Disappointment

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 Trash (1988)

  I don’t like her, I thought, and it surprised me to realize that. We slept together once, when I had just moved in. It had been an awkward night. She’d made a point of stopping me when I’d slid down her body, telling me she really didn’t like oral sex, and she’d shrieked when I’d pushed one finger between her labia. “Don’t do that,” she whispered, pulling up and planting her pubic mound firmly against my hip. What she wanted to do was climb on top of me and rock against me until she’d made herself come. “Tribadism,” I’d named it, trying to position myself so that I could enjoy it as much as she did. I really wanted to taste her, to put my tongue between her thighs, into her armpits, under her chin and behind her ears. Her hipbone hurt me and she kept lifting her torso so that I couldn’t even feel the lush heat of her full breasts. I wrestled for a while, licking her salty neck, wanting to bite her and imagining that she was enjoying my tongue. “Christ! You’re making me sticky,” Judy complained. She never stopping talking even while she was grinding her labia into my hipbone. “. . . I’m going to Gainesville on Wednesday. . . . Oh! Want to talk to Jackie about going with me . . . oh . . . you too maybe . . . oh . . . oh . . . horses . . . want to go riding . . . want to go riding with me . . . I love to ride . . . Oh!” It made me crazy, as if sex were a set of calisthenics one did to trigger sleep. When she came, she went rigid and silent, her body rising up and off of me stiffly, her eyes unfocused. I wondered what she thought then, but didn’t ask. When she came back to herself, she rolled over as if it were now my turn to climb on top and do the same. I pretended to fall asleep instead just to get her to be quiet, to lie still beside me while I rested my hands on the soft swell of her hips and watched the streetlight flicker as the wind blew the leaves around on the trees outside. She was a lawyer’s daughter from Miami and not a bad person. Not a bad person at all, I told myself, just different from me, very different from me. It wasn’t until I watched her sitting on Anna’s bed, waving the smoke out of her face and going on and on, that I realized I had been mad at Judy, was still mad at her, and that actually she was probably mad at me. I hadn’t really spoken much to her since we’d climbed out of bed that next morning.

• From Trash (1988)

  My stepfather never drove fast, and not a one of us could sing worth a damn. My sisters howled and screeched, my mama’s voice broke like she, too, dreamed of Teresa Brewer, and my stepfather made sounds that would have scared cows. None of them cared, and I tried not to let it bother me. I’d put my head out the window and howl for all I was worth. The wind filled my mouth and the roar obscured the fact that I sang as badly as any of them. Sometimes at the house I’d even go sing into the electric fan. It made my voice buzz and waver like a slide guitar, an effect I particularly liked, though Mama complained it gave her a headache and would give me an earache if I didn’t cut it out. I took the fan out on the back porch and sang to myself. Maybe I wouldn’t get to be the star on the stage, maybe I’d wind up singing background in a “family”—all of us dressed alike in electric blue fringed blouses with silver embroidery. All I needed was a chance to turn my soulful brown eyes on a tent full of believers, sing out the little break in my mournful voice. I knew I could make them love me. There was a secret to it, but I would find it out. If Shannon Pearl could do it to me, I would find a way to do it to the world. I had the idea that because she was so ugly on the outside, it was only reasonable that Shannon would turn out to be saintlike when you got to know her. That was the way it would have been in any storybook the local ladies’ society would have let me borrow. I thought of Little Women, The Bobbsey Twins, and all those novels about poor British families at Christmas. Tiny Tim, for Christ’s sake! Shannon, I was sure, would be like that. A patient and gentle soul had to be hidden behind those pale and sweaty features. She would be generous, insightful, understanding, and wise beyond her years. She would be the friend I had always needed. That she was none of these was something I could never quite accept. Once she relaxed with me, Shannon invariably told horrible stories, most of which were about the gruesome deaths of innocent children. “. . . And then the tractor backed up over him, cutting his body in three pieces, but nobody seen it or heard it, you see, ’cause of the noise the thresher made. So then his mama come out with iced tea for everybody. And she put her foot down right in his little torn-open stomach. And oh Lord! Don’t you know ...”

• From Trash (1988)

  So quick and sudden she moved, it seemed as if the beer never even touched her tongue, as if her thirst were all for the feel of it hitting her stomach, and not to ease the bitterness in her mouth. “I an’t no kid. I got two kids of my own, after all. And hell, I went through all this with Richard, thinking that we were different, that we were special.” There were tears in her eyes, I saw, waiting there, not falling but shining. She kept moving her head, shaking her hair and pushing it up again. “Only special thing in the world is the lies we tell ourselves, make ourselves believe. Stupid, stupid bitches always thinking this time it’s different.” Too much for me, I thought, sighed and tilted my glass to match the speed with which she threw back hers. I drank with her one for one, until dizziness made my hands loose on the glass, and I knew I had to slow it down. Liz didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were turned in on herself and her sudden laughs never altered her expression. Liz knew things about me no one else did, and because of that had a right to call me up in the night and ask for help. We had never been lovers, but we had always been friends. She had known me when I was in college, when I was the only lesbian she’d ever met. She had given me enough help when I had needed it, even cleaned me up and asked no questions one night when I showed up on her doorstep, my nose running blood and my clothes all torn. I had introduced her to Jackie and helped her move when she decided to leave her husband, but I couldn’t think of what to say to her now. “Everybody fights, lovers more than anyone else,” I tried to tell her. “It’s part of wanting so much from each other. Sometimes you crawl all over each other’s nerves without intending to. . . .” She didn’t seem to hear me. She was watching the men around us, and not looking at me at all. “Richard says if I come back, we’ll move out to the land co-op and have our own house up by next spring,” she said finally. The wine in my mouth went sour with the thought of Richard, with his smug little smile and those copies of the Militant he always had tucked under one arm. The man was fatuous and self-congratulatory in a way that ate at my insides, going on and on about the laboring classes while living off the income of an apartment building his daddy had turned over to him after graduation. “Pond scum” I’d called him once, a line Jackie had repeated to him with great relish.

• From Trash (1988)

  Not till I had glorified His Name and bought my mama a yellow Cadillac and a house on Old Henderson Road. Jesus, make me a gospel singer, I prayed, while Teresa sang of what might have been God, and then again might have been some black-eyed man. Make me, oh make me! But Jesus must have been busy with Teresa ’cause my voice went high and shrill every time I got excited, and cracked and went hoarse if I tried to croon. The preacher at Bushy Creek Baptist wouldn’t even let me stand near the choir to turn the pages of a hymnal. Without a voice like Teresa’s or June Carter’s, I couldn’t sing gospel. I could just listen to it and watch the gray-headed ladies cry. It was an injustice I could not understand or forgive. It left me with a wild aching hunger in my heart and a deep resentment I hid from everyone but God. My friend Shannon Pearl had the same glint of hunger in her watery pink eyes. An albino, perennially six inches shorter than me, Shannon had white skin, white hair, pale eyes, and fine blue blood vessels showing against the ivory of her scalp. Blue threads under the linen, her mama was always saying. Sometimes, Shannon seemed strangely beautiful to me, as she surely was to her mother. Sometimes, but not often. Not often at all. But every chance she could get, Mrs. Pearl would sit her daughter between her knees and purr over that gossamer hair and puffy pale skin. “My little angel,” Mrs. Pearl would croon, and my stomach would push up against my heart. It was a lesson in the power of love. Looking back at me from between her mother’s legs, Shannon was wholly monstrous, a lurching hunched creature shining with sweat and smug satisfaction. There had to be something wrong with me I was sure, the way I went from awe to disgust where Shannon was concerned. When Shannon sat between her mama’s legs or chewed licorice strings her daddy held out for her, I purely hated her. But when other people would look at her hatefully or the boys up at Lee Highway would call her “Lard Eyes,” I felt a fierce and protective love for her as if she were more my sister than Reese. I felt as if I belonged to her in a funny kind of way, as if her “affliction” put me deeply in her debt.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  We left the hospital as soon as possible. My son would flourish on beans and cornbread, and on the dreams and stories we fed him. [image "6706.jpg" file=Image00008.jpg] [image "6709.jpg" file=Image00009.jpg] [image "6711.jpg" file=Image00010.jpg] My mother-in-law blamed me for the fix her son was in. He had returned from his studies in the postgraduate program at Indian school with no job prospects and with yet another pregnant teenage wife who shifted his fortunes. I was the other woman in her life, the reason for his lack of success, for her suffering. I had the one man bound to her by blood and guilt, a sticky bond. Every man she had been with had given her a child, then abandoned her, including her son, who had left her with his daughter while he went to school in the Southwest. I was now in the way, and she took every opportunity to remind me. She threw nothing away. Every item of clothing that her children had ever worn, every toy they had ever played with, every piece of paper with their names on it, she packed into boxes she piled high in her house, to the ceiling. She would not throw away her son because of a strange, foolish girl. I wasn’t pleased about the situation either. None of this had figured into my map for a life, though I must admit the map was never clearly drawn. My path meandered according to the whim of failed adults and chance. It headed wanly toward the life of a painter, like my Aunt Lois, who traveled from the Creek Nation all over the country without the encumbrance of a husband or children and had the money to buy paint, canvas, and a car. Living as an artist was as close to my now limited universe as the planet Mars. Despite all my attempts at flight, I couldn’t afford art supplies, not even a junked car. Strange things would happen around the house in the dark. One night one of my mother-in-law’s enemies came to her as a bird. It sat in a tree outside the living room window. I’ll always remember the haunting cry, like the peculiar howl of the dog in my family that always foretold a death. It sent shivers through all of us. When I heard the bird calling and calling, I picked up my newly born son and took his older sister into my arms, while my mother-in-law sent out her son with a gun. She told him to get rid of it, that she knew who it was. I hummed to the children louder and louder. We heard the shot fired into the tree. The haunting singing abruptly stopped. Shortly after, my husband, the children, and I moved to Tulsa. My mother-in-law followed with her daughter and moved in next door. [image "6706.jpg" file=Image00008.jpg] [image "6709.jpg" file=Image00009.jpg] [image "6711.jpg" file=Image00010.jpg] Each day was predictable.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In November, 1553, he gladly accepted a call to Würtemberg as counsellor of Duke Christopher, one of the best princes of the sixteenth century, and spent his remaining twelve years in the Duke’s service. He resided in Tübingen, but had no official connection with the University. He continued to write with his rapid pen inflammatory tracts against popery, promoted the translation and distribution of the Bible in the South Slavonic dialect, maintained an extensive correspondence, and was used in various diplomatic and evangelical missions to the Emperor Maximilian at Vienna, to the kings of Bohemia, and Poland. On his first journey to Poland he made the personal acquaintance of Albert, Duke of Prussia, who esteemed him highly and supplied him with funds. He entered into correspondence with Queen Elizabeth, in the vain hope of an invitation to England. He desired to be sent as delegate to the religious conference at Poissy in France, 1561, but was again disappointed. He paid four visits to the Grisons (November, 1561; March, 1562; May, 1563; and April, 1564), to counteract the intrigues of the Spanish and papal party, and to promote the harmony of the Swiss Church with that of Würtemberg. On his second visit he went as far as the Valtellina. He received an informal invitation to attend the Council of Trent in 1561 from Delfino, the papal nuncio, in the hope that he might be induced to recant; he was willing to go at the risk of meeting the fate of Hus at Constance, but on condition of a safe conduct, which was declined.238 At last he wished to unite with the Bohemian Brethren, whom he admired for their strict discipline combined with pure doctrine; he translated and published their Confession of Faith. He was in constant need of money, and his many begging letters to the Dukes of Würtemberg and of Prussia make a painful impression; but we must take into account the printing expenses of his many books, his frequent journeys, and the support of three nephews and a niece. In his fifty-ninth year he conceived the plan of contracting a marriage, and asked the Duke to double his allowance of two hundred guilders, but the request was declined and the marriage given up.239 He died Oct. 4, 1565, at Tübingen, and was buried there. Dr. Andreae, the chief author of the Lutheran Formula of Concord, preached the funeral sermon, which the learned Crusius took down in Greek. Duke Christopher erected a monument to his memory with a eulogistic inscription.240

• From Trash (1988)

  I smile determinedly and take another drag. About five years ago Paula won an award for her presentation to the therapists’ collective on how fingernail biting was a form of subliminal alcoholic behavior. Since then she’s become the world’s expert on addictive behavior, talking on the radio and writing a pithy little column for the local women’s paper. Margaret jokes that Paula can spot addiction indicators faster than most people can locate a taxi. It gets tiresome for her old friends, but most of us pretend to ignore it. Occasionally Margaret and I even talk about how tolerant we all seem to have become of each other. “It’s getting older,” Margaret thinks. I tell her that all that has happened is that we’ve worn each other down. It’s a conversation we have often, every time Paula or Jackie does something that gets us mad, and Margaret and I have a tacit agreement to head off arguments when we can. This time Margaret fails me. “Paula’s right,” she says, pausing to lick salt off the rim of her glass. “You really ought to take a close look at yourself, girl.” “Don’t want to get too introspective.” I pull smoke deep into my lungs and try to look amused rather than brooding. Margaret’s eyebrows go up quizzically, and I know it’s time to get to the point of this little gathering. “I thought we were here to talk about Jackie.” That sets Margaret to nodding. “Oh Lord, don’t tell me.” Paula leans forward in her seat and grips her wineglass more tightly. “What’s she done now?” “It’s the worst. You won’t believe it.” Margaret’s voice is a little loud and excited. Twin spots of flush pink appear high on her cheekbones. She signals the waiter for another margarita and puts her right hand on Paula’s free wrist. “She’s paying the whole bill for the arbitrator. She’s decided it’s her own fault after all.” “Oh, that’s ridiculous!”

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  unique school for native arts, like the New York City Fame school but for Indian students. Almost overnight the staff, mostly established BIA employees, were asked to accommodate a fine arts curriculum and faculty—an assortment of idealistic and dedicated artists, both Indian and non-Indian. We were given materials and encouraged to create, as we often did until three or four in the morning. Then we were awakened at exactly five-thirty A.M. by the dorm staff to report to details, jobs that included working in the kitchen and cleaning studios and offices. Then we went to our classes. The most accomplished native and non-native artists taught our classes. Otellie Lolama, Hopi, taught traditional pottery; Fritz Scholder, Mission, taught painting; Allan Houser, Apache, taught sculpture; and Rolland Meinholtz, a Cherokee descendant, taught dramatic arts. The academic classes were different. We had either stellar teachers who taught because they felt they could make a difference and loved what they were doing or those who signed on with the BIA because it was their last chance. In one of my junior English classes we read aloud from fourth-grade readers. I always remember the story in that reader about a banker in a city in the Midwest who swept his sidewalk every morning before opening his bank. I looked around at our class. Many were gifted storytellers and speakers, but not in the English language. We were insulted and bored by the poor selection of materials. We could see that the teacher truly cared, but he didn’t know what to do with a class of students with widely varying skills in the use of English. Reading aloud is the last thing you’d ask a class of shy Indian students to do. It was a painful process. While the story was read word by word, student by student, the rest of us wrote notes and poems and sent drawings to each other. My poetry notes were rhymed doggerel, mostly rude commentary. I was soon removed from class and sent to study solo with a young Jesuit priest who had come through town to visit the school before returning to Holy Rosary Mission in South Dakota. When the school urgently needed a teacher to fill in, he agreed and stayed over to teach through the spring. As I walked into his classroom that first day, I was hidden in my navy pea coat and long dark hair that always clouded my face. Father-to-be John Staudenmaier saw into me and took care of my spirit. He gave me the freedom to read what I wanted. The only requirement was that I observe carefully and write about my

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  “I was so excited for her to come home, because I was about to get married and I wanted to show her pictures of the wedding dress I had picked out, and to talk about wedding stuff. But when they got home from dinner it was obvious she and Allen had had a fight. I could tell she had been crying. I was really disappointed, but I knew that I should leave. I had given her a music box for her birthday. I remember she wound it up and put it on the TV stand, and we listened to it for a minute, then I kissed the baby good-bye and left. That was the last time I ever saw my sister.” On the morning of the July 24, Pioneer Day, Dan got up, prayed, and felt prompted by the Lord to saw the barrel and stock off a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun that he had been storing at his mother’s house. While he used a hacksaw to cut down the weapon in Claudine’s garage, Ron, Ricky Knapp, and Chip Carnes loaded their belongings into the Impala. Among the items they placed in the car were a .30-30 Winchester and a .270 deer rifle. As they were lashing some items onto the vehicle’s roof, a troubled Carnes told Ron, “I don’t see any reason for anybody to kill any baby.” Ron replied that Erica was a “child of perdition” and therefore needed to be removed. In any case, Ron added, not only had God specifically named the baby in His commandment, but after Brenda was killed, the baby wouldn’t have a mother, so it would in fact be a blessing if Erica were removed along with her mom. When the station wagon was loaded, the four men climbed in, with Dan at the wheel, and drove over to Mark Lafferty’s farm to pick up another weapon, a 20-gauge shotgun, which Dan had loaned to Mark a few years earlier. Mark handed the gun to Ron, and as he did so he asked, skeptically, “What are you going to do with that?” “I’m going hunting,” Ron said. Knowing that no game was in season, Mark countered, “What are you going to hunt?” “Any fucking thing,” Ron answered, “that gets in my way.” Ron, Dan, Knapp, and Carnes then drove off in the Impala to shoot the guns at a nearby gravel quarry; Ron wanted to “sight them in,” which involved shooting at cans and then adjusting each weapon’s sights to ensure its accuracy at a given distance. When they got to the quarry and started firing, however, they discovered that they’d brought the wrong ammunition for the deer rifle: it had a .270-caliber bore, but the only shells they had were .243 caliber, too small to be fired in that particular weapon. They decided to go back to Mark’s house and see if he knew where Ron’s .243-caliber rifle was.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  His apparent inconsistency is due to a change of the times rather than to a change of his conviction. Like Erasmus, he remained a humanist, who hoped for a reformation from a revival of letters rather than theology and religion, and therefore hailed the beginning, but lamented the progress, of the Lutheran movement.563 Broken by disease, affliction, and disappointment, he died in the year of the Augsburg Confession, Dec. 22, 1530, praying for the prosperity of the fatherland and the peace of the church. He left unfinished an edition of Ptolemy’s Geography, which Erasmus published with a preface. Shortly before his death, Erasmus had given him an unfavorable account of the introduction of the Reformation in Basel and of his intention to leave the city. Pirkheimer made no permanent impression, and his writings are antiquated; but, as one of the most prominent humanists and connecting links between the mediaeval and the modern ages, he deserves a place in the history of the Reformation. § 75. The Peasants’ War. 1523–1525. I. Luther: Ermahnung zum Frieden auf die zwölf Artikel der Bauernschaft in Schwaben (1525); Wider die mörderischen und raüberischen Rotten der Bauern (1525); Ein Sendbrief von dem harten Büchlein wider die Bauern (1525). Walch, Vols. XVI. and XXI. Erl. ed., XXIV. 257–318. Melanchthon: Historic Thomae Münzers (1525), in Walch, XVI. 204 sqq. Cochlæus (Rom. Cath.), in his writings against Luther. II. Histories of the Peasants’ War, by Sartorius (Geschichte des deutschen Bauernkriegs, Berlin, 1795); Wachsmuth (Leipzig. 1834); Oechsle (Heilbronn, 1830 anti 1844); Bensen (Erlangen, 1840); Zimmermann (Stuttgart, 1841, second edition 1856, 3 Vols.); Jörg (Freiburg, 1851); Schreiber (Freiburg, 1863–66, 3 vols.); Stern (Leipzig, 1868); Baumann (Tübingen, 1876–78); L. Fries, ed. by Schäffler and Henner (Würzburg, 1876, 1877); Hartfelder (Stuttgart, 1884). III. Monographs on Thomas Münzer by Strobel (Leben, Schriften und Lehren Thomae Müntzers, Nürnberg and Altdorf, 1795); Gebser (1831); Streif (1835); Seidemann (Dresden, 1842); Leo (1856); Erbkam (in Herzog2, Vol. X. 365 sqq.). IV. Ranke: II. 124–150. Janssen: II. 393–582. Häusser: ch. VII. Weber: Weltgesch., vol. X. 229–273 (second edition, 1886). The ecclesiastical radicalism at Wittenberg was the prelude of a more dangerous political and social radicalism, which involved a large portion of Germany in confusion and blood. Both movements had their roots in crying abuses; both received a strong impetus from the Reformation, and pretended to carry out its principles to their legitimate consequences; but both were ultra- and pseudo-Protestant, fanatical, and revolutionary. Carlstadt and Münzer are the connecting links between the two movements, chiefly the latter. Carlstadt never went so far as Münzer, and afterwards retraced his steps. Their expulsion from Saxony extended their influence over Middle and Southern Germany.564 Condition of the Peasants.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But perceiving that the sun was beginning to turn yellow and that his reign had come to a close, the king offered the fair ladies a most handsome apology for having foisted so disagreeable a theme as the misfortunes of lovers upon them. Having made his excuses, he stood up and removed the laurel wreath from his head. All the ladies wondered to which of them it would be given, and eventually he set it down with a flourish upon the fine blonde head of Fiammetta, saying: ‘I now bequeath you this crown, knowing that you are better able than any other to restore the spirits of our fair companions tomorrow after the rigours of the present day’s proceedings.’ Fiammetta, who had long, golden curls that cascaded down over delicate, pure white shoulders, a softly rounded face that glowed with the authentic hues of white lilies and crimson roses, a pair of eyes in her head that gleamed like a falcon’s, and a sweet little mouth with lips like rubies, answered Filostrato with a smile, saying: ‘I accept it with pleasure, Filostrato; and so that you may the more keenly appreciate the error of your ways, I desire and decree forthwith that each of us should be ready on the morrow to recount the adventures of lovers who survived calamities or misfortunes and attained a state of happiness.’ Fiammetta’s proposal met with general approval, and after summoning the steward and making appropriate arrangements, she rose to her feet and gaily dismissed the whole company till supper-time. So they all wandered off to amuse themselves until supper in whatever way they pleased, some of them remaining in the garden, of whose beauties one did not easily tire, whilst others ventured beyond its confines and made for the windmills, whose sails were turning in the evening breeze. When it was time for supper, they forgathered as usual beside the beautiful fountain, and partook of a most delicious meal, excellently served. Then, having risen from table, they devoted themselves to singing and dancing in their customary fashion, with Filomena leading the revels, and the queen said: ‘Filostrato, it is not my intention to depart from the ways of my predecessors. Like them, I too intend to command that a song should be sung, and since I am sure that your songs will be no less gloomy than your stories, I desire that you should choose one and sing it to us now, so that no day other than this will be blighted by your woes.’ Filostrato replied that he would be only too willing to obey, and launched immediately into a song, the words of which ran as follows: ‘With fitting tears, I show The mourning heart bereaved, Its faith in Love deceived. ‘Love, who first fixed into my heart She for whom now I sigh in vain, You showed me her so full of grace That I held light each bitter pain Which came to torment me So everlastingly.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Rinuccio was heartbroken over what had happened, and cursed his evil luck, but instead of going home, he waited till the officers had gone, and returned to the place where he had dumped Alessandro. He then began to grope about on hands and knees in search of the body so that he could carry out the rest of his assignment, but being unable to find it, he assumed it had been taken away by the officers, and sadly made his way back home. Not knowing what else he could do, Alessandro likewise returned home without ever having discovered who had fetched him from the tomb, feeling bitterly disappointed that things should have turned out so disastrously. Next morning, when Scannadio’s tomb was found open and there was no sign of the corpse (Alessandro having rolled it down into the lower depths), the whole of Pistoia was alive with rumours as to what exactly had happened, the more simple-minded concluding that Scannadio had been spirited away by demons. Each of the lady’s suitors informed her what he had done and what had happened, and, apologizing on this account for not carrying out her instructions to the full, demanded her forgiveness and her love. But she pretended not to believe them, and by curtly replying that she wanted no more to do with either of them, as they had failed to carry out her bidding, she neatly rid herself of both. SECOND STORYAn abbess rises hurriedly from her bed in the dark when it is reported to her that one of her nuns is abed with a lover. But being with a priest at the time, the Abbess claps his breeches on her head, mistaking them for her veil. On pointing this out to the Abbess, the accused nun is set at liberty, and thenceforth she is able to forgather with her lover at her leisure. When Filomena was silent, the good sense shown by the lady in ridding herself of those she had no wish to love was praised by the whole of the company, who one and all described not as love but as folly the daring presumption of the lovers. Then Elissa was graciously asked by the queen to continue, and she promptly began as follows: Dearest ladies, the manner in which Madonna Francesca released herself from her affliction was indeed very subtle; but I should now like to tell you of a young nun who, with the assistance of Fortune, freed herself by means of a timely remark from the danger with which she was threatened. As you all know, a great many people are foolish enough to instruct and condemn their fellow creatures, but from time to time, as you will observe from this story of mine, Fortune deservedly puts them to shame. And that is what happened to the Abbess who was the superior of the nun whose deeds I am now about to relate.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  prideful and covetous, so God had taken it away from them some two thousand years ago and hidden it deep beneath this mountain, along with ancient records documenting the entire history of the Mormons’ forebears. Moroni informed Koyle that the gold would remain hidden inside the mountain until just before the Second Coming of Christ, by which time the world’s mightiest civilizations would have crumbled and horrible strife would afflict all of humankind. At that desperate moment, Koyle would unearth the Nephites’ gold and use it to provide for the faithful, enabling them to survive the privations of the Last Days. Moroni showed Koyle exactly where he should start digging and assured him the gold would eventually be unearthed there—but not until the Second Coming was imminent. Koyle filed a mining claim on the hillside east of Salem and started digging on September 17, 1894. At the time, much of the American West was undergoing a boom in mining, so it was relatively easy for Koyle to find financial backers, almost all of them devout Mormons who saw the Dream Mine as a sound spiritual investment, as well as a surefire way to get rich. Some seven hundred thousand shares of stock were eventually sold. By the mid-1940s a shaft had been excavated thirty-four hundred feet into the mountain. The fact that no gold had yet been found didn’t particularly worry Koyle or his investors: Moroni had assured him that the riches would be uncovered when the Last Days were at hand, and not a moment before. The LDS leadership, though, took a dim view of Koyle’s mine. In the modern church, as in Joseph Smith’s day, major revelations were supposed to be channeled through the LDS president, prophet, seer, and revelator—and nobody else. Church authorities repeatedly proclaimed that Koyle was a false prophet and warned the faithful not to invest in the Dream Mine, but many Saints continued to believe in Koyle’s vision. Finally, in 1948, the LDS leadership excommunicated Koyle. Heartbroken and humiliated, he died a year later. Thousands of Koyle’s followers, however, remained convinced that Koyle’s prophecy would eventually come to pass—and remain convinced today. The Prophet Onias is one of these believers. Onias first heard about the Dream Mine shortly after he converted to Mormonism. He bought three hundred shares of stock in the mine, at $3 a share, and later persuaded his mother to buy three hundred shares, as well. In the late

• From Trash (1988)

  I got two kids of my own, after all. And hell, I went through all this with Richard, thinking that we were different, that we were special.” There were tears in her eyes, I saw, waiting there, not falling but shining. She kept moving her head, shaking her hair and pushing it up again. “Only special thing in the world is the lies we tell ourselves, make ourselves believe. Stupid, stupid bitches always thinking this time it’s different.” Too much for me, I thought, sighed and tilted my glass to match the speed with which she threw back hers. I drank with her one for one, until dizziness made my hands loose on the glass, and I knew I had to slow it down. Liz didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes were turned in on herself and her sudden laughs never altered her expression. Liz knew things about me no one else did, and because of that had a right to call me up in the night and ask for help. We had never been lovers, but we had always been friends. She had known me when I was in college, when I was the only lesbian she’d ever met. She had given me enough help when I had needed it, even cleaned me up and asked no questions one night when I showed up on her doorstep, my nose running blood and my clothes all torn. I had introduced her to Jackie and helped her move when she decided to leave her husband, but I couldn’t think of what to say to her now. “Everybody fights, lovers more than anyone else,” I tried to tell her. “It’s part of wanting so much from each other. Sometimes you crawl all over each other’s nerves without intending to. . . .” She didn’t seem to hear me. She was watching the men around us, and not looking at me at all. “Richard says if I come back, we’ll move out to the land co-op and have our own house up by next spring,” she said finally. The wine in my mouth went sour with the thought of Richard, with his smug little smile and those copies of the Militant he always had tucked under one arm. The man was fatuous and self-congratulatory in a way that ate at my insides, going on and on about the laboring classes while living off the income of an apartment building his daddy had turned over to him after graduation. “Pond scum” I’d called him once, a line Jackie had repeated to him with great relish. I stared at the foam in Liz’s glass as it went flat.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  "And although at present we are not agreed on the question whether the real body and blood of Christ are corporally present in the bread and wine, yet both parties shall cherish Christian charity for one another, so far as the conscience of each will permit; and both parties will earnestly implore Almighty God to strengthen us by his Spirit in the true understanding. Amen."879 The Landgrave urged the insertion that each party should show Christian charity to the other. The Lutherans assented to this only on condition that the clause be added: "as far as the conscience of each will permit." The articles were read, considered, and signed on the same day by Luther, Melanchthon, Osiander, Agricola, Brentius, on the part of the Lutherans; and by Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer, and Hedio, on the part of the Reformed. They were printed on the next day, and widely circulated.880 On the fifth day of October, in the afternoon, the guests took leave of each other with a shake of hands. It was not the hand of brotherhood, but only of friendship, and not very cordial on the part of the Lutherans. The Landgrave left Marburg on the same day, early in the morning, with a painful feeling of disappointment. Luther returned to Wittenberg by way of Schleitz, where he met the Elector John by appointment, and revised the Marburg Articles so as to adapt them to his creed, and so far to weaken the consensus. Both parties claimed the victory. Zwingli complained in a letter to Vadian of the overbearing and contumacious spirit of Luther, and thought that the truth (i.e., his view of it) had prevailed, and that Luther was vanquished before all the world after proclaiming himself invincible. He rejoiced in the agreement which must destroy the hope of the papists that Luther would return to them. Luther, on the other hand, thought that the Swiss had come over to him half way, that they had humbled themselves, and begged his friendship. "There is no brotherly unity among us," he said in the pulpit of Wittenberg after his return from Mar-burg, "but a good friendly concord; they seek from us what they need, and we will help them."

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘Then your father must have been a sensible man,’ smiled Brockett. ‘Now I had a perfect beast of a father. Well, Stephen, I’ll give you my advice for what it’s worth—you want a real change. Why not go abroad somewhere? Get right away for a bit from your England. You’ll probably write it a damned sight better when you’re far enough off to see the perspective. Start with Paris—it’s an excellent jumping-off place. Then you might go across to Italy or Spain—go anywhere, only do get a move on! No wonder you’re atrophied here in London. I can put you wise about people in Paris. You ought to know Valérie Seymour, for instance. She’s very good fun and a perfect darling; I’m sure you’d like her, every one does. Her parties are a kind of human bran-pie—you just plunge in your fist and see what happens. You may draw a prize or you may draw blank, but it’s always worth while to go to her parties. Oh, but good Lord, there are so many things that stimulate one in Paris.’ He talked on about Paris for a little while longer, then he got up to go. ‘Well, good-bye, my dears, I’m off. I’ve given myself indigestion. And do look at Puddle, she’s blind with fury; I believe she’s going to refuse to shake hands! Don’t be angry, Puddle—I’m very well-meaning.’ ‘Yes, of course,’ answered Puddle, but her voice sounded cold. 4After he had gone they stared at each other, then Stephen said: ‘What a queer revelation. Who would have thought that Brockett could get so worked up? His moods are kaleidoscopic.’ She was purposely forcing herself to speak lightly. But Puddle was angry, bitterly angry. Her pride was wounded to the quick for Stephen. ‘The man’s a perfect fool!’ she said gruffly. ‘And I didn’t agree with one word he said. I expect he’s jealous of your work, they all are. They’re a mean-minded lot, these writing people.’ And looking at her Stephen thought sadly, ‘She’s tired—I’m wearing her out in my service. A few years ago she’d never have tried to deceive me like this—she’s losing courage.’ Aloud she said: ‘Don’t be cross with Brockett, he meant to be friendly, I’m quite sure of that. My work will buck up—I’ve been feeling slack lately, and it’s told on my writing—I suppose it was bound to.’ Then the merciful lie, ‘But I’m not a bit frightened!’

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  David Leavitt was also dismayed by Green’s lenient sentence. “People in the state of Utah,” he proclaimed, “simply do not understand, and have not understood for fifty years, the devastating effect that the practice of polygamy has on young girls in our society.” But Leavitt went on to say that a change in how polygamy was regarded by Utahans had begun: “The ball is rolling. Time will demonstrate that this society will understand that the practice of polygamy is abusive to children, is abusive to women, is abusive to society.” Leavitt prevailed against Green in court, and he won plaudits from the LDS Church and establishment editorial writers. But like Arizona governor Howard Pyle, who was voted out of office for masterminding the Short Creek raid of 1953, Leavitt discovered that his anti-polygamy crusade was not popular with the people. In November 2002, the voters of Juab County responded to the conviction of Tom Green by giving the boot to prosecutor David Leavitt. Ever since the conviction of the Kingstons—even before Tom Green was first charged with bigamy—Mormon Fundamentalists have received support from the American Civil Liberties Union and gay-rights activists in advancing their claims of religious persecution. It has been an especially curious, and uncomfortable, coalition: FLDS doctrine proclaims that sodomy and homosexuality are egregious crimes against God and nature, punishable by death —yet gays and polygamists have joined forces to keep the government out of the bedroom. This partnership is made even more incongruous by the fact that on the other side of the issue, radical feminists have allied themselves with the resolutely antifeminist LDS Church to lobby for aggressive prosecution of polygamists. * As they have been forced out of the shadows into the probing glare of the news media, polygamists continue to insist that they are simply trying to live in accordance with their deeply held, constitutionally protected beliefs. “What goes on in our homes here is nobody’s business,” asserts Sam Roundy, Colorado City’s polygamous police chief. “We’re not infringing on anybody. Don’t we have the right to practice our religion?”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  4Stephen got up, stretched, and went to the window. The sun had retreated behind the clouds; a kind of brown twilight hung over the Embankment, for the wind had now dropped and a fog was threatening. The discouragement common to all fine writers was upon her, she was hating what she had written. Last night’s work seemed inadequate and unworthy; she decided to put a blue pencil through it and to rewrite the chapter from start to finish. She began to give way to a species of panic; her new book would be a ludicrous failure, she felt it, she would never again write a novel possessing the quality of The Furrow. The Furrow had been the result of shock to which she had, strangely enough, reacted by a kind of unnatural mental vigour. But now she could not react any more, her brain felt like over-stretched elastic, it would not spring back, it was limp, unresponsive. And then there was something else that distracted, something she was longing to put into words yet that shamed her so that it held her tongue-tied. She lit a cigarette and when it was finished found another and kindled it at the stump. ‘Stop embroidering that curtain, for God’s sake, Puddle. I simply can’t stand the sound of your needle; it makes a booming noise like a drum every time you prod that tightly stretched linen.’ Puddle looked up: ‘You’re smoking too much.’ ‘I dare say I am. I can’t write any more.’ ‘Since when?’ ‘Ever since I began this new book.’ ‘Don’t be such a fool!’ ‘But it’s God’s truth, I tell you—I feel flat, it’s a kind of spiritual dryness. This new book is going to be a failure, sometimes I think I’d better destroy it.’ She began to pace up and down the room, dull-eyed yet tense as a tightly drawn bow string. ‘This comes of working all night,’ Puddle murmured. ‘I must work when the spirit moves me,’ snapped Stephen. Puddle put aside her wool work embroidery. She was not much moved by this sudden depression, she had grown quite accustomed to these literary moods, yet she looked a little more closely at Stephen and something that she saw in her face disturbed her. ‘You look tired to death; why not lie down and rest?’ ‘Rot! I want to work.’ ‘You’re not fit to work. You look all on edge, somehow. What’s the matter with you?’ And then very gently: ‘Stephen, come here and sit down by me, please, I must know what’s the matter.’ Stephen obeyed as though once again they two were back in the old Morton schoolroom, then she suddenly buried her face in her hands: ‘I don’t want to tell you—why must I, Puddle?’ ‘Because,’ said Puddle, ‘I’ve a right to know; your career’s very dear to me, Stephen.’

• From Trash (1988)

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to her about Richard. “I could put in a garden out there,” Liz told me, keeping her eyes on her glass, “be with Mikey and Janine all the time, not have to go back to that damn office every damned day.” I’d thumped my glass against hers, forcing her to look up at me. “Yeah, and Richard could tell all his buddies how patience had been the secret—you know that line—how all he had to do was wait for you to get it out of your system. You and Jackie . . .” “JACKIE!” Her wet glass slapped the table. “Hell, I never even see her anymore. She’s always at work, or the Women’s Center, or I’m at work, or Mikey’s sick, or Janine’s crying and Jackie has to go off for a walk to clear her head, or Jackie’s goddamned aunt is there going on about how hard she used to work. . . .” Liz stopped, wiped her eyes and her mouth and then looked directly into my face. “It’s not what I wanted, not anything near what I thought it would be. It’s just not.” “It’s no worse than anybody else has.” “It’s worse. It’s me.” She looked sideways at the men at the bar. “If I was living out at the co-op, Jackie and I could still see each other now and then. Richard wouldn’t have to know, and I wouldn’t be so tired, so damned tired all the time. You know, you know how it is, I hate being poor. I never intended to be poor again, and Christ! We’re just above starving.” Her face was too fierce for argument. The wine rose up in my throat, bitter and embarrassing. I didn’t know what to say. I just didn’t know what to say. 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.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  He had come to tell Joseph of a sacred text inscribed on solid gold plates that had been buried fourteen hundred years earlier under a rock on a nearby hillside. Moroni then conjured a vision in Joseph’s mind, showing him the exact place the plates were hidden. The angel cautioned the boy, however, that he shouldn’t show the plates to anyone, or try to enrich himself from them, or even attempt to retrieve them yet. The next morning Joseph walked to the hill that had appeared to him in the vision, quickly located the distinctive rock in question, dug beneath it, and unearthed a box constructed from five flat stones cemented together with mortar. Inside the box were the golden plates. In the excitement of the moment, however, he forgot Moroni’s admonition that “the time for bringing them forth had not yet arrived.” When Joseph tried to remove the plates, they immediately vanished into the ether, and he was hurled violently to the ground. He later confessed that greed had gotten the better of him, adding, “Therefore I was chastened” by the angel. Moroni was nevertheless willing to give Joseph another chance to prove his worthiness. The angel commanded the boy to return to the same place each year on September 22. Joseph dutifully obeyed, and every September he was visited by Moroni on what would later be named the Hill Cumorah to receive instruction about the golden plates, and what God intended for him to do with them. On each occasion Joseph left empty-handed, to his great disappointment. During their annual meeting in 1826, though, Moroni gave him reason for renewed hope: the angel announced that if Joseph “would Do right according to the will of God he might obtain [the plates] the 22nd Day of September Next and if not he never would have them.” By gazing into his most reliable peep stone, Joseph further learned that in order for him to be given the plates, God required that he marry a girl named Emma Hale and bring her along on his next visit to the hill, in September 1827. Emma was a winsome neighbor of Josiah Stowell’s in Pennsylvania whom Joseph had met a year earlier while searching fruitlessly for the silver mine on Stowell’s property. During that initial encounter, Emma and Joseph had felt a strong spark of mutual attraction, and he made several trips to the Hale home to ask for her hand in marriage. On each occasion Emma’s father, Isaac Hale, strenuously objected, citing Joseph’s disreputable past as a money digger. Mr. Hale pointed out to his love-struck daughter that only a few months earlier, young Joe Smith had been convicted of fraud in a court of law. Joseph grew despondent over Hale’s dogged refusal to let Emma marry him, and desperate. September was fast approaching. If he and Emma weren’t betrothed by then, Moroni would withhold the golden plates from him forever.