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 The Decameron (1353)

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

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

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

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

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

  He accordingly sent for Griselda, and before a large number of people he said to her: ‘Woman, I have had a dispensation from the Pope, allowing me to leave you and take another wife. Since my ancestors were great noblemen and rulers of these lands, whereas yours have always been peasants, I intend that you shall no longer be my wife, but return to Giannùcole’s house with the dowry you brought me, after which I shall bring another lady here. I have already chosen her and she is far better suited to a man of my condition.’ On hearing these words, the lady, with an effort beyond the power of any normal woman’s nature, suppressed her tears and replied: ‘My lord, I have always known that my lowly condition was totally at odds with your nobility, and that it is to God and to yourself that I owe whatever standing I possess. Nor have I ever regarded this as a gift that I might keep and cherish as my own, but rather as something I have borrowed; and now that you want me to return it, I must give it back to you with good grace. Here is the ring with which you married me: take it. As to your ordering me to take away the dowry that I brought, you will require no accountant, nor will I need a purse or a pack-horse, for this to be done. For it has not escaped my memory that you took me naked as on the day I was born. 6 If you think it proper that the body in which I have borne your children should be seen by all the people, I shall go away naked. But in return for my virginity, which I brought to you and cannot retrieve, I trust you will at least allow me, in addition to my dowry, to take one shift away with me.’ Gualtieri wanted above all else to burst into tears, but maintaining a stern expression he said: ‘Very well, you may take a shift.’ All the people present implored Gualtieri to let her have a dress, so that she who had been his wife for thirteen years and more would not have to suffer the indignity of leaving his house in a shift, like a pauper; but their pleas were unavailing. And so Griselda, wearing a shift, barefoot, and with nothing to cover her head, having bidden them farewell, set forth from Gualtieri’s house and returned to her father amid the weeping and the wailing of all who set eyes upon her. Giannùcole, who had never thought it possible that Gualtieri would keep his daughter as his wife, and was daily expecting this to happen, had preserved the clothes she discarded on the morning Gualtieri had married her. So he brought them to her, and Griselda, having put them on, applied herself as before to the menial chores in her father’s house, bravely enduring the cruel assault of hostile Fortune.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Having proclaimed who they were and discovered what it was that their attackers were demanding, the Saracens asserted that what they were doing was in breach of the royal pledge, the granting of which they confirmed by displaying King William’s glove. At the same time, they made it perfectly clear that they would neither surrender nor give anything away without a fight. Gerbino, who had caught sight of the lady as she stood on the ship’s poop, looking infinitely more beautiful than he had pictured her, grew more inflamed with passion than ever before, and when the glove was produced he retorted that since there were no falcons around at that particular moment, the glove was superfluous, adding that if they refused to hand over the lady, they had better look to their weapons. Hostilities commenced without further ado, each side raining arrows and stones upon the other, and in this manner they fought for a long time, doing one another a fair amount of damage. In the end, finding that he was making little headway, Gerbino lowered a small boat that they had picked up in Sardinia, set it on fire, and manoeuvred it into a position alongside the ship with the aid of both of his galleys. Perceiving this, and knowing they were faced with the alternative of being roasted alive or surrendering, the Saracens brought the King’s daughter up on deck from her cabin, where she had been giving vent to copious tears, and led her to the ship’s prow. And having called upon Gerbino to witness the deed, they slaughtered her before his very eyes, whilst all the time she was screaming for help and pleading for mercy. They then cast her body into the sea with the words: ‘Take her thus, for we are left with no choice but to let you have her in the form your treachery deserves.’ Upon seeing this act of cruelty, Gerbino seemed to abandon every instinct of self-preservation and edged right alongside the ship, oblivious to stones or arrows. Clambering aboard in defiance of impossible odds, he started laying about him with his sword, cutting down Saracens without mercy on all sides, as though he were a starving lion falling upon a herd of young bullocks and tearing and ripping them apart one after another, intent on appeasing its anger rather than its hunger. By now the fire was spreading rapidly through the ship, and having dispatched a large number of his opponents, Gerbino got his seamen to salvage all they could in return for their services and then abandoned ship, having gained a victory that was anything but rewarding. He then saw to the recovery from the sea of the fair lady’s body, which he mourned over at length, shedding a great many tears. And on returning to Sicily he had it honourably buried on the tiny island of Ustica, which is almost opposite Trapani, whence he returned home sadder than any other man on earth.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Although we don’t have the language for it, many of us sense traumatic injury at the soul level. Rod Steiger, in a poignant interview with Oprah Winfrey, describes his decades-long depression that started after he had surgery: “I began going slowly into a greasy, yellow, jelly fog that permeated into my body...into my heart, my spirit, and my soul...It took me over, robbing me of my life.” In shamanistic medicine, since disease is attributed to the soul having strayed, been stolen, or otherwise dislocated, treatments attempt to capture it or “oblige it to resume its place in the patient’s body.” Only the shaman, according to Eliade, “sees” the spirits and knows how to exorcise them. “Only he recognizes that the soul has fled and only he is able to overtake it in ecstasy and return it to its body.” In nearly all of the “soul retrievals” described by Eliade, shamans heal their patients by interceding in the spirit realm. He describes a Toleut shaman calling back the soul of a sick child: “Come back to your country; to your peopl e ... to the Yurt, by the bright fire ! ... Come back to your fathe r ... to your mothe r ... ” [6] A crucial parameter in the healing of trauma is reflected in this simple poetry. The welcoming support of friends, relatives, familie s , or tribal members is needed to coax the spirit back into the traumatized body. This event is often ritualized and experienced as a group celebration. Shamanism recognizes that deep interconnection, support, and social cohesion are necessary requirements in the healing of trauma. Each of us must take the responsibility for healing our own traumatic injuries. We must do this for ourselves, for our families, and for the society at large. In acknowledging our need for connection with one another, we must enlist the support of our communities in this recovery process. Physicians and mental health workers today don’t speak of retrieving souls, but they are faced with a similar tas k restoring wholeness to an organism that has been fragmented by trauma. Shamanistic concepts and procedures treat trauma by uniting lost soul and body in the presence of community. This approach is alien to the technological mind. However, these procedures do seem to succeed where conventional Western approaches fail. My conclusion is that significant aspects of shamanic practice are valid. When it comes to trauma, we have much to learn from the ways these traditional people practice their medicine. After the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, it was those families (often from Third World countries) who camped, ate, and played together that fared better than many middle-class families.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She got up. No good in trying to sleep, those eternal questions kept stifling, tormenting. Dressing quickly she stole down the wide, shallow stairs to the garden door, then out into the garden. The garden looked unfamiliar in the sunrise, like a well-known face that is suddenly transfigured. There was something aloof and awesome about it, as though it were lost in ecstatic devotion. She tried to tread softly for she felt apologetic, she and her troubles were there as intruders; their presence disturbed this strange hush of communion, this oneness with something beyond their knowledge, that was yet known and loved by the soul of the garden. A mysterious and wonderful thing this oneness, pregnant with comfort could she know its true meaning—she felt this somewhere deep down in herself, but try as she would her mind could not grasp it; perhaps even the garden was shutting her out of its prayers, because she had sent away Martin. Then a thrush began to sing in the cedar, and his song was full of wild jubilation: ‘Stephen, look at me, look at me!’ sang the thrush, ‘I’m happy, happy, it’s all very simple!’ There was something heartless about that singing which only served to remind her of Martin. She walked on disconsolate, thinking deeply. He had gone, he would soon be back in his forests—she had made no effort to keep him beside her because he had wanted to be her lover. . . . ‘Stephen, look at us, look at us!’ sang the birds, ‘We’re happy, happy, it’s all very simple!’ Martin walking in dim, green places—she could picture his life away in the forests, a man’s life, good with the goodness of danger, a primitive, strong, imperative thing—a man’s life, the life that should have been hers—And her eyes filled with heavy, regretful tears, yet she did not quite know for what she was weeping. She only knew that some great sense of loss, some great sense of incompleteness possessed her, and she let the tears trickle down her face, wiping them off one by one with her finger.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  All the people present implored Gualtieri to let her have a dress, so that she who had been his wife for thirteen years and more would not have to suffer the indignity of leaving his house in a shift, like a pauper; but their pleas were unavailing. And so Griselda, wearing a shift, barefoot, and with nothing to cover her head, having bidden them farewell, set forth from Gualtieri’s house and returned to her father amid the weeping and the wailing of all who set eyes upon her. Giannùcole, who had never thought it possible that Gualtieri would keep his daughter as his wife, and was daily expecting this to happen, had preserved the clothes she discarded on the morning Gualtieri had married her. So he brought them to her, and Griselda, having put them on, applied herself as before to the menial chores in her father’s house, bravely enduring the cruel assault of hostile Fortune. No sooner did Gualtieri drive Griselda away, than he gave his subjects to understand that he was betrothed to a daughter of one of the Counts of Panago.7 And having ordered that grandiose preparations were to be made for the nuptials, he sent for Griselda and said to her: ‘I am about to fetch home this new bride of mine, and from the moment she sets foot inside the house, I intend to accord her an honourable welcome. As you know, I have no women here who can set the rooms in order for me, or attend to many of the things that a festive occasion of this sort requires. No one knows better than you how to handle these household affairs, so I want you to make all the necessary arrangements. Invite all the ladies you need, and receive them as though you were mistress of the house. And when the nuptials are over, you can go back home to your father.’ Since Griselda was unable to lay aside her love for Gualtieri as readily as she had dispensed with her good fortune, his words pierced her heart like so many knives. But she replied: ‘My lord, I am ready to do as you ask.’8 And so, in her coarse, thick, woollen garments, Griselda returned to the house she had quitted shortly before in her shift, and started to sweep and tidy the various chambers. On her instructions, the beds were draped with hangings, the benches in the halls were suitably adorned, the kitchen was made ready; and she set her hand, as though she were a petty serving wench, to every conceivable household task, never stopping to draw breath until she had everything prepared and arranged as befitted the occasion.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Their outward existence seemed calm and unruffled; so far nothing had disturbed the outward peace of Morton. But their child saw their hearts with the eyes of the spirit; flesh of their flesh, she had sprung from their hearts, and she knew that those hearts were heavy. They said nothing, but she sensed that some deep, secret trouble was afflicting them both; she could see it in their eyes. In the words that they left unspoken she could hear it—it would be there, filling the small gaps of silence. She thought that she discerned it in her father’s slow movements—surely his movements had grown slower of late? And his hair was quite grey; it was quite grey all over. She realized this with a slight shock one morning as he sat in the sunlight—it had used to look auburn in the nape of his neck when the sun fell upon it—and now it was dull grey all over. But this mattered little. Even their trouble mattered little in comparison with something more vital, with their love—that, she felt, was the only thing that mattered, and that was the thing that now stood most in danger. This love of theirs had been a great glory; all her life she had lived with it side by side, but never until it appeared to be threatened, did she feel that she had really grasped its true meaning—the serene and beautiful spirit of Morton clothed in flesh, yes, that had been its true meaning. Yet that had been only part of its meaning for her, it had meant something greater than Morton, it had stood for the symbol of perfect fulfilment—she remembered that even as a very small child she had vaguely discerned that perfect fulfilment. This love had been glowing like a great friendly beacon, a thing that was steadfast and very reassuring. All unconscious, she must often have warmed herself at it, must have thawed out her doubts and her vague misgivings. It had always been their love, the one for the other; she knew this, and yet it had been her beacon. But now those flames were no longer steadfast; something had dared to blemish their brightness. She longed to leap up in her youth and strength and cast this thing out of her holy of holies. The fire must not die and leave her in darkness.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Genoa with all their captives. When the spoils were divided between the owners of the galley, it turned out that Madonna Beritola’s nurse and the two children were assigned, along with a quantity of goods, to a certain Messer Guasparrino d’Oria, 6 who sent the woman and the two boys to his house with the intention of employing them as slaves on household duties. Being exceedingly distressed by the loss of her mistress and by the sorry state to which she saw herself and the two children reduced, the nurse wept over and over again. But she was a sensible and prudent woman despite her lowly station in life, and once she had realized that her tears were not going to help in freeing them all from slavery, she did all she could to comfort the children. Considering where they were, she thought it quite possible that the two boys would be molested if their identity were discovered. And moreover, she was hoping that sooner or later their luck would change, in which case, provided they were still alive, the children might regain the positions of honour they had lost. So she resolved not to tell anybody who they were until a suitable occasion presented itself, and meanwhile, whenever she was questioned on the matter, she would claim that the children were her own. Renaming the older boy Giannotto di Procida instead of Giusfredi and leaving the younger boy’s name unaltered, she explained very carefully to Giusfredi why she had changed his name and how dangerous it might be for him if he were recognized. And she drummed this into him so often and with so much persistence, that, being an intelligent boy, he followed the instructions of his wise nurse to the letter. And so the two boys and their nurse, badly clothed and worse shod, continued for many years in Messer Guasparrino’s house, patiently performing all the most menial tasks it is possible to imagine. But Giannotto was made of sterner stuff than slaves are made of, and by the time he was sixteen the baseness of a servile existence had become so repugnant to him that he abandoned Messer Guasparrino’s household and enlisted as a seaman on galleys plying between Genoa and Alexandria, after which he travelled far and wide without however finding a single opportunity for advancement. Finally, when he had almost lost hope of a change of fortune, his wanderings led him to Lunigiana, where he chanced to enter the service of Currado Malespina, whom he attended, to the latter’s no small satisfaction, with considerable efficiency. It was now some three or four years since his departure from Messer Guasparrino’s and he had grown into a well-built, handsome young man. He had meanwhile heard that his father, whom he had supposed to be dead, was still alive, but languishing under heavy guard in one of King Charles’s dungeons.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As we have almost grown tired of repeating, the woman had the body of an angel and a temperament to match, and the two young masters of the vessel fell so violently in love with her that they could concentrate on nothing else except how best they might make themselves useful and agreeable to her, at the same time taking care not to let Marato see what they were up to. On discovering that they were both in love with the same woman, they talked the matter over in secret and agreed to make the lady’s conquest a mutual affair, as though love were capable of being shared out like merchandise or profits. For some time their plans were thwarted because they found that Marato kept a close watch on her. But one day, when the ship was sailing along like the wind and Marato was standing on the stern facing seaward without the least suspicion of their intentions, they both crept up on him, seized him quickly from behind, and hurled him into the sea. By the time anybody so much as noticed that Marato had fallen overboard, they had already sailed on for over a mile, and the lady, hearing what had happened and seeing no way of going to his rescue, began to fill the whole ship with the sounds of her latest affliction. The two gallants immediately rushed to her assistance, and with the aid of honeyed words and extravagant promises, few of which she understood, they attempted to pacify her. What she was bemoaning was not so much the loss of Marato as her own sorry plight, and so after she had listened to a stream of fine talk, repeated twice over, she seemed considerably less distraught. The two brothers then got down to a private discussion to decide which of them was to take her off to bed. Each man claimed priority over the other, and having failed to reach any agreement on the matter they began to argue fiercely between themselves. Nor did their quarrel stop with the exchange of verbal abuse. Losing their tempers, they reached for their knives and hurled themselves furiously upon one another, and before the ship’s crew could separate the pair, they had both inflicted a number of stab-wounds, from which one man died instantly whilst the other emerged with serious injuries to various parts of his body. The lady was sorely distressed by all this, for she could see that she was now alone on the ship with nobody to turn to for help or advice, and she was greatly afraid lest the relatives and companions of the two men should vent their rage upon her. However, partly because of the injured man’s pleas on her behalf, partly because they soon arrived at Corinth, the danger to her person was short-lived.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  At the police station, the officer who looked up the man’s record discovered that he had committed six other so-called “armed robberies” over the past fifteen year s, all of them at 6:30 in the morning on July 5! Upon learning that the man was a Vietnam veteran, the police surmised that this event was more than mere coincidence. They took him to a nearby VA hospital, where Dr. Van der Kolk had the opportunity to speak with him. Van der Kolk asked the man directly: “What happened to you on July 5th at 6:30 in the morning?” He responded directly. While he was in Vietnam, the man’s platoon had been ambushed by the Viet Cong. Everyone had been killed except for himself and his friend, Jim. The date was July fourth. Darkness fell and the helicopters were unable to evacuate them. They spent a terrifying night together huddled in a rice paddy surrounded by the Viet Cong. At about 3:30 in the morning, Jim was hit in the chest by a Viet Cong bullet; he died in his friend’s arms at 6:30 on the morning of July 5. After returning to the States, every July 5 (that he did not spend in jail), the man had re-enacted the anniversary of his friend’s death. In the therapy session with Van der Kolk, the vet experienced grief over the loss of his friend. He then made the connection between Jim’s death and the compulsion he felt to commit the robberies. Once he became aware of his feelings and the role the original event had played in driving his compulsion, the man was able to stop re-enacting this tragic incident. What was the connection between the robberies and the Vietnam experience? By staging the “robberies,” the man was recreating the firefight that had resulted in the death of his friend (as well as the rest of his platoon). By provoking the police to join in the re-enactment, the vet had orchestrated the cast of characters needed to play the role of the Viet Cong. He did not want to hurt anyone, so he used his fingers instead of a gun. He then brought the situation to a climax and was able to elicit the help he needed to heal his psychic wounds. He was then able to resolve his anguish, grief, and guilt about his buddy’s violent death and the horrors of war. If we look at this man’s behaviors without knowing anything about his past, we might think he was mad. However, with a little history, we can see that his actions were a brilliant attempt to resolve a deep emotional scar. His re-enactment took him to the very edge, again and again, until he was finally able to free himself from the overwhelming nightmare of war.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And Raftery stood there looking at Stephen, and his eyes were as soft as an Irish morning, yet as brave as the eyes that looked into his. Then it seemed to Stephen that he had spoken, that Raftery had said: ‘Since to me you are God, what have I to forgive you, Stephen?’ She took a step forward and pressed the revolver high up against Raftery’s smooth, grey forehead. She fired, and he dropped to the ground like a stone, lying perfectly still by the mighty hedge that had set the seal on his youthful valour. But now there broke out a great crying and wailing: ‘Oh, me! Oh, me! They’ve been murderin’ Raftery! Shame, shame, I says, on the ‘and what done it, and ‘im no common horse but a Christian. . . .’ Then loud sobbing as though some very young child had fallen down and hurt itself badly. And there in a small, creaky, wicker bath-chair sat Williams, being bumped along over the paddock by a youthful niece, who had come to Morton to take care of the old and now feeble couple; for Williams had had his first stroke that Christmas, in addition to which he was almost childish. God only knew who had told him this thing; the secret had been very carefully guarded by Stephen, who, knowing his love for the horse, had taken every precaution to spare him. Yet now here he was with his face all twisted by the stroke and the sobs that kept on rising. He was trying to lift his half-paralysed hand which kept dropping back on to the arm of the bath-chair; he was trying to get out of the bath-chair and run to where Raftery lay stretched out in the sunshine; he was trying to speak again, but his voice had grown thick so that no one could understand him. Stephen thought that his mind had begun to wander, for now he was surely not screaming ‘Raftery’ any more, but something that sounded like: ‘Master!’ and again, ‘Oh, Master, Master!’ She said: ‘Take him home,’ for he did not know her; ‘take him home. You’d no business to bring him here at all—it’s against my orders. Who told him about it?’ And the young girl answered: ‘It seemed ’e just knowed—it was like as though Raftery told ’im. . . .’ Williams looked up with his blurred, anxious eyes. ‘Who be you?’ he inquired. Then he suddenly smiled through his tears. ‘It be good to be seein’ you, Master—seems like a long while. . . .’ His voice was now clear but exceedingly small, a small, far away thing. If a doll had spoken, its voice might have sounded very much as the old man’s did at that moment.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  2During those long, anxious weeks in Cornwall, it was borne in on Stephen as never before how wide was the gulf between her and her mother, how completely they two must always stand divided. Yet looking at Anna’s quiet ageing face, the girl would be struck afresh by its beauty, a beauty that seemed to have mollified the years, to have risen triumphant over time and grief. And now as in the days of her childhood, that beauty would fill her with a kind of wonder; so calm it was, so assured, so complete—then her mother’s deep eyes, blue like distant mountains, and now with that far-away look in their blueness, as though they were gazing into the distance. Stephen’s heart would suddenly tighten a little; a sense of great loss would descend upon her, together with the sense of not fully understanding just what she had lost or why she had lost it—she would stare at Anna as a thirsty traveller in the desert will stare at a mirage of water. And one evening there came a preposterous impulse—the impulse to confide in this woman within whose most gracious and perfect body her own anxious body had lain and quickened. She wanted to speak to that motherhood, to implore, nay, compel its understanding. To say: ‘Mother, I need you. I’ve lost my way—give me your hand to hold in the darkness.’ But good God, the folly, the madness of it! The base betrayal of such a confession! Angela delivered over, betrayed—the unthinkable folly, the madness of it. Yet sometimes as Anna and she sat together looking out at the misty Cornish coast-line, hearing the dull, heavy throb of the sea and the calling of sea-gulls the one to the other—as they sat there together it would seem to Stephen that her heart was so full of Angela Crossby, all the bitterness, all the sweetness of her, that the mother-heart beating close by her own must surely, in its turn, be stirred to beat faster, for had she not once sheltered under that heart? And so extreme was her need becoming, that now she must often find Anna’s cool hand and hold it a moment or two in her own, trying to draw from it some consolation.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  117 The Valley of Dry Bones • We have not recovered carved images of siege and deportation from Babylonia like the ones found in abundance from the palaces of the Assyrians. Still, the devastation that Judean exiles would have witnessed as they were marched from their cities would be similar to that depicted by the Assyrians. o Piles of corpses, many dismembered and mutilated, would be scattered in the streets, on the city walls, and outside the city. o Not being able to bury their loved ones would have added to the experience of trauma and loss the exiles experienced as they were led out of their devastated cities. o Thus, it is not surprising that Ezekiel focuses on issues of inability to mourn, inability to speak, and inability to bury one’s dead. • Throughout the Bible, the lack of a proper burial constitutes a curse and a punishment. In the book of Deuteronomy, one of the curses that will befall anyone who does not obey the statutes of the covenant involves military conquest and death without burial (Deut. 28:26). Deuteronomy describes a scene that would have been similar to what the Judeans confronted as they marched out of their fallen cities. • To understand how the exiles would have felt leaving their dead unburied, we need to know something about Judean burial practices during normal times and the beliefs concerning an afterlife. o Ancient Israelites and Judeans did not have a concept of heaven and hell. Instead, those who died were thought to be in a kind of sleep. The place for the dead was called Sheol, but this was not an active place like heaven or hell. It was imagined as an underworld, often called “the pit.” o People were buried in family tombs, usually caves, that were laid out in a similar manner to the pillared houses. Burials were often a two-staged process. In the first stage, the corpse was

• From The Decameron (1353)

  For a long time now, the fair lady had been a plaything in the hands of Fortune, but the moment was approaching when her trials would be over. When she espied Antigono, she recalled having seen him in Alexandria, where he once occupied a position of some importance in her father’s service. Knowing that her merchant was away, and being suddenly filled with the hope that there might be some possibility of returning once more to her regal status with the help of this man’s advice, she sent for him at the earliest opportunity. When he called upon her, she shyly asked whether she was right in thinking him to be Antigono of Famagusta. Antigono said that he was, adding: ‘I have an idea, ma’am, that I have seen you before, but I cannot for the life of me remember where. Pray be good enough, therefore, if you have no objection, to remind me who you are.’ On hearing that this was indeed the man she had assumed him to be, the lady burst into tears and threw her arms round his neck, and presently she asked her highly astonished visitor whether he had ever seen her in Alexandria. No sooner had she put the question than Antigono recognized her as the Sultan’s daughter Alatiel, whom everybody believed to be drowned at sea, and he prepared to make her the ceremonial bow that was her due. But she would not allow this and asked him instead to come and sit down with her for a while. Complying, Antigono asked her in reverential tones how, when and whence she had come to Cyprus, and told her that the whole Egyptian nation had been convinced, for many years, that she had been drowned at sea. ‘I wish to goodness they were right,’ said the lady, ‘and I think my father would share my opinion if he were ever to discover the sort of life I have led.’ And so saying, she started crying prodigiously all over again, whereupon Antigono said to her: ‘My lady, it is too soon for you to go upsetting yourself like this. Tell me about your misfortunes, if you like, and about the life you have been living. Possibly we shall find that the point has been reached where we shall be able, with God’s help, to devise some happy outcome to your dilemma.’ ‘Antigono,’ the fair lady replied, ‘the other day, when I first saw you, it was as if I was seeing my own father. Prompted by the love and tenderness that I have an obligation to bear him, I revealed my presence to you, when I could have remained concealed. Yours is the first familiar face I have encountered for many years, and there are few people I could possibly be so contented to see. To you, therefore, as though you were my father, I shall reveal the story of my appalling misfortunes, which I have never related to anyone before.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And in thanking him for the last time, I bid you tell him how grateful I was for so priceless a gift.’ Then she turned to the chalice, which she was holding firmly in her two hands, and gazing down upon Guiscardo’s heart, she said: ‘Ah! dear, sweet vessel of all my joys, cursed be the cruelty of him who has compelled me to see you with the eyes of my body, when it was enough that I should keep you constantly in the eyes of my mind! Your life has run the brief course allotted to it by Fortune, you have reached the end to which all men hasten, and in leaving behind the trials and tribulations of our mortal life, you have received at the hands of your enemy a burial worthy of your excellence. Your funeral rites lacked nothing but the tears of the woman you loved so dearly; but so that you should not be without them, God impelled my pitiless father to send you to me, and I shall cry for you even though I had resolved to die with tearless eyes and features unclouded by fear. And the instant my tears are finished I shall see that my soul is united with that other soul which you kept in your loving care. How could I wish for a better or surer companion as I set forth towards the unknown? I feel certain that his soul still lingers here within you, waiting for mine and surveying the scenes of our mutual happiness, and that our love for one another is as deep and enduring as ever.’ She said no more, but leaned over the chalice, suppressing all sound of womanly grief, and began to cry in a fashion wondrous to behold, her tears gushing forth like water from a fountain; and she implanted countless kisses upon the lifeless heart. Her ladies-in-waiting, by whom she was surrounded, were at a loss to know what heart this was, nor were they able to make any sense of her words, but they too began to cry in unison, being filled with compassion for their mistress. They pleaded with her to explain why she was weeping, but to no avail; and for all their strenuous efforts, they were unable to console her. But when she had cried as much as she deemed sufficient, she raised her head from the chalice, and after drying her eyes, she said: ‘Oh, heart that I love so dearly, now that I have fully discharged my duties towards you, all that remains to be done is to bring my soul and unite it with yours.’ Having pronounced these words, she called for the phial containing the potion she had prepared on the previous day, and, pouring it into the chalice, where the heart lay bathed in her own abundant tears, she raised the mixture to her lips without any show of fear and drank it.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  125 Life in Judah • Although the Bible suggests that the stay-at-home population was small and insignificant, several pieces of evidence point to a more robust presence left in Judah. Several Judean cities and villages, for example, show no evidence of destruction or a break in habitation during the time of exile. Apparently, these cities were not important enough to merit conquest or deportation. • The book of Lamentations preserves the experience of trauma for those who remained in or near the ruins of Jerusalem in the immediate aftermath of the conquest (Lam. 2:10–11). Elsewhere in the Bible, those who remained in Judah are described as “the poorest of the land”; their purpose was to keep the vineyards, orchards, and fields producing in the absence of the landowners. • Ezekiel contrasts the “whole house of Israel” (those who are in exile) with another group that he labels the “inhabitants of Jerusalem.” From the perspective of this latter group, the exiles are those who are “far from the Lord”; thus, they claim that the land has been given to them (Ezek. 11:15). o Although Ezekiel was against this group in Judah that had claimed the land, Jeremiah saw land redistribution as part of the Babylonian imperial policy (Jer. 39:10). o Some of those who remained in the land during the Babylonian conquest may have seen their own economic situations improve. • Beyond the years immediately following the conquest of Jerusalem, we have no written records to help us know how those in the land adjusted to the new situation. What we do know is that when the Judean exiles from Babylonia began to return to Judah in the late 6 th century, they found an organized Judean population that had been offering sacrifices on the ruined temple mount during their absence.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  146 Lecture 20: The New Israel—Resettling the Land • The multiple waves of returning exiles clearly upset the balance of power that had existed in Judah for more than 50 years. o The “people of the land” were likely the Judeans who did not go into exile: the poor, the commoners, and the illiterate. They had made a life for themselves on the land, and in some cases, on the specific land plots that had once been the family inheritance of those who were in exile. o Those “Yahweh worshipers” that Ezra labels “opponents of Benjamin and Judah” could be Israelites from the north who had fled south to Judah to live. o There also would have been many foreign groups living in Judah and in territories that may at one time have been part of Judah. o The returnees themselves clearly represented a threat to those who were already in the land. And for the returnees, those in the land represented an obstacle to creating a purified, restored, temple-centered community worthy of the covenant with their god. Intermarriage • It is in the context of a reconstituted Judah that Ezra and Nehemiah raise the issue of intermarriage with foreigners. • Ezra is described as coming from a priestly family and as “a scribe skilled in the law of Moses” (Ezra 7:6). He claims imperial authority to require the observance of the “law of the God of heaven,” a law that is later clarified as the “law of Moses.” o When Ezra arrives in Judah, probably around 458, he learns that “the holy race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands” (Ezra 9:1–2). The “holy race” or “people of Israel” probably refers to the community of returnees, who had been back in Judah for about 50 years. o Ezra prays for this preserved remnant from exile, asking forgiveness for the sin of intermarrying with foreigners. The

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen, recovering from the merciful numbness of shock and facing her first deep sorrow, stood utterly confounded, as a child will stand who is lost in a crowd, having somehow let go of the hand that has always guided. Thinking of her father, she realized how greatly she had leant on that man of deep kindness, how sure she had felt of his constant protection, how much she had taken that protection for granted. And so together with her constant grieving, with the ache for his presence that never left her, came the knowledge of what real loneliness felt like. She would marvel, remembering how often in his lifetime she had thought herself lonely, when by stretching out a finger she could touch him, when by speaking she could hear his voice, when by raising her eyes she could see him before her. And now also she knew the desolation of small things, the power to give infinite pain that lies hidden in the little inanimate objects that persist, in a book, in a well-worn garment, in a half-finished letter, in a favourite arm-chair. She thought: ‘They go on—they mean nothing at all, and yet they go on,’ and the handling of them was anguish, and yet she must always touch them. ‘How queer, this old arm-chair has outlived him, an old chair—’ And feeling the creases in its leather, the dent in its back where her father’s head had lain, she would hate the inanimate thing for surviving, or perhaps she would love it and find herself weeping. Morton had become a place of remembering that closed round her and held her in its grip of remembrance. It was pain, yet now more than ever she adored it, every stone, every blade of grass in its meadows. She fancied that it too grieved for her father and was turning to her for comfort. Because of Morton the days must go on, all their trifling tasks must be duly accomplished. At times she might wonder that this should be so, might be filled with a fleeting sense of resentment, but then she would think of her home as a creature dependent upon her and her mother for its needs, and the sense of resentment would vanish. Very gravely she listened to the lawyer from London. ‘The place goes to your mother for her lifetime,’ he told her; ‘on her death, of course, it becomes yours, Miss Gordon. But your father made a separate provision; when you’re twenty-one, in about two years time, you’ll inherit quite a considerable income.’ She said: ‘Will that leave enough money for Morton?’ ‘More than enough,’ he reassured her, smiling.