlo? ¿Cuándo sería más fácil? ¿Después de hubieran terminado por un par de años? Cuando no respondo, me mira. —Te veré en la mañana. Camina hacia la puerta de atrás, y siento que me han pateado. Siento que nunca más volveré a verla. Corro detrás de ella, tomándola de la mano y deteniéndola. —No —se lo ruego—. Jesús, no quise decir eso. Jordan, yo... tú lo vales. Yo solo... —Sacudo la cabeza—. No lo sé. —Está bien —dice, sonando tan tranquila que tengo miedo—. Realmente lo está. Debería agradecerte, en realidad. He estado tratando durante años, al parecer, ser el tipo de mujer que admiro, y de repente, siento que soy esa mujer ahora. Sé que lo valgo Simplemente tú no. Se mueve para alejarse, y la detengo de nuevo. —Jordan. Esta vez se da vuelta, levantando la cabeza y tirando de su mano fuera de mi alcance. —Díselo ahora —exige. El aire sale de mis pulmones con el ultimátum. —Dile que estás conmigo ahora —dice—, para que pueda ir a nuestra cama, y podamos ir a dormir y mañana podamos comenzar a avanzar, porque todo estará hecho, y no tendremos que preocuparnos más por eso. —Sus ojos me desafían—. Díselo ahora. Abro la boca para hablar. Para decirle que lo haré. Voy a marchar ahora mismo y decirle la verdad a mi hijo. Creo que la amo y lo siento, no quise lastimarla. Pero sé que tengo razón. Regresará a la escuela a tiempo completo en dos meses, conocerá hombres educados que tendrán toda la vida por delante. No voy a arruinar a mi familia cuando aún no sé qué es esto. No tiene derecho a pedirme eso. Comienza a retroceder, el azul en sus ojos como hielo. —Es tan increíble lo rápido que puede suceder, ¿no? —dice mientras me deja lentamente—. Cómo no siento absolutamente nada por ti ahora.

• From Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990)

  power. Hence, as the constituted or signified object of exchange through which the paternal law extends its power and the mode in which it appears, women are said to be the Phallus, that is, the emblem of its continuing circulation. But this “being” the Phallus is necessarily dissatisfying to the extent that women can never fully reflect that law; some feminists argue that it requires a renunciation of women’s own desire (a double renunciation, in fact, corresponding to the “double wave” of repression that Freud claimed founds femininity), 15 which is the expropriation of that desire as the desire to be nothing other than a reflection, a guarantor of the pervasive necessity of the Phallus. On the other hand, men are said to “have” the Phallus, yet never to “be” it, in the sense that the penis is not equivalent to that Law and can never fully symbolize that Law. Hence, there is a necessary or presuppositional impossibility to any effort to occupy the position of “having” the Phallus, with the consequence that both positions of “having” and “being” are, in Lacan’s terms, finally to be understood as comedic failures that are nevertheless compelled to articulate and enact these repeated impossibilities. But how does a woman “appear” to be the Phallus, the lack that embodies and affirms the Phallus? According to Lacan, this is done through masquerade, the effect of a melancholy that is essential to the feminine position as such. In his early essay, “The Meaning of the Phallus,” he writes of “the relations between the sexes”: Let us say that these relations will revolve around a being and a having which, because they refer to a signifier, the phallus, have the contradictory effect of on the one hand lending reality to the subject in that signifier, and on the other making unreal the relations to be signified. 16 In the lines that directly follow this sentence, Lacan appears to refer to the appearance of the “reality” of the masculine subject as well as to the “unreality” of heterosexuality. He also appears to refer to the position of women (my interruption is within brackets): “This follows from the intervention of an ‘appearing’ which gets substituted for the ‘having’ [a substitution is required, no doubt, because women are said not “to have”] so as to protect it on one side and to mask its lack on the other.” Although there is no grammatical gender here, it seems that Lacan is describing the position of women for whom “lack” is characteristic and, hence, in need of masking and who are in some unspecified sense in need of protection. Lacan then states that this situation produces “the effect that the ideal or typical manifestations of behaviour in both sexes, up to and including the act of sexual copulation, are entirely propelled into comedy” (84). Lacan continues this exposition of heterosexual comedy by explaining that this “appearing as being” the Phallus that women are compelled to do is inevitably masquerade.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  But this vision of hope required an act of faith. The American Civil War (1861–65) and the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) had both revealed the horror of warfare in the industrial age, when the exact sciences were applied to weaponry to devastating effect. Yet the nation-states of Europe seemed in thrall to Freud’s death wish. After the Franco-Prussian War, they began an arms race that led to the carnage of the First World War (1914–18), apparently regarding warfare as a Darwinian necessity in which only the fittest would survive. At whatever cost to itself or others, the modern state must build the biggest army and create the most destructive weapons. The British writer I. F. Clarke has shown that between 1871 and 1914, it was unusual to find a single year in which a novel or story looking forward to a terrifying future war did not appear in some European country.92 The “next great war” loomed as a fearful but unavoidable ordeal, from which the nation would emerge with renewed strength and vigor. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, the British poet and novelist Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) poignantly expressed the modern predicament. In “The Darkling Thrush,” dated December 31, 1900, he expressed the bleak desolation of the human spirit excluded from traditional ways of arriving at a sense of life’s meaning. He described the “sharp features” of the wintry landscape as “the century’s corpse;” it seemed to Hardy that “every spirit upon earth seemed fervourless as I.” Suddenly, an aged thrush—”frail, gaunt and small”—began to sing, flinging his soul upon the growing gloom. As he listened to this “full hearted evensong,” Hardy could only reflect, with a calm, sad acceptance: So little cause for carolings Of such ecstatic sound Was written on terrestrial things Afar or nigh around, That I could think there trembl’d through His happy good-night air Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew And I was unaware.93