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 How to Deal with Angry People (2023)

  You should make a point of listening to them and giving some thought to that feedback. Give Them Time Finally, be sure to give them space and time to think about and reflect on what you’re asking of them. In any contentious conversation, it’s very unlikely that you’ll find a resolution during the meeting. There may be hurt feelings, additional disagreement, and maybe even some anger during the conversation. Do your best to be patient with those feelings and disagreements and understand that even if the person agrees to make an effort to change their approach, that change may take some time. It Won’t Always Work In a lot of ways, these guidelines assume a certain level of emotional maturity of the person you are interacting with. They assume the person wants to have productive conversations, that a person has similar goals to you, and that they have some ability to manage their feelings in emotionally charged situations. Those people do indeed exist. Even people who are prone to anger can be capable of having these sorts of goal-driven, productive conversations. However, there are of course angry people in our lives who are not going to be able to do this effectively, no matter how much thought or planning we put into it. Sometimes we have to acknowledge that we are only one side of this conversation and know when to let things go and to disengage. We come on to this in the next chapter. * I’m not suggesting that one person is at fault and the other is innocent. Far from it. There was plenty of opportunity for either friend to de-escalate things. But that statement – the reference to what she “always” does – was the point that the argument stopped being about whether or not they should leave and started being about something else. * Because you hadn’t yet read the chapter on dealing with anger online. CHAPTER 14 STRATEGY NINE: KNOW WHEN TO DISENGAGE PRIORITIZING PHYSICAL SAFETY Remember that learning how to deal with angry people is not about tolerating physical and emotional abuse. Always remove yourself to a safe space if you believe you are in danger. Hard to Think About, Write About, or Act On I want to preface the chapter with the following: This was by far the most difficult chapter to write. The decision to disengage from a toxic relationship is a really big thing to consider and it feels overwhelming to write about it or to offer suggestions for when or how to do it. On top of that, it’s deeply nuanced, so everything I wrote felt incomplete. I kept saying to myself, “But what about those situations where…?” or “That might work if the person isn’t….”

• From Real Life (2020)

  Ce que tu as fait. Ça n’a pas d’importance. Rien de tout ça n’en a. — Bien sûr que si, répond vivement Miller. Qu’est-ce que tu racontes ? De quoi tu parles ? » Wallace roule vivement sur le dos et pose l’oreiller sur sa poitrine. Miller se glisse tout près, et le lit émet un grincement grotesque sous leurs poids. Des ombres se promènent au plafond, venues de l’extérieur et d’une autre pièce, où la lumière de la salle de bains se répercute avant de revenir dans la chambre. Wallace fixe le point où les murs se rejoignent, et la lumière s’aplatit, le jaune devient diffus, jusqu’à se fondre dans la couleur de la peinture au plafond. Wallace colle sa langue à l’arrière de ses dents. Son palais est à vif, douloureux. Il sent la chair écorchée contre ses gencives. Sa vision est toujours trouble en périphérie. « Quand j’étais au collège, commence-t-il, mon père a quitté la maison. Il est allé s’installer un peu plus loin dans la même rue, dans une autre maison, construite par le père de mon frère. Une ancienne galerie d’art, un truc comme ça. Une maison transformée en galerie d’art, puis de nouveau en maison. Bref, mon père a emménagé là, il habitait là. Et moi, je n’avais pas le droit de lui rendre visite. Il a dit qu’il ne voulait plus nous voir. Je lui ai demandé pourquoi. Et il a répondu que le pourquoi n’avait pas d’importance ; c’était comme ça, c’est tout. Il ne voulait pas nous voir. Pas me voir. Plus jamais. » Wallace parcourt le rebord de son amertume ancienne, il peut entendre la voix qui s’élève du passé, le rire éraillé. Son père avait secoué la tête et souri à Wallace, posé la main sur son épaule. Ils étaient presque de taille et poids égaux à l’époque, ses doigts osseux et noueux. Il avait juste dit : Je ne veux pas de toi ici. Et c’était tout. Wallace n’avait pas eu droit à une explication pour cette coupure, pour l’éclatement de sa famille, qui le laissait dans la maison avec sa mère et son frère – il avait appris que certaines choses n’ont pas de cause, et que, quel que soit ce qu’il éprouve, il ne peut pas toujours exiger du monde une explication. Ses yeux le brûlent de nouveau. Il pose son pouce contre l’arête de son nez. Les larmes s’accumulent le long de ses cils, leur sel chaud enfle, mais elles ne coulent pas pour l’instant. La tristesse est comme de la fibre de verre, du coton fourré dans la cavité derrière son visage, dans ses pommettes creuses. « Et maintenant il est mort, et je ne sais toujours pas pourquoi il ne voulait pas de ma présence. Je ne l’ai pratiquement pas revu après ça.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She rose and returned to the stove and took the rice off the fire and poured it into the collander and ran water over it; put water in the saucepan and put it back on the fire, placing the collander on top of it and covering the rice with a towel. She turned the chops over. Then she sat down. “When we saw Rufus’s body, I can’t tell you. My father stared at it, he stared at it, and stared at it. It didn’t look like Rufus, it was—terrible—from the water, and he must have struck something going down, or in the water, because he was so broken and lumpy—and ugly. My brother. And my father stared at it—at it—and he said, They don’t leave a man much, do they? His own father was beaten to death with a hammer by a railroad guard. And they brought his father home like that. My mother got frightened, she wanted my father to pray. And he said, he shouted it at the top of his lungs, Pray? Who, pray? I bet you, if I ever get anywhere near that white devil you call God, I’ll tear my son and my father out of his white hide! Don’t you never say the word Pray to me again, woman, not if you want to live. Then he started to cry. I’ll never forget it. Maybe I hadn’t loved him before, but I loved him then. That was the last time he ever shouted, he hasn’t raised his voice since. He just sits there, he doesn’t even drink any more. Sometimes he goes out and listens to those fellows who make speeches on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue. He says he just wants to live long enough—long enough——.” Vivaldo said, to break the silence which abruptly roared around them, “To be paid back.” “Yes,” she said. “And I felt that way, too.” She walked over to the stove again. “I felt that I’d been robbed. And I had been robbed—of the only hope I had. By a group of people too cowardly even to know what they had done. And it didn’t seem to me that they deserved any better than what they’d given me. I didn’t care what happened to them, just so they suffered. I didn’t really much care what happened to me. But I wasn’t going to let what happened to Rufus, and what was happening all around me, happen to me. I was going to get through the world, and get what I needed out of it, no matter how.” He thought, Oh, it’s coming now, and felt a strange, bitter relief. He finished his drink and lit another cigarette, and watched her. She looked over at him, as though to make certain that he was still listening. “Nothing you’ve said so far,” he said, carefully, “seems to have much to do with being black. Except for what you make out of it. But nobody can help you there.”

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  But what speak I of these things? for now is no time to question, but to confess unto Thee. Wretched I was; and wretched is every soul bound by the friendship of perishable things; he is torn asunder when he loses them, and then he feels the wretchedness which he had ere yet he lost them. So was it then with me; I wept most bitterly, and found my repose in bitterness. Thus was I wretched, and that wretched life I held dearer than my friend. For though I would willingly have changed it, yet was I more unwilling to part with it than with him; yea, I know not whether I would have parted with it even for him, as is related (if not feigned) of Pylades and Orestes, that they would gladly have died for each other or together, not to live together being to them worse than death. But in me there had arisen some unexplained feeling, too contrary to this, for at once I loathed exceedingly to live and feared to die. I suppose, the more I loved him, the more did I hate, and fear (as a most cruel enemy) death, which had bereaved me of him: and I imagined it would speedily make an end of all men, since it had power over him. Thus was it with me, I remember. Behold my heart, O my God, behold and see into me; for well I remember it, O my Hope, who cleansest me from the impurity of such affections, directing mine eyes towards Thee, and plucking my feet out of the snare. For I wondered that others, subject to death, did live, since he whom I loved, as if he should never die, was dead; and I wondered yet more that myself, who was to him a second self, could live, he being dead. Well said one of his friend, “Thou half of my soul”; for I felt that my soul and his soul were “one soul in two bodies”: and therefore was my life a horror to me, because I would not live halved. And therefore perchance I feared to die, lest he whom I had much loved should die wholly.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “A few days. They figured he must have jumped off the George Washington Bridge.” “My God,” she said. Then: “Who—?” “Vivaldo. He called. Just after you went out. Ida had called him.” “My God,” she said, again, “it’s going to kill that poor girl.” He paused. “Vivaldo sounded as though he’d just been kicked in the belly by a horse.” “Where is he?” “I tried to make him come here. But he was going uptown to the girl—Ida—I don’t know what good he can do.” “Well. He was much closer to Rufus than we were.” “Would you like a drink?” “Yes,” she said, “I think I’d like a drink.” She sat staring at the table. “I wonder if there was anything—we—anyone—could have done.” “No,” he said, pouring a little whiskey in a glass and setting it before her, “there was nothing anyone could have done. It was too late. He wanted to die.” She was silent, sipping the whiskey. She watched the way the sunlight fell on the table. Richard put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t take it too hard, Cass. After all——” She remembered his face as it had been the last time she talked to him, the look in his eyes, and his smile when he asked Can I come to see you soon? How she wished, now, that she had stayed and talked to him a little longer. Perhaps—she sipped the whiskey, marveling that the children were so quiet. Tears filled her eyes and dropped slowly down her face, onto the table. “It’s a dirty, rotten shame,” she said. “It’s a terrible, terrible, terrible thing.” “He was heading that way,” said Richard, mildly, “nothing, no one, could have stopped him.” “How do we know that?” Cass asked. “Oh, honey, you know what he’s been like these last few months. We hardly ever saw him but everybody knew.” Knew what? she wanted to ask. Just what in hell did everybody know? But she dried her eyes and stood up. “Vivaldo tried like hell to stop what he was doing to Leona. And if he could have stopped him from doing that—well, then, maybe he could have stopped this, too.” That’s true, she thought, and looked at Richard, who, under stress, could always surprise her into taking his measure again. “I was very fond of him,” she said, helplessly. “There was something very sweet in him.” He looked at her with a faint smile. “Well, I guess you’re just naturally nicer than I am. I didn’t think that. I thought he was a pretty self-centered character, if you want the truth.” “Oh, Well,” she said, “self-centered—! We don’t know a soul who isn’t.” “You’re not,” he said. “You think of other people and you try to treat them right. You spend your life trying to take care of the children—and me—”

• From Another Country (1962)

  He was so proud of him. He bought Rufus his first set of drums.” She was not locking him out now; he felt, rather, that he was being locked in. He listened, seeing, or trying to see, what she saw, and feeling something of what she felt. But he wondered, just the same, how much her memory had filtered out. And he wondered what Rufus must have looked like in those days, with all his bright, untried brashness, and all his hopes intact. She was silent for a moment, leaning forward, looking down, her elbows on her knees and the fingers of one hand restlessly playing with her ring. “When Rufus died, all the light went out of that house, all of it. That was why I couldn’t stay there, I knew I couldn’t stay there, I’d grow old like they were, suddenly, and I’d end up like all the other abandoned girls who can’t find anyone to protect them. I’d always known I couldn’t end up like that, I’d always known it. I’d counted on Rufus to get me out of there—I knew he’d do anything in the world for me, just like I would for him. It hadn’t occurred to me that it wouldn’t happen. I knew it would happen.” She rose and returned to the stove and took the rice off the fire and poured it into the collander and ran water over it; put water in the saucepan and put it back on the fire, placing the collander on top of it and covering the rice with a towel. She turned the chops over. Then she sat down. “When we saw Rufus’s body, I can’t tell you. My father stared at it, he stared at it, and stared at it. It didn’t look like Rufus, it was—terrible—from the water, and he must have struck something going down, or in the water, because he was so broken and lumpy—and ugly. My brother. And my father stared at it—at it—and he said, They don’t leave a man much, do they? His own father was beaten to death with a hammer by a railroad guard. And they brought his father home like that. My mother got frightened, she wanted my father to pray. And he said, he shouted it at the top of his lungs, Pray? Who , pray? I bet you, if I ever get anywhere near that white devil you call God, I’ll tear my son and my father out of his white hide! Don’t you never say the word Pray to me again, woman, not if you want to live . Then he started to cry. I’ll never forget it. Maybe I hadn’t loved him before, but I loved him then. That was the last time he ever shouted, he hasn’t raised his voice since. He just sits there, he doesn’t even drink any more. Sometimes he goes out and listens to those fellows who make speeches on 125th Street and Seventh Avenue.

• From Amplified Holy Bible (2015)

  20 For as many as are the promises of God, in Christ they are [all answered] “Yes.” So through Him we say our “Amen” to the glory of God. 21 Now it is God who establishes and confirms us [in joint fellowship] with you in Christ, and who has anointed us [empowering us with the gifts of the Spirit]; 22 it is He who has also put His seal on us [that is, He has appropriated us and certified us as His] and has given us the [Holy] Spirit in our hearts as a pledge [like a security deposit to guarantee the fulfillment of His promise of eternal life]. 23 But I call on God as my soul’s witness, that it was to spare you [pain and discouragement] that I did not come again to Corinth— 24 not that we rule [like dictators] over your faith, but rather we work with you for [the increase of] your joy; for in your faith you stand firm [in your strong conviction that Jesus of Nazareth—the Messiah—is the Son of God, through whom we obtain eternal salvation]. 2 Corinthians 2 Reaffirm Your Love 1 B UT I made up my mind not to grieve you with another painful visit. 2 For if I cause you grief [by a well-deserved rebuke], who then provides me enjoyment but the very one whom I have made sad? 3 And I a wrote this same thing to you, so that when I came, I would not be filled with sorrow by those who ought to make me glad, for I trusted in you and felt confident that my joy would be shared by all of you. 4 For I wrote to you out of great distress and with an anguished heart, and with many tears, not to cause you sorrow but to make you realize the [overflowing] love which I have especially for you. 5 But if b someone has caused [all this] sorrow, he has caused it not to me, but in some degree—not to put it too severely—[he has distressed and grieved] all of you. 6 For such a one this punishment by the majority is sufficient, 7 so instead [of further rebuke, now] you should rather [graciously] forgive and comfort and encourage him, to keep him from being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 Therefore I urge you to reinstate him in your affections and reaffirm your c love for him. 9 For this was my purpose in writing, to see if you would stand the test, whether you are obedient and committed to following my instruction in all things. 10 If you forgive anyone anything, I too forgive [that one]; and what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of [and with the approval of] Christ, 11 to keep Satan from taking advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his schemes.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  Aurelius Augustinus, son of Patricius and of Monica, was born in A.D. 354 at Tagaste in Numidia, was sent to school at Madaura, and afterwards at Carthage, was liberally educated, and remaining—in that age of the encounter of paganism and Christianity—albeit a student of theology, unbaptized, joined the sect of the Manichaeans in search of a solution of the problem of the origin and existence of evil. The solution he found there was one that, attempting to account for all, stopped short of the final philosophy. Through the years of error and of lawless living, Augustine was mourned for by his mother, that Monica who won the name and grade of Saint by the long martyrdom of her wounded maternity. She seemed to herself to have brought a man into the world with the doom of reprobation before him. ‘The son of so many tears would not perish,’ said a bishop before whom she stood, as she lived, a fountain of tears. Nor did she die until her child had spoken with Ambrose at Milan, and after a long and difficult controversy with his own will, his own wish, and the bonds of the fragmentary system wherein he had lingered, had been baptized in 387, and his young son with him. In the Milanese church, from the doors of which St. Ambrose turned away an emperor of the West, stained with the crime of an Asian massacre, Augustine and Ambrose composed, in alternate verses, the first Te Deum. From that day the North African student became a Doctor of the Church Catholic. Monica’s tears, the reading of Plato and the Platonists (Augustine had been in his boyhood negligent of Greek, and he read these authors in a translation), and what he found to be the ignorance of his Manichaean teachers, had their various influences and persuasions, to one unalterable event. Augustine had produced a treatise ‘On the Beautiful and the Apt’ in the days before his conversion; in the years that followed he wrote the series of works that are nothing less than the foundation of Western theology. The treatises ‘Contra Academicos,’ ‘De Immortalitate Animas,’ De Ordine,’ written at Milan; ‘De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholics,’ ‘De Libero Arbitrio,’ ‘De Quantitate Animae,’ and a treatise against the Manichaeans, written in Rome, were the first fruits of this imperishable work of literature. He returned to Tagaste, where he sold what remained of his inheritance from his father, for the benefit of the poor, and remained for some time in solitude, composing amid his devotions the treatises ‘De Genesi contra Manichaeos,’ ‘De Musica,’ ‘De Magistro,’ ‘De Vera Religione.’ In 391 he was ordained priest, and a few years later, after the composition of the tract ‘De Utilitate Credendi,’ of two more essays against the Manichaeans, and of a discourse upon the Creed, he was consecrated Bishop of Hippo, a see he held, despite persuasions to accept a more conspicuous bishopric, until his death on the 28th of August 430. He wrote against the Donatist and Pelagian heresies, but always with gentleness, and often with affection, of the men whom he opposed. His monumental and fully representative works are the ‘Confessions,’ the ‘Retractations,’ and the ‘City of God.’ This last and the Confessions are not only great classics, but great books of human experience, and have been as much loved by the multitude as studied by the learned. Two of his words are familiar in the household of every house of life—they are part of every man's memory:—

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I don’t know. I’d love to—but”—he fell back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “I don’t know.” He allowed himself, for a moment, the luxury of dreaming of Ida’s children, though he knew that these children would never be born and that this moment was all he would ever have of them. Nevertheless, he dreamed of a baby boy who had Ida’s mouth and eyes and forehead, his hair, only curlier, his build, their color. What would that color be? From the streets, again, came a cry and a crash and a roar. Eric switched off the night light and opened the blinds and Vivaldo joined him at the window. But now there was nothing to see, the street was empty, dark, and still, though an echo of voices, diminishing, floated back. “One of the last times I saw Rufus,” Vivaldo said, abruptly—and stopped. He had not thought about it since that moment; in a way, he had never thought about it at all. “Yes?” He could barely make out Eric’s face in the darkness. He turned away from Eric and sat down on the bed again, and lit a cigarette. And in the tiny flare, Eric’s face leapt at him, then dropped back into darkness. He watched the red-black silhouette of Eric’s head against the dim glow of the Venetian blinds. He remembered that terrible apartment again, and Leona’s tears, and Rufus with the knife, and the bed with the twisted gray sheet and the thin blanket: and it all seemed to have happened many, many years ago. But, in fact, it had only been a matter of months.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “A few days. They figured he must have jumped off the George Washington Bridge.” “My God,” she said. Then: “Who—?” “Vivaldo. He called. Just after you went out. Ida had called him.” “My God,” she said, again, “it’s going to kill that poor girl.” He paused. “Vivaldo sounded as though he’d just been kicked in the belly by a horse.” “Where is he?” “I tried to make him come here. But he was going uptown to the girl—Ida—I don’t know what good he can do.” “Well. He was much closer to Rufus than we were.” “Would you like a drink?” “Yes,” she said, “I think I’d like a drink.” She sat staring at the table. “I wonder if there was anything—we—anyone—could have done.” “No,” he said, pouring a little whiskey in a glass and setting it before her, “there was nothing anyone could have done. It was too late. He wanted to die.” She was silent, sipping the whiskey. She watched the way the sunlight fell on the table. Richard put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t take it too hard, Cass. After all——” She remembered his face as it had been the last time she talked to him, the look in his eyes, and his smile when he asked Can I come to see you soon? How she wished, now, that she had stayed and talked to him a little longer. Perhaps—she sipped the whiskey, marveling that the children were so quiet. Tears filled her eyes and dropped slowly down her face, onto the table. “It’s a dirty, rotten shame,” she said. “It’s a terrible, terrible, terrible thing.” “He was heading that way,” said Richard, mildly, “nothing, no one, could have stopped him.” “How do we know that?” Cass asked. “Oh, honey, you know what he’s been like these last few months. We hardly ever saw him but everybody knew.” Knew what? she wanted to ask. Just what in hell did everybody know? But she dried her eyes and stood up. “Vivaldo tried like hell to stop what he was doing to Leona. And if he could have stopped him from doing that—well, then, maybe he could have stopped this, too.” That’s true, she thought, and looked at Richard, who, under stress, could always surprise her into taking his measure again. “I was very fond of him,” she said, helplessly. “There was something very sweet in him.” He looked at her with a faint smile. “Well, I guess you’re just naturally nicer than I am. I didn’t think that. I thought he was a pretty self-centered character, if you want the truth.” “Oh, Well,” she said, “self-centered—! We don’t know a soul who isn’t.” “You’re not,” he said. “You think of other people and you try to treat them right. You spend your life trying to take care of the children—and me—”

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I never told this to anybody before,” he said, “and I really don’t know why I’m telling you. It’s just that the last time I saw Rufus, before he disappeared, when he was still with Leona”—he caught his breath, he dragged on his cigarette and the glow brought the room back into the world, then dropped it again into chaos—“we had a fight, he said he was going to kill me. And, at the very end, when he was finally in bed, after he’d cried, and after he’d told me—so many terrible things—I looked at him, he was lying on his side, his eyes were half open, he was looking at me. I was taking off my pants, Leona was staying at my place and I was going to stay there, I was afraid to leave him alone. Well, when he looked at me, just before he closed his eyes and turned on his side away from me, all curled up, I had the weirdest feeling that he wanted me to take him in my arms. And not for sex, though maybe sex would have happened. I had the feeling that he wanted someone to hold him, to hold him, and that, that night, it had to be a man. I got in the bed and I thought about it and I watched his back, it was as dark in that room, then, as it is in this room, now, and I lay on my back and I didn’t touch him and I didn’t sleep. I remember that night as a kind of vigil. I don’t know whether he slept or not, I kept trying to tell from his breathing—but I couldn’t tell, it was too choppy, maybe he was having nightmares. I loved Rufus, I loved him, I didn’t want him to die. But when he was dead, I thought about it, thought about it—isn’t it funny? I didn’t know I’d thought about it as much as I have—and I wondered, I guess I still wonder, what would have happened if I’d taken him in my arms, if I’d held him, if I hadn’t been—afraid. I was afraid that he wouldn’t understand that it was—only love. Only love. But, oh, Lord, when he died, I thought that maybe I could have saved him if I’d just reached out that quarter of an inch between us on that bed, and held him.” He felt the cold tears on his face, and he tried to wipe them away. “Do you know what I mean? I haven’t told Ida this, I haven’t told anyone, I haven’t thought about it, since he died. But I guess I’ve been living with it. And I’ll never know. I’ll never know.” “No,” said Eric, “you’ll never know. If I had been there, I’d have held him—but it wouldn’t have helped. His little girl tried to hold him, and that didn’t help.” He sat down on the bed beside Vivaldo. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Then Reverend Foster prayed a brief prayer for the safe journey of the soul that had left them and the safe journey, throughout their lives and after death, of all the souls under the sound of his voice. It was over. The pallbearers, two of the men in the front row, and the two musicians, lifted the mother-of-pearl casket to their shoulders and started down the aisle. The mourners followed. Cass was standing near the door. The four still faces passed her with their burden and did not look at her. Directly behind them came Ida and her mother. Ida paused for a moment and looked at her—looked directly, unreadably at her from beneath her heavy veil. Then she seemed to smile. Then she passed. And the others passed. Vivaldo joined her and they walked out of the chapel. For the first time she saw the hearse, which stood on the Avenue, facing downtown. “Vivaldo,” she asked, “are we going to the cemetery?” “No,” he said, “they don’t have enough cars. I think only the family’s going.” He was watching the car behind the hearse. Ida’s parents had already entered the car. She stood on the sidewalk. She looked around her, then walked swiftly over to them. She took each of them by one hand. “I just wanted to thank you,” she said, quickly, “for coming.” Her voice was rough from weeping and Cass could not see her face behind the veil. “You don’t know what it means to me—to us.” Cass pressed Ida’s hand, not knowing what to say. Vivaldo said, “Ida, anything we can do—anything I can do—anything—!” “You’ve done wonders. You been wonderful. I’ll never forget it.” She pressed their hands again and turned away. She got into the car and the door closed behind her. The hearse slowly moved out from the curb, and the car, then a second car, followed. Others who had been at the funeral service looked briefly at Cass and Vivaldo, stood together a few moments, and then began to disperse. Cass and Vivaldo started down the Avenue. “Shall we take a subway?” Vivaldo asked. “I don’t,” she said, “think I could face that now.” They continued to walk, nevertheless, aimlessly, in silence. Cass walked with her hands deep in her pockets, staring down at the cracks in the sidewalk. “I hate funerals,” she said, finally, “they never seem to have anything to do with the person who died.” “No,” he said, “funerals are for the living.” They passed a stoop where a handful of adolescents stood, who looked at them curiously.

• From Another Country (1962)

  It’s always good to know where you stand. But you certainly aren’t going to allow this— prejudice —to stand in Miss Scott’s way?” “I wouldn’t dream of it. Anyway, Ida does what she wants.” Ellis considered him. He looked briefly at Ida. “Well. That’s reassuring.” He signaled for the waiter and turned to Ida. “What day shall we make it? Tuesday, Wednesday?” “Wednesday might be better,” she said, hesitantly. “Around three o’clock?” “Yes. That’s fine.” “It’s settled, then.” He made a note in his engagement book, then took out his billfold, picked up the check and gave a ten-dollar bill to the waiter. “Give these people anything they want,” he said, “it’s on me.” “Oh, are you going now?” asked Ida. “Yes. My wife will kill me if I don’t get home in time to see the kids before I go to the studio. See you Wednesday.” He held out his hand to Eric. “Glad to have met you, Red; all the best. Maybe you’ll do a show for me, one day.” He looked down at Vivaldo. “So long, genius. I’m sorry you don’t like me. Maybe one of these days you ought to ask yourself why. It’s no good blaming me , you know, if you don’t know how to get or how to hold on to what you want.” Then he turned and left. Vivaldo watched the short legs going up the stairs into the street. He wiped his forehead with his wet handkerchief and the three of them sat in silence for a moment. Then, “I’m going to call Cass,” Vivaldo said, and rose and walked toward the phone booth in the back . “I understand,” said Ida, carefully, “that you were a very good friend of my brother’s.” “Yes,” he said, “I was. Or at least I tried to be.” “Did you find it so very hard—to be his friend?” “No. No, I hadn’t meant to suggest that.” He tried to smile. “He was very wrapped up in his music, he was very much—himself. I was younger then, I may not always have—understood.” He felt sweat in his armpits, on his forehead, between his legs. “Oh.” She looked at him from very far away. “You may have wanted more from him than he could give. Many people did, men and women.” She allowed this to hang between them for an instant. Then, “He was terribly attractive, wasn’t he? I always think that that was the reason he died, that he was too attractive and didn’t know how—how to keep people away.” She sipped her drink. “People don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you’re dead, when they’ve killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn’t have any character. They weep big, bitter tears—not for you .

• From Another Country (1962)

  He felt the cold tears on his face, and he tried to wipe them away. “Do you know what I mean? I haven’t told Ida this, I haven’t told anyone, I haven’t thought about it, since he died. But I guess I’ve been living with it. And I’ll never know. I’ll never know.” “No,” said Eric, “you’ll never know. If I had been there, I’d have held him—but it wouldn’t have helped. His little girl tried to hold him, and that didn’t help.” He sat down on the bed beside Vivaldo. “Would you like a cup of coffee?” “Hell, no.” Vivaldo dried his eyes with the back of his hand. “Let’s have another drink. Let’s watch the dawn come up.” “Okay.” Eric started to move away. Vivaldo grabbed his hand. “Eric—” He watched Eric’s dark, questioning eyes and the slightly parted, slightly smiling lips. “I’m glad I told you about that. I guess I couldn’t have told anybody else.” Eric seemed to smile. He took Vivaldo’s face between his hands and kissed him, a light, swift kiss, on the forehead. Then his shadow vanished, and Vivaldo heard him in the kitchen. “I’m out of ice.” “The hell with the ice.” “Water?” “No. Well, maybe a little.” Eric returned with two glasses and put one in Vivaldo’s hand. They touched glasses. “To the dawn,” said Eric. “To the dawn,” Vivaldo said. Then they sat together, side by side, watching the light come up behind the window and insinuate itself into the room. Vivaldo sighed, and Eric turned to look at his lean, gray face, the long cheeks hollowed now, and the stubble coming up, the marvelous mouth resigned, and the black eyes staring straight out—staring out because they were beginning to look inward. And Eric felt, for perhaps the first time in his life, the key to the comradeship of men. Here was Vivaldo, long, lean, and weary, dressed, as he almost always was, in black and white; his white shirt was open, almost to the navel, and the shirt was dirty now, and the hair on his chest curled out; the hair on his head, which was always too long, was tousled, and fell over his forehead; and he smelled Vivaldo’s sweat, his armpits and his groin, and was terribly aware of his long legs. Here Vivaldo sat, on Eric’s bed. Not a quarter of an inch divided them. His elbow nearly touched Vivaldo’s elbow, as he listened to the rise and fall of Vivaldo’s breath. They were like two soldiers, resting from battle, about to go into battle again. Vivaldo fell back on the bed, one hand covering his forehead, one hand between his legs. Presently, he was snoring, then he shuddered, and turned into Eric’s pillow, toward Eric’s wall. Eric sat on the bed, alone, and watched him. He took off Vivaldo’s shoes, he loosened Vivaldo’s belt, turning Vivaldo to face him. The morning light bathed the sleeper.

• From Another Country (1962)

  She made a faint, steamy sound as she sipped her coffee, and this sound was unaccountably, inexpressibly annoying. “And forgive me, now, if I don’t seem to know just what to say, I’m maybe a little—stunned.” He looked over at her, and a wilderness of anger, pity, love, and contempt and lust all raged together in him. She, too, was a whore; how bitterly he had been betrayed! “I’m not trying to deny anything you’ve said, but just the same, there are a lot of things I didn’t—don’t—understand, not really. Bear with me, please give me a little time—” “Vivaldo,” she said, wearily, “just one thing. I don’t want you to be understanding. I don’t want you to be kind, okay?” She looked directly at him, and an unnameable heat and tension flashed violently alive between them, as close to hatred as it was to love. She softened and reached out, and touched his hand. “Promise me that.” “I promise you that,” he said. And then, furiously, “You seem to forget that I love you.” They stared at each other. Suddenly, he reached out and pulled her to him, trembling, with tears starting up behind his eyes, burning and blinding, and covered her face with kisses, which seemed to freeze as they fell. She clung to him; with a sigh she buried her face in his chest. There was nothing erotic in it; they were like two weary children. And it was she who was comforting him. Her long fingers stroked his back, and he began, slowly, with a horrible, strangling sound, to weep, for she was stroking his innocence out of him. By and by, he was still. He rose, and went to the bathroom and washed his face, and then sat down at his work table. She put on a record by Mahalia Jackson, In the Upper Room, and sat at the window, her hands in her lap, looking out over the sparkling streets. Much, much later, while he was still working and she slept, she turned in her sleep, and she called his name. He paused, waiting, staring at her, but she did not move again, or speak again. He rose, and walked to the window. The rain had ceased, in the black-blue sky a few stars were scattered, and the wind roughly jostled the clouds along. 2 The sun struck, on steel, on bronze, on stone, on glass, on the gray water far beneath them, on the turret tops and the flashing windshields of crawling cars, on the incredible highways, stretching and snarling and turning for mile upon mile upon mile, on the houses, square and high, low and gabled, and on their howling antennae, on the sparse, weak trees, and on those towers, in the distance, of the city of New York. The plane tilted, dropped and rose, and the whole earth slanted, now leaning against the windows of the plane, now dropping out of sight.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He walked up and down behind the altar, behind the bier. “I know there ain’t nothing I can say to you that sit before me—his mother and father, his sister, his kinfolks, his friends—to bring him back or to keep you from grieving that he’s gone. I know that. Ain’t nothing I can say will make his life different, make it the life that maybe some other man might have lived. It’s all been done, it’s all written down on high. But don’t lose heart, dear ones—don’t lose heart. Don’t let it make you bitter. Try to understand. Try to understand. The world’s already bitter enough, we got to try to be better than the world.” He looked down, then over to the front row. “You got to remember,” he said, gently, “he was trying. Ain’t many trying and all that tries must suffer. Be proud of him. You got a right to be proud. And that’s all he ever wanted in this world.” Except for someone—a man—weeping in the front row, there was silence all over the chapel. Cass thought that the man must be Rufus’ father and she wondered if he believed what the preacher said. What had Rufus been to him?—a troublesome son, a stranger while living and now a stranger forever in death. And now nothing else would ever be known. Whatever else had been, or might have been, locked in Rufus’ heart or in the heart of his father, had gone into oblivion with Rufus. It would never be expressed now. It was over. “There’re some friends of Rufus’s here,” said Reverend Foster, “and they going to play something for us and then we going to go.” Two young men walked up the aisle, one carrying a guitar, one carrying a bass fiddle. The thin dark girl followed them. The black-robed boy at the piano flexed his fingers. The two boys stood directly in front of the covered corpse, the girl stood a little away from them, near the piano. They began playing something Cass did not recognize, something very slow, and more like the blues than a hymn. Then it began to be more tense and more bitter and more swift. The people in the chapel hummed low in their throats and tapped their feet. Then the girl stepped forward. She threw back her head and closed her eyes and that voice rang out again: Oh, that great getting-up morning, Fare thee well, fare thee well! Reverend Foster, standing on a height behind her, raised both hands and mingled his voice with hers: We’ll be coming from every nation, Fare thee well, fare thee well! The chapel joined them, but the girl ended the song alone: Oh, on that great getting-up morning, Fare thee well, fare thee well!

• From Another Country (1962)

  She walked away and another, older and plainer girl, who was also, however, very carefully dressed and made-up, came over to Cass, wearing a very different smile: a bawdy, amused smile, full of complicity and contempt. Cass felt herself blushing. The girl pulled out boxes of scarves. They all seemed sleazy and expensive, but she was in no position to complain. She took one, paid for it, tied it around her head, and left. Her knees were shaking. She managed to find a cab at the corner and, after fighting a small duel with herself, gave the driver the address of the chapel: she had really wanted to tell him to take her home. The chapel was small and there were not many people in it. She entered as silently as she could, but heads turned at her entrance. An elderly man, probably an usher, hurried silently toward her, but she sat down in the first seat she saw, in the very last row, near the door. Vivaldo was sitting further up, near the middle; the only other white person, as far as she could tell, in the place. People sat rather scattered from each other—in the same way, perhaps, that the elements of Rufus’ life had been scattered—and this made the chapel seem emptier than it was. There were many young people there, Rufus’ friends, she supposed, the boys and girls who had grown up with him. In the front row sat six figures, the family: no amount of mourning could make Ida’s proud back less proud. Just before the family, just below the altar, stood the bier, dominating the place, mother of pearl, closed. Someone had been speaking as she came in, who now sat down. He was very young and he was dressed in the black robes of an evangelist. She wondered if he could be an evangelist, he did not seem to be much more than a boy. But he moved with great authority, the authority indeed of someone who has found his place and made his peace with it. As he sat down, a very thin girl walked up the aisle and the boy in black robes moved to the piano at the side of the altar.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Elle aussi a atteint la limite de son vocabulaire. Elle n’a pas moyen de le réconforter pour les choses qu’il n’a pas moyen d’exprimer, et ils font du mieux qu’ils peuvent. Il entend son cœur qui bat fort. Elle a une odeur sucrée, avec un relent de popcorn. Son corps est doux et chaud. Il y a des mouettes au-dessus d’eux, qui font des cercles en se laissant dériver sur les courants d’air, ce qui met Wallace mal à l’aise. « En tout cas, maintenant que tu es au courant, pardonne-moi de ne pas te l’avoir dit plus tôt. — Mon dieu, Wallace. Quand a-t-il été enterré ? — Oh, il y a des semaines. — Tu n’y es pas allé ? — Non, c’était trop loin, ça ne valait pas le coup. » Brigit laisse passer cette remarque sans commentaire, et il lui en est reconnaissant. Elle se remet à manger des pop-corns. Il boit son eau, qui est devenue tiède. Le groupe joue une mélodie solitaire, un peu fausse, noyée dans la reverb. Lui ayant dit pour son père, il n’éprouve pas le besoin de lui en raconter davantage. Ça lui semble suffisant, en un sens, c’est la partie qui révèle le tout. Ils s’affaissent dans leurs sièges, qui grincent un peu tandis que leurs cuisses glissent sur le métal. Le son les fait rire, comique en cet instant. Leur rire dépasse son contexte, jusqu’à se faire disproportionné, jusqu’à ce qu’ils cessent de rire et se mettent à pleurer à chaudes larmes. Wallace laisse échapper le gémissement hideux, hoquetant d’un petit enfant, ou de quelqu’un qui s’est oublié lui-même. Tout remonte : les larmes, la frustration, la difficulté. Il se convulse, frissonne, larmes, morve et toux, sanglots, les mains à plat contre ses yeux, grelottant, brûlant, tellement brûlant, trempé. Et Brigit pleure doucement sur son épaule, un son en staccato, comme les animaux dans les buissons, ce chuintement frêle. Cette nuit-là, en Alabama, une fois que l’homme a quitté sa maison, Wallace a pleuré. Son père s’est penché, l’a pris par la taille, et lui a demandé : Pourquoi tu pleures ? Mais pourquoi tu pleures ? La réponse avait paru évidente à Wallace, mais plus son père lui posait la question, plus Wallace s’interrogeait sur le sens de ses larmes, et au bout d’un moment il avait cessé. Son père avait fait un tour de magie, converti la certitude en doute, sans plus d’effort qu’il n’en fallait pour demander : Pourquoi tu pleures ? Pourquoi pleurait-il ? Pourquoi ? Mais ici, avec Brigit, la raison s’affûte, se fait d’une clarté terrifiante. Il pleure parce qu’il n’arrive plus à se reconnaître, parce que la route devant lui est indiscernable, parce qu’il n’y a rien qu’il puisse dire ou faire qui lui apporterait le bonheur. Il pleure parce qu’il est coincé entre cette vie et la suivante, et pour la première fois il ne sait pas s’il vaut mieux partir ou rester.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Wallace pleure toutes les larmes de son corps, jusqu’à ce que finalement il se retrouve vide, sans plus rien sur quoi pleurer, jusqu’à ce qu’il ait la sensation d’être une cloche qui a fini de tinter. Quand ils cessent, ils ont un peu honte de s’être laissés aller comme ça. Il y a quelque chose de très américain là-dedans, dit Brigit – tout ce qui fait du bien doit s’accompagner de honte. « C’est parce qu’on est tous protestants, explique-t-elle. — Tu n’es pas allée à l’école catholique toute ta vie ? » Elle rit. « Si, mais n’empêche. » Ils rentrent acheter des glaces. Wallace demande une coupelle en gaufrette avec des boules de vanille, et elle se moque de lui. Elle se prend un cornet au chocolat, ce que Wallace ne trouve pas plus aventureux que la vanille. Le hall est décoré d’une espèce de fresque, qui dépeint les actions charitables d’un Blanc d’un passé lointain : celui-ci distribue des bonbons à des petits enfants qui ont un drôle d’air démoniaque, et toute la scène semble à la fois bucolique et horrifiante. Il y a beaucoup de monde qui traîne, qui mange des glaces, des saucisses, bavarde. La musique qui vient de l’extérieur s’entend plus fort ici ; le groupe est passé à des reprises de rock très premier degré. Sur le côté, un homme mange quelque chose dans un saladier en carton. Il a un visage mince, on voit les muscles de sa mâchoire remuer. Wallace les regarde s’activer sous la peau olivâtre. Il y a aussi l’épaississement des muscles de son cou quand il avale la nourriture qui descend dans sa gorge pour aller disparaître dans ses entrailles sombres. C’est un acte ordinaire, assez banal pour sembler invisible, mais quand on regarde n’importe quel acte minuscule de la sorte, il se dote d’une étrangeté insensée. Il n’y a qu’à voir comme la paupière glisse sur l’orbite, puis remonte, le monde plongé dans les ténèbres un instant, à chaque fois qu’on cligne des yeux. Il n’y a qu’à voir la respiration, qui vient régulièrement et sans effort – et pourtant l’énorme masse d’air qui doit entrer et sortir de notre corps constitue un événement presque violent, avec les tissus poussés, comprimés, et écartés, et ouvert et refermés, et tout le sang impliqué dans l’affaire. Les actes ordinaires se revêtent d’ombres insolites lorsqu’on les observe de près.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He put his lips to Yves’ shoulder and tasted the Mediterranean salt. He thought of his friends—what friends? He was not sure that he had ever really been friends with Vivaldo or Richard or Cass; and Rufus was dead. He was not certain who, long, long after the event, had sent him the news—he had the feeling that it had to be Cass. It could scarcely have been Vivaldo, who was made too uneasy by what he knew of Eric’s relation to Rufus—knew without being willing to admit that he knew; and it would certainly not have been Richard. No one, in any case, had written very often; he had not really wanted to know what was happening among the people he had fled; and he felt that they had always protected themselves against any knowledge of what was happening in him. No, Rufus had been his only friend among them. Rufus had made him suffer, but Rufus had dared to know him. And when Eric’s pain had faded, and Rufus was far away, Eric remembered only the joy that they had sometimes shared, and the timbre of Rufus’ voice, his half-beat, loping, cocky walk, his smile, the way he held a cigarette, the way he threw back his head when he laughed. And there was something in Yves which reminded him of Rufus—something in his trusting smile and his brave, tough vulnerability. It was a Thursday when the news came. It was pouring down rain, all of Paris was wavering and gray. He had no money at all that day, was waiting for a check which was mysteriously entangled in one of the bureaucratic webs of the French cinema industry. He and Yves had just divided the last of their cigarettes and Yves had gone off to try and borrow money from an Egyptian banker who had once been fond of him. Eric had then lived on the Rue de la Montagne Ste. Geneviève, and he labored up this hill, in the flood, bareheaded, with water dripping down his nose and eyelashes and behind his ears and down his back and soaking through his trench-coat pocket, where he had unwisely placed the cigarettes. He could practically feel them disintegrating in the moist, unclean darkness of his pocket, not at all protected by his slippery hand. He was in a kind of numb despair and intended simply to get home and take off his clothes and stay in bed until help came; help would probably be Yves, with the money for sandwiches; it would be just enough help to enable them to get through yet another ghastly day. He traversed the great courtyard and started up the steps of his building; and behind him, near the porte-cochère, the bell of the concierge’s loge sounded, and she called his name. He went back, hoping that she was not going to ask him about his rent. She stood in her door, with a letter in her hand.