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 In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  He could have had a terrible temper or criticized everything she did. Or maybe she loved to dance and he wouldn’t even try. Maybe he drank. Maybe she was in love with someone else. Miri wished she could talk to Kathleen and find out the truth. —SHE TRIED to convince Irene to invite Mason to dinner on Valentine’s Day. “He’s a hero. Everybody says so. Just ask Uncle Henry.” “He was very brave,” Rusty said, backing up Miri, “rushing into a burning plane and saving the stewardess.” Miri said, “She’s not the only one he saved.” “A hero is always welcome at my table,” Irene said. Miri threw her arms around Irene. “What?” Irene asked. “Thank you,” Miri said. “I’m not inviting him as your boyfriend,” Irene told her. “So don’t go getting any ideas. I’m saying it would be a shonda not to include him.” “Relax, Mama,” Rusty said. “They’re just kids.” “I remember when I thought you were just a kid, Naomi.” Irene used Rusty’s real name only when she was dead serious. And it always shut Rusty up. She turned and walked out of the kitchen. Miri felt bad for Rusty that night and went to her room, where she sat on the edge of the bed and held Rusty’s hand. No words were necessary. They both knew what Irene meant even if she hadn’t spelled it out, as if what happened with Mike Monsky was Rusty’s fault. Well, in a way Miri supposed it was. She’d let Mike Monsky trick her into going all the way, hadn’t she? Getting into that Nash with him, a car where the seat actually turned into a bed. She would never go out with a boy who drove a Nash. No boy was going to trick her into doing anything she didn’t want to do. Which made her think, maybe Rusty wanted to do it. Maybe he didn’t have to trick her at all. She’d learned about the Nash a few years ago when Rusty was teasing Henry about his car. They thought she was asleep. “It’s so old,” Rusty had said. “And that rumble seat! You can’t make love in a rumble seat.” “I suppose you think I should get a Nash,” Henry said. “One with a seat that turns into a bed.” At which point Rusty threw her shoe at Henry. But Henry ducked and laughed. “I will never get into another Nash as long as I live,” Rusty said. “And neither will my daughter.” Miri kissed Rusty goodnight, something she didn’t automatically do these days. Rusty gave her such an appreciative look she vowed to be kinder to her mother. On her way out of Rusty’s room, Miri spied part of a white box tied with a red ribbon, sticking out from under Rusty’s bed. Could it be a gift from Longy? That would be disgusting! Or from Natalie’s cousin Tewky? Even worse. Or wait, maybe it was for her.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  He shrugged uneasily at her, signed the form saying that he’d done what he’d been asked, and left. The look, he suspected, was because he’d had to cancel the last several proctoring appointments with the history department when he had been in the hospital. He could still hear her voice, scratchy on the phone, when he called to say he wouldn’t be able to make it. “Your generation is killing this nation with your carelessness,” she’d said, and hung up on him before he could respond. He’d stood in the reception area of the psychiatric care facility, staring at his reflection in his phone screen, thinking, well, maybe that was true, maybe they were killing the country and killing the world, but they were also killing themselves, and what would it list on his death certificate as cause of death, if not carelessness, misadventure. It was a serious thing to kill a world. He’d stood there with the clipboard of paperwork in his hand, had only called her because the act of lifting the clipboard to sign his name had brought to mind the fact that at that moment he was supposed to be somewhere else, on campus, giving an exam instead of admitting himself. But she didn’t care about that, and he didn’t blame her. He’d caused a mess. She was entitled to her feelings. Lionel knew the café where Sophie worked—he avoided it because it was popular with undergraduates. It was crowded, noisy, the last place you could get any work done or be alone with your thoughts. But when he arrived via the seldom-used entrance from the adjoining library, he was surprised to find it empty except for Sophie and another barista. Sophie sat at a table near the window, looking out. Lionel wondered if she was looking for him—the window faced onto the quad and the usual entrance—and the thought touched him. But when the door shut behind him, she looked up and frowned in mock surprise. “You have your tricks,” she said. “Some.” At her table, he unwound his scarf and unzipped his jacket. She reached out and stuck her finger through a hole in the collar of his shirt. “What happened there?” she said. Lionel pulled his chin back and looked down as she traced the hole, then flattened the collar with a little pat. “There we go.” “Oh, thanks.” “Do you want something? To eat, to drink?” She had gotten up, rested her knuckles against her hip. She was wearing black tights and a sweater the color of weak tea. Lionel found it a little hard to make eye contact with her. He pressed his hands to his cheeks. “Oh, I’m fine. Well. Yes. A coffee,” Lionel said, and when she returned a few minutes later with the coffee in a small carafe, he asked, “How much do I owe you?” She slapped his arm. She had already touched him twice.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Lionel knew the café where Sophie worked—he avoided it because it was popular with undergraduates. It was crowded, noisy, the last place you could get any work done or be alone with your thoughts. But when he arrived via the seldom-used entrance from the adjoining library, he was surprised to find it empty except for Sophie and another barista. Sophie sat at a table near the window, looking out. Lionel wondered if she was looking for him—the window faced onto the quad and the usual entrance—and the thought touched him. But when the door shut behind him, she looked up and frowned in mock surprise. “You have your tricks,” she said. “Some.” At her table, he unwound his scarf and unzipped his jacket. She reached out and stuck her finger through a hole in the collar of his shirt. “What happened there?” she said. Lionel pulled his chin back and looked down as she traced the hole, then flattened the collar with a little pat. “There we go.” “Oh, thanks.” “Do you want something? To eat, to drink?” She had gotten up, rested her knuckles against her hip. She was wearing black tights and a sweater the color of weak tea. Lionel found it a little hard to make eye contact with her. He pressed his hands to his cheeks. “Oh, I’m fine. Well. Yes. A coffee,” Lionel said, and when she returned a few minutes later with the coffee in a small carafe, he asked, “How much do I owe you?” She slapped his arm. She had already touched him twice. It felt like he was racking up a debt he wouldn’t be able to repay. Yes, she’d said she knew about Charles, but about what did she know? Did she know the whole of it? About this morning, too? The more he let her touch him, be kind to him, the worse it would be when she found out everything. The harder it would be to salvage anything like friendship. “I can afford a cup of coffee at least,” she said. Lionel could feel the small mound of his wallet in his pocket. “Next time’s on you.” “Is it always so busy?” Lionel asked. Overhead, Christmas music was playing. It was only November. “Very funny.” Sophie said. “It’s our slow season, I guess. The calm before the storm.” “Finals.” “Bingo. You must get busy, too, around then,” she said. “I don’t really know. It’s my first finals season as a proctor,” Lionel said. The coffee burned his tongue. “You proctored today, right? What kind of test? Can you say?” She leaned forward with her elbows on the table. Her eyes seemed lit with real curiosity. “History,” Lionel said. She had a mole on her neck, black as a pupil. She had bright blue eyes. She had painted her fingernails pale matte pink. The tips of her fingers were cracking and white. She caught him looking at her hands.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  They had a dog, Goldie, but she died.” “Does that make Mrs. Stein a better mother than me?” “What? No.” This wasn’t going well. “Mrs. Stein probably doesn’t go to business,” Rusty said. “She doesn’t.” “You see?” Sometimes no matter what Miri said or didn’t say, Rusty acted as if it reflected on her as a mother. She should have told Rusty that Mrs. Stein would like to work. That she’d like to be a librarian or a clerk at a bookstore. Instead she wound up saying what she thought Rusty wanted to hear. “You’re the best mother.” “You’re just saying that so you can keep an expensive bracelet she had no right to give you.” “I don’t care about the bracelet.” “Good. Then give it back. It’s inappropriate for a stranger to give you such an extravagant gift.” “She’s not exactly a stranger,” Miri muttered under her breath as Rusty walked away with the bracelet. Miri chased her down the hall. “Mom…” “What?” “You took the bracelet.” Rusty handed it to Miri. The next day after school she returned the bracelet. She didn’t want to offend Mrs. Stein. But as soon as she began, “My mother doesn’t think…” Mrs. Stein gave her a kind smile, a knowing smile, and took the box. “Maybe I will give it to my daughter, after all.” “I’m sure she’d like it.” “She’s hard to please.” “Even so.” “Thank you, Miri.” There. She’d done what she had to do. She would tell Rusty she’d returned the bracelet and she hoped that would satisfy her. Rusty could be moody but her bad moods rarely lasted. —BEFORE THE FAMILY sat down to Miri’s birthday dinner, Rusty gave her a small box wrapped in blue paper and tied with a white ribbon. “Happy birthday, honey.” Inside was a gold and garnet bracelet, not exactly the same as Mrs. Stein’s, but close enough. “It’s beautiful,” Miri said, slipping it onto her wrist. “Now you see why…” Rusty began. Miri hugged her mother. “I’m sorry.” “There’s no need to be sorry,” Rusty told her, smoothing her hair. “I love you.” “I love you, too.” Miri would never know if Rusty had already bought her the bracelet when she showed her the one from Mrs. Stein, or if she went out and bought it that day. “It looks really pretty, doesn’t it?” She held up her arm for Rusty to admire. Rusty smiled at her. “It does. It’s delicate enough to go with anything.” Miri resisted the urge to laugh. At least Rusty hadn’t called her delicate. —LATER THAT NIGHT, Mason stopped by with a birthday present for Miri. After Rusty greeted him, she went into her room, closing the door behind her, so the two of them could have the living room to themselves. “Fifteen minutes,” Rusty called. “Four feet on the floor at all times.” They couldn’t help laughing over that rule, and when they did, Rusty laughed, too.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  sed plane continuatum solutum et solitarium ob indi- civae praemium occupasse, domino tamen suo resti- tuturum. * Atque utinam ipse asinus," inquit * Quem nunquam profecto vidissem, vocem quiret humanam dare meaeque testimonium innocentiae perhibere posset; profecto vos huius iniuriae pi- geret." Sie asseverans nihil quiequam promovebat: nam collo constrictum reducunt eum pastores molesti con- tra montis illius silvosa nemora, unde lignum puer sole- 26 bat egerere : nec uspiam ruris reperitur ille sed plane corpus eius membratim laceratum multisque dis- persum locis conspicitur. Quam rem procul dubio sentiebam ego illius ursae dentibus esse perfectam et Hercule dicerem quod sciebam, si loquendi copia suppeditaret : sed quod solum poteram tacitus licet serae vindictae gratulabar. Et cadaver quidem disiectis partibus tandem totum repertum aegreque concinnatum ibidem terrae dedere, meum vero Bellerophontem, abactorem indubitatum cruentum- que percussorem criminantes, ad casas interim suas vinctum perducunt, quoad renascenti die sequenti deductus. ad magistratus, ut aiebant, poenae red- deretur. interim dum puerum illum parentes sui plangoribus querebantur et adveniens ecce rusticus nequaquam promissum suum frustratus destinatam sectionem meam flagitat, * Non est" in his inquit 338 THE GOLDEN ASS, SCOK VII loose and straying abroad, which he took up to the intent he might have some reward for the finding of him, and to restore him again to his master. “And I would to God," quoth he, * That this ass (which I would verily I had never seen) could speak as a man, to give witness of my innocence: then would you be ashamed of the injury which you have done to me." Thus reasoning for himself, he nothing prevailed, for those angry shepherds tied a rope about his neck and led him back again through the trees of the hill to the place where the boy accustomed to resort for wood. And after that they could discover him in no place, at length they found his body rent and torn in pieces, and his members dispersed in divers places, which I well knew was done by the cruel bear, and verily I would have told it if I might have spoken ; but (which I could only do) I greatly rejoiced at the vengeance of his death, although it came too late. Then they gathered the pieces of his body and hardly joined them together and buried them, and straightway they laid all the fault to him that was my Bellerophon,! charging him that it was he that took me up by the way, and had assaulted and slain the boy, and (bringing him home fast bound to their houses) purposed on the next morrow to accuse him of murder, and to lead him before the justices to have judgement of death. In the mean season, while the parents of the boy did lament and weep for the death of their son, the shepherd (according to his promise) came with his instruments and tools to geld me, and then one of them said: “Tush, our present

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Lionel looked at Charles’s plate. He had two fish portions, the kind with the head still on and the skin all crispy and brown. They looked like brim or something. Lionel had stopped eating meat the year before, when he was in the hospital. There was something so awful about it. Meat was so proximal to death, and he’d spent too much time looking at videos of the commercial food industry while he was in the private care facility. The kind shot on shaky camera phones and involving a lot of panting and rustling clothes, up-close shots of the cows pressing their snouts to mud-streaked bars or lying pathetically on their sides, suffering, with oozing sores and distended abdomens. He wasn’t radically vegetarian. He possessed no militant energy whatsoever. But still he felt insecure about it, because the origin of his desire to forgo meat wasn’t environmental or even about the animals, really. It was selfish. Because the thought of consuming dead things, when he had been so close to dying, when he had wanted to die, was too much. Lionel waited for Charles to say something dismissive about vegetarians, for that moment when people projected onto him whatever lingering guilt they felt about the consumption of meat. He missed hamburgers terribly sometimes. “How do you know our mutual friend?” Charles asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen you at one of his dumb parties before.” Lionel was prepared for the abruptness of the transition this time. “We were in the same department,” he said. He had known the host for several years, first when they were undergrad interns in the computer science department—Lionel from Michigan, the host from Arizona. Then both of them had been accepted into the same applied mathematics program at Wisconsin, and they’d been students together there for a few years, though Lionel was more pure math, while the host was working on applications to shielding and space exploration. They met for coffee and lunch after and before seminars and bonded over the fact that they hadn’t been math prodigies as kids. They slept together that first, itchy summer, fresh from undergrad and waiting for their lives to change. The host was now on track to graduate early—his project had attracted interest from the Department of Defense, which wanted to turn it into a weapon to be deployed in foreign wars. “Oh, you’re a weird genius too, huh? That must be nice.” Charles whistled in fake appreciation. “Definitely not a genius,” Lionel said. The word made him a little queasy. “I’m not in school right now, anyway. I’m on leave.” Charles spun his fork around with a flick of his fingers. The metal flashed as it moved across his wrist and came to rest right side up. He did it again, just like that, a neat little trick. “Then what do you do?” “I proctor exams,” Lionel said. “You what now?”

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  THE THIRD BOOKE THE TWELFTH CHAPTER How Apuleius was taken and put in prison for murther. When morning was come, and that I was awaked from sleep, my heart burned sore with remembrance of the murther I had committed the night before: and I rose and sate downe on the side of the bed with my legges acrosse, and wringing my hands, I weeped in most miserable sort. For I imagined with my selfe, that I was brought before the Judge in the Judgement place, and that he awarded sentence against me, and that the hangman was ready to lead me to the gallows. And further I imagined and sayd, Alasse what Judge is he that is so gentle or benigne, that will thinke that I am unguilty of the slaughter and murther of these three men. Howbeit the Assyrian Diophanes did firmely assure unto me, that my peregrination and voyage hither should be prosperous. But while I did thus unfold my sorrowes, and greatly bewail my fortune, behold I heard a great noyse and cry at the dore, and in came the Magistrates and officers, who commanded two sergeants to binde and leade me to prison, whereunto I was willingly obedient, and as they led me through the street, all the City gathered together and followed me, and although I looked always on the ground for very shame, yet sometimes I cast my head aside and marvelled greatly that among so many thousand people there was not one but laughed exceedingly. Finally, when they had brought me through all the streets of the city, in manner of those that go in procession, and do sacrifice to mitigate the ire of the gods, they placed mee in the Judgement hall, before the seat of the Judges: and after that the Crier had commanded all men to keep silence, and people desired the Judges to give sentence in the great Theatre, by reason of the great multitude that was there, whereby they were in danger of stifling. And behold the prease of people increased stil, some climed to the top of the house, some got upon the beames, some upon the Images, and some thrust their heads through the windowes, little regarding the dangers they were in, so they might see me. Then the officers brought mee forth openly into the middle of the hall, that every man might behold me. And after that the Cryer had made a noise, and willed all such that would bring any evidence against me, should come forth, there stept out an old man with a glasse of water in his hand, dropping out softly, who desired that hee might have liberty to speake during the time of the continuance of the water. Which when it was granted, he began his oration in this sort. THE THIRTEENTH CHAPTER How Apuleius was accused by an old man, and how he answered for himselfe.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  “You both get high and …” I closed the lid over the keys and rested my hands on the curved, reflecting wood. “Suppose he was the kind of guy who wanted to fool around. Who wanted to party.” I used the word the black whore had used. “I’m with you. You’re amazing. Here we are in goddamn suburbia and I’ve got some fuckin’ teenage hipster on my hands. Go on.” “Well, suppose he gets high and wants to blow you, nothing more, you don’t have to do a thing, just dig the music, would you let him?” Mr. Beattie was brushing his right hand back and forth over his crew cut. He seemed to be concentrating on this job, getting the feel of those soft quills against his palm. He wasn’t looking at me. “That’s a pretty funny question. Why do you ask? Is your question academic or what?” “I’m asking,” I said, “because I’d like to party with you.” He nodded quickly. “Got it. Groovy.” He looked at the clock. “I could make it real good for us both. Come back at five-fifteen, five-thirty and it’ll be dark and the fuckin’ animals next door”—head jerk to indicate the athletics building—“will have cleared out by then. We’ll be all alone down here and I’ll put on some nice classical music and we’ll blow some weed, I’ve got nice stuff, and we’ll see, just see what happens. Okay?” I who was always conscious of the formlessness of real life now saw it imitate art, though the meaning of this action, which was surely turning out to be tragic, escaped me. I had my appointment with the headmaster at four. At five-thirty, after I’d betrayed Mr. Beattie, I’d return to have sex with him. The next day he’d be fired. He’d learn of my denunciation and he wouldn’t be able to say anything against me. He wouldn’t be able to discredit me by saying I was a practicing homosexual since we would have practiced homosexuality together. He’d be powerless. I would have gotten what I wanted, gotten away with it and gotten rid of him: the trapdoor beside the bed. At last I could seduce and betray an adult. This heterosexual hipster would be my momentary Verlaine. I smiled at him, nodded encouragingly, even grabbed my own crotch in friendly imitation of his trademark gesture. Once I was outside I looked up at the gray and white clouds boiling and flowing over the tower beside the chapel, a brick reminiscence of the silo it had replaced (the whole estate had once been a farm). I hurried under a stone arch carved with the motto “A Life Without Beauty Is Only Half Lived.” A shiny black head of a woman was poised in a niche above the arch. Though the sculptor had undoubtedly hoped she would appear ageless, in fact her hairdo was all too patently a style of the 1920s, giveaway finger waves.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  “Including my cashmere sweaters,” Natalie said, scooping them out of her dresser drawer. But Corinne hung all the good things back in Natalie’s closet. “You’re overreacting, Nat.” “I don’t care about any of it,” Natalie said, flopping down on her bed. Miri was about to volunteer to take the cashmere sweaters herself, but Corinne saved her. “We’ll give away anything you haven’t worn in two years.” So Corinne knew about Rusty’s two-year rule. Two years meant since Miri and Natalie had been best friends. It felt like way longer than two years to Miri. She could hardly remember life without Natalie. That she was able to covet Natalie’s cashmere sweaters at a time like this, when the people who’d lost everything in the crash had nothing, made her feel ashamed. She, after all, had Charlotte Whitten’s hand-me-down dresses. Wasn’t that enough? What was wrong with her? Why was she thinking such selfish thoughts? At school they had a drive for pots and pans, canned goods, toys and books. The Red Cross was collecting boxes from all over town. Ben Sapphire was picking up and delivering. Irene was cooking and baking by day and knitting by night. After work, Rusty volunteered at the Red Cross house, putting together boxes of household goods and clothing to match each family’s needs. Some nights Rusty would stay out late, serving coffee and sandwiches to the volunteers working at the morgue. It was much harder to identify the victims this time. This time they were all burned beyond recognition. Dental records were often the only way to find out who they were. Except for the pilot. He was the first to be identified by what was left of the stripes on his uniform. The busier they kept, the better they felt. At least they were doing something positive. [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00025.jpg] [image "Elizabeth Daily Post" file=Image00025.jpg] WHAT WENT WRONGWill They Ever Know?By Henry AmmermanJAN. 28 — The initial findings in the probe of the Jan. 22 crash of an American Airlines Convair point to a sharp, almost vertical drop of the plane. When it was noted that this must have resulted from a radical equipment breakdown, chief CAB investigator Joseph O. Fluet said he was not yet ready to draw any conclusions. But another official, speaking off the record, speculated that the pilot might have tried to pull the plane upward in a desperate effort to redirect the crash away from Battin High School, leading to a stall, which caused it to plummet directly to earth. He noted that the pilot, Timothy Barnes, had grown up in Elizabeth and had graduated from Hamilton Junior High and Thomas Jefferson High School. He lived only a few blocks from Battin. Captain Barnes surely realized the possible implications of crashing into that particular building on a school day. 17 [image "image" file=Image00005.jpg] [image file=Image00005.jpg] Miri“Life goes on” became Irene’s mantra.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  He’d screwed up big-time. He should have told Polina he had a girlfriend a long time ago. Lately, Polina expected too much of him. She expected him to be the man of the family. She wanted him to quit school and get a job and move in and be a dad to Stash. But he wasn’t ready for that. In another month he’d be seventeen. He’d be able to get his license. He had enough saved for a used car. He just wanted to be a seventeen-year-old guy with a girlfriend, a dog and a car. And he wanted to get out of here, away from Polina. He wanted to go to Las Vegas with his brother, who would teach him not only to be an electrician, but a man. Sure, it was exciting to be with her at first. It was like a fantasy. This grown woman who knew what she wanted and wasn’t shy about showing him. At first she made no demands. But now—now she wouldn’t leave him alone. Stashie misses you. I have big new bed just waiting. You come fill me up. I need you fill me up, Mason. And what guy wouldn’t want to fill her up? That was the problem. But he was done with her. Finished. Kaput. ChristinaChristina bumped into Zak Galanos in the hall at school. What was the Sewing Machine Man’s son doing at Battin? She tried not to look at him but, too late. He did a double take. “I know you, don’t I?” he asked. “You went to school with my sister, Athena.” “Right. Athena Demetrious. And you’re the little sister.” “Not so little. I’m a senior, graduating in less than a month.” “And your name is…” “Christina.” “Right. Christina.” He smiled at her. She didn’t like this. It felt awkward. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “I have an interview for a teaching position for next year.” Why on earth would he want to teach at the school right across the street from where his parents died, from the hole in the ground that was once his house? “What will you teach?” “History, maybe a few classes of civics. Mrs. Rinaldi is leaving.” “I didn’t know that.” “She wants to move someplace that’s sunny year-round.” “Who doesn’t?” She shouldn’t have said that, given the fact that he was here looking for a job. A job in Elizabeth, New Jersey. A job in Plane Crash City. “What about you, Christina? Are you going someplace sunny after graduation?” “I’m thinking about it.” “Can I call you this summer? Would you go out with me?” This was so embarrassing. And the second bell was ringing. She was going to be late for class. “I have a boyfriend.” “Serious?” “Yes,” she said, her voice so soft he had to lean in to hear her. What would he say if she told him she was married? “My sister just had her second baby—another boy. They named him Ajax, like the cleanser.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  The short white-sand strip of “our” beach—from which by now we had gone a little way to reach deep water—was empty on weekday mornings. There was nobody around except those two tiny very busy figures on the opposite side, and a dark-red private plane that droned overhead, and then disappeared in the blue. The setting was really perfect for a brisk bubbling murder, and here was the subtle point: the man of law and the man of water were just near enough to witness an accident and just far enough not to observe a crime. They were near enough to hear a distracted bather thrashing about and bellowing for somebody to come and help him save his drowning wife; and they were too far to distinguish (if they happened to look too soon) that the anything but distracted swimmer was finishing to tread his wife underfoot. I was not yet at that stage; I merely want to convey the ease of the act, the nicety of the setting! So there was Charlotte swimming on with dutiful awkwardness (she was a very mediocre mermaid), but not without a certain solemn pleasure (for was not her merman by her side?); and as I watched, with the stark lucidity of a future recollection (you know—trying to see things as you will remember having seen them), the glossy whiteness of her wet face so little tanned despite all her endeavors, and her pale lips, and her naked convex forehead, and the tight black cap, and the plump wet neck, I knew that all I had to do was to drop back, take a deep breath, then grab her by the ankle and rapidly dive with my captive corpse. I say corpse because surprise, panic and inexperience would cause her to inhale at once a lethal gallon of lake, while I would be able to hold on for at least a full minute, open-eyed under water. The fatal gesture passed like the tail of a falling star across the blackness of the contemplated crime. It was like some dreadful silent ballet, the male dancer holding the ballerina by her foot and streaking down through watery twilight. I might come up for a mouthful of air while still holding her down, and then would dive again as many times as would be necessary, and only when the curtain came down on her for good, would I permit myself to yell for help. And when some twenty minutes later the two puppets steadily growing arrived in a rowboat, one half newly painted, poor Mrs. Humbert Humbert, the victim of a cramp or coronary occlusion, or both, would be standing on her head in the inky ooze, some thirty feet below the smiling surface of Hourglass Lake. Simple, was it not? But what d’ye know, folks—I just could not make myself do it!

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Next question.” I played a C-major scale. “Are you going to make me do all the work in this conversation?” “Possibly.” He grabbed his crotch, then looked down at his white hand, the white of cooked ham, gave it an extra shake and, as though satisfied with his test, smiled. “You’re a good kid,” he said, releasing himself. I could hear the football team shouting as the guys entered the athletics building next door; that must be the thunder of their cleats on the stone floor just inside the double doors. “Say you and Bugs are listening to music or something and you’re all alone in the parents’ suite and nobody’s around, because it is real isolated after all, and say you smoke some—” “We get high. So go on.” “You both get high and …” I closed the lid over the keys and rested my hands on the curved, reflecting wood. “Suppose he was the kind of guy who wanted to fool around. Who wanted to party.” I used the word the black whore had used. “I’m with you. You’re amazing. Here we are in goddamn suburbia and I’ve got some fuckin’ teenage hipster on my hands. Go on.” “Well, suppose he gets high and wants to blow you, nothing more, you don’t have to do a thing, just dig the music, would you let him?” Mr. Beattie was brushing his right hand back and forth over his crew cut. He seemed to be concentrating on this job, getting the feel of those soft quills against his palm. He wasn’t looking at me. “That’s a pretty funny question. Why do you ask? Is your question academic or what?” “I’m asking,” I said, “because I’d like to party with you.” He nodded quickly. “Got it. Groovy.” He looked at the clock. “I could make it real good for us both. Come back at five-fifteen, five-thirty and it’ll be dark and the fuckin’ animals next door”—head jerk to indicate the athletics building—“will have cleared out by then. We’ll be all alone down here and I’ll put on some nice classical music and we’ll blow some weed, I’ve got nice stuff, and we’ll see, just see what happens. Okay?” I who was always conscious of the formlessness of real life now saw it imitate art, though the meaning of this action, which was surely turning out to be tragic, escaped me. I had my appointment with the headmaster at four. At five-thirty, after I’d betrayed Mr. Beattie, I’d return to have sex with him. The next day he’d be fired. He’d learn of my denunciation and he wouldn’t be able to say anything against me. He wouldn’t be able to discredit me by saying I was a practicing homosexual since we would have practiced homosexuality together. He’d be powerless. I would have gotten what I wanted, gotten away with it and gotten rid of him: the trapdoor beside the bed. At last I could seduce and betray an adult.

• From The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us (2023)

  Although she preferred New York and the kids spent their summers there with their father, she decided to stay in Santa Fe for the time being so they wouldn’t have to switch schools yet again. Everything felt unmanageable and Judy’s guilt, for putting her family in this situation, was like a boulder she carted around, day in and day out. “I think divorce is a tragedy, traumatic and horribly painful for everybody,” she told the Chicago Tribune a few years later, in 1985. That perspective made its way into Just as Long as We’re Together , a middle grade novel that Blume published in 1987. It covers similar ground as It’s Not the End of the World , but this time, the breakup is messier and it takes more than her friendships to get Stephanie Hirsch, the seventh grader at the heart of the story, to feel better about it. She and her younger brother, Bruce, both experience difficulties as a result of their parents’ separation. Bruce, age ten, suffers from ever-worsening nightmares about nuclear war. Stephanie starts binge eating, which causes bullies in her class to dub her El Chunko. Her self-esteem takes a hit. One night, she looks at herself in the mirror after a bath. “My breasts were growing or else they were just fat. It was hard to tell,” Stephanie observes. “Maybe if I lost weight, I’d lose them, too. My glutes were pretty disgusting. When I jumped up and down they shook. The hair down there, my pubic hair, was growing thicker. It was much darker than the hair on my head.” The one-two punch of family drama and puberty propels Stephanie into a surly depression. She’s nasty to her father’s new girlfriend, Iris. She gets into fights with her friends. She’s angry with her parents for keeping her and Bruce in the dark about their relationship status. She’s ready to know if they’re breaking up—or not. “I hate not knowing what’s going to happen!” Stephanie yells at her mom after finding out her dad is moving back from Los Angeles, leaving Iris behind and taking an apartment close by, in New York. “I’d almost rather know you’re getting a divorce. I want it to be settled one way or the other so I can get used to the idea, so I can stop thinking about it.” Just as Long as We’re Together suggests divorce is never tidy. At the end of the book, we still don’t know what’s going to happen between Stephanie’s parents. Stephanie’s own “breakup”—a nearly two-month-long, silent treatment standoff with her lifelong best friend, Rachel Robinson—gets resolved when the two of them finally swallow their pride and talk it out. Bruce’s nightmares stop, too, not because things with the adult Hirsches improve, but because he wins second place in a “Kids for Peace” poster contest and realizes he’s not the only person his age sitting up at night scared about nuclear weapons. The metaphor is easy to decipher.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  I can swear that not even one volt of desire passed through me. I did my job; I simulated excitement. But I was scandalized when Mr. Beattie asked me to lick the bright red head, to roll my tongue around the head of his penis. I’d forgotten that this act was not as purely symbolic for him as it was for me. I remembered that he considered all this to be pleasure, as Herod thought Salome’s dance was fun until he heard what she wanted as a reward. At last it was over. Mr. Beattie told me to go on up to the dining hall for supper. He’d follow me in a few moments. He didn’t think we should be seen together, just in case. Sometimes I think I seduced and betrayed Mr. Beattie because neither one action nor the other alone but the complete cycle allowed me to have sex with a man and then to disown him and it; this sequence was the ideal formulation of my impossible desire to love a man but not to be a homosexual. Sometimes I think I liked bringing pleasure to a heterosexual man (for after all I’d dreamed of being my father’s lover) at the same time I was able to punish him for not loving me. My German teacher and Mr. Pouchet had not loved me. Tommy had not loved me. My dad had not loved me. Beattie was a friend of sorts, or at least an accomplice, but he was also a stand-in for all other adults, those swaggering, lazy, cruel masters of ours (how refreshing it was that at Eton the teachers were actually called masters). I who had so little power—whose triumphs had all been the minor victories of children and women, that is, merely verbal victories of irony and attitude—I had at last drunk deep from the adult fountain of sex. I wiped my mouth with the back of an adult hand, smiled and walked up to the dining hall humming a little tune.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  So have you here a guilty person, a culpable homicide, and an accused stranger, wherefore pronounce you judgement against this man beeing an alien, when as you would most severely and sharply revenge such an offence found in a known Citisen. In this sort the cruell accuser finished and ended his terrible tale. Then the Crier commanded me to speake, if I had any thing to say for my selfe, but I could in no wise utter any word at all for weeping. And on the other side I esteemed not so much his rigorous accusation, as I did consider myne owne miserable conscience. Howbeit, beeing inspired by divine Audacity, at length I gan say, Verily I know that it is an hard thing for him that is accused to have slaine three persons, to perswade you that he is innocent, although he should declare the whole truth, and confesse the matter how it was indeed, but if your honours will vouchsafe to give me audience, I will shew you, that if I am condemned to die, I have not deserved it as myne owne desert, but that I was mooved by fortune and reasonable cause to doe that fact. For returning somewhat late from supper yester night (beeing well tippled with wine, which I will not deny) and approaching nigh to my common lodging, which was in the house of one Milo a Citisen of this city, I fortuned to espy three great theeves attempting to break down his walls and gates, and to open the locks to enter in. And when they had removed the dores out of the hookes, they consulted amongst themselves, how they would handle such as they found in the house. And one of them being of more courage, and of greater stature than the rest, spake unto his fellows and sayd, Tush you are but boyes, take mens hearts unto you, and let us enter into every part of the house, and such as we find asleep let us kill, and so by that meanes we shall escape without danger. Verily ye three Judges, I confess that I drew out my sword against those three Citizens, but I thought it was the office and duty of one that beareth good will to this weale publique, so to doe, especially since they put me in great fear, and assayed to rob and spoyl my friend Milo. But when those cruell and terrible men would in no case run away, nor feare my naked sword, but boldly resist against me, I ran upon them and fought valiantly. One of them which was the captain invaded me strongly, and drew me by the haire with both his hands, and began to beat me with a great stone: but in the end I proved the hardier man, and threw him downe at my feet and killed him. I tooke likewise the second that clasped me about the legs and bit me, and slew him also. And the third that came running violently against me, after that I had strucken him under the stomacke fell downe dead. Thus when I had delivered my selfe, the house, Myne host, and all his family from this present danger, I thought that I should not onely escape unpunished, but also have some great reward of the city for my paines.

• From In the Unlikely Event (2015)

  Mason Polina kept her job working in the kitchen at Janet, but Mason avoided her like bad food. The kid, too. He was done with all that. No more girlfriends. They wanted too much from you. They expected you to make them happy. Even when they said they wanted to make you happy. Maybe someday he’d feel ready to see Miri again but he couldn’t think when that might be. He’d fucked up big-time. He didn’t expect her to forgive him. The question was, could he forgive himself? Jack wouldn’t let it go. Begged him to come with him and Christina to Las Vegas. Mason finally said, “Don’t ask me again, Jack. I’m staying here, at Janet. I’ll be fine.” “At least come with us for the summer.” “I can’t. I’ve got a job. You know that. You’re the one who set me up with your old boss. He’s going to train me to be an electrician. Just like he trained you.” “He’d understand.” “No.” “Mason—you can’t live your life avoiding Miri.” “Don’t say that name around me. And yes I can. And I will.” “There’ll be other girls, believe me.” “Cut it out, Jack, because you don’t know.” “I know you’re seventeen.” “That doesn’t mean shit.” He hoped Jack wouldn’t cry. He looked like he might. So Mason gave him a bear hug. That way they didn’t have to look at each other. Jack patted his back for too long. “Hey, brother,” Mason said, to get Jack to let go. “I’ll write.” “Every week,” Jack said, sniffling. “I need you to promise.” “I promise.” “And I’ll call every two weeks,” Jack told him. “On Sunday nights.” Mason nodded. Then he asked what he’d been thinking all along. “What about 1-A, Jack?” “No word yet. I’ll see you for Christmas, okay?” “Yeah, sure, Christmas.”

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  My marriage to Brian probably ended on that day when I walked through the streets of Tijuana with my wisecracking father. My father was trying with all his might to be cheerful and helpful, but I was sunk deep into my own guilt. It was a dilemma: if I stuck by Brian and tried to live with him again, I’d go crazy, or at the very least give up most of my own identity. But if I left him alone with his madness and the ministrations of the doctors, I was abandoning him—just when he needed help the most. In a sense, I was a traitor. It had come down to a choice between me or him, and I chose me. My guilt about this haunts me still. Somewhere deep inside my head (with all those submerged memories of childhood) is some glorious image of the ideal woman, a kind of Jewish Griselda. She is Ruth and Esther and Jesus and Mary rolled into one. She always turns the other cheek. She is a vehicle, a vessel, with no needs or desires of her own. When her husband beats her, she understands him. When he is sick, she nurses him. When the children are sick, she nurses them. She cooks, keeps house, runs the store, keeps the books, listens to everyone’s problems, visits the cemetery, weeds the graves, plants the garden, scrubs the floors, and sits quietly on the upper balcony of the synagogue while the men recite prayers about the inferiority of women. She is capable of absolutely everything except self-preservation. And secretly, I am always ashamed of myself for not being her. A good woman would have given over her life to the care and feeding of her husband’s madness. I was not a good woman. I had too many other things to do. But if I was remiss with Brian I made up for it doubly with Charlie Fielding. For sheer masochism—good, healthy, “normal female masochism"—you simply cannot beat my relationship with Charlie (which closely followed the end of my marriage to Brian). Interesting how we always give the next guy all the overflow from the guy who went before. A psychological case of “sloppy seconds.” THIRTEENThe Conductor Is it an earthquake or simply a shock? Is it the good turtle soup or merely the mock? Is it a cocktail—this feeling of joy, Or is what I feel the real McCoy? Have I the right hunch or have I the wrong? Will it be Bach I shall hear or just a Cole Porter song? —Cole Porter, “At Long Last Love” (1938)

• From Fear of Flying (1973)

  “Oh I talk a good game, and I even think I believe it, but secretly, I’m like the girl in Story of O. I want to submit to some big brute. ‘Every woman adores a fascist,’ as Sylvia Plath says. I feel guilty for writing poems when I should be cooking. I feel guilty for everything. You don’t have to beat a woman if you can make her feel guilty. That’s Isadora Wing’s first principle of the war between the sexes. Women are their own worst enemies. And guilt is the main weapon of self-torture. Do you know what Teddy Roosevelt said?” “No.” “Show me a woman who doesn’t feel guilty and I’ll show you a man.” “Teddy Roosevelt never said that.” “No, but I did.” “You’re just scared of him—that’s what you are.” “Who? Teddy Roosevelt?” “No—you idiot—Bennett. And you won’t admit it. You’re afraid he’ll leave you and you’ll fall apart. You don’t know that you can get along without him and you’re afraid to find out because then your whole potty theory will come tumbling down. You’ll have to stop thinking of yourself as weak and dependent and you hate that.” “You’ve never seen me when I’m ready to fall apart.” “Piffle.” “You should see. You’d run miles away.” “Why? Are you so unbearable?” “Bennett says so.” “Then why hasn’t he run? Actually that’s just bullshit to keep you in line. Look—I lived with Martine once when she fell apart. I’m sure you couldn’t be worse. You have to take a lot of shit from people to get the good bits too.” “Hey, that’s pretty good—can I have that on tape?” “How about videotape?” And we kissed for a long time. When we stopped Adrian said, “You know, for an intelligent woman, you’re an idiot.” “That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.” “What I mean to say is, you can have anything you want—only you don’t know it. You could have the world by the balls. You should come along with me and see how little you’ll miss Bennett. We’ll have an odyssey. I’ll discover Europe—you’ll discover yourself.” “Is that all? When do we start?” “Tomorrow or the day after, or Saturday. Whenever the Congress is over.” “And where do we go?” “That’s just the point. No plans. We just take off. It’ll be like The Grapes of Wroth. We’ll be migrants.” “The Grapes of Wrath.” “Wroth.” “Wrath, as in wrath of God.” “Wroth.” “You’re wrong, sweetie pie. You’re illiterate by your own admission. Steinbeck is an American writer—The Grapes of Wrath.” “Wroth.” “OK, you’re wrong, but let it go.” “I already have, love.” “You mean we’ll just take off without any plans?” “The plan is for you to find out how strong you are. The plan is for you to start believing you can stand on your own two feet—that ought to be plan enough for anyone.” “And what about Bennett?” “If he’s smart, he’ll just piss off with some other bird.”

• From The Pillar of Salt (1953)

  For this reason, among others, I particularly enjoyed my Fridays, whereas my mother could never get accustomed to this interruption of our daily routine. Harried by her responsibilities in preparing the three Sabbath meals, she never made a success of the first one, actually the least important one. This particular day, it was the bread that was lacking when I sat down for breakfast, so she asked me to go and fetch it at the baker’s oven, which was in the Street of the Sparrows, a blind alley fairly far from our home. As I was not very hungry, this unexpected chore annoyed me and I grumbled, pretended it was already too late, and made up my mind to go off without breakfasting. With the vast selfishness of a child, I guessed quite rightly that this would upset my mother and punish her for her forgetfulness. Finally, she lost her temper and, running short of other arguments, called upon heaven as a witness to curse me. But I was stubborn, slung my school satchel over my shoulder, and left the house. When I reached the end of the street, I heard her calling me, so I turned back with some ill will, dragging my feet, to receive from her my two pennies and an unexpected piece of bread crust. She had certainly borrowed it from Joulie, and this gesture made my vague remorse weigh all the more heavily on my conscience. The day had been spoiled for me, by my empty stomach and my confused conscience. I reached the old iron gate of the school, of course, too early. Birdie’s head, with his humble expression, his heavy eyelids that were always lowered, scarcely rose above a compact group of school children, while the other hucksters managed to attract only a few customers. One of them, a new trader, was giving us the old blarney to build up his trade. I noticed Saul as he detached himself from Birdie’s group: he was my rival and had thus come to be my first comrade. Our teacher in the first grade used to make us sit in the classroom by order of merit, so that Saul and I occupied the first row almost all year round. Comrades in the front row, we soon became friends by force of habit, though there was some irony to this as Saul was the son of a rich merchant in the covered bazaar, a fact that was each day more noticeable to me.

• From Henry and June (1986)

  Allendy was a superman today. I will never be able to describe our talk. There was so much intuition, so much emotion throughout. To the very last phrase he was so human, so true. I had come in a mood of confidence, of recklessness, thinking: I do not want Allendy to admire me unless he can do so when he knows me exactly as I am. My first effort at complete sincerity. I tell him first of all that I was ashamed of what I had said last time about his wife. He laughed and said he had forgotten all about it and asks, “Is there anything else which worries you?” “Nothing in particular, but I would like to ask you if my strong sensual obsession is a reaction against too much introspection? I have been reading Samuel Putnam, who writes that ‘the quickest way out of introspection is a worship of the body, which leads to sexual intensity.’ ” I cannot remember his exact answer, but I sense his connection of the word “obsession” with a frantic search for satisfaction. Why the effort? Why dissatisfaction? Here, I feel an imperative need to tell him my biggest secret: In the sexual act I do not always experience an orgasm. He had guessed this from the very first day. My talk on sex had been crude, bold, defiant. It did not harmonize with my personality. It was artificial. It betrayed an uncertainty. “But do you know what an orgasm is?” “Oh, very well, from the times I did experience it, and particularly from masturbation.” “When did you masturbate?” “Once, in the summer, in St. Jean de Luz. I was dissatisfied and had a strong sexual urge.” I am ashamed to admit that when I was alone for two days I masturbated four and five times a day, and also often in Switzerland, during our vacation, and in Nice. “Why only once? Every woman does it and very often.” “I believe it is wrong, morally and physically. I was terribly depressed and ashamed afterwards.” “That’s nonsense. Masturbation is not physically harmful. It is only the feeling of guilt we have about it that oppresses.” “I used to fear it would diminish my mental power, my health, and that I would disintegrate morally.” Here, I add other details, which he listens to silently, trying to coordinate them. I tell him things I have never entirely admitted to myself, and which I have not written in my journal, things I wanted to forget.