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 Another Country (1962)

  “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. For themselves, because they’ve lost their toy.” “That’s a terribly grim view,” he said, “of love.” “I know what I’m talking about. That’s what most people mean, when they say love.” She picked up a cigarette and waited for him to light it. “Thank you. You weren’t here, you never saw Rufus’s last girl friend—a terrible little whore of a nymphomaniac, from Georgia. She wouldn’t let him go, he tried all kinds of ways of getting away from her. He even thought of running away to Mexico. She got him so he couldn’t work—I swear, there’s nothing like a Southern white person, especially a Southern woman, when she gets her hooks into a Negro man.” She blew a great cloud of smoke above his head. “And now she’s still living, the filthy white slut, and Rufus is dead.” He said, hoping that she would really hear him but knowing she would not, perhaps could not, “I hope you don’t think I loved your brother in that terrible way that you describe. I think we really were very good friends, and—and it was an awful shock for me to hear that he was dead. I was in Paris when I heard.” “Oh! I’m not accusing you. You and I are going to be friends. Don’t you think so?” “I certainly hope so.” “Well, that settles it, as far as I’m concerned.” Then, smiling, with her eyes very big, “What did you do in Paris all that time?” “Oh”—he smiled—“I tried to grow up.” “Couldn’t you have done that here? Or didn’t you want to?” “I don’t know. It was more fun in Paris.” “I’ll bet.” She crushed out her cigarette. “Have you grown up?” “I don’t know,” he said, “any longer, if people do.” She grinned. “You’ve got a point there, Buster.” Vivaldo came back to the table. She looked up at him. “Well? How are the kids?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  Somebody said, “What did I tell you?”—triumphantly; there was a brief spatter of applause, presumably for the dead Rufus; and the drummer bowed his head and did an oddly irreverent riff on the rim of his drum: klook-a-klook, klook-klook, klook-klook! Ida sang: Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand. Her eyes were closed and the dark head on the long dark neck was thrown back. Something appeared in her face which had not been there before, a kind of passionate, triumphant rage and agony. Now, her fine, sensual, free-moving body was utterly still, as though being held in readiness for a communion more total than flesh could bear; and a strange chill came into the room, along with a strange resentment. Ida did not know how great a performer she would have to become before she could dare expose her audience, as she now did, to her private fears and pain. After all, her brother had meant nothing to them, or had never meant to them what he had meant to her. They did not wish to witness her mourning, especially as they dimly suspected that this mourning contained an accusation of themselves—an accusation which their uneasiness justified. They endured her song, therefore, but they held themselves outside it; and yet, at the same time, the very arrogance and innocence of Ida’s offering compelled their admiration. Hear my cry, hear my call, Take my hand, lest I fall, Precious Lord! The applause was odd—not quite unwilling, not quite free; wary, rather, in recognition of a force not quite to be trusted but certainly to be watched. The musicians were now both jubilant and watchful, as though Ida had abruptly become their property. The drummer adjusted her shawl around her shoulders, saying, “You been perspiring, don’t you let yourself catch cold”; and, as she started off the stand, the piano- player rose and, ceremoniously, kissed her on the brow. The bass-player said, “Hell, let’s tell the folks her name.” He grabbed the microphone and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve been listening to Miss Ida Scott. This is her first—exposure,” and he mopped his brow, ironically. The crowd laughed. He said, “But it won’t be her last.” The applause came again, more easily this time, since the role of judge and bestower had been returned to the audience. “We have been present,” said the bass-player, “at an historic event.” This time the audience, in a paroxysm of self-congratulation, applauded, stomped, and cheered. “Well,” said Vivaldo, taking both her hands in his, “it looks like you’re on your way.” “Were you proud of me?”

• 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 American Swing (2008)

  1449 01:11:32,621 --> 01:11:35,749 ONE DAY HE INVITED US TO BROOKLYN TO SEE HIS HOUSE. 1450 01:11:35,749 --> 01:11:38,752 AND HE LIVED DOWN IN THE BASEMENT BECAUSE... 1451 01:11:38,752 --> 01:11:41,380 THE BRICK BUILDING, HE RENTED UPSTAIRS-- 1452 01:11:41,380 --> 01:11:43,465 I GUESS THE TWO FLOORS. 1453 01:11:43,465 --> 01:11:47,303 AND I WAS SHOCKED THE WAY HE LIVES DOWN IN THE BASEMENT WITH CATS AND EVERYTHING. 1454 01:11:47,303 --> 01:11:50,973 IT BOTH-- MY MIND-- HOW COULD HE LIVE IN A BASEMENT? 1455 01:11:50,973 --> 01:11:54,435 THEN HE TOOK US OUT FOR A NICE LOBSTER DINNER. 1456 01:11:54,435 --> 01:11:56,770 HE HAD JUST GONE THROUGH HEART SURGERY. 1457 01:11:56,770 --> 01:12:00,149 HE WAS IN THE HOSPITAL. WE WERE LIVING DOWN HERE. 1458 01:12:00,149 --> 01:12:03,986 HE HAD HAD A HEART ATTACK. HE WAS IN THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. 1459 01:12:03,986 --> 01:12:06,864 I BROUGHT SOME FLOWERS FOR HIS NURSES. 1460 01:12:06,864 --> 01:12:09,533 HE SEEMED IN GOOD SPIRITS. 1461 01:12:09,533 --> 01:12:11,827 WHEN I HEARD THAT LARRY LEVENSON 1462 01:12:11,827 --> 01:12:15,998 DIED FROM A HEART ATTACK AND THAT HE'D BECOME A CAB DRIVER 1463 01:12:15,998 --> 01:12:19,460 I JUST THOUGHT, "WOW, THAT WAS JUST SO HARD TO RECONCILE 1464 01:12:19,460 --> 01:12:22,671 THAT THE KING OF PLATO'S RETREAT 1465 01:12:22,671 --> 01:12:26,425 COULD END UP LIKE A BROKEN-DOWN OLD HACK." 1466 01:12:26,425 --> 01:12:29,136 I JUST REMEMBER GETTING A PHONE CALL THAT LARRY'S PASSED AWAY. 1467 01:12:29,136 --> 01:12:32,639 I WAS PRETTY MISERABLE FOR QUITE A WHILE. IT WAS ONE OF THE ONES THAT REALLY HURT. 1468 01:12:51,784 --> 01:12:54,703 WHEN LARRY STARTED PLATO'S, 1469 01:12:54,703 --> 01:12:57,164 WE WERE STILL IN THAT PERIOD WHERE 1470 01:12:57,164 --> 01:13:00,042 SEX WASN'T JUST SEX AND PLEASURE, 1471 01:13:00,042 --> 01:13:02,628 IT WAS ALSO ABOUT KIND OF REVOLUTION, 1472 01:13:02,628 --> 01:13:04,421 A BREAKING WITH THE PAST. 1473 01:13:04,421 --> 01:13:08,592 I THINK THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LARRY AND MANY MEN IN OUR SOCIETY 1474 01:13:08,592 --> 01:13:12,012 AND CULTURE IS THAT LARRY DIDN'T HESITATE TO TALK ABOUT IT 1475 01:13:12,012 --> 01:13:14,598 AND TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT IT, HOW HE ACTUALLY FELT. 1476 01:13:14,598 --> 01:13:17,684 I WONDER HOW MANY MEN 1477 01:13:17,684 --> 01:13:21,688 HIDE HOW THEY REALLY FEEL ABOUT SEX. 1478 01:13:21,688 --> 01:13:24,817 OR HOW MANY MEN WOULD HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY 1479 01:13:24,817 --> 01:13:27,444 "I WANT TO DO THEM ALL"? 1480 01:13:27,444 --> 01:13:30,447 EVERY TIME I DRIVE BY THE CLUB, EVEN TO THIS DAY, 1481 01:13:30,447 --> 01:13:32,199 I STILL FEEL THE MAGIC. 1482 01:13:36,036 --> 01:13:38,247 LOOK AT IT, THE LIGHTS ARE STILL HERE. 1483 01:13:38,247 --> 01:13:40,582 OH, THERE'S DISCO LIGHTS OVER THERE. 1484 01:13:40,582 --> 01:13:42,334 THE SPRINKLER SYSTEM WAS HERE. 1485 01:13:44,211 --> 01:13:47,881 THERE'S OUR FAN, STILL UP THERE TO THIS DAY. 1486 01:13:47,881 --> 01:13:50,551 WHATEVER FRANKIE BUILT, IT'S STILL THERE. 1487 01:13:50,551 --> 01:13:54,138 SO... AMAZING. 1488 01:13:54,138 --> 01:13:56,432 Dodson: ONE THING ABOUT GETTING OLDER

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Because I’m black,” she said, after a moment, and sat at the table near him, “I know more about what happened to my brother than you can ever know. I watched it happen—from the beginning. I was there. He shouldn’t have ended up the way he did. That’s what’s been so hard for me to accept. He was a very beautiful boy. Most people aren’t beautiful, I knew that right away. I watched them, and I knew. But he didn’t because he was so much nicer than I.” She paused, and the silence grumbled with the sound of the frying pan and the steady sound of the rain. “He loved our father, for example. He really loved him. I didn’t. He was just a loudmouthed, broken-down man, who liked to get drunk and hang out in barber shops—well, maybe he didn’t like it but that was all he could find to do, except work like a dog, for nothing—and play the guitar on the week ends for his only son.” She paused again, smiling. “There was something very nice about those week ends, just the same. I can still see Daddy, his belly hanging out, strumming on that guitar and trying to teach Rufus some down-home song and Rufus grinning at him and making fun of him a little, really, but very nicely, and singing with him. I bet my father was never happier, all the days of his life, than when he was singing for Rufus. He’s got no one to sing to now. 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.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  The number ended and Ida stepped off the stand, wet and triumphant, the applause crashing about her ears like foam. She came to the table, looking at Vivaldo with a smile and a small, questioning frown, and, standing, took a sip of her drink. They called her back. The drummer reached down and lifted her, bodily, onto the stand, and the applause continued. Eric became aware of a shift in Vivaldo’s attention. He looked at Vivaldo’s face, which was stormier than ever, and followed his eyes. Vivaldo was looking at a short square man with curly hair and a boyish face who was standing at the end of the bar, looking up at Ida. He grinned and waved and Ida nodded and Vivaldo looked up at the stand again: with narrowed eyes and pursed lips, with an air of grim speculation. “Your girl friend’s got something,” Eric said. Vivaldo glanced over at him. “It runs in the family,” he said. His tone was not friendly; it was as though he suspected Eric of taunting him; and so referred, obliquely, to Rufus, with the intention of humbling Eric. Yet, in a moment he relented. “She’s going to be terrific,” he said, “and, Lord, I’m going to have to buy me a baseball bat to keep all the hungry cats away.” He grinned and looked again at the short man at the bar. Ida stepped up to the microphone. “This song is for my brother,” she said. She hesitated and looked over at Vivaldo. “He died just a little before Thanksgiving, last year.” There was a murmur in the room. Somebody said, “What did I tell you?”—triumphantly; there was a brief spatter of applause, presumably for the dead Rufus; and the drummer bowed his head and did an oddly irreverent riff on the rim of his drum: klook-a-klook, klook-klook, klook-klook! Ida sang: Precious Lord, take my hand, Lead me on, let me stand. Her eyes were closed and the dark head on the long dark neck was thrown back. Something appeared in her face which had not been there before, a kind of passionate, triumphant rage and agony. Now, her fine, sensual, free-moving body was utterly still, as though being held in readiness for a communion more total than flesh could bear; and a strange chill came into the room, along with a strange resentment. Ida did not know how great a performer she would have to become before she could dare expose her audience, as she now did, to her private fears and pain. After all, her brother had meant nothing to them, or had never meant to them what he had meant to her. They did not wish to witness her mourning, especially as they dimly suspected that this mourning contained an accusation of themselves—an accusation which their uneasiness justified. They endured her song, therefore, but they held themselves outside it; and yet, at the same time, the very arrogance and innocence of Ida’s offering compelled their admiration.

• From Another Country (1962)

  The snow which had been predicted for the day before Thanksgiving did not begin to fall until late in the evening—slow, halfhearted flakes, spinning and gleaming in the darkness, melting on the ground. All day long a cold sun glared down on Manhattan, giving no heat. Cass woke a little earlier than usual, and fed the children and sent them off to school. Richard ate his breakfast and retired into his study—he was not in a good mood. Cass cleaned the house, thinking of tomorrow’s dinner, and went out in the early afternoon to shop and to walk for a little while alone. She was gone longer than she had intended, for she loved to walk around this city. She was chilled when at last she started home. They lived just below Twenty-third Street, on the West Side, in a neighborhood that had lately acquired many Puerto Ricans. For this reason it was said that the neighborhood was declining; from what previous height it would have been hard to say. It seemed to Cass very much as it always had, run-down, and with a preponderance of very rough-looking people. As for the Puerto Ricans, she rather liked them. They did not impress her as being rough; they seemed, on the contrary, rather too gentle for their brutal environment. She liked the sound of their talk, soft and laughing, or else violently, clearly, brilliantly hostile; she liked the life in their eyes and the way they treated their children, as though all children were naturally the responsibility of all grownups. Even when the adolescents whistled after her, or said lewd things as she passed and laughed among themselves, she did not become resentful or afraid; she did not feel in it the tense New York hostility. They were not cursing something they longed for and feared, they were joking about something they longed for and loved. Now, as she labored up the outside steps of the building, one of the Puerto Rican boys she had seen everywhere in the neighborhood opened the door for her with a small, half-smile. She smiled at him and thanked him as forthrightly as she could, and stepped into the elevator. There was something in Richard’s face as he closed the door behind her, and in the loud silence of the apartment. She looked at him and started to ask about the children—but then she heard them in the living room. Richard followed her into the kitchen and she put down her packages. She looked into his face. “What is it?” she asked. Then, after the instant in which she checked off all the things it wasn’t, “Rufus,” she said, suddenly, “you’ve got news about Rufus.” “Yes.” She watched the way a small vein in his forehead fluttered. “He’s dead, Cass. They found his body floating in the river.” She sat down at the kitchen table. “When?” “Sometime this morning.” “How long—how long ago—?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  “I mean”—he was watching her; she sat down again, playing with the glass of whiskey—“a man meets a woman. And he needs her. But she uses this need against him, she uses it to undermine him. And it’s easy. Women don’t see men the way men want to be seen. They see all the tender places, all the places where blood could flow.” She finished the whiskey. “Do you see what I mean?” “No,” he said, frankly, “I don’t. I don’t believe all this female intuition shit. It’s something women have dreamed up.” “You can say that—and in such a tone!” She mimicked him: “Something women have dreamed up. But I can’t say that—what men have ‘dreamed up’ is all there is, the world they’ve dreamed up is the world.” He laughed. She subsided. “Well. It’s true.” “What a funny girl you are,” he said. “You’ve got a bad case of penis envy.” “So do most men,” she said, sharply, and he laughed. “All I meant, anyway,” she said, soberly, “is that I had to try to fit myself around you and not try to make you fit around me. That’s all. And it hasn’t been easy.” “No.” “No. Because I love you.” “Ah!” he said, and laughed aloud, “you are a funny girl. I love you, too, you know that.” “I hope you do,” she said. “You know me so well and you don’t know that? What happened to all that intuition, all that—specialized—point of view?” “Beyond a certain point,” she said, with a sullen smile, “it doesn’t seem to work so well.” He pulled her up from the table and put both arms around her, bending his cheek to her hair. “What point is that, my darling?” Everything, his breath in her hair, his arms, his chest, his odor—was familiar, confining, unutterably dear. She turned her head slightly to look out of the kitchen window. “Love,” she said, and watched the cold sunlight. She thought of the cold river and of the dead black boy, their friend. She closed her eyes. “Love,” she said, again, “love.” Richard stayed with the children Saturday, while Cass and Vivaldo went uptown to Rufus’ funeral. She did not want to go but she could not refuse Vivaldo, who knew that he had to be there but dreaded being there alone. It was a morning funeral, and Rufus was to be driven to the graveyard immediately afterward. Early on that cold, dry Saturday, Vivaldo arrived, emphatically in black and white: white shirt, black tie, black suit, black shoes, black coat; and black hair, eyes, and eyebrows, and a dead-white, bone-dry face. She was struck by his panic and sorrow; without a word, she put on her dark coat and put her hand in his; and they rode down in the elevator in silence. She watched him in the elevator mirror. Sorrow became him. He was reduced to his beauty and elegance—as bones, after a long illness, come forward through the flesh.

• From Another Country (1962)

  You were miserable then. We all wondered—I wondered—what would become of you. But you aren’t miserable now.” “No,” he said, and, under her scrutiny, blushed. “I’m not miserable any more. But I still don’t know what’s going to become of me.” “Growth,” she said, “is what will become of you. It’s what has become of you.” And she gave him again her oddly intimate, rueful smile. “It’s very nice to see, it’s very—enviable. I don’t envy many people. I haven’t found myself envying anyone for a long, long time.” “It’s mighty funny,” he said, “that you should envy me.” He rose from the sofa, and walked to the window. Behind him, beneath the mighty lament of the music, a heavy silence gathered: Cass, also, had something to talk about, but he did not want to know what it was. You can’t trust nobody, you might as well be alone. Staring out over the water, he asked, “What was Rufus like—near the end?” After a moment, he turned and looked at her. “I hadn’t meant to ask you that—but I guess I really want to know.” Her face, despite the softening bangs, grew spare and contemplative. Her lips twisted. “I told you a little of it,” she said, “in my letter. But I didn’t know how you felt by that time and I didn’t see any point in burdening you.” She put out her cigarette and lit another one. “He was very unhappy, as—as you know.” She paused. “Actually, we never got very close to him. Vivaldo knew him better than—than we did, anyway.” He felt a curious throb of jealousy: Vivaldo! “We didn’t see much of him. He became very involved with a Southern girl, a girl from Georgia—–” Found my long lost friend, and I might as well stayed at home! “You didn’t tell me that,” he said. “No. He wasn’t very nice to her. He beat her up a lot—–” He stared at her, feeling himself grow pale, remembering more than he wanted to remember, feeling his hope and his hope of safety threatened by invincible, unnamed forces within himself. He remembered Rufus’ face, his hands, his body, and his voice, and the constant humiliation. “Beat her up? What for?” “Well—who knows? Because she was Southern, because she was white. I don’t know. Because he was Rufus. It was very ugly. She was a nice girl, maybe a little pathetic—” “Did she like to be beaten up? I mean—did something in her like it, did she like to be—debased?” “No, I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. Well, maybe there’s something in everybody that likes to be debased, but I don’t think life’s that simple. I don’t trust all these formulas.” She paused. “To tell the truth, I think she probably loved Rufus, really loved him, and wanted Rufus to love her.” “How abnormal,” he said, “can you get!” He finished his drink.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Don’t you think that hurts me? You lock me out. And all I want is for you to be a part of me, for me to be a part of you. I wouldn’t give a damn if you were striped like a zebra.” She laughed. “Yes, you would, really. But you say the cutest things.” Then, “If I lock you out, as you put it, it’s mainly to protect you—” “Protect me from what? and I don’t want to be protected. Besides——” “Besides?” “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe that’s why. You want to protect yourself. You want to hate me because I’m white, because it’s easier for you that way.” “I don’t hate you.” “Then why do you always bring it up? What is it?” She stirred the rice, which was almost ready, found a collander, and placed it in the sink. Then she turned to face him. “This all began because I said that you people—” “Listen to yourself. You people!” “—didn’t know anything about Rufus—” “Because we’re white.” “No. Because he was black.” “Oh. I give up. And, anyway, why must we always end up talking about Rufus?” “I had started to tell you something,” she said, quietly; and watched him. He swallowed some more of his whiskey, and lit a cigarette. “True. Please go on.” “Because I’m black,” she said, after a moment, and sat at the table near him, “I know more about what happened to my brother than you can ever know. I watched it happen—from the beginning. I was there. He shouldn’t have ended up the way he did. That’s what’s been so hard for me to accept. He was a very beautiful boy. Most people aren’t beautiful, I knew that right away. I watched them, and I knew. But he didn’t because he was so much nicer than I.” She paused, and the silence grumbled with the sound of the frying pan and the steady sound of the rain. “He loved our father, for example. He really loved him. I didn’t. He was just a loudmouthed, broken-down man, who liked to get drunk and hang out in barber shops—well, maybe he didn’t like it but that was all he could find to do, except work like a dog, for nothing—and play the guitar on the week ends for his only son.” She paused again, smiling. “There was something very nice about those week ends, just the same. I can still see Daddy, his belly hanging out, strumming on that guitar and trying to teach Rufus some down-home song and Rufus grinning at him and making fun of him a little, really, but very nicely, and singing with him. I bet my father was never happier, all the days of his life, than when he was singing for Rufus. He’s got no one to sing to now.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Federigo, hearing what the lady asked and knowing that he could not oblige her, for that he had given her the falcon to eat, fell a-weeping in her presence, ere he could answer a word. The lady at first believed that his tears arose from grief at having to part from his good falcon and was like to say that she would not have it. However, she contained herself and awaited what Federigo should reply, who, after weeping awhile, made answer thus: 'Madam, since it pleased God that I should set my love on you, I have in many things reputed fortune contrary to me and have complained of her; but all the ill turns she hath done me have been a light matter in comparison with that which she doth me at this present and for which I can never more be reconciled to her, considering that you are come hither to my poor house, whereas you deigned not to come what while I was rich, and seek of me a little boon, the which she hath so wrought that I cannot grant you; and why this cannot be I will tell you briefly. When I heard that you, of your favour, were minded to dine with me, I deemed it a light thing and a seemly, having regard to your worth and the nobility of your station, to honour you, as far as in me lay, with some choicer victual than that which is commonly set before other folk; wherefore, remembering me of the falcon which you ask of me and of his excellence, I judged him a dish worthy of you. This very morning, then, you have had him roasted upon the trencher, and indeed I had accounted him excellently well bestowed; but now, seeing that you would fain have had him on other wise, it is so great a grief to me that I cannot oblige you therein that methinketh I shall never forgive myself therefor.' So saying, in witness of this, he let cast before her the falcon's feathers and feet and beak.

• 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.

• From Another Country (1962)

  What in the world did these songs mean to her? For he knew that she often sang them in order to flaunt before him privacies which he could never hope to penetrate and to convey accusations which he could never hope to decipher, much less deny. And yet, if he could enter this secret place, he would, by that act, be released forever from the power of her accusations. His presence in this strangest and grimmest of sanctuaries would prove his right to be there; in the same way that the prince, having outwitted all the dangers and slaughtered the lion, is ushered into the presence of his bride, the princess. I loves you, Porgy, don’t let him take me. Don’t let him handle me with his hot hands. To whom, to whom, did she sing this song? The blues fell down this morning. The blues my baby gave to me. Water trickled past his ear, onto his wrist. He did not move and the slow tears rolled from the corners of his eyes. “You’re groovy, too,” he heard Belle say. “For real?” “For real.” “Let’s try to make it to Spain. Let’s really try.” “I’ll get dressed up Monday, uptown style”—she giggled—“and I’ll get a job as receptionist somewhere. I hate it, it’s such a drag, but, that way, we can get away from here.” “Do that, baby. And I’ll get a job, too, I promise.” “You don’t have to promise.” “But I do.” He heard their kiss, it seemed light and loving and dry, and he envied them their deadly and unshakable innocence. “Let’s ball.” “Not here. Let’s go downstairs.” He heard Lorenzo’s laugh. “What’s the matter, you shy?” “No.” He heard a giggle and a whisper. “Let’s go down.” “They’re stoned out of their heads, they don’t care.” She giggled again. “Look at them.” He closed his eyes. He felt another weight on his chest, a hand, and he looked into Harold’s face. Terribly weary and lined and pale, and his hair was damp and curled on his forehead. And yet, beneath this spectacular fatigue, it was the face of a very young boy which stared at him. “How’re you doing?” “Great. It was great charge.” “I knew you’d dig it. I like you, man.” He was surprised and yet not surprised by the intensity in Harold’s eyes. But he could not bear it; he turned his face away; then he put the weight of Harold’s head on his chest. “Please, man,” he told him after a moment, “don’t bother. It’s not worth it, nothing will happen. It’s been too long.” “What’s been too long?”