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 Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  Antinous, entering more and more into that role, himself fed the monster its ration of wing-clipped wrens. Then, raising his arms, he prayed. I knew that this prayer, made for me, was addressed to no one but myself, though I was not god enough to grasp its sense, nor to know if it would some day be answered. There was comfort in leaving that silence and pale twilight to regain the city streets, where lamps were alight, to feel the friendliness of the crowd and hear the vendors' cries in the dusty evening air. The young face which was soon to adorn so many coins of the Greek world was becoming a familiar presence for the people, and a sign. I did not love less; indeed I loved more. But the weight of love, like that of an arm thrown tenderly across a chest, becomes little by little too heavy to bear. Passing interests reappeared: I remember the hard, elegant youth who was with me during a stay in Miletus, but whom I gave up. I recall that evening in Sardis when the poet Strato escorted us from brothel to brothel, and we surrounded ourselves with conquests of doubtful value. This same Strato, who had preferred obscurity in the freedom of Asia's taverns to life in my court, was a man of exquisite sensibility, a mocking wit quick to assert the vanity of all that is not pleasure itself, in order perhaps to excuse himself for having sacrificed to it everything else. And there was that night in Smyrna when I forced the beloved one to endure the presence of a courtesan. His conception of love had remained austere because it was centered on but one being; his disgust now verged on nausea. Later on he got used to that sort of thing. Such idle experiments on my part are explained well enough by a taste for dissipation; there was also mingled therein the thought of inventing a new kind of intimacy in which the companion in pleasure would not cease to be the beloved and the friend; there was the desire to instruct him, too, giving him some of the experiences which had been those of my own youth. And possibly, though less clearly avowed, there was some intention of lowering him slowly to the level of routine pleasures which involve no commitments. A certain dread of bondage impelled me to wound this umbrageous affection, which threatened to encumber my life.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  Many of the distinctions of the outside world survived: respect for class, disgust at certain violent or inhumane crimes, and the ostracising of those who had been convicted of them. But at the same time, since we were all criminals, a layer of social pretence had been removed. There could be no question of pretending one was not a lover of men; and since many of the inmates of my wing were sex criminals—or ‘nonces’ in the nonce-word of the place—there was between us a curiously sustaining mood of sympathy and understanding. Of course guilt and shame were not magically annulled by this, but a goodish number of us—by no means all first offenders—had been caught for soliciting or conspiring to perform indecent acts, or for some intimacy (often fervently reciprocated) with underage boys. And many of the prisoners themselves, of course, were little more than children, old enough only to know the dictates of their hearts and to be sent to prison. The place was fuller than it ever had been with our people, as a direct result of the current brutal purges, and many were the tales of treachery and deceit, of bribed and lying witnesses, and false friends turning Queen’s Evidence, and going free. Such tales circulated constantly among us—and I added my own mite to this worn and speaking currency. My case, on account I suppose of my title, had been the subject of more talk than most—though nothing like as much as that of Lord Montagu, which shows all the signs of iniquity and hypocrisy evident in the handling of my arrest and prosecution, but wickedly aggravated by police corruption. In the prison my fellows felt sure that we two must be acquainted, and imagined us, I think, swopping young men’s phone numbers in the bar of the House of Lords. It was hard to convince them that not all peers—just as not all queers—know each other. Even so it appears that his case—and in its little way mine—are doing some good: even the decorous British, with their distrust of the life of instinct, their pleasure in conformity, are saying that enough is enough. Some of them, even, are saying that a man’s private life is his own affair, and that the law must be changed. My dim lavatorial notoriety became in the prison a kind of glamour, and helped me, as I looked about and learnt the faces and moods of the men, to make friends. Covert gestures of kindness saved me from trouble, or explained the punctilio of some futile but unavoidable chore. Matchboxes and half-cigarettes were slipped to me as we jostled together for Association. Warnings were given of the foibles of particular screws.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I had found him frowningly reading the Daily Telegraph but had nudged him on to The Times , which we pulled apart on the roof for him to read the news whilst I dawdled over the crossword, or tried to decipher the misprint-coded concert notices. One day I read a review of a Shostakovich concert that I had been booked to go to with James, and realised with a lurch of guilt that I had stood him up. I had rushed back to the hotel with Phil instead—he would have been sitting on my face just as the ‘terminal introspection’ commended by the reviewer was at its most abysmal. Not that Phil was stupid, but he had made his way in the world without the constant love, the lavished education I had had. Indeed, being lonely, he had read a surprising amount—Hardy, The Forsyte Saga , Dorothy L. Sayers, John le Carré, Wuthering Heights —but without forming any ideas about the books. Intermittently, on the roof, he was getting through The Go-Between. ‘What d’you make of it?’ I asked. ‘Oh, it’s okay. It’s a bit boring in places, when he’s fighting with the plants and stuff. Ted Burgess is all right, though. I imagine him looking like Barry at the Club.’ He smiled wistfully. When at last he finished the book he said he didn’t think much of the ending. ‘Well, the idea is that seeing Ted and Marian shagging in the barn so freaks him out that he can never form a serious relationship with anybody when he grows up.’ He was clearly dissatisfied with this. ‘That couldn’t happen, could it?’ ‘I suppose it is pretty unlikely,’ I agreed. ‘Still, in a general way it holds good. I expect you had something momentous in your childhood. It’s the whole gay thing, isn’t it. The unvoiced longing, the cloistered heart …’ He looked at me cautiously and was struggling into some unpromising anecdote until I climbed on top of him and kissed him quiet. We did a lot more of this, and a lot more reading, on his first weekend off, when he came to Holland Park. Its ‘country-house’ smell and the established presence of my things subdued him rather. He gazed abashed at my Whitehaven picture and, with an access of solemnity, embarked on a reading of Tom Jones.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  At times my friend James became my other self, and told me off and tried to persuade me that I was not doing all I might. I was never good at being told off, and when he insisted that I should find a job, or even a man to settle down with, it was in so intimate and knowledgeable a way that I felt as if one half of me were accusing the other. It was from him, whom I loved more than anyone, that I most often heard the account of myself. He had even said lately in his diary that I was ‘thoughtless’—he meant cruel, in the way I had thrown off a kid who had fallen for me and who irritated me to distraction; but then he got the idea into his head: does Will care about anybody? does Will ever really think? and so on and so forth. ‘Of course I fucking think,’ I muttered, though he wasn’t there to hear me. And he gave a horrid little diagnosis: ‘Will becoming more and more brutal, more and more sentimental.’ I was certainly sentimental with Arthur, deeply sentimental and lightly brutal, at one moment caressingly attentive, the next glutting him with sex, mindlessly—thoughtlessly. It was the most beautiful thing I could imagine—all the more so for our knowledge that we could never make a go of it together. Even among the straight lines of the Park I wasn’t thinking straight—all the time I looped back to Arthur, was almost burdened by my need for him, and by the oppressive mildness of the day. The Park after all was only stilted countryside, its lake and trees inadequate reminders of those formative landscapes, the Yorkshire dales, the streams and watermeads of Winchester, whose influence was lost in the sexed immediacy of London life. I found myself approaching the dismal Italianate garden at the head of the lake, a balustraded terrace with flagged paths surrounding four featureless pools, a half-hearted baroque fountain (now switched off) aimed at the Serpentine below, and on the outside, backing on to the Bayswater Road, a pavilion with a rippling red roof and benches spattered with bird droppings. Deadly as this place had always seemed to me, stony and phoney amid the English greenness of the Park, it was an unfailing attraction to visitors: loving couples, solitary duck-fanciers, large European and Middle Eastern family groups taking a slothful stroll from their apartments in Bayswater and Lancaster Gate. I sauntered across it, as much to confirm how I disliked it as anything else. Some desolate little boys played together more out of duty than pleasure. Queens of a certain age strolled pointedly up and down. The sky was uniformly grey, though a glare on the white frippery of the pavilion suggested a sun that might break through.

• From The Folding Star (1994)

  I wasn't quite sure I got this Narcissus business: Luc, in the hagiological phase of our chat, had said that the saint was an early bishop of Jerusalem, whose bones had been brought back by Godefroi de Bouillon from the crusade of 1099. But this plausible legend seemed to have been wilfully confounded with the pagan myth of the boy-flower. Not that I minded. When Echevin came round in the morning he brought a verbal invitation from his father to dinner, if I was free, on that very day. As I was wearying of heating cans of this and that, and eking them out with milk and biscuits and the occasional burger from the Mc Donald's next to the Bishop's Palace, I accepted, and then found myself obliged to be very gentle and helpful with Marcel, whom I could hardly face over the dinner-table if I had been a bully to him during our lesson. I kept modifying my instinct that he needed to be pushed. He looked so miserable and apprehensive when he arrived—I was shocked to read on his big round face what a dragon I could be. I was drinking with Cherif before I went—he was even at the bar before me with beers for both of us bought and waiting. I had the sense, both warming and disconcerting, of figuring in his plans, of a space being made for me; I thought, I mustn't let him fall in love, though I rode for a minute on the quiet high of his welcome, and half-relished the idea of a conquest; after the first excitement I knew that for me it wasn't falling in love, even if it had a nervous, mechanical similarity to that. Then we sat and the talk didn't come very easily—we offered each other titbits of information and stared self-consciously around. It was almost a moment for a chat on Belgian geography. I remembered how I had planned to break free of the old routine of the pub each early evening, and here I was slipping already into the little comfortable hell of habit; the experiment seemed to be over.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  The other mags were not left lying about. The fact that even in his own home he kept them neatly hidden away (under some jerseys in the second drawer of his dressing-table) showed I suppose the secret and illicit power they still had for him. I hauled them out to see if there was anything new—though it was actually hard to remember. He dealt largely in material put out from Chicago by the Third World Press—a title which might have been thought to chasten rather than excite the exploitative urge, though James was clearly unabashed. The Third World Press specialised in blacks with more or less enormous cocks, and in leaden titles like Black Velvet, Black Rod or even Black Male. James was no bigot, however, and other publications such as Whoppers and Super Dick kept up with big boys of other creeds and colours. Often enough these were sexy men towards whom one could feel a notional sort of warmth, but the premium on the massive member resulted in some weird inclusions: skinny little lads, stout middle-aged men, a boy with one eye. Turning the pages of the new Nineteen-Inch Pipeline I half expected to come on illustrations of boil-ringed sphincters and mis-set bones. And then what the hell had James done? Though he had his mischievous side he was a conscientiously good citizen. He parked on yellow lines, but he always displayed his ‘Doctor on Call’ sticker. He was a member of CND, but when he went on demonstrations was ingenious at lending support without actually sitting down in the road or being dragged away. The obvious thing was some sexual hitch: I didn’t know what the dear boy got up to, but as I assumed it wasn’t much, the idea of him procuring in a Gents or interfering with a minor seemed desperately unlikely. He would surely have had to have been in a crisis, a crack-up, to do anything like that: for whatever his eccentricities James was wonderfully well-adjusted to being ill-adjusted. I hated to think of him in the sudden scary spotlight of an arrest, the humiliation and the shock of its being for real.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  It was too close a parallel to her mother’s experience with her father, and in this, Lisa’s identification with her mother blocked her ability to reject an unsuitable lover. As a result, she stayed with him unhappily for five very important years. But it went deeper. Lisa’s father also stood in her way. “What do you mean that you couldn’t do to your mom what your dad did?” I wondered if Lisa knew something about her parents’ divorce that I didn’t. “I love my dad,” Lisa said, “but we don’t talk openly to each other. We both avoid conflict. We communicate a lot through our shared love of music, especially chamber music. He plays in a quartet with his friends and sends me the music reviews from the San Francisco Chronicle. We’re on e-mail every couple of days, mostly talking about music. It’s a bonding thing for us. I know he loves me more than anything and that he’s proud of me. He wants to protect me. And I want to protect him. So we tiptoe around each other and try and take care of each other and we never really talk.” “What do you need to protect him from?” Her response startled me. “I never want him to feel guilty about leaving his first marriage.” “And this puts you on guard in your dealings with him?” “Yes. Always.” “What would you like to say to him if you could be totally honest?” This question unleashed a torrent in Lisa. Tears streamed down her face as she said, “There’s always been a deep dark secret in our family. Even though everyone walks around it, it keeps getting bigger and bigger. Did my dad have an affair while he was still married to my mom? Did something happen that I should know about? I know that my parents met in college and fell in love. They’re both decent, hardworking people. So why did a good man like my dad break his marriage vows and walk away from his wife? I suppose it’s silly, but I want to think of my dad as a good person. But is he?” She wiped away the tears. “You see it’s not enough that he loves me. I need to respect him. My relationship with him is not separate from my relationship with my mom just because they divorced when I was four. Why doesn’t he say that a long time ago he hurt my mom a lot and that he’s sorry? I know my mom was hurt whether she says so or not. I know that she loved him and probably still does. Why did he walk out?” Lisa, in her elegant business suit, was sobbing. At some point in her growing up, probably in adolescence, Lisa decided that her father had violated a fundamental moral code in leaving his wife and daughter to marry another woman. Because she dearly loves her father, she never discussed her conclusions with him.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  Well, excuse me,” he added, shaking hands with me warmly, “I’ve got to see the boss. Good luck to you!” I felt a bit cut up about the incident. I wished it had been possible to prove to him then and there that his faith was justified. I wished I could have justified myself before the whole world at that moment: I would have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge if it would have convinced people that I wasn’t a heartless son of a bitch. I had a heart as big as a whale, as I was soon to prove, but nobody was examining into my heart. Everybody was being let down hard—not only the installment companies, but the landlord, the butcher, the baker, the gas, water and electricity devils, everybody . If only I could get to believe in this business of work! To save my life I couldn’t see it. I could only see that people were working their balls off because they didn’t know any better. I thought of the speech I had made which won me the job. In some ways I was very much like Herr Nagel myself. No telling from minute to minute what I would do. No knowing whether I was a monster or a saint. Like so many wonderful men of our time, Herr Nagel was a desperate man—and it was this very desperation which made him such a likable chap. Hamsun didn’t know what to make of this character himself: he knew he existed, and he knew that there was something more to him than a mere buffoon and a mystifier. I think he loved Herr Nagel more than any other character he created. And why? Because Herr Nagel was the unacknowledged saint which every artist is—the man who is ridiculed because his solutions, which are truly profound, seem too simple for the world. No man wants to be an artist—he is driven to it because the world refuses to recognize his proper leadership. Work meant nothing to me, because the real work to be done was being evaded. People regarded me as lazy and shiftless, but on the contrary I was an exceedingly active individual. Even if it was just hunting for a piece of tail, that was something, and well worth while, especially if compared to other forms of activity—such as making buttons or turning screws, or even removing appendixes. And why did people listen to me so readily when I applied for a job? Why did they find me entertaining? For the reason, no doubt, that I had always spent my time profitably. I brought them gifts—from my hours at the public library, from my idle ramblings through the streets, from my intimate experiences with women, from my afternoons at the burlesque, from my visits to the museum and the art galleries.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  No one in her family, including her mom, was invited to the ceremony, which took place at dawn overlooking Zion National Park in Utah. But others like her have stayed single. Ghosts of the Past I ASKED LISA if she still felt numb while having sex. “That hasn’t changed,” she confessed. “But on top of that, I’ve gotten myself entangled with some real losers since I saw you last.” “What do you mean, losers?” She sounded like Karen, who lived with a man she didn’t love simply because she knew he’d never leave her. “There have been several men in my life over the last ten years. My longest relationship was with Jim. We met during our senior year in college and then lived together for five years. I kept trying to break up with him but every time I tried, I went back the next day.” “What was wrong?” “For starters, he was a party guy, I’m not. He drank heavily. I hardly drink. He did sports that don’t interest me. We were really opposites. I had a hard time asking him for what I wanted. Like I really wanted him to show that he cared about me and get me a gift at Christmas, be sympathetic and nice and kind, but he didn’t do any of those things. He was a pretty self-centered guy.” I thought to myself, “What a strange relationship. What did she find appealing in him?” “I couldn’t let go,” Lisa said softly. “Every time I tried to leave, to tell him it was quits, I chickened out. I wanted to break it off but I couldn’t.” “Why not?” I asked as gently as I could. The reply came in a barely audible whisper. “Whenever I decided to quit, I panicked. I thought of my dad leaving my mom. And I said to myself, ‘I can’t do this to another human being.’” “What did your mom and dad’s experience have to do with you and Jim?” Lisa looked at me, startled. “Everything!” It took me a minute to absorb what she was saying. On the surface, Lisa’s attachment to a man who didn’t meet her needs looked very much like Karen’s first relationship. But then I realized that the source of their entrapment was different. Karen couldn’t leave because she had installed her caretaking role into her love life. She had to stay with her boyfriend to take care of him. But Lisa’s boyfriend didn’t need to be taken care of. Lisa couldn’t leave because she didn’t want to do to him what was done to her mother. She couldn’t bear to repeat the hurt that she always understood was at the root of her mother’s lifelong distress. In effect, she was blocked from defending her own interests out of her intense fear of hurting the other person. As she confessed, it made her feel like a bad person to tell a man that their relationship was over.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  He looked lop-sided and comical, and intensely distressed. Tears ran freely down his face and over the waterproof pink of the Band-Aids. I dabbed at them with the sponge, and he shook his head, and winced, and winced again at the twisting of his wound that wincing caused. In my other hand, under the water, in spite of himself and his misery, his cock was hard. I wanked him slowly, the ripples slapping rhythmically against the side of the tub. ‘Will,’ he said, as if he must get it out before succumbing, ‘I killed my brother’s mate.’ 3 I did so regret it was the Central Line I used most. I couldn’t get any kind of purchase on it. It had neither the old-fashioned openair quality of the District Line, where rain misted the tracks as one waited, nor the grimy profundity of the Northern Line, nor the Piccadilly’s ingenious, civilised connexiveness. For much of its length it was a great bleak drain, and though some of its stops—Holland Park, St Paul’s, Bethnal Green—were historic enough, they were offset on my daily journeys by the ringing emptiness of Lancaster Gate and Marble Arch, and the trash and racket of Tottenham Court Road, where I got out. Somewhere, I knew, the line had its ghost stations, but I had given up looking out for their unlit platforms and perhaps, in a flash from the rails, the signboards and good-humoured advertisements of an abandoned decade. I had been waiting now at Holland Park for a long time. I was far too familiar with its typical social mix: girls with pearls and pink stockings, some arrogant-looking Italian youths and a grand, pouchy old couple were also waiting, though the train they would get into would be quite heavily peopled with blacks and Indians coming in from Acton to the West End. That was the saving grace of the Central Line, the way that beyond Shepherd’s Bush and Liverpool Street, it veered off at either end to outlying towns to the north. I stood for a minute or more with my toes over the platform’s edge, looking down into the concrete gully where a whole family of nervous, sooty little mice shot back and forth as if themselves operated by electricity. Then, thinking again about the abolished stations at the British Museum and Wood Green, I wandered along and looked, tourist-like, at the Underground map. It was a clever piece of work, all the lines being made to run either up and down, from left to right, or at forty-five degrees, so that the whole thing became a set of dissolving and interpenetrating parallelograms.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Cookie runs toward our car and stands staring through the back door of the driver’s side where the only thing that protects Camille and me from her is a locked car door. Looking directly at me she yells: “I’ll get you back!” “No,” I mouth to her through the glass. “No you won’t.” And then we’re gone. 5 Failure to Thrive November 1980; 1971 to 1974 MS . DAVIS AND the driver have set the mood with a stiff silence from the front seat of the car. A quick glance from Camille puts me more at ease, but when I turn to look out the window again, the trees and houses grow fast out of focus as tears collect in my eyes and drop down my cheeks. Social workers usually have a sixth sense; almost the ability to hear tears fall . . . but when Ms. Davis keeps her eyes locked on the road in front of us, I know she realizes that we’re too old for the “This is all for the best” speech. At this point in our foster care career, we know it’s not. We’re separated again, and it’s because of me. Because I told . Until now, we’ve only ever been put in foster care for slips—for committing tiny errors that gave away our situation. By now, Norm, Rosie, and I have learned that we’re stronger together than apart. We’ve sharpened our instincts and it’s kept us together for six solid years, from the time I was in third grade. When I use my sleeve to wipe my eyes and nose swiftly and in silence, Camille reaches across the seat and gently sets her hand on my shoulder. We both understand that our years as a family will probably end today. As the driver makes a right off Middle Country Road, Ms. Davis finally turns to face us. “You’ll be at this next placement for two weeks,” she says, “until we figure out another home for you both.” For you both . Does that mean Camille and I might get to stay together for good? Ms. Davis explains that this temporary foster family has had kids coming and going for more than twenty years, and they’ve decided not to foster children permanently anymore. But when they heard we were teenagers who lived in the same school district that they did, they agreed to take us until social services found us a new home. I prop my elbow against the car window, partly to block my ear from Ms. Davis’s next topic. Through half a muffle, I hear her say: “This family didn’t want young children.” Why would she say that? As if it’s not excruciating enough to think of Rosie and Norm on their own—most likely holding each other, sobbing inconsolably, their eyes focused in terror out the car windows, completely unsure of what kind of questions to even ask the social workers. What did I just do?

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  RABANUS. By the word Amen, He shews that without doubt the Lord will bestow all things that are rightly asked, and by those that do not fail in observing the annexed condition, For if ye forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you your sins. AUGUSTINE. (Serm. in Mont. ii. 11.) Here we should not overlook that of all the petitions enjoined by the Lord, He judged that most worthy of further enforcement, which relates to forgiveness of sins, in which He would have us merciful; which is the only means of escaping misery. PSEUDO-CHRYSOSTOM. He does not say that God will first forgive us, and that we should after forgive our debtors. For God knows how treacherous the heart of man is, and that though they should have received forgiveness themselves, yet they do not forgive their debtors; therefore He instructs us first to forgive, and we shall be forgiven after. AUGUSTINE. (Enchir. 74.) Whoever does not forgive him that in true sorrow seeks forgiveness, let him not suppose that his sins are by any means forgiven of the Lord. CYPRIAN. (Tr. vii. 16.) For no excuse will abide you in the day of judgment, when you will be judged by your own sentence, and as you have dealt towards others, will be dealt with yourself. JEROME. But if that which is written, I said, Ye are gods, but ye shall die like men, (Ps. 83:6, 7.) is said to those who for their sins deserve to become men instead of gods, then they to whom sins are forgiven are rightly called men. CHRYSOSTOM. He mentions heaven and the Father to claim our attention, for nothing so likens you to God, as to forgive him who has injured you. And it were indeed unmeet should the son of such a Father become a slave, and should one who has a heavenly vocation live as of this earth, and of this life only. 6:1616. Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  The only thing keeping me from collapsing is my will not to submit to her again. She yells one more time. “Get back in this goddamn house!” I shake my head, pounding from the beating, and whisper: “No . No!” Then I turn from her voice and walk as fast as I can toward Middle Country Road. The cold concrete wall outside Shoes ’N Things feels soothing against my back. Out of the reach of the streetlight, I pull my legs into my chest and rest my head on my knees. I catch my breath from the tears and dig into one of the green garbage bins for a few boxes. I pull them open and line them up between the Dumpster and the building’s back wall to create a bed. It’s probably been an hour when I open my eyes at the sound of her jalopy rolling down the street. I peek out around the corner and see the car turning in the direction of the bars. I wish these feelings were new to me—the hurt, anger, rejection from the emotional abuse, and the searing physical pain—but for all of the near-fourteen years of my life, this is the only consistent, predictable part of my relationship with Cookie. To me, feeling secure means the opposite of what it means to most kids. Children are supposed to find their greatest safety and comfort in the arms of their mothers. Instead, Cookie’s homecoming is our darkest danger, like the worst storm anyone can imagine. I brace myself and lock down my wits as she enters with a stir. We have no control over what comes next as the tension builds, then it’s as though the skies open up when she comes down on me in a rage. When she’s finished, she goes suddenly . . . leaving the devastation in her wake as the only evidence she’s ever been here at all. We’re always comforted to know she’ll be gone for a while—safe and content, as though it’s safe to step out into the sun after a torrid rain. And we recover fast, using our wits and will to stay together and rebuild our home. I walk into a quiet house. One of the kids has cleaned up the glass, and they’re both sleeping toe-to-toe on the couch. My heart swells as I kiss their cheeks good night, and whisper in Norman’s ear: “You’re a good big brother.” I rise and stand there watching them . . . then the tears stream down my face. Not for myself but for how powerless we are over what will happen next. After a minute I secure the front and back doors then head to the bathroom to try and soak away my pain. 4 Breaking Pact November 1980 THE NEXT MORNING is the fifth of November, four days before my fourteenth birthday. I get the kids up and ready for school and put them on the bus.

• From Memoirs of Hadrian (1951)

  The crimes of Simon and the madness of Akiba were not of my making, but I reproached myself for having been blind in Jerusalem, heedless in Alexandria, impatient in Rome. I had not known how to find words which would have prevented, or at least retarded, this outburst of fury in a nation; I had not known in time how to be either supple enough or sufficiently firm. Surely we had no reason to be unduly disturbed, and still less need to despair; the blunder and the reversal had occurred only in our relations with Israel; everywhere else at this critical hour we were reaping the reward of sixteen years of generosity in the Orient. Simon had supposed that he could count on a revolt in the Arab world similar to the uprising which had darkened the last years of Trajan's reign; even more, he had ventured to bank on Parthian aid. He was mistaken, and that error in calculation was causing his slow death in the besieged citadel of Bethar: the Arab tribes were drawing apart from the Jewish communities; the Parthians remained faithful to the treaties. The synagogues of the great Syrian cities proved undecided or lukewarm, the most ardent among them contenting themselves with sending money in secret to the Zealots; the Jewish population of Alexandria, though naturally so turbulent, remained calm; the abscess in Jewish affairs remained local, confined within the arid region which extends from Jordan to the sea; this ailing finger could safely be cauterized, or amputated. And nevertheless, in a sense, the evil days which had immediately preceded my reign seemed to begin over again. In the past Quietus had burned down Gyrene, executed the dignitaries of Laodicea, and recaptured a ruined Edessa. . . . The evening courier had just informed me that we had re-established ourselves on the heap of tumbled stones which I called Aelia Capitolina and which the Jews still called Jerusalem; we had burned Ascalon, and had been forced to mass executions of rebels in Gaza. ... If sixteen years of rule by a prince so pacifically inclined were to culminate in the Palestine campaign, then the chances for peace in the world looked dim ahead. I raised myself on my elbow, uneasy on the narrow camp bed. To be sure, there were some Jews who had escaped the Zealot contagion: even in Jerusalem the Pharisees spat on the ground before Akiba, treating that fanatic like an old fool who threw to the wind the solid advantages of the Roman peace, and shouting to him that grass would grow from his mouth before Israel's victory would be seen on this earth.

• From Etched in Sand (2013)

  Davis’s invitation to finally free us from this hell is too tempting to resist any longer. Through calm breaths I tell her that the kids cannot go back with our mother. “You need to promise me that they will be safe, no matter what .” And then, before I can stop myself, I’m talking and talking and I can’t shut up. The stress and exhaustion of the past two years of parenting the kids on my own; the cars, the shelters, and the struggle . . . they break me. It’s dusk by the time I’m finished spilling the truth. I don’t leave anything out. The kids arrive just as Ms. Davis is getting ready to leave. Norman eyes her timidly as she places a dime in my hand so I can make a call on the pay phone. “Norm, can you hold down the fort for a minute?” He watches Ms. Davis exit, still tentative. “Yeah.” I walk to the corner phone booth and dial Kathy’s house. “Cookie was about to beat Rosie and I stepped in,” I tell Camille. “Why would she lay a hand on Rosie?” “Because she accidentally dropped a glass, right next to where Cookie was sleeping. I couldn’t hide the marks and my teacher must have called social services.” “Social services came?” “The social worker was standing in the kitchen when I got home!” “You didn’t tell, did you?” “Camille—” “Gi, did you tell ?” “You weren’t here and I couldn’t let Cookie hurt them!” “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Cookie’s beating didn’t make me cry, but losing Camille’s faith in me has. On the walk back to the house, it sinks in: This did not save my family. Instead, I have violated a pact among our siblings by telling the truth. I’ve separated us again, and worse, I have exposed Norman and Rosie not only to our mother, should she succeed in getting them back from foster care, but to whomever they’ll find in the home they’re sent to. I’m overwhelmed with guilt. When Camille shows up, we stand on the porch facing each other. Tears start flowing until I shake. Because of me, none of us are safe now. Rosie won’t survive if I’m not there to protect her; she’ll be the only “little slut” and “whore” Cookie will have left. She doesn’t stand a chance. The thought makes me cry harder, hating myself for my selfishness that will make my baby sister completely vulnerable. Camille and I put our arms around each other, both sobbing. “Do you think there’s any way for me to take it back?” She shakes her head. Says nothing. We both know there’s no going back. I’ve said too much. That night I do not sleep. I go to the couch where Rosie sleeps and watch her breathing. I cuddle and kiss and pray for her all night, knowing as daylight pushes into the room that I’ve crushed any chance of her being protected.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  When I realized that my dad had bullshitted me, I took another look at what a sad life she had and I realized that he had almost destroyed her—and that I had helped him.” Larry’s face was very sober. “I’m thoroughly ashamed of myself for how mean I was to her for years. I’ve apologized and tried to make up by being helpful when I can. She’s a decent, honest, kind woman. But she’s not a strong person, and it’s taken her a long time to get the strength to get rid of my dad. She was beaten down. ” “And now?” “She’s better, but she’s had a tough time. I see her more these days.” “Do you find a lot in common?” I was somewhat skeptical, knowing his mother’s tendency to hover. “My mom still doesn’t get it that I’m an adult. She’s a worrier and her life has not made things any easier. But she does her best. She tries to help me with my tuition, but she earns very little money teaching Spanish. Also my little sister is running up a lot of medical bills. But she got me my first computer. She also sends me small sums of money from time to time. It means a lot to her and it means a lot to me. Because every time she gives me something, she goes without something else that she needs.” I asked about women. “I’m pretty cautious in my relationships,” he said. “I don’t pick up women at bars and I don’t plunge into relationships.” He gave a shy smile. “I’ve had girlfriends but no great love of my life. Actually my time is limited what with school and working to support myself. I did so poorly in high school that I almost didn’t graduate, so I’ve had a lot of catching up to do.” As Larry left that day, he surprised me by asking about the other young people in the study. (I wasn’t used to his showing interest in other people.) I explained that several others had turned their lives around after a bad start. Larry said, “You know, I really didn’t want to participate in this study, but now I’m glad I did. Maybe I can help some little kid who has the same problem with his father that I did with mine.” Larry had come a very long way entirely on his own. Stories of Transformation L ARRY HAD GONE FAR in explaining his baffling overnight transformation from an angry, violent delinquent into a law-abiding, decent young man. His striking phrase—“I had to become my own father”—encapsulated his passionate rejection of his father as role model and his understanding that he had to grow up fast if he was going to pursue another kind of life for himself. Ironically and tragically, Larry’s early identification with his violent father was greatly strengthened by the divorce.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lxii. 2) Or entered into him, that he might have more full possession of him: for he was in him, when he agreed with the Jews to betray our Lord for a sum of money, according to Luke: Then entered Satan into Judas Iscariot, and he went away, and communed with the chief priests. (Luke 22:3. 4) In this state he came to the supper. But after the sop the devil entered, not to tempt him, as though he were independent but to possess him as his own, ORIGEN. (t. xxxii. 14.) It was proper that by the ceremony of the bread, that good should be taken from him, which he thought he had: whereof being deprived, he was laid open to admit Satan’s entrance. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lxii) But some will say, was his being given up to the devil the effect of his receiving the sop from Christ? To whom we answer, that they may learn here the danger of receiving amiss what is in itself good. If he is reproved who does not discern, i. e. who does not distinguish, the Lord’s body from other food, how is he condemned who, feigning himself a friend, comes an enemy to the Lord’s table? Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly. ORIGEN. (t. xxxii. 15.) This may have been said either to Judas, or to Satan, either to provoke the enemy to the combat, or the traitor to do his part in bringing on that dispensation, which was to save the world; which He wished not to be delayed any longer, but to be as soon as possible matured. AUGUSTINE. (Tr. lxii. 4) He did not however enjoin the act, but foretold it, not from desire for the destruction of the perfidious, but to hasten on the salvation of the faithful.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  At the same time there were growing cracks in Larry’s armor against the women in his family. As his father’s insults continued, Larry felt increasingly uncomfortable with his sister’s pain at being ignored while he was praised. “I feel guilty and very sorry for her,” he told me when we met shortly after his tenth birthday. But he did not pity his mother, who was haggard with worry and overwhelmed with the care of two young children. She had made every effort to stay at home during the postdivorce years and came home directly from her job at school so that she could provide a secure base for them. But this meant that she herself led a very lonely, isolated life. Moreover, her little girl had developed a range of serious somatic and psychological symptoms that required a lot of attention. Putting lives together after the breakup is hard for everybody, but especially so for women like Larry’s mother who played a subservient role during the marriage. For her and for others like her, the transition from a submissive role to taking full responsibility for all decisions is overwhelming. These women are not used to being in charge and they have to learn to do it at a time when their children are acting up in new ways. Fathers in such families are often the ones who set the rules for the household routines, making the big decisions about where and how the family will live. They set discipline and mete out punishment. Larry’s mother, like many newly free women, at first felt helpless in undertaking so much by herself and cried often. But gradually she learned how to cope, and like others, she succeeded. It can take a very long time for women like her to trust their own judgment, though. Larry’s mother was especially fearful because her former husband, aided by his son who called to complain about her rulings, criticized her at every turn. Caught between her fear of making a mistake that might be detrimental to the children and her fear of the father’s criticism, Larry’s mother felt hamstrung. It didn’t help matters that her tendency to be overprotective in bringing up the children directly conflicted with the father’s macho image, which loomed large in Larry’s eyes.

• From From Shame to Sin: The Christian Transformation of Sexual Morality in Late Antiquity (2013)

  It was this tension that Augustine unraveled with remorseless zeal. If she was innocent in her will, then she had killed an innocent person. “If she is cleared of adultery, then she becomes guilty of murder. Th ere is absolutely no escape when someone asks, ‘If she was an adulteress, why is she praised? If she was sexually honorable, why did she have to be killed?’ ”  It is a truism of the Western Civilization classroom that Th e City of God represents the passage across the threshold from classical to medieval civili- zation. It is almost accurate. Augustine’s sneering prosecution of Lucretia was a cultural landmark. It represented the high- water mark of a distinctly volitional framework of sexual morality in the ancient church. Augustine could condemn Lucretia with such force because he carried with him a re- fi ned Christian model of sin that dissociated sexual behavior from its place in a network of social relationships. Th e fi rst installment of Th e City of God represented the apex of Christian free will for another reason, though. It appeared at precisely the same moment when the great Pelagian controversy erupted. In the last two de cades of his life, Augustine was engulfed in a doctrinal war over the nature of the human will, the repercussions of which would echo through the centuries, with momentous consequences for the history of sexuality. Th e Pelagian controversy, which can appear so com- pressed in its course and circumstantial in its substance, was an aff air of such extraordinary moment because it represented Christian sexuality sud- denly coming to terms with the newfound social dominance of the church. Th e hopeful, if naive, notions of free will, native to primitive Christianity, were washed out by the tidal wave of Augustinian pessimism— in the west. Dark premonitions of this impending crash lurk already the fi rst install- ment of Th e City of God. In his pursuit of Lucretia, Augustine compasses a murky possibility. “Perhaps she killed herself not because of her innocence but because of her guilty conscience? What if (and only she would have known), despite the fact that she was violently ravished, her libido was led astray and she consented, and she was so racked by her guilt she thought to expiate it by her death?” Th e sinister insinuation— from which Augustine sheepishly retreats— cannot be ascribed to prosecutorial zeal. It was part of Augustine’s distinctive view of the sex drive, a view that was to receive fate- ful expression in the coming years. Augustine developed a view of human  FROM SHAME TO SIN sexuality as something refractory, uncontrollable, mysterious. Centuries of untrammeled Christian optimism about the pliability of the sexual instinct would crash on the rocks of Augustine’s doctrine of original sin.

• From The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study (2000)

  It may be that having a child was a deterrent to divorce, especially among men in divorced families. In this study very few such men divorced.3 For example, one man, whose wife walked out on him, was struggling financially, attending school, working all night long, and paying child support in full. It was very important to him not to behave like his own father, who left him stranded economically and emotionally when he was six years old. Most of the women in the study who divorced had no children. But among those who did have children and went on to divorce, all left violent or addicted men. The decision was never easy and they stayed in the marriages as long as they could. They told me at length how hard they tried to avoid divorce. No one wanted their child to experience the same losses that they had endured. Years earlier, these same people had told me that they approved of divorce “when necessary,” but most were against divorce if there were children. Their attitude changed when they felt that they or their children would be physically or emotionally abused in the marriage. Several decided to remain in very troubled marriages because they had young children and didn’t want to disrupt the children’s lives. In our conversations, parents reported that their children were happy and well adjusted. Most are still young, including many babies and toddlers. Those I spent time with looked very good and well cared for. In watching the parents with their children, I was impressed with their consideration and kindness. Those who were stepparents extended the same interest to their stepchildren. Several said it’s important to treat all children in the family alike. One man with three stepchildren spoke with me earnestly about his grave concerns about the children’s relationship with their father. Having been abandoned at age ten by his own father, he wanted to help them not feel rejected by their father.