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 Querelle (1953)

  It broke Querelle's heart to see Gil pocket the money. That pang of pain would serve to justify the double-cross he was preparing for Gil. Jt wasn't the money he had pretended to steal from a house he well knew to be uninhabited-it would only take him a couple of days to get back a hundred times as much-but it did give him a pain to see Gil go for it hook, line and sinker. Then, every day, Querelle brought him some items of clothing. \Vithin three days he had outfitted Gil in sailor's bells, jersey, peacoat and beret. Roger helped haul each bundle over the sea wall, by the same method employed in getting the opium past customs. One evening Querelle gave him his briefing. "It's all set. You're not backing out, are you? You better tell me, if you get cold feet at the last moment . . ." "You can trust me." Gil was to walk into Brest in broad daylight. The uniform would render him invisible. The police would hardly expect the murderer to take a stroll in the city disguised as a sailor. "You sure that Lieutenant's an easy one?" "I told you, he's a little old lady. He looks military and all that, but he ain't no fighter." The sailor's outfit transformed Gil and gave him a new, strange personality. He didn't recognize himself. In the dark, all by himself, he dressed with the greatest of care. Striving for elegance, he put on the beret, then pushed it back a little, most coquettishly. The charming and forceful soul of the most elegant branch of the armed services entered into him. He became a member of that fighting Navy whose purpose is to grace the shores of France rather than to defend them : it embroiders and strings out a festive garland along the seaboard, from Dunkirk to. Villefranche, with here and there a couple of thicker knots in it to mark the naval ports. The Navy is a wonderfully constructed organization consisting of young men who are given an entire education in how to make themselves appear desirable. 'When he was still working at his trade, Gil .us I JEAN GENET

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  12 As the snow amid the living rafters along Italia’s back is frozen under blast and stress of Slavonian winds, then melted trickles down through itself, if but the land that loseth shade do breathe, so that it seems fire melting the candle, 13 so without tears or sighs was I before the song of those who ever accord their notes after the melodies of the eternal spheres. 14 But when I heard in their sweet harmonies their compassion on me, more than if they had said “Lady, why dost thou so shame him?” The ice which had closed about my heart became breath and water, and with anguish through mouth and eyes issued from my breast. She, standing yet fixed on the said side of the car, then turned her words 15 to the pitying angels thus: “Ye watch in the everlasting day, so that nor night nor sleep stealeth from you one step which the world may take along its ways; wherefore my answer is with greater care, that he who yon side doth weep may understand me, so that sin and sorrow be of one measure. Not only by operation of the mighty spheres that direct each seed to some end, according as the stars are its companions, 16

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Grace sighs. Her brother, Davis, is a third-year at Hopkins. He wants to be a cardiologist like their grandfather, for whom he is named. Their grandfather no longer speaks to Davis, however, because Davis is gay and they are from Virginia. When Davis came out, it had gone as well as it could go, which was to say that a veil had descended between the two of them, and Davis, like their father, had ceased to exist to their grandfather. There was no argument. No recitation of Scripture. No blowup or passionate speeches. Only instant and deep cold. It’s harder to argue with apathy. Davis texts Grace throughout the week: You seen Big Davis? Tell him he was right about Marshfield being awful Remind him the pond needs to be restocked Tell him about this new rabbit trap Tell him they be shooting out here Tell him something for me Sometimes Grace wants to weep at how pitiful it is. The Tell him something for me is the worst of it. She could read the text message in its entirety. It’s not the words. It’s not the what. Enid knows about the text messages. She has made her feelings known. Which is why he does not call her. Not because of the gay thing—Enid is ambivalent on the point of sexuality. What room would she have to judge, her own life having exploded so spectacularly? No. It’s something else. Judgment. Davis feels judged, he says. Sometimes she act like I’m trying to murder somebody. Just to be asking about Big Davis. She act like she don’t care I don’t exist anymore, is what Davis said the last time they spoke about it. “She’s projecting,” Grace had said. Because years ago, when they were small, Enid had shown up at this house with Grace and Davis squeezed tight to her like a shield bearer wading into a sea of pikemen. Grace’s father had gotten himself stabbed outside a bar in Charlottesville—no surprise, considering, was what the church ladies said. It had never been a secret how Big Davis felt about white people, and here Enid was. The church ladies had words for that, too. Begging. Cut off from her own kind, like she hadn’t known what would happen. Grace wonders if Enid sees in this needling some imitation of how it had been years before, when they were younger, and pushed like little pawns across a chessboard. Sees, perhaps, some reflection of the deceased Junior. “He should be a man,” Enid says. “He’s a man. Big Davis is a man,” Grace replies. “That’s the problem.” “Men and trouble, like water and a grease fire.”

• From Escape (2007)

  While waiting for help to arrive, Annette saw four-year-old JR, who seemed to have a broken arm and collarbone, huddling over the body of his dead sister. He was trembling from pain and trauma, tears making tracks down his dust-covered cheeks. He was Nurylon’s full brother—a shy and introspective child who seemed to live for his little sister. From the moment she was born, she’d seemed to belong to him. He got her up every morning and wouldn’t eat unless she was next to him or sleep unless she was beside him. He taught her how to walk, and then to run. The first ambulance that came screaming down the road was from Hurricane. Someone had seen smoke in the distance and called for help. The ambulance crew was overwhelmed by what it found: fourteen injured and terrified children and the body of a little girl. The paramedics examined Nurylon first. When they realized there was nothing more that could be done, they covered her with a small blanket. The paramedics said her injuries were so massive she probably died instantly. The ambulance left with Nurylon’s body and the two most seriously injured children. The ambulance radioed ahead to the hospital about the number of children arriving. The hospital in St. George had a small ER and not enough doctors to treat fourteen kids with an array of injuries. Off-duty docs were called in to lend a hand. My father got to the hospital before my mother arrived. He was taken to see Nurylon’s body. The hospital had called the mortuary. My father refused to let anyone else take her there. My father insisted on doing it himself. The hospital staff helped him to his car and he put Nurylon in the backseat wrapped in a blanket. When my father carried her into the mortuary, his face was flooded in tears. My mother was told about the accident by someone from the volunteer fire department. She went immediately to the hospital. My mother held herself together at the hospital. She was in shock. Her daughter was dead and eight other children were injured, some of whom were hers and others who were Rosie’s. At one point when a doctor was working on Karen’s leg my mother made a comment about how hard this was, and the doctor exploded, “You think this is hard on you!” The stress of seeing so many injured children was overwhelming, and all of this had happened because they were riding in an open truck. Miraculously, no one needed to be hospitalized overnight. There were some broken bones, bad bruises, and cuts that needed stitches, but nothing that was more severe or life-threatening. That night Annette gave JR a bath. He was still shaking from trauma. He looked at her with his luminous brown eyes and said, “Why did you do it? Why did you kill Nurylon?”

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  The next day I ask the young Dr. Grim, who could not be more different from her name, what can be done about the pain. She says Wilma knows that morphine and other opiates would help, but taking enough to cut the pain would also dull her consciousness. She wants to be fully present for as long as she can. In the next few days, relatives, friends, and colleagues come from miles around to pay their respects. They sit near her, reminisce about the past, argue politics for the future, and bring pies, cakes, and casseroles for ever-increasing numbers of visitors. Children bring flowers, or sing a song from church or school, or just watch television. Some stare at Wilma and their parents in a way that says they will never forget. As some of the older visitors leave, they say, “I’ll see you on the other side of the mountain.” I’ve never seen such honesty about dying. People closest to the family do the small and continuous tasks: laundry, bringing in firewood, feeding Wilma’s indoor dog and outdoor cats. They include our mutual friends from San Francisco, Kristina Kiehl and Bob Friedman. Kristina has been there for three weeks, helping with this final challenge as she has with so many others. She invents a way of washing Wilma’s hair in bed. Bob takes over the continual task of washing dishes for the many people who gather in the big kitchen, talking softly. At night Wilma calls out in pain. Then it begins during the day, too. I can’t bear it. I go into full research mode and phone every physician I know. I learn that there are several kinds of drastic nerve blocks that could diminish her pain and leave her mind clear. But such procedures can be done only in a hospital. Wilma’s caregiving team has a conference with Dr. Grim, who says a local ambulance could take her to and from the hospital—more than two hours or so each way. We talk to Wilma. She thinks about it. The ambulance comes and parks in the yard just in case. She decides she might die in transit, or become too hooked to tubes to leave the hospital, and she wants to be at home in Indian Country. She thanks us for giving her a choice. To me, she says with some of her old humor, “You’re an organizer to the end.” It also reminds me of an organizing principle: Anybody who is experiencing something is more expert in it than the experts. From that moment on, I accept Wilma’s wisdom. Seeing that I need a task, Wilma’s daughters assign me the duty of making sure each visitor’s contribution is recorded on a list in the kitchen.

• From Collected Essays (1998)

  1966-67 Writes essays "Ne groes Arc Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White" and "Anti-Semitism and Black Power." Meets Eldridge Cleaver and Hucy Newton. Agrees to write scenario for screen adaptation of The Autobiography of Malcolm X for producer Marvin Worth at Columbia Pictures. 1968-69 Visits Tony Maynard in Hamburg, Germany , where he is awaiting extradition to the United States on charges of murder (works on his behalf over several years; charges against Maynard arc dismissed in 1974). Becomes a target of criticism by radical activists and is attacked by Eld ridge Cleaver in Soul on Ice. Appears before congressional sub committee with Betty Shabazz to propose establishment of a national commission on black history and culture. Works on Malcolm X script in Hollywood. Sees Martin Luther King Jr. and Andrew Young in Los Angeles in March during their fundr aising drive h)r Poor People's CHR ONOL OGY Campaign. Play The Amen Corner and novel Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone pu blished by Dial. Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Mem phis; Baldwin attends funeral April 9 in Atlanta. Has dis· putes with Columbia execut ives over Malcolm X script, and they assign screenwriter Arnold Perl to work with him. Addresses assembly of the World Council of Chur ches in Uppsala, Sweden, on "White Racism or World Commu nity" in Ju ly. Writes article "The Price May Be Too High" (The New York Times Magazine, Feb. 2, 1969) on the problems of a black writer in a world controlled by whites. Quits the Columbia project in spring; continues working on his own script. In Istanbul directs Turkish stage pro duction of John Herbert's Fortune and Mm 's Eyes. 197 o-- 71 Ill with hepatitis for several weeks. Scdat Pakay makes short documentary film, james Baldwin from An other Place, in Istanbul in May 1970. Visits New York to record a conversation with Margaret Mead in August (transcrip tion is published by Lippincott in 1971 as A Rap on Race). Becomes ill again and is hospitalized in Paris in October 1970; on advice of Mary Painter, goes to St. Paul-dc Vence, near Nice, to recuperate. Writes "An Open Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis" ( Nen' York Review of Books, Jan. 7, 1971) after Davis is indicted for kidnapping and mu rder in connection with the August 1970 shootings at the San Rafael, California, courthouse (she is acquitted in 1972). Buys a large house on 10 acres ofland in St. Paul de-V ence. Hires Bernard Hassell to oversee the estate. Of ten sees actors Yves Montand and Simone Signorct and has numerous guests. Appears with poet Nikki Giovanni on Ellis Haizlipp's television program Soul (transcription is pu blished by Lippincott as A Dialogue in 1973).

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Hartjes stooped low in the kitchen and tore two cans from the plastic yoke. He held them in his palm, which was wide and paler than the rest of him. He counted the containers of food, the vegetables, the soups, the stock, the meat tumescent in its plastic wrap. He saw the jars of moonshine, the bottle of wine from two weeks earlier with a plastic stopper jammed into its neck, and gelatinous cubes of gristle and fat, which Simon used for broth and for taste. The light was off, but they had left a candle going on the table. He turned in Simon’s kitchen and looked back through the house into the living room, where the furniture slept like guests and where the windows were filled with the soft white glow of distant stars. He hovered near the window by the stairs and pressed his face into the bristling curtain, inhaled its dust, and closed his eyes. There had been a time when Hartjes hated the dark. No, it wasn’t hatred. It was fear—he was scared both of what he couldn’t see and what might see him. He touched his lips to the cold glass of the window and summoned the clearest image of his mother he could bear to hold in his mind, as though he were laying her within the glass itself, passing her off to the house like a benediction.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  LUCIUS APULEIUS accurrit labantique spiritu totam se super corpus effudit ac paenissime ibidem, quam devoverat ei, reddidit animam. Sed aegre manibus erepta suorum invita remansit in vita, funus vero toto feralem pom- pam prosequente populo deducitur ad sepulturam. 7 “Sed Thrasyllus nimium nimius clamare, plangere, et quas in primo maerore lacrimas non habebat, iam scilicet crescente gaudio reddere et multis caritatis nominibus veritatem ipsam fallere, Illum amicum, coaetaneum, contubernalem, fratrem denique, addito nomine lugubri, ciere, necnon interdum manus Cha- rites a pulsandis uberibus amovere, luctum sedare, eiulatum coercere, verbis palpantibus stimulum do- loris obtundere, variis exemplis multivagi casus solacia nectere, cunctis tamen mentitae pietatis officiis studium contrectandae mulieris adhibere odiosumque amorem suum perperam delectando nutrire. Sed officiis inferialibus statim exactis puella protinus festinat ad maritum suum demeare, cunc- tasque prorsus pertemptat vias, certe illam lenem otiosamque nec telis ullis indigentem sed placidae quieti consimilem : inedia denique misera et incuria 354 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VIII they met the slain body of Tlepolemus, Charite threw herself upon him, weeping and lamenting grievously for his death, in such sort that she would have presently ended her life upon the corpse of her slain husband, whom she so entirely loved, had it not - been that her parents and friends did comfort her, and hardly pulled her away. Then the body was taken up, and in funeral pomp brought to the city and buried. “In the mean season Thrasyllus feigned much sorrow for the death of Tlepolemus, crying and beating his breast beyond all measure, but in his heart he was well pleased and joyful, and the tears that he had not for his former grief were ready to come now for his gladness. And to counterfeit very truth by words of kindness, he would come to Charite and say: * O what a loss have I had, by the death of my friend, my fellow, my companion, my brother Tlepolemus’ (adding the name in a melancholy voice). ‘O Charite, comfort yourself, pacify your dolour, refrain your weeping, beat not your breasts.’ And so saying, he would hold her hands and restrain them, so that she might not beat her bosom: with soft words he would blunt the sting of her sorrow, and with divers examples of evil fortune he endea- voured to comfort her; but he spake and did not this for any other intent but that in guise of friend- ship he might closely handle the woman, and so nourish his odious love with filthy delight. How- beit, Charite, after the burial of her husband, sought the means to follow him, and tried every way, but especially that which is most gentle and easy, nor requireth any weapon, but is most like to quiet sleep: for she purposed to finish her life with starvation and neglecting herself, she buried herself 355

• From Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018)

  But I have had to take it all with me, because it is part of my story. I grieved for many years the woman I would have been if I had not seen that episode of Little House on the Prairie, if I had not had a crush on that football player, if I had never been raped. She never got the chance to live. This is rape’s legacy, the countless deaths women die just trying to keep existing in the world as it is. I have daughters now. I cannot protect them. I cannot get inside their heads and make them unafraid, or know what they are thinking; I know that their minds are as inaccessible to me as mine was to my father. But I can try to equip them. I can help them believe that there is something in them that is unquenchable, something that is impossible to kill. I will myself to believe that they can believe all of that about themselves, even on the days that I struggle with the memories of what happened to me. They’ve never asked me or their father what rape is; we’ve already told them. We’ve talked about why it’s wrong that the entertainment industry is obsessed with violence, particularly violence against women. We’ve talked about what it means that women are largely portrayed in pop culture as either victims, sluts, virgins, or gossips, and why that’s not okay. We tell them that they can choose to live their lives in a way that is not defined by anything that happens to them, something that I have not yet been able to do. They listen. They nod. They dismiss what insults their souls. They are stronger than I am. This is what they reap; this is what I sow. Invisible Light WavesMeredith TalusanBETWEEN TRANSITIONS WHILE I LIVED WITH FIVE OTHER recent nomads in Harlem, I met Paul in our kitchen one night. He’d worked with one of my housemates during a humanitarian service trip in China and was visiting her. He was fluent in Mandarin and majored in linguistics at Yale before enlisting in the navy, where he did intelligence work in Washington, DC. Maybe it was those experiences that gave him that efficient air I associated both with linguists and men in the military. I wanted him from the moment I met him, the way I wanted men I wasn’t used to having: one of the strong, handsome white men on television I coveted when I was growing up in the Philippines. But I also knew there was something wrong about me wanting him, so my eyes cast themselves down when he said hello, and I tried to keep out of his orbit while he stayed at our apartment for a week.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  At a big station at a town the volunteers were again greeted with shouts and singing, again men and women with collecting boxes appeared, and provincial ladies brought bouquets to the volunteers and followed them into the refreshment room; but all this was on a much smaller and feebler scale than in Moscow. Chapter 4 While the train was stopping at the provincial town, Sergey Ivanovitch did not go to the refreshment room, but walked up and down the platform. The first time he passed Vronsky’s compartment he noticed that the curtain was drawn over the window; but as he passed it the second time he saw the old countess at the window. She beckoned to Koznishev. “I’m going, you see, taking him as far as Kursk,” she said. “Yes, so I heard,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, standing at her window and peeping in. “What a noble act on his part!” he added, noticing that Vronsky was not in the compartment. “Yes, after his misfortune, what was there for him to do?” “What a terrible thing it was!” said Sergey Ivanovitch. “Ah, what I have been through! But do get in.... Ah, what I have been through!” she repeated, when Sergey Ivanovitch had got in and sat down beside her. “You can’t conceive it! For six weeks he did not speak to anyone, and would not touch food except when I implored him. And not for one minute could we leave him alone. We took away everything he could have used against himself. We lived on the ground floor, but there was no reckoning on anything. You know, of course, that he had shot himself once already on her account,” she said, and the old lady’s eyelashes twitched at the recollection. “Yes, hers was the fitting end for such a woman. Even the death she chose was low and vulgar.” “It’s not for us to judge, countess,” said Sergey Ivanovitch; “but I can understand that it has been very hard for you.”

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  Love led us to one death; Caïna 9 waits for him who quenched our life.” These words from them were offered to us. After I had heard those wounded souls, I bowed my face, and held it low until the Poet said to me: “What are thou thinking of?” When I answered, I began: “Ah me! what sweet thoughts, what longing led them to the woeful pass!” Then I turned again to them; and I spoke, and began: Francesca, thy torments make me weep with grief and pity.

• From Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture (2018)

  VIOLENCE IN A FAMILY COMES DOWN THROUGH GENERATIONS: long before my father (finally) left my mother, her father left her mother, and her father’s father left my great-grandmother. I look like her, it’s said, this woman I knew as a frail bird, this Jewish woman who fled Nazi-occupied Romania as a married teenager, was deserted, survived the war in England as a registered alien, a single mother with a small son who became the grandfather I never met. SOMETIMES MY MOTHER TELLS ME STORIES ABOUT HER FATHER, or stories about my father. They are not mine to repeat. “I want you to know,” she tells me, as if she feels guilty for explaining our history to me. I am amazed at how much violence we can contain—internalize, suppress, hold on to, narrate. How much we can swallow and still survive. THERE’S A SCAR ON MY LEG, A SCAR LIKE MANY PEOPLE’S SCARS. It’s shiny and pale, even against my Ashkenazi-beige skin. It will never disappear. Like the scar on my scalp, it’s marked out by hairlessness, a clear-cut in the forest. It’s evidence of a story like other people’s stories. One rainy day I was running to catch the tube home from school. I slipped and fell, sliding under the high step up to the train carriage. Two strangers caught my arms and hauled me on board as the train juddered with motion. It didn’t even surprise me. I have never been in my body: I still, as I did when I was a child, fall over all the time, walk into things, trip and tumble. I am constantly covered with bruises. My body was not my body but a postpubertal amorphous mass of Silly Putty whose shape, position in space, and vector I couldn’t control. On the way home, my friends chattered, hyped by the drama. Pumped full of the adrenaline of the near-miss. Me too. So pumped that I didn’t notice, until we got off the tube, that my navy school trousers were soaked with blood, leaking through a small rip in the fabric—a rip that mapped exactly onto a rip in my flesh. “It’s not that bad,” said my best friend, but she grudgingly went to the chemist near the tube station and bought some Band-Aids while I waited for the bus, trying not to pass out. The rip fit neatly under a large Band-Aid. Not that bad. We had a fight because I felt too faint to hang out. I stormed (limped) off. I don’t remember how I got to the doctor’s office. I remember that the Band-Aid had swollen with blood, sodden with it, ballooning outward. I remember my sock and shoe were full of blood. I remember that when the doctor cleaned the cut, you could see bone.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  LUCIUS APULEIUS squalida tenebris imis abscondita iam cum luce trans- egerat. Sed Thrasyllus instantia pervicaci, partim per semet ipsum, partim per ceteros familiares ac necessarios, ipsos denique puellae parentes extorquet tandem, iam lurore et illuvie paene collapsa membra lavacro, cibo denique confoveret. At illa parentum suorum alioquin reverens, invita quidem verum religiosae necessitati succumbens, vultu non quidem hilaro, verum paulo sereniore obiens, ut iubebatur, viventium munia, prorsus in pectore, immo vero pe- nitus in medullis luctu ac maerore carpebat animum et dies totos totasque noctes insumebat luctuoso desiderio, et imagines defuncti, quas ad habitum dei Liberi formaverat, affixo servitio divinis percolens honoribus, ipso sese solacio cruciabat. 8 "Verum Thrasyllus praeceps alioquin et de ipso nomine temerarius, priusquam dolorem lacrimae satiarent et percitae mentis resideret furor, et in sese nimietatis senio lassesceret luctus, adhuc flentem maritum, adhue vestes lacerantem, adhuc capillos distrahentem non dubitavit de nuptiis convenire et imprudentiae labe tacita pectoris sui secreta fraudes- que ineffabiles detegere. Sed Charite vocem ne- fandam et horruit et detestata est et, velut gravi lonitru procellaque sideris vel etiam ipso diali fulmine percussa, corruit corpus et obnubilavit 356 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VIII deep in the darkness and had done with the light for good and all. But Thrasyllus was very impor- tunate, and at length brought to pass that at the intercession both of himself and of the friends and familiars, and last of the parents of Charite, she somewhat refreshed her body, that was all befouled and well nigh broken, with refection of meat and bathing. Howbeit, she did it unwillingly, more at the commandment of her parents and the duty she owed to them, than for anything else: and she wore a calmer, but yet not a merry face, while she went about the duties of the living, but inwardly she tormented herself very greatly with grief and mourning: she spent whole days and nights in miserable longing, and there was an image of her husband, which she had made like unto Bacchus, unto which she rendered divine honours and services, so that she grieved herself even by her consolation. * [n the mean season Thrasyllus, not being able to refrain any longer, a man bold and impatient according to the signification of his name,! before Charite had assuaged her dolours with tears, before her troubled mind had pacified her fury, before her grief had become less from its own abundance and long continuance, while she wept for her husband, while she tare her garments and rent her hair, doubted not to demand her in marriage, and so very rashly detected the secrets and unspeakable deceits of his heart. But Charite detested and abhorred his demand, and as she had been stricken with some clap of thunder, with some storm, or with the lightning of Jupiter, she presently fell down to the ground all amazed with a cloud. Howbeit in the 1 Thrasyllus is derived from the Greek 0pacsós, venturous, bold, rasb. 357

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  The young man understanding the whole matter (to please and gratify his mother) went immediately to the young maiden, keeping the matter secret in his heart, for feare of inconvenience, and (lamenting to see his sister forsaken both of mother and father) incontinently after endowed her with part of his owne goods, and would have married her to one of his especial and trusty friends: But although hee brought this to passe very secretly and sagely, yet in the end cruell fortune sowed great sedition in his house. For his wife who was now condemned to beasts, waxed jealous of her husband and began to suspect the young woman as a harlot and common queane, insomuch that shee invented all manner of meanes to dispatch her out of the way. And in the end shee invented this kind of mischiefe: She privily stale away her husbands ring, and went into the country, whereas she commanded one of her trusty servants to take the ring and carry it to the mayden. To whom he should declare that her brother did pray her to come into the country to him, and that she should come alone without any person. And to the end shee should not delay but come with all speed he should deliver her the ring, which should be a sufficient testimony of the message. This mayden as soone as she had received the ring of her brother, being very willing and desirous to obey his commandement: (For she knew no otherwise but that he had sent for her) went in all hast as the messenger willed her to doe. But when she was come to the snare and engine which was prepared for her, the mischievous woman, like one that were mad, and possessed with some ill spirit, when the poore maiden called for helpe with a loud voyce to her brother, the wicked harlot (weening that she had invented and feined the matter) tooke a burning firebrand and thrust it into her secret place, whereby she died miserably. The husband of this maiden but especially her brother, advertised of her death, came to the place where she was slain, and after great lamentation and weeping, they caused her to be buried honourably. This yong man her brother taking in ill part the miserable death of his sister, as it was convenient he should, conceived so great dolour within his mind and was strucken with so pestilent fury of bitter anguish, that he fell into the burning passions of a dangerous ague, whereby he seemed in such necessity, that he needed to have some speedy remedy to save his life.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  1 Parricide had in Roman tegal phraseology a much wider sensethan the English word. The murder of a free man, or any assassination or treachery, was called parricidal ; and a woman's marriage with her husband's murderer would be in the same category. 359 . LUCIUS APULEIUS turnis imaginibus, sed indicio facinoris prorsus dissimulato, et nequissimum percussorem punire et aerumnabili vitae sese subtrahere tacita decernit. Ecce rursus improvidae voluptatis detestabilis petitor aures obseratas de nuptiis obtundens aderat: sed illa clementer aspernata sermonem Thrasylli astuque miro personata instanter garrienti summisseque deprecanti *Adhue' inquit * Tui fratris meique carissimi mariti facies pulchra illa in meis deversatur oculis, adhue odor cinnameus ambrosei corporis per nares meas percurrit, adhuc formosus Tlepolemus in meo vivit pectore. Boni ergo et optimi consules, si luctui legitimo miserrimae feminae necessarium con- cesseris tempus, quoad residuis mensibus spatium reliquum compleatur anni, quae res cum meum pudorem, tum etiam tuum salutare commodum respicit, ne forte immaturitate nuptiarum indigna- tione iusta manes acerbos mariti ad exitium salutis tuae suscitemus.' 10 “Nec isto sermone Thrasyllus sobriefactus vel saltem tempestiva pollicitatione recreatus identidem pergit linguae sauciantis susurros improbos inurguere, quoad simulanter revicta Charite suscipit: *Istud equidem certe magnopere deprecanti concedas necesse est mihi, mi Thrasylle, ut interdum taciti clandestinos coitus obeamusnecquisquam persentiscat familiarium, quoad dies reliquos metiatur annus.’ Promissioni fallaciosae mulieris oppressus succubuit Thrasyllus et prolixe consentit de furtivo concubitu 360 : THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VIII no manner of person, but dissembling that she knew the truth of the mischief, devised silently with herselt how she might be revenged on the wicked murderer, and finish her own life, to end and knit up all sorrow. Again came Thrasyllus the detestable demander of the pleasure that should betray him, and wearied the closed ears of Charite with talk of marriage ; but she, gently refusing his communication, and colouring the matter with passing craft in the midst of his earnest desires and humble prayers, began to say: *'Thrasyllus, you shall understand that yet the comely face of your brother! and my husband is always before mine eyes; I smell yet the cinnamon scent of his precious body, I yet feel Tlepolemus alive in my heart: wherefore you shall do well it you grant to me, miserable woman, necessary time to bewail his death, until after the residue of a few months the whole year may be expired, which thing toucheth as well my shame as your wholesome profit, lest peradventure by our speedy and quick marriage we should justly raise and provoke the resentful spirit of my husband to work your destruction.’

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  And when he came home, the wicked woman declared that his sonne had empoysoned his brother, because he would not consent to his will, and told him divers other leasings, adding in the end that hee threatned to kill her likewise, because she discovered the fact: Then the unhappy father was stroken with double dolour of the death of his two children, for on the one side he saw his younger sonne slaine before his eyes, on the other side, he seemed to see the elder condemned to dye for his offence: Againe, where he beheld his wife lament in such sort, it gave him further occasion to hate his sonne more deadly; but the funerals of his younger sonne were scarce finished, when the old man the father with weeping eyes even at the returne from the grave, went to the Justice and accused his sonne of the slaughter of his brother, and how he threatned to slay his wife, whereby the rather at his weeping and lamentation, he moved all the Magistrates and people to pitty, insomuch that without any delay, or further inquisition they cryed all that hee should be stoned to death, but the Justices fearing a farther inconvenience to arise by the particular vengeance, and to the end there might fortune no sedition amongst the people, prayed the decurions and other Officers of the City, that they might proceed by examination of witnesses, and with order of justice according to the ancient custome before the judging of any hasty sentence or judgment, without the hearing of the contrary part, like as the barbarous and cruell tyrants accustome to use: otherwise they should give an ill example to their successours. This opinion pleased every man, wherefore the Senatours and counsellors were called, who being placed in order according to their dignity, caused the accuser and defender to be brought forth, and by the example of the Athenian law, and judgement materiall, their Advocates were commanded to plead their causes briefly without preambles or motions of the people to pitty, which were too long a processe. And if you demand how I understood all this matter, you shall understand that I heard many declare the same, but to recite what words the accuser used in his invective, what answer the defender made, the orations and pleadings of each party, verily I am not able to doe: for I was fast bound at the manger. But as I learned and knew by others, I will God willing declare unto you.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Grace sighs. Her brother, Davis, is a third-year at Hopkins. He wants to be a cardiologist like their grandfather, for whom he is named. Their grandfather no longer speaks to Davis, however, because Davis is gay and they are from Virginia. When Davis came out, it had gone as well as it could go, which was to say that a veil had descended between the two of them, and Davis, like their father, had ceased to exist to their grandfather. There was no argument. No recitation of Scripture. No blowup or passionate speeches. Only instant and deep cold. It’s harder to argue with apathy. Davis texts Grace throughout the week: You seen Big Davis? Tell him he was right about Marshfield being awful Remind him the pond needs to be restocked Tell him about this new rabbit trap Tell him they be shooting out here Tell him something for me Sometimes Grace wants to weep at how pitiful it is. The Tell him something for me is the worst of it. She could read the text message in its entirety. It’s not the words. It’s not the what. Enid knows about the text messages. She has made her feelings known. Which is why he does not call her. Not because of the gay thing—Enid is ambivalent on the point of sexuality. What room would she have to judge, her own life having exploded so spectacularly? No. It’s something else. Judgment. Davis feels judged, he says. Sometimes she act like I’m trying to murder somebody. Just to be asking about Big Davis. She act like she don’t care I don’t exist anymore, is what Davis said the last time they spoke about it. “She’s projecting,” Grace had said. Because years ago, when they were small, Enid had shown up at this house with Grace and Davis squeezed tight to her like a shield bearer wading into a sea of pikemen. Grace’s father had gotten himself stabbed outside a bar in Charlottesville—no surprise, considering, was what the church ladies said. It had never been a secret how Big Davis felt about white people, and here Enid was. The church ladies had words for that, too. Begging. Cut off from her own kind, like she hadn’t known what would happen. Grace wonders if Enid sees in this needling some imitation of how it had been years before, when they were younger, and pushed like little pawns across a chessboard. Sees, perhaps, some reflection of the deceased Junior. “He should be a man,” Enid says. “He’s a man. Big Davis is a man,” Grace replies. “That’s the problem.” “Men and trouble, like water and a grease fire.”

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Hartjes had wanted to say that if it was easy to get over your mother discarding you, then the whole world would be a different and stranger place. That hurt had a weight to it, a gravity as essential as the Earth’s, and it was a kind of natural law that kept them all doing as they should. But he just kissed Simon’s throat. But now she was dead. It was a different thing to speak ill of the dead. In his family, one did not speak the name of the dead after they had been buried. It was a summons. A beckoning. And who knew what the dead might take with them when they left again. When his grandfather had died, they had burned not only his possessions but almost everything he’d ever touched, all of it that could be burned. What made no sense to burn—the tools, the guns, the tractors, the car—they wiped and cleaned. They laid it all out on the benches and worktables in the back and scrubbed everything down with alcohol and bleach, with oil and polish, wiped and wiped as if that might erase history, time, possession. His family took down all his grandfather’s pictures, stored them away. When a person died, anything at all might be a way back, an anchor, a reason for fitful sleep. His grandmother had kept something, her wedding ring, and she woke every night for a month with his grandfather’s ghostly image standing beside her bed. And finally, as she took the ring off and slipped it into a sock and buried it in the yard, she said that, looking at him, at that sad look on his face, that expectant look, she knew that she had to either join him or let him go. • • • On the porch he gave Simon his beer, but he wouldn’t let go when Simon tried to pull it loose from his hand. Simon snatched again, and Hartjes held on tighter until he saw Simon bare his teeth, the slick, pointed canines. His eyes narrowed. The vein at the base of his neck bulged. His skinny fingers were strong. The beer sloshed. Hartjes let him have it. “Fucker,” Simon said under his breath. Hartjes sat roughly on the bench. It rattled under his weight. “Work tomorrow,” Hartjes said. “He’s getting back on his barge,” Simon said, drinking. “Call me Huck Finn,” Hartjes said. “You ever get sick of it?”

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  “It’s always like this,” Simon said a moment or two later. “It’s not,” Hartjes said. “It’s not like anything.” “What is it with you? Why is it always so hot and cold?” “It’s not anything, Simon. It’s not.” “Okay, champ.” Simon got up from the table. He buttoned his shirt. Blue light from the window fell across him. It was the part of the day when even the ugliest things were beautiful. “Are you staying for dinner?” “I’d like to.” “All right.” “Do you need help?” “Do you need help, he asks,” Simon said, shaking his head. He had buttoned his shirt and stuffed it into the front of his pants. He brushed the back of his hand across his mouth and sniffed hard. “No, it’s just stew from last night.” “I wasn’t joking earlier, you know, about my mom. It seemed like you thought I was joking.” Simon lifted a heavy red pot from the fridge and set it on the stove. He put his palms against his lower back and stretched. He pressed the knuckles of his left toes against the floor. “I didn’t think you were joking,” he said after a moment. “Well, all right, then.” “Don’t get mad about it. What do you want me to say?” “I don’t know. What’s to say?” “If you have something you want me to say, then I’d like to hear it.” “Forget it.” “No, not forget it. Say it. Say words, Hartjes. Words.” Hartjes leaned back. The fire on the stove spat as moisture from the skin of the pot evaporated or dropped into the flame. The blue veil of night had passed and now it was dim in the kitchen, so that the only light was from the stove. Simon reached for the switch on the other side of the doorway. “No, it’s fine.” “I don’t know what people say in moments like this—you didn’t love her, did you?” “No, I guess not, probably not,” he said. When Hartjes was ten, he’d gotten himself stung by seven wasps at his aunt Lora Anne’s house, and his mother had said, “That’s what faggots get.” It was a story he had learned to tell white people with some degree of exaggerated gravity, and it had paid for his college, because white people had a vast hunger for the calamities of others.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  They had last spoken on the night Francisco left for trade school in Georgia. They were in their room, Hartjes lying on the bed, Francisco stuffing clothes into a garbage bag. It was hot, their shirts sticking to their backs. Francisco sat on the edge of the bed, looked over his shoulder at Hartjes, and said, “I’m out of here, kid.” Hartjes shoved at him and said, “Shut up,” because it made him feel good. Francisco stood up, hoisted the black bag over his shoulder. He leaned down and they knocked fists. A friend of his gave him a ride to the bus depot, and then total silence until he called to say that Hartjes’s mother was dead. “Oh,” Hartjes had said that Tuesday on the phone four weeks before. “Oh, all right.” And then Francisco had hung up, and that was that. The apples were not for Hartjes. They were for his friend Simon, who lived in the country. They were not for Simon, either, in fact, but for Simon’s goats. The goats were named Helena, Maria, Bertram, Vicky, Dude, and Guy. Helena was a boy goat, the others were girls. Simon had named them before he knew their sexes, after picking them out at two different farms three years or so before, when they were all babies and awkward, barely weaned at all, when it was still possible to mistake a boy goat for a girl and vice versa if you didn’t know what you were doing. Hartjes cut the apples up for the goats and fed them from the sloping front porch. They had grown accustomed to his way of doing things on these Tuesday visits, and they formed a neat little line and filed up to him one at a time to receive from his palm a chunk of apple. He patted their sides, felt the bristle of their fur, watched the tufts of steam issue from their nostrils. The horizontal bars of their pupils shivered. Their eyes were pale blue. He fed them from a plastic bag, lifting chunk after chunk until they were all gone, and the goats, brushing his palms with their tongues, nipping at his fingertips, gave up on him. Off they wandered to find food elsewhere.