Grief

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 Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Following her feelings had led Anaïs to the trauma of adult incest, whereas denying my feelings had separated and estranged me from myself and from men. We each paid, in different ways, for our fathers’ abandonment. She was my reverse reflection, the puzzle of a mirror reflected in a mirror, reflected in a mirror—the narcissist’s funhouse. As she had sought twinship with her father, I had sought twinship with her, sought a glorified version of myself in her, and therefore could not abide our differences. I had lauded her bigamy because it partook of the bravado I admired in myself, whereas I demonized her incest, because I could not find myself in it. Nor could I forgive her insane act of incest until, in writing this book, I could forgive my own psychological breakdown in Indiana. I could not forgive her being such a flawed mentor until I could forgive myself for losing myself in her. I could not forgive her helplessness at the end—spoon-fed, carried from bed to chair, terrified by old ghosts—until I forgave myself for turning from her then. A swell hit my face. The waves had become turbulent, and I wished the pain from their slap would overcome that of my remorse. I had lost precious time with her because of my resentments, my judgments, my fear. The water in my smarting eyes was indistinguishable from that of the briny ocean, but the clutch of my stomach and my jagged gasps for air told me that grief had found me. I heaved in waves of it, mourning for a world without her, for an era now gone forever. Never again would she enter a room and make me feel so not alone. Never again would I rush to her house to be met at the door by the marvelous. When at last the fist jerking on my ribs released, I floated, drifted; for how long, impossible to tell. No distance now between thought and feeling, no dissonance between my desire to be Anaïs and her desire for me to be me. No struggle now, just the motion of the sea, rocking like a woman keening, swinging like an infant in her mother’s arms.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The whole of this episode is so macabre that in the hands of a less shrewd and sensitive writer it would seriously have risked emerging as farce. But so skilfully does Boccaccio arrange his material, so carefully does he construct an atmosphere of ritual, that the tone of high seriousness is never unduly disturbed, and the final impression is one of poignant tragedy and mysterious grandeur. Boccaccio’s handling of the improbable tale of Lisabetta da Messina (IV, 5) is no less secure, and the tragic fate of the heroine is if anything even more compelling. The story is familiar to English readers from Keats’s romanticization of its details in a famous poem. 27 Boccaccio’s version is altogether more sinewy and straightforward, and the motives of the various characters are more clearly defined. Lisabetta, the unmarried sister of three young and wealthy merchants, falls in love with the handsome young manager of their commercial enterprises, Lorenzo, who, after his amorous liaison with the girl has been discovered, is lured into the countryside by her three brothers and murdered in cold blood, his body being interred in a shallow grave. He appears to her in a dream, tells her how he was murdered, and describes the place where her brothers have buried his body. She goes to the spot with a maidservant, uncovers the young man’s body, and, ‘seeing that it was impossible for her to take away the whole body (as she would dearly have wished), she laid it to rest in a more appropriate spot, then severed the head from the shoulders as best she could and wrapped it in a towel.’ Like Ghismonda, she drenches her gruesome treasure with copious tears, then she buries it in a pot, ‘in which she planted several sprigs of the finest Salerno basil, and never watered them except with the essence of roses or orange-blossom, or with her own teardrops’. Once again, therefore, the macabre element of the narrative assumes strong ritualistic overtones which lend it an aura of high seriousness, and the tale proceeds ineluctably to its tragic albeit grotesque conclusion when, deprived by her brothers of her pot of basil, Lisabetta ultimately cries herself to death. In the third tale (IV, 9) of this ‘trilogy of horror’, a Provençal knight, Guillaume de Roussillon, murders his best friend, Guillaume de Cabestanh, after his discovery of his wife’s adulterous liaison with the latter. Having torn the heart from Cabestanh’s breast, he hands it over to his cook, telling him it is the heart of a wild boar, and ordering him to use it in preparing the finest and most succulent dish he can devise. Boccaccio’s subsequent description of the cook’s labours comes perilously close to being interpreted as black humour: The cook took away the heart, minced it and added a goodly quantity of fine spices, employing all his skill and loving care to turn it into a dish that was too exquisite for words.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  SECOND STORY Friar Alberto, having given a lady to understand that the Angel Gabriel is in love with her, assumes the Angel’s form and goes regularly to bed with her, until, in terror of her kinsfolk, he leaps out of the window and takes shelter in the house of a pauper; the latter disguises him as a savage and takes him on the following day to the city square, where he is recognized and seized by his fellow friars, and placed under permanent lock and key . Fiammetta’s story had more than once brought tears to the eyes of the other ladies present, but the king seemed quite unmoved by it, for when it came to an end he looked at them sternly and said: ‘I would think it a small price to pay if I were to give my life in exchange for one half of the bliss Ghismonda had with Guiscardo. Nor should any of you consider this surprising, because I die a thousand deaths in the course of every hour that I live, without being granted the tiniest portion of bliss in return. But leaving my affairs to take care of themselves for the moment, I will ask Pampinea to continue the proceedings by relating some gruesome tale that has a bearing on my own sorry state. And if she follows Fiammetta’s example, I shall doubtless begin to feel one or two dewdrops descend on the fire that rages within me.’ On hearing herself singled out as the next speaker, Pampinea, knowing that her own feelings were a better guide than the king’s words to the mood of her companions, was more inclined to amuse them than to satisfy the king in aught but his actual command; and so she decided that without straying from the agreed theme, she would narrate a story to make them laugh, and began thus: There is a popular proverb which runs as follows: ‘He who is wicked and held to be good, can cheat because no one imagines he would.’ This saying offers me ample scope to tell you a story on the topic that has been prescribed, and it also enables me to illustrate the extraordinary and perverse hypocrisy of the members of religious orders. They go about in those long, flowing robes of theirs, and when they are asking for alms, they deliberately put on a forlorn expression and are all humility and sweetness; but when they are reproaching you with their own vices, or showing how the laity achieve salvation by almsgiving and the clerics by almsgrabbing, they positively deafen you with their loud and arrogant voices.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The lady, seeing and hearing this, first blamed him for having, to give a woman to eat, slain such a falcon, and after inwardly much commended the greatness of his soul, which poverty had not availed nor might anywise avail to abate. Then, being put out of all hope of having the falcon and fallen therefore in doubt of her son's recovery, she took her leave and returned, all disconsolate, to the latter, who, before many days had passed, whether for chagrin that he could not have the bird or for that his disorder was e'en fated to bring him to that pass, departed this life, to the inexpressible grief of his mother. After she had abidden awhile full of tears and affliction, being left very rich and yet young, she was more than once urged by her brothers to marry again, and albeit she would fain not have done so, yet, finding herself importuned and calling to mind Federigo's worth and his last magnificence, to wit, the having slain such a falcon for her entertainment, she said to them, 'I would gladly, an it liked you, abide as I am; but, since it is your pleasure that I take a [second] husband, certes I will never take any other, an I have not Federigo degli Alberighi.' Whereupon her brothers, making mock of her, said 'Silly woman that thou art, what is this thou sayest? How canst thou choose him, seeing he hath nothing in the world?' 'Brothers mine,' answered she, 'I know very well that it is as you say; but I would liefer have a man that lacketh of riches than riches that lack of a man.' Her brethren, hearing her mind and knowing Federigo for a man of great merit, poor though he was, gave her, with all her wealth, to him, even as she would; and he, seeing himself married to a lady of such worth and one whom he had loved so dear and exceeding rich, to boot, became a better husband of his substance and ended his days with her in joy and solace." THE TENTH STORY [Day the Fifth] PIETRO DI VINCIOLO GOETH TO SUP ABROAD, WHEREUPON HIS WIFE LETTETH FETCH HER A YOUTH TO KEEP HER COMPANY, AND HER HUSBAND RETURNING, UNLOOKED FOR, SHE HIDETH HER GALLANT UNDER A HEN-COOP. PIETRO TELLETH HER HOW THERE HAD BEEN FOUND IN THE HOUSE OF ONE ARCOLANO, WITH WHOM HE WAS TO HAVE SUPPED, A YOUNG MAN BROUGHT IN BY HIS WIFE, AND SHE BLAMETH THE LATTER. PRESENTLY, AN ASS, BY MISCHANCE, SETTETH FOOT ON THE FINGERS OF HIM WHO IS UNDER THE COOP AND HE ROARETH OUT, WHEREUPON PIETRO RUNNETH THITHER AND ESPYING HIM, DISCOVERETH HIS WIFE'S UNFAITH, BUT ULTIMATELY COMETH TO AN ACCORD WITH HER FOR HIS OWN LEWD ENDS

• From The Decameron (1353)

  He remarked on how delicious it looked, and the lady, whose appetite was excellent, began to eat it, finding it so tasty a dish that she ate every scrap of it. On observing that his lady had finished it down to the last morsel, the knight said: ‘What did you think of that, madam?’ ‘In good faith, my lord,’ replied the lady, ‘I liked it very much.’ ‘So help me God,’ exclaimed the knight, ‘I do believe you did. But I am not surprised to find that you liked it dead, because when it was alive you liked it better than anything else in the whole world.’ On hearing this, the lady was silent for a while; then she said: ‘How say you? What is this that you have caused me to eat?’ ‘That which you have eaten,’ replied the knight, ‘was in fact the heart of Guillaume de Cabestanh, with whom you, faithless woman that you are, were so infatuated. And you may rest assured that it was truly his, because I tore it from his breast myself, with these very hands, a little before I returned home.’ You can all imagine the anguish suffered by the lady on hearing such tidings of Cabestanh, whom she loved more dearly than anything else in the world. But after a while, she said: ‘This can only have been the work of an evil and treacherous knight, for if, of my own free will, I abused you by making him the master of my love, it was not he but I that should have paid the penalty for it. But God forbid that any other food should pass my lips now that I have partaken of such excellent fare as the heart of so gallant and courteous a knight as Guillaume de Cabestanh.’ And rising to her feet, she retreated a few steps to an open window, through which without a second thought she allowed herself to fall. The window was situated high above the ground, so that the lady was not only killed by her fall but almost completely disfigured. The spectacle of his wife’s fall threw Roussillon into a panic and made him repent the wickedness of his deed. And fearing the wrath of the local people and of the Count of Provence, he had his horses saddled and rode away. By next morning the circumstances of the affair had become common knowledge throughout the whole of the district, and people were sent out from the castles of the lady’s family and of Guillaume de Cabestanh to gather up the two bodies, which were later placed in a single tomb in the chapel of the lady’s own castle amid widespread grief and mourning. And the tombstone bore an inscription, in verse, to indicate who was buried there and the manner and the cause of their deaths.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Lisabetta, the unmarried sister of three young and wealthy merchants, falls in love with the handsome young manager of their commercial enterprises, Lorenzo, who, after his amorous liaison with the girl has been discovered, is lured into the countryside by her three brothers and murdered in cold blood, his body being interred in a shallow grave. He appears to her in a dream, tells her how he was murdered, and describes the place where her brothers have buried his body. She goes to the spot with a maidservant, uncovers the young man’s body, and, ‘seeing that it was impossible for her to take away the whole body (as she would dearly have wished), she laid it to rest in a more appropriate spot, then severed the head from the shoulders as best she could and wrapped it in a towel.’ Like Ghismonda, she drenches her gruesome treasure with copious tears, then she buries it in a pot, ‘in which she planted several sprigs of the finest Salerno basil, and never watered them except with the essence of roses or orange-blossom, or with her own teardrops’. Once again, therefore, the macabre element of the narrative assumes strong ritualistic overtones which lend it an aura of high seriousness, and the tale proceeds ineluctably to its tragic albeit grotesque conclusion when, deprived by her brothers of her pot of basil, Lisabetta ultimately cries herself to death. In the third tale (IV, 9) of this ‘trilogy of horror’, a Provençal knight, Guillaume de Roussillon, murders his best friend, Guillaume de Cabestanh, after his discovery of his wife’s adulterous liaison with the latter. Having torn the heart from Cabestanh’s breast, he hands it over to his cook, telling him it is the heart of a wild boar, and ordering him to use it in preparing the finest and most succulent dish he can devise. Boccaccio’s subsequent description of the cook’s labours comes perilously close to being interpreted as black humour: The cook took away the heart, minced it and added a goodly quantity of fine spices, employing all his skill and loving care to turn it into a dish that was too exquisite for words. 28 But, having almost allowed his tragic tale to degenerate into farce, Boccaccio instantly reverts to a serious narrative tone with his description of the supper à deux during which the lady devours the dish to the last morsel. There follows an account of the ensuing conversation between husband and wife, when Roussillon tells her what she has eaten, whereupon she delivers a noble and dignified speech before flinging herself to her death from a lofty casement. The deliberate placing of these three stories at the beginning (Ghismonda and Tancredi), the middle (Lisabetta), and the end (Roussillon and Cabestanh) of the tragedy-oriented Fourth Day is indicative of Boccaccio’s overall conception of what constitutes good tragedy, at the same time offering further confirmation of the extreme care he exercised in the disposition of his tales within the total narrative framework.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Yet before this lethal catastrophe fell upon the city, it is doubtful whether anyone would have guessed it contained so many inhabitants. Ah, how great a number of splendid palaces, fine houses, and noble dwellings, once filled with retainers, with lords and with ladies, were bereft of all who had lived there, down to the tiniest child! How numerous were the famous families, the vast estates, the notable fortunes, that were seen to be left without a rightful successor! How many gallant gentlemen, fair ladies, and sprightly youths, who would have been judged hale and hearty by Galen, Hippocrates and Aesculapius 3 (to say nothing of others), having breakfasted in the morning with their kinsfolk, acquaintances and friends, supped that same evening with their ancestors in the next world! The more I reflect upon all this misery, the deeper my sense of personal sorrow; hence I shall refrain from describing those aspects which can suitably be omitted, and proceed to inform you that these were the conditions prevailing in our city, which was by now almost emptied of its inhabitants, when one Tuesday morning (or so I was told by a person whose word can be trusted) seven young ladies 4 were to be found in the venerable church of Santa Maria Novella, 5 which was otherwise almost deserted. They had been attending divine service, and were dressed in mournful attire appropriate to the times. Each was a friend, a neighbour, or a relative of the other six, none was older than twenty-seven or younger than eighteen, and all were intelligent, gently bred, fair to look upon, graceful in bearing, and charmingly unaffected. I could tell you their actual names, but refrain from doing so for a good reason, namely that I would not want any of them to feel embarrassed, at any time in the future, on account of the ensuing stories, all of which they either listened to or narrated themselves. For nowadays, laws relating to pleasure are somewhat restrictive, whereas at that time, for the reasons indicated above, they were exceptionally lax, not only for ladies of their own age but also for much older women. Besides, I have no wish to supply envious tongues, ever ready to censure a laudable way of life, with a chance to besmirch the good name of these worthy ladies with their lewd and filthy gossip. And therefore, so that we may perceive distinctly what each of them had to say, I propose to refer to them by names which are either wholly or partially appropriate to the qualities of each. The first of them, who was also the eldest, we shall call Pampinea, the second Fiammetta, Filomena the third, and the fourth Emilia; then we shall name the fifth Lauretta, and the sixth Neifile, whilst to the last, not without reason, we shall give the name of Elissa.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  If, when you have heard what I have to say, you see any possibility of restoring me to my former state, I beseech you to explore it; if not, I must ask you never to tell a living soul that you have either seen me or heard anything about me.’ And so saying, never ceasing to weep, she told him about everything that had happened to her since the day on which she was shipwrecked off Majorca, whereupon Antigono too began to weep with compassion, and after considering the matter at some length, he said: ‘My lady, since your identity has remained a secret throughout the course of your misadventures, I shall have no difficulty in restoring you to a higher place than ever in your father’s affection, and you will then go to marry the King of Algarve, as originally arranged.’ When she inquired how it was to be managed, he explained to her in detail what she was to do. And to avoid all further delay and any further complications, Antigono returned at once to Famagusta and went to see the King, addressing him thus: ‘My lord, if it pleases you, you can at the same time cover yourself with glory and render a most valuable service to one who has grown poor while acting on your behalf. I refer of course to myself.’ The King asked him to explain, and Antigono replied: ‘The fair young daughter of the Sultan, who was long reputed to have been drowned at sea, has arrived in Paphos. For many years, she has endured extreme hardship in the struggle to preserve her honour, she has been reduced to comparative poverty, and she wishes to return to her father. If you were to send her back to the Sultan under my escort, it would redound greatly to your credit, and I would be sure of a rich reward. It is unlikely, moreover, that the Sultan will ever forget your charitable deed.’ His regal magnanimity having been stirred, the King readily gave his consent, and he dispatched a guard of honour to accompany the lady to Famagusta, where he and the Queen welcomed her amid scenes of indescribable rejoicing and magnificent pomp and splendour. And when she was asked by the King and Queen to tell them about her adventures, she replied exactly as she had been instructed by Antigono. A few days later, at her own request, the King sent her back to the Sultan under the guardianship of Antigono, providing her with a distinguished retinue of fine gentlemen and ladies-in-waiting, and needless to say, the Sultan gave her a tremendous welcome, which he extended also to Antigono and the whole of her retinue. After she had rested for a while, the Sultan demanded to know how it came about that she was still alive, where she had been living all this time, and why she had never sent word of what she was doing.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  She did manage to control the mayhem inside her when he offered to drive her to LAX, saying he had to concentrate now on his studies, and even when he dropped her at the United terminal without a word about seeing her again. As she waited three hours for her flight, though, she wept uncontrollably amongst strangers who avoided looking at her. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] When she opened the door to her apartment with Hugo, she saw in the diffused light that Hugo’s book, glasses, and slippers lay where he always placed them. She was safe. She was home. Hugo slept, breathing heavily through his mouth, as she slipped past him and shut the bathroom door. She needed to wash off her excesses with Rupert so that when she awoke, she would be Hugo’s beloved wife again. She rose before Hugo the next morning to buy fresh croissants at the corner bakery. At breakfast he winked at her over his New York Times. “For a woman who has just driven cross-country and endured thirteen hours on a plane, you look beautiful, Mrs. Guiler.” “Why thank you, Mr. Beguiler.” There were advantages to being five years younger than her husband. Of course, the lowered blinds and the soft pink lighting that she’d installed in the apartment helped. She was thrilled to be in her own kitchen with her own husband, enjoying their Sunday brunch ritual. Hugo perused the arts section of the Times while she studied the book reviews. He turned his narrow, chiseled head to her. “Did you know Thurema Sokol is performing at Weill Recital Hall tonight?” “Of course. She had to return for the performance.” Anaïs was always amazed at how readily an appropriate lie would come to her in a pinch, yet when she tried to write fiction, she couldn’t make it up. All she could do was rewrite and disguise her diary entries. “It says that Thurema also performed at Weill last Thursday night. But how is that possible? Weren’t both of you still in Los Angeles then?” This is it. She stopped breathing. He’d caught her. “Oh, Thurema left Los Angeles before me. I decided to stay on for a few days to sightsee.” “But how could Thurema have driven back so quickly?” “She flew back.” “But you said she had to drive because she is afraid of flying.” “Yes, but she had no choice this time. At least she avoided one flight.” “What about her car?” “She got another musician to drive it back for her.” Hugo nodded. Did he know she was lying? Was he intentionally giving her enough rope to hang herself? Or was his love and trust so great that he simply accepted whatever she told him? She could never tell. People referred to her as a mystery woman, but he had his mysteries too.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “No,” he said, lifting her palm, kissing it. “They got everything. You’re going to be fine.” But that was not what she read in his eyes. “I love you so much,” he said, kissing her forehead. Eyelids heavy, she drifted off again. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] “Your incision is healing nicely.” The doctor smiled. She was sitting up, had applied her makeup, and was wearing her bright red burnoose for courage. “Was it cancer?” “Didn’t your husband talk with you?” the doctor replied. “Yes, he said you got everything. What did he mean?” “We gave you a hysterectomy.” She was so stunned she was inert and couldn’t ask more. No one had told her they could take her female parts. Rupert had begged that she marry him, have his child. That choice had been made for her. Inexorably. CHAPTER 14 Malibu, California, 1964 TRISTINE WE HEARD THE SOUND OF tires on the gravel outside, and Renate bustled in carrying a bag of groceries. As she put them in the fridge, she called from the kitchen, “You can’t believe how much two young men eat!” “When will they be back?” Anaïs called. Returning, Renate assured her, “You have another hour. May I join you?” Once Renate had assembled some floor cushions for herself, Anaïs touched her hand, the way she had mine. “Tristine has told me what she now understands—that Rupert and I have had to pretend we’re married because of the Forest Service. That I am still married to Hugo. She’s agreed to take his calls to help me save my marriage.” I thought I’d agreed to confirm for Hugo what the letter said about the lecture series and Anaïs staying with me. I had not realized I would be “taking Hugo’s calls” to save her marriage. That was a huge responsibility, one I could easily screw up. Yet suddenly the idea filled me with a sense of mission. Believing I had ruined my parents’ marriage, I now seized the chance to save Anaïs’s marriage to Hugo. Anaïs gazed on me with hope and trust, and then said to Renate, “I’m afraid that Tristine is troubled about needing to lie to Hugo. She does not fully grasp that these are misonges de la gentilesse. I think we should explain to her about Rancho Sosegado.” “What is Rancho Sosegado?” I asked. Anaïs lowered her voice. “It’s the rest ranch in California I made up for Hugo as my excuse to visit Rupert. Renate was the voice of the ranch owner.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It was thus that matters stood, when on the very next day a local idiot, who had strayed into the ruins where the bodies of the Prince and Ciuriaci were lying, dragged Ciuriaci forth by the rope round his neck and started pulling him through the streets. On recognizing who it was, the people were greatly astonished, and talked the idiot into leading them to the place from which he had dragged the body, where, to the enormous grief of the whole city, they also found the body of the Prince. After burying him with full honours, they took steps to discover who was responsible for this unspeakable crime, and on finding that the Duke of Athens had departed secretly and was nowhere to be found, they rightly concluded that he must be the culprit and that he must have carried off the lady as well. So that, having hastily elected their dead ruler’s brother as their new prince, they urged him with all the eloquence at their command to take his revenge. And when further evidence came to light, proving that their suspicions were correct, the Prince summoned friends, kinsfolk and servants from various places to come to his support and he quickly assembled a huge and powerful army, with which he set out to make war on the Duke of Athens. When the Duke received word of the operations, he too mobilized all his armed forces for his defence, and many powerful outsiders came to his assistance, including two who were sent by the Emperor of Constantinople, namely his son, Constant, and his nephew, Manuel. These latter, arriving at the head of large and well-drilled contingents, received a warm welcome from the Duke. But the welcome they received from the Duchess was even warmer, because she was Constant’s sister. With the prospect of war becoming daily more imminent, the Duchess chose a convenient moment to invite the two men to her room, where, talking without stopping amid floods of tears, she told them the whole story, explaining the reasons for the war and exposing the wrong practised upon her by the Duke on account of this woman, of whose existence he imagined her to be ignorant. Bewailing her lot in no uncertain terms, she begged them, for the sake of the Duke’s honour and her own happiness, to take whatever measures they could devise for setting matters to rights. The young men were already fully informed about the whole business, and so without asking too many questions they consoled her to the best of their ability and gave her every ground for optimism. Then, having discovered from the Duchess where the lady was staying, they took their leave of her. Since they had often heard glowing accounts of this woman’s marvellous beauty, they were naturally anxious to see her, and they therefore asked the Duke if he would introduce her to them.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  On the contrary, without replying as fully as I ought, I shall proceed forthwith to offer a simple answer to these allegations. For I have not yet completed a third of my task, and since my critics are already so numerous and presumptuous, I can only suppose that unless they are discredited now, they could multiply so alarmingly before I reached the end that the tiniest effort on their part would be sufficient to demolish me. And your own influence, considerable though it may be, would be powerless to prevent them. But before replying to any of my critics, I should like to strengthen my case by recounting, not a complete story 5 (for otherwise it might appear that I was attempting to equate my own tales with those of that select company I have been telling you about), but a part of one, so that its very incompleteness will set it apart from the others. For the benefit of my assailants, then, I say that some time ago, there lived in our city a man called Filippo Balducci, 6 who despite his lowly condition was as prosperous, knowledgeable, and capable a fellow as you could ever wish to meet. He was deeply in love with the lady who was his wife, and since she fully reciprocated his love, their marriage was peaceful, and they went out of their way to make each other’s lives completely happy. Now it so happened, as it happens to us all eventually, that the good lady departed this life, leaving nothing of herself to Filippo but their only son, who was then about two years old. No man was ever more sorely distressed by the loss of the thing he loved than Filippo by the death of his wife. On finding himself bereft of the companion he adored, he firmly resolved to withdraw from the world and devote his life to the service of God, taking his little son with him. He therefore gave all he possessed to charity, and made his way forthwith to the slopes of Mount Asinaio, 7 where he installed himself in a tiny little cave with his son, fasting and praying and living on alms. At all times, he took very great care not to let him see any worldly things, or even to mention their existence, lest they should distract him from his devotions. On the contrary, he was forever telling him about the glory of the life eternal, of God, and of the Saints, and all he taught him was to pray devoutly. He kept this up for a number of years, never permitting the boy to leave the cave or to see any living thing except for his father. Every so often, the good man came to Florence, where various kindly people supplied him with things he needed, and then he returned to his cave.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The train jogged and swayed so that once the horse stumbled. Springing up, she stretched out her hand to soothe him. He seemed glad of her hand: ‘Don’t be frightened, Raftery. Did that hurt you?’ Raftery acquainted with pain on the road that led into the shadows. Presently the hills showed over on the left, but a long way off, and when they came nearer they were suddenly very near on the right, so near that she saw the white houses on them. They looked dark; a kind of still, thoughtful darkness brooded over the hills and their low white houses. It was always so in the late afternoons, for the sun moved across to the wide Wye Valley—it would set on the western side of the hills, over the wide Wye Valley. The smoke from the chimney-stacks bent downwards after rising a little and formed a blue haze, for the air was heavy with spring and dampness. Leaning from the window she could smell the spring, the time of mating, the time of fruition. When the train stopped a minute outside the station she fancied that she heard the singing of birds; very softly it came but the sound was persistent—yes, surely, that was the singing of birds. . . . 3They took Raftery in an ambulance from Great Malvern in order to spare him the jar of the roads. That night he slept in his own spacious loosebox, and the faithful Jim would not leave him that night; he sat up and watched while Raftery slept in so deep a bed of yellow-gold straw that it all but reached to his knees when standing. A last inarticulate tribute this to the most gallant horse, the most courteous horse that ever stepped out of stable. But when the sun came up over Bredon, flooding the breadth of the Severn Valley, touching the slopes of the Malvern Hills that stand opposite Bredon across the valley, gilding the old red bricks of Morton and the weather-vane on its quiet stables, Stephen went into her father’s study and she loaded his heavy revolver. Then they led Raftery out and into the morning; they led him with care to the big north paddock and stood him beside the mighty hedge that had set the seal on his youthful valour. Very still he stood with the sun on his flanks, the groom, Jim, holding the bridle. Stephen said: ‘I’m going to send you away, a long way away, and I’ve never left you except for a little while since you came when I was a child and you were quite young—but I’m going to send you a long way away because of your pain. Raftery, this is death; and beyond, they say, there’s no more suffering.’ She paused, then spoke in a voice so low that the groom could not hear her: ‘Forgive me, Raftery.’

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  She tried to stay in her wise, serene Djuna voice. “Rupert, I thank you for trying to protect me from the truth, as I always tried to protect you, but I want to tell you that it is alright.” She struggled to resist her tears at the thought that she would be gone and another woman would love him, would swim in her pool with him, would receive his caresses. She snuffled. “I approve of your choice. She is lovely. She is exactly the woman I would have chosen for you.” “Anaïs! What is this about?” “I never divorced Hugo.” “What do you mean? That IRS stuff again?” “I want you to forgive me as Hugo did when I told him that I married you while I was still married to him.” She waited for his rage to erupt, but her words had not yet hit their mark. “Are you talking about when we got remarried in Mexico? You’ve lost me.” “I have learned that some women,” she said in her most soothing voice, “at least myself, can love two men at the same time, though in different ways. And I believe it is true for a man, for you right now. I don’t doubt for a moment that you love me with your entire being, darling, and that does not preclude you from desiring someone young and healthy.” “Stop it! I’m sorry I even looked at her!” “Rupert, you will need a woman when I’m gone. I would prefer that you have someone to love and take care of you.” Now he had tears in his eyes, but she continued, “I tell you this because I am releasing you and forgiving you, and it is what I am begging from you in return. To forgive me for not being able to let go entirely of Hugo. As you know, he saved me and my family from poverty, and out of gratitude I could never injure him, and so I never asked him for a divorce.” “But you told me you were divorced. I …” She knew he was waiting for her to make some excuse, to retract her words. She’d always saved him by coming up with something, so that he could continue to believe in her. But this time she just gazed at him sorrowfully. He pulled back, realizing what she had managed to keep at bay all these years, the magnitude of her deception. She did not backtrack. She continued forward, fueled by the unfamiliar wildness of truth telling. “I could not deny myself the opportunity to love you and be your wife, so I became a bigamist. All the back and forth to New York? That was why. I had, I have, two husbands.” Though his jaw was still clenched, he looked defeated.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But if you still retain some tiny spark of your former love for me, grant me one final gift, and since it displeased you that I should live quietly with Guiscardo in secret, see that my body is publicly laid to rest beside his in whatever spot you chose to cast his remains.’ The vehemence of his sobbing prevented the Prince from offering any reply, and the young woman, sensing that she was about to breathe her last, clasped the dead heart tightly to her bosom, saying: ‘God be with you all, for I now take my leave of you.’ Then her vision grew blurred, she lost the use of her senses, and she left this life of sorrow behind her. Thus the love of Guiscardo and Ghismonda came to its sad conclusion, as you have now heard. And as for Tancredi, after shedding countless tears and making tardy repentance for his cruelty, he saw that they were honourably interred together in a single grave, amid the general mourning of all the people of Salerno.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Significant in this connection are the two lengthy interludes in the flow of the Decameron’s narratives, strategically placed immediately after the numerically significant Third and Sixth Days, which have the effect of dividing the work into three cantiche, to use the term applied to the three sections of Dante’s poem. Whether, as the author claims at two different points in his Introduction, he was himself present in Florence during the plague of 1348, which is estimated by historians to have claimed the lives of two thirds to three quarters of the city’s 100,000 inhabitants, it is difficult to judge. His description of the plague is heavily dependent on literary antecedents, especially that of the eighth-century historian of the Lombards, Paul the Deacon, and there is no external evidence to support Boccaccio’s contention that he was an eye-witness to the terrible suffering to which the Florentines were subjected. If, as seems possible, he was not in Florence at that time, but still in Ravenna or (more probably) in Forlí, where he is known to have been at the end of 1347 and the beginning of 1348, at the court of Francesco Ordelaffi, many of the particulars of the plague’s ruinous effect on Florentine daily life could well have been communicated to him by his father. As the Florentine Minister of Supply (Ufficiale dell’Abbondanza), his father was in fact actively engaged in implementing the emergency measures decreed by the Florentine government to combat such pressing problems as shortage of food and inattention to customary standards of hygiene. Among its numerous victims, the plague accounted for many of Boccaccio’s closest friends and literary acquaintances, as well as his second stepmother, Bice, who died in 1348. Not long afterwards his father also died, leaving Boccaccio, as the eldest son, to assume responsibilities as head of the family in the most trying circumstances it is possible to imagine. Perhaps there is more than a grain of truth in Branca’s suggestion that, in this unaccustomed role, Boccaccio was forced into contact with a broader range of people and confronted with problems that in his sedentary life as a scholar had previously

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  He was then able to resolve his anguish, grief, and guilt about his buddy’s violent death and the horrors of war. If we look at this man’s behaviors without knowing anything about his past, we might think he was mad. However, with a little history, we can see that his actions were a brilliant attempt to resolve a deep emotional scar. His re-enactment took him to the very edge, again and again, until he was finally able to free himself from the overwhelming nightmare of war. In many so-called primitive cultures, the nature of this man’s emotional and spiritual injuries would be openly acknowledged by the tribe. He would be encouraged to share his pain. A healing ceremony would be performed in the presence of the whole village. With the help of his people, the man would re-unite with his lost spirit. After this cleansing, in a joyous celebration, the man would be welcomed back as a hero. The Vital Role of Awareness The link between a re-enactment and the original situation may not be readily obvious. A traumatized person may associate the traumatic event with another situation and repeat that situation instead of the original one. Recurring accidents are one common way this type of re-enactment occurs, especially when the accidents are similar in some way. In other cases, the person may continue to incur a particular type of injury. Sprained ankles, wrenched knees, whiplash, and even many so-called psychosomatic diseases are common examples of physical re-enactments. Commonly, none of these so-called “accidents” appear to be anything but accidents. The clue to identifying them as symptoms of trauma lies in how often they are repeated and the frequency with which they occur. One young man, sexually abused as a child, had over a dozen serious rear-end collisions within a period of three years. (In none of these “accidents” was he obviously at fault.) Frequent re-enactment is the most intriguing and complex symptom of trauma. This phenomenon can be custom-fit to the individual, with a startling level of “coincidence” between the re-enactment and the original situation. While some of the elements of re-enactment are understandable, others seem to defy rational explanation. Jack Jack is a very shy and serious man in his mid-fifties who lives in the Northwest. He is quite embarrassed about his reason for seeing me. However, underneath this embarrassment is a pervasive sense of humiliation and defeat. Last summer while docking his boat, he proudly and playfully announced to his wife, “Is this a beautiful job or what?” The next moment he, his wife, and their child found themselves on their backs. What happened was, that as he was mooring the boat, one of the lines got caught in the throttl e -clutch. Suddenly, the boat lurched forward. (He had left the motor idling in neutral while mooring it.) Jack and his family were jerked off their feet.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen as she drove through that devastated country would find herself thinking of Martin Hallam—Martin who had touched the old thorns on the hills with such respectful and pitiful fingers: ‘Have you ever thought about the enormous courage of trees? I have and it seems to me amazing. The Lord dumps them down and they’ve just got to stick it, no matter what happens—that must need some courage.’ Martin had believed in a heaven for trees, a forest heaven for all the faithful; and looking at those pitiful, leafy corpses, Stephen would want to believe in that heaven. Until lately she had not thought of Martin for years, he belonged to a past that was better forgotten, but now she would sometimes wonder about him. Perhaps he was dead, smitten down where he stood, for many had perished where they stood, like the orchards. It was strange to think that he might have been here in France, have been fighting and have died quite near her. But perhaps he had not been killed after all—she had never told Mary about Martin Hallam. All roads of thought seemed to lead back to Mary; and these days, in addition to fears for her safety, came a growing distress at what she must see—far more terrible sights than the patient wounded. For everywhere now lay the wreckage of war, sea-wrack spued up by a poisonous ocean—putrefying, festering in the sun; breeding corruption to man’s seed of folly. Twice lately, while they had been driving together, they had come upon sights that Stephen would have spared her. There had been that shattered German gun-carriage with its stiff, dead horses and its three dead gunners—horrible death, the men’s faces had been black like the faces of negroes, black and swollen from gas, or was it from putrefaction? There had been the deserted and wounded charger with its fore-leg hanging as though by a rag. Near by had been lying a dead young Uhlan, and Stephen had shot the beast with his revolver, but Mary had suddenly started sobbing: ‘Oh, God! Oh, God! It was dumb—it couldn’t speak. It’s so awful somehow to see a thing suffer when it can’t ask you why!’ She had sobbed a long time, and Stephen had not known how to console her.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Father,’ she said, ‘for the past few nights I have been dreaming about various departed relatives of mine, and they all appear to be suffering dreadful torments and continually asking for alms, especially my mother, who seems to be in such a state of affliction and misery that it would break your heart to see her. I think she is suffering abominably at seeing me persecuted like this by that enemy of God, and hence I should like you to pray for their souls and say the forty masses of Saint Gregory,1 so that God may release them from this scourging fire.’ And so saying, she slipped a florin into his hand. The reverend friar gleefully pocketed the money, and having poured out a torrent of fine words and pious tales to reinforce her godliness, he gave her his blessing and let her go. Unaware that he had been hoodwinked, the friar watched her depart and then summoned his friend, who realized as soon as he arrived, from the friar’s agitated appearance, that he was about to receive some news from the lady, and waited to hear what the friar had to say. The latter repeated all that he had said to him previously, and for the second time, angrily and without mincing his words, gave him a severe scolding for what the lady alleged he had done. Being as yet unsure of which way the friar was going to jump, the gentleman denied having sent the purse and the belt, speaking without much conviction so as not to undermine the friar’s belief in the story, just in case he had heard it from the lady herself. The friar practically exploded with rage. ‘What!’ he said. ‘Can you really have the effrontery to deny it, you scoundrel? Here, take a look at them – she brought them to me herself, with her eyes full of tears – and tell me whether or not you recognize them!’ The gentleman put on a display of acute embarrassment. ‘Yes, indeed I do,’ he said. ‘I admit that it was wrong of me, and now that I fully appreciate her inclinations, I guarantee that you won’t be troubled again.’ The words now started to flow in good earnest, and eventually the blockhead of a friar handed over the purse and the belt to his friend. Finally, after preaching him a lengthy sermon and getting him to promise that he would call a halt to his importunities, he sent him about his business.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  When Anaïs would say to me, “I am a woman ahead of my time, and that has been my greatest tragedy,” she was usually referring to her writing. But certainly she was ahead of her time in creating her own designer relationship, as well. Today women marry women, men marry men; no one thinks it odd when a woman marries a man sixteen years her junior. Interracial relationships are unremarkable, polyamory is a lifestyle option, and open marriages have their own online dating sites. Today, when over half of marriages end in divorce, people wonder if one form of relationship can fit all. Today I have girlfriends who’ve chosen never to marry and don’t regret it, others who have decided that what they really like is several lovers at the same time, and others who have chosen celibacy. Today, scientists speculate that some people, like some field mice, may have a “monogamy gene” while others lack it. Today, I suspect that Anaïs and Hugo and Rupert might have discreetly maintained their mariage a trois without all the lies and guilt from which she felt so joyously freed that afternoon. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] The story did not conclude with my Hollywood ending, though. Months later, Anaïs was back in the hospital and this time it wasn’t to fatten her up. It was to eviscerate her. “They removed everything, even her intestines,” Renate told me. “It’s too late. The cancer is everywhere.” I visited Anaïs at home after she was released, as soon as Rupert would allow. On an overcast morning, he let me in, instructing me to wait in the foyer. A priest, so young he still had acne, scurried by me to the front door. He had the blank, traumatized look of someone who has just seen through a portal into Hell. A weight plunged through me. Was I too late? Had the priest been there to give Anaïs last rites? As the weight fell, it snagged on a barb and pulled on my gullet hard. I thought I had put aside my judgments of Anaïs, but her calling for a priest felt like a final betrayal. Through all the years I’d known her, Anaïs had adamantly set herself against the Catholicism of her girlhood and called herself a pagan. Yet it had to have been Anaïs herself who’d instructed Rupert to request Extreme Unction. Rupert was, if anything, anti-papist. I remembered then that Anaïs had befriended the pop artist nun Sister Corita, who had belonged to the Immaculate Heart order of my high school. My resentment dissolved as I recognized I’d likely call for the last sacrament at the end, too. It was, after all, an irresistible deal, a get-out-of-Hell-free card. No matter how many sins you had committed in your lifetime, the Catholic sacrament would wipe your soul clean as a just-baptized baby’s.