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)

  They strove with might and main to make good their escape, but without success, for a fierce gale was blowing directly against them, which not only prevented them from leaving the bay but drove them of necessity to the shore. They eventually ran aground and were recognized by the Rhodian sailors, who by now were already ashore. One of these hurried off to inform the young Rhodian nobles, who had mean-while made their way to a nearby town, that the ship carrying Cimon and Iphigenia had, like their own, been driven into the bay by the storm. Overjoyed by these tidings, the young Rhodians assembled a large number of the townspeople and instantly returned to the shore. Cimon and his companions had meanwhile disembarked, intending to seek refuge in some neighbouring woods, but before they could do so they were all seized, along with Iphigenia, and led away to the town. Here they were held until Lysimachus, the chief magistrate of Rhodes in that particular year, came from the city and marched them all off to prison under a specially heavy armed escort, as arranged by Pasimondas, who had lodged a complaint with the Senate of Rhodes as soon as the news had reached him. And so it came about that the hapless Cimon lost his beloved Iphigenia almost as soon as he had won her, with nothing to show for his pains except one or two kisses. As for Iphigenia, she was given hospitality by various noble ladies of Rhodes, who restored her spirits from the shock of her abduction and the fatigue she had suffered in the tempest; and she remained with them until the day appointed for her wedding. Pasimondas urged with all his eloquence that Cimon and his companions should be put to death, but their lives were spared on account of having set the young Rhodians at liberty on the previous day, and they were condemned to spend the rest of their lives in prison. And there, as may readily be imagined, they led a wretched existence, and despaired of ever knowing happiness again. It was whilst Pasimondas was pressing zealously ahead with the preparations for his forthcoming marriage that Fortune, as though to make amends for the sudden blow she had dealt to Cimon’s hopes, devised a novel way of procuring him his liberty. Pasimondas had a brother, younger but no less eligible than himself, whose name was Ormisdas, and who for some time had been seeking to marry a beautiful young noblewoman of the city called Cassandra, with whom Lysimachus, the chief magistrate, was very deeply in love. But the marriage had been several times postponed because of some unexpected turn of events. Now, seeing that he was about to hold a huge reception to celebrate his own wedding, Pasimondas thought it would be an excellent idea to arrange for Ormisdas to be married at the same time, thus avoiding a second round of spending and feasting.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  I managed to wrap the children in blankets and carry them through the dark to the neighbors’. I remember blood dripping in the white falling snow. When I began dreaming of killing him with a broken vodka bottle, I knew I had to call an end to it. [image "6706.jpg" file=Image00008.jpg] [image "6709.jpg" file=Image00009.jpg] [image "6711.jpg" file=Image00010.jpg] One night after I had forced him to move out, he came looking for me. He’d been drinking for weeks. I asked my friend and her husband from Acomita to stay with the children and me that night for protection. We locked the doors and windows, visited around the kitchen table while we waited. He showed up a few hours after the bars closed. We heard his footsteps kick gravel in the yard. He tried the front door handle, then attempted to force it open. He knocked, calling my name softly, familiarly, asking me to let him in. Then he kicked the door, yelling, “I’m going to kill you!” He walked around to the back. He called out that he was pulling down the telephone wires so we couldn’t call the police. The house went dark. We lost electricity. He kicked in the back window. The glass shattered and he began attempting to crawl in. He was drunk and awkward. My friend’s husband entreated him in their tribal language to stop. The police came just as he got into the house. I watched, pained and relieved, as they shackled him. The electric cables crackled with power on the dirt lawn. The police had never seen anything like it. Anyone else would have been killed with all those volts of electricity. He appeared unhurt by the voltage and called out drunkenly to me from the back seat of the police car, “I love you, Joy. I love you.” I did not get him out of jail that time. I did not take him back. My dreams had warned me. I had taken him back many times, when he showed up freshly showered, smelling sweet, with sorry, charm, and flowers. I understood why women went back to their abusers. The monster wasn’t your real husband. He was a bad dream, an alien of sorts who took over the spirit of your beloved one. He entered and left your husband. It was your real love you welcomed back in. During that period my house became the safe house for many of my Indian women friends whose husbands and boyfriends were beating them. One night there were three or four of us camped out together. We listened to music, laughed, and cooked dinner. Our children ran around in the yard and played. After the children were put down to sleep, we sat in a circle and told our stories. One friend’s husband had broken her ribs. The last time he had beat her she was in the hospital with her jaw wired together. Because she was hospitalized for so long she lost a semester of credits.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now she must pay very dearly indeed for that inherent respect of the normal which nothing had ever been able to destroy, not even the long years of persecution—an added burden it was, handed down by the silent but watchful founders of Morton. She must pay for the instinct which, in earliest childhood, had made her feel something akin to worship for the perfect thing which 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 blessèd security and the peace of being released from the world’s persecution. And suddenly Martin appeared 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 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.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now there were days when Stephen herself would long for some palliative, some distraction; when her erstwhile success seemed like Dead Sea fruit, her will to succeed a grotesque presumption. Who was she to stand out against the whole world, against those ruthless, pursuing millions bent upon the destruction of her and her kind? And she but one poor, inadequate creature. She would start to pace up and down her study; up and down, up and down, a most desolate pacing; even as years ago her father had paced his quiet study at Morton. Then those treacherous nerves of hers would betray her, so that when Mary came in with David—he a little depressed, sensing something amiss—she would often turn on the girl and speak sharply. ‘Where on earth have you been?’ ‘Only out for a walk. I walked round to Jamie’s, Barbara’s not well; I sent her in a few tins of Brand’s jelly.’ ‘You’ve no right to go off without letting me know where you’re going—I’ve told you before I won’t have it!’ Her voice would be harsh, and Mary would flush, unaware of those nerves that were strained to breaking. As though grasping at something that remained secure, they would go to see the kind Mademoiselle Duphot, but less often than they had done in the past, for a feeling of guilt would come upon Stephen. Looking at the gentle and foal-like face with its innocent eyes behind the strong glasses, she would think: ‘We’re here under false pretences. If she knew what we were, she’d have none of us, either. Brockett was right, we should stick to our kind.’ So they went less and less to see Mademoiselle Duphot. Mademoiselle said with her mild resignation: ‘It is natural, for now our Stévenne is famous. Why should she waste her time upon us? I am more than content to have been her teacher.’ But the sightless Julie shook her head sadly: ‘It is not like that; you mistake, my sister. I can feel a great desolation in Stévenne-and some of the youngness has gone from Mary. What can it be? My fingers grow blind when I ask them the cause of that desolation.’ ‘I will pray for them both to the Sacred Heart which comprehends all things,’ said Mademoiselle Duphot. And indeed her own heart would have tried to understand—but Stephen had grown very bitterly mistrustful. And so now, in good earnest they turned to their kind, for as Puddle had truly divined in the past, it is ‘like to like’ for such people as Stephen. Thus when Pat walked in unexpectedly one day to invite them to join a party that night at the Ideal Bar, Stephen did not oppose Mary’s prompt and all too eager acceptance.

• 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 Crazy Brave (2012)

  My knowing told me that if I ran away, my life would turn even more chaotic. I saw my potential path as it ran from Tulsa to San Francisco. My lifeline was frayed and cut short. As I pondered my dilemma as a teenager, curled up in my bed in the dark of night, I could feel the bright sun of knowing way in the distance, as if it were rising over the mountain of my distress. The sun gave me another way to consider God. The God I knew radiated such light. I could not accept an image of God as an angry white man who looked like my stepfather or the preacher. The knowing told me there was another way. The knowing always spoke softly, wisely. I told myself that the idea of running away should feel freeing, like flying, like hippies dancing in a love-in in a San Francisco park, but as I continued to consider it, I felt instead a heaviness, a terrible grief. I’d felt that kind of grief when I woke up from a dream of dying while giving birth on a South Pacific island. In the dream I was in the story of a Polynesian girl. I speared food from the water. I loved the rhythm of the days. I remembered pig wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in an oven dug in the ground. I remembered how blue the ocean was. It was a blue rarely present now on Earth. I became pregnant. I had a premonition that the child and I would not survive. I went into labor, a labor that went on for more than two days. I died while giving birth. When I looked back as I turned toward the next world, I saw my exhausted rag of a body where I had cast it aside, and I saw the tiny body of my baby next to me. At school I discovered information on opportunities for Indian students to go to Indian boarding school. I told my mother that I wanted to go to a school with other Indian students, a place where I would belong, where I would be normal. I wanted a smaller school, and I wanted to be far away from my stepfather. (I didn’t tell her I wanted to escape my stepfather.) My mother took me to the Okmulgee Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs to apply. The personnel at the BIA office were kind and helpful. They knew my grandparents and spoke highly of my father’s family and their contributions to our tribal society. My mother and I began filling out the paperwork for me to attend the Chilocco Indian School. As we stood up at the end of the meeting with the agent, my

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  No one was moving about any more—there was only a dog, a dog called David. Something had to be done. Go into the bedroom, Stephen Gordon’s bedroom that faced on the courtyard . . . just a few short steps and then the window. A girl, hatless, with the sun falling full on her hair . . . she was almost running . . . she stumbled a little. But now there were two people down in the courtyard—a man had his hands on the girl’s bowed shoulders. He questioned her, yes, that was it, he questioned; and the girl was telling him why she was there, why she had fled from that thick, awful darkness. He was looking at the house, incredulous, amazed; hesitating as though he were coming in; but the girl went on and the man turned to follow . . . They were side by side, he was gripping her arm . . . They were gone; they had passed out under the archway. Then all in a moment the stillness was shattered: ‘Mary, come back! Come back to me, Mary!’ David crouched and trembled. He had crawled to the bed, and he lay there watching with his eyes of amber; trembling because such an anguish as this struck across him like the lash of a whip, and what could he do, the poor beast, in his dumbness? She turned and saw him, but only for a moment, for now the room seemed to be thronging with people. Who were they, these strangers with the miserable eyes? And yet, were they all strangers? Surely that was Wanda? And some one with a neat little hole in her side—Jamie clasping Barbara by the hand; Barbara with the white flowers of death on her bosom. Oh, but they were many, these unbidden guests, and they called very softly at first and then louder. They were calling her by name, saying: ‘Stephen, Stephen!’ The quick, the dead, and the yet unborn—all calling her, softly at first and then louder. Aye, and those lost and terrible brothers from Alec’s, they were here, and they also were calling: ‘Stephen, Stephen, speak with your God and ask Him why He has left us forsaken!’ She could see their marred and reproachful faces with the haunted, melancholy eyes of the invert—eyes that had looked too long on a world that lacked all pity and all understanding: ‘Stephen, Stephen, speak with your God and ask Him why He has left us forsaken!’ And these terrible ones started pointing at her with their shaking, white-skinned, effeminate fingers: ‘You and your kind have stolen our birthright; you have taken our strength and have given us your weakness!’ They were pointing at her with white, shaking fingers.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  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 cour- age 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 wellnigh 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 some- times 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. THE WELL OF LONELINESS 491 2 Ir 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.’ Then he said: “I’m going because I’m your friend and I love her . . . I must go because of our friendship, and because I think Mary’s grown to care for me.’ He thought Mary cared . . . Stephen got up slowly, and all of a sudden she was no more herself but the whole of her kind out to combat this man, out to vindicate their right to possess, out to prove that their courage was unshakable, that they neither ad- mitted of nor feared any rival.

• From Trash (1988)

  Waking up at dawn, I push myself out of bed, head for the bathroom, piss, rinse my mouth, and pull on shorts and a sweat-shirt. It’s seven steps down to the sidewalk from the side porch, and I take them at a run, pushing myself to get the momentum for running all the way up the hill to the campus. My head pounds and my throat hurts, and I have to grit my teeth to make myself run. I hate waking up after drinking wine, with that sick taste in my mouth. Cass says that wine is worse than whiskey, that it stays in your body longer and is harder on your kidneys. Cass talks a lot about her kidneys. She rolled her truck a few years ago—“bounced off that steering wheel, till I wished I’d’ve died”—and did herself some serious damage. Her kidneys are the worst of it, so that sometimes when she leans over to take a shot at the pool hall, her face will screw up and she’ll stand back quickly, and curse. “Hurts like a motherfucker,” she says. But she won’t stop drinking. “Got to drink to ease the pain,” she laughs. I don’t argue with her, not about her drinking anyway. We got enough to argue about without that. “You been seeing Cass awhile,” Anna said to me the other night. “Must be time she got fed up with me, then.” I kept my face turned away, picked up Ghost Dance and hugged her to my neck. “Well, if you going to go on the way you been, I expect it is.” Anna’s voice was low and sad. I watched her eyes track over to the pictures on her wall—old lovers and lost friends, she’d called it one night, her wall of grief. “I expect it is.” On the hill above the science building, the dogwood trees are in bloom. My legs shake when I stop and bend over. I hold my balance and stretch out slowly, feeling the sweat running down my back. My thighs tremble and my throat still aches. When I look over at the science building’s huge mirrored front, I can see myself reflected in the glass, my hair swinging in the sunlight, the wet grass shining under my shoes. I look tiny and hard, like a nail sticking up out of the ground.

• From Trash (1988)

  The warm beer gave me gas, and I’d sit up on one of the tables and entertain the monkeys with rock and roll punctuated with burps. I sang the love songs the loudest, emphasizing the female pronouns by slapping the table. The monkeys were remarkably quiet, only getting noisy if I beat the table too long. They stared at me out of infinitely wise and patient faces. I poured them all a little beer and smeared peanut butter on their feed trays. They loved the peanut butter and chewed with great wide-smacking sounds. I knew I could trust them. They wouldn’t tell my secrets to anybody. “The problem is . . .” I told them, checking first to be sure the door was locked. “The problem is I don’t love her. I want to love her. I want to love somebody. I want to go crazy with love, eat myself up with love. Starve myself, strangle and die with love, like everybody else. Like the rest of the whole goddamned world. I want to be like the rest of the world.” I went up and put my hands flat against one of the cages. The monkey inside, old and hunched and gray, watched me with eyes that seemed to be all whites. “But I’m not,” I whispered. I was drunk, but I was telling the truth. “I’m not like anyone else in the whole wide world. And all I want of Toni is just a little piece now and then. A little controlled piece that she won’t mind giving me, that she wants to give me. You understand? I don’t want nothing too serious. I don’t want to need her too much. I don’t want to need her at all.” Those wide blank eyes looked back at me. I could see myself in the black centers, my hair wild and uncombed around my face, my own eyes as wide as the monkey’s, as blank, the pupils as black and empty as night. My mouth worked, and in the blackness I saw my own teeth—clenching, shining, grinding. My teeth scared me right down into my soul. I stole all the dimes from the petty cash drawer and called Toni from the pay phone in the dorm. She listened to me babble and made soft soothing noises into my ears. “It’s all right, baby. I understand. Don’t none of us want to be too alone if we can help it, now and then.”

• From Trash (1988)

  A full bottle of vodka will kill you when you’re nine and the bottle is a quart. It was a third cousin proved that. We learned what that and other things could do. Every year there was something new. You’re growing up. My big girl. There was codeine in the cabinet, paregoric for the baby’s teeth, whiskey, beer, and wine in the house. Jeanne brought home MDA, PCP, acid; Randall, grass, speed, and mescaline. It all worked to dull things down, to pass the time. Stealing was a way to pass the time. Things we needed, things we didn’t, for the nerve of it, the anger, the need. You’re growing up, we told each other. But sooner or later, we all got caught. Then it was When Are You Going to Learn? Caught, nightmares happened. “Razorback desperate” was the conclusion of the man down at the county farm where Mark and Luke were sent at fifteen. They both got their heads shaved, their earlobes sliced. What’s the matter, kid? Can’t you take it? Caught at sixteen, June was sent to Jessup County Girls’ Home, where the baby was adopted out and she slashed her wrists on the bedsprings. Lou got caught at seventeen and held in the station downtown, raped on the floor of the holding tank. Are you a boy or are you a girl? On your knees, kid, can you take it? Caught at eighteen and sent to prison, Jack came back seven years later blank-faced, understanding nothing. He married a quiet girl from out of town, had three babies in four years. Then Jack came home one night from the textile mill, carrying one of those big handles off the high-speed spindle machine. He used it to beat them all to death and went back to work in the morning. Cousin Melvina married at fourteen, had three kids in two and a half years, and welfare took them all away. She ran off with a carnival mechanic, had three more babies before he left her for a motorcycle acrobat. Welfare took those, too. But the next baby was hydrocephalic, a little waterhead they left with her, and the three that followed, even the one she used to hate so—the one she had after she fell off the porch and couldn’t remember whose child it was. “How many children do you have?” I asked her. “You mean the ones I have, or the ones I had? Four,” she told me, “or eleven.”

• From Trash (1988)

  A full bottle of vodka will kill you when you’re nine and the bottle is a quart. It was a third cousin proved that. We learned what that and other things could do. Every year there was something new. You’re growing up. My big girl. There was codeine in the cabinet, paregoric for the baby’s teeth, whiskey, beer, and wine in the house. Jeanne brought home MDA, PCP, acid; Randall, grass, speed, and mescaline. It all worked to dull things down, to pass the time. Stealing was a way to pass the time. Things we needed, things we didn’t, for the nerve of it, the anger, the need. You’re growing up, we told each other. But sooner or later, we all got caught. Then it was When Are You Going to Learn? Caught, nightmares happened. “Razorback desperate” was the conclusion of the man down at the county farm where Mark and Luke were sent at fifteen. They both got their heads shaved, their earlobes sliced. What’s the matter, kid? Can’t you take it? Caught at sixteen, June was sent to Jessup County Girls’ Home, where the baby was adopted out and she slashed her wrists on the bedsprings. Lou got caught at seventeen and held in the station downtown, raped on the floor of the holding tank. Are you a boy or are you a girl? On your knees, kid, can you take it? Caught at eighteen and sent to prison, Jack came back seven years later blank-faced, understanding nothing. He married a quiet girl from out of town, had three babies in four years. Then Jack came home one night from the textile mill, carrying one of those big handles off the high-speed spindle machine. He used it to beat them all to death and went back to work in the morning. Cousin Melvina married at fourteen, had three kids in two and a half years, and welfare took them all away. She ran off with a carnival mechanic, had three more babies before he left her for a motorcycle acrobat. Welfare took those, too. But the next baby was hydrocephalic, a little waterhead they left with her, and the three that followed, even the one she used to hate so—the one she had after she fell off the porch and couldn’t remember whose child it was. “How many children do you have?” I asked her. “You mean the ones I have, or the ones I had? Four,” she told me, “or eleven.”

• From Trash (1988)

  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. By day I played at being what the people who were training me thought I was—a college graduate and a serious worker, a woman settling down to a practical career with the Social Security Administration. I imagined that if I played at it long enough, it might become true, but I felt like an actress in the role for which she was truly not suited. It took all my concentration not to laugh at inappropriate moments and to keep my mouth shut when I did not know what to say at all. There was only one thing I could do that helped me through those weeks. Every evening I sat down with a yellow legal-size pad, writing out the story of my life. I wrote it all: everything I could remember, all the stories I had ever been told, the names, places, images—how blood had arched up the wall one terrible night that recurred persistently in my dreams—the dreams themselves, the people in the dreams. My stepfather, my uncles and cousins, my desperate aunts and their more desperate daughters.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Ah! woe is me,’ cried the lady. ‘I pray to God that only my worst enemies should acquire beauty by such means as this! But how could you be so cruel as to torture me in this fashion? What greater punishment could you or anyone else have inflicted upon me, if I had caused your entire kith and kin to the a lingering death? Of this at least I am certain, that no traitor who had put a whole city to the slaughter could have been more barbarously treated than I have, for not only do you cause me to be roasted in the sun and devoured by flies, but you refuse me a beaker of water, when even a condemned murderer on his way to the gallows will frequently be given wine to drink if only he asks for it. However, since I see you are determined to be quite ruthless, and my suffering cannot move you in the slightest, I shall now prepare to die with resignation, so that God may have mercy on my soul, and I pray that He will observe what you have done and judge you accordingly.’ Having uttered these words, she crawled in terrible agony, being convinced that she would never survive the intense heat, towards the centre of the platform, where, quite apart from her other torments, she felt that she would swoon from thirst at any moment. And all the time, she was wailing loudly and bemoaning her misfortunes. Finally, however, with the approach of evening, the scholar, feeling he had done enough, sent for her clothes and wrapped them in his servant’s cloak, after which he made his way to the hapless lady’s house, where he found her maid sitting sadly and forlornly on the doorstep, not knowing what she should do. ‘My good woman,’ he said, ‘tell me, what has become of your mistress?’ ‘Sir,’ replied the maidservant, ‘I cannot rightly say. I was convinced that I saw her going to bed last night, and thought I should find her there this morning. But she was nowhere to be seen, and I have no idea what has become of her. I am dreadfully worried about her, but perhaps you, sir, have brought me some news of her whereabouts?’ ‘Would to God,’ replied the scholar, ‘that I had been able to put you in the place where I have put your mistress, so that I could punish you for your sins as I have punished your mistress for hers! But I assure you that you shan’t escape from my clutches until I have paid you back with so much interest that you’ll never make a fool of any man again without remembering me first.’ Then, turning to his servant, he said: ‘Give her these clothes and tell her to go and fetch her, if she wants to.’

• 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 Decameron (1353)

  On perceiving from the scholar’s words that he was determined to wreak vengeance upon her, the hapless lady burst once more into tears, and said: ‘Since nothing pertaining to me can move you to pity me, at least be moved by the love you bear this other lady, who is so much wiser than myself, and by whom you claim to be loved. Forgive me for her sake, fetch me my clothes so that I may dress, and let me come down.’ Whereupon the scholar burst out laughing, and observing that it was already well past the hour of tierce, he replied: ‘Ah, how can I refuse your request, now that you have appealed to me in her name? Tell me where your clothes are, so that I can go and fetch them and arrange for you to descend.’ The lady took him seriously and, feeling somewhat reassured, described to him exactly where she had hidden her clothes, whereupon the scholar issued forth from the tower and ordered his servant not to move away from the spot, but to stay close to the tower and do his best to see that no one set foot inside it until he returned. And having given him these instructions, he made his way to his friend’s house, where in due course, after eating a most leisurely meal, he retired for a siesta. The lady continued to lie on the roof of the tower, foolishly entertaining some faint hope of a speedy end to her predicament, until, feeling exceedingly sore, she sat up and crawled over to that section of the parapet which afforded a little shade from the sun, where she settled down to wait with no other company than her own bitter thoughts. By turns brooding and weeping, now hoping and now despairing of the scholar’s return with her clothes, her mind flitting from one doleful reflection to the next, she eventually succumbed to her grief, and since she had been awake for the whole of the previous night, she fell into a deep slumber. The sun was positively blazing, and having reached its zenith, was beating freely down, with all its power, straight on to her soft and tender body and on to her unprotected head, so that not only did it scorch every part of her flesh that was exposed to its rays, but it caused her skin to split into countless tiny cracks and fissures. And so intense was the roasting she received that although she was soundly asleep, it forced her to wake up.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  Yet he was affectionate. He came to pick her up from school once with their pet goat in the back of the truck. I watched them laughing as they drove away together. She left the circle that night because she got a call from her mother. Her husband had come for the children and she had to protect them from his anger. There were no safe houses or domestic abuse shelters then, especially for native women. We weren’t supposed to be talking about personal difficulties when our peoples were laying down their lives for the cause. We were to put aside all of our domestic problems for the good of our tribal nations and devote our energies to our homes and to justice. These fathers, boyfriends, and husbands were all men we loved, and were worthy of love. As peoples we had been broken. We were still in the bloody aftermath of a violent takeover of our lands. Within a few generations we had gone from being nearly one hundred percent of the population of this continent to less than one-half of one percent. We were all haunted. [image "6706.jpg" file=Image00008.jpg] [image "6709.jpg" file=Image00009.jpg] [image "6711.jpg" file=Image00010.jpg] After he left I sometimes partied on the weekends. One early morning I realized I was partying into the weekday. The knowing lifted me far above the car in which I was a passenger as we traveled from one bar to another. This is what your life will look like in a few years if you take this path, said the knowing. On one path I saw myself in a never-ending party. I would wake up every morning promising myself to change. Today will be the day, I would tell myself, and then I would open up another beer to deaden my knowing. I took the other path. Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world. Then we took it for granted. Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind. Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head. And once Doubt ruptured the web, all manner of demon thoughts jumped through. We destroyed the world we had been given for inspira- tion, for life. Each stone of jealousy, each stone of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light. No one was without a stone in his or her hand. There we were, right back where we had started. We were bumping into each other in the dark. And now we had no place to live, since we didn’t know how to live with each other. Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another and shared her blanket. A spark of kindness made a light. The light made an opening in the darkness. Everyone worked together to make a ladder. A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world. Now, follow them. Everyone is carrying a light that was given to be shared.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  So finding himself down there in the alley, Andreuccio, cursing his bad luck, began calling out to the boy. But as soon as he had heard him falling, the boy had hurried off to tell his mistress, who rushed into her room and made a rapid search for Andreuccio’s clothes. These she found, together with his money, which being a doubting sort of fellow he stupidly carried with him wherever he went. And so it was that this woman of Palermo, this self-styled sister of a Perugian, obtained the prize for which she had laid her trap. Being no longer interested in Andreuccio, she quickly went and locked the door through which he had passed just before he fell. Receiving no answer from the boy, Andreuccio began to call more loudly, but it was of no use. His suspicions being already aroused, he began, now that it was too late, to see how he had been hoodwinked, and having climbed a low wall dividing the alleyway from the road, he scrambled down into the street and went up to the front-door, which he was easily able to identify. He stood there for ages, vainly calling out, and shaking and beating the door for all he was worth. Finally, plainly perceiving the predicament he was in, he burst into tears and said to himself: ‘Oh, poor me! What a sudden way to lose five hundred florins and a sister!’ He said a lot more besides, then began to shout and to pummel on the door all over again, creating such a disturbance that he woke a number of the people living nearby, who got up out of bed as they could not endure the racket. One of the woman’s maids came to the window, all bleary-eyed, and said in tones of annoyance: ‘Who is knocking down there?’ ‘Oh,’ said Andreuccio, ‘don’t you recognize me? I am Andreuccio, the brother of Madonna Fiordaliso.’4 ‘My good man,’ she replied, ‘if you have had too much to drink, go and sleep it off and come back in the morning. I don’t know any Andreuccio; you are talking nonsense. Be off with you, for goodness’ sake, and let us sleep.’ ‘What!’ said Andreuccio. ‘Talking nonsense, am I? You know very well I’m not. But if it’s really true that Sicilians make a habit of discovering blood-relatives and then forgetting all about them, at least give me back the clothes I left there, and I’ll go away gladly.’ ‘My good man,’ she said, hardly able to contain her laughter, ‘you must be dreaming.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  All of this was so difficult for Nastagio to bear that he was frequently seized, after much weeping and gnashing of teeth, with the longing to kill himself out of sheer despair. But, having stayed his hand, he would then decide that he must give her up altogether, or learn if possible to hate her as she hated him. All such resolutions were unavailing, however, for the more his hopes dwindled, the greater his love seemed to grow. As the young man persisted in wooing the girl and spending money like water, certain of his friends and relatives began to feel that he was in danger of exhausting both himself and his inheritance. They therefore implored and advised him to leave Ravenna and go to live for a while in some other place, with the object of curtailing both his wooing and his spending. Nastagio rejected this advice as often as it was offered, but they eventually pressed him so hard that he could not refuse them any longer, and agreed to do as they suggested. Having mustered an enormous baggage-train, as though he were intending to go to France or Spain or some other remote part of the world, he mounted his horse, rode forth from Ravenna with several of his friends, and repaired to a place which is known as Classe, some three miles distant from the city. Having sent for a number of tents and pavilions, he told his companions that this was where he intended to stay, and that they could all go back to Ravenna. So Nastagio pitched his camp in this place, and began to live in as fine and lordly a fashion as any man ever born, from time to time inviting various groups of friends to dine or breakfast with him, as had always been his custom.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘I was a fellow citizen of yours, Nastagio, my name was Guido degli Anastagi, and you were still a little child when I fell in love with this woman. I loved her far more deeply than you love that Traversari girl of yours, but her pride and cruelty led me to such a pass that, one day, I killed myself in sheer despair with this rapier that you see in my hand, and thus I am condemned to eternal punishment. My death pleased her beyond measure, but shortly thereafter she too died, and because she had sinned by her cruelty and by gloating over my sufferings, and was quite unrepentant, being convinced that she was more of a saint than a sinner, she too was condemned to the pains of Hell. No sooner was she cast into Hell than we were both given a special punishment, which consisted in her case of fleeing before me, and in my own of pursuing her as though she were my mortal enemy rather than the woman with whom I was once so deeply in love. Every time I catch up with her, I kill her with this same rapier by which I took my own life; then I slit her back open, and (as you will now observe for yourself) I tear from her body that hard, cold heart to which neither love nor pity could ever gain access, and together with the rest of her entrails I cast it to these dogs to feed upon. ‘Within a short space of time, as ordained by the power and justice of God, she springs to her feet as though she had not been dead at all, and her agonizing flight begins all over again, with the dogs and myself in pursuit. Every Friday at this hour I overtake her in this part of the woods, and slaughter her in the manner you are about to observe; but you must not imagine that we are idle for the rest of the week, because on the remaining days I hunt her down in other places where she was cruel to me in thought and deed. As you can see for yourself, I am no longer her lover but her enemy, and in this guise I am obliged to pursue her for the same number of years as the months of her cruelty towards me. Stand aside, therefore, and let me carry out the judgement of God. Do not try to oppose what you cannot prevent.’