Guilt

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 Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  My words must have impressed him, for I had no sooner finished than he handed me his watch and chain, his wallet, his fraternity pin, etc. “Hold on to them,” he said. “These bastards’ll rob me of everything I’ve got.” And then suddenly he began to laugh, one of those weird, mirthless laughs which makes you believe a guy’s goofy whether he is or not. “I know you’ll think I’m crazy,” he said, “but I want to atone for what I did. I want to get married. You see, I didn’t know I had the clap. I gave her the clap and then I knocked her up. I told the doctor I don’t care what happens to me, but I want him to let me get married first. He keeps telling me to wait until I get better—but I know I’m never going to get better. This is the end.” I couldn’t help laughing myself, hearing him talk that way. I couldn’t understand what had come over him. Anyway, I had to promise him to see the girl and explain things to her. He wanted me to stick by her, comfort her. Said he could trust me, etc. I said yes to everything in order to soothe him. He didn’t seem exactly nuts to me—just caved-in like. Typical Anglo-Saxon crisis. An eruption of morals. I was rather curious to see the girl, to get the lowdown on the whole thing. The next day I looked her up. She was living in the Latin Quarter. As soon as she realized who I was she became exceedingly cordial. Ginette she called herself. Rather big, rawboned, healthy, peasant type with a front tooth half eaten away. Full of vitality and a kind of crazy fire in her eyes. The first thing she did was to weep. Then, seeing that I was an old friend of her Jo-Jo—that was how she called him—she ran downstairs and brought back a couple of bottles of white wine. I was to stay and have dinner with her—she insisted on it. As she drank she became by turns gay and maudlin. I didn’t have to ask her any questions—she went on like a self-winding machine. The thing that worried her principally was—would he get his job back when he was released from the hospital? She said her parents were well off, but they were displeased with her. They didn’t approve of her wild ways. They didn’t approve of him particularly —he had no manners, and he was an American. She begged me to assure her that he would get his job back, which I did without hesitancy. And then she begged me to know if she could believe what he said—that he was going to marry her. Because now, with a child under her belt, and a dose of clap besides, she was in no position to strike a match—with a Frenchman anyway.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Overtly Kruger never uttered a word of reproach but his manner indicated plainly enough that I was becoming a bum. One day I was taken ill. The rich diet was taking effect upon me. I don’t know what ailed me, but I couldn’t get out of bed. I had lost all my stamina, and with it whatever courage I possessed. Kruger had to look after me, had to make broths for me, and so on. It was a trying period for him, more particularly because he was just on the verge of giving an important exhibition at his studio, a private showing to some wealthy connoisseurs from whom he was expecting aid. The cot on which I lay was in the studio; there was no other room to put me in. The morning of the day he was to give his exhibition, Kruger awoke thoroughly disgruntled. If I had been able to stand on my feet I know he would have given me a clout in the jaw and kicked me out. But I was prostrate, and weak as a cat. He tried to coax me out of bed, with the idea of locking me up in the kitchen upon the arrival of his visitors. I realized that I was making a mess of it for him. People can’t look at pictures and statues with enthusiasm when a man is dying before their eyes. Kruger honestly thought I was dying. So did I. That’s why, despite my feelings of guilt, I couldn’t muster any enthusiasm when he proposed calling for the ambulance and having me shipped to the American Hospital. I wanted to die there, comfortably, right in the studio; I didn’t want to be urged to get up and find a better place to die in. I didn’t care where I died, really, so long as it wasn’t necessary to get up. When he heard me talk this way Kruger became alarmed. Worse than having a sick man in his studio should the visitors arrive, was to have a dead man. That would completely ruin his prospects, slim as they were. He didn’t put it that way to me, of course, but I could see from his agitation that that was what worried him. And that made me stubborn. I refused to let him call the hospital. I refused to let him call a doctor. I refused everything. He got so angry with me finally that, despite my protestations, he began to dress me. I was too weak to resist. All I could do was to murmur weakly—“you bastard you!” Though it was warm outdoors I was shivering like a dog. After he had completely dressed me he flung an overcoat over me and slipped outside to telephone. “I won’t go! I won’t go!” I kept saying but he simply slammed the door on me. He came back in a few minutes and, without addressing a word to me, busied himself about the studio. Last minute preparations.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Speak, imbecile, where were you?” When she flares up like that, when she gets enraged, he looks up at her timidly and then, as if he had decided that silence was the best course, he lets his head drop and he fiddles with his napkin. But this little gesture, which she knows so well and which of course is secretly pleasing to her because she is convinced now that he is guilty, only increases Lucienne’s anger. “Speak, imbecile!” she shrieks. And with a squeaky, timid little voice he explains to her woefully that while waiting for her he got so hungry that he was obliged to stop off for a sandwich and a glass of beer. It was just enough to ruin his appetite—he says it dolefully, though it’s apparent that food just now is the least of his worries. “But”—and he tries to make his voice sound more convincing—“I was waiting for you all the time,” he blurts out. “Liar!” she screams. “Liar! Ah, fortunately, I too am a liar... a good liar. You make me ill with your petty little lies. Why don’t you tell me a big lie?” He hangs his head again and absent-mindedly he gathers a few crumbs and puts them to his mouth. Whereupon she slaps his hand. “Don’t do that! You make me tired. You’re such an imbecile. Liar! Just you wait! I have more to say. I am a liar too, but I am not an imbecile.” In a little while, however, they are sitting close together, their hands locked, and she is murmuring softly: “Ah, my little rabbit, it is hard to leave you now. Come here, kiss me! What are you going to do this evening? Tell me the truth, my little one. ... I am sorry that I have such an ugly temper.” He kisses her timidly, just like a little bunny with long pink ears; gives her a little peck on the lips as if he were nibbling a cabbage leaf. And at the same time his bright round eyes fall caressingly on her purse which is lying open beside her on the bench. He is only waiting for the moment when he can graciously give her the slip; he is itching to get away, to sit down in some quiet café on the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  She almost wore me out.” By this time the one in bed had come to and was rubbing her eyes. She looked pretty young to me, too. Not bad looking, but dumb as hell. Wanted to know right away what we were talking about. “She lives here in the hotel,” said Carl. “On the third floor. Do you want to go to her room? I’ll fix it up for you.” I didn’t know whether I wanted to or not, but when I saw Carl mushing it up with her again I decided I did want to. I asked her first if she was too tired. Useless question. A whore is never too tired to open her legs. Some of them can fall asleep while you diddle them. Anyway, it was decided we would go down to her room. Like that I wouldn’t have to pay the patron for the night. In the morning I rented a room overlooking the little park down below where the sandwich-board men always came to eat their lunch. At noon I called for Carl to have breakfast with him. He and Van Norden had developed a new habit in my absence—they went to the Coupole for breakfast every day. “Why the Coupole?” I asked. “Why the Coupole?” says Carl. “Because the Coupole serves porridge at all hours and porridge makes you shit.”—“I see,” said I. So it’s just like it used to be again. The three of us walking back and forth to work. Petty dissensions, petty rivalries. Van Norden still bellyaching about his cunts and about washing the dirt out of his belly. Only now he’s found a new diversion. He’s found that it’s less annoying to masturbate. I was amazed when he broke the news to me. I didn’t think it possible for a guy like that to find any pleasure in jerking himself off. I was still more amazed when he explained to me how he goes about it. He had “invented” a new stunt, so he put it. “You take an apple,” he says, “and you bore out the core. Then you rub some cold cream on the inside so as it doesn’t melt too fast. Try it some time! It’ll drive you crazy at first. Anyway, it’s cheap and you don’t have to waste much time.” “By the way,” he says, switching the subject, “that friend of yours, Fillmore, he’s in the hospital. I think he’s nuts. Anyway, that’s what his girl told me. He took on a French girl, you know, while you were away. They used to fight like hell. She’s a big, healthy bitch—wild like. I wouldn’t mind giving her a tumble, but I’m afraid she’d claw the eyes out of me. He was always going around with his face and hands scratched up. She looks bunged up too once in a while—or she used to. You know how these French cunts are—when they love they lose their minds.” Evidently things had happened while I was away.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He corresponded with a cousin at Lyons, by the name of Arneys, a zealous Romanist, who tried to reconvert him to his religion, and reproached the Church of Geneva with the want of discipline. On the 26th of February, 1553, he wrote to Arneys that in Geneva vice and blasphemy were punished, while in France a dangerous heretic was tolerated, who deserved to be burned by Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, who blasphemed the holy Trinity, called Jesus Christ an idol, and the baptism of infants a diabolic invention. He gave his name as Michael Servetus, who called himself at present Villeneuve, a practising physician at Vienne. In confirmation he sent the first leaf of the "Restitution," and named the printer Balthasar Arnoullet at Vienne.1152 This letter, and two others of Trie which followed, look very much as if they had been dictated or inspired by Calvin. Servetus held him responsible.1153 But Calvin denied the imputation as a calumny.1154 At the same time he speaks rather lightly of it, and thinks that it would not have been dishonorable to denounce so dangerous a heretic to the proper authorities. He also frankly acknowledges that he caused his arrest at Geneva.1155 He could see no material difference in principle between doing the same thing, indirectly, at Vienne and, directly, at Geneva. He simply denies that he was the originator of the papal trial and of the letter of Trie; but he does not deny that he furnished material for evidence, which was quite well known and publicly made use of in the trial where Servetus’s letters to Calvin are mentioned as pieces justificatives. There can be no doubt that Trie, who describes himself as a comparatively unlettered man, got his information about Servetus and his book from Calvin, or his colleagues, either directly from conversation, or from pulpit denunciations. We must acquit Calvin of direct agency, but we cannot free him of indirect agency in this denunciation.1156 Calvin’s indirect agency, in the first, and his direct agency in the second arrest of Servetus admit of no proper justification, and are due to an excess of zeal for orthodoxy. Arneys conveyed this information to the Roman Catholic authorities. The matter was brought to the knowledge of Cardinal Tournon, at that time archbishop of Lyons, a cruel persecutor of the Protestants, and Matthias Ory, a regularly trained inquisitor of the Roman see for the kingdom of France. They at once instituted judicial proceedings. Villeneuve was summoned before the civil court of Vienne on the 16th of March. He kept the judges waiting for two hours (during which he probably destroyed all suspicious papers), and appeared without any show of embarrassment. He affirmed that he had lived long at Vienne, in frequent company with ecclesiastics, without incurring any suspicion for heresy, and had always avoided all cause of offence. His apartments were searched, but nothing was found to incriminate him.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  Roughly, I say. I wasn’t counting by francs any more. A hundred, or two hundred, more or less—it didn’t mean a goddamned thing to me. As for him, he was going through the whole transaction in a daze. He didn’t know how much money he had. All he knew was that he had to keep something aside for Ginette. He wasn’t certain yet how much—we were going to figure that out on the way to the station. In the excitement we had forgotten to change all the money. We were already in the cab, however, and there wasn’t any time to be lost. The thing was to find out how we stood. We emptied our pockets quickly and began to whack it up. Some of it was lying on the floor, some of it was on the seat. It was bewildering. There was French, American and English money. And all that chicken feed besides. I felt like picking up the coins and chucking them out of the window— just to simplify matters. Finally we sifted it all out; he held on to the English and American money, and I held on to the French money. We had to decide quickly now what to do about Ginette—how much to give her, what to tell her, etc. He was trying to fix up a yarn for me to hand her— didn’t want her to break her heart and so forth. I had to cut him short. “Never mind what to tell her,” I said. “Leave that to me. How much are you going to give her, that’s the thing? Why give her anything?” That was like setting a bomb under his ass. He burst into tears. Such tears! It was worse than before. I thought he was going to collapse on my hands. Without stopping to think, I said: “All right, let’s give her all this French money. That ought to last her for a while.” “How much is it?” he asked feebly. “I don’t know—about 2,000 francs or so. More than she deserves anyway.” “Christ! Don’t say that!” he begged. “After all, it’s a rotten break I’m giving her. Her folks’ll never take her back now. No, give it to her. Give her the whole damned business. ... I don’t care what it is.” He pulled a handkerchief out to wipe the tears away. “I can’t help it,” he said. “It’s too much for me.” I said nothing. Suddenly he sprawled himself out full length—I thought he was taking a fit or something—and he said: “Jesus, I think I ought to go back. I ought to go back and face the music. If anything should happen to her I’d never forgive myself.” That was a rude jolt for me. “Christ!” I shouted, “you can’t do that! Not now. It’s too late.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  I stood over him, with one eye on the clock, and watched every stroke of the pen. It hurt to hand over the dough. Not all of it, thank God—but a good part of it. I had roughly about 2,500 francs in my pocket. Roughly, I say. I wasn’t counting by francs any more. A hundred, or two hundred, more or less—it didn’t mean a goddamned thing to me. As for him, he was going through the whole transaction in a daze. He didn’t know how much money he had. All he knew was that he had to keep something aside for Ginette. He wasn’t certain yet how much—we were going to figure that out on the way to the station. In the excitement we had forgotten to change all the money. We were already in the cab, however, and there wasn’t any time to be lost. The thing was to find out how we stood. We emptied our pockets quickly and began to whack it up. Some of it was lying on the floor, some of it was on the seat. It was bewildering. There was French, American and English money. And all that chicken feed besides. I felt like picking up the coins and chucking them out of the window—just to simplify matters. Finally we sifted it all out; he held on to the English and American money, and I held on to the French money. We had to decide quickly now what to do about Ginette—how much to give her, what to tell her, etc. He was trying to fix up a yarn for me to hand her—didn’t want her to break her heart and so forth. I had to cut him short. “Never mind what to tell her,” I said. “Leave that to me. How much are you going to give her, that’s the thing? Why give her anything?” That was like setting a bomb under his ass. He burst into tears. Such tears! It was worse than before. I thought he was going to collapse on my hands. Without stopping to think, I said: “All right, let’s give her all this French money. That ought to last her for a while.” “How much is it?” he asked feebly. “I don’t know—about 2,000 francs or so. More than she deserves anyway.” “Christ! Don’t say that!” he begged. “After all, it’s a rotten break I’m giving her. Her folks’ll never take her back now. No, give it to her. Give her the whole damned business. … I don’t care what it is.” He pulled a handkerchief out to wipe the tears away. “I can’t help it,” he said. “It’s too much for me.” I said nothing.

• From The Girls (2016)

  “There’s more in the sink,” she said. “It’s real good.” Donna picked a black seed from her mouth with a delicate little pinch, then flicked it off into the corner of the room. — We were there only a half hour or so, though it seemed much longer. Snapping the TV on and off. Paging through the mail on the side table. I followed Suzanne up the stairs, wondering where Teddy was now, where his parents were. Was Teddy still waiting for me to bring him his drugs? Tiki banged around in the hallway. I realized with a start that I’d known the Dutton family my whole life. Under the hanging photographs, I could make out the line of wallpaper, just starting to peel, the tiny pink flowers. The smear of fingerprints. I would often think of the house. How innocent I told myself it was: harmless fun. I was reckless, wanting to win back Suzanne’s attention, to feel like we were arranged again against the world. We were ripping a tiny seam in the life of the Dutton family, just so they’d see themselves differently, even if for a moment. So they’d notice a slight disturbance, try to remember when they’d moved their shoes or put their clock in the drawer. That could only be good, I told myself, the forced perspective. We were doing them a favor. — Donna was in the parents’ bedroom, a long silk slip pulled over her dress. “I’ll need the Rolls at seven,” she said, swishing the watery fabric, the color of champagne. Suzanne snorted. I could see a cut-glass bottle of perfume tipped on the nightstand and the golden tubes of lipstick like shell casings in the carpet. Suzanne was already sifting through the bureau, stuffing her hand inside the flesh-tone nylons, creating obscene bulges. The brassieres were heavy and medical looking, stiff with wire. I lifted one of the lipsticks and uncapped it, smelling the talcum scent of the orangy red. “Oh, yeah,” Donna said, seeing me. She grabbed a lipstick, too, and made a cartoonish pucker, pretending to apply it. “We should leave a little message,” she said. Looking around.

• From The Girls (2016)

  11 I got caught; of course I did. Mrs. Dutton on her kitchen floor, calling my name like a right answer. And I hesitated for just a moment—a stunned, bovine reaction to my own name, the knowledge that I should help the fallen Mrs. Dutton—but Suzanne and Donna were far ahead, and by the time I jarred back into that realization, they had almost disappeared. Suzanne turned back just long enough to see Mrs. Dutton clamp a trembling hand on my arm. — My mother’s pained and baffled declarations: I was a failure. I was pathological. She wore the air of crisis like a flattering new coat, the stream of her anger performed for an invisible jury. She wanted to know who had broken into the Dutton house with me. “Judy saw two girls with you,” she said. “Maybe three. Who were they?” “Nobody.” I tended my rigid silence like a suitor, full of honorable feelings. Before she and Donna disappeared, I tried to flash Suzanne a message: I would take responsibility. She didn’t have to worry. I understood why they’d left me behind. “It was just me,” I said. Anger made her words garbled. “You can’t stay in this house and spout lies.” I could see how rattled she was by this confusing new situation. Her daughter had never been a problem before, had always zipped along without resistance, as tidy and self-contained as those fish that clean their own tanks. And why would she bother to expect otherwise or even prepare herself for the possibility? “You told me you were going to Connie’s all summer,” my mother said. Almost shouting. “You said it so many times. Right to my face. And guess what? I called Arthur. He says you haven’t been there in months. Almost

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  I stood over him, with one eye on the clock, and watched every stroke of the pen. It hurt to hand over the dough. Not all of it, thank God—but a good part of it. I had roughly about 2,500 francs in my pocket. Roughly, I say. I wasn’t counting by francs any more. A hundred, or two hundred, more or less—it didn’t mean a goddamned thing to me. As for him, he was going through the whole transaction in a daze. He didn’t know how much money he had. All he knew was that he had to keep something aside for Ginette. He wasn’t certain yet how much—we were going to figure that out on the way to the station. In the excitement we had forgotten to change all the money. We were already in the cab, however, and there wasn’t any time to be lost. The thing was to find out how we stood. We emptied our pockets quickly and began to whack it up. Some of it was lying on the floor, some of it was on the seat. It was bewildering. There was French, American and English money. And all that chicken feed besides. I felt like picking up the coins and chucking them out of the window—just to simplify matters. Finally we sifted it all out; he held on to the English and American money, and I held on to the French money. We had to decide quickly now what to do about Ginette—how much to give her, what to tell her, etc. He was trying to fix up a yarn for me to hand her—didn’t want her to break her heart and so forth. I had to cut him short. “Never mind what to tell her,” I said. “Leave that to me. How much are you going to give her, that’s the thing? Why give her anything?” That was like setting a bomb under his ass. He burst into tears. Such tears! It was worse than before. I thought he was going to collapse on my hands. Without stopping to think, I said: “All right, let’s give her all this French money. That ought to last her for a while.” “How much is it?” he asked feebly. “I don’t know—about 2,000 francs or so. More than she deserves anyway.” “Christ! Don’t say that!” he begged. “After all, it’s a rotten break I’m giving her. Her folks’ll never take her back now. No, give it to her. Give her the whole damned business. … I don’t care what it is.” He pulled a handkerchief out to wipe the tears away. “I can’t help it,” he said. “It’s too much for me.” I said nothing. Suddenly he sprawled himself out full length—I thought he was taking a fit or something—and he said: “Jesus, I think I ought to go back. I ought to go back and face the music. If anything should happen to her I’d never forgive myself.” That was a rude jolt for me.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  We have no right to kill him.' But his mother was angry, and cried: 'I know that you cannot kill him; you are too cowardly and soft. If I had known that he was my husband's murderer I should never have accepted his help. I would rather have Starved to death than see you form a friendship with him. But I tell you that you are wrong to abandon your revenge because of your love, and, if you do so, you smirch the honour of a samurai. If you are such a coward I no longer know you. I will avenge him myself.' And, seizing her dagger, she rushed forth. But her son caught her by the sleeve, and said: 'If you are so firmly determined to avenge my father, there is nothing for me to do but obey you. I shall kill him with my own hands. I pray you not to do it yourself, mother. I beg you to be calm.'And he made ready his vengeance. His love with Senpatji had already lasted for more than two years, and yet he was now compelled to destroy that man to whom he had vowed both affection and assistance for ever. He could not, however, kill him without telling him his reason for doing so. So that evening he called Senpatji to his room, but he was pale and weighed down with sorrow. Senpatji at once perceived this, and said to him: 'Dear Shynosuke, you seem very sad this evening. Are you in trouble? Tell it to me, that I may share it.' Shynosuke sighed, touched by these gentle words; and Senpatji again urged him to open his heart. Then Shynosuke confessed to him: 'Oh, what a wretched business is this human life! I am the son of Shingokei Disaki. You know yourself what you did to my father. I am aware that you could not do otherwise, and that you acted at your master's command. But as the son of a samurai I cannot overlook the matter. At that time I was Still in my mother's womb. Truly I am sorry to kill you, for you have been good to my mother and myself. I am in great distress.' Senpatji sighed: 'Alas, it is indeed a Strange world! I never suspected that you were his son. Yes, I killed your father. But I am happy, OShynosuke, to die at your hands. Come, kill me, and avenge your father.'And he threw away his swords and offered his neck to Shynosuke. Shynosuke cried: 'No, take your sword and fight with me. I cannot kill you in cold blood, who have been so good to us.'His mother was watching this scene from the next room, and called her son to her, saying: 'I admire both you and Senpatji. Each is a man of honour. Love each other again for this one night. I wish to grant you such an interval.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  As the place will eventually come to you, I think we should try to keep more in touch. . . .’ Then a list of the points Anna wished to discuss; they seemed very trifling indeed to Stephen. She put the letter away in a drawer and sat staring darkly out of the window. In the garden Mary was talking to David, persuading him not to retrieve the pigeons. ‘If my mother had invited her ten times over I’d never have taken her to Morton,’ Stephen muttered. Oh, but she knew, and only too well, what it would mean should they be there together; the lies, the despicable subterfuges, as though they were little less than criminals. It would be: ‘Mary, don’t hang about my bedroom—be careful . . . of course while we’re here at Morton . . . it’s my mother, she can’t understand these things; to her they would seem an outrage, an insult. . . .’ And then the guard set upon eyes and lips; the feeling of guilt at so much as a hand-touch; the pretence of a careless, quite usual friendship—‘Mary, don’t look at me as though you cared! you did this evening—remember my mother.’ Intolerable quagmire of lies and deceit! The degrading of all that to them was sacred—a very gross degrading of love, and through love a gross degrading of Mary. Mary . . . so loyal and as yet so gallant, but so pitifully untried in the war of existence. Warned only by words, the words of a lover, and what were mere words when it came to actions? And the ageing woman with the far-away eyes, eyes that could yet be so cruel, so accusing—they might turn and rest with repugnance on Mary, even as once they had rested on Stephen: ‘I would rather see you dead at my feet. . . .’ A fearful saying, and yet she had meant it, that ageing woman with the far-away eyes—she had uttered it knowing herself to be a mother. But that at least should be hidden from Mary. She began to consider the ageing woman who had scourged her but whom she had so deeply wounded, and as she did so the depth of that wound made her shrink in spite of her bitter anger, so that gradually the anger gave way to a slow and almost reluctant pity. Poor, ignorant, blind, unreasoning woman; herself a victim, having given her body for Nature’s most inexplicable whim. Yes, there had been two victims already—must there now be a third—and that one Mary? She trembled. At that moment she could not face it, she was weak, she was utterly undone by loving. Greedy she had grown for happiness, for the joys and the peace that their union had brought her.

• From The Girls (2016)

  neutered anger. What could he do to me? What could he take away? And then I was back in my bland room in Palo Alto, the light from the lamp the featureless light of the business traveler. — The apartment was empty by the time I emerged the next morning, my father and Tamar already at work. One of them—probably Tamar—had left a fan going, and a fake-looking plant shivered in the wake of air. There was only a week before I had to leave for boarding school, and seven days seemed too long to be in my father’s apartment, seven dinners to soldier through, but, at the same time, unfairly brief—I wouldn’t have time for habits, for context. I just had to wait. I turned on the television, the chatter a comforting soundtrack as I foraged in the kitchen. The box of Rice Krispies in the cabinet had a barest coating of cereal left: I ate it by the handful, then flattened the empty box. I poured a glass of iced tea, balanced a stack of crackers with the pleasing quantity and thickness of poker chips. I ferried the food to the couch. Before I could settle back, the screen stopped me. The crowd of images, doubling and spreading. The search for the perpetrator or perpetrators still unsuccessful. The newscaster said Mitch Lewis was not available for comment. The crackers crimped into shards by my wet hands. — Only after the trial did things come into focus, that night taking on the now familiar arc. Every detail and blip made public. There are times I try to guess what part I might have played. What amount would belong to me. It’s easiest to think I wouldn’t have done anything, like I would have stopped them, my presence the mooring that kept Suzanne in the human realm. That was the wish, the cogent parable. But there was another possibility that slouched along, insistent and unseen. The bogeyman under the bed, the snake at the bottom of the stairs: maybe I would have done something, too. Maybe it would have been easy.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  I lay back and puffed a cigarette, gazing ruefully at my pants the while; they were terribly wrinkled. In a moment she was back again, wrapping the kimono around her, and telling me in that agitated way which was getting on my nerves that I should make myself at home. “I’m going downstairs to see mother,” she said. “Mais faites comme chez vous, chéri. Je reviens tout de suite.” After a quarter of an hour had passed I began to feel thoroughly restless. I went inside and I read through a letter that was lying on the table. It was nothing of any account—a love letter. In the bathroom I examined all the bottles on the shelf; she had everything a woman requires to make herself smell beautiful. I was still hoping that she would come back and give me another fifty francs’ worth. But time dragged on and there was no sign of her. I began to grow alarmed. Perhaps there was someone dying downstairs. Absent-mindedly, out of a sense of self-preservation, I suppose, I began to put my things on. As I was buckling my belt it came to me like a flash how she had stuffed the hundred franc note into her purse. In the excitement of the moment she had thrust the purse in the wardrobe, on the upper shelf. I remembered the gesture she made— standing on her tiptoes and reaching for the shelf. It didn’t take me a minute to open the wardrobe and feel around for the purse. It was still there. I opened it hurriedly and saw my hundred franc note lying snugly between the silk coverlets. I put the purse back just as it was, slipped into my coat and shoes, and then I went to the landing and listened intently. I couldn’t hear a sound. Where she had gone to, Christ only knows. In a jiffy I was back at the wardrobe and fumbling with her purse. I pocketed the hundred francs and all the loose change besides. Then, closing the door silently, I tiptoed down the stairs and when once I had hit the street I walked just as fast as my legs would carry me. At the Café Boudon I stopped for a bite. The whores there having a gay time pelting a fat man who had fallen asleep over his meal. He was sound asleep; snoring, in fact, and yet his jaws were working away mechanically. The place was in an uproar. There were shouts of “All aboard!” and then a concerted banging of knives and forks. He opened his eyes for a moment, blinked stupidly, and then his head rolled forward again on his chest. I put the hundred franc bill carefully away in my fob pocket and counted the change. The din around me was increasing and I had difficulty to recall exactly whether I had seen “first-class” on her diploma or not.

• From The Girls (2016)

  startling me. Her face looked rumpled, and I could smell how much she’d been smoking. “You can take my red one, if you want.” I thought that she’d notice the change in me even if Tamar or my father couldn’t. The baby fat in my face disappeared, a hard scrape to my features. But she hadn’t mentioned anything. “This is fine,” I said. My mother paused, surveying my room. The mostly empty suitcase. “The uniform fits?” she asked. I hadn’t even tried it on, but I nodded, wrung into a new acquiescence. “Good, good.” When she smiled, her lips cracked and I was suddenly overcome. — I was shoving books into the closet when I found two milky Polaroids, hidden under a stack of old magazines. The sudden presence of Suzanne in my room: her hot feral smile, the pudge of her breasts. I could call up disgust for her, hopped up on Dexedrine and sweating from the effort of butchery, and at the same time be pulled in by a helpless drift—here was Suzanne. I should get rid of the photo, I knew, the image already charged with the guilty air of evidence. But I couldn’t. I turned the picture over, burying it in a book I’d never read again. The second photo was of the smeary back of someone’s head, turning away, and I stared at the image for a long moment before I realized the person was me.

• From I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)

  She pulled me to her with one hand and hit me only a few times with the switch. The shock of my sin and the emotional release of her prayer had exhausted her. Momma wouldn't talk right then, but later in the evening I found that my violation lay in using the phrase “by the way.” Momma explained that “Jesus was the Way, the Truth and the Light,” and anyone who says “by the way” is really saying, “by Jesus,” or “by God,” and the Lord's name would not be taken in vain in her house. When Bailey tried to interpret the words with: “White-folks use ‘by the way’ to mean while we're on the subject,” Momma reminded us that “whitefolks' mouths were most in general loose and their words were an abomination before Christ.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But now she was longing for the subtle easement of confession, so dear to the soul of woman. Her self-pity was augmented by her sense of wrong-doing—she was thoroughly unstrung, almost ill with self-pity—so that lacking the courage to confess the present, she let her thoughts dwell on the past. Stephen had always forborne to question, and therefore that past had never been discussed, but now Angela felt a great need to discuss it. She did not analyse her feelings; she only knew that she longed intensely to humble herself, to plead for compassion, to wring from the queer, strong, sensitive being who loved her, some hope of ultimate forgiveness. At that moment, as she lay there in Stephen’s arms, the girl assumed an enormous importance. It was strange, but the very fact of betrayal appeared to have strengthened her will to hold her, and Angela stirred, so that Stephen said softly: ‘Lie still—I thought you were fast asleep.’ And Angela answered: ‘No, I’m not asleep, dearest, I’ve been thinking. There are some things I ought to tell you. You’ve never asked me about my past life—why haven’t you, Stephen?’ ‘Because,’ said Stephen, ‘I knew that some day you’d tell me.’ Then Angela began at the very beginning. She described a Colonial home in Virginia. A grave, grey house, with a columned entrance, and a garden that looked down on deep, running water, and that water had rather a beautiful name—it was called the Potomac River. Up the side of the house grew magnolia blossoms, and many old trees gave their shade to its garden. In summer the fire-flies lit lamps on those trees, shifting lamps that moved swiftly among the branches. And the hot summer darkness was splashed with lightning, and the hot summer air was heavy with sweetness. She described her mother who had died when Angela was twelve—a pathetic, inadequate creature; the descendant of women who had owned many slaves to minister to their most trivial requirements: ‘She could hardly put on her own stockings and shoes,’ smiled Angela, as she pictured that mother. She described her father, George Benjamin Maxwell—a charming, but quite incorrigible spendthrift. She said: ‘He lived in past glories, Stephen. Because he was a Maxwell—a Maxwell of Virginia—he wouldn’t admit that the Civil War had deprived us all of the right to spend money. God knows, there was little enough of it left—the War practically ruined the old Southern gentry! My grandma could remember those days quite well; she scraped lint from her sheets for our wounded soldiers. If Grandma had lived, my life might have been different—but she died a couple of months after Mother.’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Looking down into Mary’s clear, grey eyes, she would suddenly flush through her tan, and feel guilty; and that feeling would reach the girl and disturb her, so that she must hold Stephen’s hand for a moment. One day she said suddenly: ‘Are you unhappy?’ ‘Why on earth should I be unhappy?’ smiled Stephen. All the same there were nights now when Stephen lay awake even after her arduous hours of service, hearing the guns that were coming nearer, yet not thinking of them, but always of Mary. A great gentleness would gradually engulf her like a soft sea mist, veiling reef and headland. She would seem to be drifting quietly, serenely towards some blessèd and peaceful harbour. Stretching out a hand she would stroke the girl’s shoulder where she lay, but carefully in case she should wake her. Then the mist would lift: ‘Good God! What am I doing?’ She would sit up abruptly, disturbing the sleeper. ‘Is that you, Stephen?’ ‘Yes, my dear, go to sleep.’ Then a cross, aggrieved voice: ‘Do shut up, you two. It’s rotten of you, I was just getting off! Why must you always persist in talking!’ Stephen would lie down again and would think: ‘I’m a fool, I go out of my way to find trouble. Of course I’ve grown fond of the child, she’s so plucky, almost anyone would grow fond of Mary. Why shouldn’t I have affection and friendship? Why shouldn’t I have a real human interest? I can help her to find her feet after the war if we both come through—I might buy her a business.’ That gentle mist, hiding both reef and headland; it would gather again blurring all perception, robbing the past of its crude, ugly outlines. ‘After all, what harm can it do the child to be fond of me?’ It was so good a thing to have won the affection of this young creature. 2 The Germans got perilously near to Compiègne, and the Breakspeare Unit was ordered to retire. Its base was now at a ruined château on the outskirts of an insignificant village, yet not so very insignificant either—it was stuffed to the neck with ammunition. Nearly all the hours that were spent off duty must be passed in the gloomy, damp-smelling dug-outs which consisted of cellars, partly destroyed but protected by sandbags on heavy timbers. Like foxes creeping out of their holes, the members of the Unit would creep into the daylight, their uniforms covered with mould and rubble, their eyes blinking, their hands cold and numb from the dampness—so cold and so numb that the starting up of motors would often present a real problem. At this time there occurred one or two small mishaps; Bless broke her wrist while cranking her engine; Blakeney and three others at a Poste de Secours, were met by a truly terrific bombardment and took cover in what had once been a brick-field, crawling into the disused furnace.

• From Comrade Loves of the Samurai (1972)

  We have no right to kill him.' But his mother was angry, and cried: 'I know that you cannot kill him; you are too cowardly and soft. If I had known that he was my husband's murderer I should never have accepted his help. I would rather have Starved to death than see you form a friendship with him. But I tell you that you are wrong to abandon your revenge because of your love, and, if you do so, you smirch the honour of a samurai. If you are such a coward I no longer know you. I will avenge him myself.' And, seizing her dagger, she rushed forth. But her son caught her by the sleeve, and said: 'If you are so firmly determined to avenge my father, there is nothing for me to do but obey you. I shall kill him with my own hands. I pray you not to do it yourself, mother. I beg you to be calm.'And he made ready his vengeance. His love with Senpatji had already lasted for more than two years, and yet he was now compelled to destroy that man to whom he had vowed both affection and assistance for ever. He could not, however, kill him without telling him his reason for doing so. So that evening he called Senpatji to his room, but he was pale and weighed down with sorrow. Senpatji at once perceived this, and said to him: 'Dear Shynosuke, you seem very sad this evening. Are you in trouble? Tell it to me, that I may share it.' Shynosuke sighed, touched by these gentle words; and Senpatji again urged him to open his heart. Then Shynosuke confessed to him: 'Oh, what a wretched business is this human life! I am the son of Shingokei Disaki. You know yourself what you did to my father. I am aware that you could not do otherwise, and that you acted at your master's command. But as the son of a samurai I cannot overlook the matter. At that time I was Still in my mother's womb. Truly I am sorry to kill you, for you have been good to my mother and myself. I am in great distress.' Senpatji sighed: 'Alas, it is indeed a Strange world! I never suspected that you were his son. Yes, I killed your father. But I am happy, OShynosuke, to die at your hands. Come, kill me, and avenge your father.'And he threw away his swords and offered his neck to Shynosuke. Shynosuke cried: 'No, take your sword and fight with me. I cannot kill you in cold blood, who have been so good to us.'His mother was watching this scene from the next room, and called her son to her, saying: 'I admire both you and Senpatji. Each is a man of honour. Love each other again for this one night. I wish to grant you such an interval.

• From The Girls (2016)

  dope I’d promised. I’d almost forgotten that I hadn’t just demanded money. When he saw my expression, he corrected himself. “I mean, no rush. If it takes time or whatever.” “Hard to say.” Tiki was sniffing at my crotch; I pushed his nose away more roughly than I’d meant to, his snout wetting my palm. My desire to get out of the room was suddenly overwhelming. “Pretty soon, probably,” I said, starting to back toward the door. “I’ll bring it over when I get it.” “Oh, yeah,” Teddy said. “Yeah, okay.” — I had the uncomfortable sense, at the front door, that Teddy was the guest and I was the host. The wind chime over the porch rippling a thin song. The sun and trees and blond hills beyond seemed to promise great freedoms, and I could already start to forget what I’d done, washed over by other concerns. The pleasing meaty rectangle of the folded bills in my pocket. When I looked at Teddy’s freckled face, a surge of impulsive, virtuous affection passed through me—he was like a little brother. The gentle way he’d mothered the barn kitten. “I’ll see you,” I said, leaning to kiss him on the cheek. I was congratulating myself for the sweetness of my gesture, the kindness, but then Teddy adjusted his hips, hunching them protectively; when I pulled away, I saw his erection pushing stubbornly against his jeans.