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 The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Mademoiselle spoke at great length of her aunt, and of Maman who had also passed on into glory; Maman, who had had her chicken on Sunday right up to the very last moment, Dieu merci! Even when her teeth had grown loose in the gums, Maman had asked for her chicken on Sunday. But alas, the poor sister who once made little bags out of beads for the shops in the Rue de la Paix, and who had such a cruel and improvident husband — the poor sister had now become totally blind, and therefore dependent on Mademoiselle Duphot. So after all Mademoiselle Duphot still worked, giving lessons in French to the resident English; and sometimes she taught the American children who were visiting Paris with their parents. But then it was really far better to work; one might grow too fat if one remained idle. She beamed at Stephen with her gentle brown eyes. “ They are not as you were, ma chère petite Stévenne, not clever and THE WELL OF LONELINESS 297 full of intelligence, no; and at times I almost despair of their accent. However, I am not at all to be pitied, thanks to Aunt Clothilde and the good little saints who surely inspired her to leave me that money.’ When Stephen and Puddle returned to their stalls, Made- moiselle climbed to a humbler seat somewhere under the roof, and as she departed she waved her plump hand at Stephen. Stephen said: ‘ She’s so changed that I didn’t know her just at first, or else perhaps I’d forgotten. I felt terribly guilty, because after you came I don’t think I ever answered her letters. It’s thirteen years since she left. . . .” Puddle nodded. ‘ Yes, it’s thirteen years since I took her place and forced you to tidy that abominable schoolroom! ’ And she laughed. ‘ All the same, I like her,’ said Puddle. 3 MapEMOIsELLE DupHot admired the house in the Rue Jacob, and she ate very largely of the rich and excellent dinner. Quite regardless of her increasing proportions, she seemed drawn to all those things that were fattening. ‘I cannot resist,’ she remarked with a smile, as she reached for her fifth marron glacé. They talked of Paris, of its beauty, its charm. Then Made- moiselle spoke yet again of her Maman and of Aunt Clothilde who had left them the money, and of Julie, her blind sister. But after the meal she quite suddenly blushed. < Oh, Sté- venne, I have never inquired for your parents! What must you think of such great impoliteness? I lose my head the moment I see you and grow selfish —I want you to know about me and my Maman; I babble about my affairs. What must you think of such great impoliteness? How is that kind and handsome Sir Philip? And your mother, my dear, how is Lady Anna? °

• From Another Country (1962)

  They stared at each other. She dropped her eyes. “But, you know,” she said, slowly, “I think you knew all the time.” He said nothing. She persisted, in a low voice, “Didn’t you?” “You told me that you weren’t,” he said. “But did you believe me?” He stammered: “I–I had to believe you.” “Why?” Again, he said nothing. “Because you were afraid?” “Yes,” he said at last. “I was afraid.” “It was easier to let it happen than to try to stop it?” “Yes.” “Why?” Her eyes searched his face. It was his turn to look away. “I used to hate you for that sometimes,” she said, “for pretending to believe me because you didn’t want to know what was happening to me.” “I was trying to do what I thought you wanted! I was afraid that you would leave me—you told me that you would!” He rose and stalked the kitchen, his hands in his pockets, water standing in his eyes. “I worried about it, I thought about it—but I put it out of my mind. You had made it a matter of my trusting you—don’t you remember?” He looked at her with hatred, standing above her; but she seemed to be beyond his anger. “Yes, I remember. But you didn’t start trusting me. You just gave in to me and pretended to trust me.” “What would you have done if I had called you on it?” “I don’t know. But if you had faced it, I would have had to face it—as long as you were pretending, I had to pretend. I’m not blaming you. I’m just telling it to you like it is.” She looked up at him. “I saw that it could go on a long time like that,” and her lips twisted wearily. “I sort of had you where I wanted you. I’d got my revenge. Only, it wasn’t you I was after. It wasn’t you I was trying to beat.” “It was Ellis?”

• From Another Country (1962)

  “Yes.” Her hood obscured her face; it was hot in the museum; she threw the hood back. Her hair was disheveled on the brow and trailing at the neck: she looked weary and old. “At first, it was awful because I hadn’t realized how much I’d hurt him. He can suffer, after all,” and she looked at Eric quickly, and looked away. They moved away from the yellow painting and faced another one, of a street with canals, somewhere in Europe. “And—no matter what has happened since, I did love him very much, he was my whole life, and he’ll always be very important to me.” She paused. “I suppose he made me feel terribly guilty. I didn’t know that would happen. I didn’t think it could—but—it did.” She paused again, her shoulders sagging with a weary and proud defeat. Then she touched his hand. “I hate to tell you that—but I must try to tell you all of it. He frightened me, too, he frightened me because I was suddenly terribly afraid of losing the children and I cannot live without them.” She moved one hand over her brow, uselessly pushing up her hair. “I didn’t have to tell him; he didn’t really know, he didn’t suspect you at all, of course; he thought it was Vivaldo. I told him because I thought he had a right to know, that if we were going to—continue—together, we could begin again on a new basis, with everything clear between us. But I was wrong. Some things cannot be clear.” The boy and girl were coming to their side of the room. Cass and Eric crossed over, to stand beneath the red painting. “Or perhaps some things are clear, only one won’t face those things. I don’t know.… Anyway—I didn’t think he’d threaten me, I didn’t think he’d try to frighten me. If he were leaving me, if he were being unfaithful to me—unfaithful, what a word!—I don’t think I’d try to hold him that way. I don’t think I’d try to punish him. After all—he doesn’t belong to me, nobody belongs to anybody.”

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

  But there were at that time some callings which either ministered solely to sinful gratification, like that, of the stage-player, or were intimately connected with the prevailing idolatry, like the manufacture, decoration, and sale of mythological images and symbols, the divination of astrologers, and all species of magic. These callings were strictly forbidden in the church, and must be renounced by the candidate for baptism. Other occupations, which were necessary indeed, but commonly perverted by the heathens to fraudulent purposes—inn-keeping, for example—were elevated by the Christian spirit. Theodotus at Ancyra made his house a refuge for the Christians and a place of prayer in the Diocletian persecution, in which he himself suffered martyrdom. In regard to military and civil offices under the heathen government, opinion was divided. Some, on the authority of such passages as Matt. 5:39 and 26:52, condemned all war as unchristian and immoral; anticipating the views of the Mennonites and Friends. Others appealed to the good centurion of Capernaum and Cornelius of Caesarea, and held the military life consistent with a Christian profession. The tradition of the legio fulminatrix indicates that there were Christian soldiers in the Roman armies under Marcus Aurelius, and at the time of Diocletian the number of Christians at the court and in civil office was very considerable. But in general the Christians of those days, with their lively sense of foreignness to this world, and their longing for the heavenly home, or the millennial reign of Christ, were averse to high office in a heathen state. Tertullian expressly says, that nothing was more alien to them than politics.619 Their conscience required them to abstain scrupulously from all idolatrous usages, sacrifices, libations, and flatteries connected with public offices; and this requisition must have come into frequent collision with their duties to the state, so long as the state remained heathen. They honored the emperor as appointed to earthly government by God, and as standing nearest of all men to him in power; and they paid their taxes, as Justin Martyr expressly states, with exemplary faithfulness. But their obedience ceased whenever the emperor, as he frequently did, demanded of them idolatrous acts. Tertullian thought that the empire would last till the end of the world,—then supposed to be near at hand—and would be irreconcilable with the Christian profession. Against the idolatrous worship of the emperor he protests with Christian boldness: "Augustus, the founder of the empire, would never be called Lord; for this is a surname of God. Yet I will freely call the emperor so, only not in the place of God. Otherwise I am free from him; for I have only one Lord, the almighty and eternal God, who also is the emperor’s Lord .... Far be it from me to call the emperor God, which is not only the most shameful, but the most pernicious flattery."

• From Another Country (1962)

  The doctors had felt that it would be criminal to release her into the custody of the man who was the principal reason for her breakdown, and who had, moreover, no legal claim on her. They had notified Leona’s family, and her brother had come from the South and carried Leona back with him. Now she sat somewhere in Georgia, staring at the walls of a narrow room; and she would remain there forever. Vivaldo yawned and felt guilty. He was tired—tired of Rufus’ story, tired of the strain of attending, tired of friendship. He wanted to go home and lock his door and sleep. He was tired of the troubles of real people. He wanted to get back to the people he was inventing, whose troubles he could bear. But he was restless, too, and unwilling, now that he was out, to go home right away. “Let’s have a nightcap at Benno’s,” he said. And then, because he knew Rufus did not really want to go there, he added, “All right?” Rufus nodded, feeling a little frightened. Vivaldo watched him, feeling it all come back, his love for Rufus, and his grief for him. He leaned across the table and tapped him on the cheek. “Come on,” he said, “you haven’t got to be afraid of anybody.” With these words, at which Rufus looked even more frightened, though a small smile played around the corners of his mouth, Vivaldo felt that whatever was coming had already begun, that the master switch had been thrown. He sighed, relieved, also wishing to call the words back. The waiter came. Vivaldo paid the check and they walked out into the streets. “It’s almost Thanksgiving,” said Rufus, suddenly. “I didn’t realize that.” He laughed. “It’ll soon be Christmas, the year will soon be over —” He broke off, raising his head to look over the cold streets. A policeman, standing under the light on the corner, was phoning in. On the opposite pavement a young man walked his dog. The music from the night club dwindled as they walked away from it, toward Benno’s. A heavy Negro girl, plain, carrying packages, and a surly, bespectacled white boy ran together toward a taxi. The yellow light on the roof went out, the doors slammed. The cab turned, came toward Rufus and Vivaldo, and the street lights blazed for an instant on the faces of the silent couple within. Vivaldo put one arm around Rufus and pushed him ahead of him into Benno’s Bar. The bar was terribly crowded. Advertising men were there, drinking double shots of bourbon or vodka, on the rocks; college boys were there, their wet fingers slippery on the beer bottles; lone men stood near the doors or in corners, watching the drifting women. The college boys, gleaming with ignorance and mad with chastity, made terrified efforts to attract the feminine attention, but succeeded only in attracting each other.

• From Wild (2012)

  What a mountain was and what a desert was were not the only things I had not expected. I hadn't expected the flesh on my tailbone and hips and the fronts of my shoulders to bleed. […] I'd never been so exhausted in all of my life. […] In addition to the raw patches of flesh, my muscles and bones ached from hiking, and my feet were dotted with an ever-increasing number of blisters. I sat in the dirt examining them, knowing there was little I could do to prevent the blisters from going from bad to worse. I ran my finger delicately over them and then up to the black bruise the size of a silver dollar that bloomed on my ankle — not a PCT injury, but rather evidence of my pre-PCT idiocy. It was because of this bruise that I'd opted not to call Paul when I'd been so lonely at that motel back in Mojave; this bruise at the center of the story I knew he'd hear hiding in my voice. How I'd intended to stay away from Joe in the two days I spent in Portland before catching my flight to LA, but hadn't. […] "Give me your ankle," Joe had said when he couldn't find a vein in my arm.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  And yet, I sinned herein, O Lord God, the Creator and Disposer of all things in nature, of sin the Disposer only, O Lord my God, I sinned in transgressing the commands of my parents and those of my masters. For what they, with whatever motive, would have me learn, I might afterwards have put to good use. For I disobeyed, not from a better choice, but from love of play, loving the pride of victory in my contests, and to have my ears tickled with lying fables, that they might itch the more; the same curiosity flashing from my eyes more and more, for the shows and games of my elders. Yet those who give these shows are in such esteem, that almost all wish the same for their children, and yet are very willing that they should be beaten, if those very games detain them from the studies, whereby they would have them attain to be the givers of them. Look with pity, Lord, on these things, and deliver us who call upon Thee now; deliver those too who call not on Thee yet, that they may call on Thee, and Thou mayest deliver them. As a boy, then, I had already heard of an eternal life, promised us through the humility of the Lord our God stooping to our pride; and even from the womb of my mother, who greatly hoped in Thee, I was sealed with the mark of His cross and salted with His salt. Thou sawest, Lord, how while yet a boy, being seized on a time with sudden oppression of the stomach, and like near to death—Thou sawest, my God (for Thou wert my keeper), with what eagerness and what faith I sought, from the pious care of my mother and Thy Church, the mother of us all, the baptism of Thy Christ, my God and Lord. Whereupon the mother my flesh, being much troubled (since, with a heart pure in Thy faith, she even more lovingly travailed in birth of my salvation), would in eager haste have provided for my consecration and cleansing by the health-giving sacraments, confessing Thee, Lord Jesus, for the remission of sins, unless I had suddenly recovered. And so, as if I must needs be again polluted should I live, my cleansing was deferred, because the defilements of sin would, after that washing, bring greater and more perilous guilt. I then already believed: and my mother, and the whole household, except my father: yet did not he prevail over the power of my mother’s piety in me, that as he did not yet believe, so neither should I. For it was her earnest care that Thou my God, rather than he, shouldest be my father; and in this Thou didst aid her to prevail over her husband, whom she, the better, obeyed, therein also obeying Thee, who hast so commanded.

• From Little Women (1868)

  I go about so much I must have things, you know, and Sallie advised my getting it, so I did, and my New Year's money will partly pay for it, but I was sorry after I had done it, for I knew you'd think it wrong in me." John laughed, and drew her round beside him, saying goodhumoredly, "Don't go and hide. I won't beat you if you have got a pair of killing boots. I'm rather proud of my wife's feet, and don't mind if she does pay eight or nine dollars for her boots, if they are good ones." That had been one of her last 'trifles', and John's eye had fallen on it as he spoke. "Oh, what will he say when he comes to that awful fifty dollars!" thought Meg, with a shiver. "It's worse than boots, it's a silk dress," she said, with the calmness of desperation, for she wanted the worst over. "Well, dear, what is the 'dem'd total', as Mr. Mantalini says?" That didn't sound like John, and she knew he was looking up at her with the straightforward look that she had always been ready to meet and answer with one as frank till now. She turned the page and her head at the same time, pointing to the sum which would have been bad enough without the fifty, but which was appalling to her with that added. For a minute the room was very still, then John said slowly—but she could feel it cost him an effort to express no displeasure—. . . "Well, I don't know that fifty is much for a dress, with all the furbelows and notions you have to have to finish it off these days." "It isn't made or trimmed," sighed Meg, faintly, for a sudden recollection of the cost still to be incurred quite overwhelmed her. "Twenty-five yards of silk seems a good deal to cover one small woman, but I've no doubt my wife will look as fine as Ned Moffat's when she gets it on," said John dryly. "I know you are angry, John, but I can't help it. I don't mean to waste your money, and I didn't think those little things would count up so. I can't resist them when I see Sallie buying all she wants, and pitying me because I don't. I try to be contented, but it is hard, and I'm tired of being poor." The last words were spoken so low she thought he did not hear them, but he did, and they wounded him deeply, for he had denied himself many pleasures for Meg's sake. She could have bitten her tongue out the minute she had said it, for John pushed the books away and got up, saying with a little quiver in his voice, "I was afraid of this. I do my best, Meg." If he had scolded her, or even shaken her, it would not have broken her heart like those few words.

• From Little Women (1868)

  If I didn't care about doing right, and didn't feel uncomfortable when doing wrong, I should get on capitally. I can't help wishing sometimes, that Mother and Father hadn't been so particular about such things." Ah, Jo, instead of wishing that, thank God that 'Father and Mother were particular', and pity from your heart those who have no such guardians to hedge them round with principles which may seem like prison walls to impatient youth, but which will prove sure foundations to build character upon in womanhood. Jo wrote no more sensational stories, deciding that the money did not pay for her share of the sensation, but going to the other extreme, as is the way with people of her stamp, she took a course of Mrs. Sherwood, Miss Edgeworth, and Hannah More, and then produced a tale which might have been more properly called an essay or a sermon, so intensely moral was it. She had her doubts about it from the beginning, for her lively fancy and girlish romance felt as ill at ease in the new style as she would have done masquerading in the stiff and cumbrous costume of the last century. She sent this didactic gem to several markets, but it found no purchaser, and she was inclined to agree with Mr. Dashwood that morals didn't sell. Then she tried a child's story, which she could easily have disposed of if she had not been mercenary enough to demand filthy lucre for it. The only person who offered enough to make it worth her while to try juvenile literature was a worthy gentleman who felt it his mission to convert all the world to his particular belief. But much as she liked to write for children, Jo could not consent to depict all her naughty boys as being eaten by bears or tossed by mad bulls because they did not go to a particular Sabbath school, nor all the good infants who did go as rewarded by every kind of bliss, from gilded gingerbread to escorts of angels when they departed this life with psalms or sermons on their lisping tongues. So nothing came of these trials, and Jo corked up her inkstand, and said in a fit of very wholesome humility... "I don't know anything. I'll wait until I do before I try again, and meantime, 'sweep mud in the street' if I can't do better, that's honest, at least." Which decision proved that her second tumble down the beanstalk had done her some good. While these internal revolutions were going on, her external life had been as busy and uneventful as usual, and if she sometimes looked serious or a little sad no one observed it but Professor Bhaer.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Now the air thickened between them, as though they were on opposite sides of a chasm in the mountains, trying to discern each other through the cloud and the fog, but terribly frightened of the precipice at their feet. For she had left Richard, or had, anyway, betrayed him —and what did that failure mean? And what was she doing, now, with Eric, and where was the meaning there? She began, dimly and unwillingly, to sense the vast dimensions of Ida’s accusation at the same time that her ancient, incipient guilt concerning her life with Richard nosed its way, once more, into the front hall of her mind. She had always seen much farther than Richard, and known much more; she was more skillful, more patient, more cunning, and more single-minded; and he would have had to be a very different, stronger, and more ruthless man, not to have married her. But this was the way it always had been, always would be, between men and women, everywhere. Was it? She threw her cigarette out of the window. He did come. I did walk out. Had she, indeed? The cab was approaching Harlem. She realized, with a small shock, that she had not been here since the morning of Rufus’ funeral. “But, imagine,” Ida was saying, “that he came, that man who’s your man—because you always know, and he damn sure don’t come every day—and there wasn’t any place for you to walk out of or into, because he came too late. And no matter when he arrived would have been too late—because too much had happened by the time you were born, let alone by the time you met each other.” I don’t believe that, Cass thought. That’s too easy. I don’t believe it. She said, “If you’re talking of yourself and Vivaldo—there are other countries—have you ever thought of that?” Ida threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, yes! And in another five or ten years, when we get the loot together, we can pack up and go to one of those countries.” Then, savagely, “And what do you think will have happened to us in those five years? How much will be left?” She leaned toward Cass. “How much do you think will be left between you and Eric in five years—because I know you know you’re not going to marry him, you’re not that crazy.” “We’ll be friends, we’ll be friends,” said Cass. “I hope we’ll be friends forever.” She felt cold; she thought of Eric’s hands and lips; and she looked at Ida again. Ida had turned again to the window. “What you people don’t know,” she said, “is that life is a bitch, baby. It’s the biggest hype going. You don’t have any experience in paying your dues and it’s going to be rough on you, baby, when the deal goes down. There’re lots of back dues to be collected, and I know damn well you haven’t got a penny saved.”

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  Even though my journals are private and no one ever sees them but me, in them I very hesitantly and in a very cloaked and cautious way expressed feelings of doubt about Limori and what she was teaching. I could hardly admit to myself that I was doubting that her group was the right place for me. But as soon as I did get close to a feeling like that, I immediately stopped it, using group language and clichés. For example, here is a direct quote from my journal, from November 1993: “I shouldn’t participate in something that doesn’t feel right. But it is my ego that doesn’t feel right.” [I experience a serious case of mental whiplash when I read that now.] I am telling myself that if it feels wrong to participate in the group, it is my ego that is rebelling against what I’m being taught. If I am uncomfortable, it is my fault and no one else’s. The implied message is, if I leave the group I’m giving in to my ego and that would be turning my back on God and serving the devil. Part of my struggle was reflected in the fact that I had come to a place where I realized that I would never recommend Limori’s meditation group to anyone. That was something that tore at me for years, and I even mentioned it to Michael at one point. “I wouldn’t recommend this path to anyone,” I said to him one day, as we shared lunch at a café near his office. I used the words this path to avoid pointing fingers at Limori specifically, something I was not yet nearly courageous enough to do out loud. “Why not?” he asked, chewing thoughtfully. “It’s too hard,” I answered, but even in that moment, as mind-controlled as I was, I knew my answer was a cop-out and didn’t come close to expressing what I really felt. What I wanted to say was, “The way Limori talks about love but acts so cruelly seems hypocritical to me. I think her teaching methods of yelling at us and ostracizing people for things she says she sees in visions or hears from the spirits could be considered to be abusive. And the worst part is, she’s using God’s name to do it. Doesn’t that seem like the pinnacle of hypocrisy?” That was the truth of my experience but I couldn’t say it, and if someone had asked me at the time if that was what I felt, I would have vehemently denied it. It was too risky to think and feel that I might disagree with how Limori taught. Who was I to question her methods? Michael was quick to use group rhetoric and thought-stopping clichés of his own to respond to my lame-ass answer, but he would have used these even if I’d told him the full truth of how I felt.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Vivaldo whistled, his eyes very big. “I knew you shouldn’t have answered that phone. What a mess. Is Richard on his way down here with a shotgun? and how did he find out?” Eric looked strangely guilty, then he said, “Oh, Cass wasn’t at her most coherent, I don’t really know. Anyway, how he found out hardly matters now, since he has.” He sat up. “Apparently, he has been suspicious—but he was suspicious of you——” “Of me? He must be crazy!” “Well, Cass kept coming to see you all the time, that’s what she told him, anyway—” “And what did he think Ida was doing while Cass and I were screwing? Reading us bedtime stories?” Again, Eric looked uncomfortable, but he laughed. “I don’t know what he thought. Anyway, Cass says that he’s very bitter against you because”—he faltered for a moment and looked down—“because you knew about the affair and you’re supposed to be his friend and you didn’t tell him.” He watched Vivaldo. “Do you think you should have told him?” Vivaldo put out his cigarette. “What a wild idea. I’m nobody’s goddam Boy Scout. Besides, you and Cass are my friends, not Richard.” “Well, he didn’t know that; you’ve known him much longer than you’ve known me, and—Richard doesn’t really like me very much—so he’d naturally expect you to be loyal to him.” Vivaldo sighed. “There’s a hell of a lot that Richard doesn’t know and that’s too bad but it’s not my fault. And he’s being dishonest. He knows that we haven’t really been friends for a long time. And I won’t be made to feel guilty.” Then he grinned. “I’ve got enough to feel guilty about.” “Do you feel guilty?” They stared at each other for a moment. Vivaldo laughed. “That wasn’t what I had in mind. But, no, I don’t feel guilty and I hope to God that I never feel guilty again. It’s a monstrous waste of time.” Eric looked down. “Yes, Cass says that Richard may try to see you today.” “Sounds just like him. Well, I’m not at home.” Suddenly, he laughed. “Wouldn’t it be funny if Richard came here?” “And found you here, you mean?” They laughed, rolling in the bed like children. “I wonder what he’d think.” “Poor man. He wouldn’t know what to think.” They looked at each other and began to laugh again. “We certainly aren’t giving him an awful lot of sympathy,” Eric said. “That’s true.” Vivaldo sat up and lit two cigarettes, giving one to Eric. “The poor bastard must really be suffering; after all, he doesn’t know what hit him.” They were silent. “And I’m sure Cass isn’t laughing.” “No. Not at Richard, not at anything. She sounded half out of her mind.” “Where was she calling from?” “Home. Richard had just gone out.” “I wonder if he really did go to my house. Maybe I should call and see if Ida’s there.” But he did not move toward the phone.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Out of the corner of his eye, Rufus watched him stabbing the table with his stir-stick. “I hope,” Cass said, “that you won’t sit around blaming yourself too much. Or too long. That won’t undo anything.” She put her hand on his. He stared at her. She smiled. “When you’re older you’ll see, I think, that we all commit our crimes. The thing is not to lie about them—to try to understand what you have done, why you have done it.” She leaned closer to him, her brown eyes popping and her blonde hair, in the heat, in the gloom, forming a damp fringe about her brow. “That way, you can begin to forgive yourself. That’s very important. If you don’t forgive yourself you’ll never be able to forgive anybody else and you’ll go on committing the same crimes forever.” “I know,” Rufus muttered, not looking at her, bent over the table with his fists clenched together. From far away, from the juke box, he heard a melody he had often played. He thought of Leona. Her face would not leave him. “I know,” he repeated, though in fact he did not know. He did not know why this woman was talking to him as she was, what she was trying to tell him. “What,” she asked him, carefully, “are you going to do now?” “I’m going to try to pull myself together,” he said, “and get back to work.” But he found it unimaginable that he would ever work again, that he would ever play drums again. “Have you seen your family? I think Vivaldo’s seen your sister a couple of times. She’s very worried about you.” “I’m going up there,” he said. “I haven’t wanted to go—looking this way.” “They don’t care how you look,” she said, shortly. “ I don’t care how you look. I’m just glad to see you’re all right—and I’m not even related to you.” He thought, with a great deal of wonder, That’s true, and turned to stare at her again, smiling a little and very close to tears. “I’ve always thought of you,” she said, “as a very nice person.” She gave his arm a little tap and pushed a crumpled bill into his hand. “It might help if you thought of yourself that way.” “Hey, old lady,” Richard called, “want to make it in?” “I guess so,” she said, and yawned. “I suppose we’ve celebrated enough for one night, one book.” She rose and returned to her side of the table and began to gather her things together. Rufus was suddenly afraid to see her go. “Can I come to see you soon?” he asked, with a smile. She stared at him across the width of the table. “Please do,” she said. “Soon.” Richard knocked his pipe out and put it in his pocket, looking around for the waiter.

• From Another Country (1962)

  “All right.” But Eric dreaded leaving in the same way that Vivaldo dreaded getting dressed. “I’ll leave you the cigarettes, I’ll buy some.” “That’s big of you. Go on, now. Give my love to Cass.” “Give my love,” he said, “to Ida.” They both grinned. “I’m going to call her,” Vivaldo said, “just as soon as you get your ass out of here.” “Okay, I’m gone.” Yet, at the door, he stopped, looking at Vivaldo, who stood in the center of the room, holding a cup of coffee. He stared at the floor with a harsh bewilderment in his face. Then he felt Eric’s eyes and looked up. He put down his coffee cup and walked to the door. He kissed Eric on the mouth and looked into his eyes. “See you soon, baby.” “Yes,” said Eric, “see you soon.” He opened the door and left. Vivaldo listened to him go down the stairs. Then he walked to the window and opened the blinds and watched him. Eric appeared in the street as though he had been running, or as though he had been propelled. He looked first in one direction and then in the other; then, his hands in his pockets, head lowered and shoulders raised, he walked the long block, hugging the sides of buildings. Vivaldo watched him till he turned the corner. Then he turned back into the room, pale with assessments, with guilt deliciously beginning to gnaw at the rope with which he had tied it, sharpening its teeth for him. And yet, at the same time, he felt radiantly, wonderfully spent. He poured himself another small drink and sat on the edge of the bed. Slowly, he dialed his number. The receiver was lifted almost at once, and Ida’s voice came at him: with the force of an electric shock. “Hello?” In the background, he heard Billie Holiday singing Billie’s Blues. “Hello, sugar. This is your man, checking on his woman.” “Do you know what time it is? Where the hell are you?” “I’m at Eric’s. We passed out here. I’m just pulling myself together.” There was a peculiar relief in her voice. He was aware of it because she tried to hide it. “You’ve been there all night? ever since I left you?” “Yes. We came on over here and started talking and finished up Eric’s whiskey. And he had quite a lot of whiskey—so, you see.” “Yes, I know you think it’s against the law to stop drinking as long as there’s anything left to drink. Listen. Has Cass called?” “Yes.” “Did you talk to her?” “No. Eric did.” “Oh? What did Eric tell you?” “What do you mean, what did Eric tell me?” “I mean, what did Cass say?” “She said she was in trouble. Richard’s found out about them.” “Isn’t that awful? What else did she say?”

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  I was afraid to feel much of anything that wasn’t supportive of his wedding; it was God, after all, who had requested this marriage, so if I opposed it for the selfish reason of being in love with the groom myself, then I was an even worse spiritual student than I thought. My estimation of myself was at a rock-bottom low already, so I was loath to add any more demerits to my already tragic state of worthlessness by disagreeing with God. But love Michael I surely did. In my secret heart, I had prayed for the past year that during his machinations about the event, he would talk himself out of following Limori’s orders to wed. He came close, but Limori did not back down and when the day of the ceremony arrived, he was fully on board. He loved Jessica, and he loved God. He had managed to completely convince himself to see the purported importance of this marriage in God’s plan, as Limori explained it to him. Standing beside Jessica, dressed in white as she was, with the Pacific Ocean behind them, Michael looked as proud and happy as he was handsome. We danced together at the reception and I felt like a fool and a hypocrite, wanting him only for myself. I smiled and smiled until my cheeks hurt, and celebrated, as Limori put it, this “joyous event, which will bring so much Light to the world.” In the days following the wedding, we continued our educational tours of the island and met a few of Limori’s other current obsessions, including a masseuse, whose massages were purported to heighten the state of one’s connection to God. After two weeks of arranged marriage, sun, spirituality and fighting Satan, I was more than ready to return home. For the next year or so, my journals express deep feelings of discontent and discomfort about Limori, her teachings and my place in her world. I wrote that I felt “trapped to be a certain something that someone else defines.” I even went as far as observing that any complaints I or anyone else in the group ever had about Limori’s spiritual techniques, practices and teachings were always made out to be the fault of the complainer. I confessed to myself that I’d noticed that whenever anyone questioned Limori’s motives they were always told that they were “in their ego.” The fact that I was willing to even express these thoughts is a testament to the amount of pain I was in. Under no other circumstances would I have had the courage to think, let alone write down, thoughts such as these – I was, after all, questioning God Himself, or so I believed. My journals from this time are filled with the cyclical mind-control techniques that I would later (once I leave the group) understand as thought-terminating clichés.

• From Another Country (1962)

  When she was halfway down the bar, he yelled. “Un double!” “Ah! Bien sûr, M’sieu.” She brought him his drink and a small drink for herself, and watched him. They touched glasses. “A la vôtre, Madame.” “A la vôtre, M’sieu.” But sometimes he said: “A nos amours.” And she repeated dryly: “A nos amours!” They drank in silence for a few seconds. Then she smiled. “You look very well. You have become very handsome. I’m proud of you.” “Why should you be proud of me? I am just a good-for-nothing, it is just as well that I am good-looking, that’s how I live.” And he watched her. “Tu comprends, hein?” “If you talk that way, I want to know nothing, nothing, of your life!” “Why not? It is just like yours, when you were young. Or maybe even now, how can I tell?” She sipped her cognac and raised her chin. “Why don’t you come back? You can see for yourself how well the bar does, it would be a good situation for you. Et puis—–” “Et puis quoi?” “I am no longer very, very young, it would be un soulagement if my son and I could be friends.” And Yves laughed. “You need friends? Go dig up some of those that you buried in order to get this bar. Friends! Je veut vivre, moi!” “Ah, you are ungrateful.” Sometimes, when she said this, she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Don’t bother me any more, you know what I think of you, go back to your clients.” And the last word was thrown at his mother, like a curse; sometimes, if he were drunk enough, there were tears in his eyes. He would let his mother get halfway down the bar before he shouted. “Merci, pour le cognac, Madame!” And she turned, with a slight bow, saying, “De rien, M’sieu.” Eric had been there with him once, and had rather liked Yves’ mother, but they had never gone back. And they had scarcely ever spoken of it. There was something hidden in it which Yves did not want to see. Now, Yves leapt over the low stone wall and entered the garden, grinning. “You should have come in the water with me, it was wonderful. It would do wonders for your figure; do you know how fat you are getting?” He flicked at Eric’s belly with his bikini and fell on the ground beside him. The kitten approached cautiously, sniffing Yves’ foot as though it were investigating some prehistoric monstrosity, and Yves grabbed it, holding it against his shoulder, and stroking it. The kitten closed its eyes and began to purr. “You see how she loves me? It is a pity to leave her here, let us take her with us to New York.” “Getting you into America is going to be hassle enough, baby, let’s not rock the boat. Besides, New York is full of alley cats. And alleys.”

• From Cult: A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery (2013)

  And so, most often without consciously realizing it, we look for ways to close that gap, to experience connectedness. I believe that this is one of the reasons that people can become vulnerable to cults. The little bits of actual truth that Limori spoke convinced me that the rest of what she had to say was the truth. My desire to belong and my need to feel connected to God made me selectively ignore the parts of Limori’s message that did not ring purely with the truth. When Limori told me she could hear God talking to her, I grabbed onto that idea like it was a winning lottery ticket and I hung on, even though she dragged me through hell. MoneyThe guru–follower relationship is a symbiotic one. I needed Limori to provide me with a sense of self and a sense of purpose. She gave meaning to my life. And she needed those who followed her to provide her with the twin possessions of power and money. I’ve spent the first section of this book talking about the power she had over us, but very little time talking about money. I think it’s important to touch on that now. Limori’s group of disciples was eventually able to provide her with a lavish and luxurious lifestyle. As I’ve said, when I first met her she was earning a small living providing psychic readings out of her home. But gradually, as the years went by, she was able to wring a significantly more extravagant living out of those of us who provided for her. Her first major acquisition was the property of Wolf’s Den. A few years after she and Matthew were legally married, the group was sitting in a Thursday night meditation circle talking. As ever, Limori was sitting at the top of the circle, and Matthew was there on her right-hand side. While she talked to us she had her right hand on Matthew’s left knee, in the fairly common gesture of partnership and affection that she’d adopted. Out of nowhere, Limori looked at Matthew and said, “God says the title for Wolf’s Den should come to me.” Other than candy, the greatest love in Matthew’s life was Wolf’s Den. He was an unflappable, quiet, jolly sort of man; like Santa Claus without the beard. He never spoke ill of anyone and never raised his voice to anyone. I never saw him angry; only content, amused and pleasant. (Although he did have an annoying habit of laughing at people who were in pain.) He tended to sit and observe on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and the rest of the time let everything simply slide over him. He questioned nothing that Limori did, which I suppose was some of his appeal to her. For several years, including the ill-fated months that I lived with Matthew and Limori, he worked for a local cable company in the Vancouver area.

• From The Confessions of Saint Augustine (354)

  Alypius indeed kept me from marrying; alleging that so could we by no means with undistracted leisure live together in the love of wisdom, as we had long desired. For himself was even then most pure in this point, so that it was wonderful; and that the more, since in the outset of his youth he had entered into that course, but had not stuck fast therein; rather had he felt remorse and revolting at it, living thenceforth until now most continently. But I opposed him with the examples of those who as married men had cherished wisdom, and served God acceptably, and retained their friends, and loved them faithfully. Of whose greatness of spirit I was far short; and bound with the disease of the flesh, and its deadly sweetness, drew along my chain, dreading to be loosed, and as if my wound had been fretted, put back his good persuasions, as it were the hand of one that would unchain me. Moreover, by me did the serpent speak unto Alypius himself, by my tongue weaving and laying in his path pleasurable snares, wherein his virtuous and free feet might be entangled. For when he wondered that I, whom he esteemed not slightly, should stick so fast in the birdlime of that pleasure, as to protest (so oft as we discussed it) that I could never lead a single life; and urged in my defence when I saw him wonder, that there was great difference between his momentary and scarce-remembered knowledge of that life, which so he might easily despise, and my continued acquaintance whereto if the honourable name of marriage were added, he ought not to wonder why I could not contemn that course; he began also to desire to be married; not as overcome with desire of such pleasure, but out of curiosity. For he would fain know, he said, what that should be, without which my life, to him so pleasing, would to me seem not life but a punishment. For his mind, free from that chain, was amazed at my thraldom; and through that amazement was going on to a desire of trying it, thence to the trial itself, and thence perhaps to sink into that bondage whereat he wondered, seeing he was willing to make a covenant with death; and he that loves danger, shall fall into it. For whatever honour there be in the office of well-ordering a married life, and a family, moved us but slightly. But me for the most part the habit of satisfying an insatiable appetite tormented, while it held me captive; him, an admiring wonder was leading captive. So were we, until Thou, O Most High, not forsaking our dust, commiserating us miserable, didst come to our help, by wondrous and secret ways.

• From Little Women (1868)

  of the household fund? That was the question. Sallie had urged her to do it, had offered to lend the money, and with the best intentions in life had tempted Meg beyond her strength. In an evil moment the shopman held up the lovely, shimmering folds, and said, "A bargain, I assure, you, ma'am." She answered, "I'll take it," and it was cut off and paid for, and Sallie had exulted, and she had laughed as if it were a thing of no consequence, and driven away, feeling as if she had stolen something, and the police were after her. When she got home, she tried to assuage the pangs of remorse by spreading forth the lovely silk, but it looked less silvery now, didn't become her, after all, and the words 'fifty dollars' seemed stamped like a pattern down each breadth. She put it away, but it haunted her, not delightfully as a new dress should, but dreadfully like the ghost of a folly that was not easily laid. When John got out his books that night, Meg's heart sank, and for the first time in her married life, she was afraid of her husband. The kind, brown eyes looked as if they could be stern, and though he was unusually merry, she fancied he had found her out, but didn't mean to let her know it. The house bills were all paid, the books all in order. John had praised her, and was undoing the old pocketbook which they called the 'bank', when Meg, knowing that it was quite empty, stopped his hand, saying nervously... "You haven't seen my private expense book yet." John never asked to see it, but she always insisted on his doing so, and used to enjoy his masculine amazement at the queer things women wanted, and made him guess what piping was, demand fiercely the meaning of a hug-me-tight, or wonder how a little thing composed of three rosebuds, a bit of velvet, and a pair of strings, could possibly be a bonnet, and cost six dollars. That night he looked as if he would like the fun of quizzing her figures and pretending to be horrified at her extravagance, as he often did, being particularly proud of his prudent wife. The little book was brought slowly out and laid down before him. Meg got behind his chair under pretense of smoothing the wrinkles out of his tired forehead, and standing there, she said, with her panic increasing with every word... "John, dear, I'm ashamed to show you my book, for I've really been dreadfully extravagant lately. I go about so much I must have things, you know, and Sallie advised my getting it, so I did, and my New Year's money will partly pay for it, but I was sorry after I had done it, for I knew you'd think it wrong in

• From Boys & Sex (2020)

  He was scrupulous about checking in at every escalating stage of an encounter, too, but similar to the boys he counseled, his female partners haven’t always reacted well. “Some of them don’t like it,” he admitted, “but they don’t stick around long. There was one girl this year who I was very attracted to. Very excited to be hooking up with her. I asked, ‘Can I kiss you?’ and she started laughing. She thought it was ‘cute,’ but she was also like, ‘What?’ Then, I asked, ‘Can I take your shirt off?’ And she was like, ‘You don’t have to ask!’ That just makes me mad because it is exactly the quagmire I want to avoid.” For every girl who’s seemed put off, though, more have been appreciative. “I’ll just put it out there,” he said, “affirmative consent is really hot. It’s exciting to have a girl saying, ‘Yes! I want you to do this.’ ‘Yes! I want you to do that.’ To feel she’s really into it. It’s a pretty awesome thing for both of you to have that sort of connection.” Wyatt said he’s also clear with his partners that he’s not looking for anything more than sex, even if he wants to see them again. “I’ll say, ‘It’s going to be in a very casual capacity, and if you can’t do that, then we can’t do this.’” When, on occasion, he’s sensed someone starting to “catch feelings”—wanting to know more about him, asking questions, maybe wanting to do something together outside of the bedroom—he’s “floated away,” growing “flaky” and “distant.” “Because I’m not there for that,” he explained, “and I’m not going to be there for that.” From my interviews with girls, I knew that some of them would be fine with such an arrangement: they, too, were only looking for a wild night and a warm body. But others felt that hookup culture had trapped them into a game of emotional chicken: they had to feign a disinterest they didn’t necessarily feel in order to avoid appearing “clingy” or desperate for a boyfriend. So I asked Wyatt: Do you think the girls that you were with when you got “flaky” are the same ones who would tell me that all guys are “dicks?” He laughed uncomfortably. “Gosh! I mean, I hope not, but . . . yeah.” He winced. “Yeah, that could be true. I mean . . .” He let out a sigh. “Yeah. That could be true. Who knows what girls really think when you tell them you don’t want to be with them, you know? Maybe they do tell their friends that all guys are the same. That if you try to move forward emotionally, guys immediately back off . . . because”—he winced again—“I’ve done all that. I have. But in my defense, I always try to ask, ‘Are you sure you’re okay with the fact that I don’t go to lunch with you?’”