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 Decameron (1353)

  In my younger days, I was indeed deeply in love with the unfortunate young man whose death has been imputed to my husband. I was enormously grieved to hear that he was dead, and I have wept countless tears over him, for although I assumed an air of haughty indifference towards him before he went away, neither his departure nor his long absence nor even his unfortunate death has been able to dislodge him from my heart.’ ‘You were never in love with this hapless youth who has died,’ said the pilgrim, ‘but with Tedaldo Elisei. However, tell me: what reason did you have for snubbing him? Did he ever offend you?’ ‘Oh, no!’ replied the lady. ‘He certainly never offended me. My aloofness was prompted by the words of an accursed friar, to whom I once went for confession. When I told him how much I loved this man and described the intimacy of our relationship, he gave me such a severe scolding that I have never recovered from the shock to this day, for he told me that unless I mended my ways I would be consigned to the devil’s mouth at the bottom of the abyss 2 and exposed to the torments of hellfire. I was so frightened by all this that I firmly made up my mind never to have anything more to do with him. So as to remove all temptation, I refused from then on to accept any of his letters or messages. I suppose he eventually gave up and went away in despair. But if he had persevered a little longer, I am sure I would have relented, for I could see that he was wasting away like snow in the rays of the sun, and I was longing to break my resolve.’ ‘Madam,’ said the pilgrim, ‘it is this sin alone which lies at the root of all your suffering. I know for a fact that Tedaldo never coerced you in the slightest. When you fell in love with him, you did so of your own accord because you found him attractive. It was with your full consent that he began to visit you and enjoy your intimate favours, and your delight in him was so obvious from your words and deeds that, though he already loved you before, you intensified his love a thousandfold. And if this was so (as I know it was), what possible reason could prompt you to withdraw yourself so inflexibly from him? You should have thought about all these things beforehand, and if you felt it was wrong, if you felt you were going to have to repent, you should not have had anything to do with him in the first place. The point is this, that when he became yours, so you became his. Inasmuch as he belonged to you, you were perfectly free to discard him whenever you wished.

• From Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988)

  If Augustinian theology, or that of the rabbis or shamans who have also attributed suffering to sin, served only as a means of social control, why would people accept such sophistry? Why do people outside religious communities often ask themselves, as if spontaneously, the same questions, and give similar answers, blaming themselves for events beyond their power as if they had caused—or deserved—their own suffering? The “social control” explanations assume a manipulative religious elite that invents guilt in order to dupe a gullible majority into accepting an otherwise abhorrent discipline. But the human tendency to accept blame for misfortunes is as observable among today’s agnostics as among the Hopi or the ancient Jews and Christians, independent of—even prior to—religious belief. For quite apart from political circumstances, many people need to find reasons for their sufferings. Had Augustine’s theory not met such a need—were it not that people often would rather feel guilty than helpless—I suspect that the idea of original sin would not have survived the fifth century, much less become the basis of Christian doctrine for 1600 years. I am not speaking, now, of cases in which guilt may be appropriate—cases in which people have chosen to take certain risks, or to inflict pain upon themselves or others, with predictable results. Instead I am speaking of those cases in which guilt seems to be an inexplicable, irrational, inappropriate response to suffering. But why would anyone choose to feel guilty? One may know perfectly well the statistical possibilities concerning natural disasters, freak accidents, and life-threatening diseases and regard these—theoretically, at least—as fully natural phenomena. But when such events suddenly threaten (or spare) one’s own life, questions occur, so to speak, in the first person. Like the Azande, one asks not what caused the earthquake, fire, or disease (for this may be obvious enough) but “Why did this happen now, in this way, to this person?” What are we to make, I wonder, of this peculiar preference for guilt? Augustine would, I suspect, take it as evidence that human nature itself is “diseased,” or, in contemporary terms, neurotic. I would suggest, instead, that such guilt, however painful, offers reassurance that such events do not occur at random but follow specific laws of causation; and that their causes, or a significant part of them, lie in the moral sphere, and so within human control. Augustine, like the Hebrew author of Genesis 2–3, gives religious expression to the conviction that humankind does not suffer and die randomly, but for specific reasons. Asserting one’s own guilt for suffering may also encourage one to make specific, perhaps long overdue, changes. Guilt invites the sufferer to review past choices, to amend behavior, redress negligence, and perhaps by such means improve his or her life.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  That statement captured her interest. She asked me questions about my father’s abandonment of our family and got me to tell her how he’d absconded in the middle of the night; how my mother, in shame, withdrew from her friends and hid in the house with the blinds closed; how later I’d found a letter to Mother from Lenore, worried about her silence. When I’d asked Mother about her early friendship with Lenore, she would say nothing, though she did reveal that Lenore’s husband died, leaving Lenore money to move to New York and become a successful artist. For years I hid my godmother’s letter as a secret passageway out of my limited life, and during my last year in high school I wrote and reminded her that she was responsible for my spiritual growth, and she’d invited me to come stay with her. “And has Lenore addressed your spiritual growth?” Anaïs asked. “Not really. She isn’t Catholic anymore. She’s a Buddhist now, though she might become a Hindu. Her art is spiritual, don’t you think?” “Yes, I do. Very. Art is my religion now.” “And mine,” I eagerly agreed. Anaïs continued studying me, then gently asked, “How old were you when your father left?” “Eleven.” Her sympathy penetrated me like the heavy August heat, and she said with great sadness, “I was eleven, too, when my father abandoned our family.” Startled, I stared at her lovely face, amazed that she of all people had been abandoned like me. She elaborated. “We had just come home from the hospital. I’d had a burst appendix. I thought Papa was leaving because of all the trouble and the big hospital bill I’d caused.” She felt responsible for her father leaving, as I did, though in my case it had been because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. The summer of my tenth birthday, my mother, father, and I took a vacation, and my parents argued in the car the whole drive. Mother kept opening the passenger door, threatening to jump out, and he yelled at her to go ahead, even pushed her, while I sat invisible and mute in the backseat. When we got to the grand, fairytale Banff Hotel in Canada, I had thought it would enchant them, as it had me. We were going to put on our best clothes and go to dinner in the hotel dining room, but they began shouting earsplitting curses at each other again. I put my hands over my ears and tried to make myself disappear, but this time, some cyclone seized and threw me out of my usual frozen silence, and I heard myself scream, “Stop it! Stop it! Don’t you see what you are doing to me?”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  They showed me that people want to be fooled, and that it was easy to fool them. All I’d done was imagine myself as Anaïs, and people, needing her to be there, believed in the lie. It left me feeling inflated, pumped with helium, but also cynical. I’d satisfied the dream I’d held for so long of becoming Anaïs, if only for one night, but when it happened, it felt creepy—like being a body snatcher. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Only three days later Anaïs, back from the hospital, phoned to find out how the event had gone. I still felt drained, as if my trick of becoming her in the auditorium and the rush of her fans had been a seizure that had left me limp, hollow, my ears ringing. “How did it go?” “Alright. They didn’t boo.” “What else? “I have a bunch of gifts to bring you. How did you get out of the hospital so soon?” “What do you mean?” She sounded affronted. “I mean all the other times you had to stay longer.” “Oh, they just had to fatten me up this time.” “Couldn’t they have waited until after your appearance?” “No, they thought I was that weak.” “Oh. I’m sorry. People really missed seeing you.” She said the purpose of her call was to invite me and Jamie to come tell her about the event, and she wanted both of us to stay after to meditate for her cure with the “white light people.” “What do they charge for that?” I asked skeptically. “Nothing. They want to help. It’s just white light, Tristine.” [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] There was total gridlock on the freeway and I arrived almost two hours late. The house was dark except for lit tea candles everywhere, and the white light people, teenagers in diaphanous robes, were ready to begin. Anaïs’s eyes were shut so I put down the gifts and tried to creep unnoticed to an empty chair next to Jamie. The young men with scraggly beards and girls with long braids made a semi-circle around Anaïs, who sat up straight in a kitchen chair. The meditation, which one of the young men guided us through, was to feel the white light penetrating Anaïs’s body, healing all her cells from the top of her head to her toes. I threw myself into it. With the effort of moving boulders, I concentrated on that white light dissolving her cancer cells. My eyes were closed, but when I heard weeping, I opened them. Anaïs was coiled into herself. “I turned against God.” She struggled to speak between sobs. “Because of my father.” She looked like a trembling, terrified child instead of the woman I knew. The white light kids huddled together in consternation while Rupert rushed to her side and held her as she continued to sob uncontrollably. Jamie and I exchanged an alarmed look.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  TODAY, WHAT JEAN-JACQUES DID WHILE I was intoxicated would likely be considered a form of date rape. But in 1962 there was no such concept. In fact, for me, having come of age in the 1950s, a man taking you while you were helpless was a secret fantasy. One where I could have pleasure without guilt, as when I imagined myself being bound to a factory conveyor belt and carried on it to a man like nougat centers to the chocolate dip—moving toward desire free of volition. I did realize that I should not have let a man into my godmother’s loft. Lenore had told me that she had given up men for the sake of her art, and this loft was her sanctuary. She would not be happy if she knew how Jean-Jacques had defiled it. So when I awoke after my night with Jean-Jacques, grateful not to have a hangover, I gathered up my panties and the bed sheets and carried them to the laundry closet, noticing in wonder little translucent chips flaking off the fabric. I argued to myself that nothing had really happened. Jean-Jacques hadn’t taken my virginity. Although he’d been aroused, he hadn’t tried to enter me, which told me he really respected and cared for me—and that, in my innocence, meant the beginning of love.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Anaïs was overcome with guilt for her own blindness. She and Renate’s other friends had considered Peter the child of their artists’ community. Yet preoccupied with their romantic intrigues, creative projects, and parties, none of them had noticed that their beloved boy was drowning. They’d let him slip away unseen and alone. With a devastating clarity, Anaïs recognized that it didn’t matter that Hugo was finding satisfaction in another woman’s arms. It didn’t matter that she also loved and lived with Rupert. People needed to keep watch over one another, so that none were lost; people needed to be reminded that they were loved. She and Hugo had cared for and loved each other for three decades. They should not allow denial and a failure to communicate destroy a marriage that had sustained them both. Denial was not benign; secrets were not benign. It was time for them to face and accept that they were bonded, but that their marriage could not satisfy their sexual needs. It was time for them to be open with each other, to have an open marriage. She would tell Hugo that she knew about his affair and that it was all right with her; they could love each other and have other lovers in their lives. It didn’t have to destroy their marriage. When Hugo got home late that night and tried to slip under the covers without waking her, she snuggled up and wrapped her arms around him. She told him that he did not need to feel guilty that he had a mistress, because she had someone too. Hugo flung her off, took his pillow, slammed the bedroom door, and abandoned her for his office. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Although she knew that Dr. Inge Bogner would never intervene on her behalf with Hugo, Anaïs expected to gain some clarity when she arrived at the psychoanalyst’s Upper East Side apartment. Dr. Bogner had first been Hugo’s analyst. Years before, the German analyst had accepted Anaïs as her patient as well, with the proviso that she would never betray the confidences of either partner. Indeed, although she knew all about Anaïs’s bigamy, Bogner had been scrupulous in keeping it secret. Dr. Bogner greeted Anaïs with a smiling face that was welcoming, yet disconcerting, because only one of her eyes moved. The other eye perpetually gazed into space because it was crafted of glass with a painted gray-green iris. The psychoanalyst settled into her armchair opposite Anaïs and picked up her knitting. After weeping with grief over Peter’s overdose, Anaïs blurted that she had asked Hugo for an open marriage. She expected that Bogner would congratulate her for attempting, at last, to be candid with Hugo. But the analyst, uncharacteristically, broke her rule of not revealing one partner’s feelings to the other. “You may be ready to drop your denial, Anaïs, but Hugo is not ready to drop his.” “Why not? I’ve offered him the perfect solution. Openness for both of us.”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “I can’t.” She had been leading him on, letting him think she was getting a divorce from Hugo; after a few years when that no longer held water, she’d let him believe that she had already divorced Hugo. Now she had to tell him the truth. She confessed that she couldn’t marry him because she was still married to Hugo, and there was no divorce pending. He pushed her away. She reached out to him, declaring how much she loved him. He crossed his arms against her. In the following weeks, his mood turned black. The rain stopped, but the winds began to blow, carrying soot that smarted in their eyes, filled their nostrils, and made their scalps gritty. All around her were twisted, blackened trees, cinder, images of death. Anaïs developed a persistent dry cough and an abdominal pain that stabbed her so severely at night she couldn’t sleep. Renate, out of concern, made the three-hour drive out to Sierra Madre, insisting that Anaïs tell her about the pain. “It feels like when I was eleven and my appendix burst. In the hospital an abscess formed on my abdomen and wouldn’t heal. I think this is just an echo.” Renate frowned. “Possibly, but pain usually carries a message. Wasn’t it right after your appendix burst that your father left?” “You should have studied psychiatry, Renate.” “I don’t need to. It was in the soil from which I grew; Sigmund Freud was our next-door neighbor in Vienna. Anaïs, are you afraid of being left now for some reason?” Anaïs nodded and managed a pained smile. “Rupert has given me an ultimatum: if I don’t divorce Hugo and really marry him, he’s breaking it off. He keeps telling me he wants a whole life, a family.” “He can’t mean children!” “He thinks I’m near his age. Even his mother, who can’t stand me, keeps asking when we’re tying the knot.” “Don’t you want to marry Rupert?” Anaïs shook her head. “I just don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to lose my husband, either.” “But you have to choose one, and therefore, you have to lose one,” Renate said, and gently added, “as you lost your father when you suffered this pain as a child.” Tears broke, making Anaïs feel like that helpless, abandoned little girl again. Renate ordered Anaïs to fly to New York to see an internist. Afraid that an illness would make Rupert think about her age, Anaïs told him that she had to go for a magazine writing job. What was one more lie? [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] “Anaïs? Can you hear me?” There was a nurse looking down at her. Tubes in her arms. Nausea. Vomit. Dry heaves. Utter weakness. Pain. So much pain from the incision where she’d had the abscess. Hugo’s face. Hugo, there day and night. His eyes, her beacon. Hugo’s hand holding her limp hand. Hugo’s love, all that mattered. “Was it cancer?” she asked him.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Rupert would greet her passionately, and there would be a honeymoon phase when she was able to appreciate those qualities that made him so lovable: his sensuality, his sweet nature, his optimism. After about two months, however, Rupert’s penny-pinching, his persnickety insistence that she do things his way, and his stubborn, provincial view of the world would get on Anaïs’s nerves so badly that she knew it would be better to arrange her departure than to release the wounding words on the tip of her tongue: “I can’t stand you any longer! You are a small man with a small mind and a small life!” It was kinder to tell him that she had to go to New York for an editing job. Just as her kinetic rise with Rupert peaked, Hugo’s potential energy pulled her back. When she was most fed up with Rupert, she felt most drawn to Hugo’s wit and the sight of his elegant fingers picking up the check at Café des Artistes. Reunited with Hugo, she basked in his pampering and reveled in their nights on the town. By the end of her second month with Hugo, however, it would begin to get stale. His flirtatious manners seemed old-fashioned; his obsession with material success, superficial; his artistic ambitions those of a dilettante. With the few close friends like Renate who held her confidence, she spoke of the pendulum as her “trrapeze!” It was no gay leap through the air, though, no acrobatics of freedom. It was a cage in which she swung precariously, lured by alternate baits, ensnared with her “two blind mice.” A trap set to collapse should she miss a beat. The biggest strain was keeping Rupert and Hugo blind. Her lies became so complex she’d had to design the filing system of her little accordion Lie Box. Each time she invented a new cover story, she dated and wrote it on a card. When the little boxes got too stuffed, she locked them inside heavy metal cash boxes on each coast. Eventually she began having nightmares about their discovery. She dreamt that Hugo ordered the police to smash open the cash box in her secret closet. Out of it blasted deadly light and radioactive rays as from the exploding suitcase at the end of the noir film Kiss Me Deadly. Alternately, she dreamt that the forest fire raged again, burning Rupert’s cabin to the ground. Only her smoldering cash box remained in the ashes, where Rupert knelt and wept over it as if it were her coffin. Such nightmares, along with panic attacks of guilt, became her way of life. She was the accountant of her bigamy: keeping double books, ever fearful of discovery as a love embezzler.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I couldn’t go downstairs without being seen by your good lady, who was in the drawing-room, but I remembered having seen a bottle of water in your bedroom, and so I ran to fetch it, gave it him to drink, and put the bottle back again where I had found it. They tell me you’ve been playing merry hell about it, and I freely confess that it was wrong of me to do it, but then everybody makes a blunder occasionally. I can only say that I am very sorry, not only for doing what I did, but also for Ruggieri’s sake, because he is about to lose his life over it. I therefore beseech you with all my heart to forgive me and let me go and see what I can do to help Ruggieri.’ Angry though he was to hear what she had done, the doctor had difficulty in keeping a straight face. ‘You have been hoist with your own petard,’ he replied. ‘For you thought you had a young man who would shake your skin-coat well and truly last night, instead of which you had a slug-abed. Now go and see about saving your lover, and take good care in future not to bring him into the house again, otherwise I shall make you pay for it twice over.’ Feeling that she had emerged with flying colours from the first of her engagements, the maid hurried round as quickly as possible to the prison and wheedled the gaoler into letting her speak to Ruggieri. And after telling him what he was to say to the judge if he wanted to be saved, she actually succeeded in getting the judge himself to grant her a hearing. The judge saw that she was a tasty-looking dish, and thought he would have just one little nibble before listening to what she had to say. Knowing that she would obtain a better hearing, the girl did not object in the slightest, and when the snack was finished she picked herself up and said: ‘Sir, you are holding Ruggieri d’Aieroli here on a charge of theft, but you’ve arrested the wrong man.’ She then told him the whole story from beginning to end, explaining how she, who was his mistress, had let him into the doctor’s house, and how she had unwittingly given him the opiate to drink, and how she had stuffed him inside the trunk thinking him to be dead. After this she told him about the conversation she had overheard between the master-carpenter and the trunk’s owner, thus showing him how Ruggieri had ended up in the house of the money-lenders. Seeing that it was an easy matter to verify her story, the judge first of all inquired of the surgeon whether what she had said about the potion was true, and discovered that it was.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “Dr. Inch doesn’t like you for some reason,” I revealed to Anaïs, but immediately regretted it, realizing that Gore Vidal had probably badmouthed her to Dr. Inch, which was why Inch, in turn, had warned me against Anaïs’s writing. To my surprise, Anaïs shrugged it off. “Minor Inch may not like me but now he fears me, and that is better.” Her statement was so at odds with her feminine delicacy and the sweetness of her ageless face that I did not yet realize how telling it was. Anaïs might not be a great writer or know where to use a colon, but she understood power and had used it to save me. “What can I do to thank you?” I said in all sincerity, forgetting she had caused the problem in the first place. “There may be something,” she said. I became alert with caution. “Renate and I were talking …” Uh-oh. That’s how the two of them had come up with the lecture series scheme. She continued, “You said Dr. Inch is going to have Hugo phone you if he hears from him again.” She smiled slyly. “You’ll have to know what to say if Hugo calls you.” “What do you want me to say?” “Hugo has to believe that I really am booked for a series of lectures at USC and that I’m currently staying with you.” “You mean confirm what it says in the letter.” “Yes, and you may have to tell Hugo that I’m out at the moment.” “You want me to lie to him.” “Lies of love! I’m trying to protect him. You think your brutal honesty that hurts people is better? You just don’t understand, do you?” she retorted. I felt wounded. “You mean that you are still married to Hugo, and that you and Rupert just pretend you are married, but that Hugo still doesn’t know about Rupert?” She looked at the ceiling, as if all that were so obvious. And then it finally hit me as a rush of cold from an opened freezer door. “And the letter was meant for Hugo to see!” “Precisely.” She smiled. “You should have told me that,” I said, indignant that I’d been used in her intrigue without even being asked. “I’m sorry. I’m still learning how much I can trust you.” She reached for my hand. “Since I fell in love with Rupert, I’ve spun myself into a cocoon of lies. I can’t escape now.” I couldn’t resist. “What lies?” She gave me a concerned look. “If I tell you my secrets you’ll have to tell more lies to protect me. I still don’t know if you are willing to do that.” Her blue-green eyes held mine until I answered. “I’ll tell Hugo whatever you want me to say.” I was too ensnared in her maze of intrigue to figure a way out. And too excited by it to want to.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Anaïs was overcome with guilt for her own blindness. She and Renate’s other friends had considered Peter the child of their artists’ community. Yet preoccupied with their romantic intrigues, creative projects, and parties, none of them had noticed that their beloved boy was drowning. They’d let him slip away unseen and alone. With a devastating clarity, Anaïs recognized that it didn’t matter that Hugo was finding satisfaction in another woman’s arms. It didn’t matter that she also loved and lived with Rupert. People needed to keep watch over one another, so that none were lost; people needed to be reminded that they were loved. She and Hugo had cared for and loved each other for three decades. They should not allow denial and a failure to communicate destroy a marriage that had sustained them both. Denial was not benign; secrets were not benign. It was time for them to face and accept that they were bonded, but that their marriage could not satisfy their sexual needs. It was time for them to be open with each other, to have an open marriage. She would tell Hugo that she knew about his affair and that it was all right with her; they could love each other and have other lovers in their lives. It didn’t have to destroy their marriage. When Hugo got home late that night and tried to slip under the covers without waking her, she snuggled up and wrapped her arms around him. She told him that he did not need to feel guilty that he had a mistress, because she had someone too. Hugo flung her off, took his pillow, slammed the bedroom door, and abandoned her for his office. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Although she knew that Dr. Inge Bogner would never intervene on her behalf with Hugo, Anaïs expected to gain some clarity when she arrived at the psychoanalyst’s Upper East Side apartment. Dr. Bogner had first been Hugo’s analyst. Years before, the German analyst had accepted Anaïs as her patient as well, with the proviso that she would never betray the confidences of either partner. Indeed, although she knew all about Anaïs’s bigamy, Bogner had been scrupulous in keeping it secret. Dr. Bogner greeted Anaïs with a smiling face that was welcoming, yet disconcerting, because only one of her eyes moved. The other eye perpetually gazed into space because it was crafted of glass with a painted gray-green iris. The psychoanalyst settled into her armchair opposite Anaïs and picked up her knitting. After weeping with grief over Peter’s overdose, Anaïs blurted that she had asked Hugo for an open marriage. She expected that Bogner would congratulate her for attempting, at last, to be candid with Hugo. But the analyst, uncharacteristically, broke her rule of not revealing one partner’s feelings to the other. “You may be ready to drop your denial, Anaïs, but Hugo is not ready to drop his.” “Why not? I’ve offered him the perfect solution. Openness for both of us.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It is wrong for you to want this thing, it is dishonest; and even if you were certain (which you are not) of achieving your object, you would only have to think where the duty of a true friend lies, as you are bound to do in any case, to dismiss the idea from your mind. What will you do, then, Titus? If you want to do what is proper, abandon this unseemly love.’ But then he remembered Sophronia’s beauty, and took the opposite viewpoint, rejecting all his previous arguments. And he said to himself: ‘The laws of Love are more powerful than any others; they even supplant divine laws, let alone those of friendship. How often in the past have fathers loved their daughters, brothers their sisters, or mothers their stepsons? These are far more reprehensible than the man who loves the wife of his friend, for he is only doing what a thousand others have done before him. Besides, I am young, and youth is entirely subject to the power of Love. So that wherever Love decides to lead me, I am bound to follow. Honesty is all very well for older people, but I can only act in accordance with the dictates of Love. The girl is so beautiful that no one could fail to love her; so that if I, who am young, fall in love with her, who can justly reproach me? It is not because she belongs to Gisippus that I love her, but purely for her own sake, and I should love her no matter to whom she belonged. Here Fortune is at fault for having conceded her to my friend Gisippus rather than to some other man. But if anyone has to love her (as she must be loved, and deservedly so, on account of her beauty), then Gisippus should be all the more pleased to discover that she is loved by me and not by another.’ But then, reproaching himself for being so foolish, he returned to the contrary viewpoint, and for the rest of the day and the ensuing night he veered perpetually back and forth between the two sets of arguments. And after spending several days and nights, gradually wearing himself to a thread over it, and going without food or sleep, he was driven to take to his bed in a state of exhaustion. Great was the distress of Gisippus when, after observing Titus lost in deep thought for days on end, he now discovered that his friend was ill. Never leaving his side, he attempted to comfort him using all the skill and loving care in his power, and from time to time he earnestly entreated him to disclose the reason for his sickness and melancholy. Titus offered him a series of spurious explanations, none of which satisfied Gisippus, so that in the end, unable to withstand the pressure that Gisippus was continuing to apply upon him, he burst into tears.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

   Throughout any of these phases, be aware that as people talk about their experiences they may become activated or agitated. Their breathing may change and become more rapid. Their heart rate might increase, or they might break into a sweat. If this happens stop talking about the experience and focus on what sensations they are having in their body, such as “I have a pain in my neck,” or “I feel sick to my stomach.”  If you are not sure, ask them what they are feeling.  When the people appear calmed and relaxed, move into a more detailed account of the experience and the sensations. They may notice some slight shaking and trembling. Assure them that this is natural. Point out that the activation response is decreasing and that you are working slowly to bring the energy up and discharge it. This process is known as titration (taking one small step at a time).  Following are examples of what might be experienced in each part of this process and the order in which to move through the steps. Before the Event Occurred:  Actio n- I left the house and got in the car.  Sensation s- I can feel my arms turning the wheel and my head turning to look behind me.  Feeling s- I am feeling upset.  Imag e- I am driving down the highway and I notice an exit.  Though t- I could have taken it, but I didn’t. (Encourage the person to make the turn, or take that exit. It will help them reorganize the experience and release the trauma, even though the accident did occur). Allow time for the body discharge to occur. After the Event: Now, move into the details of what happened after the event.  Image or Recollectio n - I am in the emergency room. The doctors are talking about me, saying, “This guy’s a mes s– not another one.”  Feelin g- I feel guilty.  Though t- If I had been paying attention, I could have avoided it.  If people become activated, return to the present by focusing on bodily sensations until the energy is discharged. After this occurs, you can gently lead them back to the details of what happened. As I mentioned before, after the trembling and discharge occur, the person will have a sense of relief, warmth in the extremities, and the ability to breathe more fully. Just Before the Event: Once you have successfully moved through the details before and after the accident, go to the feelings, sensations, and images related to the first recognition of impending peril. It might look something like this:  Image - I remember seeing a yellow fender coming very close to the left side of the car. I could also see that there was a stop sign, but that the car hadn’t stopped.  Feelin g- I was angry that the driver wasn’t paying attention.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  A smile broke out on his face like the afternoon sun replacing the morning fog over their house. “Don’t you think there’s a reason, Anaïs, why I’ve never asked your age?” He grabbed her cold hand. “I don’t care.” “But I do. I’ve cheated you by taking your youth.” He laughed and lifted her balled fist to kiss it. Oh, why was he being so decent about this? She had to get him to sign that annulment but she could not tell him why. His clear blue eyes were full of love. “My youth is a small thing to give when I think about all you have given me. All the interesting people and places and ideas you have brought into my life.” He stayed close as he whispered, “We don’t need an annulment, you silly goose. There isn’t any woman of any age I’d rather be with.” Dear Rupert. How had she been so lucky to find a man who could love this way? How could she come out and tell him when, despite everything, he still hadn’t figured it out? But why hadn’t he figured it out, she wondered. Why hadn’t either of her husbands figured it out? There had been so many times it had been right there in their faces. Why had they accepted her blithe and often silly lies? They didn’t want to know. And why did they not want to know? Because they didn’t want to let her go, ever, just as she didn’t want to let go of either of them, ever. This was the honest conversation she should have with Rupert; with Hugo, too. “Well, as long as I’m confessing things, there’s something else. The IRS has no record of my divorce from Hugo and I can’t find my copy of the decree.” The tiny veins on Rupert’s nose and cheeks turned the color of spilled wine, and she knew his rage would follow. “Then what proof do you have that you’re divorced?” Rupert’s eyes were ice. “Well, I know I’m divorced from Hugo. And Hugo knows we’re divorced,” she lied. “But the IRS demands paper proof. It could take years to unearth and cost a lot of money. Let’s just give them a paper annulment and get married again in Mexico.” In the end, Rupert decided that they didn’t need the warmongering US government to be a party to their union. After their annulment and a Mexican marriage, they continued to live and love happily as man and wife. CHAPTER 28 Los Angeles, California, 1971–73 TRISTINE

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Are these, then, the people whose advice we should follow? Anyone is free to do so if he likes, but God knows whether he will be acting wisely. ‘However, even supposing we granted that the friar who censured you was right in this instance, and that to break one’s marriage vows is a very grave offence, is it not far worse to steal? Is it not far worse to murder a man or send him wandering through the world in exile? Everyone will agree that it is, because after all, for a woman to have intimate relations with a man is a natural sin, but to rob him or to kill him or expel him is to act from evil intention. ‘That you did indeed rob Tedaldo I have already proved to you just now, for you removed yourself from him when you belonged to him of your own free will. Secondly, I would suggest that you did your utmost to murder him, for it would not have been surprising, in view of the cruel way you treated him, if he had taken his own life; and in the eyes of the law, the accessory to a crime is as guilty as the person who actually commits it. Finally, it cannot be denied that you were responsible for condemning him to wander through the world for seven whole years in exile. So that on any one of the three articles to which I have referred, you committed a far greater sin than by your intimacy with him. But let us consider the matter more closely. Could it be that Tedaldo deserved all he received? He certainly did not, as you yourself have already conceded; and besides, I know that he loves you more dearly than his very life. ‘Nothing was ever so warmly revered, so greatly extolled, or so highly exalted as you were by him above all other women, whenever he could speak of you without giving rise to suspicion. To you alone he entrusted the whole of his well-being, the whole of his honour, the whole of his freedom. Was he not a noble youth? Was he not as handsome as any of his fellow citizens? Was he not outstanding in those activities and accomplishments that pertain to the young? Was he not loved, esteemed, and given a ready welcome by all who met him? This, too, you will be willing to concede. ‘What possible reason could you have had, then, for heeding the insane ravings of a stupid, envious little friar and deciding to treat him so cruelly? Why is it, I wonder, that certain women make the mistake of holding themselves aloof from men and looking down upon them?

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

  answered and said unto her: ’Have I sinned against thee? In what way? Did I ever say unto thee an unseemly word? Did I not always consider thee as a lady? Did I not always respect thee as a sister? Why doest thou utter against me, O Lady, these wicked and foul lies?’ But she smiled and said unto me: ’The desire of wickedness has entered into thy heart. Does it not seem to thee an evil thing for a just man, if an evil desire enters into his heart? Yea, it is a sin, and a great one (said she). For the just man devises just things, and by devising just things is his glory established in the heavens, and he finds the Lord merciful unto him in all his ways; but those who desire evil things in their hearts, bring upon themselves death and captivity, especially they who set their affection upon this world, and who glory in their wealth, and lay not hold of the good things to come. The souls of those that have no hope, but have cast themselves and their lives away, shall greatly regret it. But do thou pray unto God, and thy sins shall be healed, and those of thy whole house and of all the saints.’ 2. "After she had spoken these words, the heavens were closed, and I remained trembling all over and was sorely troubled. And I said within myself: ’If this sin be set down against me, how can I be saved? or how can I propitiate God for the multitude of my sins? or with what words shall I ask the Lord to have mercy upon me?’ "While I was meditating on these things, and was musing on them in my heart, I beheld in front of me a great white chair made out of fleeces of wool; and there came an aged woman, clad in very shining raiment, and having a book in her hand, and she sat down by herself on the chair and saluted me, saying: ’Hail, Hermas!" And I, sorrowing and weeping, said unto her: ’Hail, Lady!’ And she said unto me: ’Why art thou sorrowful, O Hermas, for thou wert wont to be patient, and good-tempered, and always smiling? Why is thy countenance cast down? and why art thou not cheerful?’ And I said unto her: ’O Lady, I have been reproached by a most excellent woman, who said unto me that I sinned against her.’ And she said unto me: ’Far be it from the servant of God to do this thing. But of a surety a desire after her must have come into thy heart.

• From Trash (1988)

  I wrote to give back to others who had given to me—sometimes reflexively. I would write particular stories in response to those I read. I began to write about incest only after reading Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. That book felt like a slap on the back from my mother’s hand, as if a trusted, powerful voice were telling me, You know something about incest—something you fear, but had best start figuring out. I began to figure things out in story. I wrote “Mama” to talk about how deeply intertwined love and resentment can be in a family in which violence and sexual abuse are the norm. “River of Names” was an attempt to stop being ashamed of running away from the lives my cousins were living—and, bluntly, it was a slap in the face of all the women I knew who seemed unable to imagine lives different from their own. Some stories I wrote in apology, but I cannot say the writing was ever simple or straightforward. Even as I tried to apologize on the page I was aiming at an audience who I imagined recoiling at the facts and people I portrayed. I published “Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Know” before I told my mother I would be unable to have children, though that is the subject of the story. Only much later did I begin to think about what it would have felt like for her to read that story, my heartbroken mother who wanted nothing so much as the grandchildren I could not give her. Some stories were about trying to figure things out, to understand what had happened and why. “Mama,” “Gospel Song,” “Lupus,” “A Lesbian Appetite,” and “I’m Working on My Charm”—all those began with a mystery. Sometimes the mystery was simply how to tell the story at all. How do you write about lust with a sense of humor? Shame? Lesbian desire?

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  saw what the old man had shown me that I hadn’t been able to recall until now—how each thought and action fueled the momentum of the story, how vulnerable we were to forgetting, all of us. The final bell rang and I barely made it to my room, where I summoned a bit of soberness to save my life. I brushed my teeth so I wouldn’t smell like a drunk. “Breathe,” said the dorm assistant, whose job it was on Friday and Saturday nights to go to each room and smell each girl’s breath for alcohol. She stood poised with her pen, ready to make a mark against my name. I admired her clean life. Her parents showed up every weekend to take her home, and returned her with chili and fresh bread. She stayed on the safe side of rules. I breathed. Then breathed again easily when she marked me present and sober. No one had seen Lupita. Georgette floated into our room. “By the way,” she said coolly, “Mrs. Wilhelm is looking for you. She wants you to come to her office.” I was still drunk when I entered Mrs. Wilhelm’s office, though I had learned to hide it. Lupita was sobbing. Mrs. Wilhelm looked disappointed. “I want to go home. I want to go back to Venus,” Lupita cried as she buried her face in her arms. I had failed to warn her in time, and I had failed the trust of Mrs. Wilhelm, who was the only person who had ever stood with me against the lies of my stepfather. Now Lupita would get sent home, not to Venus but to the father who had been sleeping with her since she was ten. “Were you with Lupita tonight?” Mrs. Wilhelm asked me. Immediately I thought of Georgette, the snitch. But I knew that wasn’t really what mattered. The truth was a path clearer than anything else, a shining luminous bridge past all human failures. I could see the old man on the moon who always demanded nothing less. “Yes, I was with Lupita,” I confessed. I knew I was most likely dooming myself to the house of my stepfather. “Go take care of her,” Mrs. Wilhelm said. “I will talk with the two of you tomorrow when you’re sober.” Then she slapped each of us with a month of restriction. “I need you here so I can keep a closer eye on you,” she said. I led Lupita back to her room. All night I held her while she cried for her mother, for home, all night, as we flew through the stars to the planet Venus. WEST West is the direction of endings. It is the doorway to the ancestors, the direction of tests. It represents leaving and being left and learning to find the road in the darkness.

• From Trash (1988)

  “You are a pure fool,” she said. “Send back the wheelchair, but let’s keep the TV. It’ll give us something to watch when Arlene starts going on about how good Mama’s doing.” Mama had had three years of pretty good health before this last illness. It was a remission that we almost convinced ourselves was a cure. The only thing she complained about was the ulcer that kept her from ever really putting back on any weight. Then, when she was in seeing the doctor about the ulcer, he had put his hand on her neck and palpated a lump the two of them could feel. “This is it,” Mama had told me on the phone that weekend last spring. “I’m not going back into chemo again.” She had been serious, but Jo and I steamrolled her back into treatment. There were a few bad weeks when we wondered if what we were doing was right, but Mama had come through strong. I convinced myself we had done the right thing. Still, when afterward Mama was so weak and slow to recover, guilt had pushed me to take a leave from my job and go stay at the old tract house near the Frito Lay plant. “We’ll get some real time together,” Mama said when I arrived. “You need rest,” I told her. “We’ll rest.” But that was not what Mama had in mind. The first morning she got me up to drink watery coffee and plan what we would do. There was one stop at the new doctor’s office, but after that, she swore, we would have fun. For three days, Mama dragged me around. We walked through the big malls in the acrid air-conditioning in the mornings and spent the afternoons over at the jai alai fronton watching the athletes with their long lobster-claw devices on their arms thrusting the tiny white balls high up into the air and catching them as easily as if those claws were catcher’s mitts. I watched close but could not figure out how the game was meant to be played. Mama just bet on her favorites—boys with tight silk shirts and flashing white smiles. “They all know who I am,” Mama told me. I nodded as if I believed her, but then a beautiful young man came up and paused by Mama’s seat to squeeze her wrist. “Rafael,” Mama said immediately. “This is my oldest daughter.” “Cannot be,” Rafael said. He never lifted his eyes to me, just leaned in to whisper into Mama’s ear. I was watching her neck as his lips hovered at her hairline. I almost missed the bill she pressed into his palm. “You give him money?” I said after he had wandered back down the steeply pitched stairs. “Nothing much.” Mama looked briefly embarrassed. She wiped her neck and turned her head away from me. “I’ve known him since he started here. He’s the whole support of his family.”

• From Trash (1988)

  Then, when she was in seeing the doctor about the ulcer, he had put his hand on her neck and palpated a lump the two of them could feel. “This is it,” Mama had told me on the phone that weekend last spring. “I’m not going back into chemo again.” She had been serious, but Jo and I steamrolled her back into treatment. There were a few bad weeks when we wondered if what we were doing was right, but Mama had come through strong. I convinced myself we had done the right thing. Still, when afterward Mama was so weak and slow to recover, guilt had pushed me to take a leave from my job and go stay at the old tract house near the Frito Lay plant. “We’ll get some real time together,” Mama said when I arrived. “You need rest,” I told her. “We’ll rest.” But that was not what Mama had in mind. The first morning she got me up to drink watery coffee and plan what we would do. There was one stop at the new doctor’s office, but after that, she swore, we would have fun. For three days, Mama dragged me around. We walked through the big malls in the acrid air-conditioning in the mornings and spent the afternoons over at the jai alai fronton watching the athletes with their long lobster-claw devices on their arms thrusting the tiny white balls high up into the air and catching them as easily as if those claws were catcher’s mitts. I watched close but could not figure out how the game was meant to be played. Mama just bet on her favorites—boys with tight silk shirts and flashing white smiles. “They all know who I am,” Mama told me. I nodded as if I believed her, but then a beautiful young man came up and paused by Mama’s seat to squeeze her wrist. “Rafael,” Mama said immediately. “This is my oldest daughter.” “Cannot be,” Rafael said. He never lifted his eyes to me, just leaned in to whisper into Mama’s ear. I was watching her neck as his lips hovered at her hairline. I almost missed the bill she pressed into his palm. “You give him money?” I said after he had wandered back down the steeply pitched stairs. “Nothing much.” Mama looked briefly embarrassed. She wiped her neck and turned her head away from me. “I’ve known him since he started here. He’s the whole support of his family.” I looked down at the young men. They were like racehorses tossing their heads about, their thick hair cut short or tied back in clubs at their napes. Once the game started they were suddenly running and leaping, bouncing off the net walls and barely avoiding the fast-moving balls. All around me gray-headed women with solid bodies shrieked and jumped in excitement.