Despair

Passages

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

Page 232 of 267 · 20 per page

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

  When at length I am ready: "Go wherever you wish," says he; "you must have some money left, I will not take it from you, but beware of reappearing at any one of my houses in the city or the country: there are two excellent reasons for not doing so: you may just as well know, first of all, that the affair you thought finished is not at all over. They informed you that the law was done with you; they told you what is not true; the warrant for your arrest still holds, the case is still warm: you were left in this situation so that your conduct might be observed. In the second place, you are going to pass, insofar as the public is concerned, for the Marquise's murderer; if she yet breathes, I am going to see to it she carries this notion into the grave, the entire household will share it; and there you have two trials still to face instead of one: instead of a vile usurer, you have for an adversary a rich and powerful man who is determined to hound you into Hell itself if you misuse the life his compassion leaves to you." Chapter 15 "Oh Monsieur !" was my response, "whatever have been your severities with me, fear not that I will retaliate; I thought myself obliged to take steps against you when it was a question of your aunt's life; but where only the unhappy Therese is involved, I shall never do anything. Adieu, Monsieur, may your crimes render you as happy as your cruelties have made me to suffer; and no matter what the fate reserved to me by Heaven, while it shall prolong my deplorable life, I shall only employ my days in uttering prayers for you." The Count raised his head; he could not avoid glancing at me upon hearing these words, and, as he beheld me quavering and covered with tears and doubtless was afraid lest he be moved by what he saw, the cruel one went away, and I saw him nevermore. Entirely delivered unto my agony, I fell back again and lay by the tree; there, giving free reign to my hurt, I made the forest resound with my groans; I pressed my stricken frame against the earth, and shed upon the sward all my tears. "O my God," I cried out, "Thou hast so willed it; it was grained in Thy eternal decrees that the innocent were to fall unto the guilty and were to be their prey: dispose of me, O Lord, I am yet far away from what Thou didst suffer for us; may those I endure, as I adore Thee, render me worthy someday of what rewards Thou keepeth for the lowly, when he hath Thee before him in his tribulations, and let his anguishes be unto Thy greater glorification!"

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

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

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

  It is not with one of your cast of breeding and sentiments, that I allow you so much reason on your side, as great difference of the provocations: be it sufficient that I should enter into a discussion of the very to have changed my resolution, in consideration of what you reproach me with; and I own, too, that your clearing that rascal there, is fair and honest in you. Renew with you I cannot: the affront is too gross. I give you a week’s warning to get out of these lodgings; whatever I have given you, remains to you; and as I never intend to see you more, the landlord will pay you fifty pieces on my account, with which, and every debt paid, I hope you will own I do not leave you in a worse condition than what I took you up in, or that you deserve of me. Blame yourself only that it is no better.” Then, without giving me time to reply, he addressed himself to the young fellow: “For you, spark, I shall, for your father’s sake, take care of you: the town is no place for such an easy fool as thou art; and to-morrow you shall set out, under the charge of one of my men, well recommended, in my name, to your father, not to let you return and be spoil’d here.” At these words he went out, after my vainly attempting to stop him, by throwing myself at his feet. He shook me off, though he seemed greatly moved too, and took Will away with him, who, I dare swear, thought himself very cheaply off. I was now once more a-drift, and left upon my own hands, by a gentleman whom I certainly did not deserve. And all the letters, arts, friends, entreaties that I employed within the week of grace in my lodging, could never win on him so much as to see me again. He had irrevocably pronounced my doom, and submission to it was my only part. Soon after he married a lady of birth and fortune, to whom, I have heard he proved an irreproachable husband. As for poor Will, he was immediately sent down to the country to his father, who was an easy farmer, where he was not four months before an inn-keepers’ buxom young widow, with a very good stock, both in money and trade, fancied, and perhaps pre-acquainted with his secret excellencies, married him: and I am sure there was, at least, one good foundation for their living happily together.

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

  Is she afraid that he will strike her? Have they gone that far? He has left her, she calls him; he does not hear her, does not want to hear her. Wanda sadly lowers her head, and then sits down on the nearest stone-bench. She sits for a long time, lost in thought. I watch her with a sort of malevolent pleasure, finally I pull myself together by sheer force of will, and ironically step before her. She startles, and trembles all over. “I come to wish you happiness,” I said, bowing, “I see, my dear lady, too, has found a master.” “Yes, thank God!” she exclaimed, “not a new slave, I have had enough of them. A master! Woman needs a master, and she adores him.” “You adore him, Wanda?” I cried, “this brutal person—” “Yes, I love him, as I have never loved any one else.” “Wanda!” I clenched my fists, but tears already filled my eyes, and I was seized by the delirium of passion, as by a sweet madness. “Very well, take him as your husband, let him be your master, but I want to remain your slave, as long as I live.” “You want to remain my slave, even then?” she said, “that would be interesting, but I am afraid he wouldn’t permit it.” “He?” “Yes, he is already jealous of you,” she exclaimed, “he, of you! He demanded that I dismiss you immediately, and when I told him who you were—” “You told him—” I repeated, thunderstruck. “I told him everything,” she replied, “our whole story, all your queerness, everything—and he, instead of being amused, grew angry, and stamped his foot.” “And threatened to strike you?” Wanda looked to the ground, and remained silent. “Yes, indeed,” I said with mocking bitterness, “you are afraid of him, Wanda!” I threw myself down at her feet, and in my agitation embraced her knees. “I don’t want anything of you, except to be your slave, to be always near you! I will be your dog-” “Do you know, you bore me?” said Wanda, indifferently. I leaped up. Everything within me was seething. “You are now no longer cruel, but cheap,” I said, clearly and distinctly, accentuating every word. “You have already written that in your letter,” Wanda replied, with a proud shrug of the shoulders. “A man of brains should never repeat himself.” “The way you are treating me,” I broke out, “what would you call it?” “I might punish you,” she replied ironically, “but I prefer this time to reply with reasons instead of lashes. You have no right to accuse me. Haven’t I always been honest with you? Haven’t I warned you more than once?

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

  "Very well, Monsieur," I say, sprinkling his knees with my tears, "I swear to you I'll never go there and, to be sure of me, condescend to take me to Venice with you; I will perhaps find gentler hearts there than in my native land, and once you are so kind as to set me free, I swear to you by all that is holy I will never importune you." "I'll not aid you, not a pennyworth of aid will you get from me," that peerless rogue answered; "everything connected with pity, commiseration, gratitude is so alien to my heart that were I three times as rich as I am, they'd not see me give one crown to the poor; the spectacle of misery irritates me, amuses me, and when I am unable to do evil myself, I have a delicious time enjoying that accomplished by the hand of destiny. Upon all this I have principles to which, Therese, I adhere faithfully; poverty is part of the natural order; by creating men of dissimilar strength, Nature has convinced us of her desire that inequality be preserved even in those modifications our culture might bring to Nature's laws. To relieve indigence is to violate the established order, to imperil it, it is to enter into revolt against that which Nature has decreed, it is to undermine the equilibrium that is fundamental to her sublimest arrangements; it is to strive to erect an equality very perilous to society, it is to encourage indolence and flatter drones, it is to teach the poor to rob the rich man when the latter is pleased to refuse the former alms, for it's a dangerous habit, and gratuities encourage it." "Oh, Monsieur, how harsh these principles are! Would you speak thus had you not always been wealthy?" "Who knows, Therese? everyone has a right to his opinion, that's mine, and I'll not change it. They complain about beggars in France: if they wished to be rid of them, the thing could soon be done; hang seven or eight thousand of 'em and the infamous breed will vanish overnight. The Body Politic should be governed by the same rules that apply to the Body Physical. Would a man devoured by vermin allow them to feed upon him out of sympathy? In our gardens do we not uproot the parasitic plant which harms useful vegetation? Why then should one choose to act otherwise in this case?"

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I spent the rest of the day on my back porch, staring at Lake Washington. I drank the same cup of coffee Dr. Asterholder handed me before he left. It stopped being hot a long time ago, but I cradled it between both of my hands like I was using it for heat. It was an act, a piece of body language that I’d learned to imitate. Hell itself could unfurl in front of me, and chances are I wouldn’t feel it. I didn’t have thought. I saw things with my eyes and my brain processed the colors and shapes without matching them to feelings: water, boats, sky and trees, plump loons and grebes that glided over the water. My eyes traced everything, across the lake and in my yard. The heaviness in my chest kept pressing. I didn’t acknowledge it. The sun set early in Washington; by four-thirty it was dark and there was nothing left to look at but the tiny lights from houses across the water. Christmas lights that would be stripped down soon. My eyes hurt. I heard the doorbell, but I was unable to stand up and answer it. They’d go away eventually, they usually did. They always did. I felt pressure on my upper arms. I looked down and saw hands gripping me. Hands, as if there were no body attached to them. Solitary hands. Something snapped and I started screaming. “Senna! … Senna!” I heard a voice. It was a clogged sound, like words said through a mouthful of cheese. My head rolled back and suddenly I realized that someone was shaking me. I saw his face. He touched a finger to the pulse on my neck. “I’m here. Feel me. See me.” He grabbed my face and held it between his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Hush … hush,” he said. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.” I wanted to laugh, but I was too busy screaming. Who is safe? No one. There is too much bad, too much evil in the world to ever be safe. He wrestled me into what must have been a hug. His arms encircled my body, my face was pressed against his shoulder. Five years, ten years, one year, seven—how long had it been since I was hugged? I didn’t know this man, but I did. He was a doctor. He helped me. He spent the night on my couch so I wouldn’t be alone. He broke down my bedroom door to get my inhaler. I heard him shushing me like a child. I clung to him—a solid body in the darkness. I was seeing my attack as he held me … feeling the panic, the disbelief, the numbness all at once until they tangled together in a fray. I wailed, an ugly, guttural noise like a wounded animal. I don’t know how long I was like that.

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

  I can imagine that my theatrical attitude must have been very droll. * * * * * I have determined to set myself free from this heartless woman, who has treated me so cruelly, and is now about to break faith and betray me, as a reward for all my slavish devotion, for everything I have suffered from her. I packed my few belongings into a bundle, and then wrote her as follows: “Dear Madam,— I have loved you even to madness, I have given myself to you as no man ever has given himself to a woman. You have abused my most sacred emotions, and played an impudent, frivolous game with me. However, as long as you were merely cruel and merciless, it was still possible for me to love you. Now you are about to become cheap. I am no longer the slave whom you can kick about and whip. You yourself have set me free, and I am leaving a woman I can only hate and despise. Severin Kusiemski.” I handed these lines to the negress, and hastened away as fast as I could go. I arrived at the railway-station all out of breath. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my heart and stopped. I began to weep. It is humiliating that I want to flee and I can’t. I turn back—whither?—to her, whom I abhor, and yet, at the same time, adore. Again I pause. I cannot go back. I dare not. But how am I to leave Florence. I remember that I haven’t any money, not a penny. Very well then, on foot; it is better to be an honest beggar than to eat the bread of a courtesan. But still I can’t leave. She has my pledge, my word of honor. I have to return. Perhaps she will release me. After a few rapid strides, I stop again. She has my word of honor and my bond, that I shall remain her slave as long as she desires, until she herself gives me my freedom. But I might kill myself. I go through the Cascine down to the Arno, where its yellow waters plash monotonously about a couple of stray willows. There I sit, and cast up my final accounts with existence. I let my entire life pass before me in review. On the whole, it is rather a wretched affair—a few joys, an endless number of indifferent and worthless things, and between these an abundant harvest of pains, miseries, fears, disappointments, shipwrecked hopes, afflictions, sorrow and grief. I thought of my mother, whom I loved so deeply and whom I had to watch waste away beneath a horrible disease; of my brother, who full of the promise of joy and happiness died in the flower of youth, without even having put his lips to the cup of life.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I stink. Not the way you smell on a hot day when the sun toasts your skin and you smell like bologna. I wish I smelled like that. It would mean there was sun. I smell musty, like an old doll that has been locked up in a closet for years. I smell like unwashed body and depression. Yes. I slowly consider my stink and the awful way my grey streak hangs lank in my face. I don’t bother to push it off my eyes. I stay curled under the blanket like a fetus. I don’t even know how long I’ve been like this—days? Weeks? Or maybe it just feels like weeks. I’m composed of weeks, and days of weeks, and hours of weeks and days and minutes and seconds and… I’m not even in the attic bed. It’s warmer in the attic, but a few nights ago I took too many shots of whiskey and stumbled into the carousel room, only half conscious and holding in my sick. I was too dizzy to light a fire, so I lay trembling under the feather blanket, trying not to look at the horses. Waking up there was like having a night of drinking and then finding yourself in your bed with your best friend’s boyfriend. At first I was too shocked to move, so I just lay there paralyzed by shame and nausea. Not sure who exactly I felt like I was betraying by being in there, but felt it nevertheless. Isaac never came to find me, but considering that we were passing the bottle back and forth all night, he was probably just as sick as I was. That’s what we do lately; we congregate in the living room after dinner to sip from a bottle that fits neatly in our hands. After dinner drinks. Except dinners are getting sparse: a handful of rice, a small pile of canned carrots. There is always more liquor in our bellies than food these days. I groan at the thought of food. I need to pee and maybe be sick. I run the tip of my finger back and forth, back and forth over the cotton sheets. Back and forth, back and forth until I fall asleep. Landscape is playing. It’s always playing. The zookeeper is cruel.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Six months? Eight? It was sitting here all along while we starved, and we didn’t know. I pass a metal box with a big, red medical cross on it. I rip open the door. Inside there are bottles, so many bottles. I grab for the aspirin, popping off the lid, I tilt my head back and let half a dozen pills slide into my mouth. There is a roll of gauze. I rip the package open with my teeth until the material unravels in my fingers. I bend down and wrap it around the bone, flinching, feeling hot blood on my fingers. I want to look at the bottles, see what he left us. Isaac first. I scream when I open the ladder … it’s stiff with cold and time, and it jars my lower body, shooting pain everywhere. I climb backwards, keeping my leg extended and using my arms and good leg to lift myself up each rung. My arms burn, dragging the sack with me. When I reach the top of the ladder I have to lift my leg over the side of the well. There is no way to get to the floor gracefully and without pain. Your leg is already broken. What more can happen? I glance at the bone: nerve damage, tissue damage, I could bleed to death, die of an infection. A lot more, Senna. And then I drop my good leg to the floor with my sack clutched against my chest and my eyes closed. I stand there for a second, shivering and wanting to die. Another flight of stairs, another ladder, then I’ll be there. First, the can opener. This is nothing, I tell myself. There is a bone sticking out of your leg. It can’t kill you. But it can. Who knows what type of infection I might get after this? My pep talk doesn’t bring me comfort. If Isaac dies, his death will kill me. My leg is preventing me from getting to Isaac. Ignore the leg. Get to Isaac. It’s easier to sit on the stairs and lift myself backward, sticking my injured leg straight out while I use my arms and good leg to lift myself. I toss my sack up ahead of me. I feel every bump, every movement. The pain is so intense I am beyond screaming. It is taking concentration not to pass out. I’m sweating. I can feel fat rivulets rolling down the sides of my face and the back of my neck. I use the railing to lift myself up on the top step, then I hop to the ladder. This is going to be the hard part. Unlike the ladder in the well, this one angles straight up. There is nothing to lean on and the rungs are narrow and slippery. I sob with my face pressed against the wall. Then I pull myself together and drag myself up Mt.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Back and forth, back and forth. There is wallpaper to the left of the bed, of tiny carousel horses floating untethered through a creamy backdrop. Except they aren’t angry like the horses attached to the bed. There are no flared nostrils and you cannot see the whites of their eyes. They have furling ribbons tied to their forelocks and cranberry colored jewels decorating their saddles. To the right of the bed is a baby blue wall and centered in the middle of it, a brick fireplace. Sometimes I look at the blue wall, other times I like to count the little carousel horses on the wallpaper. And then there are times I squeeze my eyes shut so tight and pretend I’m at home in my own bed. My sheets are different, and the weight of the blanket, but if I lie very still… That’s when things get a little crazy. I’m not even sure I want to be in my own bed. It was figuratively just as cold as this one. There is nowhere I want to be. I should embrace the cold and the snow and the prison. I should be like Corrie Ten Boom and try to find purpose in suffering. I get catatonic at that point. My thoughts, having run in circles for most of the day, shut down. I just stare until Isaac eventually carries in a plate of food and sets it on the table next to the bed. I don’t touch anything. Not for days, until he pleads with me to eat. To move. To talk to him. I stare at one of the two walls and see how long I can go without feeling. I pee in the bed. The first time it’s an accident; my bladder, stretched like a water balloon, reaches its limit. There’s another time. In my sleep I roll away from it, find a new spot. I wake up closer to the fireplace, my clothes barely damp. It doesn’t bother me. I’m finally in the place where nothing bothers me. Spalsh I squirm under hot water, writhing in shock. I come up gasping, trying to claw my way out of the tub. He dropped me in like a human bath bead. Water sloshes over the side of the tub and soaks into his pant legs and socks. I fight for a few more seconds, his hands holding me in the water. I don’t have the energy to fight. I let myself sink. The bath is so full that I can submerge myself completely. I sink, sink, sink into the ocean.

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

  The vice of marriage . . .” “What! Vice? ” I said. “But you are talking of one of the most natural things.” “Natural!” said he. “Natural! No, I consider on the contrary that it is against nature, and it is I, a perverted man, who have reached this conviction. What would it be, then, if I had not known corruption? To a young girl, to every unperverted young girl, it is an act extremely unnatural, just as it is to children. My sister married, when very young, a man twice her own age, and who was utterly corrupt. I remember how astonished we were the night of her wedding, when, pale and covered with tears, she fled from her husband, her whole body trembling, saying that for nothing in the world would she tell what he wanted of her. “You say natural? It is natural to eat; that is a pleasant, agreeable function, which no one is ashamed to perform from the time of his birth. No, it is not natural. A pure young girl wants one thing,—children. Children, yes, not a lover.” . . . “But,” said I, with astonishment, “how would the human race continue?” “But what is the use of its continuing?” he rejoined, vehemently. “What! What is the use? But then we should not exist.” “And why is it necessary that we should exist?” “Why, to live, to be sure.” “And why live? The Schopenhauers, the Hartmanns, and all the Buddhists, say that the greatest happiness is Nirvana, Non-Life; and they are right in this sense,—that human happiness is coincident with the annihilation of ‘Self.’ Only they do not express themselves well. They say that Humanity should annihilate itself to avoid its sufferings, that its object should be to destroy itself. Now the object of Humanity cannot be to avoid sufferings by annihilation, since suffering is the result of activity. The object of activity cannot consist in suppressing its consequences. The object of Man, as of Humanity, is happiness, and, to attain it, Humanity has a law which it must carry out. This law consists in the union of beings. This union is thwarted by the passions. And that is why, if the passions disappear, the union will be accomplished. Humanity then will have carried out the law, and will have no further reason to exist.” “And before Humanity carries out the law?” “In the meantime it will have the sign of the unfulfilled law, and the existence of physical love. As long as this love shall exist, and because of it, generations will be born, one of which will finally fulfil the law. When at last the law shall be fulfilled, the Human Race will be annihilated. At least it is impossible for us to conceive of Life in the perfect union of people.” CHAPTER XXV. “I had to go twenty-five versts by carriage and eight hours by train. By carriage it was a very pleasant journey.

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

  What beauty! These are roses strewn upon lilies by the Graces' very hands... what being is so heartless, so cruel as to condemn to torture charms so fresh... so poignant? What is the monster that can seek pleasure in the depths of tears and suffering and woe? Rodin contemplates... his inflamed eye roves, his hands dare profane the flowers his cruelties are about to wither; all takes place directly before us, not a detail can escape us: now the libertine opens and peers into, now he closes up again those dainty features which enchant him; he offers them to us under every form, but he confines himself to these only: although the true temple of Love is within his reach, Rodin, faithful to his creed, casts not so much as a glance in that direction, to judge by his behavior, he fears even the sight of it; if the child's posture exposes those charms, he covers them over again; the slightest disturbance might upset his homage, he would have nothing distract him... finally, his mounting wrath exceeds all limits, at first he gives vent to it through invectives, with menaces and evil language he affrights this poor little wretch trembling before the blows wherewith she realizes she is about to be torn; Rodin is beside himself, he snatches up a cat-o'-nine-tails that has been soaking in a vat of vinegar to give the thongs tartness and sting. "Well there," says he, approaching his victim, "prepare yourself, you have got to suffer"; he swings a vigorous arm, the lashes are brought whistling down upon every inch of the body exposed to them; twenty-five strokes are applied; the tender pink rosiness of this matchless skin is in a trice run into scarlet. Julie emits cries... piercing screams which rend me to the soul; tears run down from beneath her blindfold and like pearls shine upon her beautiful cheeks; whereby Rodin is made all the more furious.... He puts his hands upon the molested parts, touches, squeezes, worries them, seems to be readying them for further assaults; they follow fast upon the first, Rodin begins again, not a cut he bestows is unaccompanied by a curse, a menace, a reproach... blood appears... Rodin is in an ecstasy; his delight is immense as he muses upon the eloquent proofs of his ferocity.

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

  We were soon come to Lyon; upon arrival I was cast into the keep reserved for criminals and there I was inscribed as an arsonist, harlot, child-murderer, and thief. Seven persons had been burned to death in the hotel; I had myself thought I might be; I had been on the verge of perishing; but she who had been the cause of this horror was eluding the law's vigilance and Heaven's justice: she was triumphant, she was flying on to new crimes whereas, innocent and unlucky, I had naught for prospect but dishonor, castigation, and death. For such a long time habituated to calumny, injustice, and wretchedness; destined, since childhood, to acquit myself of not a single virtuous deed or feel a single righteous sentiment without suffering instant retribution therefor, my anguish was rather mute and blunted than rending, and I shed fewer tears than I might have supposed... however, as 'tis instinctive in the distressed creature to seek after every possible device to extricate himself from the chasm into which his ill-fortune has plunged him, Father Antonin came to my mind; whatever the mediocre relief I could hope from him, I did not deny to myself I was anxious to see him: I asked for him, he appeared. He had not been informed of by whom he was desired; he affected not to recognize me; whereupon I told the turn-key that it was indeed possible he had forgotten me, having been my confessor only when I was very young, but, I continued, it was as my soul's director I solicited a private interview with him.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Inwardly they are filled with worms. A tiny spark and they blow up. The passages on Times Square repeat and catalogue, like Whitman; they are a little too painful to read out of context. Here is a bit of Chicago; Miller is wandering in the Negro slums with a fellow visitor: We got into the car, rode a few blocks and got out to visit another shell crater. The street was deserted except for some chickens grubbing for food between the slats of a crumbling piazza. More vacant lots, more gutted houses; fire escapes clinging to the walls with their iron teeth, like drunken acrobats. A Sunday atmosphere here. Everything serene and peaceful. Like Louvain or Rheims between bombardments. Like Phoebus, Virginia, dreaming of bringing her steeds to water, or like modern Eleusis smothered by a wet sock. Then suddenly I saw it chalked up on the side of a house in letters ten feet high: GOOD NEWS! GOD IS LOVE! When I saw these words I got down on my knees in the open sewer which had been conveniently placed there for the purpose and I offered up a short prayer, a silent one, which must have registered as far as Mound City, Illinois, where the colored muskrats have built their igloos. It was time for a good stiff drink of cod- liver oil but as the varnish factories were all closed we had to repair to the abattoir and quaff a bucket of blood. Never has blood tasted so wonderful! It was like taking Vitamins A, B, C, D, E in quick succession and then chewing a stick of cold dynamite. Good news! Aye, wonderful news—for Chicago. I ordered the chauffeur to take us immediately to Mundelein so that I could bless the cardinal and all the real estate operations, but we only got as far as the Bahai Temple. ... Or, again—in explanation: Oh, Henry, what beautiful golden teeth you have! exclaimed my four-year- old daughter the other morning on climbing into bed with me. That’s how I approach the works of my confreres. I see how beautiful are their golden teeth, not how ugly or artificial they are. Combating the “system” is nonsense. There is only one aim in life and that is to live it. In America it has become impossible, except for a few lucky or wise people, to live one’s own life; consequently the poets and artists tend to move to the fringes of society. Wherever there are individuals, says Miller (like Thoreau) there are new frontiers. The American way of life has become illusory; we lead the lives of prisoners while we boast about free speech, free press, and free religion, none of which we actually do enjoy in full. The price for security has become too great; abundance has become a travesty.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  nothing but an entirely arbitrary or deluded enterprise. I could see no connections anymore, the sentences resolved themselves into a series of separate words, the words into random sets of letters, the letters into disjointed signs, and those signs into a blue-gray trail gleaming silver here and there, excreted and left behind it by some crawling creature, and the sight of it increasingly filled me with feelings of horror and shame. One evening, said Austerlitz, I gathered up all my papers, bundled or loose, my notepads and exercise books, my files and lecture notes, anything with my writing on it, and carried the entire collection out of the house to the far end of the garden, where I threw it on the compost heap and buried it under layers of rotted leaves and spadefuls of earth. For several weeks afterwards, while I turned out the rooms of my house and repainted the floors and walls, I did think I felt some relief from the burden weighing down on my life, but I soon realized that the shadows were falling over me. Especially in the evening twilight, which had always been my favorite time of day, I was overcome by a sense of anxiety, diffuse at first and then growing ever denser, through which the lovely spectacle of fading colors turned to a malevolent and lightless pallor, my heart felt constricted in my chest to a quarter of its natural size, until at last there remained only one idea in my head: I must go to the third-floor landing of a certain building in Great Portland Street, where I had once had a strange turn after visiting a doctor’s surgery, and throw myself over the banisters into the dark depths of the stairwell. It was impossible for me then to go and see any of my friends, who were not numerous in any case, or mix with other people in any normal way. The mere idea of listening to anyone brought on a wave of revulsion, while the thought of talking myself, said Austerlitz, was perhaps worse still, and as this state of affairs continued I came to realize how isolated I was and always have been, among the Welsh as much as among the English and French. It never occurred to me to wonder about my true origins, said Austerlitz, nor did I ever feel that I belonged to a certain social class, professional group, or religious confession. I was as ill at ease among artists and intellectuals as in bourgeois life, and it was a very long time since I had felt able to make personal friendships. No sooner did I become acquainted with someone than I feared I had come too close, no sooner did someone turn towards me than I began to retreat. In the end I was linked to other people only by certain forms of courtesy which I took to extremes and which I know today, said Austerlitz, I observed not so much for the sake of their recipients as because they allowed me to ignore the fact that my life has always, for as far back as I can remember, been clouded by an unrelieved despair. It was then, after my work of destruction in the garden and when I had turned out my house, that I began my nocturnal wanderings through London, to escape the insomnia which

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  No one wants to carry someone when they’re heavy from life. I read a book about that once. A bunch of drivel about two people who kept coming back to each other. The lead male says that to the girl he keeps letting get away. I had to put the book down. No one wants to carry someone when they’re heavy from life. It’s a concept smart authors feed to their readers. It’s slow poison; you make them believe it’s real, and it keeps them coming back for more. Love is cocaine. And I know this because I had a brief and exciting relationship with blow. It kept my knife-to-skin addiction at bay for a little while. And then I woke up one day and decided I was pathetic—sucking powder up my nose to deal with my mommy issues. I’d rather bleed her out than suck her in. So I went back to cutting. Anyway … love and coke. The consequences for both are expensive: you get a mighty fine high, then you come barreling down, regretting every hour you spent reveling in something so dangerous. But you go back for more. You always go back for more. Unless you’re me. Then you lock yourself away and write stories about it. Boo-hoo. Boo fucking hoo. “Humans weren’t made to carry someone else’s weight. We can barely lift our own.” Even as I say it, I don’t entirely believe it. I’ve seen Isaac do things that most wouldn’t. But that’s just Isaac. “Maybe lifting someone else’s weight makes yours a little more bearable,” he says. We catch eyes at the same time. I look away first. What can you say to that? It’s romantic and foolish, and I don’t have the heart to argue. It would have been kinder if someone had broken Isaac Asterholder’s heart at some point. Being stuck on love was a real bitch to cure. Like cancer, I think. Just when you think you’re over it, it comes back. We take another shot right before I snap my last piece of the puzzle into place. It’s the Waldo piece from underneath my coffee cup. Isaac is only half finished. His mouth gapes when he sees. “What?” I say. “I gave you a good head start.” I get up to go take my shower. “You’re a savant,” he calls after me. “That wasn’t fair!” I don’t hate Isaac. Not even a little bit. [image file=image11.jpg] The days melt. They melt into each other until I can’t remember how long we’ve been here, or if it’s supposed to be morning or night. The sun never stops with the damn light. Isaac never stops with the damn pacing. I lie still and wait.

• From Between Us

  Title : Between Us Author: Mesquita, Batja BETWEEN US. . . . . . . . . . . . HOW CULTURES CREATE EMOTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . BATJA MESQUITA [image file=image_rsrc2M1.jpg] CONTENTSPreface Chapter 1 ​Lost in Translation Chapter 2 ​Emotions: MINE or OURS? Chapter 3 ​To Raise Your Child Chapter 4 ​“Right” and “Wrong” Emotions Chapter 5 ​Being Connected and Feeling Good Chapter 6 ​What’s in a Word? Chapter 7 ​Learning the Waltz Chapter 8 ​Emotions in a Multicultural World Afterword Acknowledgments Notes Index PREFACEI became a psychologist because I was intrigued by what people felt. I wanted to understand their inner lives, what made them tick. Though it is hard to reconstruct my interest in emotions, it may have had something to do with my background. I am from a Dutch Jewish family and my parents survived the Holocaust in hiding. I was a “psychologically minded” child, always trying to figure out how my parents felt. Many of my parents’ emotions were not rooted in the circumstances that I saw right in front of my eyes, but rather in events long (or perhaps not so long) past. Desperation was around the corner, and lurking under the surface was the hurt of rejection and discrimination. A small defiance on my side could meet with my parents’ hurt feelings or desolation; my adolescent rebellion against the culture and religion was taken by my dad as disrespect, or worse, lack of love. My coming to the topic of emotions was my sense that people keep deep inside themselves these emotions that can erupt. It was easy for me to see emotions as a property of the individual, because many of the ones I observed were stronger than warranted by the current situations or relationships. It was my childhood aspiration to become a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist who could help individuals whose emotions made them suffer. And I imagined that I could change these emotions by changing the person from the inside. My view of emotions as part of our deep inner lives was helped by a broader cultural focus on feelings. In Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) cultures, the 1960s and ’70s were the time of emancipation of feelings. Authenticity and freedom of choice reigned supreme, and so it was important to know what you really felt and really wanted. What moved you inside should determine how you lived. Soul- and emotion-searching were utterly important, because they would help you to make better choices. The focus was inward. My generation in WEIRD cultures questioned institutional rules, and put personal feelings and preferences center stage. I have done my share of soul-searching, and in my younger years I focused inward to find my emotions.

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

  "Ah, little villain," says she, "I've got you now and this time for good." "Oh, Madame! you?" I exclaim. "Here?" "Everything that has just transpired is my doing," the monster replies, " 'twas by arson I saved your life; and by a fire you're going to lose it: in order to catch you I'd have followed you to Hell had it been necessary. Monseigneur was furious, believe me, when he found out you had escaped; I get two hundred louis for every girl I procure him, and not only did he not want to pay me for Eulalie, but he menaced me with all his anger could produce were I to fail to bring you back. I discovered I'd missed you by two hours at Lyon; yesterday I reached Villefranche an hour after your arrival, I had the hotel burned by the henchmen I always have in my employ, I wanted to incinerate you or get you back; I've got you, I m returning you to a house your flight has plunged into trouble and unquiet, and I'm taking you there, Therese, to be treated in a cruel manner. Monseigneur swore he'd not have tortures terrible enough for you, and we'll not step from this carriage until we are at his seat. Well, Therese, what is your present opinion of Virtue ?" "Oh, Madame! that it is very frequently crime's prey; that it is happy when triumphant; but that it ought to be the unique object of the Heavenly God's rewards even though human atrocities bring about its downfall upon earth." "You've not long to wait before you know, Therese, whether there is really a God who punishes or recompenses the deeds of mortals.... Ah! if, in the eternal inexistence you are shortly going to enter, if 'twere possible to cogitate in that state of annihilation, how much you would regret the fruitless sacrifices your inflexible stubbornness has forced you to make to phantoms who have never doled out any but the wages of sorrow.... Therese, there is yet time left to you: if you wish to be my accomplice I'll save you, for, I avow, 'tis more than I can bear to see you break down ever and ever again upon Virtue's routes all beset by perils. What? are you not yet sufficiently punished for your good behavior and false principles? What kind of misery do you have to know in order to be persuaded to mend your ways? What then are the examples you require in order to be convinced the attitude you have adopted is the worst of all and that, as I have told you a hundred times over, one must expect nothing but calamity when, breasting the crowd's headlong stampede, one wishes to be virtuous and alone in a completely corrupt society.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  At the time, that sum could have bankrupted Scientology. That evening, Miscavige and other members of the church hierarchy had a gloomy meeting in a condo in Portland, Oregon. One of the executives vowed that Christofferson Titchbourne would never collect because he was going to kill her. “I don’t care if I get the chair,” he said. “It’s only one lifetime.” There was a lengthy silence, and then Miscavige said, “No, here’s what we’re going to do.” And on the spot, he came up with the Portland crusade. As many as 12,000 Scientologists came from all over the world in May and June 1985 to protest the judgment in what they called the Battle of Portland. Day after day they marched around the Multnomah County courthouse, shouting “Religious freedom now!” and carrying banners reading WE SHALL OVERCOME! Chick Corea flew in from Japan to play a concert, along with other musicians affiliated with the church, including Al Jarreau, Stanley Clarke, and Edgar Winter. Stevie Wonder phoned in and sang “I Just Called to Say I Love You” as the crowd cheered. The most notable presence in Portland was John Travolta. It was a decisive moment in his relationship with the religion. The church had made enormous efforts to persuade him to attend. Two years before the Portland crusade, Travolta had told Rolling Stone that although he still believed in Scientology, he had not had any auditing for the past year and a half. When asked if he was being exploited by the church to promote its cause, he responded, “I’ve been something of an ostrich about how it’s used me, because I haven’t investigated exactly what the organization’s done. One part of me says that if somebody gets some good out of it, maybe it’s all right. The other part of me says that I hope it uses some taste and discretion. I wish I could defend Scientology better, but I don’t think it even deserves to be defended, in a sense.” But here he was in Portland, unshaven and exhausted, having flown his own plane in at midnight for a two-hour visit. “Once in a while you have to stand up for what you believe in, and I’m here tonight, I’ve had counseling, I give counseling, and I don’t want to lose that,” he declared. “And it’s as simple as that.” The Portland march was one of the greatest triumphs in Scientology’s history, capped by the judge’s declaration of a mistrial. He ruled that Christofferson Titchbourne’s lawyers had presented prejudicial arguments to the jury by saying that Hubbard was a sociopath and that Scientology was not a religion but a terrorist organization.

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  Isaac helps me down the ladder. Since my attack on the door, my wrist has swollen to twice its size. “Keep it elevated and out of the hot water,” he says before I go into the bathroom. I find soap and shampoo under the sink. Generic stuff. The soap is white and smells like laundry. I keep the shower to five minutes even though I want to stay longer. The brownish water never gets really hot and it has a strange smell. I get out and dry myself with the lemon-colored towel that is hanging on the towel rack. Such a cheerful color. Such an ironic color. And so thoughtfully hung here for us. I rub at my arms and legs trying to capture all of the drops. Yellow to soften the blow of the snow and the prison and the abduction. Maybe whoever brought us here thought that the color of this towel would stave off depression. I drop it on the floor, disgusted. Then I laugh, hard and shrill. I hear Isaac knock lightly on the door. “You okay, Senna?” His voice is muffled. “I’m fine,” I call out. Then I laugh so hard and loud he opens the door and lets himself in. “I’m fine,” I say to his concerned face, trying to stifle my laughter. I catch the laughter behind my hand as tears begin to leak from my eyes. I’m laughing so hard I have to hold myself up by the sink. “I’m fine,” I gasp. “Isn’t that the craziest thing you’ve ever heard? Like I can be fine. Are you fine?” I see the muscles in his cheek flicker. His eye color is metallic, like a tin can. He reaches for me, but I bat his hand away. I’ve stopped laughing. “Don’t touch me.” I say it louder and harsher than I intended. He tucks his lips in and nods. He gets it. I’m crazy. No new revelations there. I sit on the bed with the knife and stare at the door while he takes his turn. If someone were to walk into the room right now, I’d be useless—knife or not. I feel like my body is here, but the rest of me is down a deep hole. I can’t reconcile the two. Isaac takes an even shorter shower than I do. I wake up a little when he gets out. He walks out in a towel and heads to the wardrobe. I see him looking at the clothes the same way I did. He doesn’t say anything, but he rubs the cotton of a black shirt between his thumb and forefinger. I shiver. Even if this did have something to do with one of my fans, why Isaac? I stare at the knife while he gets dressed in the bathroom.