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 Well of Loneliness (1928)

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

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

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

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

• From The 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)

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

• From The Decameron (1353)

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

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

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

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  The vet shook his head and looked very grave: ‘He’s an aged horse, you know, and of course in his youth you hunted him pretty freely—it all counts. Every one comes to the end of their tether, Miss Gordon. Yes, at times I’m afraid it is painful.’ Then seeing Stephen’s face: ‘I’m awfully sorry not to give a more cheerful diagnosis.’ Other experts arrived. Every good vet in London was consulted, including Professor Hobday. No cure, no cure, it was always the same, and at times, they told Stephen, the old horse suffered; but this she well knew—she had seen the sweat break out darkly on Raftery’s shoulders. So one morning she went into Raftery’s loosebox, and she sent the groom Jim out of the stable, and she laid her cheek against the beast’s neck, while he turned his head and began to nuzzle. Then they looked at each other very quietly and gravely, and in Raftery’s eyes was a strange, new expression—a kind of half-anxious, protesting wonder at this thing men call pain: ‘What is it, Stephen?’ She answered, forcing back her hot tears: ‘Perhaps, for you, the beginning, Raftery. . . .’ After a while she went to his manger and let the fodder slip through her fingers; but he would not eat, not even to please her, so she called the groom back and ordered some gruel. Very gently she readjusted the clothing that had slipped to one side, first the under-blanket then the smart blue rug that was braided in red—red and blue, the old stable colours of Morton. The groom Jim, now a thick-set stalwart young man, stared at her with sorrowful understanding, but he did not speak; he was almost as dumb as the beasts whom his life had been passed in tending—even dumber, perhaps, for his language consisted of words, having no small sounds and small movements such as Raftery used when he spoke with Stephen, and which meant so much more than words. She said: ‘I’m going now to the station to order a horse-box for to-morrow, I’ll let you know the time we start, later. And wrap him up well; put on plenty of clothing for the journey, please, he mustn’t feel cold.’ The man nodded. She had not told him their destination, but he knew it already; it was Morton. Then the great clumsy fellow must pretend to be busy with a truss of fresh straw for the horse’s bedding, because his face had turned a deep crimson, because his coarse lips were actually trembling—and this was not really so very strange, for those who served Raftery loved him.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But on seeing how reluctant the children were to be parted from the old man, and how dismally they wailed whenever any attempt was made to dislodge them, the lady told their tutor to leave them for the present where they were. It was while the children were playing with this worthy fellow that Jacques’ father, who now loathed Jeannette, happened to return home and hear the whole story from their tutor. ‘Let them stay where they are,’ he said, ‘and to hell with them. It’s obvious which side of the family they take after, for they are descended from a vagrant on their mother’s side, and it’s hardly surprising if they feel at home in a vagrant’s company.’ The Count overheard these words, and was deeply wounded. But he simply shrugged his shoulders, and suffered the insult as patiently as he had borne countless others. Although Jacques was displeased when he heard the children making such a fuss of the worthy fellow, or in other words the Count, he was nevertheless so fond of them that, rather than see them cry, he gave instructions that if the man was willing to stay, he should be offered some job or other in the household. The Count gladly agreed to stay, but pointed out that the only thing he was good at was looking after horses, which he had been accustomed to handling all his life. A horse was therefore allotted to him, and when he had finished grooming it, he would occupy himself in keeping the children amused. Whilst Fortune was treating the Count of Antwerp and his children in the manner we have just described, it happened that the King of France died, and was succeeded by the son whose wife had been responsible for the Count’s exile. The old King had negotiated a series of truces with the Germans, and now that the last of these had expired, the new King reopened hostilities 5 with a vengeance. The King of England, having recently become a relative of his, offered him assistance in the form of a large expeditionary force under the command of his marshal, Perrot, and Jacques Lamiens, the son of the second marshal. Our worthy fellow, or the Count, was a member of Jacques’ contingent, for a long time serving in the army as a groom without ever being recognized; and being an able man, he made himself extremely useful by giving timely advice and performing various tasks over and above his normal duties. During the war, the Queen of France happened to fall seriously ill, and realizing instinctively that she was about to die, she repented of all her sins, making a devout confession before the Archbishop of Rouen, who was famous for his excellence and saintliness. Among her other sins, she told him of the great wrong that had been perpetrated on the Count of Antwerp at her own instigation.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Having collected about five dollars in change, the man returned to his car, where he remained until the police arrived. When the police arrived, the young man got out of his car and, with his finger again in his pocket, announced that he had a gun and that everyone should stay away from him. Luckily, he was taken into custody without being shot. 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.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And yet she was utterly helpless, and she knew it. All that she did seemed inadequate and childish: ‘When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.’ Remembering Saint Paul, she decided grimly that surely she had remained as a child. She could sit and stare at them—these poor, stricken lovers—with eyes that were scared and deeply reproachful: ‘You must not let anything spoil your loving, I need it,’ her eyes could send them that message. She could love them in her turn, possessively, fiercely: ‘You’re mine, mine, mine, the one perfect thing about me. You’re one and you’re mine, I’m frightened, I need you!’ Her thoughts could send them that message. She could start to caress them, awkwardly, shyly, stroking their hands with her strong, bony fingers—first his hand, then hers, then perhaps both together, so that they smiled in spite of their trouble. But she dared not stand up before them accusing, and say: ‘I’m Stephen, I’m you, for you bred me. You shall not fail me by failing yourselves. I’ve a right to demand that you shall not fail me!’ No, she dared not stand up and speak such words as these—she had never demanded anything from them. Sometimes she would think them quietly over as two fellow creatures whom chance had made her parents. Her father, her mother—a man, a woman; and then she would be amazed to discover how little she knew of this man and this woman. They had once been babies, and later small children, ignorant of life and utterly dependent. That seemed so curious, ignorant of life—her father utterly weak and dependent. They had come to adolescence even as she had, and perhaps at times they too had felt unhappy. What had their thoughts been, those thoughts that lie hidden, those nebulous misgivings that never get spoken? Had her mother shrunk back resentful, protesting, when the seal of her womanhood had been stamped upon her? Surely not, for her mother was somehow so perfect, that all that befell her must in its turn, be perfect—her mother gathered nature into her arms and embraced it as a friend, as a well loved companion. But she, Stephen, had never felt friendly like that, which must mean, she supposed, that she lacked some fine instinct.

• 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 Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Mary would flare out with sudden anger, her mood changing as she felt a slight tug on the bridle. Were they to have no friends? she would ask. Were they to sit still and let the world crush them? If they were reduced to the bars of Paris, whose fault was that? Not hers and not Stephen’s. Oh, no, it was the fault of the Lady Annas and the Lady Masseys who had closed their doors, so afraid were they of contamination! Stephen would sit with her head on her hand, searching her sorely troubled mind for some ray of light, some adequate answer. 4That winter Barbara fell very ill. Jamie rushed round to the house one morning, hatless, and with deeply tormented eyes: ‘Mary, please come—Barbara can’t get up, it’s a pain in her side. Oh, my God—we quarrelled . . .’ Her voice was shrill and she spoke very fast: ‘Listen—last night—there was snow on the ground, it was cold—I was angry . . . I can’t remember . . . but I know I was angry—I get like that. She went out—she stayed out for quite two hours, and when she came back she was shivering so. Oh, my God, but why did we quarrel, whatever? She can’t move; it’s an awful pain in her side . . .’ Stephen said quietly: ‘We’ll come almost at once, but first I’m going to ring up my own doctor.’ 5Barbara was lying in the tiny room with the eye-shaped window that would not open. The stove had gone out in the studio, and the air was heavy with cold and dampness. On the piano lay some remnants of manuscript music torn up on the previous evening by Jamie. Barbara opened her eyes: ‘Is that you, my bairn?’ They had never heard Barbara call her that before—the great, lumbering, big-boned, long-legged Jamie. ‘Yes, it’s me.’ ‘Come here close . . .’ The voice drifted away. ‘I’m here—oh, I’m here! I’ve got hold of your hand. Look at me, open your eyes again—Barbara, listen, I’m here—don’t you feel me?’ Stephen tried to restrain the shrill, agonized voice: ‘Don’t speak so loud, Jamie, perhaps she’s sleeping;’ but she knew very well that this was not so; the girl was not sleeping now, but unconscious.

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

  [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Eventually, Rupert closed the gate to all visits, commandeering what was left of Anaïs. Having had to share her for so many years with Hugo, it seemed he was getting even by keeping the last of her to himself. Truth be told, I was grateful that Rupert made it so difficult to visit, as I was grateful to Anaïs for giving me her myth of enduring romance through which to imagine her ending. I told myself that Rupert was taking loving care of her. I told myself that she and I had said good-bye as much as we’d be able. I rationalized that working to meet the deadline on my book was more of a tribute to her than waiting in the foyer until Rupert allowed me to see her in her pain and humiliation. The truth was I couldn’t bear to see her. So I threw myself feverishly into work and even more into play. I went to parties, attended film screenings, flirted with guys I had no memory of the next day, and started an affair with a horror film director I met in New York. I tried to forget about Anaïs’s suffering and the ghosts that lurked over her deathbed. Rupert still allowed me phone calls with her. I had first to leave a message on the answering machine, now always on. Returning my call, Rupert would invariably begin with a report on her condition as if it were the weather: “This is one of Anaïs’s bad days.” Or, as he announced, prefacing what turned out to be my last conversation with her, “This is one of Anaïs’s good days. She would like to speak with you.” I’d been struck by an unnamed fear that had prevented me from finishing the last chapters of my book, and impulsively I’d phoned Anaïs and left a message. Her hoarse whisper didn’t sound like her. “Rupert told me you had a question.” Now that I had precious minutes to speak with her, I didn’t want to spend them on something as trivial as a writer’s block. “I wanted to know how you are.” “Not so well,” she rasped. “How is your writing going?” The more I avoided explaining the reason I’d called, the more she pressed, so finally I described to her the apprehension that had caused the block. “It’s a fear of retaliation against women who reach too far, fly too high,” I said. “Like the backlash against George Sand, or Gore Vidal’s hostility towards you. I think we have to dim ourselves, so others don’t get threatened and do it to us.”