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.

Page 323 of 529 · 20 per page

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  And sometimes he wasn’t thinking at all—he was just pumping her and it felt so good. She didn’t want anything from him, only that, only to say she was pretty and he liked her. Easy to say because it was true. He was careful. He got a package of rubbers. He wasn’t taking any chances. She was his first and she was a good teacher. She didn’t have to say much. Just took his hand and put it where she wanted it. Took his dick and guided it where she wanted it, which was where he wanted it, too. —AS HE STARTED getting ready for bed, he felt the house shake, then heard the earsplitting roar of a plane. A few of the other boys woke up and ran to the window. In the clear moonlit night, they saw it heading straight for them. He and the other boys fell to the floor, flattened and braced themselves. Mason made it partway under his bed. But instead of smashing into Janet, the plane must have hit something else and seconds later it crashed into their playing field, taking down the swings, the softball backboard. One explosion followed another. Mason didn’t stop to think—he raced outside in an adrenaline rush and charged across the field to what was left of the plane, its fuselage ripped apart. Three of the other boys followed. He pulled out a young woman hanging upside down in her seat. “I’m the stewardess,” she cried. “I have to help.” “Okay, sure,” Mason told her, “but first we have to get you out of here.” He carried her in his arms while she kept insisting, “I have to help…” He got her out just before another explosion, handed her over to one of the other boys, then rushed back to the plane. He freed a girl trapped under her seat, and threw her over his shoulder. “My husband,” she cried. “I’m not leaving without my husband. We just got married.” Mason handed her down to another of the boys, then went back to find the husband buried under debris, and barely alive, if that. They were working as a team now. The boys from Janet and the other rescuers, police, firemen, nurses. He pulled out another victim, and another. An arm came off a corpse. A baby was charred and dead. Then he was being restrained, held so tight he had to fight to free himself. “Let go!” he shouted. “No, no more,” Jack told him. But Mason wouldn’t listen. He broke away from Jack, with Jack following, in time to help Mason pull out a little girl, alive but in shock. “Mommy…” she cried again and again. Jack handed her over to a fireman, who carried her to an ambulance, then passed her to a nurse, who rode with her to the hospital. Mason was on his way back to the plane when an explosion sent him flying. Jack dragged him away from the plane.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Miri On May 8 news spread that another plane had crashed in Elizabeth, smashing into Levy Brothers department store. Miri was eating lunch at her usual table in the cafeteria when she heard. She felt sick to her stomach and had to swallow again and again to keep down the egg salad sandwich she’d just finished. She thought of the lady who worked in the teen department at Levy Brothers, the one who was having her nails done the morning Mr. Roman gave Miri her Elizabeth Taylor haircut. Had she been at work today? Was she dead now? The teacher who was lunch monitor that week shouted, “Everyone under the tables. Now!” She was one of the new, young teachers. She wore small pearl earrings that gave her face a glow. But now she wasn’t glowing. She shouted, “Quiet, please! Another plane may be on the way. Cover your heads with your hands.” Kids were screaming. Someone vomited on the floor. The smell of sweat mixed with the vomit and the uneaten lunches. They had grown complacent, Miri thought, more interested in ninth-grade graduation and going off to high school than about planes crashing. They’d been moving on with their lives, which is what their parents urged them to do. They were trying to be regular kids, happy kids, to please their families. But this proved you never knew when something terrible would happen. Miri wished she could be with Mason. If she was going to die she wanted to die in his arms. Oh, god—please let him be all right. She and Suzanne held on to each other under the table. Some girls were whimpering. For once, the boys shut up. Miri could smell her own sweat, the sweat of fear, the sweat that deodorant didn’t prevent. Robo was probably so glad she’d moved away from Elizabeth. But not everyone could afford to buy a house in Millburn or South Orange or some other fancy town where planes didn’t crash. Suzanne’s eyes were tightly shut. Her lips moved silently. Probably she was praying. But praying wouldn’t save them, would it? It didn’t save the people on the planes. Not that Miri knew if they’d prayed, but she was betting they had. Was Suzanne praying to Jesus? Did it matter who you prayed to? Did anything matter? It seemed like they were under the lunch tables for hours. Finally, an all-clear whistle blew. As they came out, they saw Donny Kellen, that idiot, standing on a

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  34 Miri She was sure they would drive. See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet, even if their Chevrolet was an Oldsmobile. But she was wrong. They were going to fly. Off we go into the wild blue yonder...She couldn’t keep songs about flying out of her head. And especially the ending of that song—live in fame or go down in flame —not that she’d lived in fame but still...She’d seen what it was like to go down in flame. And she didn’t want any part of it. That was putting it mildly. “I really don’t want to fly,” she told Rusty. Rusty said, “I understand.” “If you understand, why would you make me do it?” “I don’t want you to spend your life avoiding travel. I want you to see the world.” “I’ll drive.” “You can’t drive across the ocean.” “I’ll take a boat.” “Everyone will be flying, Miri.” “That doesn’t mean I have to be like everyone else.” “No, but you don’t want your fears to limit your possibilities.” “That sounds like something Dr. O would say, not you.” “But it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Miri shrugged. Did it? “Christina and Jack are driving to Las Vegas.” “Are you saying you want to go with them? Because I don’t think that would be appropriate.” Before her world fell apart, Miri might have begged to go with them, Mason surely would have been along. She hadn’t seen Christina or Jack since the breakup. She hated that word. Breakup. It reminded her of Henry’s description of the third crash—Like a swollen cream puff that had broken apart. She felt as if she, too, had broken apart. “I still don’t see why we can’t drive.” “The sooner we get there, the sooner we can establish residency.” Rusty was losing patience, Miri could tell. “It takes six weeks before you can get a divorce. And we can’t get married until the divorce is final.” Married. She sometimes forgot that her mother was going to marry Dr. O. He would be her stepfather. He’d be there for dinner at night, asking about her day, like a real father. But what about his kids? How would that make them feel? Sometimes, she didn’t blame Natalie for hating him.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  1. When the sun is in Aquarius, i.e. between January 21 and February 21, he is more in evidence in proportion as the days and nights become more and more equal. This is the usual explanation of these verses. But there is much to be said for Butler’s interpretation (based on the Ottimo): when “the nights are already passing away to the south,” the sun is, of course, proceeding northwards.2. Hoar-frost melts sooner than snow.3. The serpents in these verses were suggested by Lucan (Phars. ix). The country by the Red Sea is Arabia.4. The heliotrope (a stone) was credited with the power of making its wearer invisible.5. The peculiarities of the phœnix are alluded to by many classical and medieval writers; Dante’s immediate source was evidently Ovid, Metam. xv.6. Dante would appear to be describing an epileptic fit.7. In 1293 Vanni Fucci, a Black of Pistoia, robbed the treasure of San Jacopo in the Church of San Zeno, together with two accomplices. The real culprits remained undetected for a year; but in the meantime, a certain Rampino de’ Foresi was suspected of the theft and detained in prison.8. The Bianchi, having assisted in the expulsion of the Neri from Pistoia (May, 1301), were themselves driven from Florence in November, 1301, when Charles of Valois entered the city. For some time Pistoia remained the stronghold of the Whites. The last lines probably refer to the capture, in 1302, of Serravalle (near Pistoia. Campo Piceno is the tract between Serravalle and Montecatini) by the Florentine and Lucchese Guelfs, under Moroello Malaspina, Marquis of Giovagallo in Valdimagra (the extremity of Lunigiana). For Moroello see Purg. viii, note 5.C A N T O X X VAt the end of his angry prophecy, Fucci rises into a boundless pate rage, such as is hardly known in northern countries; and like the sacrilegious thief and brute that he is, gives vent to it in the wildest blasphemy. The serpents instantly set upon him, and inflict such punishment, that Dante regards them as friends ever after. Cacus too, with a load of serpents on his haunch and a fiery dragon on his shoulders, comes shouting in pursuit of him. Dante afterwards finds five of his own countrymen—first three in human shape, then two changed into reptiles—and by dint of great attention learns the names of them all, and very accurately sees the unheard-of transformations they have to undergo. The reptiles are Cianfa de’ Donati and Guercio de’ Cavalcanti; the three in human shape are Agnello de’ Brunelleschi, Buoso degli Abati, and Puccio de’ Galigai—all five of very noble kindred, “all from Florence, and great thieves in their time” (omnes de Florentina, et magni fares suo tempore. Pietro). [image file=image_rsrcA5N.jpg] AT THE conclusion of his words, the thief raised up his hands with both the figs,1 shouting: “Take them, God, for at thee I aim them!”

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  To whom he answered, Madam in the office of your bounty shall prevaile herein, but the insolencie of some is not to be supported. This hee spake very angerly: But Byrrhena was earnest upon him, and assured him hee should have no wrong at any mans hand. Whereby he was inforced to declare the same, and so lapping up the end of the Table cloath and carpet together, hee leaned with his elbow thereon, and held out three forefingers of his right hand in manner of an orator, and sayd, When I was a young man I went unto a certaine city called Milet, to see the games and triumphs there named Olympia, and being desirous to come into this famous province, after that I had travelled over all Thessaly, I fortuned in an evil hour to come to the City Larissa, where while I went up and down to view the streets to seeke some reliefe for my poore estate (for I had spent all my money) I espied an old man standing on a stone in the middest of the market place, crying with a loud voice and saying, that if any man would watch a dead corps that night hee should be reasonably rewarded for this paines. Which when I heard, I sayd to one who passed by, What is here to doe? Do dead men use to run away in this Countrey? Then answered he, Hold your peace, for you are but a Babe and a stranger here, and not without cause you are ignorant how you are in Thessaly, where the women Witches bite off by morsels the flesh and faces of dead men, and thereby work their sorceries and inchantments. Then quoth I, In good fellowship tell me the order of this custody and how it is. Marry (quoth he) first you must watch all the night, with your eyes bent continually upon the Corps, never looking off, nor moving aside. For these Witches do turn themselves into sundry kindes of beasts, whereby they deceive the eyes of all men, sometimes they are transformed into birds, sometimes into Dogs and Mice, and sometimes into flies. Moreover they will charme the keepers of the corps asleepe, neither can it be declared what meanes and shifts these wicked women do use, to bring their purpose to passe: and the reward for such dangerous watching is no more than foure or sixe shillings. But hearken further (for I had well nigh forgotten) if the keeper of the dead body doe not render on the morning following, the corps whole and sound as he received the same, he shall be punished in this sort: That is, if the corps be diminished or spoyled in any part of his face, hands or toes, the same shall be diminished and spoyled in the keeper.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  30 tant; et unus e numero sic appellat: * Quorsum istam festinanti vestigio lucubratis viam nec noctis intempestae Manes Larvasque formidatis? An tu, probissima puella, parentes tuos intervisere propera- bas? Sed nos et solitudini tuae praesidium praesta- bimus et ad parentes tuos iter monstrabimus," et unus manu secutus prehenso loro retrorsum me cir- cumtorquet, nec baculi nodosi quod gerebat suetis ictibus temperat. Tunc ingratis ad promptum re- currens exitium reminiscor doloris ungulae et occipio 292 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VI ancient miracles: we shall believe by the example of this truth that Phrixus saved himself from drown- ing upon a ram, Arion escaped upon a dolphin, and that Europa rode upon a bull. If Jupiter trans- formed himself into a lowing bull, why may it not be that under shape of this ass is hidden the figure of a man, or some power divine?” While that the virgin did thus mix sorrowful sighs with her hopes and prayers we fortuned to come to a place where three ways did meet, and she took me by the halter and would have me turn on the right hand to her father’s house, but I (knowing that the thieves were gone that way to fetch the residue of their pillage) resisted with my head as much as I might, saying within myself: “ What wilt thou do, unhappy maiden? Why wouldest thou go so will- ingly to Hell? Why wilt thou run into destruction in despite of my feet? Why dost thou seek thine own harm and mine likewise?” And while we two strove together like men striving at law about the division of land, or rather about some right of way, the thieves returned laden with their prey, and per- ceived us afar off by the light of the moon: and after they had known us they laughed despitefully, and one of them began to say: “ Whither go you so - hastily? Be you not afraid of spirits and ghosts of the night? And you (you harlot) do you go to see your parents? Come on, we will bear you company for safety's sake and shew you the way to your parents.” And therewithal one took me by the halter and drove me back again, beating me cruelly with a great staff that he had, full of knobs; then I returning against my will to my ready destruction, and remembering the grief of my hoof, began to shake my head and to wax lame, but he that led me 293 31 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  [image file=image_rsrcA5M.jpg] C A N T O IDante finds himself astray in a dark Wood, where he spends a night of great misery. He says that death is hardly more bitter, than it is to recall what he suffered there; but that he will tell the fearful things he saw, in order that he may also tell how he found guidance, and first began to discern the real causes of all misery. He comes to a Hill; and seeing its summit already bright with the rays of the Sun, he begins to ascend it. The way to it looks quite deserted. He is met by a beautiful Leopard, which keeps distracting his attention from the Hill, and makes him turn back several times. The hour of the morning, the season, and the gay outward aspect of that animal, give him good hopes at first; but he is driven down and terrified by a Lion and a She-wolf. Virgil comes to his aid, and tells him that the Wolf lets none pass her way, but entangles and slays every one that tries to get up the mountain by the road on which she stands. He says a time will come when a swift and strong Greyhound shall clear the earth of her, and chase her into Hell. And he offers to conduct Dante by another road; to show him the eternal roots of misery and of joy, and leave him with a higher guide that will lead him up to Heaven. [image file=image_rsrcA5N.jpg] IN THE middle of the journey of our life1 I came to myself in a dark wood2 where the straight way was lost. Ah! how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear! So bitter is it, that scarcely more is death: but to treat of the good that I there found, I will relate the other things that I discerned. I cannot rightly tell how I entered it, so full of sleep was I about the moment that I left the true way. But after I had reached the foot of a Hill3 there, where that valley ended, which had pierced my heart with fear, I looked up and saw its shoulders already clothed with the rays of the Planet4 that leads men straight on every road. Then the fear was somewhat calmed, which had continued in the lake of my heart the night that I passed so piteously. And as he, who with panting breath has escaped from the deep sea to the shore, turns to the dangerous water and gazes: so my mind, which still was fleeing, turned back to see the pass that no one ever left alive. After I had rested my wearied body a short while, I took the way again along the desert strand, so that the right foot always was the lower.5

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  As they came lower and lower in their descent, the scene out the window looked to Miri like a moonscape, or how she imagined a moonscape would look. Sandy and flat with tall, dark mountains rising out of nowhere. Lower and lower out of the wild blue yonder, lower and lower until the wheels hit the ground with a thud and the pilot reversed the engines, making a grinding noise. The captain spoke to them over the loudspeaker. “Welcome to McCarran Field, ladies and gentlemen. Enjoy your stay in Las Vegas. We hope you’ll join us again.” She’d survived the trip. Even if she never flew again, which she was sure she wouldn’t, at least she’d gone up into the wild blue yonder three times. At least she’d done that. The passengers applauded as if they’d been watching a show. They were all yakking, thrilled to have landed at McCarran Field or maybe thrilled just to have landed. When they were told they were free to unbuckle their seat belts, Fern jumped into Dr. O’s arms. Rusty, still looking unwell, draped an arm over Miri’s shoulder. “We made it.” Yes, they’d made it, but this was just the beginning. Las Vegas Sun A-BOMB BLAST THRILLS JULY 5 — Thousands of holiday tourists on the Las Vegas strip celebrated dawn with the sight of an atomic flash at the Yucca Flat test site 78 miles away. The mushroom cloud was clearly seen, but there was disappointment at the slight shock. A thousand soldiers, positioned in foxholes only 7,000 yards away from the blast, surged forward minutes after the explosion in a simulated attack to encircle and capture the devastated area. “There were no casualties,” the Army announced. 35

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  He was a small, wiry man with black eyebrows so full that if they weren’t pressed or combed into place they would stick out in disconcerting clumps like brittle, badly cared for paintbrushes or could droop down over an eye in a droll effect at odds with the commands he was barking. His skin was a tan mask clapped over a face that always appeared seriously exhausted; the dark circles and drained, bloodless cheeks could be seen through the false health of his tan. I ascribed his weariness to irritation. In fact he was much older than the other instructors. He may even have been close to retirement age. He might have been ill and in pain and perhaps his irritation was due to his ailment. After lights-out he became someone new. Although he was still in uniform his tie was loosened, his voice seemed to have dropped an octave and a decibel, he had Scotch mysteriously and pleasantly on his breath, and his regard had grown gentle beneath its thatch of drooping eyebrows. He stopped by each tent, sat on the edge of each cot and spoke to each boy in a tone so intimate that the roommate couldn’t eavesdrop. My roommate was a tall, extremely shy and well-bred redhead from a small town in Iowa: someone who seemed not at all eager to confide in me or to seek my friendship or even comments, as though he recognized that this life, at least, was worth enduring only if it remained unexamined. And yet his silences did not guarantee that he was altogether without thought or feeling. At unexpected moments he’d blush or stutter or in mid-sentence his mouth would go dry—and I could never figure out what had prompted these symptoms of anxiety. One night, after our captain had lingered longer than usual in his cloud of Scotch and then passed on to the next tent, I asked my rommate why the captain always stayed longer beside him than me. “I don’t know. He rubs me.” “What do you mean?” “Doesn’t he rub you?” the boy whispered. “Sometimes,” I lied. “All over?” “Like how?” I asked. “Like all”—his voice went dry—“down your front?” “That’s not right,” I said. “He shouldn’t do that. He shouldn’t. It’s abnormal. I’ve read about it.”

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  [image file=image_rsrcA5N.jpg] “PAPE SATAN! pape Satan, aleppe!” began Plutus, with clucking voice; and that gentle Sage, who knew all,1 said, comforting me: “Let not thy fear hurt thee: for, whatever power he have, he shall not hinder thee from descending this rock.” Then he turned himself to that inflated visage, and said; “Peace, cursed Wolf! consume thyself internally with thy greedy rage. Not without cause is our journey to the deep: it is willed on high, there where Michael took vengeance of the proud adultery.”2 As sails, swelled by the wind, fall entangled when the mast breaks: so fell that cruel monster to the ground. Thus we descended into the fourth concavity, taking in more of the dismal bank, which shuts up all the evil of the universe. Ah, Justice Divine! who shall tell in few the many fresh pains and travails that I saw? and why does guilt of ours thus waste us? As does the surge, there above Charybdis,3 that breaks itself against the surge wherewith it meets: so have the people here to counter-dance. Here saw I too many more than elsewhere, both on the one side and on the other, with loud howlings, rolling weights by force of chests; they smote against each other, and then each wheeled round just there, rolling aback, shouting “Why holdest thou?” and “Why throwest thou away?” Thus they returned along the gloomy circle, on either hand, to the opposite point, again shouting at each other their reproachful measure. Then every one, when he had reached it, turned through his half-circle towards the other joust. And I, who felt my heart as it were stung, said: “My Master, now show me what people these are, and whether all those tonsured on our left were of the clergy.”4 And he to me: “In their first life, all were so squint-eyed in mind, that they made no expenditure in it with moderation. Most clearly do their voices bark out this, when they come to the two points of the circle, where contrary guilt divides them. These were Priests, that have not hairy covering on their heads, and Popes and Cardinals, in whom avarice does its utmost.” And I: “Master, among this set, I surely ought to recognize some that were defiled by these evils.” And he to me: “Vain thoughts combinest thou: their undiscerning life, which made them sordid, now makes them too obscure for any recognition. To all eternity they shall continue butting one another; these shall arise from their graves with closed fists; and these with hair shorn off. Ill-giving, and ill-keeping, has deprived them of the bright world, and put them to this conflict; what a conflict it is, I adorn no words to tell. But thou, my Son, mayest now see the brief mockery of the goods that are committed unto Fortune, for which the human kind contend with one another.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  In this house the parents maintained a silence except for the father’s dreaded little comments, the sugar substitute of his sweetness, and the whole chirping menagerie of the mother’s comical voices. No one hovered over the kids. They came and went as they chose, they stayed home and studied or they went out, they ate dinner in or at the last moment they accepted the hospitality of other tables. But under this superficial ease of manner ran their dread of their father and their fear of offending him in some new way. He was a man far milder, far more (shall I say) ladylike than any other father I’d known, and yet his soft way of curling up on a couch and tucking his silk dressing gown modestly around his thin white shanks terrified everyone, as did his way of looking over the tops of his glasses and mouthing without sound the name of his son: “Tom-my”—the lips compressed on the double m and making a meal out of his swallowed, sorrowing disappointment. He was homely, tall, snowy-haired, hardworking, in bad health. He seemed to me the absolute standard of respectability, and by that standard I failed. My sister had coached me in some sort of charm, but no degree of charm, whether counterfeit or genuine, made an impression on Mr. Wellington. He was charm-proof. He disapproved of me. I was a fraud, a charlatan. His disapproval started with my mother and her “reputation,” whatever that might refer to (her divorce? her dates? the fact she worked?). He didn’t like me and he didn’t want his son to associate with me. When I entered his study I’d stand behind Tom. Only now does it occur to me that Tommy may have liked me precisely because his father didn’t. Was Tom’s friendship with me one more way in which he was unobtrusively but firmly disappointing his father? Once we closed Tom’s bedroom door we were immersed again in the happy shabbiness of our friendship. For he was my friend—my best friend! Until now other boys my age had frightened me. We might grab each other in the leaves and play Squirrel; Ralph might have hypnotized me, but those painful stabs at pleasure had left me shaken and swollen with yearning—I wanted someone to love me. Someone adult. Someone under my power. I had prayed I’d grow up as fast as possible. No longer. For the first time I found it exhilarating to be young and with someone young. I loved him, and the love was all the more powerful because I had to hide it. We slept in twin beds only two feet apart.

• From On Beauty (2005)

  Here they all were, Howard’s imaginary class. Howard indulged in a quick visual catalogue of their interesting bits, knowing that this would very likely be the last time he saw them. The punk boy with black-painted fingernails, the Indian girl with the disproportionate eyes of a Disney character, another girl who looked no older than fourteen with a railroad on her teeth. And then, spread across this room: big nose, small ears, obese, on crutches, hair red as rust, wheelchair, six foot five, short skirt, pointy breasts, iPod still on, anorexic with that light downy hair on her cheeks, bow-tie, another bow-tie, football hero, white boy with dreads, long fingernails like a New Jersey housewife, already losing his hair, striped tights – there were so many of them that Smith couldn’t close the door without squashing somebody. So they had come, and they had heard. Howard had pitched his tent and made his case. He had  the anatomy lesson offered them a Rembrandt who was neither a rule breaker nor an original but rather a conformist; he had asked them to ask themselves what they meant by ‘genius’ and, in the perplexed silence, replaced the familiar rebel master of historical fame with Howard’s own vision of a merely competent artisan who painted whatever his wealthy patrons requested. Howard asked his students to imagine prettiness as the mask that power wears. To recast Aesthetics as a rarefied language of exclusion. He promised them a class that would challenge their own beliefs about the redemptive humanity of what is commonly called ‘Art’. ‘Art is the Western myth,’ announced Howard, for the sixth year in a row, ‘with which we both console ourselves and make ourselves.’ Everybody wrote that down. ‘Any questions?’ asked Howard. The answer to this never changed. Silence. But it was an interesting breed of silence particular to upscale liberal arts colleges. It was not silent because nobody had anything to say – quite the opposite. You could feel it, Howard could feel it, millions of things to say brewing in this room, so strong sometimes that they seemed to shoot from the students telepathically and bounce off the furniture. Kids looked down at the table top, or out of the window, or at Howard with great longing; some of the weaker ones blushed and pretended to take notes. But not one of them would speak. They had an intense fear of their peers. And, more than that, of Howard himself. When he first began teaching he had tried, stupidly, to coax them out of this fear – now he positively relished it. The fear was respect, the respect, fear. If you didn’t have the fear you had nothing. ‘Nothing? Have I really been so very thorough? Not a single question?’ A carefully preserved English accent also upped the fear factor.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  [image file=image_rsrcA5N.jpg] “VEXILLA REGIS prodeunt inferni1 towards us: therefore look in front of thee,” my Master said, “if thou discernest him.” As, when a thick mist breathes, or when the night comes on our hemisphere, a mill, which the wind turns, appears at distance: such an edifice did I now seem to see; and, for the wind, shrunk back behind my Guide, because no other shed was there. Already I had come (and with fear I put it into verse) where the souls were wholly covered, and shone through like straw in glass. Some are lying; some stand upright, this on its head, and that upon its soles; another, like a bow, bends face to feet. When we had proceeded on so far, that it pleased my Guide to show to me the Creature which was once so fair, he took himself from before me, and made me stop, saying: “Lo Dis! and lo the place where it behoves thee arm thyself with fortitude.” How icy chill and hoarse I then became, ask not, O Reader! for I write it not, because all speech would fail to tell. I did not die, and did not remain alive; now think for thyself, if thou hast any grain of ingenuity, what I became, deprived of both death and life. The Emperor of the dolorous realm, from mid breast stood forth out of the ice; and I in size am liker to a giant, than the giants are to his arms: mark now how great that whole must be, which corresponds to such a part. If he was once as beautiful as he is ugly now, and lifted up his brows against his Maker, well may all affliction come from him. Oh how great a marvel seemed it to me, when I saw three faces on his head! The one in front, and it was fiery red; the others were two, that were adjoined to this, above the very middle of each shoulder; and they were joined at his crest; and the right seemed between white aud yellow; the left was such to look on, as they who come from where the Nile descends.2 Under each there issued forth two mighty wings, of size befitting such a bird: sea-sails I never saw so broad. No plumes had they; but were in form and texture like a bat’s: and he was flapping them, so that three winds went forth from him. Thereby Cocytus all was frozen; with six eyes he wept, and down three chins gushed tears and bloody foam. In every mouth he champed a sinner with his teeth, like a brake; so that he thus kept three of them in torment. To the one in front, the biting was nought, compared with the tearing: for at times the back of him remained quite stript of skin. “That soul up there, which suffers greatest punishment,” said the Master, “is Judas Iscariot, he who has his head within, and outside plies his legs.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  * When I was a young man I went from the city called Miletus to see the games and triumphs called Olympian, and being desirous also to come into this famous province, after that I had travelled over all Thessaly, I fortuned in an evil hour to come to the city Larissa, where, while I went up and down to view the streets, to take some relief for my poor estate (for I had spent near all my money) 1 espied a tall old man standing upon a stone in the midst of the market-place, crying with a loud voice, and 'saying that if any man would watch a dead corpse that night he should be rewarded and a price be fixed for his pains. Which when I heard I said to one that passed by: * What is here to do? Do dead men use to run away in this country?' Then answered he: * Hold your peace; for you are but a babe and a F 81 LUCIUS APULEIUS puer et satis peregrinus es, meritoque ignoras Thes- saliae te consistere, ubi sagae mulieres ora mortuorum passim demorsitant, eaque sunt illis artis magicae 22 supplementa’ Contra ego ‘Et quae, tu’ inquam ‘Die sodes, custodela illa feralis?' ‘Iam primum’ respondit ille * Perpetem noctem eximie vigilandum est exertis et inconnivis oculis semper in cadaver intentis, nec acies usquam devertenda, immo ne obliquanda quidem, quippe cum deterrimae ver- sipelles in quodvis animal ore converso latenter arrepant, ut ipsos etiam oculos solis et Iustitiae facile frustrentur; nam et aves et rursum canes et mures, immo vero etiam muscas induunt. Tunc diris cantaminibus somno custodes obruunt : nec satis quisquam definire poterit quantas latebras nequissimae mulieres pro libidine sua. comminiscuntur. Nec tamen huius tam exitiabilis operae merces amplior quam quaterni vel seni ferme offeruntur aurei. Ehem, et quod paene praeterieram, si qui non integrum corpus mane restituerit, quicquid inde decerptum deminutumque fuerit, id omne de facie sua desecto sarcire compellitur.' 23 “ His cognitis animum meum commasculo, et illico accedens praeconem * Clamare ' inquam ‘Iam desine : adest custos paratus, cedo praemium.' * Mille’ inquit * Nummum deponentur tibi. Sed heus iuvenis, cave diligenter principum civitatis filii cadaver a malis Harpyiis probe custodias! * Ineptias’ inquam * Mihi 82 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK II

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Even quite massive houses of many rooms and wings engulfed their plots down to the sidewalk. This conspicuousness declared a pride and innocence: we have nothing to hide, and we want to show you what we’ve got. Tom’s house was a Mediterranean villa with six bedrooms and servants’ quarters over a double garage, but its gleaming leaded panes and the front door (thick oak gouged into griffins) loomed up just ten paces from the street. Once inside that door, however, I felt transported into another society that had ways I could never quite master. The Wellingtons were nice but not charming. The Wellingtons gave thought to everything they did. The staircase was lined with expensive, ugly paintings done from photographs of their four children. Their kids’ teeth were bound in costly wires, their whims for sailboats or skis or guitars were lavishly but silently honored, they were all paraded in a stupor past the monuments of Europe, their vacations down rapids and over glaciers or up mountains were well funded—but silence reigned. No one said a word. Dinner there was torture. A student from the university served. Mr. Wellington carved. Mrs. Wellington, a woman with a girlish spirit trapped inside a large, swollen body, made stabs at conversation, but she was so shy she could speak only in comical accents. She’d grunt in a bass voice like a bear or squeak like a mouse or imitate Donald Duck—anything rather than say a simple declarative sentence in her own fragile, mortified voice. The father terrified us all with his manners (the long white hands wielding the fork and knife and expertly slicing the joint). He radiated disapproval. His disapproval was not the martyr’s blackmail but a sort of murderous mildness: if he weren’t so fastidious he’d murder you. We watched him carve. We were wordless, hypnotized by the candle flames, the neat incisions and deep, bloody invasions, the sound of the metal knife scraping against the tines of the fork, the sickening softness of each red slice laid to the side and the trickle down silver channels ramifying back into a bole of blood. The odd thing is that the father’s spirit did not contaminate the house. His lair, the library, was even the sunniest, most relaxed room of all as the two little dogs, Welsh corgies, trotted from couch to front door at every disturbance, their small, shaggy feet clicking on the polished red tiles. The dogs, the children, his wife—all seemed to prosper in spite of his punitive reserve, his tight eyes, the way he sniffed with contempt at the end of every sentence someone else said. “Oh yes,” he said to me, examining his overly manicured hand, “I know of your mother … by reputation,” and my heart sank.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  There was a scare as the door of a flat nearer the lift opened and a man in overalls came out without even looking in my direction. A scraping noise, a girl’s voice saying, ‘No, Wednesday,’ and the slam of a door, must have come from within another flat—it was hard to be sure. I turned on my heel, but being so far in I knew I must ring again to be sensible and certain. Perhaps Mr Hope, sleeping out his jobless afternoon, would be disturbed, and come vacantly to the door. A minute later I burnt off my adrenalin leaping down the stairs—which were bleakly concrete, like the long exit stairways at the back of cinemas. There was a smell of urine, and lines down the walls drawn by running hands. At the turn of each flight ‘NF’ had been scrawled, with a pendant saying ‘Kill All Niggers’ or ‘Wogs Out’. I thought with yearning of the Hopes, whom I did not know, forced to contain their anger, contempt and hurt in such a world. It would be best to see Arthur on common ground—in a bar or club or out in the open air which I now re-entered gratefully. In view of the horror of the case it had been rather reckless to go to his home, and I was glad I had got away with it. Ideally, I suppose, I wanted to help, to give money to the friend or consolation to the grieving mother: though I was always hoping, expecting even, to see him, there was an assumption dully gaining ground in my mind that he was dead. In the charmless passage between the buildings there were at least the skinheads to look forward to. I had once spent a weekend with a skinhead I picked up at a dance-hall in Camden Town; he called himself Dash, though that was not among the qualities of that ugly, passionate boy. I preferred to see it as a polite euphemism for one of the stronger words that were always hypnotically on his lips. They were a challenge, skinheads, and made me feel shifty as they stood about the streets and shopping precincts, magnetising the attention they aimed to repel. Cretinously simplified to booted feet, bum and bullet head, they had some, if not all, of the things one was looking for. I came by easily, and shot a glance at the big one I had noticed before. He was leaning against the wall, by the entrance to one of the rubbish bays, his ankles crossed, and looking straight at me. ‘Got the time,’ he said neutrally, hardly as a question. I virtually stopped, referred to my old gold watch. ‘It’s 4.15,’ I said. ‘Let me see,’ he said, grabbing my wrist and giving me a strange, private smile. There was a swastika tattoo on the back of his hand, very badly done, almost as though it had been drawn on with a biro.

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  I quickly decided that wouldn’t be smart. Then I thought for an instant that maybe these weren’t real police officers. “Move and I’ll blow your head off!” The officer shouted the words, but I couldn’t make any sense of what he meant. I tried to stay calm; it was the first time in my life anyone had ever pointed a gun at me. “Put your hands up!” The officer was a white man about my height. In the darkness I could only make out his black uniform and his pointed weapon. I put my hands up and noticed that he seemed nervous. I don’t remember deciding to speak, I just remember the words coming out: “It’s all right. It’s okay.” I’m sure I sounded afraid because I was terrified. I kept saying the words over and over again. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” Finally I said, “I live here, this is my apartment.” I looked at the officer who was pointing the gun at my head less than fifteen feet away. I thought I saw his hands shaking. I kept saying as calmly as I could: “It’s okay, it’s okay.” The second officer, who had not drawn his weapon, inched cautiously toward me. He stepped on the sidewalk, circled behind my parked car, and came up behind me while the other officer continued to point the gun at me. He grabbed me by the arms and pushed me up against the back of my car. The other officer then lowered his weapon. “What are you doing out here?” said the second officer, who seemed older than the one who had drawn his weapon. He sounded angry. “I live here. I moved into that house down the street just a few months ago. My roommate is inside. You can go ask him.” I hated how afraid I sounded and the way my voice was shaking. “What are you doing out in the street?” “I was just listening to the radio.” He placed my hands on the car and bent me over the back of the vehicle. The SWAT car’s bright spotlight was still focused on me. I noticed people up the block turning on their lights and peering out of their front doors. The house next to ours came to life, and a middle-aged white man and woman walked outside and stared at me as I was leaned over the vehicle. The officer holding me asked me for my driver’s license but wouldn’t let me move my arms to retrieve it. I told him that it was in my back pocket, and he fished my wallet out from my pants. The other officer was now leaning inside my car and going through my papers. I knew that he had no probable cause to enter my vehicle and that he was conducting an illegal search.

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

  23. And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. GLOSS. Joseph was not disobedient to the angelic warning, but he arose, and took the young Child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. The Angel had not fixed the particular place, so that while Joseph hesitates, the Angel returns, and by the often visiting him confirms his obedience. JOSEPHUS. Herod had nine wives, by seven of whom he had a numerous issue. By Josida, his first born Antipater—by Mariamine, Alexander and Aristobulus—by Mathuca, a Samaritan woman, Archelaus—by Cleopatra of Jerusalem, Herod, who was afterwards tetrarch, and Philip. The three first were put to death by Herod; and after his death, Archelaus seized the throne by occasion of his father’s will, and the question of the succession was carried before Augustus Cæsar. After some delay, he made a distribution of the whole of Herod’s dominions in accordance with the Senate’s advice. To Archelaus he assigned one half, consisting of Idumæa and Judæa, with the title of tetrarch, and a promise of that of king if he shewed himself deserving of it. The rest he divided into two tetrarchates, giving Galilee to Herod the tetrarch, Ituræa and Trachonitis to Philip. Thus Archelaus was after his father’s death a duarch, which kind of sovereignty is here called a kingdom. AUGUSTINE. (De Con. Evan. ii. 10.) Here it may be asked, How then could his parents go up every year of Christ’s childhood to Jerusalem, as Luke relates, if fear of Archelaus now prevented them from approaching it? This difficulty is easily solved. At the festival they might escape notice in the crowd, and by returning soon, where in ordinary times they might be afraid to live. So they neither became irreligious by neglecting the festival, nor notorious by dwelling continually in Jerusalem. Or it is open to us to understand Luke when he says, they went up every year, as speaking of a time when they had nothing to fear from Archelaus, who, as Josephus relates, reigned only nine years. There is yet a difficulty in what follows; Being warned in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee. If Joseph was afraid to go into Judæa because one of Herod’s sons, Archelaus, reigned there, how could he go into Galilee, where another of his sons Herod was tetrarch, as Luke tells us? As if the times of which Luke is speaking were times in which there was any longer need to fear for the Child, when even in Judæa things were so changed, that Archelaus no longer ruled there, but Pilate was governor. GLOSS. (ord.) But then we might ask, why was he not afraid to go into Galilee, seeing Archelaus ruled there also? He could be better concealed in Nazareth than in Jerusalem, which was the capital of the kingdom, and where Archelaus was constantly resident.

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

  ORIGEN. Or else, He here introduces four characters, the adversary, the magistrate, the officer, and the judge. But with Matthew the character of the magistrate is left out, and instead of the officer a servant is introduced. They differ also in that the one has written a farthing, the other a mite, but each has called it the last. Now we say that all men have present with them two angels, a bad one who encourages them to wicked deeds, a good one who persuades all that is best. Now the former, our adversary whenever we sin rejoices, knowing that he has an occasion for exultations and boasting with the prince of the world, who sent him. But in the Greek, “the adversary” is written with the article, to signify that he is one out of many, seeing that each individual is under the ruler of his nation. Give diligence then that you may be delivered from your adversary, or from the ruler to whom the adversary drags you, by having wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance. But if you have given diligence, let it be in Him who says, I am the life, (John 14:6.) otherwise the adversary will hale thee to the judge. Now he says, hale, to point out that they are forced unwillingly to condemnation. But I know no other judge but our Lord Jesus Christ who delivers to the officer. Each of us have our own officers; the officers exercise rule over us, if we owe any thing. If I paid every man every thing, I come to the officers and answer with a fearless heart, “I owe them nothing.” But if I am a debtor, the officer will cast me into prison, nor will he suffer me to go out from thence until I have paid every debt. For the officer has no power to let me off even a farthing. He who forgave one debtor five hundred pence and another fifty, (Luke 7:41.) was the Lord, but the exactor is not the master, but one appointed by the master to demand the debts. But the last mite he calls slight and small, for our sins are either heavy or slight. Happy then is he who sinneth not, and next in happiness he who has sinned slightly. Even among slight sins there is diversity, otherwise he would not say until he has paid the last mite. For if he owes a little, he shall not come out till he pays the last mite. But he who has been guilty of a great debt, will have endless ages for his payment.

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

  28. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. 29. The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him. 30. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. 31. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 32. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. 33. This he said, signifying what death he should die. CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvi) To our Lord’s exhortation to His disciples to endurance, they might have replied that it was easy for Him, Who was out of the reach of human pain, to talk philosophically about death, and to recommend others to bear what He is in no danger of having to bear Himself. So He lets them see that He is Himself in an agony, but that He does not intend to decline death, merely for the sake of relieving Himself: Now is My soul troubled. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii. 2) I hear Him say, He that hateth his life in this world, shall keep it unto life eternal; and I am ravished, I despise the world; the whole of this life, however long, is but a vapour in My sight; all temporal things are vile, in comparison with eternal. And again I hear Him say, Now is My soul troubled. Thou biddest my soul follow Thee; but I see Thy soul troubled. What foundation shall I seek, if the Rock gives way? Lord, I acknowledge Thy mercy. Thou of Thy love wast of Thine own will troubled, to console those who are troubled through the infirmity of nature; that the members of Thy body perish not in despair. The Head took upon Himself the affections of His members. He was not troubled by any thing, but, as was said above, He troubled Himself. (c. 11:33) CHRYSOSTOM. (Hom. lxvii) As He draws near to the Cross, His human nature appears, a nature that did not wish to die, but cleaved to this present life. He shews that He is not quite without human feelings. For the desire of this present life is not necessarily wrong, any more than hunger. Christ had a body free from sin, but not from natural infirmities. But these attach solely to the dispensation of His humanity, not to His divinity. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lii) Lastly, let the man who would follow Him, hear at what hour he should follow. A fearful hour has perhaps come: a choice is offered, either to do wrong, or suffer: the weak soul is troubled. Hear our Lord. What shall I say? BEDE. i. e. What but something to confirm My followers? Father, save Me from this hour.