Exposure Dread

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 Martin Luther (2016)

  It is hardly surprising that when Johannes Tetzel, the preacher who would eventually spark Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, began to sell indulgences in 1508, he headed straight for the new mining region of St Annaberg, named after the miner’s saint, the mother of the Virgin Mary: miners needed all the protection they could muster. As Myco- nius, the town’s Lutheran preacher, would put it later, they hoped that ‘if they just put in the money and bought grace and indulgences, all the mountains around St Annaberg would become the purest silver; and as soon as the coins clinked in the bowl, the soul for whom they had put it in would fly straight to heaven with their dying breath’.* It may have been that omnipresence of uncertainty, danger and risk in the mining world which settled in Luther’s soul and gave him a deep conviction of the complete omnipotence of God: a sense that human beings are utterly exposed in their dealings with Him, and that there are no mediators or strategies that could protect them. Magic would not work, insurance did not exist, law offered only flimsy MANSFELD AND MINING 31 protection. The miner could call on the saints, especially St Anna. But in the end, he faced God alone. Around 1527 Lucas Cranach the Elder painted portraits of Luther’s parents, when they visited their son in Wittenberg. The painting of Hans shows a man with a powerful physical presence, and chunky features. A man of action, he looks almost uncomfortable sitting still, his hands awkwardly folded. He is dressed in black, the colour favoured by men of substance, and wears the obligatory fur collar. The resem- blance to Martin is unmistakable. He has the same deep-set eyes and the heavy jowls that Luther inherited. His mother Margarethe’s white coiffe and shirt complement the dark colours of her husband’s portrait. With her simple, conventional attire, and wearing no jewellery, she is presented as a model wife, although her chin juts forward, suggesting a less conventional character. There is also a surviving sketch of Hans Luder in pencil and watercolour by Cranach, probably a study for the portrait. Focused only on the face, it is more revealing: Hans’s eyes are wrinkled against the light and his face is weathered, as befits a man used to working out of doors. The mouth is firm, the nose emphatic. This is a man used to speaking his mind, but the clouded gaze also suggests someone whose power is now spent, a patriarch grown old. When the portraits were produced, the glory days of mining were already over. It is difficult to know what kind of a father Hans Luder made. Conventionally pious, he practised the devotion common to his gener- ation.

• From Martin Luther (2016)

  Just as he was in isolation from the outside world, so his body also seemed sealed off, unable to ‘flow’ - the process IN THE WARTBURG 199 humoral medicine considered fundamental to physical health. The condition lasted until the autumn and must have added to Luther’s sense of physical discomfort, with a different diet, a sedentary lifestyle and clothing that constantly constricted the body. But perhaps, after the fevered rush of the period leading up to the Diet of Worms, the constipation may have reflected his own turning inwards, entering a period of inactivity as essential as it was difficult, before he could become creative again." He also experienced attacks of the Devil. The story which was to become famous, of Luther throwing an inkpot at the Devil — the stain still visible today on the wall of his castle room — almost certainly rests on a misreading of Luther’s remark that he would fight the Devil with ink: that is, the printed word. But there was a new urgency about the Devil’s attacks, partly because without his friends and colleagues to talk to, his inner world loomed larger. ‘In this leisurely solitude’ he was ‘exposed to a thousand devils’, he wrote. In one sense he was a monk because he was alone, he told Spalatin, and yet ‘I am not actu- ally a monk [i.e. a hermit, alone], because I have many evil and astute demons with me; they “amuse” me, as one says, but in a disturbing way.’? What were these attacks of the Devil about? During his time in the Wartburg, Luther had to come to terms with his body in new ways. ‘I sit here like a fool and hardened in leisure, pray little, do not sigh for the church of God, yet burn in a big fire of my untamed body. In short I should be ardent in spirit, but I am ardent in the flesh, in lust, laziness, leisure and sleepiness.” It was not just constipation that made him painfully aware of the flesh; nor was Luther describing sexual lust alone. As the monastery in Wittenberg gradually emptied, he knew that he had to change and give up the life of a monk. Gone was all the discipline, the importance of keeping time, the collective eating, the disruption of sleep patterns for services in the night, the structure of daily life. The transformation of Luther was as much physical and emotional as it was theological. Meanwhile, matters were moving fast in Wittenberg. While Melanchthon became Luther’s main collaborator and instrument in the town, the relationship between the two men was not without its difficulties.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  It was the first time I had seen the front gates of the courtyard, the drawbridge and moat and all the soldiers assembled. The Queen's open coach stood in the courtyard, and she was already seated surrounded by her footmen and her Pages who rode on the sides, and her coachmen with their fine caps, their plumes and their gleaming spurs. A great mounted force of soldiers was ready. "Before being led out, I was fitted with the bit by Leon, who gave my hair a last thorough combing. He wedged the leather bit well back into my mouth, wiped my lips and then told me the hardest thing would be to keep my chin raised. I must never let it drop to a normal position. The bridle, which the Queen would hold idly in her lap could of course keep my head raised, but I must never lower my head. She would feel it if I did and be in a fury. "Then he showed me the leather phallus. It had no straps, no belts attached to it. It was as big as a man's erect cock, and I was afraid. How should I ever keep it in? From it hung a horse's tail of thin black leather thongs for a mere decoration. He told me to spread my legs. He forced it up into my anus and told me I must keep it in place, as the Queen would suffer me to be covered with nothing. The thin leather thongs hung down and stroked my thighs. They would swing like a horse's tail when I trotted along but they were short, they would conceal nothing. "Then he oiled my pubic hair again, my cock and my balls. He rubbed some oil into my belly. I had my hands clasped behind my back and he gave me a small leather-covered bone to hold with them saying it would make it easier to keep them clasped. But my tasks were these: to keep my chin raised, to keep the phallus in place, and to keep my own penis hard and presentable to the Queen. "Then I was led out by the little bridle into the courtyard. The bright noonday sun flashed on the spears of the Knights and the soldiers. The horses' hooves made a loud clatter on the stones. "The Queen who was in fast conversation with the Grand Duke at her side scarcely noticed me. She threw me one quick smile. The bridle was given her. It went up over the door of the coach and kept my head quite turned up. "'Keep your eyes down at all times, respectfully,' Leon said. "And soon the carriage moved out of the gates and over the drawbridge. "Well, you can imagine what that day was like. You were brought here naked through the villages of your own Kingdom.

• From My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018)

  It was freezing cold outside that afternoon. As I crossed Broadway, a sliver of moon appeared in the pale sky, then disappeared behind the buildings. The air had a metallic tinge to it. The world felt still and eerie, vibrating. I was glad not to see many people on the street. Those I did see looked like lumbering monsters, human shapes deformed by puffy coats and hoods, mittens and hats, snow boots. I assessed my reflection in the windows of a darkened storefront as I walked up West Fifteenth Street. It did comfort me to see that I was still pretty, still blond and tall and thin. I still had good posture. One might have even confused me for a celebrity in slovenly incognito. Not that people cared. I hailed a cab at Union Square and gave the driver the cross streets of Rite Aid uptown. It was already getting dark out, but I kept my sunglasses on. I didn’t want to have to look anybody in the eye. I didn’t want to relate to anybody too keenly. Plus, the fluorescent lights at the drug store were blinding. If I could have purchased my medications from a vending machine, I would have paid double for them. The pharmacist on duty that evening was a young Latina woman— perfect eyebrows, fake nails. She knew me on sight. “Give me ten minutes,” she said. Next to the vitamins, there was a contraption to measure your blood pressure and pulse. I sat in the seat of the machine, took my arm out of the sleeve of my coat and stuck it in for testing. A pleather pillow inflated around my bicep. I watched numbers on the digital screen go up and down. Pulse 48. Pressure 80/50. That seemed appropriate. I went to the rack of DVDs to browse the latest selection of pre-owned movies. The Nutty Professor, Jumanji, Casper, Space Jam, The Cable Guy. It was all kids’ stuff. Then an orange discount sticker on the bottom shelf caught my eye— 9½ Weeks. I picked it up. Trevor had claimed that it was one of his favorite movies. I still hadn’t seen it. “Mickey Rourke’s performance in this is unparalleled. Who knows? You might relate to it.” I resembled Kim Basinger, he explained, and just like me, her character worked in an art gallery. “This movie inspires me to try new things,” he said. “Like what?” I asked, amused by the thought that he might have the courage to do more in bed than reposition himself to get “better leverage.” He took me into his kitchen, turned his back, and said, “Get on your knees.” I did as I was told and knelt down on the cold marble tile. “Keep your eyes closed,” he said. “And open your mouth.” I almost laughed, but I played along. Trevor took his blow jobs very seriously. “Have you seen Sex, Lies, and Videotape?” I asked him. “James Spader in that—” “Be quiet,” he said. “Open up.”

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  Reprinted by permission of Hutchinson, a division of The Random House Group Ltd., and the author, administered by Toby Eady Associates, Ltd. Scribner and A. P. Watt Ltd.: Excerpt from “The Second Coming” by W. B. Yeats from The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats: Revised Second Edition , edited by Richard J. Finneran, copyright © 1924 by Macmillan Publishing Company, copyright renewed 1952 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. Rights outside the United States administered by A. P. Watt Ltd., London, on behalf of Michael D. Yeats. Reprinted by permission of Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster and A. P. Watt Ltd. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-193201 eISBN: 978-0-307-79860-2 This edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. Excerpt from Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life copyright © 2010 by Karen Armstrong v3.1 F or J enny W ayman CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication A New Preface Introduction P ART O NE: T HE O LD W ORLD AND THE N EW 1. J ews: T he P recursors ( 1492–1700 ) 2. M uslims: T he C onservative S pirit ( 1492–1799 ) 3. C hristians: B rave N ew W orld ( 1492–1870 ) 4. J ews and M uslims M odernize ( 1700–1870 ) P ART T WO: F UNDAMENTALISM 5. B attle L ines ( 1870–1900 ) 6. F undamentals ( 1900–25 ) 7. C ounterculture ( 1925–60 ) 8. M obilization ( 1960–74 ) 9. T he O ffensive ( 1974–79 ) 10. D efeat? ( 1979–99 ) Afterword Glossary Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments About the Author Excerpt from Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life Titles by Karen Armstrong PART ONE T he O ld W orld and the N ew A NEW PREFACE S EPTEMBER 11, 2001, will go down in history as a day that changed the world. This was the day when Muslim terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center and a wing of the Pentagon, killing over five thousand people. It was an act that had clearly been designed for television. The blazing towers of the World Trade Center and their subsequent spectacular collapse will likely become icons of the twenty-first century. For the first time ever, the people of the United States were attacked by a foreign enemy on their own soil; not by a nation-state, and not by a nuclear missile, but by religious extremists brandishing only penknives and box cutters. It was an attack against the United States, but it was a warning to all of us in the First World. We felt a new nakedness, a raw vulnerability, and as I write this, just over a month after the atrocity, it is still not clear exactly how this will affect our behavior in this transformed world.

• From The Battle for God (2000)

  One evening, sitting beside a wood stove, Descartes evolved the maxim Cogito, ergo sum: “I think, therefore I am.” This, he believed, was self-evident. The one thing of which we could be certain was our mind’s experience of doubt. But this revealed the limitation of the human mind, and the very notion of “limitation” would make no sense if we did not have a prior conception of “perfection.” A perfection that did not exist, however, would be a contradiction in terms. Ergo, the Ultimate Perfection—God—must be a reality.17 This so-called proof is unlikely to satisfy a modern unbeliever, and it shows the impotence of pure reason when faced with such issues. Rational thought is indispensable for our effective functioning in the world. It is at its best when directed toward a pragmatic goal or when, like Descartes, we withdraw from the mundane to consider something as objectively as possible. But when we ask why the world exists (if it does!) or whether life has meaning, reason can make little headway, and the object of our thought itself can become strange to us. Descartes beside his stove, in his cold, empty world, locked into his own uncertainty, and uttering a “proof” which is little more than a mental conundrum, embodies the spiritual dilemma of modern humanity. Thus, at a time when science and unfettered rationality were forging brilliantly ahead, life was becoming meaningless for an increasing number of people, who, for the first time in human history, were having to live without mythology. The British philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) believed that there was a God, but for all practical purposes, God might just as well not exist. Like Luther, Hobbes saw the physical world as empty of the divine. God, Hobbes believed, had revealed himself at the dawn of human history and would do so again at its End. But until that time we had to get on without him, waiting, as it were, in the dark.18 For the French mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623–62), an intensely religious man, the emptiness and the “eternal silence” of the infinite universe opened up by modern science inspired pure dread: When I see the blind and wretched state of men, when I survey the whole universe in its deadness and man left to himself with no light, as though lost in this corner of the universe without knowing who put him there, what he has to do, what will become of him when he dies, incapable of knowing anything, I am moved to terror, like a man transported in his sleep to some terrifying desert island, who wakes up quite lost with no means of escape. Then I marvel that so wretched a state does not drive people to despair.19

• From Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (2009)

  in a development to horrify any bishop from the Council of Trent, only 10 per cent of Belgian nuns were in contemplative orders: the vast majority were involved in teaching, health care and help for the poor.5 Even would-be female contemplatives could be distinctively active when it suited them. The world- denying and savagely self-punishing teenager Thérèse Martin of Lisieux in Normandy, overexcited by her pilgrimage to Rome in 1887, seized on a routine papal audience to beg no less a figure than Pope Leo XIII for permission for immediate entrance to the Carmelite Order despite her age. The hapless pontiff was understandably alarmed, particularly when she clung to his knees and had to be removed by ecclesiastical bouncers. She got her way in the end, to the point of canonization half a century after her early death from tuberculosis.6 The most assertive woman of all was the Mother of God. The nineteenth century proved one of the most prolific periods for Mary’s activity in the history of the Western Church since the twelfth century. She seems to have made more appearances all over Europe and Latin America than in any century before or since: generally to women without money, education or power and in remote locations, and often in association with the political upheavals or economic crises which repeatedly hit a society in the middle of dramatic transformations.7 Our Lady conveyed a rich variety of messages and opinions. In Paris in 1830 she manifested herself three times to Catherine Labouré, a newly professed young nun. The first occasion was in July, at the height of the political upheavals which less than a fortnight later swept away the Bourbon monarchy and replaced it by the Orleanist Louis Philippe. Mary gave the nun the pattern for a medal to be struck with her image: within twelve years, a hundred million copies of the medal were providing more comfort to the faithful than a French Orleanist monarchy which many of them regarded as a distressing usurpation and compromise with the Revolution.8 When Our Lady appeared again at Marpingen in Germany to three village girls in 1876, she made a political point as she had already done frequently in France. Although she never brought the good folk of Marpingen anything like her earlier success at Lourdes (see p. 824), she strengthened the morale of ordinary German Catholics caught up in the so-called Kulturkampf, a fierce confrontation with the Protestant state apparatus of the new German Empire, and so she contributed to the Kulturkampf‘s failure to intimidate Catholicism in Germany. She did so without any help from the diocesan hierarchy of the Rhineland, who, if they had not been under such government pressure, would have done their best to bring her cult to a swift end.9 Mary had technology on her side: the steady speeding up of communications and the sudden availability of cheap print, two of the motors of social change generally, were of great

• From Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon (2018)

  miles away from the Moon and traveling at 4,125 miles per hour. That speed would decrease until lunar gravity gave way to Earth’s gravity, and then Apollo 8 would begin falling faster and faster to its final destination. At this moment, it began to dawn on Anders just how far from home he was. Valerie and his children were a quarter of a million miles away, a distance he could hardly process. He recalled a memory from when he was five years old. At the Shriners Circus, he saw a performer climb up the main circus tent pole and announce to the crowd that he intended to dive into a small bucket of water on the ground. The man flew from his perch, hit his mark, and survived. With Earth just a tiny marble in the vast ocean of space, Anders thought to himself: “My bucket is even smaller than that guy’s from the circus.” Apollo 8 would require midcourse trajectory corrections on its way back to Earth, but those wouldn’t come until later. In the meantime, there was room in the flight plan for the crew to sleep. None of them had managed more than about two hours over the last day. “I hope it won’t disappoint anybody too much,” Borman told Mission Control about two hours after leaving the Moon, “but Jim is just in a daze, and so am I.” “Roger. No sweat,” CapCom Mattingly answered. Anders took the controls. A few minutes later, he put the ship into barbecue mode. He and his crewmates took a look back at the Moon. From this point forward, given the spacecraft’s planned orientation, it was possible they would never see it again through their cabin windows. Anders flew for three and a half hours before Borman and Lovell relieved him. CapCom Carr reminded Anders to hang up his Christmas stocking before falling asleep. The mood—on the spacecraft and in Houston—seemed relaxed, just right for the long coast home. A few minutes later, Carr delivered the latest Interstellar Times report to Apollo 8. Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Sandy Koufax had become engaged to his girlfriend, Anne Widmark, daughter of actor Richard Widmark. A Japanese exploratory party had shared a traditional Christmas dinner with Americans at the Navy’s South Pole base. In California, liberated crewmen from the captured USS Pueblo donated their first paychecks to staff at the Naval hospital who’d cared for them on their return.

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  The men of Sodom, however, surround the house and demand that Lot bring out the strangers “so that we may know them.” “To know” is often used as a euphemism for sex, and Lot’s reaction makes clear that this is so here: “I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly.” To deter them he offers to give them his two virgin daughters, to do to them as they pleased, but says, “Only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof” (Genesis 19:8). Readers have often assumed that the wicked deed from which Lot wants to deter the men of Sodom is indeed sodomy—intercourse with his male guests. The issue is complicated, however, by a couple of factors. As Lot’s response makes clear, he, as host, feels responsible for his guests.20 That the people of Sodom wanted to rape male guests evidently added to the outrage. But what is involved here is rape. Accordingly the story says nothing about the permissibility of consensual sex between males. The idea that it would be worse to rape a man than to rape a woman persists in Philo, in sophisticated circles in Alexandria around the turn of the Common Era: “If you are guilty of pederasty or adultery or rape of a young person, even of a female, for I need not mention the case of a male . . . the penalty is death” (Hypothetica 7.1).21 Interestingly, the most explicit statement about the sin of Sodom in the Hebrew Bible, in Ezekiel 16:49, does not mention sex at all: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom; she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” The Epistle of Jude, verse 7, associates Sodom and Gomorrah with sexual immorality and says that the residents went after “other flesh,” and 2 Peter 2:6–10 associates them with licentiousness, without further specification. The “other flesh” in Jude may refer to the flesh of angels. The earliest author to condemn the Sodomites for sex between males was Philo of Alexandria (Abraham 135).22 Lot’s guests were angels, and they could escape by striking the people of Sodom with blindness. Lot’s daughters suffer no ill effects. The woman in a related story in Judges 19 is not so fortunate. She is the concubine of a Levite, who is bringing her back from Bethlehem to the hill country of Ephraim. He stops in Gibeah to spend the night, and an old man offers him hospitality. Again, the men of the city, “a perverse lot,” demand that the stranger be brought out so that they might “know” him. The host pleads with them not to do such a vile thing and offers them his virgin daughter and the stranger’s concubine to ravish or do what they want with them. The Levite thrusts out his concubine. In the morning the concubine is dead on the doorstep.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  We found the elevator and rode up to the fourth floor, then fol- lowed the arrows to something called the Psychohormonal Unit. Milton had the office number written out on a card. Finally we found the right room. The gray door was unmarked except for an ex- tremely small, unobtrusive sign halfway down that read: Sexual Disorders and Gender Identity Clinic If my parents saw the sign, they pretended not to. Milton lowered his head, bull-like, and pushed the door open. The receptionist welcomed us and told us to have a seat. The waiting room was unexceptional. Chairs lined the walls, divided evenly by magazine tables, and there was the usual rubber tree expir- ing in the corner. The carpeting was institutional, with a hectic, stain- camouflaging pattern. There was even a reassuringly medicinal smell in the air. After my mother filled out the insurance forms, we were 406 shown into the doctor's office. This, too, inspired confidence. An Eames chair stood behind the desk. By the window was a Le Cor- busier chaise, made of chrome and cowhide. The bookshelves were filled with medical books and journals and the walls tastefully hung with art. Big-city sophistication attuned to a European sensibility. The surround of a triumphant psychoanalytic world-view. Not to mention the East River view out the windows. We were a long way from Dr. Phil's office with its amateur oils and Medicaid cases. It was two or three minutes before we noticed anything out of the ordinary. At first the curios and etchings had blended in with the scholarly clutter of the office. But as we sat waiting for the doctor, we became aware of a silent commotion all around us. It was like staring at the ground and realizing, suddenly, that it is swarming with ants. The restful doctor's office was churning with activity. The paper- weight on his desk, for instance, was not a simple, inert rock but a tiny priapus carved from stone. The miniatures on the walls revealed their subject matter under closer observation. Beneath yellow silk tents, on paisley pillows, Mughal princes acrobatically copulated

• From Middlesex (2002)

  The thing about those souvenirs, though: the glitter falls fast. A reminder taped to our refrigerator brought me back to reality: "Dr. Bauer, July 22, 2 p.m." I was filled with dread. Dread of the perverted gynecologist and his inquisitorial instruments. Dread of the metal things that would spread my legs and of the doohickey that would spread something else. And dread of what all this spreading might reveal. It was in this state, this emotional foxhole, that I started going to church again. One Sunday in early July my mother and I dressed up (Tessie in heels, me not) and drove down to Assumption. Tessie was suffering, too. It had been six months since Chapter Eleven had sped away from Middlesex on his motorcycle, and since that time he hadn't been back. Worse, in April he had broken the news that he was dropping out of college. He was planning to move to the Upper Peninsula with some friends and, as he put it, live off the land. "You don't think he'd do something crazy like run off and marry that Meg, do you?" Tessie asked Milton. "Let's hope not," he answered. Tessie worried that Chapter Eleven wasn't taking care of himself, either. He wasn't going to the dentist regularly. His vegetarianism made him pale. And he was losing his hair. At the age of twenty. This made Tessie feel suddenly old. United in anxiety, seeking solace for differing complaints (Tessie wanting to get rid of her pains while I wanted mine to begin), we en- tered the church. As far as I could tell, what happened every Sunday at Assumption Greek Orthodox Church was that the priests got to- 350 gether and read the Bible out loud. They started with Genesis and kept going straight through Numbers and Deuteronomy. Then on through Psalms and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, all the way up to the New Testament. Then they read that. Given the length of our services, I saw no other possibility. They chanted as the church slowly filled up. Finally the central chandelier flicked on and Father Mike, like a life-size puppet, sprang through the icon screen. The transformation my uncle went through every Sunday always amazed me. At church Father Mike appeared and disappeared with the capriciousness of a divinity. One minute he was up on the balcony, singing in his tender, tone-deaf voice. The next minute he was back on ground level, swinging his censer. Glit- tering, bejeweled, as overdone in his vestments as a Faberge egg, he promenaded around the church, giving us God's blessing. Some- times his censer produced so much smoke it seemed that Father Mike had the ability to cloak himself in a mist. When the mist dispersed, however, later that afternoon in our living room, he was once again a short, shy man, in black, polyester-blend clothes and a plastic collar.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  floral wreath at the neck, told Luce that I refuted nature in just the way his theory predicted. He must have hardly been able to contain himself, meeting me. He was a brilliant, charming, work-obsessed man, and watched me from behind his desk with keen eyes. While he chatted, speaking primarily to my parents, gaining their confidence, Luce was nevertheless making mental notes. He registered my tenor voice. He noted that I sat with one leg tucked under me. He watched how I examined my nails, curling my fingers into my palm. He paid attention to the way I coughed, laughed, scratched my head, spoke; in sum, all the external manifestations of what he called my gender identity. 408 He kept up the calm manner, as if I had come to the Clinic with nothing more than a sprained ankle. "The first thing I'd like to do is give Calliope a short examination. If you'd care to wait here in my of- fice, Mr. and Mrs. Stephanides." He stood up. "Would you come with me please, Calliope?" I got up from my chair. Luce watched as the various segments, like those of a collapsible ruler, unfolded themselves, and I attained my full height, an inch taller than he was himself. "We'll be right here, honey," Tessie said. "We're not going anywhere," said Milton. Peter Luce was considered the world's leading authority on human hermaphroditism. The Sexual Disorders and Gender Identity Clinic, which he founded in 1968, had become the foremost facility in the world for the study and treatment of conditions of ambiguous gen- der. He was the author of a major sexological work, The Oracular Vulva, which was standard in a variety of disciplines ranging from ge- netics and pediatrics to psychology. He had written a column by the same name for Playboy from August 1972 to December 1973 in which the conceit was that a personified and all-knowing female pu- dendum answered the queries of male readers with witty and some- times sibylline responses. Hugh Hefner had come across Peter Luce's name in the papers in connection with a demonstration for sexual freedom. Six Columbia students had staged an orgy in a tent on the main green, which the cops broke up, and when asked what he thought about such activity on campus, Prof. Peter Luce, 46, had been quoted as saying, "I'm in favor of orgies wherever they happen." That caught Hef's eye. Not wanting to replicate Xaviera Hollander's "Call Me Madam" column in Penthouse, Hefner saw Luce's contribu- tion as being devoted to the scientific and historical side of sex. Thus, in her first three issues, the Oracular Vulva delivered disquisitions on the erotic art of the Japanese painter Hiroshi Yamamoto, the epi- demiology of syphilis, and the sex life of St. Augustine. The column proved popular, though intelligent queries were always hard to come by, the readership being more interested in the "Playboy Advisor" 's

• From Middlesex (2002)

  important, thesexof rearing.Drawingonstudiesofpatientsatthe pediatric endocrineclinicatNewYorkHospital,Lucewasableto compile charts demonstrating howthesevariousfactorscameinto play, and showing that a patient'sgonadal sexoften didn'tdetermine his orher genderidentity.Thearticlemade a bigsplash.Within months, pretty mucheveryonehad givenupKlebs'scriterionfor Luce's criteria. Onthe strengthofthissuccess,Luce wasgiventheopportunity to openthe PsychohormonalUnit at NewYorkHospital. Inthose dayshesaw mostiykidswithadrenogenitalsyndrome,the most commonformoffemalehermaphroditism.ThehormoneCortisol, recendysynthesized in thelab,hadbeenfoundtoarresttheviriliza- tionthesegirlsnormallyunderwent,allowingthemtodevelop as normalfemales.TheendocrinologistsadministeredtheCortisoland Luceoversawthe girls'psychosexualdevelopment. Helearnedalot. Inadecadeof solid, original research, Lucemadehissecondgreat discovery: that genderidentity is establishedvery earlyoninlife, aboutthe age of two. Genderwaslike a nativetongue;it didn'texist beforebirth butwas imprintedinthebrainduringchildhood,never disappearing.Childrenlearn to speakMaleorFemale thewaythey learntospeakEnglishorFrench. He publishedthistheoryin 1967, inanarticleintheThe New England Journal of Medicine entitied"EarlyEstablishment ofGender Identity:The TerminalTwos." Afterthat,hisreputation reachedthe stratosphere.The funding flowedin,fromtheRockefellerFounda- tion, theFordFoundation,andtheN.I.S.Itwasagreattimeto bea sexologist. TheSexualRevolutionprovidednewopportunitiesfor theenterprising sexresearcher.Itwasa matter ofnationalinterest, for a few years there,to examinethemechanicsofthefemaleorgasm. Orto plumbthepsychologicalreasonswhycertainmenexhibited themselves onthestreet.In 1968, Dr.LuceopenedtheSexualDisor- dersand GenderIdentityClinic.Lucetreatedeverybody: the webbed-necked girlteenswithTurner'ssyndrome, who hadonlyone sex chromosome, a lonely X; theleggybeautieswithAndrogen In- sensitivity; ortheXYYboys,whotendedtobe dreamers andloners. When babieswithambiguousgenitaliawerebornatthehospital, Dr. Luce was called into discussthematterwiththebewildered parents. Luce gotthe transsexuals,too.Everyone came totheClinic,withthe 411 resultthatLucehadathisdisposal abodyofresearch material— of living,breathingspecimens—noscientist hadeverhad before. Andnow Lucehadme.Intheexamination room,hetoldme to get undressedandputonapapergown.After takingsomeblood (only one vial,thankfully),hehadmelie downon a tablewith mylegs up in stirrups.There wasa pale greencurtain, thesamecolor asmy gown,thatcouldbepulledacrossthe table,dividingmy upperand lowerhalves.Lucedidn'tcloseitthatfirst day.Onlylater, whenthere wasanaudience. "Thisshouldn'thurt but it mightfeelalittlefunny." Istaredupattheringlightontheceiling.Luce hadanotherlight onastand, whichheangledtosuithis purposes.Icouldfeelitsheat betweenmylegsashepressedandprodded me. ForthefirstfewminutesIconcentrated onthecircularlight, but finally,drawinginmychin,Ilookeddown tosee that Lucewashold- ingthecrocus between histhumb andforefinger.Hewasstretching itoutwithonehandwhilemeasuringitwiththeother.Thenhelet goof the rulerand madenotes.Hedidn'tlookshockedorappalled. Infactheexaminedmewithgreatcuriosity,almostconnoisseurship. There wasan element ofaweorappreciation inhis face.Hetook notes as heproceeded but madenosmalltalk.Hisconcentrationwas intense. Afterawhile,stillcrouchingbetweenmylegs,Luceturnedhis head to searchfor anotherinstrument. Betweenthesightlinesofmy raised kneeshisearappeared,an amazing organ allits own, whorled andflanged,translucentinthebrightlights.Hisearwasverycloseto me.Itseemedfor amomentasthoughLuce werelisteningatmy source.Asthough someriddlewerebeing imparted to himfrombe- tweenmylegs.Butthenhefoundwhathehadbeenlooking forand turned back. Hebegantoprobe inside. "Relax,"he said. Heappliedalubricant,huddledincloser. "Reto." There wasa hintofannoyance,ofcommand inhisvoice.Itooka deepbreathanddidthebestIcould.Lucepoked inside.Fora mo- ment itfeltmerelystrange,ashe'dsuggested. Butthena sharppain shot throughme.Ijerkedback,cryingout. 412 "Sorry." Nevertheless, hekepton.Heplacedonehand onmypelvisto steady me. Heprobed infarther,thoughheavoidedthe painfularea. My eyes were wellingwith tears. "Almost finished,"hesaid. Buthe was onlygettingstarted. The chief imperativeincaseslike minewas toshow nodoubtasto the genderofthechildinquestion.Youdidnottelltheparentsof a newborn,"Yourbabyisahermaphrodite."Instead,yousaid,"Your daughterwasborn with aclitoristhatis a littlelargerthananormal girl's.We'llneedto dosurgery tomakeittheright size." Lucefelt thatparents weren'table tocopewithan ambiguous genderassign- ment.You hadtotellthemiftheyhad aboy or a girl.Which meant that,beforeyousaidanything,youhadtobesurewhattheprevail- inggenderwas. Luce could notdo this withmeyet.Hehadreceivedtheresultsof theendocrinologicaltestsperformedatHenryFordHospital, andso knewofmyXYkaryotype,myhighplasmatestosteronelevels, and theabsenceinmybloodofdihydrotestosterone.Inotherwords, be- fore even seeing me,Lucewas ableto make an educatedguessthatI was a malepseudohermaphrodite—geneticallymale but appearing otherwise,with5-alpha-reductasedeficiencysyndrome.Butthat,ac- cording toLuce'sthinking,didnotmeanthatIhada male gender identity. Mybeing a teenagercomplicatedthings.Inadditiontochromo- somaland hormonalfactors,Lucehadtoconsidermy sex ofrearing, which had been female. Hesuspectedthat thetissuemasshehadpal- patedinside mewastesticular.Still,hecouldn'tbesure until hehad looked at asampleunderamicroscope. All thismust have beengoingthroughLuce'smindashebrought me backto thewaitingroom.He told me hewantedto speaktomy parents andthat he wouldsendthemoutwhenhewasfinished.His intensity had lessenedandhewas friendlyagain,smilingandpatting me onthe back. Inhis office Lucesat downinhisEameschair,lookedupatMil- ton and Tessie, and adjustedhisglasses. "Mr. Stephanides, Mrs. Stephanides,I'll befrank.Thisis acom- plicated case. By complicated Idon'tmean irremediable. Wehave a 413

• From Middlesex (2002)

  awareofthe repercussions andbeginsto scold."Why youleave your wifeandchild?What'sthematterwith you?" "Myonlyresponsibilityisto mypeople ." "Whatpeople?ThemavrosV* "TheOriginalPeople." Shecannottellif heisseriousor not. "Whyyou don't likewhitepeople? Whyyoucallthem devils?" "Look at theevidence.This city.Thiscountry. Don'tyouagree?" "Every placehas devils." "ThathouseonHurlbut,especially." Thereis a pause, after which Desdemonacautiously asks,"How youmean?" Fard,orZizmo,issmilingagain. "Muchthatishiddenhas been revealed tome." "Whatishidden?" "My so-calledwife Sourmelinaisawomanof,let ussay,unnatu- ralappetites.AndyouandLefty?Doyou thinkyoufooledme?" "Please, Jimmy." "Don'tcallmethat.Thatisn'tmyname." "Whatyoumean?Youaremybrother-in-law." "Youdon'tknow me!"he shouts."Youneverknew me!"Then, composing himself:"YouneverknewwhoIwasorwhereIcame from."Withthat,theMahdiwalks past mygrandmother,through thelobbyanddouble doors,andoutofour lives. ThislastpartDesdemonadidn'tsee.Butit'swelldocumented. First,FardMuhammadshook hands with the FruitofIslam.The young menfoughtbacktearsashesaid farewell.Hethenmoved through thecrowdoutsideTempleNo.1tohisChryslercoupe parked atthecurb.Hesteppeduponthe runningboard.Afterward, everysingle personwouldinsistthatthe Mahdihadmaintainedper- sonal eyecontact the entiretime.Womenwere openlyweepingnow, pleading forhim nottogo. FardMuhammad removedhishatand heldit tohischest. Helooked downkindlyand said,"Don'tworry.I am with you."Heraisedthehatinagesture that tookin the entire neighborhood, theghettowithits shantytown porches,unpaved streets,anddisconsolate laundry."Iwillbe back toyouinthenear futuretolead yououtofthishell."ThenFard Muhammadgotinto the Chrysler,turned theignition,and with a final,reassuring smile, motoredaway. 164 Fard Muhammadwasneverseen again inDetroit.Hewentinto occultationlike theTwelfthImamof theShiites.Onereportplaces him onan ocean liner boundforLondon in1934. Accordingto die Chicago newspapers in 1959, W.D. Fard was a "Turkish-bornNazi agent"and ended upworking forHitierin WorldWarII.Aconspir- acy theory holdsthatdiepolice ortheFBIwereinvolvedinhis death.It's anybody'sguess.FardMuhammad, mymaternalgrandfa- dier, returnedtothe nowhere fromwhichhe'd come. Asfor Desdemona,hermeeting withFardmayhavecontributed tothe drasticdecisionshemade aroundthesametime.Notlongaf- ter theProphet's disappearance, my grandmother underwentafairly novel medicalprocedure.A surgeonmade two incisions belowher navel. Stretchingopenthetissue andmuscletoexposethecircuitry ofthe fallopiantubes,hetiedeachin abow,andtherewerenomore children. 165 CLARII1ETSERENADE e hadour date. I picked Julie upatherstudioinKreuzberg.I wantedtoseeherwork, but shewouldn't letme.Andsowe wenttodinner ata placecalled Austria. Austriaislike a huntinglodge.Thewalls are covered with mounted deerhorns,maybe fifty orsixtysets.Thesehornslookcom- ically small,asthoughtheycomefromanimalsyoucouldkillwith yourbarehands.Therestaurantisdark,warm, woody, andcomfort- able. Anybodywhowouldn'tlikeitissomeoneIwouldn'tlike. Julie liked it. "Since youwon'tshowmeyourwork,"Isaidaswesat down, "can youatleasttellmewhatitis?" "Photography." "You probablydon'twanttotellmeofwhat." "Let's have a drinkfirst." Julie Kikuchi is thirty-six. She lookstwenty-six.She isshortwith- outbeingsmall. Sheisirreverentwithout beingcrude.Sheusedto see a therapist butstopped.Herright handispartly arthritic, from an elevatoraccident. Thismakesitpainfulto holda camera foralong period."I need anassistant,"shetoldme. "Or a new hand." Her fin- gernailsarenot particularlyclean.Infactthey arethe dirtiestfinger- nails Ihave everseen onsuchalovely, wonderful-smelling person. Breasts havethe sameeffectonmeason anyone withmytestos- teronelevel. 166 I translatedthemenufor Julie and we ordered. Outcame the platters of boiledbeef, thebowlsofgravyandred cabbage,the knodelsas bigas softballs. Wetalked aboutBerlinandthedifferences between Europeancountries. Julie toldme a Barcelonastory ofget- tinglocked in theParque Guellwith herboyfriendaftervisiting hours.Here itcomes,Ithought. Thefirstex-boyfriend hadbeen summoned. Soontherestwouldfollow. Theywould file around the table, presentingtheirdeficiencies,telling oftheiraddictions, their cheating hearts.Afterthat, Iwouldbecalledon topresentmyown ragged gallery.Andhereiswhere myfirstdatesgenerally gowrong.I lack sufficientdata.Idon'thave itinquitethebulk aman of myyears shouldhave.Womensensethis andastrange,questioninglook comesintotheireyes.AndalreadyIam retreatingfromthem,before desserthasbeenserved... But thatdidn'thappen with Julie. Theboyfriend poppedupin Barcelonaandthen wasgone.Nonefollowed.Thiswassurely not becausethereweren'tany. Thiswasbecause Julie isn'thusband- hunting.Soshedidn'thave to interviewmeforthe job. Ilike Julie Kikuchi.Ilikeher a lot. AndsoIhavemyusualquestions.Whatdoesshewantfrom? How wouldshereactif?ShouldItellherthat?No.Toosoon.We haven'teven kissed.Andrightnow, I've got anotherromanceto con- centrateon. We openon a summereveningin1944. TheodoraZizmo,whom everyone nowcallsTessie,is paintinghertoenails.Shesitson a daybed at the O'Toole Boardinghouse,herfeet propped up on a pil- low, apillow ofcotton between eachtoe.Theroomisfull of wilting flowers andhermother'svarious messes:lidless cosmetics,discarded hose, Theosophy books, anda boxofchocolates, alsolidless,fullof empty paperwrappings andafew tooth-scarred,rejectedcreams. Over where Tessieis, it's neater.Pensand pencilsstanduprightin cups. Between brass bookends, eacha miniaturebustofShakespeare, are the novelsshecollects atyard sales. Tessie Zizmo's twenty-year-oldfeet: sizefour and a half, pale, blue-veined, thered toenailsfanningout likesunsona peacock's tail. 167

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Maya had read this? Katrina had read this? Reese felt seen, even exposed. Still, despite her mom-crush, the label of Lesbian Mom struck Reese as off-key. She couldn’t quite fake politeness through her vague dismay at yet another suggestion that her own journey into queer parenting must begin with advice from the cis lesbians who disdained her motherhood. Why, whenever she proclaimed her desire for motherhood, did people point her to a political movement that had banked thirty years making it clear that it didn’t want her around? Also, more obviously and perhaps pertinently, she had never slept with Katrina and had no plans or desire for that. They were not a lesbian couple. They were a mom-couple, with mom- crushes. Very different. It was important that Maya understand that. “Actually,” Katrina said from the couch with her virtual mom, “Ames picked that one out.” Ames has, of late, been brainstorming prodigiously about the logistics of their triad. He has taken to saying that every generation must reinvent parenting, and he, Reese, and Katrina, will be part of their own generational reinvention. As part of his brainstorming, he told Katrina about a friend of his and Reese’s in Chicago, a successful doctor named Quentin. Quentin was a trans guy with a long-term cis boyfriend. After Quentin got a plush job at the downtown campus of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, he bought a gorgeously crumbling Victorian in Rogers Park—the nondescript northernmost neighborhood along the lakeshore of Chicago. The house had its own little compound, with a small yard surrounded by a rotting fence through which neighborhood kids would slip to pass down a path that ran alongside the adjoining building and allowed them to trespass onto one of the few private beaches in the whole city.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  He has enough experience with coming out to know that insisting he wasn’t doing anything to her would only escalate the moment. Instead, he fights an impulse to stoop and gather the printouts back into their folder. The Reddit forum printouts now seem more glaring, more deviant than if she had tossed all five months’ worth of their selfies and sexts. Still, he doesn’t move. She’s standing with one shoulder forward now, like a boxer, and although it’d be completely out of character, he’s not sure that if he leans down, she won’t pop him in the eye. But then, abruptly, she startles, and whirls. Josh, from the biz dev department, stares at them through the glass partition. When Katrina catches him gawking, he leans toward the kitchenette and snatches an apple from the wire basket hanging by the door. But he can’t help himself, and turns back to regard the office diorama through the glass. He gives Ames a quick yikes, bro face. Katrina stares at Josh. She’s visibly upset, her in-control-boss demeanor still largely disassembled. “Hello, Josh,” Katrina says curtly through the glass. Josh is so enthralled by the scene that he doesn’t seem to notice a break of the fourth wall. Decisively, she takes two steps, ignoring the scattered printouts, and opens the door. From the hallway, she spins and glares at Ames. “Can you please pick up that file I dropped”—she points at the papers scattered on the floor—“and bring it by my office in about an hour? I’m late for a call right now. But we can discuss this further then.” “Of course,” Ames says. “Can’t wait.” Ames stoops to gather the papers. Josh waits until Katrina has rounded the hallway corner, leans in the door left wide open by her exit, tosses the apple in the air, catches it, and smirks down at Ames. “Lover’s spat?” Josh asks. “Your fountain of youth doesn’t seem to have run dry yet,” observes Ames, sneaking a look at Reese’s face as they move into a shady eddy in the slowly drifting current of idlers taking in the April sun of Prospect Park. She looks to him much as she had in her twenties. In fact, she’s softer even—in her lavender-and-white-checked dress, she flaunts that pear shape that women’s magazines identify as a body type one must dress carefully to flatteringly de-emphasize, but that Reese always not-so-quietly prized as a marker of uncommon passibility. His own period of softly estrogenated vampire skin had slowed the onset of cracks and furrows, but when his skin roughened again and the stubble poked through once more, a few gray scouts had camped among the darker hairs. He had carefully shaved them this morning. Both as a man hiding any signs of aging before he sees an ex for the first time in years, and confusingly, out of a dormant sense of competitiveness, an urge to show himself off as still a beauty.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Reese swivels on the bench to face both Ames and Katrina, nearly trembling, a runner taking her mark. “I can tell you exactly why I want to be a mom,” Reese says. “So that when I have and love a child, no one ever asks me that question again.” “What question?” Katrina asks. “Why do you want to be a mom?” “Yeah.” “How would being a mom make no one ask you that?” “Because that’s not the question that cis women have to answer. The moms I knew when I was little didn’t have to prove that it was okay to want a child. Sure, a lot of women I know wonder if they do want a child, but not why. It’s assumed why. The question cis women get asked is: Why don’t you want kids? And then they have to justify that. If I had been born cis, I would never even have had to answer these questions. I wouldn’t have had to prove that I deserve my models of womanhood. But I’m not cis. ’m trans. And so until the day that I am a mother, I’m constantly going to have to prove that I deserve to be one. That it’s not unnatural or twisted that I want a child’s love. Why do I want to be a mother? After all those beautiful women I grew up with, the ones who chaperoned my classes on field trips, or made me lunch when I was at their house, or sewed costumes for all the little girls that I ice skated with—and you too, Katrina, for that matter—have to explain their feelings about motherhood, then, Ill explain mine. And do you know what I'll say?” “No, what?” “Ditto.” Katrina listens, her face blank, braced as if facing into a wind. “I don’t know, Reese. It doesn’t sound like you’re talking about all women, it just sounds like a certain kind of woman. Like, women now, here in this country—white women,” she says when Reese finishes. “When my grandma arrived here from China, she wasn’t encouraged to have kids. The opposite. She had to justify the basic desire to reproduce.” “Fine, cis white women,” Reese concedes. “But you say that like ’'m being annoying,” Katrina says, catching some aural cue from Reese. “I don’t think I am. If you want to talk about this in terms of reproductive rights, it might be that you and I come from pretty different places. All my white girlfriends just automatically assume that reproductive rights are about the right to

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  Maya had read this? Katrina had read this? Reese felt seen, even exposed. Still, despite her mom-crush, the label of Lesbian Mom struck Reese as off-key. She couldn’t quite fake politeness through her vague dismay at yet another suggestion that her own journey into queer parenting must begin with advice from the cis lesbians who disdained her motherhood. Why, whenever she proclaimed her desire for motherhood, did people point her to a political movement that had banked thirty years making it clear that it didn’t want her around? Also, more obviously and perhaps pertinently, she had never slept with Katrina and had no plans or desire for that. They were not a lesbian couple. They were a mom-couple, with mom- crushes. Very different. It was important that Maya understand that. “Actually,” Katrina said from the couch with her virtual mom, “Ames picked that one out.” Ames has, of late, been brainstorming prodigiously about the logistics of their triad. He has taken to saying that every generation must reinvent parenting, and he, Reese, and Katrina, will be part of their own generational reinvention. As part of his brainstorming, he told Katrina about a friend of his and Reese’s in Chicago, a successful doctor named Quentin. Quentin was a trans guy with a long-term cis boyfriend. After Quentin got a plush job at the downtown campus of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, he bought a gorgeously crumbling Victorian in Rogers Park—the nondescript northernmost neighborhood along the lakeshore of Chicago. The house had its own little compound, with a small yard surrounded by a rotting fence through which neighborhood kids would slip to pass down a path that ran alongside the adjoining building and allowed them to trespass onto one of the few private beaches in the whole city.

• From Detransition, Baby (2021)

  After an appropriate period of chitchat, she asked her standard opening question: “So tell me about your previous experience with trans girls.” “T’ve always liked trans girls, but my experience has just been escorts,” he replied, then paused. “I’ve had ongoing things with escorts, but in the end, those always made me feel bad.” “Because you don’t like paying for sex?” He blinked. “No, I don’t mind paying for sex.” Then without affect, so she couldn’t tell if it was a joke, he added, “What do you think this dinner is?” Without seeming to register her aghast face, he continued, “The problem for me with trans escorts is that they all want vaginas. Most of the ones I met were doing it to make money until they could get one. It made me feel bad. I want to see that little bulge, and they all wanted to get rid of it. That’s why I went to that site. I figured anyone calling themselves a sissy or tranny had probably come to terms with her cock.” He broke a piece of bread with his hands and popped it into his mouth. Reese continued to stare, unable to formulate a response. He said, “Come on, you asked me a blunt question about my sexual past and sexuality. I gave you a blunt answer. It’s your turn. Don’t act demure now. Do you want a vagina?” He had blue eyes in a big bland face, shaggy hair, and was dressed like he planned to be photographed for a lifestyle magazine for wealthy understated men interested in bird-watching or some other non-vigorous outdoor activity, in a waxed canvas Barbour jacket with many pockets and a heavily cabled turtleneck. When they met on the street, she joked that she was expecting a Wall Street guy in a suit. “Those are the sellers. The bankers. Guys who want money,” he said dismissively. “I represent the buyers. The guys who already have money. I could show up to work in my swim trunks.” Even Reese knew enough about finance to recognize this as a_ suspect oversimplification, but it sounded so much like a line from Glengarry Glen Ross that Reese merely said, “Wow.” And even she was unsure if that wow was because he had impressed her with his confidence or because she had never heard such a clichéd performance delivered with so little irony so soon after an introduction.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  It was then that we came closer to detection than ever before, and no wonder the experience curbed forever my yearning for rural amours. I remember the operation was over, all over, and she was weeping in my arms;—a salutory storm of sobs after one of the fits of moodiness that had become so frequent with her in the course of that otherwise admirable year! I had just retracted some silly promise she had forced me to make in a moment of blind impatient passion, and there she was sprawling and sobbing, and pinching my caressing hand, and I was laughing happily, and the atrocious, unbelievable, unbearable, and, I suspect, eternal horror that I know now was still but a dot of blackness in the blue of my bliss; and so we lay, when with one of those jolts that have ended by knocking my poor heart out of its groove, I met the unblinking dark eyes of two strange and beautiful children, faunlet and nymphet, whom their identical flat dark hair and bloodless cheeks proclaimed siblings if not twins. They stood crouching and gaping at us, both in blue play-suits, blending with the mountain blossoms. I plucked at the lap-robe for desperate concealment—and within the same instant, something that looked like a polka-dotted pushball among the undergrowth a few paces away, went into a turning motion which was transformed into the gradually rising figure of a stout lady with a raven-black bob, who automatically added a wild lily to her bouquet, while staring over her shoulder at us from behind her lovejy carved bluestone children. Now that I have an altogether different mess on my conscience, I know that I am a courageous man, but in those days I was not aware of it, and I remember being surprised by my own coolness. With the quiet murmured order one gives a sweatstained distracted cringing trained animal even in the worst of plights (what mad hope or hate makes the young beast’s flanks pulsate, what black stars pierce the heart of the tamer!), I made Lo get up, and we decorously walked, and then indecorously scuttled down to the car. Behind it a nifty station wagon was parked, and a handsome Assyrian with a little blue-black beard, un monsieur très bien, in silk shirt and magenta slacks, presumably the corpulent botanist’s husband, was gravely taking the picture of a signboard giving the altitude of the pass. It was well over 10,000 feet and I was quite out of breath; and with a scrunch and a skid we drove off, Lo still struggling with her clothes and swearing at me in language that I never dreamed little girls could know, let alone use. There were other unpleasant incidents. There was the movie theatre once, for example. Lo at the time still had for the cinema a veritable passion (it was to decline into tepid condescension during her second high school year).