Fear

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 Henry and June (1986)

  But whatever in me has grown outside and beyond Hugo will go on. March Yesterday at the Café de la Rotonde Henry told me he had written me a letter which he had torn up. Because it was a crazy letter. A love letter. I received this silently, without surprise. I had sensed it. There is so much warmth between us. But I am unmoved. Deep down. I am afraid of this man, as if in him I had to face all the realities which terrify me. His sensual being affects me. His ferocity, enveloped in tenderness, his sudden seriousness, the heavy, rich mind. I am a bit hypnotized. I observe his fine soft white hands, his head, which looks too heavy for his body, the forehead about to burst, a shaking head, harboring so much that I love and hate, that I want and fear. My love of June paralyzes me. I feel warmth towards this man, who can be two separate beings. He wants to take my hand and I appear not to notice. I make a swift gesture of flight. I want his love to die. What I have been dreaming of, just such a man’s desire of me, now I reject. The moment has come to sink in sensuality, without love or drama, and I cannot do it. He misunderstands so much: my smile when he talks about June at first fighting off all his ideas violently and later absorbing them and expressing them as if they were her own. “It happens to all of us,” he says, looking at me aggressively, as if my smile had been one of disdain. I believe he wants to fight. After the violence, the bitterness, the brutality, the ruthlessness he has known, my state of mellowness annoys him. He finds that, like a chameleon, I change color in the café, and perhaps lose the color I have in my own home. I do not fit into his life. His life—the underworld, Careo, violence, ruthlessness, monstrosity, gold digging, debauch. I read his notes avidly and with horror. For a year, in semisolitude, my imagination has had time to grow beyond measure. At night, in a fever, Henry’s words press in on me. His violent, aggressive manhood pursues me. I taste that violence with my mouth, with my womb. Crushed against the earth with the man over me, possessed until I want to cry out. At the Café Viking, Henry talks about discovering my real nature one evening when I danced the rumba for a few minutes alone. He still remembers a passage in my novel, wants to have the manuscript, to be able to read it over. He says it is the most beautiful writing he has read lately.

• From My Life and Loves, Vol. 1 (of 4) (1922)

  One morning I reproached Lizzie for not bringing me up a black draught Doctor Richards had promised to send me. “It’s on the mantle-piece in the dining-room”, I said, “but don’t trouble, I’ll get it myself”, and I ran down as I was. An evening or two later I left the belladonna mixture the doctor had made up for me on the chimney piece! Like the black draught it was dark brown in color and in a similar bottle. Next morning Lizzie woke me and offered me a glassful of dark liquid: “Your medicine” she said and half asleep still, I told her to leave the breakfast tray on the table by my bed and then drained the glass she offered to me. The taste awoke me: the drink had made my whole mouth and throat dry: I sprang out of bed and went to the looking-glass, yes! yes! the pupils of my eyes were unnaturally distended: had she given me the whole draught of belladonna instead of a black draught? I still heard her on the stairs but why waste time in asking her. I went over to the table, poured out cup after cup of tea and drained them: then I ran down to the dining-room where my sister and father were at breakfast. I poured out their tea and drank cups full of it in silence: then I asked my sister to get me mustard and warm water and met my father’s question with a brief explanation and request. “Go to Dr. Richards and tell him to come at once: I’ve drunk the belladonna mixture by mistake; there’s no time to lose.” My father was already out of the house! My sister brought me the mustard and I mixed a strong dose with hot water and took it as an emetic; but it didn’t work. I went upstairs to my bedroom again and put my fingers down my throat over the bath: I retched and retched but nothing came: plainly the stomach was paralysed. My sister came in crying. “I’m afraid there’s no hope, Nita”, I said, “the Doctor told me there was enough to kill a dozen men and I’ve drunk it all fasting; but you’ve always been good and kind to me, dear, and death is nothing.”

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  And he took his round metal tray and moved out into the crowd. I watched him as he moved. And then I watched their faces, watching him. And then I was afraid. I knew that they were watching, had been watching both of us. They knew that they had witnessed a beginning and now they would not cease to watch until they saw the end. It had taken some time but the tables had been turned; now I was in the zoo, and they were watching. I stood at the bar for quite a while alone, for Jacques had escaped from Guillaume but was now involved, poor man, with two of the knife- blade boys. Giovanni came back for an instant and winked. 'Are you sure?' Tou win. You're the philosopher.' 'Oh, you must wait some more. You do not yet know me well enough to say such a thing.' 54 James Baldwin And he filled his tray and disappeared again. Now someone whom I had never seen before came out of the shadows toward me. It looked like a mummy or a zombie— this was the first, overwhelming impression—of something walk- ing after it had been put to death. And it walked, really, like someone who might be sleepwalk- ing or like those figures in slow motion one sometimes sees on the screen. It carried a glass, it walked on its toes, the flat hips moved with a dead, horrifying lasciviousness. It seemed to make no sound; this was due to the roar of the bar, which was like the roaring of the sea, heard at night, from far away. It gUttered in the dim Ught; the thin, black hair was violent with oil, combed forward, hanging in bangs; the eyelids gleamed with mascara, the mouth raged with lipstick. The face was white and thor- oughly bloodless with some kind of foundation cream; it stank of powder and a gardenia-like perfume. The shirt, open coquettishly to the navel, revealed a hairless chest and a silver crucifix; the shirt was covered with round, paper-thin wafers, red and green and orange and yellow and blue, which stormed in the light and made one feel that the mummy might, at any moment, disappear in flame. A red sash was around the waist, the clinging pants were a surprisingly sombre grey. He wore buckles on his shoes. I was not sure that he was coming towards me, but I could not take my eyes away. He V GIOVANNI'S ROOM 55 stopped before me, one hand on his hip, looked me up and down, and smiled. He had been eat- ing garlic and his teeth were very bad. His hands, I noticed, with an unbelieving shock, were very large and strong.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  The american deputy assistant secretary of defense for equal opportunity and safety pauses in her speechlicks her dry lips “as you can see the Department has a very good record of equal opportunity for our women” swims toward safety through a lake of her own blood. Diaspora Afraid is a country with no exit visas a wire of ants walking the horizon embroiders our passports at birth Johannesburg Alabama a dark girl flees the cattle prods skin hanging from her shredded nails escapes into my nightmare half an hour before the Shatila dawn wakes in the well of a borrowed Volkswagen or a rickety midnight sleeper out of White River Junction Washington boundagain gulps carbon monoxide in a false-bottomed truck fording the Braceras Grande or an up-country river grenades held dry in a calabash leaving. A Question of Climate I learned to be honest the way I learned to swim dropped into the inevitable my father’s thumbs in my hairless armpits about to give way I am trying to surfacecarefully remembering the water’s shadow-legged musk cannons of saltexploding my nostrils’ rage and for years my powerful breast stroke was a declaration of war. Florida Black people fishing the causeway full-skirtedbare brown to the bellyband atilt on the railingnear a concrete road where a crawler-transporter will move the space shuttle from hangar to gantry. Renting a biplane to stalk the full moon in Aquarius as she rose under Venus between propellers Country Western surf feasting on frozen black beans Cubano from Grand Union in the mangrove swampelbows of cypressscrub oak Moonmoonmoon on the syncopated road rimey with bullfrogswalking beachesfragrant and raunchy fire-damp sand between my toes. Huge arrogant cockroacheswith white people’s manners and their palmetto bug cousins aggressive ridged slowness the obstinacy of living fossils. Sweet ugly-fruitavocadostomatoes and melon in the mango slot hibiscus spread like a rainbow of lovers arced stamens waving but even the jacaranda only last a day. Crescent moon walking my sheets at midnight lonely in the palmetto thicketcounting persistent Canaveral lizards launch themselves through my air conditioner chasing equally determined fleas.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else’s words. And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength. I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences. And it was the concern and caring of all those women which gave me strength and enabled me to scrutinize the essentials of my living. The women who sustained me through that period were Black and white, old and young, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual, and we all shared a war against the tyrannies of silence. They all gave me a strength and concern without which I could not have survived intact. Within those weeks of acute fear came the knowledge—within the war we are all waging with the forces of death, subtle and otherwise, conscious or not—I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior. What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the face of one of your fears. Because I am woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself—a Black woman warrior poet doing my work—come to ask you, are you doing yours? And of course I am afraid, because the transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation, and that always seems fraught with danger.

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  I have been scared now for six years and that hasn’t stopped me. I’ve given myself plenty of practice in doing whatever I need to do, scared or not, so scare tactics are just not going to work. Or I hoped they were not going to work. At any rate, thank the goddess, they were not working yet. One step at a time. But some of my nightmares were pure hell, and I started having trouble sleeping. In writing this I have discovered how important some things are that I thought were unimportant. I discovered this by the high price they exact for scrutiny. At first I did not want to look again at how I slowly came to terms with my own mortality on a level deeper than before, nor with the inevitable strength that gave me as I started to get on with my life in actual time. Medical textbooks on the liver were fine, but there were appointments to be kept, and bills to pay, and decisions about my upcoming trip to europe to be made. And what do I say to my children? Honesty has always been the bottom line between us, but did I really need them going through this with me during their final difficult years at college? On the other hand, how could I shut them out of this most important decision of my life? I made a visit to my breast surgeon, a doctor with whom I have always been able to talk frankly, and it was from him that I got my first trustworthy and objective sense of timing. It was from him that I learned that the conventional forms of treatment for liver metastases made little more than one year’s difference in the survival rate. I heard my old friend Clem’s voice coming back to me through the dimness of thirty years: “I see you coming here trying to make sense where there is no sense. Try just living in it. Respond, alter, see what happens.” I thought of the African way of perceiving life, as experience to be lived rather than as problem to be solved. Homeopathic medicine calls cancer the cold disease. I understand that down to my bones that quake sometimes in their need for heat, for the sun, even for just a hot bath. Part of the way in which I am saving my own life is to refuse to submit my body to cold whenever possible. In general, I fight hard to keep my treatment scene together in some coherent and serviceable way, integrated into my daily living and absolute. Forgetting is no excuse.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  GIOVANNI'S ROOM 73 as Giovanni'smdme, outof honorable reach. Theironlymeans,practically atleast, of con- veying theiraffectionfor Giovanni and me was to relieveus ofthese two oldmen. So thatthere was added, totherolesthey were about toplay, a certain jollyauraof conviction and, toself- interest, an altruistic glow. I orderedblackcoffee andacognac, a large one. Giovanni was farfromme,drinking marc between anoldman,wholookedlike a recep- tacleof allthe world's dirt and disease, and a young boy,a redhead, whowouldlooklikethat manone day, ifonecouldread,inthe dullness of hiseye,anything so realas a future. Now, however,hehadsomethingof a horse'sdreadful beauty;somesuggestion,too,of the storm trooper;covertly,hewaswatching Guillaume; heknew that both Guillaumeand Jacques were watching him. Guillaumechatted, meanwhile, withMadame Clothilde; they wereagreeingthat business was awful,that allstandards hadbeen debasedby the nouveauriche,andthatthe countryneededdeGaulle. Luckily,they had both had this conversation so many timesbefore that itran, sotospeak,allby itself, demanding of themnothing in the way of concentration. Jacques would shortlyofferoneof the boys a drinkbut, for the moment,he wishedto play imcle tome. 'How do you feel?' he asked me. This is a very important day foryou.' 1feelfine,' I said. *How doyou feel?' 74 James Baldwin Tiike a man,' hesaid, 'who hasseena vision/ *Yes?' I said.Tellme about thisvision/ 1am not joking/he said.1 amtalking about you. Youwere thevision.Youshould haveseen yourself tonight. Youshouldsee yourselfnow/ I looked at himandsaidnothing, Tou are — how old?Twenty-sixor seven? I am nearly twicethatand,letmetellyou,you arelucky. Youareluckythat what ishappening to younow is happeningnow and notwhen you are forty, or something like that,when there would be no hope foryouandyou wouldsimply be destroyed.' 'What is happening tome?*Iasked. I had meant to soundsardonic, but I did notsound sardonic at all. He didnotanswerthis, but sighed, looking brieflyinthedirection of theredhead. Then he turnedtome.*Are you going towriteto Hella?' 1 very oftendo/ 1 said. 1 suppose I wdll again/ Thatdoes not answer myquestion.' 'Oh. I wasunderthe impressionthat youhad asked me ifIwasgoing towrite toHeUa.' 'Well.Let's put it another way.Are you going to write to Hellaaboutthisnight andthis morning?' 1 really don'tseewhatthereis to write about But what'sit toyou ifIdoor I don't?' Hegaveme a look fullofacertain despair whichIhadnot,till thatmoment, known was in him. Itfrightened me. 'It'snot,'he said, 'what it isto me. It's what it is to you. And to her. And

• From Another Country (1962)

  So he only said, after a moment, as mildly as he could, “Look. I fell for the oldest gag in the business. Here I am. Okay. What do you want?” And what the man wanted was more than he knew how to say. He watched Vivaldo, waiting for Vivaldo to speak again. Vivaldo’s mind was filled suddenly with the image of a movie he had seen long ago. He saw a bird dog, tense, pointing, absolutely silent, waiting for a covey of quail to surrender to panic and fly upward, where they could be picked off by the guns of the hunters. So it was in the room while the man waited for Vivaldo to speak. Whatever Vivaldo might say would be turned into an opportunity for slaughter. Vivaldo held his breath, hoping that his panic did not show in his eyes, and felt his flesh begin to crawl. Then the man looked over at the girl, who stood near the bed, watching him, and then he slowly moved closer to Vivaldo. When he stood directly before Vivaldo, his eyes still driving, it seemed, into Vivaldo’s as though he would pierce the skull and the brain and possess it all, he abruptly held out his hand. Vivaldo handed him the wallet. The man lit a cigarette which he held in the corner of his mouth as he deliberately, insolently, began looking through the wallet. “What I don’t understand,” he said, with a fearful laziness, “is why you white boys always come uptown, sniffing around our black girls. You don’t see none of us spooks downtown, sniffing around your white girls.” He looked up. “Do you?” Don’t be so sure, Vivaldo thought, but said nothing. But this had struck some nerve in him and he felt himself beginning to be angry again. “Suppose I told you that that was my sister,” the man said, gesturing toward the girl. “What would you do if you found me with your sister?” I wouldn’t give a damn if you split her in two, Vivaldo thought, promptly. At the same time this question made him tremble with rage and he realized, with another part of his mind, that this was exactly what the man wanted. There remained at the bottom of his mind, nevertheless, a numb speculation as to why this question should make him angry. “I mean, what would you do to me?” the man persisted, still holding Vivaldo’s wallet and looking at him with a smile. “I want you to name your own punishment.” He waited. Then: “Come on. You know what you guys do.” And then the man seemed, oddly, a little ashamed, and at the same time more dangerous than ever. Vivaldo said at last, tightly, “I haven’t got a sister” and straightened his tie, willing his hands to be steady, and began looking around for his jacket.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘ Did I? Pm sorry.’ ‘ Yes — don’t do it again,’ and once more they drove forward in silence. Farther down the road they were blocked by a farm cart: ‘ Militaires! Militaires! Militaires! ° Stephen shouted. Rather languidly the farmer got down and went to the heads of his thin, stumbling horses. ‘ Il faut vivre,’ he explained, as he pointed to the cart, which appeared to be full of potatoes. In a field on the right worked three very old women; they were hoeing with a diligent and fatalistic patience. At any mo- ment a stray shell might burst and then, presto! little left of the very old women. But what will you? There is war — there has been war so long — one must eat, even under the noses of the Germans; the bon Dieu knows this, He alone can protect — so meanwhile one just goes on diligently hoeing. A blackbird 322 THE WELL OF LONELINESS was singing to himself in a tree, the tree was horribly maimed and blasted; all the same he had known it the previous spring and so now, in spite of its wounds, he had found it. Came a sudden lull when they heard him distinctly. And Mary saw him: ‘ Look,’ she said, ‘ there’s a blackbird! ” Just for a moment she forgot about war. Yet Stephen could now very seldom forget, and this was because of the girl at her side. A queer, tight feeling would come round her heart, she would know the fear that can go hand in hand with personal courage, the fear for another. But now she looked down for a moment and smiled: ‘ Bless that blackbird for letting you see him, Mary.’ She knew that Mary loved little, wild birds, that indeed she loved all the humbler creatures. They turned into a lane and were comparatively safe, but the roar of the guns had grown much more insistent. They must be nearing the Poste de Secours, so they spoke very little because of those guns, and after a while because of the wounded. 3 Tue Poste DE Secours was a ruined auberge at the cross-roads, about fifty yards behind the trenches. From what had once been its spacious cellar, they were hurriedly carrying up the wounded, maimed and mangled creatures who, a few hours ago, had been young and vigorous men. None too gently the stretchers were lowered to the ground beside the two waiting ambulances — none too gently because there were so many of them, and because there must come a time in all wars when custom stales even compassion.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  This is the man who teaches all men everywhere against our people and the Law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.” 29 For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul, and they assumed that he had brought the man into the temple [beyond the court of the Gentiles]. 30 Then the whole city was provoked and confused, and the people rushed together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the gates were closed. 31 Now while they were trying to kill him, word came to the commander of the [Roman] garrison that all Jerusalem was in a state of upheaval. 32 So he immediately took soldiers and centurions and ran down among them. When the people saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. 33 Then the commander came up and arrested Paul, and ordered that he be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done. 34 But some in the crowd were shouting one thing and others something else; and since he could not determine the facts because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken to the barracks [in the tower of Antonia]. 35 When Paul got to the steps, he was carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob; 36 for the majority of the people kept following them, shouting, “Away with him! [Kill him!]” 37 Just as Paul was about to be taken into the barracks, he asked the commander, “May I say something to you?” And the man replied, “Do you know Greek? 38 “Then you are not [as I assumed] the Egyptian who f some time ago stirred up a rebellion and led those 4,000 men of the Assassins out into the wilderness?” 39 Paul said, “I am a Jew from g Tarsus in Cilicia (Mersin Province, Turkey), a citizen of no insignificant city; and I beg you, allow me to speak to the people.” 40 When the commander had given him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, gestured with his hand to the people; and when there was a great hush, he spoke to them in the Hebrew dialect (Jewish Aramaic), saying, Acts 22 Paul’s Defense before the Jews 1 “B RETHREN AND fathers (kinsmen), hear my defense which I now offer to you.” 2 When they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet. And he continued, 3 “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of a Gamaliel according to the strictness of the law of our fathers, being ardent and passionate for God just as all of you are today.

• From How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  Anger, along with other emotions such as jealousy or even fear, are clearly relevant but the abuse can also be motivated by a variety of other factors like a desire for power or control of the other person. The causes of physical abuse are typically broader than just their anger. The same can be said for emotional abuse which includes them frequently insulting or criticizing you, keeping you from spending time with friends or loved ones, gaslighting you, finding ways to humiliate you, or attempting to control what you do, how you dress, who you spend time with, and more. Such patterns are, again, typically motivated by much more than anger. Ending or leaving an abusive relationship is well beyond the scope of this book. There are a variety of barriers to those trying to leave such a relationship. For anyone who is the victim of abuse, I would urge you to get help from a professional by reaching out to an intimate partner violence resource. TIP If you believe you might be in an emotionally or physically abusive relationship, contact a professional for help. There is a resources section at the end of this book. Spending Time with Them Feels Exhausting I have talked to a number of people about what it’s like to be in a relationship with an angry person, and they routinely tell me that it feels scary and emotionally draining to them. They are usually, though not always, talking about a particular type of angry person here – the type who tend to voice their anger outwardly or aggressively by yelling, screaming, or hitting things. They don’t necessarily feel the threat themselves. They aren’t necessarily scared that they will be harmed by the person. They are scared the person will hurt someone else, embarrass them, or just startle them with a moment of rage. Because the other person’s anger is scary to them, they find themselves actively working to prevent the person from getting mad. They spend all of this emotional energy trying to keep the person from exploding. They end up feeling like they can’t be themselves because they are working so hard to manage the other person’s emotions. That sort of effort is exhausting. People say they “walk on eggshells” to describe the general sense of discomfort and uncertainty they experience. They do the work of managing their own emotions not in a way that makes them feel good, but to protect the feelings of someone else.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  6. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, 7. And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. 8. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. 9. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. 10. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. 11. Now there was nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. 12. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. 13. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. 14. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. 15. And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid. 16. And they that saw it told them how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil, and also concerning the swine. 17. And they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts. 18. And when he was come into the ship, he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he might be with him. 19. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee. 20. And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel. THEOPHYLACT. Those who were in the ship enquired among themselves, What manner of man is this? and now it is made known Who He is by the testimony of His enemies. For the demoniac came up confessing that He was the Son of God. Proceeding to which circumstance the Evangelist says, And they came over unto the other side, &c. BEDE. (in Marc. 2, 21) Geraza is a noted town of Arabia, across the Jordan, near mount Galaad, which the tribe of Manasseh held, not far from the lake of Tiberias, into which the swine were precipitated.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AMBROSE. So severe then will be the manifold fires of our souls, that with consciences depraved through the multitude of crimes, by reason of our fear of the coming judgment, the dew of the sacred fountain will be dried upon us. But as the Lord’s coming is looked for, in order that His presence may dwell in the whole circle of mankind or the world, which now dwells in each individual who has embraced Christ with his whole heart, so the powers of heaven shall at our Lord’s coming obtain an increase of grace, and shall be moved by the fulness of the Divine nature more closely infusing itself. There are also heavenly powers which proclaim the glory of God, which shall be stirred by a fuller infusion of Christ, that they may see Christ. AUGUSTINE. (ut sup.) Or the powers of heaven shall be stirred, because when the ungodly persecute, some of the most stout-hearted believers shall be troubled. THEOPHYLACT. (ut sup.) It follows, And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds. Both the believers and unbelievers shall see Him, for He Himself as well as His cross shall glisten brighter than the sun, and so shall be observed of all. AUGUSTINE. (ut sup.) But the words, coming in the clouds, may be taken in two ways. Either coming in His Church as it were in a cloud, as He now ceases not to come. But then it shall be with great power and majesty, for far greater will His power and might appear to His saints, to whom He will give great virtue, that they may not be overcome in such a fearful persecution. Or in His body in which He sits at His Father’s right hand He must rightly be supposed to come, and not only in His body, but also in a cloud, for He will come even as He went away, And a cloud received him out of their sight. CHRYSOSTOM. For God ever appears in a cloud, according to the Psalms, clouds and darkness are round about him. (Ps. 17:11.) Therefore shall the Son of man come in the clouds as God, and the Lord, not secretly, but in glory worthy of God. Therefore He adds, with great power and majesty. CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA. Great must be understood in like manner. For His first appearance He made in our weakness and lowliness, the second He shall celebrate in all His own power. GREGORY. (ut sup.) For in power and majesty will men see Him, whom in lowly stations they refused to hear, that so much the more acutely they may feel His power, as they are now the less willing to bow the necks of their hearts to His sufferings. 21:28–3328. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. 29. And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  Then at 4:30 in the morning, her little fingers of light reached under the lined window curtains, and I got up as if bidden and went out onto the terrace to greet her. The night was very very still; she was low and bright and brilliantly clear. I stood on the terrace in my robe bathed in her strong quiet light. I raised my arms then and prayed for us all, prayed for the strength for all of us who must weather this time ahead with me. My mother moon had awakened me, calling me out into her brightness, and she shone down upon me as a sign, a blessing on that terrace with the soft gurgle of flowing water in my ears, a promise of answering strength to be whoever I need to be. I felt her in my heart, in my bones, in my thin blood, and I heard Margareta’s voice again: “It’s going to be a hard lonely road, but remember, help is on the way.” That was her farewell Tarot reading for me, seventeen years ago. December 27, 1985 Arlesheim Last night I dreamed I was asleep here in my bed at the Klinik and there was a strange physical presence lying beside me on the left side. I couldn’t see it because it was dark, but I felt this body start to touch me on my left thigh, and I knew that this meant great danger. “It must think I’m dead so it can have (claim) me,” I thought, “but if I moan it will know I’m awake and alive and it’ll leave me alone.” So I began to moan softly, but the creature didn’t stop. I could feel its cold fingers beginning to creep over my left hip, and I thought to myself, “Oh, oh, nightmare time! I’ve got to scream louder. Maybe that noise will make it go away, because there is nobody else here to wake me up!” So I screamed and roared in my sleep, and finally after what seemed like a very long time, I woke myself up calling out, and of course there was nothing in my bed at all, but it still felt as if death had really been trying. December 30, 1985 Arlesheim Frances and I went to the Konditorei [pastry shop] in town this afternoon to have a cup of tea and be together away from the hospital, when the elderly schoolteacher with the rhodonite necklace came in and wanted to sit down with us. It was so apparent how badly she wanted to talk that we couldn’t say no, even though we never have enough time alone together. It was actually quite sad. Dr. Lorenz had just told her that her breast cancer has spread to her bones, and she doesn’t know what she is going to do. She has to make plans for her elderly mother for whom she now cares at home but will no longer be able to.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  14 JamesBaldwin firsttime in mylife, I was really aware ofan- other person's body,ofanother person's smell. Wehadour arms around each other. It was likeholding in myhand some rare, exhausted, nearlydoomed bird which I had miraculously happened tofind. Iwas very frightened; Iam surehe wasfrightened too,and weshut our eyes.To remember itsoclearly, so painfully tonight tells methat Ihavenever for an instant trulyforgotten it. I feelin myself now afaint, a dreadful stirring ofwhat so overwhelmingly stirredin me then, great thirsty heat, and trembling, and tenderness sopainful I thought my heartwould burst. But outofthis astoimd- ing, intolerable pain camejoy; wegave each otherjoythat night. Itseemed,then, that a lifetime would notbelongenough for me to act with Joey the act of love. Butthat lifetime was short, wasbounded by that night — it ended in themorning. I awoke while Joey was stillsleeping, curledlike ababy on hisside, towardme. He lookedlike a baby, his mouth half open,hischeekflushed, his curlyhair darkening the pillow and half hiding hisdamp round foreheadand hislong eyelashes glinting slightly inthesummer sun.Wewere bothnaked and thesheet we hadused as a coverwas tangled aroundourfeet. Joe/s body was brown, wassweaty, the most beautiful creation Ihadeverseen till then. I would have touched himtowakehimupbutsomething stopped me. Iwassuddenly afraid.Perhaps it was because helooked so innocentlyingthere. GIOVANNI'SROOM15 withsuch perfecttrust; perhaps it was because hewasso much smallerthanme; my ownbody suddenly seemedgrossandcrushing and the desirewhichwas rising inmeseemed mon- strous. But,above all, Iwassuddenly afraid. Itwas borneinonme: But Joey is aboy. I saw suddenly the powerinhis thighs,in hisarms, and in hisloosely curled fists. The power and the promise and the mystery of that body made me suddenly afraid.That bodysuddenly seemed theblack opening ofa cavern inwhich I would be torturedtill madness came,inwhich Iwould losemy manhood.Precisely, I wanted to know that mysteryand feelthat powerand have that promisefulfilledthrough me. The sweat on my backgrewcold.I was ashamed.Theverybed. In itssweet disorder, testified tovileness. Iwon- dered what Joey's mother wouldsaywhen she saw the sheets. Then Ithought of my father, who hadnooneinthe worldbutme, my mother havingdied whenIwaslittle. Acavernopened in mymind,black, full of rumor, suggestion, of half-heard, half-forgotten, half-understood stories, fullof dirty words. I thought Isawmy futmrein thatcavern. I was afraid. I could havecried,cried for shameand terror,cried for notunderstanding how thiscould havehap- penedtome, how thiscould have happened inme.And Imade my decision. I gotout of bedand took ashower and wasdressed and hadbreakfast ready when Joey woke up. I did nottellhim my decision; thatwould

• From The Selected Works of Audre Lorde

  And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive. Portrait Strong women know the taste of their own hatred I must always be building nests in a windy place I want the safety of oblique numbers that do not include me a beautiful woman with ugly moments secret and patient as the amused and ponderous elephants catering to Hannibal’s ambition as they swayed on their own way home. Therapy Trying to see you my eyes grow confused it is not your face they are seeking fingering through your spaces like a hungry child even now I do not want to make a poem I want to make you more and less a part from my self. Recreation Coming together it is easier to work after our bodies meet paper and pen neither care nor profit whether we write or not but as your body moves under my hands charged and waiting we cut the leash you create me against your thighs hilly with images moving through our word countries my body writes into your flesh the poem you make of me. Touching you I catch midnight as moon fires set in my throat I love you flesh into blossom I made you and take you made into me. Artisan In workshops without light we have made birds that do not sing kites that shine but cannot fly with the speed by which light falls in the throat of delicate working fire I thought I had discovered a survival kit buried in the moon’s heart flat and resilient as turtles a case of tortoise shell hung in the mouth of darkness precise unlikely markings carved into the carapace sweet meat beneath. I did not recognize the shape of my own name. Our bed spread is a midnight flower coming all the way down to the floor there your craft shows. Contact Lenses Lacking what they want to see makes my eyes hungry and eyes can feel only pain. Once I lived behind thick walls of glass and my eyes belonged to a different ethic timidly rubbing the edges of whatever turned them on. Seeing usually was a matter of what was in front of my eyes matching what was behind my brain.

• From I'm Not a Mourning Person (2023)

  I never saw any outbursts or breakdowns, just a quiet, graceful transition to his transition. But while he was making peace with death and with himself, I was fighting like a hooked marlin. I didn’t want to let go of control because on some level, I believed that control was the only thing keeping him here and us all together. Letting go felt like letting him down—which I now know wasn’t true but at the time felt very real. But my need for control, and the pain it was causing me, kept me from staying present and experiencing the moments that mattered. Though I was terrified of what was to come, I was even more scared of having regrets later. I wanted Dad to feel every ounce of my love until his last breath. So for better or worse, I had to try to accept what was happening—even though I didn’t want to and wasn’t ready for it. Fighting reality, which includes pain, was only causing more suffering (which is hard to see when you’re in the vortex of loss). Surrendering to reality was clearly the way forward, but to do so I had to remember the medicine inherent in that action. Many of us equate surrender or acceptance with quitting or giving up, but I’ve come to learn that through the power of surrender we’re able to lay down the stress, anxiety, and heavy burdens that keep us running in the opposite direction of love. In the end, Dad didn’t just make peace with death, he made peace with himself, and in the process, he showed me a majestic picture window of what’s possible in my own life. Death and mortality will do that—reveal a hidden guide for life and healing. No matter how ferocious life can be, there’s always a way back home to ourselves, the safe place where we can find peace and be calmed by the presence of love. This may sound weird, but the more Dad did this work on himself, the more he started to literally shine. It wasn’t just the natural changes in the pallor of his skin as he got closer to the end; it was that he was filled with light, emanating a radiance that truly felt otherworldly. If we were strangers at a bar, I might have seen his glow and said to the bartender: “I’ll have whatever that guy’s having.” But we were not strangers. He was, in so many ways, my person. TOM SELLECK MUSTACHE While Dad wasn’t my biological father, he was my rock, and I was his “sweet pea.” Essential to our father-daughter bond was this simple fact: we chose each other. I met him when I was nine years old, at my maternal grandfather’s funeral. My mother and I were walking toward the front of the church when this tall man with a slightly receding hairline stood up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. My mother blushed.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  GIOVANNI'S ROOM 169 persuaded his concierge to allow himto puta phone call on his bill and called me. Thepoor boy sounded as though he would haveput his head in the gas oven. If/ he laughed, liehad had a gas oven/ We stared at each other. He, deUberately, said nothing. I didnot know whatto say. 1 threw a few provisions in my car/said Jacques, 'and hurried out to get him.He thought we should drag the river for you.But I assured him that he did not know Americans as well as I and that youhad not drowned yourself.You hadonly disappeared in order — to think. And I seethat I was right. You have thought somuch that now you must find what others have thought before you. One book/ hesaid, finally, 'thatyou cansurely spare yourselfthe trouble of reading is the Marquis de Sade/ *Where isGiovanni now?'I asked. 1 finally rememberedthe nameof Hella's hotel,' said Jacques. 'Giovanni saidthat you weremore or less expectingherand so I gave himthe bright idea ofcalling you there. He has stepped outfor an instant to do justthat Hell bealong presently.' Hellahad returned, with herbook. Tou twohave met before/ I said, awkwardly. *Hella, you remember Jacques.' She remembered him andalso remembered that she disliked him. Shesmiled politely and held outher hand. 'How are you?' *Je suis ravi, mademoiselle/ said Jacques. He knewthat Hella disliked him and this amused 170 James Baldwin him. And,to corroborateher dislike, and also becauseat that momenthe really hated me, he bowedlow overheroutstretched hand and be- came, in an instant, outrageously and offen- sivelyeJTeminate. I watched him asthough I were watchinganimminent disaster from many miles away.Heturnedplayfully tome. T)avid has beenhidingfrom us,'he murmured, 'now that youare back/ 'Oh?*said Hella, andmoved closer to me, taking my hand,'that was very naughty of him. rdneverhave allowedit—ifI'd known wewere hiding.'She grinned.'But,then,he never tells meanything.' Jacques looked at her. 'No doubt,' he said,'he finds morefascinating topicswhenyouare to- getherthan why he hides from old friends.' I felt a greatneed toget outofthere before Giovanni arrived. 'Wehaven't eatensupperyet,' I said,trying to smile,'perhaps we can meet youlater?' Iknew thatmysmilewas begging himto bekindtome. But at thatmoment the tiny bell which an- nounced every entry into theshop rang, and Jacques said,'Ah.Hereis Giovanni.' And, in- deed,I felthimbehind me, standing stock-still, staring, andfelt in Hella's clasp, in her entire body, a kind of wild shrinking and not all ofher composure kept this from showing in her face. WhenGiovanni spoke, his voice was thick with fury and reliefand unshed tears. 'Where have you been?' he cried. 1 thought you weredead1 1 thought you had been knocked

• From Speak, Memory (1966)

  When I urged the old, rag-doll-like driver to go faster, he would merely lean to one side with a special half-circular movement of his arm, so as to make his horse believe he was about to produce the short whip he kept in the leg of his right felt boot; and that would be sufficient for the shaggy little hack to make as vague a show of speeding up as the driver had made of getting out his knutishko. In the almost hallucinatory state that our snow-muffled ride engendered, I refought all the famous duels a Russian boy knew so well. I saw Pushkin, mortally wounded at the first fire, grimly sit up to discharge his pistol at d’Anthès. I saw Lermontov smile as he faced Martïnov. I saw stout Sobinov in the part of Lenski crash down and send his weapon flying into the orchestra. No Russian writer of any repute had failed to describe une rencontre, a hostile meeting, always of course of the classical duel à volonté type (not the ludicrous back-to-back-march-face-about-bang-bang performance of movie and cartoon fame). Among several prominent families, there had been tragic deaths on the dueling ground in more or less recent years. Slowly my dreamy sleigh drove up Morskaya Street, and slowly dim silhouettes of duelists advanced upon each other and leveled their pistols and fired—at the crack of dawn, in damp glades of old country estates, on bleak military training grounds, or in the driving snow between two rows of fir trees. And behind it all there was yet a very special emotional abyss that I was desperately trying to skirt, lest I burst into a tempest of tears, and this was the tender friendship underlying my respect for my father; the charm of our perfect accord; the Wimbledon matches we followed in the London papers; the chess problems we solved; the Pushkin iambics that rolled off his tongue so triumphantly whenever I mentioned some minor poet of the day. Our relationship was marked by that habitual exchange of homespun nonsense, comically garbled words, proposed imitations of supposed intonations, and all those private jokes which are the secret code of happy families. With all that he was extremely strict in matters of conduct and given to biting remarks when cross with a child or a servant, but his inherent humanity was too great to allow his rebuke to Osip for laying out the wrong shirt to be really offensive, just as a first-hand knowledge of a boy’s pride tempered the harshness of reproval and resulted in sudden forgiveness. Thus I was more puzzled than pleased one day when upon learning that I had deliberately slashed my leg just above the knee with a razor (I still bear the scar) in order to avoid a recitation in class for which I was unprepared, he seemed unable to work up any real wrath; and his subsequent admission of a parallel transgression in his own boyhood rewarded me for not withholding the truth.

• From Giovanni's Room (1956)

  James Baldwin 44 elated. Jacques, beside me, was very quiet, suddenly very frail and old, and I felt a quick, sharp, rather frightened pity for him. Giovanni had been out on the floor, serving the people at tables, and he now returned with a rather grim smile on his face, carrying a loaded tray. 'Maybe," I said, It would look better if our glasses were empty.* We finished our drinks. I set down my glass. TBarman?' I called. The same?' Tes/ He started to turn away. TBarman,* I said, quickly, 'we would like to offer you a drink, if we may.' gal Not only have you finally—thank heaven! corrupted diis great American football player, you use him now to corrupt viy barman. Vraimenty Jacques I At your age I' *Eh, bienr said a voice behind us, 'c'est fort It was Guillaume standing behind us, grin- ning like a movie star, and waving that long white handkerchief which he was never, in the bar at any rate, to be seen without. Jacques turned, hugely delighted to be accused of such rare seductiveness, and he and Guillaume fell into each other arms like old theatrical sisters. 'Eh hieriy ma cherie, comment vas-tu? I have not seen you for a long time.' 'But I have been awfully busy,' said Jacques. 1 don't doubt itl Aren't you ashamed, vieille foiur 'Et toil You certainly don't seem to have been wasting your time.' GIOVANNI'S ROOM 45 And Jacques threw a delighted look in the direction of Giovanni, rather as though Giovanni were a valuable racehorse or a rare bit of china. Guillaume followed the look and his voice dropped. 'Ah, fa, mon cheT, c'est strictement du bus- iness, comyrendS'tuT They moved a little away. This left me surrounded, abruptly, with an awful silence. At last I raised my eyes and looked at Giovanni, who was watching me. 1 think you offered me a drink,' he said. Tes,' I said. 1 offered you a drink.' T drink no alcohol while I work, but I will take a Coca-Cola/ He picked up my glass. 'And for you—it is the same?' The same.' I realized that I was quite happy to be talking with him and this realization made me shy. And I felt menaced since Jacques was no longer at my side. Then I realized that I would have to pay, for this round anyway; it was impossible to tug Jacques' sleeve for the money as though I were his ward. I coughed and put my ten thousand franc note on the bar. Tou are rich,' said Giovanni, and set my drink before me. TBut no. No. I simply have no change.' He grinned. I could not tell whether he grinned because he thought I was lying or because he knew I was telling the truth. In silence he took the bill and rang it up and carefully counted out my change on the bar before me. Then he filled his glass and went '