Excitement

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 Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Which is true.’ ‘Well...’ ‘Go on! Take your candle!’ I rose, then took hold of her hands and pulled her to her feet; and she - infected at last by my new recklessness - gave another giggle, put her fingers to her lips, then tip-toed from the room. While she was gone I lit a lamp, but kept it turned very low. She had left her cap upon the bed: I picked it up and set it on my own head, and when she returned five minutes later and saw me wearing it she laughed out loud. She carried a dewy bottle and a glass. ‘Did you see any ladies?’ I asked her. ‘I saw a couple, but they never saw me. They were at the scullery door and - oh! they was kissing the guts out of each other!’ I imagined her standing in the shadows, watching them. I went to her and took the bottle, then peeled away the lead wrapper from its neck. ‘You’ve shaken it up,’ I said. ‘It’ll go off with a real bang!’ She put her hands over her ears, and shut her eyes. I felt the cork squirm in the glass for a second; then it leapt from my fingers, and I gave a yell: ‘Quick! Quick! Bring a glass!’ A creamy fountain of foam had risen from the neck of the bottle, and now drenched my fingers and soaked my legs - I was still, of course, clad in the little white toga. Zena seized the glass from the tray and held it, giggling again, beneath the spurting wine. We went and sat upon the bed, Zena with the glass in her hands, me sipping from the frothing bottle. When she drank, she coughed; but I filled her glass again and said: ‘Drink up! Just like those cows downstairs.’ And she drank, and drank again, until her cheeks were red. I felt my own head grow giddier with every sip I took, and the pulse at my swollen face grow thicker. At last I said, ‘Oh! How it hurts!’, and Zena set down her glass to put her fingers, very gently, upon my cheek. When she had held them there for a second or two, I took her hand in my own, and leaned and kissed her. She didn’t draw away until I made to lie upon the bed and pull her with me. Then she said: ‘Oh, we cannot! What if Mrs Lethaby should come?’ ‘She won’t. She is leaving me, as a kind of punishment.’

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  I know that you have different temperaments, and that as a result there is division between you, but enough of strife. I am your grandfather. I am ready, and willing, to help you. Dry your eyes.’ So spoke dread Saturn. Now I will leave the gods in heaven, and return to the events of earth. It is time for the tournament. Of arms, and the men, I sing. PART FOUR The festivities that day in Athens were glorious. The vigour of May entered every person, so that all were bold and playful. They danced and jousted all that Monday, or spent the day in the service of Venus. The night was for rest. All were eager to rise early and to witness the great fight. On that morning there was a great bustle and noise, in the inns and lodgings, as the horses and the suits of armour were prepared for the battle. The knights and the companies of nobles, mounted on stallions and fine steeds, rode out to the palace. If you had been there, you would have seen armour so ornate and so exotic that it seemed to be spun out of gold and steel. The spears, the head-armour, and the horse-armour, glittered in the morning sun while the golden mail and coats of arms glowed in the throng. In the saddle were lords wearing richly decorated robes, followed by the knights of their retinue and their squires; the squires themselves were busy fastening the heads to the shafts of the spears, buckling up the helmets and fitting the shields with leather straps. This was no time to be idle. The horses were foaming and champing on their golden bridles. The armourers were running here and there with file and hammer. There were yeomen in procession, and also many of the common people with thick staffs in their hands. All of them rode, or marched, to the notes of pipes, trumpets, bugles and kettledrums blaring out the sound of battle. In the palace there were small groups of people in excited debate, all of them discussing the merits of the Theban knights. One had an opinion, which another contradicted. One said this, another said that. Some supported the knight with the black beard, while others commended the bald fellow. Yet others gave the palm to the knight with the shaggy hair. ‘I tell you this,’ one courtier said, ‘he looks like a fighter. That axe of his must weight twenty pounds at least.’ ‘Never!’ So, long after the sun had risen, the halls rang with gossip and speculation. The noble lord, Theseus, had already been woken by the music of minstrels and by the noise of the crowd. Yet he remained in the privy chambers of his palace until Palamon and Arcite, equally honoured guests, were brought into the courtyard. Theseus appeared at a great window, where he sat in state as if he were a god enthroned.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  I had some squeamishness upon me about such matters, yet. And Diana, I knew, would have been furious. This, as I have said, was sometime in the autumn of that year. I remember that time, and the two or three months that followed it, very well, for they were busy ones: it was as if my stay with Diana were acquiring a kind of hectic intensity, as some sick people are said to do, as it hurtled towards its end. Maria, for example, gave a party at her house. Dickie threw a party on a boat - hired it to sail with us from Charing Cross to Richmond, and we danced, till four in the morning, to an all-girl band. Christmas we spent at Kettner’s, eating goose in a private room; New Year was celebrated at the Cavendish Club: our table grew so loud and ribald, Miss Bruce again approached us, to complain about our manners. And then, in January, came Diana’s fortieth birthday; and she was persuaded to celebrate it, at Felicity Place itself, with a fancy-dress ball. We called it a ball, but it was not really so grand as that. For music there was only a woman with a piano; and what dancing there was - in the dining-room with the carpet rolled back - was rather tame. No one, however, came for the sake of a waltz. They came for Diana’s reputation, and for mine. They came for the wine and the food and the rose-tipped cigarettes. They came for the scandal. They came, and marvelled. The house, for a start, we made wonderful. We hung velvet from the walls and, from the ceiling, spangles; and we shut off all the lamps, and lit the rooms entirely with candles. The drawing-room we cleared of furniture, leaving only the Turkey rug, on which we placed cushions. The marble floor of the hall we scattered with roses - we placed roses, too, to smoke upon the fires: by the end of the night you felt ill with it. There was champagne to drink, and brandies, and wine with spice in: Diana had this heated in a copper bowl above a spirit-lamp. All the food she had sent over from the Solferino. They did her a cold roast after the manner of the Romans, goose stuffed with turkey stuffed with chicken stuffed with quail - the quail, I think, having a truffle in it. There were also oysters, which sat upon the table in a barrel marked Whitstable; however, one lady, unused to the trick of the shells, tried to open one with a cigar-knife. The blade slipped, and cut her finger almost to the bone; and after she had bled into the ice, no one much cared for them.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  I had spent a lot of time imagining what New York would be like, but the one thing that had never occurred to me was that the opportunities would come so easily. Aside from having to wear those embarrassing red-and-yellow uniforms with matching floppy hats, I loved the job. The lunch and dinner rushes were always exciting, with the lines backing up at the counter, the cashiers shouting orders over the microphones, the grill guys shoveling hamburgers through the flame-broiling conveyer belt, everyone running from the fixings counter to the drinks station to the infrared fries warmer, staying on top of the orders, the manager jumping in to help whenever a crisis cropped up. We got 20 percent off on our meals, and for the first few weeks there, I had a cheeseburger and a chocolate milk shake every day for lunch. • • • In the middle of the summer, Lori found us an apartment in a neighborhood we could afford—the South Bronx. The yellow art deco building must have been pretty fancy when it opened, but now graffiti covered the outside walls, and the cracked mirrors in the lobby were held together with duct tape. Still, it had what Mom called good bones. Our apartment was bigger than the entire house on Little Hobart Street, and way fancier. It had shiny oak parquet floors, a foyer with two steps leading down into the living room—where I slept—and, off to the side, a bedroom that became Lori’s. We also had a kitchen with a working refrigerator and a gas stove that had a pilot light, so you didn’t need matches to get it going, you just turned the dial, listened to the clicking, then watched the circle of blue flame flare up through the tiny holes in the burner. My favorite room was the bathroom. It had a black-and-white tile floor, a toilet that flushed with a powerful whoosh, a tub so deep you could submerge yourself completely in it, and hot water that never ran out. It didn’t bother me that the apartment was in a rough neighborhood; we’d always lived in rough neighborhoods. Puerto Rican kids hung out on the block at all hours, playing music, dancing, sitting on abandoned cars, clustering at the entrance to the elevated subway station and in front of the bodega that sold single cigarettes called loosies. I got jumped a number of times. People were always telling me that if I was robbed, I should hand over my money rather than risk being killed. But I was darned if I was going to give some stranger my hard-earned cash, and I didn’t want to become known in the neighborhood as an easy target, so I always fought back. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost. What worked best was to keep my wits about me. Once, as I was getting on the train, some guy tried to grab my purse, but I jerked it back and the strap broke.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  I asked Liz. "I have no idea," Liz said. "I do. I have a good feeling about this one." Mom had been going into the city a lot ever since we had moved to Lost Lake, a little town in the Colorado Desert of southern California. Usually she was gone for only a night or two, never this long. We didn't know exactly when she'd be back, and since the telephone had been turned off—Mom was arguing with the phone company about some long-distance calls she said she didn't make—she had no way of calling us. Still, it didn't seem like a big deal. Mom's career had always taken up a sizeable chunk of her time. Even when we were younger, she'd have a sitter or a friend watch us while she flew off to some place like Nashville. Liz and I were used to being on our own. Liz was in charge, since she was fifteen and I'd just turned twelve, but I wasn't the kind of kid who needed to be babied. When Mom was away, all we ate was chicken potpies; I loved them and could eat them every night. Liz said that if you had a glass of milk with your chicken potpie, you were getting a dinner that included all four food groups—meat, vegetables, grain, and dairy—so it was the perfect diet. Plus, they were fun to eat. You each got your very own pie in the nifty little tinfoil pie plate, and you could do whatever you wanted with it. I liked to break up the crust and mush it together with the bits of carrots and peas and the yellow gunk. Liz thought mushing it all together was uncouth. It also made the crust soggy, and to her, what made the chicken potpies so appealing was the contrast between the crispy crust and the goopy filling. She preferred to leave the crust intact, cutting dainty wedges with each bite. Once the piecrusts had turned that wonderful golden brown, with the little ridged edges almost but not quite burned, I told Liz they were ready. She pulled them out of the toaster oven, and we sat down at the red Formica table. At dinnertime, when Mom was away, we liked to play games Liz made up. One she called Chew-and-Spew, where you waited until the other person had a mouthful of food or milk, then you tried to make her laugh. Liz pretty much always won, because it was sort of easy to make me laugh. Sometimes I laughed so hard the milk came shooting out of my nose. Another game she made up was called the Lying Game. One person gave two statements, one true, the second a lie, and the other person got to ask five questions about the statements, then had to guess which one was the lie.

• From The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005)

  I needed to be at the station before seven. Mom announced that since she was not by nature an early riser, she would not be getting up to see me off. “I know what you look like, and I know what the bus station looks like,” she said. “And those big farewells are so sentimental.” • • • I could hardly sleep that night. Neither could Brian. From time to time, he’d break the silence by announcing that in seven hours I’d be leaving Welch, in six hours I’d be leaving Welch, and we’d both start cracking up. I fell asleep only to be woken at first light by Brian, who, like Mom, wasn’t an early riser. He was tugging at my arm. “No more joking about it,” he said. “In two hours, you’ll be gone.” Dad hadn’t come home that night, but when I climbed through the back window with my suitcase, I saw him sitting at the bottom of the stone steps, smoking a cigarette. He insisted on carrying the suitcase for me, and we set off down Little Hobart Street and around the Old Road. The empty streets were damp. Every now and then Dad would look over at me and wink, or make a tocking sound with his tongue as if I were a horse and he was urging me on. It seemed to make him feel like he was doing what a father should, plucking up his daughter’s courage, helping her face the terrors of the unknown. When we got to the station, Dad turned to me. “Honey, life in New York may not be as easy as you think it’s going to be.” “I can handle it,” I told him. Dad reached into his pocket and pulled out his favorite jackknife, the one with the horn handle and the blade of blue German steel that we’d used for Demon Hunting. “I’ll feel better knowing you have this.” He pressed the knife into my hand. The bus turned down the street and stopped with a hiss of compressed air in front of the Trailways station. The driver opened up the luggage compartment and slid my suitcase in next to the others. I hugged Dad. When our cheeks touched, and I breathed in his smell of tobacco, Vitalis, and whiskey, I realized he’d shaved for me. “If things don’t work out, you can always come home,” he said. “I’ll be here for you. You know that, don’t you?” “I know.” I knew that in his way, he would be. I also knew I’d never be coming back. Only a few passengers were on the bus, so I got a good seat next to a window. The driver closed the door, and we pulled out. At first I resolved not to turn around. I wanted to look ahead to where I was going, not back at what I was leaving, but then I turned anyway. Dad was lighting a cigarette. I waved, and he waved back.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  Meanwhile, Mr Bliss and Kitty chatted; and when next I concentrated on their talk I realised that it was rather serious. ‘Now,’ Mr Bliss was saying, ‘I am going to ask you to do something which, if I were any other kind of gentleman than a theatrical agent, I should be quite ashamed to. I am going to ask you to go about the city - and you must assist her, Miss Astley,’ he added when he saw me looking - ‘you must both of you go about the city and study the men!’ I gazed at Kitty and blinked, and she smiled back uncertainly. ‘Study the men?’ she said. ‘Scrutinise ’em!’ said Mr Bliss, sawing at a piece of cutlet. ‘Catch their characters, their little habits, their mannerisms and gaits. What are their histories? What are their secrets? Have they ambitions? Have they hopes and dreams? Have they sweethearts they have lost? Or have they only aching feet, and empty bellies?’ He waved his fork. ‘You must know it; and you must copy them, and make your audience know it in their turn.’ ‘Do you mean, then,’ I asked, not understanding, ‘to change Kitty’s act?’ ‘I mean, Miss Astley, to broaden Kitty’s repertoire. Her masher is a very fine fellow; but she cannot walk the Burlington Arcade, in lavender gloves, for ever.’ He gazed at Kitty again, then wiped his mouth with a napkin and spoke in a more confiding tone. ‘What think you of a policeman’s jacket? Or a sailor’s blouse? What think you of peg-top trousers or a pearly coat?’ He turned to me. ‘Only imagine, Miss Astley, all the handsome gentlemen’s toggery that languishes, at this very minute, at the bottom of some costumier’s hamper, waiting, simply waiting, for Kitty Butler to step inside it and lend it life! Only think of all those more than handsome fabrics - those ivory worsteds, those rippling silks, those crimson velvets and scarlet shalloons; only hear the snip of the tailor’s scissors, the prick of the sempstress’s needle; only imagine her success, decked as a soldier, or a coster, or a prince ...’ He paused at last, and Kitty smiled. ‘Mr Bliss,’ she said, ‘I do believe you could persuade a one-armed man into a juggling turn, the way you talk.’ He laughed, and struck the table with his hand so that the cutlery rattled: it turned out that he had a one-armed juggler for a client, and was billing him - with great success - as ‘The Second Cinquevalli: Half the Capacity, Double the Skill!’ And it was all quite as he promised and directed. He sent us to costumiers and tailors, and had Kitty decked out in a dozen different gentlemanly guises; and when the suits were made he sent us to photographers, to have her likeness taken as she held a policeman’s whistle to her lip, or shouldered a rifle or a sailor’s rope.

• From Tipping the Velvet (1998)

  This, of course, was Tricky himself: he sat at a table between the stalls and the orchestra and introduced the acts, and called for order if the crowd became too rowdy, and led us in toasts to the Queen. He had a top-hat and a gavel - I have never seen a chairman without a gavel - and a mug of porter. On his table stood a candle: this was kept lit for as long as there were artistes upon the stage, but it was extinguished for the interval, and at the show’s close. Tricky was a plain-faced man with a very handsome voice - a voice like the sound of a clarinet, at once liquid and penetrating, and lovely to listen to. On the night of Sutherland’s first performance he welcomed us to his show and promised us an evening’s entertainment we would never forget. Had we lungs? he asked. We must be prepared to use them! Had we feet, and hands? We must make ready to stamp, and clap! Had we sides? They would be split! Tears? We would shed buckets of them! Eyes? ‘Stretch’ em, now, in wonder! Orchestra, please. Limes-men, if you will.’ He struck the table with his gavel - clack! - so that the candle-flame dipped. ‘I give you, the marvellous, the musical, the very, very merry, Merry’ - he struck the table again - ‘Randalls!’ The curtain quivered, then rose. There was a seaside backdrop to the stage and, upon the boards themselves, real sand; and over this strolled four gay figures in holiday gear: two ladies - one dark, one fair - with parasols; and two tall gents, one with a ukulele on a strap. They sang ‘All the Girls are Lovely by the Seaside’, very nicely; then the ukulele player did a solo, and the ladies lifted their skirts for a spot of soft-shoe dancing on the sand. For a first turn, they were good. We cheered them; and Tricky thanked us very graciously for our appreciation. The next act was a comedian, the next a mentalist - a lady in evening dress and gloves, who stood blindfolded upon the stage while her husband moved among the audience with a slate, inviting people to write numbers and names upon it with a piece of chalk, for her to guess. ‘Imagine the number floating through the air in flames of scarlet,’ said the man impressively, ‘and searing its way into my wife’s brain, through her brow.’ We frowned and squinted at the stage, and the lady staggered a little, and raised her hands to her temples. ‘The Power,’ she said, ‘it is very strong tonight.

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

  "'Well, Briancourt,' said he, 'I congratulate you upon your new acquisition. Nobody's presence could have given me more pleasure than Des Grieux's.' "Hardly had these words been uttered than a nimble hand snatched off my mask. "Ten mouths at least were ready to kiss me, a score of hands were fondling me; but Briancourt put himself between them and me. "'For this evening,' said he, 'Camille is like a sugar-plum on a cake, something to be looked at and not touched. Réné and he are on their honey-moon yet, and this fête is given in their honour, and in that of my new lover Achmet effendi.' And, turning round, he introduced us to the young man whom he was to pourtray as Jesus Christ. 'And now,' said he, 'let us go in to supper.' "The room, or hall, into which we were led was furnished something like a triclinium, with beds or couches instead of chairs. "'My friends,' said the general's son, 'the supper is a scanty one, the courses are neither many nor abundant, the meal is rather to invigorate than to satiate. I hope, however, that the generous wines and stimulating drinks will enable us all to return to our pleasures with renewed eagerness.'" "Still, I suppose it was a supper worthy of Lucullus?" "I hardly remember it now. I only recollect that it was the first time I tasted bouillabaisse, and some sweet spiced rice made after the Indian receipt, and that I found both delicious. "I had Teleny on my couch beside me, and Dr. Charles was my next neighbour. He was a fine, tall, well-built, broad-shouldered man, with a fair-flowing beard, for which—as well as for his name and size—he had been nicknamed Charlemagne. I was surprised to see him wear round his neck a fine Venetian gold chain, to which was hanging—as I first thought—a locket, but which, on closer examination, proved to be a gold laurel wreath studded with brilliants. I asked him if it were a talisman or a relic? "He, thereupon, standing up,—'My friends, Des Grieux here—whose lover I fain would be—asks me what this jewel is; and as most of you have already put me the same question, I'll satisfy you all now, and hold my peace for evermore about it. "'This laurel wreath,' said he, holding it up between his fingers, 'is the reward of merit—or rather, I should say, of chastity: it is my couronne de rosière .

• From Mud Vein (2014)

  I listened with my eyes closed, wondering if all people listened to music with words this way. When the last note played, I started my car and drove to the hospital fighting a smile. I’d expected something to strip me naked like the Florence Welch song had. The title and its tie to the great Oscar Wilde had been enough to make me smirk, but the words, which to anyone else fighting cancer would have felt insensitive, uplifted me. So gloriously morbid. I hit play and listened one more time, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I drove. I was sitting in the exam room in a hospital gown when Isaac walked in, followed by a nurse, Dr. Akela and the plastic surgeon I saw a few weeks earlier—I think his name was Dr. Monroe, or maybe it was Dr. Morton. Isaac was wearing black scrubs underneath his white lab coat. I had a moment to study him as he looked over my chart. Dr. Akela was smiling at me, standing almost too close to Isaac. Was that possession? Dr. Monroe/Morton looked bored. On television they called his kind Plastics. Finally, Isaac looked up. “Senna,” he said. Dr. Akela glanced up at him when he used my first name. I wondered if she was where he went missing to when he wasn’t with me. If I were a man, I’d go missing to Dr. Akela, too. She’d make a beautiful hiding place. Her sense was sight, I decided. Everything about her called loudly to the eyes: the way she moved, the way she looked, the way she spoke sentences with only her body. Isaac asked me to sit up. “We’re going to take a look.” He gently untied the back of my hospital gown and stepped away so I could lower it myself. I made myself feel nothing, staring straight ahead as the cold air touched my skin. “Lie back, Senna,” he said softly. I did. I focused on the ceiling as I felt his hands on me. He examined each breast, his fingers lingering around the lump on the right side. His touch was gentle, but professional. If anyone else had been touching me, I would have bolted upright and run straight out of the room. When he was done, he helped me sit up and retied my gown. I saw Dr. Akela watching him again. “Your labs look good,” he said. “Everything is set for the surgery next week. Dr. Montoll is here to talk to you about reconstruction.” Montoll! “And Dr. Akela would like to go over the radiation treatments with you.” “I won’t be needing to speak with Dr. Montoll,” I said. Isaac’s face jerked up from my chart. “You’ll want to discuss reconstruction of—” “No,” I said. “I don’t.” Dr. Montoll the Plastic stepped in, suddenly not looking quite as bored. “Ms. Richards, if we get the expanders in now, your reconstruction—”

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The busy lark, the messenger of day, saluted in her song the break of day. The mighty sun rose up, with beams so bright that all the east was laughing in the light; his welcome rays the land receives, and all the dewdrops perish on the leaves. This is the poetry of the morning that greeted Arcite, the squire of the royal chamber, as he rose up from his bed. He decided to pay homage to May, inspired by his desire for Emily; so forth he went upon his fiery steed, and rode some two or three miles beyond the city. Here were the open fields where he could find exercise and recreation. Quite by chance he had ridden towards the wood where Palamon lay concealed. Here he wove for himself a garland of branches, made from the leaves of the woodbine and the hawthorn, and thus crowned he sang out in the sunlight this happy greeting. ‘May, with all your flowers and your green livery, welcome to you! Welcome to the fairest and freshest month! May I deserve this green garland!’ He dismounted from his horse and in lively mood explored a path that led into the wood itself. Where did the path take him? It led him directly to the thicket of trees where Palamon, in fear of his life, had taken refuge. He had no idea that Arcite was close to him. God knows it would have seemed an unlikely coincidence. But there is an old saying, proven many times, that ‘Fields have eyes and woods have ears.’ It behoves all of you to behave wisely, because you never know whom you are going to meet. The course of life is unexpected. So Palamon little knew that the voice he heard was that of Arcite. He just lay very still in the obscure grove. Meanwhile Arcite was singing his heart out, wandering among the trees and bushes of the wood. Then he stopped suddenly and fell to musing, as lovers will often do. One minute the lover dallies among flowers and the next he is thrust upon thorns. He goes up and down, just like a bucket in a well. Venus, like her day, can change her countenance - Friday can be sunny and then filled with clouds. Friday is unlike any other day of the week. In the same way Venus is quixotic and unpredictable with her votaries.

• From Birthday Girl (2018)

  La gente habla a nuestro alrededor, esperando que la película empiece, pero no puedo escuchar lo que están diciendo, y no me importa. Mi piel se siente cálida. —Entonces, ¿qué estudian en Doral State? —pregunta. Le disparo una mirada de sorpresa. ¿Cómo sabe a dónde voy a la escuela? Asesino serial. Pero entonces apunta a mi bolso en el suelo, y veo el llavero colgando de este con el emblema de la universidad grabado. Oh, duh. Me enderezo. —Paisajismo —contesto—. Quiero hacer bonitos los espacios exteriores. —Eso es bueno. Trabajo en construcción. Le muestro una media sonrisa. —Entonces, haces bonitos los espacios interiores. —No, en realidad no. Me rio ante su tono sombrío como si estuviera muy aburrido de lo que hace. —Los hago funcionales —me corrige. Mueve sus ojos avellana hacia mí, cálidos y penetrantes, pero entonces su mirada baja a mi boca por un segundo, y un aleteo llega a mi estómago. Aparta la mirada rápidamente y bajo los ojos, teniendo dificultades para respirar. Aclarándome la garganta, me inclino y saco la caja de donas de mi bolso y las pongo en la bandeja, moviendo la pequeña bandeja frente a mí y levantando la tapa. El dulce aroma golpea mi nariz inmediatamente, y mi estómago gruñe. Vuelvo a mirar a la ventana de proyección, preguntándome si la película comenzará pronto, porque estaba guardándolas para ese momento, pero ahora estoy muerta de hambre. Siento los ojos del tipo sobre mí, y lo miro, explicando el porqué de las donas. —Es mi cumpleaños. Adicional al vino, mi jefa me dio el único pastel que pudo conseguir en un supermercado. Tomo una y me recuesto, subiendo mis pies al reposabrazos frente a mí. —¿Vas a comerte seis donas? —cuestiona. Detengo la dona a unos centímetros de mi boca y lo miro. —¿Eso te disgustaría o algo? —No, solo me pregunto si obtendré una. Sonrío y muevo la caja, indicándole que se sirva. Toma la del glaseado sencillo, y no estoy segura si es porque no le gustan las florituras o solo está tratando de dejarme las que tienen las chispas de colores, pero, de cualquier forma, me gusta. Nos acomodamos, pero no puedo evitar echarle una ojeada de vez en cuando. Su cabello es castaño claro, y sus ojos se ven azules, verdes o avellana dependiendo del tipo de luz que los ilumine desde la pantalla. Tiene un poco de barba en su rostro ovalado, una nariz pulida y mi mirada es atraída a la forma en que su cincelada mandíbula se flexionaba mientras mastica. Hay unas líneas muy débiles alrededor de sus ojos, así que puede que tenga más de treinta, pero podría ser solo por el tiempo de trabajar bajo el sol. Es alto, fuerte, atlético y bronceado, y sus ojos de repente se mueven a un lado como si sintiera que lo estoy mirando. Vuelvo a dirigir la mirada al frente. Demonios.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  The kind nurse of digestion and appetite, sleep, began to descend upon the party. Hypnos, the son of Night, let it be known that after much toil, and after much drink, it was time to rest. So he kissed them all. He yawned, and bid them all to lie down. Their blood was thick and heavy. ‘Cherish your blood,’ he said. ‘It is nature’s friend.’ By now they were all yawning, too. They thanked him for his advice, and laid themselves down to rest. It was the best thing to do. I shall not describe their dreams. They were filled with drink and, in that state, dreams have no meaning. They all slept until prime, nine o’clock - all of them, that is, except Canacee. She had been very sensible, as women are, and had gone to bed early after thanking and blessing her father. She did not want to look ill or pale on the following day; she wanted to look fresh and gay. So she slept a moderate amount, and then awoke. On opening her eyes she thought once more of the ring, and the magic mirror; she was so excited that she must have changed colour twenty times. Even in her sleep she had dreamed of that mirror. It had made such an impression on her. So just before the sun began to rise she called her governess to her bedside, telling her that she wanted to dress and get ready for the day. The old crone, who considered herself to be as wise as her mistress, readily answered. ‘Where will you go, ma dame,’ she asked her, ‘when everyone else is still in bed?’ ‘I want to get up. I have had enough sleep. I want to walk about and take the air.’ So the governess clapped her hands and summoned the maidservants, a dozen or more, to attend their mistress. Then up rose Canacee, as bright and rosy as the sun itself. It was already warm, the sun having risen into Aries, and so the princess walked out blithely into the light. She was gaily dressed for the season and, with five or six of her attendants, she enjoyed the fragrance of the early morning. Together they made their way down a green avenue in the park. The mist rising from the fresh earth made the sun seem roseate and large; it was so fair a sight that all of the ladies were glad at heart. It was a lovely season. It was a wonderful morning. All the birds began to sing. And, as they sang, Canacee understood them perfectly. She could follow their meaning note by note. I forgot to mention one thing, you see. She had put on the ring.

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Yet they too belonged to the modern world and were able to convey the ideals of the republic to the people in a way that their political leaders could not. With his wild, flowing hair, Lorenzo Dow looked like a latter-day John the Baptist; he still saw a storm as a direct act of God, and yet he would often begin a sermon with a quotation from Jefferson or Paine and constantly urged his congregations to cast superstition aside and think for themselves. When Barton Warren Stone left the Presbyterians to found a more democratic church, he called his secession a “declaration of independence.” James O’Kelly who had fought in the Revolution and been thoroughly politicized, left mainstream Christianity to found his own church of “Republican Methodists.” These men have been called “folk geniuses.” 2 They were able to translate modern ideals such as freedom of speech, democracy, and equality into an idiom that the less privileged could understand and make their own. Drawing on the radical strain in the gospels, they insisted that the first should be last and the last first, that God favored the poor and unlettered. Jesus and his disciples had not had a college education, so people should not be in thrall to a learned clergy; they had the common sense to figure out the plain meaning of the scriptures for themselves. 3 These prophets mobilized the population in nationwide mass movements, making creative use of popular music and the new communications media. Instead of imposing modernity from above, as the founding fathers had intended, they created a grassroots rebellion against the rational establishment. They were highly successful. The sects founded by Smith, O’Kelly, and others amalgamated later to form the Disciples of Christ, which by 1860 had become the fifth-largest Protestant denomination in the United States with some two hundred thousand members. 4 Rooted in eighteenth-century Pietism, Evangelical Christianity led many Americans away from the cool ethos of the Age of Reason to the kind of populist democracy, anti-intellectualism, and rugged individualism that still characterizes American culture. Preachers held torchlight processions and mass rallies, and the new genre of the gospel song transported the audience to ecstasy, so that they wept and shouted for joy. Like some of the fundamentalist movements today, these congregations gave people who felt disenfranchised and exploited a means of making their voices heard by the establishment. But the Evangelical movement was not confined to the frontiers.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  Now I will leave the gods in heaven, and return to the events of earth. It is time for the tournament. Of arms, and the men, I sing. PART FOUR The festivities that day in Athens were glorious. The vigour of May entered every person, so that all were bold and playful. They danced and jousted all that Monday, or spent the day in the service of Venus. The night was for rest. All were eager to rise early and to witness the great fight. On that morning there was a great bustle and noise, in the inns and lodgings, as the horses and the suits of armour were prepared for the battle. The knights and the companies of nobles, mounted on stallions and fine steeds, rode out to the palace. If you had been there, you would have seen armour so ornate and so exotic that it seemed to be spun out of gold and steel. The spears, the head-armour, and the horse-armour, glittered in the morning sun while the golden mail and coats of arms glowed in the throng. In the saddle were lords wearing richly decorated robes, followed by the knights of their retinue and their squires; the squires themselves were busy fastening the heads to the shafts of the spears, buckling up the helmets and fitting the shields with leather straps. This was no time to be idle. The horses were foaming and champing on their golden bridles. The armourers were running here and there with file and hammer. There were yeomen in procession, and also many of the common people with thick staffs in their hands. All of them rode, or marched, to the notes of pipes, trumpets, bugles and kettledrums blaring out the sound of battle. In the palace there were small groups of people in excited debate, all of them discussing the merits of the Theban knights. One had an opinion, which another contradicted. One said this, another said that. Some supported the knight with the black beard, while others commended the bald fellow. Yet others gave the palm to the knight with the shaggy hair. ‘I tell you this,’ one courtier said, ‘he looks like a fighter. That axe of his must weight twenty pounds at least.’ ‘Never!’ So, long after the sun had risen, the halls rang with gossip and speculation.

• From The Canterbury Tales (2009)

  When he came up to us he cried out in a loud voice, ‘God save you all! I have come all this way for your sake. I rode as fast as I could to catch up with you. Do you mind if I join you?’ His servant now rode up behind him. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I saw you leave the inn early this morning, and I told my master here all about you. You seemed such a jolly crowd. So he was determined to ride with you. He likes a bit of fun.’ ‘I’m glad you told him,’ the Host replied to the boy. ‘It looks as if your master is a clever man. Witty, too. And I bet he has a few stories to keep us all amused. Am I right?’ ‘Stories? He has got a million of them. He is very entertaining, if you know what I mean. I will tell you something else. He is skilled in many ways. He has many talents. He has undertaken work of great importance, too, which no one else could manage. Unless they learned from him how to do it. He may look ordinary enough, but it will profit you to get to know him. I bet you anything that you will gain from acquaintance with him. He is a very wise man. He is one of the best.’ ‘Tell me this. Is he a priest or a scholar? What kind of man is he?’ ‘He is more than just a priest, sir. I will tell you, in a few words, what kind of art he practises. I cannot let you know everything, even though I do work as his assistant. But I can tell you this about his business. He is a man of such subtlety and skill that he could turn all this ground on which we are riding - the whole route, from Southwark to Canterbury - into gold and silver. I am not exaggerating.’ ‘Good God!’ Harry Bailey was astounded. ‘That is a marvel, to be sure. But since your master is such a wise man, and so worthy of honour, can you explain why he is wearing such a tatty old gown? It is dirty and full of holes. It isn’t worth a penny. Where is his self-respect? According to you, he is worth a lot of money. If he can turn this road to gold and silver, why does he not buy a better gown? Tell me the answer.’

• From The Case for God (2009)

  Also present was the philosopher and scientist Rene Descartes (1596–1650), who refused to join the applause. The assembly, Descartes explained, had made a fundamental error in being satisfied with knowledge that was merely probable. But he had developed a philosophical method based on the mathematical sciences that yielded absolute certainty. It was not easy, but if followed diligently over a long period of time, it could be applied effectively to any field of knowledge, including theology. After the conference, Bérulle took Descartes aside and told him that he had a duty—indeed, a divine mission—to publish this method, if he thought that it could pull Europe back from the abyss. Descartes had been educated at the Jesuit college of La Flèche in Anjou, founded by Henry IV, where he was encouraged to read widely. He had been overwhelmed with excitement when he read Galileo for the first time and had also been fascinated by the skepticism of Montaigne, though as time went on he became convinced that this was not the right message for a world torn apart by warring dogmatisms that seemed unable to find a truth to bring people together. Descartes’ philosophy was marked by the horror of his time. He had been present when the heart of Henry IV, martyr of tolerance, had been enshrined in the cathedral at La Flèche. Throughout his life, he was convinced that both Catholics and Protestants could hope for heaven. His goal was to find a truth on which everybody—Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, deists, and “atheists”—could agree so that all people of good will could live together in peace. Descartes’ ideas were formed on the battlefields of the Thirty Years’ War. On leaving school, he had joined the army of Maurice, Count of Nassau (1567–1625), and traveled Europe as a gentleman soldier, meeting some of the most important mathematicians and philosophers of the day. He claimed afterward that he had learned far more in the army than he would have at a university. As he witnessed the war at first hand, he became convinced that it was essential to find a way out of the theological and political impasse that seemed to be destroying civilization itself; everything seemed to be falling apart. The only way forward was to go back to first principles and start all over again. In 1619, Descartes transferred to the army of Maximilian I of Bavaria. As he was journeying to take up his new post, a heavy snowfall forced him to put up in a small poêle, a stove-heated room, near Ulm on the Danube. For once, he had time for serious, solitary reflection, and it was during this retreat that he devised his method. He experienced three luminous dreams, commanding him to lay the foundations of a “marvellous science” that would bring together all the disciplines—theology, arithmetic, astronomy, music, geometry, optics, and physics— under the mantle of mathematics.

• From City of Night (1963)

  I will fall in love again soon—I can feel it—and when I do, I will have my Fabulous Wedding, in a pearlwhite gown—” and she went on delightedly until she caught sight of Pauline’s reflection in the panel of mirrors behind the bar, and something about the way Pauline was looking in our direction clearly threatened she would come right over and introduce herself and bug Miss Destiny. “Goddam queer,” Miss Destiny murmured, and she was fiercely depressed. CHUCK: Rope Heaven by the Neck 1 “HEY, MAN!—HOW YOU MAKIN IT?... Cummon over—jine me.” Chuck sat familiarly on the railing at Pershing Square under the statue of a World War I soldier valiantly facing the street. Wearing a new pair of cowboy boots—resplendently Bright (orange, brown, traces of yellow)—which hes showing off by rolling his levis an extra turn—Chuck sits there as if on his own frontporch. “Where you been?” he asks me. (I didnt tell him this, but I’ll tell you: After staying away from the park as compulsively as always, I returned, I had gone to San Diego again: to the beach at La Jolla set like a jewel in a ring of gleaming sand. I would lie alone for hours on that still-cool beach, just staring at the sky, at the patterns of the hastily smeared clouds: as I had lain looking into the El Paso sky when I was a kid, when I had climbed that range of mountains called Cristo Rey, to get closer to that Sky; hugged by the jutting sandy hills: lying there—alone—looking up—at times at the sky itself, times at the clouds, times toward the giant statue of the peasant-faced Christ at the top of the mountain.... And years later I was lying on the sand at La Jolla, trying now perhaps to find in the shape of those California beach-clouds the lost patterns I had found as a kid. Vainly.... The idleness of the not-yet crowded beach hinting lazily of spring—and the keyed-up idleness of the streets in the city—San Diego!—at night swarming with aimless sailors—this only emphasized the formless terror and panic.... I returned to Los Angeles, to that same room on Hope Street, to that same roof at night—to the same maryjane daze whose miracles were slowly diminishing.... And I returned, soon, to Pershing Square, as, before, I had returned to Times Square....) I only told Chuck: “Ive been away.” “Ain that somethin now?” he said. “Me, too—I been away too. I had this gig justa while ago,” He yawned as if even the memory of work tired him. “It was in this parking lot out in Hollywood. This score I met out here, he got me that job. But, hell, I figure: So I make a few bucks working, I blow them—jes like that! Shoot, I get along jes as good without.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  There was something blissfully unkempt about it, as though its mistress were too much engrossed in other affairs to control its behaviour. Nothing was quite where it ought to have been, and much was where it ought not to have been, while over the whole lay a faint layer of dust—even over the spacious salon. The odour of somebody’s Oriental scent was mingling with the odour of tuberoses in a sixteenth century chalice. On a divan, whose truly regal proportions occupied the best part of a shadowy alcove, lay a box of Fuller’s peppermint creams and a lute, but the strings of the lute were broken. Valérie came forward with a smile of welcome. She was not beautiful nor was she imposing, but her limbs were very perfectly proportioned, which gave her a fictitious look of tallness. She moved well, with the quiet and unconscious grace that sprang from those perfect proportions. Her face was humorous, placid and worldly; her eyes very kind, very blue, very lustrous. She was dressed all in white, and a large white fox skin was clasped round her slender and shapely shoulders. For the rest she had masses of thick fair hair, which was busily ridding itself of its hairpins; one could see at a glance that it hated restraint, like the flat it was in rather splendid disorder. She said: ‘I’m so delighted to meet you at last, Miss Gordon, do come and sit down. And please smoke if you want to,’ she added quickly, glancing at Stephen’s tell-tale fingers. Brockett said: ‘Positively, this is too splendid! I feel that you’re going to be wonderful friends.’ Stephen thought: ‘So this is Valérie Seymour.’ No sooner were they seated than Brockett began to ply their hostess with personal questions. The mood that had incubated in the motor was now becoming extremely aggressive, so that he fidgeted about on his chair, making his little inadequate gestures. ‘Darling, you’re looking perfectly lovely! But do tell me, what have you done with Polinska? Have you drowned her in the blue grotto at Capri? I hope so, my dear, she was such a bore and so dirty! Do tell me about Polinska. How did she behave when you got her to Capri? Did she bite anybody before you drowned her? I always felt frightened; I loathe being bitten!’ Valérie frowned: ‘I believe she’s quite well.’ ‘Then you have drowned her, darling!’ shrilled Brockett. And now he was launched on a torrent of gossip about people of whom Stephen had never even heard: ‘Pat’s been deserted—have you heard that, darling? Do you think she’ll take the veil or cocaine or something? One never quite knows what may happen next with such an emotional temperament, does one?

• From City of Night (1963)

  Unexpectedly at night you may come upon scenes of crushed intimacy along the dark twisting lanes. In the eery mottled light of a distant lamp, a shadow lies on his stomach on the grasspatched ground, another straddles him: ignoring the danger of detection in the last moments of exiled excitement.... In Central Park—as a rainstorm approached (the dark clouds crashing in the black sky which seemed to be lowering, ripped occasionally by the lightning)—once, one night in that park, aware of an unbearable exploding excitement within me mixed with unexplainable sudden panic, I stood against a tree and in frantic succession—and without even coming—I let seven night figures go down on me. And when, finally, the rain came pouring, I walked in it, soaked, as if the water would wash away whatever had caused the desperate night-experience . THE PROFESSOR: The Flight of the Angels 1 THE MAN IN BED—STARING AT me appraisingly—was enormous. In one hand he held a pastel-blue cigarette—poised, daintily between two puffed fingers. He brings the cigarette studiedly to his mouth and blows out a shapeless cloud of uninhaled smoke. He looks crazily like a pink-faced genie emerging from the smoke. The other hand held a tape-measure, which is partly wrapped about his sagging fat neck.... Hes somewhere in his 60s. His head is shaved completely. Huge dark eyes bulge behind thick glasses, like the crazy eyes painted on the glasses children wear on Halloween. Beside me, in this well-furnished apartment, stands a young malenurse, who has brought me here from Times Square. He is perhaps 28, coldly blond, with a very pale face—a premature Oldness, a bitter knowingness. He acts like a haughty movie butler who feels superior to the guests. Even on the street when he approached me, he had looked at me with unconcealed contempt; lighting a cigarette as we walked here, not offering me one. Scattered about the floor are manuscripts, books, magazines. The room is cluttered with statues, unhung paintings, vases with withered flowers. There was a large ugly German beer mug on a mantle. Now the malenurse is looking at the old man—waiting, I knew, for some sign of approbation or displeasure from him. After long moments of staring at me, unwinding the tape-measure, winding it again, puffing elegantly on the pastel-blue cigarette, the old man, propped halfway up in the hospital bed, said finally: “Well!” And his fleshy face shaped a smile—molded as if on pink clay. “Im not one bit disappointed,” he announced grandly. “But then I never am—thanks to Larry here,” acknowledging the malenurse. “Larry knows my subtlest moods, my changing (oh, so changing!) tastes—and hes only been with me—how long, Larry?” The malenurse answers quickly: “Four months, Professor.” “Ah, yes, of course, four months!” The man in bed goes on: “It’s unfortunate that the world doesnt recognize talent like Larry’s openly. Larry would be an Enormous Success. But then there are many things the world doesnt recognize. Yes.... Fine, Larry, now, if youll excuse us—” The malenurse walks out, almost brushing my shoulder, without looking at me. “My dear youngman,” the old man announces, “you are about to join the ranks of: My Angels!” 2