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 Decameron (1353)

  As she abode on this wise, without aught of hope or counsel,[392] expecting death more than otherwhat, it being now past half none, the scholar, arising from sleep and remembering him of his mistress, returned to the tower, to see what was come of her, and sent his servant, who was yet fasting, to eat. The lady, hearing him, came, all weak and anguishful as she was for the grievous annoy she had suffered, overagainst the trap-door and seating herself there, began, weeping, to say, 'Indeed, Rinieri, thou hast beyond measure avenged thyself, for, if I made thee freeze in my courtyard by night, thou hast made me roast, nay burn, on this tower by day and die of hunger and thirst to boot; wherefore I pray thee by the One only God that thou come up hither and since my heart suffereth me not give myself death with mine own hands, give it me thou, for that I desire it more than aught else, such and so great are the torments I endure. Or, an thou wilt not do me that favour, let bring me, at the least, a cup of water, so I may wet my mouth, whereunto my tears suffice not; so sore is the drouth and the burning that I have therein.' [Footnote 392: _i.e._ resource (_consiglio_). See ante, passim.]

• From Carmina (-50)

  Super alta uectus Attis celeri rate maria, Phrygium ut nemus citato cupide pede tetigit, adiitque opaca siluis redimita loca deae, stimulatus ibi furenti rabie, uagus animis, deuoluit ile acuto sibi pondere silicis. 5 itaque ut relicta sensit sibi membra sine uiro, etiam recente terrae sola sanguine maculans, niueis citata cepit manibus leue typanum, typanum, tubam Cybelles, tua, mater, initia, quatiensque terga taurei teneris caua digitis, 10 canere haec suis adorta est tremebunda comitibus. agite ite ad alta, Gallae, Cybeles nemora simul, simul ite, Dindimenae dominae uaga pecora, aliena quae petentes uelut exules loca, sectam meam exsecutae duce me mihi comites, 15 rapidum salum tulistis truculentaque pelagi, et corpus euirastis Veneris nimio odio; hilarate aere citatis erroribus animum. mora tarda mente cedat: simul ite, sequimini Phrygiam ad domum Cybelles, Phrygia ad nemora deae, 20 ubi cymbalum sonat uox, ubi tympana reboant, tibicen ubi canit Phryx curuo graue calamo, ubi capita Maenades ui iaciunt hederigerae, ubi sacra sancta acutis ululatibus agitant, ubi sueuit illa diuae uolitare uaga cohors, 25 quo nos decet citatis celerare tripudiis. simul haec comitibus Attis cecinit notha mulier, thiasus repente linguis trepidantibus ululat, leue tympanum remugit, caua cymbala recrepant, uiridem citus adit Idam properante pede chorus. 30 furibunda simul anhelans uaga uadit animam agens comitata tympano Attis per opaca nemora dux, ueluti iuuenca uitans onus indomita iugi: rapidae ducem secuntur Gallae properipedem. itaque, ut domum Cybelles tetigere lassulae, 35 nimio e labore somnum capiunt sine Cerere. piger his labante languore oculos sopor operit: abit in quiete molli rabidus furor animi. sed ubi oris aurei Sol radiantibus oculis lustrauit aethera album, sola dura, mare ferum, 40 pepulitque noctis umbras uegetis sonipedibus, ibi Somnus excitum Attin fugiens citus abiit: trepidante eum recepit dea Pasithea sinu. ita de quiete molli rapida sine rabie simul ipse pectore Attis sua facta recoluit, 45 liquidaque mente uidit sine queis ubique foret, animo aestuante rusum reditum ad uada tetulit. ibi maria uasta uisens lacrimantibus oculis, patriam allocuta maestast ita uoce miseriter. 'patria o mei creatrix, patria o mea genetrix, 50 ego quam miser relinquens, dominos ut herifugae famuli solent, ad Idae tetuli nemora pedem, ut aput niuem et ferarum gelida stabula forem, et earum omnia adirem furibunda latibula, ubinam aut quibus locis te positam, patria, reor? 55 cupit ipsa pupula ad te sibi dirigere aciem, rabie fera carens dum breue tempus animus est. egone a mea remota haec ferar in nemora domo? patria, bonis, amicis, genitoribus abero? abero foro, palaestra, stadio et gymnasiis? 60 miser a miser, querendum est etiam atque etiam, anime. quod enim genus figuraest, ego non quod obierim? ego mulier, ego adolescens, ego ephebus, ego puer, ego gymnasei fui flos, ego eram decus olei: mihi ianuae frequentes, mihi limina tepida, 65 mihi floridis corollis redimita domus erat, linquendum ubi esset orto mihi Sole cubiculum. ego nunc deum ministra et Cybeles famula ferar? ego Maenas, ego mei pars, ego uir sterilis ero? ego uiridis algida Idae niue amicta loca colam? 70 ego uitam agam sub altis Phrygiae columinibus, ubi cerua siluicultrix, ubi aper nemoriuagus? iam iam dolet quod egi, iam iamque paenitet.' roseis ut huic labellis sonitus citus abiit, geminas deorum ad auris noua nuntia referens, 75 ibi iuncta iuga resoluens Cybele leonibus laeuumque pecoris hostem stimulans ita loquitur. 'agedum' inquit 'age ferox i, face ut hunc furor agitet, face uti furoris ictu reditum in nemora ferat, mea libere nimis qui fugere imperia cupit. 80 age caede terga cauda, tua uerbera patere, face cuncta mugienti fremitu loca retonent, rutilam ferox torosa ceruice quate iubam.' ait haec minax Cybelle religatque iuga manu. ferus ipse sese adhortans rapidum incitat animo, 85 uadit, fremit, refringit uirgulta pede uago. at ubi umida albicantis loca litoris adiit, tenerumque uidit Attin prope marmora pelagei, facit impetum: ille demens fugit in nemora fera: ibi semper omne uitae spatium famula fuit. 90 dea, magna dea, Cybelle, dea, domina Dindimei, procul a mea tuos sit furor omnis, hera, domo: alios age incitatos, alios age rabidos. LXIV

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Angela, for God’s sake, try to love me a little—don’t throw me away, because if you do I’m utterly finished. You know how I love you, with my soul and my body; if it’s wrong, grotesque, unholy—have pity. I’ll be humble. Oh, my darling, I am humble now; I’m just a poor, heart-broken freak of a creature who loves you and needs you much more than its life, because life’s worse than death, ten times worse without you. I’m some awful mistake—God’s mistake—I don’t know if there are any more like me, I pray not for their sakes, because it’s pure hell. But oh, my dear, whatever I am, I just love you and love you. I thought it was dead, but it wasn’t. It’s alive—so terribly alive to-night in my bedroom. . . .’ And so it went on for page after page. But never a word about Roger Antrim and what she had seen that morning in the garden. Some fine instinct of utterly selfless protection towards this woman had managed to survive all the anguish and all the madness of that day. The letter was a terrible indictment against Stephen, a complete vindication of Angela Crossby. 5 Angela went to her husband’s study, and she stood before him utterly shaken, utterly appalled at what she would do, yet utterly and ruthlessly determined to do it from a primitive instinct of self-preservation. In her ears she could still hear that terrible laughter—that uncanny, hysterical, agonized laughter. Stephen was mad, and God only knew what she might do or say in a moment of madness, and then—but she dared not look into the future. Cringing in spirit and trembling in body, she forgot the girl’s faithful and loyal devotion, her will to forgive, her desire to protect, so clearly set forth in that pitiful letter. She said: ‘Ralph, I want to ask your advice. I’m in an awful mess—it’s Stephen Gordon. You think I’ve been carrying on with Roger—good Lord, if you only knew what I’ve endured these last few months! I have seen a great deal of Roger, I admit—quite innocently of course—still, all the same, I’ve seen him—I thought it would show her that I’m not—that I’m not—’ For one moment her voice seemed about to fail her, then she went on quite firmly: ‘that I’m not a pervert; that I’m not that sort of degenerate creature.’ He sprang up: ‘What?’ he bellowed. ‘Yes, I know, it’s too awful. I ought to have asked your advice about it, but I really did like the girl just at first, and after that, well—I set out to reform her. Oh, I know I’ve been crazy, worse than crazy if you like; it was hopeless right from the very beginning. If I’d only known more about that sort of thing I’d have come to you at once, but I’d never met it.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Pasimondas, who gloats over your undoing and fervently advocates your death, is making every effort to bring forward the celebration of his nuptials to your beloved Iphigenia, and thus enjoy the prize which Fortune had no sooner been content to bestow upon you than she angrily snatched away from you again. If he should succeed, and if you are as deeply in love as I suspect, I can readily imagine the pain you will suffer, for on that same day his brother, Ormisdas, is proposing to do the same to me by marrying Cassandra, whom I love more dearly than anything else in the world. If we are to prevent Fortune from dealing us so heavy and calamitous a blow, it seems to me that she has left us with no other recourse except the stoutness of our hearts and the strength of our right hands, with which we must seize our swords and fight our way to our ladies, you to carry off Iphigenia for the second time and I to carry off Cassandra for the first. If, therefore, you value the prospect of recovering your lady (not to mention your liberty, which must in any case mean little to you without Iphigenia), the gods have placed the means within your reach, provided you will join me in my enterprise.’ These words restored Cimon’s depleted spirits to the full, and his answer was quickly forthcoming. ‘Lysimachus,’ he said, ‘if this scheme of yours procures me the reward of which you have spoken, you could not have chosen a more resolute or loyal comrade. Therefore entrust me with whatever task you desire me to perform, and you will marvel at the energy I devote to your cause.’ ‘Two days hence,’ said Lysimachus, ‘the brides will cross their husbands’ threshold for the first time. As dusk is falling, we shall go to the house, you with your companions and I with some of mine whom I trust implicitly, and make our way inside by armed force. We shall then seize the ladies from the midst of the assembled guests, and carry them off to a ship which I have caused to be fitted out in secret, killing anyone who should have the temerity to stand in our way.’ Cimon agreed to the plan, and lay quietly in prison until the appointed time.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Look, we’re feeling sorry for you, and since we were on our way to do a little job, if you’d like to join us we can almost guarantee that your share of the proceeds will more than make up for what you’ve lost.’ And as he was feeling desperate, Andreuccio agreed to go with them. Now, just a few hours earlier, the burial had taken place of an archbishop whose name was Messer Filippo Minutolo.7 He was the Archbishop of Naples, and he had been buried with some very valuable regalia and wearing a ruby on his finger, worth more than five hundred gold florins, which these two fellows were on their way to plunder. They disclosed their intentions to Andreuccio, and being more covetous than well-advised, he set off in their company. As they were on their way to the cathedral, with Andreuccio still putting forth a powerful odour, one of them said: ‘Couldn’t we find some place or other where this fellow could be washed, so that he didn’t stink so appallingly?’ ‘Certainly,’ said the other. ‘Not far from here, there’s a well, which always used to have a pulley and a big bucket at the top. Let’s go there and give him a quick wash.’ On reaching the well, they found that the rope was still there, but the bucket had been removed. So they hit on the idea of tying him to the rope and lowering him into the well so that he could wash himself down below. When he had finished washing, he was to give the rope a tug, and they would haul him up again. Shortly after they had lowered him into the well, some officers of the watch, feeling thirsty on account of the heat and also because they had been chasing somebody, happened to come to the well for a drink. When the other two saw them coming, they immediately took to their heels, making good their escape without being spotted by the officers. Meanwhile Andreuccio, having completed his ablutions at the bottom of the well, gave a tug on the rope. The officers had taken off their surcoats and laid them on the ground beside their bucklers and pikestaffs, and they now began to haul away at the rope, thinking it had a bucket full of water attached to it.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Earlier, in deference to the governor’s orders, these Warsaw Dragoons had left Carthage, but they hadn’t gone far. They disguised themselves by rubbing gunpowder on their faces and at day’s end came storming back into town. Just seven members of the Carthage Greys were on guard when the Dragoons appeared outside the jail and charged the front entrance. The Greys fired their muskets directly into the mob, but as part of a prearranged plan the guards had loaded their weapons with blanks, so none of the Dragoons was harmed. After discharging their ersatz fusillade, the guards stepped aside, allowing the hate-crazed mob to burst through the front door, firing their guns indiscriminately as they entered; two of their balls came within inches of hitting the jailer’s wife. The militiamen swarmed upstairs and tried to force their way into the bedroom where the prisoners were quartered. Joseph and Hyrum brandished their smuggled weapons while Taylor and Richards each grabbed a walking stick, positioned themselves on either side of the doorway, and began whacking furiously at the mob’s muskets as the barrels were poked through the partially opened door. Two bullets ripped through the door panel; the second one smashed into Hyrum’s neck, severing his spinal cord, and he dropped to the floor, dead, where four more balls immediately struck his body. Joseph responded by reaching around the doorjamb and blindly firing all six rounds of his revolver, wounding at least one of the Warsaw Dragoons. The attackers had succeeded in forcing the door open, however, and a lethal rain of bullets now sprayed into the room. Taylor, in desperation, attempted to jump out of an open window but was shot first in the left thigh and then in the chest; although the latter bullet struck a watch in his vest pocket and therefore wasn’t lethal, the impact knocked the wind out of him and sent him sprawling onto the floor. Frantically trying to escape the flying bullets, he crawled under a bed, where another ball tore into his forearm and yet another hit his pelvis, “cutting away a piece of flesh from his left hip as large as a man’s hand.” Seeing no alternative, Joseph also tried to spring from the window, but as he crouched above the sill in silhouette, two shots from inside the room pierced his back and a third bullet, fired from a musket on the ground outside, exploded into his chest. Uttering a plaintive “Oh Lord, my God!” he pitched forward out of the window. The prophet dropped twenty feet, slammed into the earth with a dull thud, and lay motionless, twisted on his left side. A second lieutenant in the Carthage Greys who witnessed Joseph’s fall reported that as soon as he hit the ground, he was “shot several times and a bayonet run through him.” After a few moments, another militiaman cautiously approached the body, prodded it, and announced to the crowd that Joe Smith was dead.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She could not weep, for a great desolation too deep for tears lay over her spirit—the great desolation of things that pass, of things that pass away in our lifetime. And then of what good, after all, are our tears, since they cannot hold back this passing away—no, not for so much as a moment? She looked round her now at the empty stables, the unwanted, uncared for stables of Morton. So proud they had been that were now so humbled, even unto cobwebs and dust were they humbled; and they had the feeling of all disused places that have once teemed with life, they felt pitifully lonely. She closed her eyes so as not to see them. Then the thought came to Stephen that this was the end, the end of her courage and patient endurance—that this was somehow the end of Morton. She must not see the place any more; she must, she would, go a long way away. Raftery had gone a long way away—she had sent him beyond all hope of recall—but she could not follow him over that merciful frontier, for her God was more stern than Raftery’s; and yet she must fly from her love for Morton. Turning, she hurriedly left the stables. 5Anna was standing at the foot of the stairs. ‘Are you leaving now, Stephen?’ ‘Yes—I’m going, Mother.’ ‘A short visit!’ ‘Yes, I must get back to work.’ ‘I see. . . .’ Then after a long, awkward pause: ‘Where would you like him buried?’ ‘In the large north paddock where he died—I’ve told Jim.’ ‘Very well, I’ll see that they carry out your orders.’ She hesitated, as though suddenly shy of Stephen again, as she had been in the past; but after a moment she went on quickly: ‘I thought—I wondered, would you like a small stone with his name and some sort of inscription on it, just to mark the place?’ ‘If you’d care to put one—I shan’t need any stone to remember.’ The carriage was waiting to drive her to Malvern. ‘Good-bye, Mother.’ ‘Good-bye—I shall put up that stone.’ ‘Thanks, it’s a very kind thought of yours.’ Anna said: ‘I’m so sorry about this, Stephen.’ But Stephen had hurried into the brougham—the door closed, and she did not hear her mother. CHAPTER 301A

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Yet Stephen was his friend—he had sought her out, had all but forced his friendship upon her; had forced his way into her life, her home, her confidence; she had trusted his honour. And now he must either utterly betray her or through loyalty to their friendship, betray Mary. And he felt that he knew, and knew only too well, what life would do to Mary Llewellyn, what it had done to her already; for had he not seen the bitterness in her, the resentment that could only lead to despair, the defiance that could only lead to disaster? She was setting her weakness against the whole world, and slowly but surely the world would close in until in the end it had utterly crushed her. In her very normality lay her danger. Mary, all woman, was less of a match for life than if she had been as was Stephen. Oh, most pitiful bond so strong yet so helpless; so fruitful of passion yet so bitterly sterile; despairing, heart-breaking, yet courageous bond that was even now holding them ruthlessly together. But if he should break it by taking the girl away into peace and security, by winning for her the world’s approbation so that never again need her back feel the scourge and her heart grow faint from the pain of that scourging—if he, Martin Hallam, should do this thing, what would happen, in that day of his victory, to Stephen? Would she still have the courage to continue the fight? Or would she, in her turn, be forced to surrender? God help him, he could not betray her like this, he could not bring about Stephen’s destruction—and yet if he spared her, he might destroy Mary. Night after night alone in his bedroom during the miserable weeks of that summer, Martin struggled to discover some ray of hope in what seemed a well-nigh hopeless situation. And night after night Stephen’s masterful arms would enfold the warm softness of Mary’s body, the while she would be shaken as though with great cold. Lying there she would shiver with terror and love, and this torment of hers would envelop Mary so that sometimes she wept for the pain of it all, yet neither would give a name to that torment. ‘Stephen, why are you shivering?’ ‘I don’t know, my darling.’ ‘Mary, why are you crying?’ ‘I don’t know, Stephen.’ Thus the bitter nights slipped into the days, and the anxious days slipped back into the nights, bringing to that curious trinity neither helpful counsel nor consolation. 2 It was after they had all returned to Paris that Martin found Stephen alone one morning. He said: ‘I want to speak to you—I must.’ She put down her pen and looked into his eyes: ‘Well, Martin, what is it?’ But she knew already. He answered her very simply: ‘It’s Mary.’

• From Trash (1988)

  So I made a list. I told her: that one went insane—got her little brother with a tire iron; the three of them slit their arms, not the wrists but the bigger veins up near the elbow; she, now she strangled the boy she was sleeping with and got sent away; that one drank lye and died laughing soundlessly. In one year I lost eight cousins. It was the year everybody ran away. Four disappeared and were never found. One fell in the river and was drowned. One was run down hitchhiking north. One was shot running through the woods, while Grace, the last one, tried to walk from Greenville to Greer for some reason nobody knew. She fell off the overpass a mile down from the Sears, Roebuck warehouse and lay there for hunger and heat and dying. Later sleeping, but not sleeping, I found that my hands were up under Jesse’s chin. I rolled away, but I didn’t cry. I almost never let myself cry. Almost always, we were raped, my cousins and I. That was some kind of joke, too. “What’s a South Carolina virgin?” “ ’At’s a ten-year-old can run fast.” It wasn’t funny for me in my mama’s bed with my stepfather; not for my Cousin Billie in the attic with my uncle; nor for Lucille in the woods with another cousin; for Danny with four strangers in a parking lot; or for Pammy, who made the papers. Cora read it out loud: “Repeatedly by persons unknown.” They stayed unknown since Pammy never spoke again. Perforations, lacerations, contusions, and bruises. I heard all the words, big words, little words, words too terrible to understand. DEAD BY AN ACT OF MAN. With the prick still in them, the broom handle, the tree branch, the grease gun . . . objects, things not to be believed . . . whiskey bottles, can openers, grass shears, glass, metal, vegetables . . . not to be believed, not to be believed. Jesse says, “You’ve got a gift for words.” “Don’t talk,” I beg her, “don’t talk.” And this once, she just holds me, blessedly silent. I dig out the pictures, stare into the faces. Which one was I? Survivors do hate themselves, I know, over the core of fierce self-love, never understanding, always asking, “Why me and not her, not him?” There is such mystery in it, and I have hated myself as much as I have loved others, hated the simple fact of my own survival. Having survived, am I supposed to say something, do something, be something?

• From The Decameron (1353)

  In the course of his harrowing description of the plague and its disastrous effects on the traditions and institutions of Florentine society,54 Boccaccio repeatedly directs attention to the chaos and disorder brought by the Black Death to the city he nostalgically recalls as the most noble of any in Italy (‘oltre ad ogni altra italica nobilissima’), and he deplores the breakdown of those moral and legal restraints which had contributed to the city’s cultural and social pre-eminence. He stresses that in the face of the misery and affliction occasioned by the plague all respect for the laws of God and of man had broken down and been extinguished, and that consequently everyone was free to behave as he pleased. The departure from generally accepted rules and standards of behaviour is graphically illustrated in two passages referring to women. In the first, Boccaccio writes that whenever a woman was taken ill, she raised no objection, no matter how gracious or beautiful or gently bred she might be, to being attended by a male servant, and that she had no scruples about showing him every part of her body as freely as she would have displayed it to a woman. This practice, he goes on to suggest in a slightly flippant aside, was responsible for a subsequent decline in the sexual morals of those women who were fortunate enough to recover. But if chastity waned, so too did the compassion ordinarily associated with the feminine ideal. In a passage describing Florentine burial customs, and the role that had traditionally been played in them by the womenfolk of the dead, it is pointed out that these customs had been abandoned, and that not only did people die without having many women about them, but they also died with few people if any to mourn them, or even to witness their passing. Indeed, with the overturning of normal values that accompanied the plague, bereavement became the signal for black humour – laughter, witticisms, and general jollification – the practice of which, as the author ruefully adds, women had learned to perfection.

• From Trash (1988)

  “No, she an’t.” I tried to catch Arlene’s hand, but she hugged her elbows in tight and just looked at me. “Arlene, she’s not going to get any better. She’s going to get worse. If the tumor on her lung doesn’t kill her, then the ones in her head will.” Arlene’s pale face darkened. When she spoke her words all ran together. “They don’t know what that stuff was. That could have been dust in the machine. I read about this case where that was what happened—dust and fingerprints on X-rays.” She tore at a pack of Salems, ripping one cigarette in half before she could get another out intact. “God, Arlene.” “Don’t start.” “Look, we have to make some decisions.” I was thinking if I could speak quietly enough, Arlene would hear what I was saying. “We have to take care of Mama, not talk about stuff that’s going to get in the way of that.” Arlene’s voice was as loud as mine had been soft. “Mama needs our support, not you going on about death and doom.” Sympathetic magic, Jaybird called it. Arlene believed in the power of positive thinking the way some people believed in saints’ medals or a Santeria’s sacrificed chicken. Stopping us talking about dying was the thing she believed she was supposed to do. I dropped into one of the plastic chairs. Arlene’s head kept jerking restlessly, but she managed not to look into my face. This is how she always behaved. “Mama’s gonna beat this thing,” she’d announced when I had first come home, as if saying it firmly enough would make it so. She was the reason Mama had gone to MacArthur in the first place. Jo and I had wanted the hospice that Mama’s oncologist had recommended. But Arlene had refused to discuss the hospice or to look at the results of the brain scan. Those little starbursts scattered over Mama’s cranium were not something Arlene could acknowledge. “We could keep Mama at home,” she’d told the hospital chaplain. “We could all move back home and take care of her till she’s better.” “Lord God!” I had imagined Jo’s response to that. “Move back home? Has she gone completely damn crazy?” The chaplain told Arlene that some people did indeed take care of family at home, and if that was what she wanted, he would help her. I had watched Arlene’s face as he spoke, the struggle that moved across her flattened features. “It might not work,” she had said. She had looked at me once, then dropped her head. “She might need more care than we could give, all of us working you know.” She had dropped her face into her hands. I signed off on the bills where the insurance didn’t apply. For the rental on a wheelchair and a television, I used a credit card. Jo laughed at me when she saw them.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  4As long as she lived Stephen never forgot her first impressions of the bar known as Alec’s—that meeting-place of the most miserable of all those who comprised the miserable army. That merciless, drug-dealing, death-dealing haunt to which flocked the battered remnants of men whom their fellow men had at last stamped under; who, despised of the world, must despise themselves beyond all hope, it seemed, of salvation. There they sat, closely herded together at the tables, creatures shabby yet tawdry, timid yet defiant—and their eyes, Stephen never forgot their eyes, those haunted, tormented eyes of the invert. Of all ages, all degrees of despondency, all grades of mental and physical ill-being, they must yet laugh shrilly from time to time, must yet tap their feet to the rhythm of music, must yet dance together in response to the band—and that dance seemed the Dance of Death to Stephen. On more than one hand was a large, ornate ring, on more than one wrist a conspicuous bracelet; they wore jewelry that might only be worn by these men when they were thus gathered together. At Alec’s they could dare to give way to such tastes—what was left of themselves they became at Alec’s. Bereft of all social dignity, of all social charts contrived for man’s guidance, of the fellowship that by right divine should belong to each breathing, living creature; abhorred, spat upon, from their earliest days the prey to a ceaseless persecution, they were now even lower than their enemies knew, and more hopeless than the veriest dregs of creation. For since all that to many of them had seemed fine, a fine, selfless and at times even noble emotion, had been covered with shame, called unholy and vile, so gradually they themselves had sunk down to the level upon which the world placed their emotions. And looking with abhorrence upon these men, drink-sodden, doped as were only too many, Stephen yet felt that some terrifying thing stalked abroad in that unhappy room at Alec’s; terrifying because if there were a God His anger must rise at such vast injustice. More pitiful even than her lot was theirs, and because of them mighty should be the world’s reckoning. Alec the tempter, the vendor of dreams, the dispenser of illusions whiter than snow; Alec, who sold little packets of cocaine for large bundles of notes, was now opening wine, with a smile and a flourish, at the next-door table. He set down the bottle: ‘Et voilà, mes filles!’ Stephen looked at the men; they seemed quite complacent. Against the wall sat a bald, flabby man whose fingers crept over an amber chaplet. His lips moved; God alone knew to whom he prayed, and God alone knew what prayers he was praying—horrible he was, sitting there all alone with that infamous chaplet between his fingers.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Try as he might he could not deceive her, for this man was almost painfully honest, and any deception became him so ill that it seemed to stand out like a badly fitting garment. Yet now there were times when he avoided her eyes, when he grew very silent and awkward with Stephen, as though something inevitable and unhappy had obtruded itself upon their friendship; something, moreover, that he feared to tell her. Then one day in a blinding flash of insight she suddenly knew what this was—it was Mary. Like a blow that is struck full between the eyes, the thing stunned her, so that at first she groped blindly. Martin, her friend . . . But what did it mean? And Mary . . . The incredible misery of it if it were true. But was it true that Martin Hallam had grown to love Mary? And the other thought, more incredible still—had Mary in her turn grown to love Martin? The mist gradually cleared; Stephen grew cold as steel, her perceptions becoming as sharp as daggers—daggers that thrust themselves into her soul, draining the blood from her innermost being. And she watched. To herself she seemed all eyes and ears, a monstrous thing, a complete degradation, yet endowed with an almost unbearable skill, with a subtlety passing her own understanding. And Martin was no match for this thing that was Stephen. He, the lover, could not hide his betraying eyes from her eyes that were also those of a lover; could not stifle the tone that crept into his voice at times when he was talking to Mary. Since all that he felt was a part of herself, how could he hope to hide it from Stephen? And he knew that she had discovered the truth, while she in her turn perceived that he knew this, yet neither of them spoke—in a deathly silence she watched, and in silence he endured her watching.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And this dream of hers was immensely compelling, so that all that she did seemed clearly pre-destined; she could not have acted otherwise, nor could she have made a false step, although dreaming. Like those who in sleep tread the edge of a chasm unappalled, having lost all sense of danger, so now Stephen walked on the brink of her fate, having only one fear; a nightmare fear of what she must do to give Mary her freedom. In obedience to the mighty but unseen will that had taken control of this vivid dreaming, she ceased to respond to the girl’s tenderness, nor would she consent that they two should be lovers. Ruthless as the world itself she became, and almost as cruel in this ceaseless wounding. For in spite of Mary’s obvious misgivings, she went more and more often to see Valérie Seymour, so that gradually, as the days slipped by, Mary’s mind became a prey to suspicion. Yet Stephen struck at her again and again, desperately wounding herself in the process, though scarcely feeling the pain of her wounds for the misery of what she was doing to Mary. But even as she struck the bonds seemed to tighten, with each fresh blow to bind more securely. Mary now clung with every fibre of her sorely distressed and outraged being; with every memory that Stephen had stirred; with every passion that Stephen had fostered; with every instinct of loyalty that Stephen had aroused to do battle with Martin. The hand that had loaded Mary with chains was powerless, it seemed, to strike them from her. Came the day when Mary refused to see Martin, when she turned upon Stephen, pale and accusing: ‘Can’t you understand? Are you utterly blind—have you only got eyes now for Valérie Seymour?’ And as though she were suddenly smitten dumb, Stephen’s lips remained closed and she answered nothing. Then Mary wept and cried out against her: ‘I won’t let you go—I won’t let you, I tell you! It’s your fault if I love you the way I do. I can’t do without you, you’ve taught me to need you, and now . . .’ In half-shamed, half-defiant words she must stand there and plead for what Stephen withheld, and Stephen must listen to such pleading from Mary. Then before the girl realized it she had said: ‘But for you, I could have loved Martin Hallam!’ Stephen heard her own voice a long way away: ‘But for me, you could have loved Martin Hallam.’ Mary flung despairing arms round her neck: ‘No, no! Not that, I don’t know what I’m saying.’ 3 The first faint breath of spring was in the air, bringing daffodils to the flower-stalls of Paris. Once again Mary’s young cherry tree in the garden was pushing out leaves and tiny pink buds along the whole length of its childish branches. Then Martin wrote: ‘Stephen, where can I see you? It must be alone.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  All of them were only too eager to eat one of the sweets, and so Bruno, having lined them up with Calandrino in the middle, started from one end and began to hand one out to each of them in turn. When he came to Calandrino, he picked up one of the sweets of the canine variety and placed it in the palm of his hand. Calandrino promptly tossed it into his mouth and began to chew on it, but no sooner did his tongue come into contact with the aloe than, finding the bitter taste quite intolerable, he spat it out again. They were all keeping a close watch on one another to see who was going to spit out his sweet, and Bruno, who still had several more to distribute, carried on as though nothing had happened until he heard a voice behind him saying: ‘Hey, Calandrino, what’s the meaning of this?’ Turning quickly round, and seeing that Calandrino had spat his out, he said: ‘Wait a minute! Perhaps he spat it out for some other reason. Here, take another!’ And picking up the second one, he thrust it into Calandrino’s mouth before proceeding to hand out the ones he had left. Bitter as Calandrino had found the first, the second seemed a great deal more so, but being ashamed to spit it out, he kept it in his mouth for a while. As he chewed away at it, tears as big as hazelnuts began to roll down his cheeks until eventually, being unable to bear it any longer, he spat it out like the first. Buffalmacco was meanwhile handing out drinks all round, with the assistance of Bruno. And when, along with all the others, they observed what had happened, everyone declared that Calandrino had obviously stolen the pig himself, and there were one or two who gave him a severe scolding about it. However, when the crowd had dispersed, leaving Bruno and Buffalmacco alone with Calandrino, Buffalmacco turned to him and said: ‘I was convinced all along that you were the one who had taken it. You were just pretending to us that it had been stolen so that you wouldn’t have to buy us a few drinks out of the proceeds.’ Calandrino, who still had the bitter taste of the aloe in his mouth, swore to them that he had not taken the pig, but Buffalmacco said: ‘Own up, man, how much did it fetch? Six florins?’ Calandrino was by now on the brink of despair, but Bruno said:

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  So careful she was when they were together, so guarded lest she should betray her feelings, so pitifully insistent that all was yet well—that life had in no way lessened her courage. But Martin was not deceived by these protests, knowing how she clung to what he could offer, how gladly she turned to the simple things that so easily come to those who are normal. Under all her parade of gallantry he divined a great weariness of spirit, a great longing to be at peace with the world, to be able to face her fellow men with the comforting knowledge that she need not fear them, that their friendship would be hers for the asking, that their laws and their codes would be her protection. All this Martin perceived; but Stephen’s perceptions were even more accurate and far-reaching, for to her there had come the despairing knowledge that the woman she loved was deeply unhappy. At first she had blinded herself to this truth, sustained by the passionate stress of the battle, by her power to hold in despite of the man, by the eager response that she had awakened. Yet the day came when she was no longer blind, when nothing counted in all the world except this grievous unhappiness that was being silently borne by Mary. Martin, if he had wished for revenge, might have taken his fill of it now from Stephen. Little did he know how, one by one, Mary was weakening her defences; gradually undermining her will, her fierce determination to hold, the arrogance of the male that was in her. All this the man was never to know; it was Stephen’s secret, and she knew how to keep it. But one night she suddenly pushed Mary away, blindly, scarcely knowing what she was doing; conscious only that the weapon she thus laid aside had become a thing altogether unworthy, an outrage upon her love for this girl. And that night there followed the terrible thought that her love itself was a kind of outrage.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘But I don’t understand . . .’ ‘You must trust me, Martin.’ And now she heard herself speaking very gravely: ‘Would you trust me enough to do anything I asked, even although it seemed rather strange? Would you trust me if I said that I asked it for Mary, for her happiness?’ His fingers tightened: ‘Before God, yes. You know that I’d trust you!’ ‘Very well then, don’t leave Paris—not now.’ ‘You really want me to stay on, Stephen?’ ‘Yes, I can’t explain.’ He hesitated, then he suddenly seemed to come to a decision: ‘All right . . . I’ll do whatever you ask me.’ They paid for their coffee and got up to leave: ‘Let me come as far as the house,’ he pleaded. But she shook her head: ‘No, no, not now. I’ll write to you . . . very soon . . . Good-bye, Martin.’ She watched him hurrying down the street, and when he was finally lost in its shadows, she turned slowly and made her own way up the hill, past the garish lights of the Moulin de la Galette. Its pitiful sails revolved in the wind, eternally grinding out petty sins—dry chaff blown in from the gutters of Paris. And after a while, having breasted the hill, she must climb a dusty flight of stone steps, and push open a heavy, slow-moving door; the door of the mighty temple of faith that keeps its anxious but tireless vigil. She had no idea why she was doing this thing, or what she would say to the silver Christ with one hand on His heart and the other held out in a patient gesture of supplication. The sound of praying, monotonous, low, insistent, rose up from those who prayed with extended arms, with crucified arms—like the tides of an ocean it swelled and receded and swelled again, bathing the shores of heaven. They were calling upon the Mother of God: ‘Sainte Marie, Mère de Dieu, priez pour nous, pauvres pêcheurs, maintenant et à l’heure de notre mort.’ ‘Et à l’heure de notre mort,’ Stephen heard herself repeating. He looked terribly weary, the silver Christ: ‘But then He always looks tired,’ she thought vaguely; and she stood there without finding anything to say, embarrassed as one so frequently is in the presence of somebody else’s sorrow. For herself she felt nothing, neither pity nor regret; she was curiously empty of all sensation, and after a little she left the church, to walk on through the wind-swept streets of Montmartre. CHAPTER 561V

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  A voice like the awful, deep rolling of thunder; a demand like the gathering together of great waters. A terrifying voice that made her ears throb, that made her brain throb, that shook her very entrails until she must stagger and all but fall beneath this appalling burden of sound that strangled her in its will to be uttered. ‘God,’ she gasped, ‘we believe; we have told You we believe . . . We have not denied You, then rise up and defend us. Acknowledge us, oh God, before the whole world. Give us also the right to our existence!’ THE END

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  she had divined in the love that existed between her parents. Never before had she seen so clearly all that was lacking to Mary Llewellyn, all that would pass from her faltering grasp, perhaps never to return, with the passing of Martin — children, a home that the world would respect, ties of affection that the world would hold sacred, the blesséd security and the peace of being re- leased from the world’s persecution. And suddenly Martin ap- peared to Stephen as a creature endowed with incalculable bounty, having in his hands all those priceless gifts which she, love’s mendicant, could never offer. Only one gift could she offer to love, to Mary, and that was the gift of Martin. In a kind of dream she perceived these things. In a dream she now moved and had her being; scarcely conscious of whither this dream would lead, the while her every perception was quickened. And this dream of hers was immensely compelling, so that all that she did seemed clearly predestined; she could not have acted otherwise, nor could she have made a false step, although dream- ing. Like those who in sleep tread the edge of a chasm unappalled, having lost all sense of danger, so now Stephen walked on the brink of her fate, having only one fear; a nightmare fear of what she must do to give Mary her freedom. In obedience to the mighty but unseen will that had taken control of this vivid dreaming, she ceased to respond to the girl’s tenderness, nor would she consent that they two should be lovers. Ruthless as the world itself she became, and almost as cruel in this ceaseless wounding. For in spite of Mary’s obvious misgivings, she went more and more often to see Valérie Seymour, so that gradu- ally, as the days slipped by, Mary’s mind became a prey to sus- picion. Yet Stephen struck at her again and again, desperately wounding herself in the process, though scarcely feeling the pain of her wounds for the misery of what she was doing to Mary. But even as she struck the bonds seemed to tighten, with each fresh blow to bind more securely. Mary now clung with every fibre of her sorely distressed and outraged being; with every memory that Stephen had stirred; with every passion that Stephen had fostered; with every instinct of loyalty that Stephen had aroused to do battle THE WELL OF LONELINESS 499 with Martin. The hand that had loaded Mary with chains was powerless, it seemed, to strike them from her. Came the day when Mary refused to see Martin, when she turned upon Stephen, pale and accusing: ‘ Can’t you understand? Are you utterly blind — have you only got eyes now for Valérie Seymour? ’ And as though she were suddenly smitten dumb, Stephen’s lips remained closed and she answered nothing.

• From Trash (1988)

  I began to court it. Cowardly, traditionally—that is, in the tradition of all those others like me, through drugs and drinking and stubbornly putting myself in the way of other people’s violence. Even now, I cannot believe how it was that everything I survived became one more reason to want to die. But one morning, I limped into my mama’s kitchen and sat alone at her dining table. I was limping because I had pulled a muscle in my thigh and cracked two ribs in a fight with a woman I thought I loved. I remember that morning in all its details, the scratches on my wrists from my lover’s fingernails, the look on Mama’s face as she got ready to go to work—how she tried not to fuss over me, and the way I could not meet her eyes. It was in my mama’s face that I saw myself, in my mama’s silence, for she behaved as if I were only remotely the daughter she had loved and prayed for. She treated me as if I were in a way already dead, or about to die—as unreachable, as dangerous as one of my uncles on a three-day toot. That was so humiliating it broke my pride. My mouth opened to cry out, but I shut it stubbornly. It was in that moment I made my decision—not actually the decision to live, but the decision not to die on her. I shut my mouth on my grief and my rage, and began to pretend as if I would live, as if there were reason enough to fight my way out of the trap I had made for myself—though I had not yet figured out what that reason was. I limped around tight-lipped through the months it took me to find a job in another city and disappear. I took a bus to the city and spoke to no one, signed the papers that made me a low-level government clerk, and wound up sitting in a motel room eating peanut butter sandwiches so I could use the per diem to buy respectable skirts and blouses—the kind of clothes I had not worn since high school. Every evening I would walk the ten blocks from the training classes to the motel, where I could draw the heavy drapes around me, open the windows, and sit wrapped around by the tent of those drapes. There I would huddle and smoke my hoarded grass. Part of me knew what I was doing, knew the decision I was making. A much greater part of me could not yet face it. I was trying to make solid my decision to live, but I did not know if I could. I had to change my life, take baby steps into a future I did not trust, and I began by looking first to the ground on which I stood, how I had become the woman I was.