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.

Page 99 of 182 · 20 per page

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  The whole company declared they could not imagine any- thing better, and everyone looked forward with impatience for the morrow. As soon as the morning broke they all went to the chamber of Madame Oisille, whom they found already at prayers. She read to them for a good hour, after which they heard mass, and at ten o'clock they went to dinner. Everyone then retired to his own chamber, and attended to what he had to do. At noon all were punctually assembled in the meadow, which was so beautiful and agreeable, that it would need a Boccaccio to depict all its charms : enough for us to say that there never was its like. The company being seated on the green turf, so soft and delicate that no one had need of floor or carpet, " Which of us," said Simontault, " shall have the command over the rest ? " " Since you have been the first to speak," said Hircan, *' it is right you should have the command ; for in sport all are equals." "God knows," replied Simontault, " I could desire noth- ing better in the world than to command such a company." Parlamente, who knew very well what that meant, began to cough, so that Hircan did not perceive she had changed color, and told Simontault to begin his tale, for all were ready to hear him. The same request being urged by the whole company, Simontault said, " I have been so ill-re- quited for my long services, ladies, that to revenge myself on love and on the fair one who treats me with so much cruelty, I am about to make a collection of misdeeds done by women to men, in the whole of which I will relate nothing but the simple truth." THE HEPTAMERON OF THE QUEEN OF NAVARRE. NOVEL I. Woman of Alen^on having two lovers, one for her pleasnre and the other for her profit, caused that one of the twro to be slain who was the first to discover her gallantries — She obtained her pardon and that of her husband, who had fled the country, and who afterwards, in order to save some money, applied to a necromancer — The matter was found out and punished.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Now and then, when no one was present in the "club," Christian appeared, took a glass of Benedictine, and said that he was now willing to take over the agency for a champagne and cognac company - he knew how to do that, and it was easy, pleasant work, one was one's own master, wrote a little in one's notebook here and there and in no time at all had earned thirty talers - borrowed then forty shillings from Frau Permaneder, in order to be able to present the first lover from the Stadttheater with a bouquet, God knows, as a result of what connection of ideas, came to speak of "Maria" and "vice" in London, fell into the story of the mangy dog ,who had traveled from Valparaiso to San Francisco in a box, and now that he was on the train he was telling the story with such fullness, verve and comedy that he could have entertained a hall full of people. He got excited, he spoke in tongues. He spoke English, Spanish, Low German and Hamburgisch, he described Chilean knife adventurers and thieving affairs from Whitechapel, took it upon himself to have a look at his store of couplets and sang or spoke with exemplary facial play and a picturesque talent in the hand movements: »I güng so quite pomad' So up the Esplanade, There's such a lovely girl So ahead of me up; She had such a fine Pli Mi a French cu And a big Deller aft up'm head I say: 'My dear child, because you are so southern Would you allow me your arm?' You three are all the more right And – peek – at me – and bless – –: ›Ga man na Hus, mi Jung, and si happy!‹« And he had scarcely finished with this when he switched to reports from the Renz circus and began to render the whole entry of an English speaking clown in such a way that one could imagine one was sitting in front of the arena. You could hear the usual shouting from behind the curtains, the "Open the door for me!", the quarrels with the groom and then, in broad and wailing English-German, a series of stories. It was the story of the man who swallowed a mouse while he was sleeping and therefore went to the vet, who in turn advised him to swallow a cat as well... The story of "My grandmother, fresh and healthy as the woman was", in which same grandmother on the way to the station thousandadventuremeet her and finally, fresh and healthy as the woman was, the train pulls away in front of her nose ... whereupon Christian broke off the punch line with a triumphant "Music, Herr Kapellmeister!" and himself, waking up, seemed quite surprised that the music did not start ... And then, all of a sudden, he fell silent, his face changed, his movements slacked.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  The good news is good news for all. Let us go on to see certain things about this euaggelion , this ‘good news’ in regard to man . (i) The euaggelion is not a human discovery, it is ‘a revelation from God’. The fact that God is as Jesus showed him to be is not something which a man could have discovered by intellectual processes. Man does not discover God. God reveals himself (Gal. 1.11, 12). (ii) The euaggelion is something in which a man must ‘believe’ (Mark 1.15). The whole of Christianity consists in living life in the unalterable conviction that the good news that Jesus brought about God is true. (iii) The euaggelion is something which he who knows must ‘proclaim to others’ (Rom. 15.19; I Cor. 9.14, 18; II Cor. 10.14; 11.7; Gal. 2.2). When a man has found the good news, he has not truly found it until he wishes to share it with others. A missionary tells of an Indian who had been hostile to Christianity and who was converted to it. He got himself a Bible. He got used to reading it, and, as he read, he would come upon a passage which spoke to his heart, and with his finger in the place, he would rush out into the road and stop each passer-by, crying out, ‘Have you heard about this?’ No Christian can keep the good news to himself. Every Christian is a missionary. (iv) That task of spreading the euaggelion is not something which a man chooses, but something which is ‘entrusted’ to him and ‘laid upon’ him (I Thess. 2.4; I Cor. 9.16). It is most literally ‘for God’s sake’ that he must pass on the good news, which he himself has received. (v) The euaggelion is something for which a man must ‘risk everything’ (Mark 8.35; 10.29; Rom. 1.16; I Cor. 9.23). He must be prepared to stake everything on the certainty that the man who obeys God’s commandments will find God’s promises true. (vi) The euaggelion is something which a man can ‘serve’ (Rom. 1.1; 15.16; Phil. 1.12; 2.22; 4.3; I Thess. 3.2). The reception of the good news points at one and the same time ‘to privilege and to duty’. A man must give his life to that which gave him life. (vii) The euaggelion is something which a man can ‘defend’ (Phil. 1.7, 17). By his life and words and conduct and action he must at every moment be ‘a defender of the faith’. (viii) The euaggelion is something which a man can ‘hinder’ (I Cor. 9.12). It is the awe-inspiring responsibility of the Christian life that every one of us can make others think less or more of the Christian faith. (ix) The euaggelion is something which a man can ‘miss’ or ‘refuse’ (Rom. 2.16; 10.16; II Thess. 1.7, 8; I Pet. 4.17).

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  Some somewhat flighty fathers, such as Consul Kröger and, of course, Peter Döhlmann, were also members, and the police senator Cremer was "the first man on the syringe" here. This is how Doctor Gieseke, Andreas Gieseke, the fire director's son, put it, Christian's old school friend, who had established himself as a lawyer in the city and who, although he was considered a rather wild suiter, was soon joined by young Buddenbrook in renewed friendship . Christian or, as he was more or less badly called, Krischan, who was more or less acquainted with all of them or friends from earlier times - because most of them were students of the blessed Marcellus Stengel - was welcomed here with open arms, because even if neither Merchants and scholars alike thought his intellectual faculties great, yet his amusing, social gifts were well known. In fact, it was here that he gave his best performances, here he told his best stories. He made a virtuoso at the club piano, he imitated English and transatlantic actors and opera singers, he performed in the most harmless and entertaining way women's affairs from different quarters - for no doubt: Christian Buddenbrook was a "suitier" - he reported adventures that he on ships, on trains, in St. Pauli, in Whitechapel, in the jungle... He told the story compellingly, captivatingly, with effortless flow, with a slightly plaintive and sluggish pronunciation, burlesque and harmless like an English humorist. He told the story of a dog that was sent from Valparaiso to San Francisco in a box and was mangy to boot. God knows what the real point of the anecdote was; but in his mouth it was immensely funny. And when no one around knew how to laugh, he sat himself, with his large, curved nose, his thin, too long neck and his reddish-blond, already sparse hair, and displayed an uneasy and inexplicable seriousness with a slightly plaintive and drawn-out pronunciation, burlesque and harmless like an English humorist. He told the story of a dog that was sent from Valparaiso to San Francisco in a box and was mangy to boot. God knows what the real point of the anecdote was; but in his mouth it was immensely funny.

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 50 < Lecture 7  The Earliest Christian Missions `When these other Jews see this great miracle, and hear Peter explain that it comes from the power of God because of his messiah Jesus, 3,000 convert on spot. The disciples continue from there, making more and more converts. `Eventually their success creates jealousy among the Jewish leaders, and most of the Christians are driven out of Jerusalem. But God uses this persecution for good, as it allows the message then to be taken to other places. `Opposition to the Christians follows them, however, particularly at the hands of a highly religious Jew named Saul, later to be called Paul. But in a miraculous event described in chapter 9, Saul himself has a vision of Jesus while traveling on the road to the city of Damascus, and he realizes that Jesus really is the Son of God. He converts to believe in Jesus. `Paul is commissioned by Christ to take the gospel message further afield. Most of the second half of Acts narrates his missionary journeys with Christian companions as he takes the gospel message to other lands, making the Christian church a worldwide movement spread throughout major urban areas of the Roman world. < 50 <

• From Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex (1994)

  It’s hard to know which criteria have granted P.C. status to one book and not another; no one at the British Library admits to any kind of objective system. Sex with Your Hamster and Madonna’s Sex are in the general catalogue; bawdy songs from the seventeenth century and The Strange History of Joshua Josephson, a cartoon biography of Jesus Christ, are in the Private Case. A lot of the P.C. material is in French, Latin, and German. Among the 2,143 books in the P.C. there are many unique and lovely works almost any bibliophile would desire. There are rare first editions of erotic classics like Fanny Hill and The Story of O, and private editions of the same with engravings by the preoccupied publishers, such ephemera as pseudonymous poetry by Swinburne (praising flagellation) and by Auden (explicit paeons to homosexual passion), works by de Maupassant, Apollinaire, and Voltaire, and a coffee-table-size abridgment of Lysistrata with drawings by Aubrey Beardsley. And there is material capable of stimulating intense arousal, I can attest; it stole upon me now and then without warning where I sat quietly, pencil in hand, crossing and uncrossing my legs and coughing politely. The Private Case began at a time when the material included was not only unacceptable, but in many cases illegal. A number of books were probably saved from extinction altogether by the Private Case. The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence was judged obscene and publicly burned in 1915; librarians chose not to mention they had a copy. Lesser works like Here Lies John Penis by Potocki, and the works of Eric Arthur Wildman, who was convicted of publishing obscenity in the 1950s, were also ordered burned but kept safely under wraps. The English are great book-burners; prosecuted at various times was The Well of Loneliness, Ulysses, and Fanny Hill—oddly enough, not prosecuted for obscenity until the 1960s—and Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, this last also kept under wraps in the Private Case until recently. In such cases there are often protests against censorship and attempts to define pornography, based on claims that these “artistic” works didn’t qualify—always with real porn the poor, demented stepchild. Until the 1960s a request to see P.C. material meant an interview, the purpose of which was first to daunt the casual reader, and second, to vet the solemn and academic purpose of everyone else. One still must explain why one wants a Reader’s Pass in the first place, how these books will be used. But now anyone with a Reader’s Pass can have P.C. books without question—if they know of the Case, if they can find the bibliography, if they can convince clerks who, I found, aren’t always sure the Case exists.

• From The Erotic Engine (2011)

  Concurrent with this technological maelstrom was an upheaval in social values—not just a revolution in sexuality but also urbanization, new ideas about cultural and ethnic diversity, and the growing influence of younger voices in the media. One of the people who was at the global forefront in this time of great change was a young player on the Canadian television scene named Moses Znaimer. In the early 1970s, he had bold ideas about how television might better reflect a modern, sophisticated, multicultural city like Toronto. He felt that urban audiences were ready for smart, playful news and entertainment that reflected and respected their intelligence, diversity and sophistication. Unfortunately, there was no place in the traditional television world where he could develop these ideas. To realize his vision, he had to break away from standard channels and persuade people to use a new television technology. Znaimer was working with a limited budget, but he had a low-cost idea that he believed would entice people to try this new medium: pornography. Znaimer first tried to develop his brand of modern urban programming at the country’s national public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC, a massive, bureaucratic organization, could not or would not push into new territory quickly enough for Znaimer. He departed for the private sector and launched his own television station, called Citytv. One of the first challenges he faced was to find an unoccupied spot on the frequency band for City to broadcast. At the time, Toronto was the world’s most competitive television market, with local, regional and national channels from both Canada and the United States crowding the dial. All the spots on the traditional VHF (very high frequency) dial were occupied by the major networks and other established channels. The only broadcast real estate Znaimer could find was in a barely known bandwidth range known as UHF, for ultra-high frequency. Televisions had only recently begun shipping with UHF tuners, and most viewers had no idea what this extra dial on the front of their set was for—and no interest in finding out. “It was the first commercial U,” said Znaimer. We were talking in a boardroom at the head office of his current media empire (which is built around active baby boomers, whom Znaimer dubs Zoomers). “People had to be educated, they had to be convinced.”

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  After I got Laura’s e-mail in which she told me she had become a Christian, I just about lost it with excitement. I felt like a South African the day they let Mandela out of prison. I called her and asked her to coffee at Palio. I picked her up in Eliot Circle at Reed, and she was smiling and full of energy. She said we had much to talk about, very much to talk about. At Palio, we sat in the booth at the back, and even though Laura had been my close friend, I felt like I had never met this woman. She squirmed in her seat as she talked with confidence about her love for Jesus. I sat there amazed because it is true. People do come to know Jesus. This crazy thing really happens. It isn’t just me. I was watching BET one night, and they were interviewing a man about jazz music. He said jazz music was invented by the first generation out of slavery. I thought that was beautiful because, while it is music, it is very hard to put on paper; it is so much more a language of the soul. It is as if the soul is saying something, something about freedom. I think Christian spirituality is like jazz music. I think loving Jesus is something you feel. I think it is something very difficult to get on paper. But it is no less real, no less meaningful, no less beautiful. The first generation out of slavery invented jazz music. It is a music birthed out of freedom. And that is the closest thing I know to Christian spirituality. A music birthed out of freedom. Everybody sings their song the way they feel it, everybody closes their eyes and lifts up their hands. I want Jesus to happen to you the way He happened to Laura at Reed, the way He happened to Penny in France, the way He happened to me in Texas. I want you to know Jesus too. This book is about the songs my friends and I are singing. This is what God is doing in our lives. But what song will you sing when your soul gets set free? I think it will be something true and beautiful. If you haven’t done it in a while, pray and talk to Jesus. Ask Him to become real to you. Ask Him to forgive you of self-addiction, ask Him to put a song in your heart. I can’t think of anything better that could happen to you than this. Much love to you and thanks for listening to us sing. Acknowledgments

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  4.23; 9.35; 24.14). The proof of the centrality of this word in the Christian message can be seen from the fact that euaggelion occurs 72 times in the NT and of these 72 instances 54 are in Paul’s letters. To the greatest of the Christian missionaries Christianity was essentially ‘good news’. There is an implicit contrast here. The preaching of John the Baptist with its consuming fire, its winnowing fan, its axe laid to the root of the tree is the reverse of good news. It is tidings of disaster, but the whole essence of the message of Jesus is ‘good news of God’. (ii) Sometimes the euaggelion is spoken of as the euaggelion ‘of God’ (Mark 1.14; I Thess. 2.2, 8, 9). It is good news of God in two senses, (a) It showed to men a God the like of whom they had never dreamed, a God whose heart was love. (b) It was good news ‘sent by God’. Behind the whole process of salvation is God. It is always wrong to think of an angry God and a gentle Christ, to think that what Jesus did changed the attitude of God to men. It was because God so loved the world that he sent his Son. The good news is of God and from God. (iii) Sometimes euaggelion is spoken of as the euaggelion of ‘Jesus Christ’ (Mark 1.1; II Cor. 4.4; 9.13; 10.14). It is the good news of Jesus Christ in two senses. (a) Jesus ‘brought’ it to men. Without him they would never have known it. (b) Jesus ‘embodied’ it to men. He did not only tell men what God was like, he showed them the Father. (iv) Sometimes Paul uses the expression ‘my’ or ‘our’ euaggelion (II Cor. 4.3; I Thess. 1.5; II Thess. 2.14). The good news comes from God, and belongs to God. It is brought by Jesus and belongs to Jesus. But, for all that, a man must ‘appropriate’ it until it belongs to him. He must pass it through his mind and receive it into his heart until it is utterly and inalienably his. (v) The euaggelion is for all men (Mark 13.10; 16.15; Acts 15.7). The Jews had always believed that in God’s economy there was a most favoured nation clause. But the gospel of Christ is the gospel without boundaries. The good news is good news for all. Let us go on to see certain things about this euaggelion, this ‘good news’ in regard to man. (i) The euaggelion is not a human discovery, it is ‘a revelation from God’. The fact that God is as Jesus showed him to be is not something which a man could have discovered by intellectual processes. Man does not discover God. God reveals himself (Gal. 1.11, 12). (ii) The euaggelion is something in which a man must ‘believe’ (Mark 1.15).

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘Actually, over here is where I would want to shoot you, William.’ Behind the sheet of paper, at the rear of the studio, was a setting of another kind, a painted canvas flat showing a balustrade, a curtain tumbling down above, and a hazy impression of parkland beyond. It was similar in kind to the scene in the mysterious early photograph of Charles with a woman—though such backdrops must have been common in photographers’ studios all over the world before the war. ‘I picked it up from a demolition site out at Whitechapel,’ said Staines, coming up behind me to look at it, and resting a ringed hand on my shoulder. ‘It’s not all I picked up there, either, if you must know.’ I smirked. ‘No, I’m going to use it for my kind of Edwardian pics. So touching. You did say you’d do one of them didn’t you—you’ve got just the looks for it. Nothing naughty, nothing naughty at all.’ ‘I should be pleased to,’ I decided. ‘But first I want to look out some pickies of old Charles and others. It’s all in the most frightful mess. Really I need someone—well, someone like you really—to come and sort out the archivi. It’s been a help selling lots of stuff, but still.’ Together we tugged out the wide shallow drawers in which hundreds and hundreds of photographs were laid up. Crazed, silky sheets of tissuepaper interleaved the older prints and, pulled back, revealed anonymous society faces of the Forties—I supposed—sulking, or smiling complacently. Some I wanted to look at more closely, but Staines dismissed them and hurried on; or if he told me about them they were people I had never heard of. It was depressing to think of the scene of Charles’s life crowded with such glossy Mayfair figures, the women with their jutting busts and lacquered lips, the men with their conceited crinkly hair. ‘This is all Bond Street stuff,’ Staines reassured me. ‘Some of it’s brilliant, but it’s not what we want.’ So Phil and I carried the trays of photographs through into the drawing-room—and I asked if we could see the new work too, the martyrdoms and butcher’s boys. Staines went off to hunt for other things, letters he might have had, while Phil and I sat like spoiled children on the sofa by the empty fireplace and looked through it all. There was something wanton about the way he let us rummage, and about the muddle of the system. I felt each picture encourage a question, or hint at some urgent, tawdry secret.

• From Little Women (1868)

  If it's fine, I'm going to pitch my tent in Longmeadow, and row up the whole crew to lunch and croquet—have a fire, make messes, gypsy fashion, and all sorts of larks. They are nice people, and like such things. Brooke will go to keep us boys steady, and Kate Vaughn will play propriety for the girls. I want you all to come, can't let Beth off at any price, and nobody shall worry her. Don't bother about rations, I'll see to that and everything else, only do come, there's a good fellow! In a tearing hurry, Yours ever, Laurie. "Here's richness!" cried Jo, flying in to tell the news to Meg. "Of course we can go, Mother? It will be such a help to Laurie, for I can row, and Meg see to the lunch, and the children be useful in some way." "I hope the Vaughns are not fine grown-up people. Do you know anything about them, Jo?" asked Meg. "Only that there are four of them. Kate is older than you, Fred and Frank (twins) about my age, and a little girl (Grace), who is nine or ten. Laurie knew them abroad, and liked the boys. I fancied, from the way he primmed up his mouth in speaking of her, that he didn't admire Kate much." "I'm so glad my French print is clean, it's just the thing and so becoming!" observed Meg complacently. "Have you anything decent, Jo?" "Scarlet and gray boating suit, good enough for me. I shall row and tramp about, so I don't want any starch to think of. You'll come, Betty?" "If you won't let any boys talk to me." "Not a boy!" "I like to please Laurie, and I'm not afraid of Mr. Brooke, he is so kind. But I don't want to play, or sing, or say anything. I'll work hard and not trouble anyone, and you'll take care of me, Jo, so I'll go." "That's my good girl. You do try to fight off your shyness, and I love you for it. Fighting faults isn't easy, as I know, and a cheery word kind of gives a lift. Thank you, Mother," And Jo gave the thin cheek a grateful kiss, more precious to Mrs. March than if it had given back the rosy roundness of her youth. "I had a box of chocolate drops, and the picture I wanted to copy," said Amy, showing her mail. "And I got a note from Mr. Laurence, asking me to come over and play to him tonight, before the lamps are lighted, and I shall go," added Beth, whose friendship with the old gentleman prospered finely. "Now let's fly round, and do double duty today, so that we can play tomorrow with free minds," said Jo, preparing to replace her pen with a broom. When the sun peeped into the girls' room early next morning to promise them a fine day, he saw a comical sight.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  We were all jolly stirred, though we showed it in different ways. Harrap was particularly struck, & gasped ‘I say, I say’ over & over, taking his hat off & then prudently putting it back on again. I imagine he’ll say ‘I say, I say’ quite a lot more as Africa offers up its wonders. Not that the landfall itself is in the least remarkable: we had shuffled along in & out of sight of land for the last day or more, but it gave nothing of itself away: a certain amount of traffic evidently going in & out of Alex, & smallish freighters passing near enough for us to see our first Africans. Their lack of any sense of occasion was infinitely touching & humbling. Here was your fellah at his changeless labours—and us Englishmen, coming to rule & to help, so young & calm. I was in the most delirious mixture of silliness & solemnity, & as we approached the entrance to the Canal, & saw the cranes on the docks, the frankly undistinguished buildings, soldiers too as we drew closer, & crowds in djellabas somehow indifferent & yet in a flurry at our arrival, Oxford and England and Poppy seemed almost giddily remote. The heat was rocketing up all the time of course, & when the ship finally stopped moving, & we stood along the rail disdaining to wave at the children & waiting for the gangway to be lowered, it slammed in our faces for the first time. We had 12 hours here while refuelling took place, and I was so much looking forward to it that I cd hardly bring myself to go ashore, & had to think hard about deadly serious things to keep myself from grinning like a fool as I went at a canter down the virtually perpendicular gangplank & shot into the melee of people. I longed to look at them & shake their outstretched, begging, greeting hands, instead of marching implacably through, as we had to. Custom dictated that we go to Simon Artz’s emporium to buy our sola topis; Fryer and I stood wearing them in front of a huge dim mirror, which made us look very historic, and rather silly. I found mine uncomfortable, & was afraid it suddenly drew all the character out of my face & turned me into just another hard-hatted, heavy-handed empire-builder.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  As the series went on it became clear that there were many people who wished to possess the articles in more permanent form. At first I was surprised at this, for these articles might be defined as an attempt to popularize the Greek dictionary, and to teach Greek to people who do not know any Greek. But it seems to me that this interest was simply one facet of the quite extraordinary interest in the Bible which exists today and which is becoming ever stronger. I do not think that there ever was a time when people were more interested in what the Bible has to say and in what the Bible means. Therein lies the justification for a book like this. Translation from one language into another is in one sense impossible. It is always possible to translate words with accuracy when they refer to things. A chair is a chair in any language. But it is a different matter when it is a question of ideas. In that case some words need, not another to translate them, but a phrase, or a sentence, or even a paragraph. Further, words have associations. They have associations with people, with history, with ideas, with other words, and these associations give words a certain flavour which cannot be rendered in translation, but which affects their meaning and significance in the most important way. This book is an attempt to take certain great NT words and to find out what these words meant to the writers of the NT and to those who read and heard their message for the first time. To do that means seeking to trace the meaning of these words in classical Greek, in the Septuagint, when they occur there, in Hellenistic Greek and in the papyri.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  These words caused the queen such violent transports that, in order to conceal the commotion of her spirits, she took the gentleman's arm, and went with him into a garden adjoining her chamber, where she walked up and down a long while without being able to speak a single word to him. But the gentleman, seeing her half-con- quered, no sooner reached the end of an alley where no one could see them, than he plied her to good purpose with his long-concealed passion. Being both of one mind, they revenged themselves together ; and it was arranged between them that whenever the king went to visit the gentleman's wife, the gentleman should visit the queen. Thus, the cheaters being cheated, four would share the pleasure which two imagined they had all to 32 THE HEPl'AMERON OF THE ^No^'el % themselves. When all was over, the queen retired to her chamber, and the gentleman went home, both of them so well contented that they thought no more of their past vexations. The gentleman, far from dreading lest the king should visit his wife, on the contrary desired nothing better ; and to afford him opportunity for doing so, he went to the country oftener than he had been used. When the king knew that the gentleman was at his village, which was but half a league from the city, he went at once to the fair lady ; whilst the gentleman re- paired by night to the queen's chamber, where he did duty as the king's lieutenant so secretly that no one perceived it. Things went on in this way for a long while ; but whatever pains the king took to conceal his amour, all the world was aware of it. The gentleman was much pitied by all good-natured people, and ridiculed by the ill-natured, who used to make horns at him behind his back. He knew very well that they did so, and he laughed in his sleeve, for he thought his horns were as good as the king's crown. One day, when the royal gallant was at the gentleman's, casting his eyes on a pair of antlers hung up in the hall, he could not help saying, with a laugh, in the presence of the master of the house himself, "These antlers very well become this place." The gentleman, who had as much spirit as the king, had this inscription put up beneath the antlers after the king was gone: lo porto le corna, ciascun lo vede; Ma tal le porta, chi no lo crede. I wear the horns as all men know ; He wears them too who thinks not so. On his next visit the king observed this inscription, and First day\ QUEEN OF NA VA KRE. 33

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘Yes. They’re mostly only glancing—he must have known him at Oxford, and after. There’s no Oxford diary of course. The most interesting one is before Waugh goes to Africa: “Dinner with Alastair, who returns to Cairo on Sunday. We ran over the Abyssinian plan again. Later we were joined by Charlie Nantwich. He was quite drunk, having been at Georgia’s. Georgia says he is having a liaison with a Negro waiter at the Trocadero, and it is not going well. We pretended to know nothing. He passionate about Africa, beauty, grace, nobility etc of Negroes. He gave me copious advice, which I promised to remember. A. very quiet.” ’ ‘Amazing,’ I said. ‘Is that all about him?’ ‘That’s the main thing. Quite juicy, isn’t it? Dearest, you must do this. You are going to, aren’t you?’ I rubbed at my legs with the towel. ‘Actually, I’ve just about come to the decision not to.’ ‘Well, I think you’re mad.’ ‘I know.’ ‘Look, he’s obviously selected you specially. You’re meant to do it.’ In James a scientific mind coexisted with a fantastic and romantic belief in Providence. ‘And you’ve got fuck-all else to do. And you can write—your essay on Coade Stone vases was heart-breaking. And you’re very keen on the grace, nobility and so forth of Negroes. It’s an ideal opportunity. If you don’t do it, some other creep will get on to him. Or worse, the old boy will die. It would be an inestimable advantage,’ James concluded, ‘to do it while he was alive, to talk to about it all.’ ‘You’ve obviously thought about this far more clearly than I have,’ I said flippantly but truthfully. ‘I’d do it myself, but you know how it is—the sick to heal …’ ‘I agree there are reasons for doing it. I’ve just been preoccupied with the reasons for not doing it.’ ‘It’s too pathetic. I know you think you’re too grand to do any work, but you’ve got to commit yourself to something. Otherwise you’ll end up an old-young queen who’s done nothing worthwhile. Famous last words of the third Viscount Beckwith: “Fuck me again”.’ I smirked and half-laughed. ‘I thought my last words were to be “How do I look?” ’ James, himself in his grandest mood, was doing his occasional lecture, for which he stood in, it struck me, as an updated version of Mr Bast. ‘It’s just the thought of it going on for years and years, and perhaps not being interesting in the least.’ ‘There is also the thought that it will undoubtedly be a bestseller. Come on, he was obviously testing you out at his house—what did you think of the pictures, how did you react to the statue of King Thingamy.’ ‘There’s no doubt of that, and he obviously fancies me.’

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  It gave me a shock but also the pleasure of a bitter little nodding to myself in recognition of what was afoot. ‘Right!’ I thought, and then, after turning quickly at the corner to look back—but there were other people on the street now, and the distance was all a pattern of shadows—more or less forgot about it for the rest of the night. I was too taken up with the honest but slightly unworthy excitement of coming back to my old haunt with such a luscious piece of goods as Phil. It was the half-hour after closing time and the narrow grid of Soho was rowdy with people, some shutting up shop, some stumbling from pubs, and others performing the awkward, drunken transition from one place of amusement to another, where money would pour off them into the early hours of the morning. There was a small crowd outside the Shaft, a gaggle of excited boys, and others waiting, staring challengingly at the arrivals. The thump of the music, like some powerful creature barely contained, came up out of the ground and gathered around us as we went in at the door. On the stairs it began to be really loud, the whole foundations humming with the bass while a thrilling electronic rinse of high-pitched noise set the ears tingling. From now on talk would be shouting, or confidences made with lips and tongue pressed close to the ear: we would be hoarse from our intimacies. The medium of the place was black music, and even the double-jointed spareness of reggae came over the dance floor like a whiplash. At the foot of the stairs, in his pink-bulbed cubbyhole, Denys took our money. ‘Hey Willy, I thought you was dead, man.’ ‘I’ve been resurrected, just for tonight.’ He grinned. ‘Whatever did happen to your nose, eh?’ I pinched the broken bridge with my fingers. ‘Ooh, a bit of trouble with some boys—a bit of rough, you might say.’ ‘Well, you take care, man—because you, are, pretty.’ He fluttered his long lashes, but kept the straightest of faces. ‘And I hope you will have a pleasant evening too sir,’ he said to Phil, who thanked him apprehensively. So we passed on, waved in to the pounding semi-darkness by the impassive Horace, whose twenty-stone bulk, toiling and yet stately in a Hawaiian short-sleeved shirt, was reflected in floor-length mirrors that flanked the door and repeated him ad infinitum, like exotic statuary surrounding a temple.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  How easily we are made to feel, I thought, and with what little foundation, with no foundation at all. At the movie’s climax, a final scene of slaughter and settling of accounts, an old man across the aisle breathed Chestito , well done, just loudly enough to be heard, and it was almost as if I had spoken the word myself. As we neared Varna, the lights of the city drew me back to the windows, to the blurred world glimpsed through glass streaked with rain. We stopped at the edge of the city center, or what I took to be the city center, not at a terminal but in a lot beside a gas station, where Mitko was standing without an umbrella, his shoulders hunched against the rain. I was the first off the bus, bounding out to greet him, so overcome with excitement that he had to send me back for my bag, which I had left on the seat beside me. We both laughed at this, at my eagerness and forgetfulness, and he shook his head in rebuke and indulgence, having provided once again a service beyond the terms of our contract. He took the bag from me, insisting with a show of gallantry when I said I could carry it myself, and led me to a line of taxis. He asked me about the trip, if I was hungry, if I wanted to go straight to the hotel or explore a bit first, though of course he already knew my answer to these questions. It was a short drive to the hotel he had chosen, a nice place, he said, very close to the sea. And it was nice, in a faded way, two old houses around a courtyard on a narrow street off the city’s main square, the pedestrian avenue leading to the sea. There was a single attendant, an old man who came out of his booth, a glassed-in porch attached to one of the buildings, to greet us. He and Mitko shook hands warmly, and I wondered what their relationship was, whether Mitko came here often with men, whether perhaps they had some arrangement. Our room was shabby and spacious, on the first floor with large windows that faced the street and were inadequate against the wind. There was a stand-alone radiator against one of the walls, and Mitko went over to it and switched it on; he must have been chilled to the bone from his wait. He sat on top of it, sighing with pleasure as it warmed. Without getting up, he reached to the old television against the wall and flipped through the few channels, stopping at a station playing videos of Balkan pop-folk songs; he hummed along, wagging his head from side to side with the jagged rhythms as he fiddled with my iPod, which I had set on the bedside table when we arrived and which he immediately snatched up.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  Even their parents would applaud it, they only pretended to disapprove, when what they really felt was indulgence and pride and the sweetness of youth, their own youth that they could remember and relive and sanction. K.’s mother finally allowed us upstairs, though she admonished us as well, telling me to keep an eye on things, to make them behave; she was trusting me, she said, pointing her finger at me jokingly, though she wasn’t joking, I thought, and I said Yes, ma’am, as though I too were part of the rightness of the world. We walked up the narrow corridor of the stairs in single file, K.’s girlfriend first and then K. and then I, and once we were out of sight their hands reached out for each other. As I walked behind them I felt an excitement that was deep and unsettling and, alongside this, a dread that increased as we neared K.’s room. I paused, as if to weigh what I felt, but when K.’s voice called out for me I hurried up the final stairs, turning the corner to see him at the door looking for me quizzically. Come on, he said, still eager, more eager now, and then his face broke into a grin and I forgot my dread. I moved past him into the small room where K. already sat on the bed, crossing and recrossing her legs. I moved toward the only other seat, the wooden chair at K.’s desk, but he stopped me, asking me to wait a minute as he closed the door, or didn’t close it, exactly, which his mother had forbidden, but left it as little ajar as he dared. Then he asked me to sit in front of it, if I didn’t mind; since the door opened into the room I could make sure they wouldn’t be surprised, I might hear his mother coming and I could take my time getting up, delaying her while they composed themselves. Again he apologized, he knew it was an imposition, I would have to sit on the floor; but of course I didn’t object, I welcomed it, it was a service I could provide. And also it meant that I could watch them, since with my back to the door I would face his bed. I had never been in his room before, which was unremarkable, any teenager’s room, with books and his boxy computer and posters of soccer stars on the walls.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘It is rather amusing.’ Staines warmed to the idea. ‘Why don’t you, um, Phil, come and help me with it, and William can get on with the photographs.’ I let them go and soon after came on a picture of Charles: it was just the sort of thing I wanted for my book. Aged perhaps fifty, thickening but handsome, he was sitting in a high-backed chair in front of the big pedimented book-case in the library at Skinner’s Lane. Leaning round the chair, proffering a glass on a salver, was a white-jacketed black. He was surely supposed to be looking at his employer, but had been caught as, for a second, he followed the direction of his gaze, and showed to the camera a shy, devoted smile. I put out various other pictures, of people who were beautiful or eccentric enough to ask about and who I hoped might have a place in the crazed mosaic of Charles’s life. In one of the drawers I was surprised to find a stiff, creamy envelope, embossed ‘Staines, Photographer. New Bond Street’, containing a set of enigmatic, rather beautiful nudes: a thin young man, turning away his head, or slatted by shadow from a venetian blind, or crouched apprehensively on the bare floor of the studio. The boy’s face was always partly hidden, and his personality obscured in the sinister melancholy of the compositions. Even so, I knew who it was from the distinctive curve and mass of his cock—Colin, James’s Corry pal whom I had had on that hot afternoon at my flat a few weeks before. I had started to get a bit excited about this, when I felt a presence in the room. Bobby was standing at the French windows, looking at me expressionlessly. I started tidying up, shuffling together the pictures I wanted. ‘Ronny not here?’ Bobby said; he already sounded a little drunk. ‘No, he’s gone to look for something.’ Bobby let a weary smile onto his lips. ‘I should come with me, if I were you.’ I took this as a bald proposition, but when he had crossed the room to the door, and turned and said, ‘Oh, come on,’ I felt that it wasn’t, and that some kind of trick had been played on me.

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  Just off the mats at Hempstead High, he appears utterly relaxed, now clowning with his teammates in the bleachers, now putting in the earbuds of his MP3 player to listen to music, waiting for the opening bracket of the 171-pound class to finally come around. He gets to go to work today. At this point, that is all he asks. Jay has been here before. Nobody has to tell him how to deal. When the time for his first match comes, Jay is ready, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet, his calf muscles flexing with each movement, upper body loose, arms already well into rehearsals of his moves. Jay switches from court jester to mat dominator with a speed that even his super-senior buddies find severe; you could get whiplash watching him morph from the guy with the tattered T-shirt and the squirt-bottle of water into the three-time state champ who is chasing his Iowa immortality. He is on the mat for barely 30 seconds before pinning his first opponent, a complete testament to the kind of day it is going to be for Jay. The early rounds aren’t always pretty for a top seed, anyway, wrestling against kids who haven’t yet arrived in terms of match readiness, but Jay is especially focused here. He has his friends here today, his wrestling peers. These are the people for whom he had better bring out his best game to show off. Jay wouldn’t have it any other way. Up on the catwalk above the action, Kevin McCauley smiles and shakes his head in light wonder. This is what McCauley stayed around for as a coach, to see days like these, with Jay on the floor tearing a tournament bracket inside out and all the people on hand to witness just how magnificent a wrestler he can be. Jay is so quick for his size and almost impossible to turn over, and yet he prefers an offensive match. He likes to attack, not to stand still. He loves the action of wrestling, not the nuance—but he gets them both, understands them almost instinctively. And Kevin, one of the people who helped develop that instinct in Jay, has stayed around to see the best of it. As a coach, McCauley had one foot out the door at the end of last season. A former Linn-Mar wrestler himself, Kevin looked up one day and realized that, nearing age 40, he had spent more than a dozen years shaping and caring for other people’s kids in the wrestling room—that in addition to his duties for the school district, working with at-risk students. Now, with two young children and a third on the way, Kevin’s own family needed his attention. His wife was a nurse, and she had discovered that she could receive full-time pay and benefits by working two full-shift details at the hospital through the weekends, essentially cramming a week’s work into two long days.