Humiliation

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 New Testament Words (1964)

  He may not even desire health, if the gods wish to take it away. ‘You ought to possess your whole body as a paltry ass with a pack-saddle on, as long as may be, as long as it is allowed you. But if there should come an act of impressment (aggareia) and a soldier should lay hold on it, let it go. Do not resist or murmur. If you do, you will first be beaten and lose the ass after all.’ A man had no appeal when this humiliation came upon him. How humiliating this could be, and how this aggareia was abused can be seen in the regulations that governments had to make to curb the exercise of it. When Demetrius of Syria was wooing the Jews in the times of the Maccabaean Jonathan, Josephus says (Antiquities, 13.2.3) that he offered to abolish many taxes, such as the salt tax and the poll tax, and ‘I also give order that the beasts of the Jews be not “impressed” (aggareuein) into our service’. From the papyri we learn that in Egypt boats for instance, and cattle and labour were regularly ‘impressed’. Ptolemy Euergetes the second and his queen decree that his governors and officials ‘shall not impress any of the inhabitants of the country for private services, nor requisition (aggareuein) their cattle for any purpose of their own’, and that ‘No one shall requisition boats (aggareuein) for his own use on any pretext whatsoever’. In the Temple of the Great Oasis in Egypt there was an inscription, in which Capito, the prefect of Egypt, admitted that soldiers had made illegal requisition and laid it down that ‘no one shall take or requisition (aggareuein) anything, unless he has a written authorization from me’. It is quite clear that the local and the military officials requisitioned both things and people, not only for the public services and for the army’s purposes, but for their own private convenience and profit. Now it is even clearer what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5.41). He is saying: ‘If someone exacts from you the most distasteful and humiliating service, if someone compels you to do something that invades your rights and that he has no right to ask, if you are treated like a defenceless victim in an occupied country, don’t resent it. Do what you are asked and do even more, and do it with good will, for such is my way.’ A generation which is for ever standing on its rights might well think of that.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  But what did his fellow students, quite apart from his teachers, think of Hanno, who was a very mediocre student and a wimp to boot, who everything that required a little courage, strength, dexterity and vivacity, shyly trying to get out of the way? And when Senator Buddenbrook passed the balcony on the second floor on his way to his dressing room, he would listen to Ida Jungmann from the middle of the three rooms upstairs, which Hannos had used since he had grown too big sleeping, the sounds of the harmonium or Kai's soft and mysterious voice telling a story... As for Kai, he avoided the "gymnastics games" because he detested the discipline and legal order that had to be observed. "No, Hanno," he said, "I'm not going. You maybe? Go for it… Anything that would make fun of it doesn't count.” He got phrases like “Go for the vulture” from his father; But Hanno answered: “If one day Herr Fritsche smelled of anything other than sweat and beer, then we could talk about the matter … Yes, stop that, Kai, and go on. That ring you got out of the swamp wasn't finished by a long shot...' 'Good,' said Kai; "but if I wave you have to play." And Kai went on telling the story. If one was to believe him, some time ago on a muggy night and in a strange, unrecognizable region he had slid down a slippery and immeasurably deep slope, at the foot of which he had found, in the pale and flickering glow of will-o’-the-wisps, a black swampy water from which, with a hollow gurgling sound, silvery bubbles had risen incessantly. But one of them, which kept returning near the shore whenever it broke, had the shape of a ring, and after long, dangerous efforts he had managed to catch it with his hand, whereupon it no longer burst, but itself as a smooth and firm band had stuck on the finger. But he, who had rightly attributed unusual properties to this ring, It was no different with ice-skating in winter and bathing in Mr. Asmussen's wooden asylum down by the river in summer . . . 'Bathing! To swim!" Doctor Longneck had said. "The boy must bathe and swim!" And the senator had agreed with that completely. But what mainly caused Hanno to stay away from bathing, ice-skating and "gymnastics" whenever possible was the fact that Consul Hagenstrom's two sons, who took an honorable part in all these things, were after him and, though they lived in his grandmother's house, never missed an opportunity to humiliate and torment him with their strength. They pinched and taunted him during the “gymnastics games”, they pushed him into the snow sweepings on the ice rink, they came at him through the water in the swimming pool with threatening noises… Hanno didn’t try to escape, which incidentally would have been of little use.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  The words consistently express insulting and outrageous treatment, and especially treatment which is calculated publicly to insult and openly to humiliate the person who suffers from it. One of the usages which best illustrates the whole flavour and tone of these words is the use in the Septuagint of II Sam. 10. The chapter tells how Hanun, king of Ammon, cut short the garments of King David’s ambassadors, and shaved off half their beards, and then sent them back to their master. That treatment was hubris. It was insult, outrage, public humiliation all combined. Now we turn to the NT usages of these words. (i) In one case hubris is used simply of the disaster which will follow a sea voyage taken against the advice of Paul (Acts 27.10, 21). In one case one of the scribes complains that Jesus has treated the scribes with insolence (hubrizein) in his denunciation of them (Luke 11.45). (ii) The word hubristēs, a man of arrogant insolence, is once used to describe one of the characteristic sins of the pagan world (Rom. 1.30). There it describes the pride of godlessness. (iii) Once Paul uses hubristēs to describe his own conduct towards the Church in the days when he was a persecutor (I Tim. 1.13). In those days Paul had taken a savage delight in seeing the Christians hurt and humiliated. Nothing could better show how savage a persecutor Paul once was. (iv) Hubrizein is twice used of the treatment which Paul received at the hands of his persecutors on his missionary journeys. It is used of what happened to him at Iconium (Acts 14.5), and at Philippi (I Thess. 2.2). In the list of his sufferings in II Cor. 12.10 Paul includes the things he suffered from hubris. The Christian had to suffer not only cruelty but also public humiliation. (v) Jesus uses the word hubrizein of the treatment which he himself knew he would suffer at Jerusalem (Luke 18.32). Jesus knew that the cruelty of men would leave nothing undone to hurt and to wound and to insult and to humiliate him. (vi) But the most suggestive usage of all, the usage which gathers up the whole meaning of the words, is in Matt. 22.6. There the word hubrizein is used of the conduct of the people who ill-treated and killed the messengers of the king who brought the king’s invitation to the king’s feast. There we have the very essence of sin.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  Herodotus has a description of it (Herodotus 8.98). ‘Nothing travels so fast as these Persian messengers. The entire plan is a Persian invention; and this is the method of it. Along the whole line of road there are men (they say) stationed with horses, in number equal to the number of days which the journey takes, allowing a man and a horse to each day; and these men will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of the night. The first rider delivers his despatch to the second, and the second passes it to the third; and so it is borne from hand to hand along the whole line, like the light in the torch race.... The Persians give the riding post in this manner the name aggareion.’ Xenophon has an even more vivid description of it (Cyropaedia 8.6.17). He says that Cyrus had to find some way of finding out what was going on in his vast empire. He experimented and found out how far a horse and rider could go in one day without breaking down, and so arranged his stations. At each station there was a permanent official to see to the transference of the letters and to change the horses. Night and day this express service went on. ‘It is undeniable,’ says Xenophon, ‘that this is the fastest overland travelling on earth.’ Aeschylus in the Agamemnon tells how there came to Greece news of the capture of Troy. The chorus will hardly believe Clytaemnestra that word could have come so quickly. She tells how the news was transmitted by torch from Ida to Lemnos, from Athos to Olympus by what she calls ‘the courier fire’ (aggarou puros). Now it was the law that anyone could be compelled to provide a horse or to act as guide to keep this service going. And therefore aggareuein came to mean ‘forcibly to impress some one to service’, to compel him to serve whether he liked it or not. In an occupied country that was a grave and serious thing. Anyone could be impressed to carry the baggage of the army for a certain distance; anyone could be compelled to perform any service that the occupiers chose to lay upon him. That is what happened to Simon of Cyrene. This business of impressment was one of the bitterest and most constant humiliations that subject nations had to endure. Epictetus (4.1.79) is talking about how a man must submit to whatever the gods lay upon him.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  How humiliating this could be, and how this aggareia was abused can be seen in the regulations that governments had to make to curb the exercise of it. When Demetrius of Syria was wooing the Jews in the times of the Maccabaean Jonathan, Josephus says (Antiquities, 13.2.3) that he offered to abolish many taxes, such as the salt tax and the poll tax, and ‘I also give order that the beasts of the Jews be not “impressed” (aggareuein) into our service’. From the papyri we learn that in Egypt boats for instance, and cattle and labour were regularly ‘impressed’. Ptolemy Euergetes the second and his queen decree that his governors and officials ‘shall not impress any of the inhabitants of the country for private services, nor requisition (aggareuein) their cattle for any purpose of their own’, and that ‘No one shall requisition boats (aggareuein) for his own use on any pretext whatsoever’. In the Temple of the Great Oasis in Egypt there was an inscription, in which Capito, the prefect of Egypt, admitted that soldiers had made illegal requisition and laid it down that ‘no one shall take or requisition (aggareuein) anything, unless he has a written authorization from me’. It is quite clear that the local and the military officials requisitioned both things and people, not only for the public services and for the army’s purposes, but for their own private convenience and profit. Now it is even clearer what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5.41). He is saying: ‘If someone exacts from you the most distasteful and humiliating service, if someone compels you to do something that invades your rights and that he has no right to ask, if you are treated like a defenceless victim in an occupied country, don’t resent it. Do what you are asked and do even more, and do it with good will, for such is my way.’ A generation which is for ever standing on its rights might well think of that. AIŌNIOSTHE WORD OF ETERNITYWe do well to search out the true meaning of the word aiōnios, for in the NT this is the word which is usually translated eternal or everlasting, and it is applied to the eternal life and the eternal glory, which are the Christian’s highest reward, and to the eternal judgment and the eternal punishment, which must be the Christian’s greatest dread. Even in classical and in secular Greek aiōnios is a strange word, with a sense of mystery in it. Itself it is an adjective formed from the noun aiōn. In classical Greek this word aiōn has three main meanings. (i) It means a life-time. Herodotus can speak of ending our aiōn (Herodotus, 1.32); Aeschylus, of depriving a man of his aiōn (Aeschylus, Prometheus 862); and Euripides of breathing away one’s aiōn (Euripides, fragment 801).

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘Here is postcard picture of statue of Lesseps, m’sieu. Is most instructive & also relaxing. Also is only ten piastres.’ I bought one of these &, since we wd not go there, one of the Pharos & one of Pompey’s Pillar. Encouraged, he rummaged inside a cloth bag, & produced a small brown bottle, taking the opportunity too to pull a chair up beside me & sit down. He had a strong, not particularly pleasant smell. ‘Here is very special drink, m’sieu. Very good for you & for your lady.’ He looked at me keenly & I felt myself colour. ‘Is the cocktail of love, m’sieu. Is the wine of Cleopatra.’ ‘No, no, no,’ I said, flustered. To my surprise he was sensitive to this & put the bottle away. He seemed prepared already to give me up, afraid to overstep the mark, & packed up his case again; some other Europeans approached an adjacent table, & I was glad to be seen successfully repulsing this mountebank, fascinating & confidential though he was. Leaning forwards as though to rise, & so hiding what he did from our neighbours, he produced, almost prestidigitated, from inside his robe, from somewhere mysterious about his person, a hand of postcards which he quickly fanned & as quickly swept together again & covered. It should not have surprised me that there was a market for such things here. He may only have been taking an inspired commercial guess in showing them to me. But I was keenly dismayed, humiliated, feeling that he had read me like a book & I, in the glimpse I caught of naked poses—all male, young boys, fantastically proportioned adults, sepia faces smiling, winking—had confusedly admitted as much. I declined him sternly, & with an amiable, philosophical bow he withdrew to pester the newly arrived party. Tonight we travel south along the Canal. I have just walked on deck under stars; it was quite bracingly cold. Beyond the sheer canal walls there are occasional lights & fires: otherwise featurelessness & a distant horizon of hills to the east, and plain to the west, just perceptible as darker than the sky. Like a child I feel far too excited to sleep through my first night in Africa. A couple of weeks later Charles rang me. As usual he was already talking when I raised the apparatus to my ear: ‘… my dear, and too appalled to hear that you’ve been vandalised.’ ‘Charles! I’m much better now. I’ve got a false tooth very cleverly sort of welded on at the front …’ ‘I’ve only just heard about it from our friend Bill.’ ‘I didn’t know he knew.’ ‘I was most dismayed. I went for a swim, you see. I hoped I might find you there. But I suppose …’ ‘I haven’t been going in while I’ve been looking so hideous, but I hope to make an appearance in the next few days.’ ‘Were you badly hurt?’

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  ( b ) It is used in the sense of ‘clean’ with the meaning, when used of persons, that they are fit for God’s service and worship, and when used for things, that they are fit for the Christians to use (John 13.10; Luke 11.41; Rom. 14.20; Tit. 1.15). (c) It is used in the sense of ‘innocent of any crime’ (Acts 18.6; 20.26). ( d ) It is used of ‘the heart and the conscience’ being pure and clean (I Tim. 1.5; 3.9; II Tim. 1.3; 2.22; I Pet. 1.22). ( e ) It is used of a worship which is fit to be offered to God (James 1.27) . But the instance in the NT which means most to us is its use in the Beatitude, ‘Blessed are the katharoi (plural) in heart, for they shall see God’ (Matt. 5.8). How are we to explain this, and what meaning are we to give katharos here? A word is always known by the company it keeps. There are four Greek words with which katharos is often closely associated, ( a ) There is alēthinos , which means ‘real’, ‘genuine’, as opposed to that which is unreal and, as we would say, a fake. ( b ) There is amigēs , which means ‘pure’, ‘unmixed’. This word is used, for instance, of pure, unalloyed pleasure. And it is used of a roll which has in it the work of only one author, (c) It is used with akratos . This is the word that describes pure wine or pure milk which has not been adulterated by water. It is pure in the sense of ‘neat’, completely unadulterated, ( d ) It is used with akēratos , which is the word that describes unalloyed gold, hair which has never been shorn, an unmown meadow, a virgin whose chastity has never been doubted. Now all these words basically describe something which is pure from every taint and admixture of evil. How then shall we translate, Blessed are the katharoi in heart? We must think of it this way—Blessed are those whose motives are absolutely unmixed, whose minds are utterly sincere, who are completely and totally single-minded. What a summons to self-examination is here! Here is the most demanding Beatitude of all. When we examine our motives with honesty, it will humiliate us, for an unmixed motive is the rarest thing in the world. But the blessedness is to the man with the motive that is as pure as clean water, and with the single-mindedness which does everything as to God. That is the standard by which this word and this Beatitude demand that we should measure ourselves. LEITOURGIA THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE Leitourgia , from which comes our English word ‘liturgy’, and its kindred words form a group of words of unsurpassed interest.

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  As the referee blows his whistle to signal the beginning of the match, Dan and the Cascade wrestler move warily, in starts and stops, a step toward each other and then one back away, in search of a place on each others’ bodies that may suddenly make itself vulnerable to attack. In the stands, the North-Linn parents and fans watch at something approaching a low hum, with almost modest interest. Their years spent in the sport have led them to a clear understanding of when to get excited over something in a match, and this is not the time. The time, traditionally, comes a few seconds after Dan makes his first move. When he does finally initiate that strike, the first jolt of realization is that Dan is working with a set of skills entirely different from his opponent’s. It’s the quickness you notice first—funny, since Dan is not generally regarded as the fastest person in a room of wrestlers. Still, he uncoils like a snake. In one instant he is standing, hunched over, in a wrestler’s crouch, looking for an opening like every other opponent who ever started out a match. An eyeblink later, Dan has dived to the mat, grabbed one of his opponent’s ankles, sprung back to his feet and lifted his boy’s leg into the air. A quick cheer goes up from the North-Linn stands, a cheer of recognition as much as anything else. This, from Dan, the North-Linn fans have seen before. The Cascade wrestler is going down. The rest is just marking time. With the gymnasium lights dimmed and a single spotlight trained, theater-style, down upon the wrestling mat, Dan goes to work, quietly enforcing pain and selecting an angle of attack. The years of experience flow through him. He blocks every other thought from his mind, becoming in the moment an object of almost pure focus. That first move feels comfortable and familiar to him—an “outside single” in the vernacular, meaning Dan goes to the outside of his opponent to grab the ankle and is already moving halfway behind the Cascade boy before he knows what is happening. Now, in his vision of the match, Dan sees what comes next. He knows precisely what it feels like to take someone’s leg and use it as a weapon against him, lifting up and then ramming down on the limb, burying his shoulder into his opponent’s hip to drive the boy down to the mat. In the relative calm of the gym, Dan works almost expressionlessly. The Cascade wrestler, writhing and flailing, only thinks he is going to find a way out of this. Dan already is working through the sequence of the pin in his mind, clicking visually from one move to the next reaction, then to the following move, and then beyond. It is chess with body parts.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  Now all these words basically describe something which is pure from every taint and admixture of evil. How then shall we translate, Blessed are the katharoi in heart? We must think of it this way—Blessed are those whose motives are absolutely unmixed, whose minds are utterly sincere, who are completely and totally single-minded. What a summons to self-examination is here! Here is the most demanding Beatitude of all. When we examine our motives with honesty, it will humiliate us, for an unmixed motive is the rarest thing in the world. But the blessedness is to the man with the motive that is as pure as clean water, and with the single-mindedness which does everything as to God. That is the standard by which this word and this Beatitude demand that we should measure ourselves. KOINŌNIA, KOINŌNEIN AND KOINŌNOS THE CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP In the NT there is a great group of words all of which have to do with the basic idea of ‘fellowship’. There is the word koinōnia. In classical Greek koinōnia means an association or a partnership. Plato uses the phrase the koinōnia of women with men for ‘co-education’. Human koinōnia is the Greek for human society. The word is also used to express the idea of community. Plato says, ‘There must be a certain koinōnia between pleasure and pain.’ In later Greek koinōnia is used as the opposite and contrast to pleonexia, which is the grasping spirit which is out for itself. Koinōnia is the spirit of generous sharing as contrasted with the spirit of selfish getting. In the contemporary colloquial Greek koinōnia has three distinctive meanings. (i) It means very commonly a ‘business partnership’. In a papyrus announcement a man speaks of his brother ‘with whom I have no koinōnia, no business connexion. (ii) It is used specially of ‘marriage’. Two people enter into marriage in order to have ‘koinōnia of life’, that is to say, to live together a life in which everything is shared. (iii) It is used of a man’s ‘relationship with God’. Epictetus talks of religion as ‘aiming to have koinōnia with Zeus’. So in secular Greek koinōnia is used to express a close and intimate relationship into which people enter. In the NT koinōnia occurs some eighteen times. When we examine the connexions in which it is used we come to see how wide and far-stretching is the fellowship which should characterize the Christian life. (i) In the Christian life there is a koinōnia which means ‘a sharing of friendship’ and an abiding in the company of others (Acts 2.42; II Cor. 6.14). It is very interesting to note that that friendship is based on common Christian knowledge (I John 1.3). Only those who are friends with Christ can really be friends with each other. (ii) In the Christian life there is a koinōnia which means ‘practical sharing’ with those less fortunate.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  I understand completely, he said, don’t worry about anything, I’ll watch for him and if he shows up here I’ll make sure he won’t bother you. He was briefly silent, and then, It’s a shame there are such people in the world, he said, you have to be so careful, you pay them, you have your fun, and then they should leave—but sometimes they don’t leave, they want more than you agreed. It’s a shame, he repeated after a pause in which it was clear I had nothing to add; I was paralyzed with humiliation and wanted only for him to go. But don’t worry, he said as he opened the door, this is a good room—and here he reached over to arrange the curtains so that the glass was more fully covered—you’re safe here, don’t worry. Then he was gone, finally, and I locked the door behind him and lay down on the bed, feeling relief now but also the anger of having been subjected to something, an anger like the dry grinding of gears. Maybe it was an anger that Mitko knew well, I thought suddenly, that he knew better than I. I closed my eyes as I lay there, though it would be a long time before I slept. I woke early the next morning. There was an eerie quality to the light seeping in around the drapes, and when I pulled them aside I saw that the air was full of snow, though the flakes were fine and not yet sticking to the ground. In the bathroom I studied my face, tilting it back and forth in the light, relieved that I could hardly see a bruise. I stepped out of my room, giving a wave to the watchman, who must have been coming to the end of his shift, and turned toward the Sea Garden, wanting to see the water again. The park wasn’t deserted this time, despite the hour and the snow; as I walked I passed old couples strolling briskly, men with their dogs, even cyclists, all out for a morning’s exercise beside the sea.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  If there’s doubt, I ventured, shouldn’t I take the pills for a longer time, but she held up her hand before I had finished speaking, and began reciting a text that this time I was sure was an official script. In making these recommendations, she said, I’m following the guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Prevention, zdraveopazvaneto , I’m not sure of the best translation; should you wish to follow another treatment, I cannot accept responsibility for the consequences. I was Vie again, she had returned to the formal address, and I felt like this was a further humiliation, though I couldn’t say why. And if I accept the responsibility for those consequences, I said, as she began writing on her pad, will you write me a prescription for four weeks? She continued writing, and in the same tone of officious formality began to say again that she could only follow the Ministry’s regulations, but then she paused and looked up. In general, she said, there is not a problem in using a prescription twice. This was true, I would find; the prescription wasn’t dated, and later that afternoon, when the pharmacist handed it back to me along with my pills, there wasn’t any sign on it that it had already been filled, I could use it as many times as I wanted. She finished writing and held the paper out for me to take, remaining in her seat so that I had to step forward and reach over the large desk. And that’s all, she said, releasing me, you will return in three months for another test. I turned toward the door, desperate to leave, exhausted by my encounter with this woman, who had been uzhasna , I thought, awful, thinking it half in Bulgarian and half in my own language, which I returned to as if stepping onto more solid ground. One more thing, I heard the woman say behind me, drawing me back, her chair squeaking as she stood. I turned to see her moving toward another side table, where there was a large ledger book lying open. It was like the book in which we kept track of our classes each day at my school, signing for every hour we taught. Because of its danger, the woman said, the Ministry requires that we report all cases of this illness. I felt a sudden concern, wondering if this would complicate my stay in the country, my visa that must be renewed each year; but I thought also it would be a way not to choose, if I was forced to leave, it would almost be a relief. Then I looked down at the page, where in a quick, not quite cursive Cyrillic I saw that she had gotten my name wrong, putting down my first and middle names but leaving off the last; there wouldn’t be any consequence, I thought, they wouldn’t be able to find me at all.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  The gentleman, wishing to prove his wife's heart thoroughly, went and begged the preacher to lend him his robe. The Cordelier, who was a good man, replied that his rule forbade him to do so, and that for no consid- eration would he lend his robe to go masking in. The gentleman assured him it was not for any idle diversion he wanted it, but for an important matter, and one neces- sary to his salvation ; whereupon the Cordelier, who knew him to be a worthy, pious man, lent him the robe. The gentleman then procured a false beard and a false nose, put cork in his shoes to make himself as tall as the monk, put on the robe, which covered the greater part of Fourth day.-\ QUEEN OF NA VARRR. 31^ his face, so that his eyes were barely seen, and in a word, dressed himself up so that he might easily be mis- taken for the preacher. Thus disguised, he stole by night into his wife's chamber, where she was expecting him in great devotion. The poor creature did not wait for him to come to her, but ran to embrace him like a woman out of her senses. Keeping his head down to avoid being recognized, he began to make the sign of the cross, pretending to shun her, and crying, " Temptation ! temptation ! " " Alas ! you are right, father," said she, " for there is no more violent temptation than that which proceeds from love. You have promised to afford me relief, and I pray you to have pity on me now that we have time and opportunity." So saying, she made great efforts to embrace him, while he kept dodging her in all directions, still making great signs of the cross, and crying, " Temptation ! temp- tation ! " But when he found that she was pressing him too closely, he drew a stout stick from under his robe, and thrashed her so soundly that he put an end to the temptation. This done, he left the house without being known, and immediately returned his borrowed robe, assuring the owner that he had used it to great ad- vantage. Next day he returned home as if from a jour- ney, and found his wife in bed. Pretending not to know the nature of her malady, he asked her what ailed her. She replied that she was troubled with a kind of catarrh, and that she could neither move hand nor foot. The husband, who had a great mind to laugh, pretended to be very sorry, and by way of cheering her, said that he had invited the pious preacher to supper. " Oh, my dear!" said she, "don't think of inviting such people, for they bring ill-luck wherever they go." 320 THE-HEPTAMERON OF THE \N(rcel 2>l-

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I’d had enough. I dropped my hand, half-turned and jumped over the wall. ‘Bye-bye,’ he called cheerily as I waited to cross the road—and chose a bad moment that meant I had to run; a van honked at me. I felt the boy’s absolutely unfriendly eyes on me, and annoyance and humiliation, and, as I turned up the road to the Club, conflicting urges to dismiss him as rubbish and to run back and pay whatever he wanted. I saw myself pissing over him, jamming my cock down his throat, forcing my fingers up his ass—disturbing images with which to enter a Boy’s Club. I resented his ability to resist me, and that I had no power over someone so young. The Club building must formerly have been a Nonconformist chapel. The bulk of it was built of a rebarbative grey stone, with mean pointed windows; tacked on in front and at the side were modern extensions in red brick, with metal-framed windows (the frosted glass spoke of changing-rooms) and peeling white trim. It was, as Charles had said, a big night, and the lino-tiled hallway was full of family people—rather got up, I suspected: mothers with arms crossed anxiously under their bosoms, and fathers showing the suppressed pride of parents at a speech-day. Many youngsters were rushing about, and the sense of private occasion made me feel more than ever out of place. I went over to the glass-fronted NoBos and communed for a second with my reflection before scanning the lists of activities, notices about excursions, and team photographs, routinely seeking out the faces of pretty boys (of which there were several) and those inevitable glimpses of underwear up the rucked short-legs of seated footballers. Then, in the next frame, there was a larger notice, printed in an old-fashioned and distinguished way, announcing that on this very day, in contests of three rounds each, the London and Home Counties Boys’ Club Boxing Championship would be decided, and the winning team presented with ‘the Nantwich Cup’. I felt how slow and incurious I had been now that I saw this evidence of Charles’s further influence and philanthropy. Of course he hadn’t sent me all this way merely to speak to the mysterious Shillibeer; I was amused and impressed that there was more to it, as well as getting the uneasy feeling that Charles was orchestrating his revelations with some expertise. I became convinced that when the line had gone dead two nights before it was a deliberate foreclosure on his part, and that back in the City he would now be nodding expectantly. Coming hard upon the grotesque and momentary episode in the churchyard it made me feel just a little out of control. I heard applause and a voice raised beyond the swinging green doors into the hall. I went in, trying to look as if I knew what to expect.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  None of this was quite innocent. Like all diaries it envisaged a reader. The odious Robert Smith-Carson had read long sections of it about himself when James was so infatuated with him, and was both pleased and alarmed by the Wagnerian pitch of the entries (whole paragraphs delirious with exclamations: ‘Weh! Weh! Schmach! Sehnsucht!’ and so on). Other passages had an obscure biblical fervour: one which began ‘His thighs are like bronze doors’ I had subsequently annotated with exclamation marks of my own. My readings were also somehow allowed for, and the baroque candour of the diaries enabled James (who could never bear an argument or cross words) to tell me what he thought of me, without ever letting on in so many words that he was doing so. Between us we enacted a secret charade, a charade whose very subject was ‘secrecy’. The sober, maroon-spined notebooks, drink-stained, rubbed and buckled, took up part of the very special shelf where the Firbank books were, those pocket-sized first editions with their gilt lettering or torn wrappers wrapped again in cellophane. Now that I was reading them myself I looked at them with more interest—Caprice, Vainglory, Inclinations, though not, alas, The Flower Beneath the Foot—and patted their backs encouragingly. Along from them the current volume of the diary was neatly in place, history already although only half-filled. Fairly a professional now at reading other people’s private bits and pieces, I settled down with my mug of coffee to find out what had been going on. Reading Charles’s journal I could be confident that nothing in it, however boring on the one hand or touching on the other, could ever implicate me; whereas in James’s there was the uneasy excitement of some certain entanglement and my eye would skip down the page in search of myself. He had that elegant, artnouveau kind of writing which many architects still use on plans, and the Ws were very strong and conspicuous, like a pair of brick-hods side by side. How annoying it was when he was going on about Rheingold or Parsifal: Wagner and I shared an abbreviation, which cropped up pretty often—though in general it was possible to tell which of us he meant. I discovered that he was hopelessly behind, and realised that I would find no clues here to last night’s events. The latest entry was from several weeks before: ‘To Corry 6.30. The boy Phil, W’s new thing, was in the showers. Fantastic body, disappointing little dick. Still, felt quite a pang for it—smiled at him, but he looked straight through me. Humiliation! I had made such an effort when we met to be charming, but now I wish I hadn’t bothered. Perhaps all lovers resent such old friends, who know things that they don’t? Either that, or they really court them. But again it was that terrible feeling that no one ever notices me or remembers me.’

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  I hesitated a moment; sometimes there’s a kind of delay in processing the words and it’s as though I hear them again, or see them almost, laid out end to end as if on a page. But nothing came now, not a single word, and before I could ask she repeated herself more loudly, as one sometimes does when speaking to foreigners, as though it helps. I’m sorry, I said, feeling like a child, I don’t understand. The doctor closed her eyes, just slightly longer than a blink, and then she took what I thought must have been a steadying breath before saying something I did understand, Lower your pants, though I hesitated again, bringing my hand to my belt buckle but not yet undoing the clasp. This was too much for her, apparently, my failure to comply, and unable to contain her annoyance, she said Go on, I need to see your dick, using a word that while not quite vulgar wasn’t clinical either. It shocked me a little, though it wasn’t just the word that was a breach in decorum, it was also the pronoun she used, the informal ti . I had never really felt the force of this before; knowing how to address someone was always hard for me, we don’t have those nuances in English verbs, or not anymore. But I felt the difference it made now, it was like a change of temperature, and it eroded further the dignity I wanted to preserve. I lost that dignity entirely as I exposed myself, and then lifted my penis for her to inspect, pulling it to the right and the left as she directed, exposing all surfaces to her view. Finally she was satisfied, motioning for me to cover myself, and turned away to a little table beside her desk, where there was a blunt metal container and a large wad of cotton. She tore off some of this and dipped it quickly in the canister before handing me the sodden mass, the smell of it antiseptic and foul. For your hands, she said, and then turned again dismissively toward her desk. Taka , she said then, once she was seated, while I was still fumbling with my clothes, so, the best treatment for this disease is an injection of penicillin, but as unfortunately now there is no penicillin available, this course of treatment is not possible. Wait, I said, interrupting her, and maybe intending to reclaim something, to mount some challenge, how is that possible, not to have such a basic thing? But she was unperturbed, holding up a single hand to silence me. The manufacturer of this drug is in Austria, she said, and they have stopped distributing it to us; for four months it has been impossible to find in Bulgaria.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I think I preferred the envy unvoiced. I sidled into the entry across the page. ‘… Surgery. Then to swim—40 lengths, exhausted but good. Hung around in the showers—full of mutants & geriatrics. About to go when that heavenly Maurice came in & took the shower next to mine. His skin, close to, exquisitely fine & silky—& his great lazy cock, half-erect, with that thick vein meandering down it, the dull purple head when he pulled back the skin … Extase! Then on call. Out at once to a basement flat that time forgot, the stinking dereliction most people know nothing about. Miserable, thousand-year-old husband & wife—she senile, he incontinent. She had slipped on the stairs, he cdn’t lift her, pissing himself. A great fat dog that kept getting in the way. Huge malodorous furniture, photographs, war-time wireless. I was so businesslike—its utter & absolute seriousness to them. Once I was outside in the car again I breathed freely—feelings of pity & misery, but no longer moony about Maurice. And this was only the beginning of a really useful night.’ This touched me far more than the attacks on me—which I read as a kind of flattery—and humbled me with a true sense of my uselessness. James was like Charles in this: without in the least intending it they exposed my egoism by the example of their goodness, by all their sweet, philanthropic sublimations. There was the jolt of the lift being called, and its whining descent. I jumped up and put the diary back, but not quite in line, so that it would be clear that I had looked at it. I nipped into the kitchen for the Guardian, sprawled on the sofa and then—since there was something farcical and implausible in this—decided I would be asleep. I pretended to surface as James came in: ‘Dearest! Sorry, I’m so tired—frightful night. Down the Shaft till all hours.’ He didn’t seem too thrilled about this. ‘I hope it was fun.’ ‘Up to a point. I went with my little Philpot but ran into Arthur …’ ‘So you had them both, I imagine?’ ‘Well …’—I left it in the realm of possibilities. He slammed around the kitchen, ground more coffee, put bread in the toaster almost as if to complain that I should have done all this for him already; but to fend off what had to be said, too. ‘You’d better tell me what happened,’ I said. He hugged me suddenly and hard. ‘Yes; do you mind if I tell you the whole thing? At the risk of sounding rather foolish.’ ‘My darling.’ ‘Let’s go in the other room.’ We did so and he opened one of the big windows on the faint summer roar, and walked about and gazed into the rooms across the road while I sat attentively. ‘I suppose I’ve been feeling a bit wretched lately,’ he said, and then stopped. ‘What sort of wretched?’

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  Anywhere, I asked, not quite believing it, and said again, how is it possible, but she shrugged her shoulders and went on. You can check this for yourself if you like, of course, but I can tell you that no one in Bulgaria has had this drug for months, and no one can tell you when we will have it again. It is available in Greece, I think, she said, I will write you a prescription if you’d like to go there for your treatment. How could I go there, I said, I have a job here, I can’t go to Greece. Kakto i da e , she said, however that may be, and then went on to propose an alternative. The second best treatment is a course of pills, she said; it is not the best option, but most of the time it does the job. She reached for a pad at the edge of her desk. You will take the pills for two weeks, she said, and then after three months you will be tested again, to see whether the treatment has been successful. I had read all I could find about treatment on the Internet, and I knew that a two-week course of pills wasn’t always enough, especially if it was an old infection, in which case four weeks was more likely to work. If there’s doubt, I ventured, shouldn’t I take the pills for a longer time, but she held up her hand before I had finished speaking, and began reciting a text that this time I was sure was an official script. In making these recommendations, she said, I’m following the guidelines of the Ministry of Health and Prevention, zdraveopazvaneto , I’m not sure of the best translation; should you wish to follow another treatment, I cannot accept responsibility for the consequences. I was Vie again, she had returned to the formal address, and I felt like this was a further humiliation, though I couldn’t say why. And if I accept the responsibility for those consequences, I said, as she began writing on her pad, will you write me a prescription for four weeks? She continued writing, and in the same tone of officious formality began to say again that she could only follow the Ministry’s regulations, but then she paused and looked up. In general, she said, there is not a problem in using a prescription twice. This was true, I would find; the prescription wasn’t dated, and later that afternoon, when the pharmacist handed it back to me along with my pills, there wasn’t any sign on it that it had already been filled, I could use it as many times as I wanted.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  " Tr^s chere soeur, si je savois ou couche Votre personne au jour des Innocents, De bon matin j'irois en votre couche Veoir ce gent corps que j'aime entre cinq cents. Adonc ma main (veu I'ardeur que je sens^ Ne se pourroit bonnement contenter De vous toucher, tenir, taster, tenter: Et si quelquun survenoit d'aventure, Semblant ferois de vous innocenter, Seroit-co pas honneste couverture ? " Ftfth day:\ QUEEN OF NA VARKE. ^g^ the bedpost at such a rate that he made the rods fly in pieces, and then he carried them broken as they were to his wife. " I think, my dear," said he, showing them to her, " that your servant will not soon forget the Inno- cents." The upholsterer having gone out of doors, the servant went and threw herself at her mistress's feet, and com- plained that her husband had behaved to her in the most shameful way that ever a servant was treated. The good woman, imagining that she spoke of the flogging she had received, interrupted her, and said, " My hus- band has done well, and just as I have been begging him to do this month and more. If he has made you smart I am very glad of it. You may lay it all to me. He has not given you half as much as he ought." When the girl perceived that her mistress approved of such an act. she concluded that it was not such a great sin as she had supposed, seemg that a woman who was considered so virtuous was the cause of it ; and so she never ventured to complain of it again. The upholsterer, seeing that his wife was as glad to be deceived as he was to deceive her, resolved frequently to give her the same satisfaction, and gained the servant's consent so well that she cried no more for getting the Innocents. He continued the same course for a long time without his v/ife's knowing anything of the matter, until winter came, and there was a great fall of snow. As he bad given his servant the Innocents in the garden on the green grass, he took a fancy to give them to her also on the snow ; and one morning, before anyone was awake, he took her out into the garden in her shift, to make the crucifix on the snow. They romped and pelted each other, and among the sport that of the Innocents was pot forgotten. One of the neighbours, meanwhile, had 394 THE HEPTAMERON OF THE YXiK-d \<^.

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  He gently held her arms down until she ceased her clawing, all the while continuing to kiss her tenderly. She struggled to fight off her feelings of attraction to such a worthy opponent; but gradually she began to submit to the warm feelings he kindled in her, and finally she accepted her defeat and returned his kisses with a passion that matched his own. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his body. But he only reveled in her total surrender for a moment. He had already decided that he wanted much more from her than one night of forced servitude. It was time to raise the stakes in their game. Cat pulled himself away from Mouse’s embrace and asked her, “How is it that I, your master, am here servicing you, my slave?” She was too stunned by the rude interruption to respond. She had thought that her utter surrender to him would satisfy his need to dominate her, but it seemed that she had been mistaken in that. He wasn’t waiting for a response from her, however. With a quick motion he slapped her buttocks, saying, “Up, slave.” With burning cheeks Mouse abruptly stood up, attempting to straighten the disheveled cloth she wore, useless though it was. She glared at Cat, silently vowing to find a way to get even with him. But he went on as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Follow me, slave,” he said, leading the way. But before she had taken her first step he added, “On your knees.” She gaped at him, nearly choking on her words with the horror she felt. “I will not,” she finally managed. “You, what?” he asked, feigning shock at the outburst. But it was again what he had expected. He knew it would take heaven and earth to get her on her knees. And as luck would have it, he just so happened to have the power of heaven and earth over her at that particular moment, for he knew her pride would never allow her to renege on a bet. “You heard me,” she remarked, standing rigidly before him. “Are you, then,” he said slowly and evenly, “refusing to make good on our deal?” She paused at that. “I will serve as your slave for the evening, but not on my hands and knees.” “You agreed to be my slave, and a slave is obliged to do everything as indicated by her master,” he reasoned shrewdly. “Furthermore, I can assure you that it is quite usual for a slave to be required to take that position…and many others.” At this Mouse was silent. She had never been a slave before. “Tell me,” he continued, “if I were your slave, would I not be on my hands and knees at this very moment?”

• From Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women (Erotic Fiction) (2006)

  He gently held her arms down until she ceased her clawing, all the while continuing to kiss her tenderly. She struggled to fight off her feelings of attraction to such a worthy opponent; but gradually she began to submit to the warm feelings he kindled in her, and finally she accepted her defeat and returned his kisses with a passion that matched his own. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his body. But he only reveled in her total surrender for a moment. He had already decided that he wanted much more from her than one night of forced servitude. It was time to raise the stakes in their game. Cat pulled himself away from Mouse’s embrace and asked her, “How is it that I, your master, am here servicing you, my slave?” She was too stunned by the rude interruption to respond. She had thought that her utter surrender to him would satisfy his need to dominate her, but it seemed that she had been mistaken in that. He wasn’t waiting for a response from her, however. With a quick motion he slapped her buttocks, saying, “Up, slave.” With burning cheeks Mouse abruptly stood up, attempting to straighten the disheveled cloth she wore, useless though it was. She glared at Cat, silently vowing to find a way to get even with him. But he went on as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Follow me, slave,” he said, leading the way. But before she had taken her first step he added, “On your knees.” She gaped at him, nearly choking on her words with the horror she felt. “I will not,” she finally managed. “You, what?” he asked, feigning shock at the outburst. But it was again what he had expected. He knew it would take heaven and earth to get her on her knees. And as luck would have it, he just so happened to have the power of heaven and earth over her at that particular moment, for he knew her pride would never allow her to renege on a bet. “You heard me,” she remarked, standing rigidly before him. “Are you, then,” he said slowly and evenly, “refusing to make good on our deal?” She paused at that. “I will serve as your slave for the evening, but not on my hands and knees.” “You agreed to be my slave, and a slave is obliged to do everything as indicated by her master,” he reasoned shrewdly. “Furthermore, I can assure you that it is quite usual for a slave to be required to take that position…and many others.” At this Mouse was silent. She had never been a slave before. “Tell me,” he continued, “if I were your slave, would I not be on my hands and knees at this very moment?”