Grief

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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

  “Isn’t that enough for you to change my number?” I asked the operator, breathless and flushed. I felt like the butt of the joke, as when Anaïs and the two businessmen in the Mexican café had exchanged smirks over my inexperience. Putting down the receiver, I asked Anaïs, “How do you know all those dirty things to say?” “Oh, I’ve had my own dealings with the phone company. You have to make it sound terrrible or they won’t change the number.” She shrugged. “And I wrote pornography for a wealthy collector when all the artists in the Village were doing it. The old man always wanted more of the rough stuff. Would you like more tea?” I hadn’t touched my now very brown tea. I took the Lipton’s bag out of the cup and took a sip. We sat in silence until I said, “Once they change my number, how will Hugo get in touch with you?” “Never mind.” She rubbed her forehead with her manicured fingers. “There are other people I can trust.” It took a moment before I noticed my stomach had clenched from the stab wound. She meant she’d replace me and wouldn’t need me anymore. “If there’s anything else I can do for you,” I offered, hoping to hold onto my apprentice position. “I can still help with your writing and correspondence.” She nodded. “There may be something.” Her eyebrows furled in thought. “I’m still conceptualizing this.” She studied me for awhile. “If you are going to help, you have to know what happened.” “When Rupert called you at Hugo’s?” “That, but there’s so much more. So much has changed.” CHAPTER 20 Greenwich Village, New York, 1964 ANAÏS WHEN ANAÏS RETURNED TO CONVINCE Hugo that the rest ranch hadn’t been a lie, she found the situation to be worse than she’d feared. Hugo had taken a mistress, a Haitian-born dancer he’d met at his modern dance class. Driven by jealousy, Anaïs snuck into the back of the theater where the dancers rehearsed and observed Hugo and his mistress gyrating to wild drums. From the communication of their hips, Anaïs imagined that Hugo had, at last, found a woman attuned to his frenzied rhythms, and she panicked. Needing to speak to someone, she phoned Renate. Ronnie picked up, but Anaïs heard Renate wailing. Between Renate’s heaving sobs and Ronnie’s attempts to explain, she finally made out that Renate had found her son unconscious on the living room floor and could not revive him. Peter was dead from a heroin overdose. Renate had had no idea that Peter had been using drugs and blamed herself. Anaïs wanted to return to Los Angeles immediately, but Ronnie insisted that Renate, distraught with grief and guilt, would not see anyone.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But if you had ever had any children to make you appreciate the power of parental love, I should think it certain that you would to some extent forgive me. ‘However, the fact that you have no children of your own does not exempt me, a mother, from the laws common to all other mothers. And being bound to obey those laws, I am forced, contrary to my own wishes and to all the rules of decorum and propriety, to ask you for something to which I know you are very deeply attached – which is only natural, seeing that it is the only consolation, the only pleasure, the only recreation remaining to you in your present extremity of fortune. The gift I am seeking is your falcon, to which my son has taken so powerful a liking, that if I fail to take it to him I fear he will succumb to the illness from which he is suffering, and consequently I shall lose him. In imploring you to give me this falcon, I appeal, not to your love, for you are under no obligation to me on that account, but rather to your noble heart, whereby you have proved yourself superior to all others in the practice of courtesy. Do me this favour, then, so that I may claim that through your generosity I have saved my son’s life, thus placing him forever in your debt.’ When he heard what it was that she wanted, and realized that he could not oblige her because he had given her the falcon to eat, Federigo burst into tears in her presence before being able to utter a single word in reply. At first the lady thought his tears stemmed more from his grief at having to part with his fine falcon than from any other motive, and was on the point of telling him that she would prefer not to have it. But on second thoughts she said nothing, and waited for Federigo to stop crying and give her his answer, which eventually he did. ‘My lady,’ he said, ‘ever since God decreed that you should become the object of my love, I have repeatedly had cause to complain of Fortune’s hostility towards me. But all her previous blows were slight by comparison with the one she has dealt me now. Nor shall I ever be able to forgive her, when I reflect that you have come to my poor dwelling, which you never deigned to visit when it was rich, and that you desire from me a trifling favour which she has made it impossible for me to concede. The reason is simple, and I shall explain it in few words.

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

  “No! That is the wrong way to think about it! Don’t put yourself down. That’s the voice of guilt telling you to dim yourself.” She sounded like the lucid, nurturing mentor she’d once been, but that was followed by her convulsive cough. I could hear a struggle as Rupert tried to take the phone from her, but before relinquishing the receiver she managed, “I found that when I shone my brightest, I helped others the most. Stay elevated, Tristine!” [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Renate and I chortled over the obits. The New York Times reported that diarist Anaïs Nin was survived by her husband Hugo Guiler, while the Los Angeles Times named Rupert Pole as her surviving spouse. What irony: her secret had been made public in the newspapers, yet I was still sworn to keep it until both her husbands had died, which could be—and turned out to be—another thirty years. CHAPTER 33 Malibu, California, 1977 TRISTINE I SWAM, STROKE AFTER FRANTIC stroke, my eyes burning from the saltwater, reaching, thrusting into the void where she was now, all that she was now. Anaïs was in her element in this vast expanse of water; I wanted to be there—with her one last time. After Rupert had phoned to say he’d scattered her ashes near my house from the helicopter that morning, I’d stopped editing my book galleys and waited for the release of tears. But none came, as none had come when he’d informed me of her death. All I felt was a numb ache, and now here I was in a crazy, quixotic gesture, swimming out to her to say goodbye. When I was so far out that it seemed I was halfway between the shore and the horizon, I stopped and bobbed in the undulating waves, treading water. When a swell raised me I could see my house in the distance, small as the stick figure picture of it I’d drawn on the commune window. When I sank in a trough, I saw nothing but constantly shifting light and dark patches of blue. Anaïs and I were just specks of carbon in this great expanse of water. This was what I’d wanted all along: to merge, to be with her, to be her. I had wanted to be Anaïs but could not. We had affinities, yes; both hypersensitive, dramatic, tending toward narcissism, wounded by our fathers. Because of those affinities I had used her to define myself, had measured myself in relation to her accomplishments and come up short. I would never be as beautiful, as graceful, as self-disciplined, as focused as she, nor as good a dissembler. Though she’d tried to tutor me, I would never learn to play the geisha with men. That difference alone meant I’d never enjoy a madcap, artistic life like hers, free from earning a living, free of draining responsibilities.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘When you did me the kindness of telling me that you wished to breakfast with me, I considered it right and proper, having regard to your excellence and merit, to do everything within my power to prepare a more sumptuous dish than those I would offer to any ordinary guest. My thoughts therefore turned to the falcon you have asked me for and, knowing its quality, I reputed it a worthy dish to set before you. So I had it roasted and served to you on the trencher this morning, and I could not have wished for a better way of disposing of it. But now that I discover that you wanted it in a different form, I am so distressed by my inability to grant your request that I shall never forgive myself for as long as I live.’ In confirmation of his words, Federigo caused the feathers, talons and beak to be cast on the table before her. On seeing and hearing all this, the lady reproached him at first for killing so fine a falcon, and serving it up for a woman to eat; but then she became lost in admiration for his magnanimity of spirit, which no amount of poverty had managed to diminish, nor ever would. But now that her hopes of obtaining the falcon had vanished she began to feel seriously concerned for the health of her son, and after thanking Federigo for his hospitality and good intentions, she took her leave of him, looking all despondent, and returned to the child. And to his mother’s indescribable sorrow, within the space of a few days, whether through his disappointment in not being able to have the falcon, or because he was in any case suffering from a mortal illness, the child passed from this life. After a period of bitter mourning and continued weeping, the lady was repeatedly urged by her brothers to remarry, since not only had she been left a vast fortune but she was still a young woman. And though she would have preferred to remain a widow, they gave her so little peace that in the end, recalling Federigo’s high merits and his latest act of generosity, namely to have killed such a fine falcon in her honour, she said to her brothers: ‘If only it were pleasing to you, I should willingly remain as I am; but since you are so eager for me to take a husband, you may be certain that I shall never marry any other man except Federigo degli Alberighi.’ Her brothers made fun of her, saying: ‘Silly girl, don’t talk such nonsense! How can you marry a man who hasn’t a penny with which to bless himself?’ ‘My brothers,’ she replied, ‘I am well aware of that.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The lady betrayed no sign of bitterness on hearing these words, and without changing her expression she said to him: ‘My lord, deal with me as you think best 4 for your own good name and peace of mind, for I shall rest content whatever you decide, knowing myself to be their inferior and that I was unworthy of the honour which you so generously bestowed upon me.’ This reply was much to Gualtieri’s liking, for it showed him that she had not been puffed with pride by any honour that he or others had paid her. A little while later, having told his wife in general terms that his subjects could not abide the daughter she had borne him, he gave certain instructions to one of his attendants, whom he sent to Griselda. The man looked very sorrowful, and said: ‘My lady, if I do not wish to die, I must do as my lord commands me. He has ordered me to take this daughter of yours, and to…’ And his voice trailed off into silence. On hearing these words and perceiving the man’s expression, Griselda, recalling what she had been told, concluded that he had been instructed to murder her child. So she quickly picked it up from its cradle, kissed it, gave it her blessing, and albeit she felt that her heart was about to break, placed the child in the arms of the servant without any trace of emotion, saying: ‘There: do exactly as your lord, who is my lord too, has instructed you. 5 But do not leave her to be devoured by the beasts and the birds, unless that is what he has ordered you to do.’ The servant took away the little girl and reported Griselda’s words to Gualtieri, who, marvelling at her constancy, sent him with the child to a kinswoman of his in Bologna, requesting her to rear and educate her carefully, but without ever making it known whose daughter she was. Then it came about that his wife once more became pregnant, and in due course she gave birth to a son, which pleased Gualtieri enormously. But not being content with the mischief he had done already, he abused her more viciously than ever, and one day he glowered at her angrily and said: ‘Woman, from the day you produced this infant son, the people have made my life a complete misery, so bitterly do they resent the thought of a grandson of Giannùcole succeeding me as their lord.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  To leave the country and return to the city, what more can be said save that such and so great was the cruelty of heaven (and in part, peradventure, that of men) that, between March and the following July, what with the virulence of that pestiferous sickness and the number of sick folk ill tended or forsaken in their need, through the fearfulness of those who were whole, it is believed for certain that upward of an hundred thousand human beings perished within the walls of the city of Florence, which, peradventure, before the advent of that death-dealing calamity, had not been accounted to hold so many? Alas, how many great palaces, how many goodly houses, how many noble mansions, once full of families, of lords and of ladies, abode empty even to the meanest servant! How many memorable families, how many ample heritages, how many famous fortunes were seen to remain without lawful heir! How many valiant men, how many fair ladies, how many sprightly youths, whom, not others only, but Galen, Hippocrates or Æsculapius themselves would have judged most hale, breakfasted in the morning with their kinsfolk, comrades and friends and that same night supped with their ancestors in the other world!

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

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

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

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

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

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

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

  She saw he was fighting back tears. Why did he have to act as if this were a tragedy? She had good reason to believe he had taken a mistress again. This time she really did not care. There was no tightness in her chest, no jealousy, because she was ready to let go. To be her own woman. Why couldn’t Hugo flow forward with the changes in the air, as she did? She urged gently, “Hugo, I know we believed our marriage would be forever, but it’s not good for either of us to keep from growing as individuals.” “I haven’t stopped you from growing,” Hugo said angrily. She made her voice softer. “It won’t feel any different than when I’ve been gone in Los Angeles. For the past three months, you haven’t mentioned once in your letters that you wanted me to come home.” “I haven’t asked you to come back because I have nothing to offer you. When the bank job fell through I tried putting together a syndicate of Miami investors, but that went bust. I’m broke. I have nothing but debts. I can’t earn any money.” “Hugo, you’re exaggerating.” “I wish I were. I don’t know how I’m going to pay next month’s rent. I’ve gone through all our savings. I have a heart condition and doctors’ bills. And now you’re going to leave me.” He gave no resistance to the tears welling in his eyes. He broke down and wept, a hunched, broken man, his narrow, bony shoulders heaving. She kneeled next to him and held him. He lifted his head from his hands and looked at her, pleading, “Let me come to Paris with you.” She was horrified to see him this way and she would have said almost anything to save him, short of telling him he could join her in Paris. She kissed the tears from his face. “I won’t abandon you.” “Please don’t divorce me. We married for better or worse.” He clung to her. “Don’t worry, Hugo. I’ll fix things for you. Whatever money I make, half of it is yours.” With an efficiency that, to her own surprise, she could rally when necessary, she spoke to the manager of their building and moved Hugo into a smaller, cheaper apartment. Feeling like Galahad on his steed, she flew back to LA, having promised Hugo that with the expected option money she would keep him going until she could start earning from her writing in Paris. She felt like a man, buying her way out of a relationship; she discovered it did not feel bad.

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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