Jealousy

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 Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  After I had helped her into them, humbly like a slave, she went to find an empty first-class coupe. I followed. Supporting herself on my shoulder, she got on and I wrapped her feet in bear-skins and placed them on the warming bottle. Then she nodded to me, and dismissed me. I slowly ascended a third-class carriage, which was filled with abominable tobacco-smoke that seemed like the fogs of Acheron at the entrance to Hades. I now had the leisure to muse about the riddle of human existence, and about its greatest riddle of all— woman . * * * * * Whenever the train stops, I jump off, run to her carriage, and with drawn cap await her orders. She wants coffee and then a glass of water, at another time a bowl of warm water to wash her hands, and thus it goes on. She lets several men who have entered her compartment pay court to her. I am dying of jealousy and have to leap about like an antelope so as to secure what she wants quickly and not miss the train. In this way the night passes. I haven’t had time to eat a mouthful and I can’t sleep, I have to breathe the same oniony air with Polish peasants, Jewish peddlers, and common soldiers. When I mount the steps of her coupe, she is lying stretched out on cushions in her comfortable furs, covered up with the skins of animals. She is like an oriental despot, and the men sit like Indian deities, straight upright against the walls and scarcely dare to breathe. * * * * * She stops over in Vienna for a day to go shopping, and particularly to buy series of luxurious gowns. She continues to treat me as her servant. I follow her at the respectful distance of ten paces. She hands me her packages without so much as even deigning a kind look, and laden down like a donkey I pant along behind. Before leaving she takes all my clothes and gives them to the hotel waiters. I am ordered to put on her livery. It is a Cracovian costume in her colors, light-blue with red facings, and red quadrangular cap, ornamented with peacock-feathers. The costume is rather becoming to me. The silver buttons bear her coat of arms. I have the feeling of having been sold or of having bonded myself to the devil. My fair demon leads me from Vienna to Florence. Instead of linen-garbed Mazovians and greasy-haired Jews, my companions now are curly-haired Contadini, a magnificent sergeant of the first Italian Grenadiers, and a poor German painter. The tobacco smoke no longer smells of onions, but of salami and cheese. Night has fallen again. I lie on my wooden bed as on a rack; my arms and legs seem broken. But there nevertheless is an element of poetry in the affair.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  I open the door of her box, and then wait in the vestibule. The performance lasts four hours; she receives visits from her cavaliers, the while I grit my teeth with rage. It is way beyond midnight when my mistress’s bell sounds for the last time. “Fire!” she orders abruptly, and when the fire-place crackles, “Tea!” When I return with the samovar, she has already undressed, and with the aid of the negress slipped into a white negligee. Haydée thereupon leaves. “Hand me the sleeping-furs,” says Wanda, sleepily stretching her lovely limbs. I take them from the arm-chair, and hold them while she slowly and lazily slides into the sleeves. She then throws herself down on the cushions of the ottoman. “Take off my shoes, and put on my velvet slippers.” I kneel down and tug at the little shoe which resists my efforts. “Hurry, hurry!” Wanda exclaims, “you are hurting me! just you wait—I will teach you.” She strikes me with the whip, but now the shoe is off. “Now get out!” Still a kick—and then I can go to bed. * * * * * To-night I accompanied her to a soiree. In the entrance-hall she ordered me to help her out of her furs; then with a proud smile, confident of victory, she entered the brilliantly illuminated room. I again waited with gloomy and monotonous thoughts, watching hour after hour run by. From time to time the sounds of music reached me, when the door remained open for a moment. Several servants tried to start a conversation with me, but soon desisted, since I knew only a few words of Italian. Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed that I murdered Wanda in a violent attack of jealousy. I was condemned to death, and saw myself strapped on the board; the knife fell, I felt it on my neck, but I was still alive— Then the executioner slapped my face. No, it wasn’t the executioner; it was Wanda who stood wrathfully before me demanding her furs. I am at her side in a moment, and help her on with it. There is a deep joy in wrapping a beautiful woman into her furs, and in seeing and feeling how her neck and magnificent limbs nestle in the precious soft furs, and to lift the flowing hair over the collar. When she throws it off a soft warmth and a faint fragrance of her body still clings to the ends of the hairs of sable. It is enough to drive one mad. * * * * * Finally a day came when there were neither guests, nor theater, nor other company. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wanda sat in the gallery, reading, and apparently had no orders for me.

• From Best Erotica & Sexual Deviance Narratives Ever Written (2024)

  Her expression was soft, and her eyes were filled with tender pleasure. “Are you happy?” “Not yet.” She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly opened her kazabaika . But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with the ermine. “You are driving me mad.” I stammered. “Come!” I was already lying in her arms, and like a serpent she was kissing me with her tongue, when again she whispered, “Are you happy?” “Infinitely!” I exclaimed. She laughed aloud. It was an evil, shrill laugh which made cold shivers run down by back. “You used to dream of being the slave, the plaything of a beautiful woman, and now you imagine you are a free human being, a man, my lover-you fool! A sign from me, and you are a slave again. Down on your knees!” I sank down from the ottoman to her feet, but my eye still clung doubtingly on hers. “You can’t believe it,” she said, looking at me with her arms folded across her breast. “I am bored, and you will just do to while away a couple of hours of time. Don’t look at me that way—” She kicked me with her foot. “You are just what I want, a human being, a thing, an animal—” She rang. The three negresses entered. “Tie his hands behind his back.” I remained kneeling and unresistingly let them do this. They led me into the garden, down to the little vineyard, which forms the southern boundary. Corn had been planted between the espaliers, and here and there a few dead stalks still stood. To one side was a plough. The negresses tied me to a post, and amused themselves sticking me with their golden hair-needles. But this did not last long, before Wanda appeared with her ermine cap on her head, and with her hands in the pockets of her jacket. She had me untied, and then my hands were fastened together on my back. She finally had a yoke put around my neck, and harnessed me to the plough. Then her black demons drove me out into the field. One of them held the plough, the other one led me by a line, the third applied the whip, and Venus in Furs stood to one side and looked on. * * * * * When I was serving dinner on the following day Wanda said: “Bring another cover, I want you to dine with me to-day,” and when I was about to sit down opposite her, she added, “No, over here, close by my side.” She is in the best of humors, gives me soup with her spoon, feeds me with her fork, and places her head on the table like a playful kitten and flirts with me.

• From Between Us

  When a guy comes from an American university. He comes to the Netherlands . . . that guy has heard of me . . . he reaches my friend first, before he has the time to reach me. He has seen a book, a catalogue of my work, and he is really touched by it. [He says:] “I want this man, I want to see him.” And this friend of mine, he knows my phone number, but he never gives it to him. Only after this guy returns to the United States, having bought some art by my friend to take home with him to the university, does my friend say to me: “I gave this guy your phone number, but you never answered the phone. Never, never.” That guy was never able to reach me, because my friend had withheld my phone number. Romeo’s friend who, in Romeo’s eyes, had been jealous of the attention and appreciation that came Romeo’s way, had enhanced his own position by simultaneously lowering Romeo’s. He had willfully tried to gain attention, appreciation, and opportunities at Romeo’s cost. Romeo’s story is not unique. In fact, Surinamese respondents in my studies often reported how jealous friends and relatives sabotaged their status or opportunities. The emotional accounts by my Surinamese respondents are reminiscent of Glenn Adams’s studies of enemyship in Ghana, and in fact the Surinamese respondents I interviewed were of West African descent. Adams, describing Ghana, notices the ubiquity of signs—on buses, on cars, on billboards—with text “about enemies in intimate spaces”: “Your most intimate friends can turn out to be the most treacherous . . . actually at the helm of your downfall. . . . There is no man without an enemy,” a well-known poem reads. At the root of an enemyship can be envy of your good fortune, hatred, discord, or simple malice, which in turn may be understood against the backdrop of local reality where people live in cramped quarters and are inescapably interdependent. In those circumstances, one may gain from bringing another person down, and thus gaining either resources or reputation relative to this other person. It is a zero-sum game. Romeo eventually confirms his suspicions: his colleague had withheld Romeo’s contact information from the art collector. Did Romeo confront his colleague, did he express his anger or frustration, or act it out in any way? No. Romeo recounts that he had long stopped trusting “his friend,” yet he never confronted the fellow artist, because the balance of the scale had tipped back. Romeo gained the upper hand in the relationship with his fellow artist, as it was he (rather than his friend) who ended up in close contact with the art collector. Given Romeo’s superior position in the relationship, no further action was needed. The state of the relationship dictated his actions or, in this case, inaction.

• From Going Clear (2013)

  He made an immediate, vivid impression on the other boarders. “He dominated the scene with his wit and inexhaustible fund of anecdotes,” one of the boarders, Alva Rogers, later recalled. “Unfortunately, Ron’s reputation for spinning tall tales (both off and on the printed page) made for a certain degree of skepticism in the minds of his audience. At any rate, he told one hell of a good story.” Like Hubbard, Rogers had red hair, and he was intrigued by Hubbard’s theory that redheads are the living remnant of the Neanderthals. Hubbard invited one of his paramours from New York, Vida Jameson, to join him at the Parsonage, with the ostensible task of keeping the books. It’s a testimony to his allure that she came all the way across America to be with him, although soon after she arrived, she discovered that she had been displaced. The other boarders watched in astonishment as Hubbard worked his charms on the available women in the household, before setting his sights on “the most gorgeous, intelligent, sweet, wonderful girl,” as another envious suitor described Sara Northrup. “There he was, living off Parsons’ largesse and making out with his girlfriend right in front of him. Sometimes when the two of them were sitting at the table together, the hostility was almost tangible.” Enlivened, no doubt, by their rivalry over Sara, Parsons and Hubbard quickly developed a highly competitive relationship. They liked to begin their mornings with a bout of fencing in the living room. Parsons struggled with his feelings of jealousy, which were at war with his philosophy of free love. He could understand Northrup’s attraction to the new boarder, describing Hubbard in a letter to Crowley in 1946 as “a gentleman, red hair, green eyes, honest and intelligent.... He moved in with me about two months ago.” Then Parsons admits, “Although Betty and I are still friendly, she has transferred her sexual affections to Ron.” He went on to admire Hubbard’s supernatural abilities. “Although he has no formal training in Magick, he has an extraordinary amount of experience and understanding in the field. From some of his experiences I deduced that he is in direct touch with some higher intelligence, possibly his Guardian Angel. He describes his Angel as a beautiful winged woman with red hair whom he calls the Empress and who has guided him through his life and saved him many times.” The extent to which Scientology was influenced by Hubbard’s involvement with the OTO has long been a matter of angry debate. There is little trace in Hubbard’s life of organized religion or spiritual philosophy. In the Parsonage, he was drawn into an obscure and stigmatized creed, based on the writings and practice of Crowley—the “Great Beast,” as he called himself—who gloried in being one of the most reviled men of his era. The Church of Scientology explicitly rejects any connection between Crowley’s thinking and Hubbard’s emerging philosophy; yet the two men were similar in striking ways.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  [At] Thessalonica…there was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.” Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. (Acts 17:1–5) We focus first on “the Jews” in that account and leave aside for the moment the “great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.” JEWS. Luke’s theological theme develops the following historical pattern: Paul always goes first to the Jews; some accept him and others reject him; but when non-Jews then accept him, the Jews are jealous and cause a riot. But that makes little sense as theology and even less as history. What happens to those Jews who accept him? And why should those Jews who reject him care about pagan acceptance? Luke, however, continues with that theme. Paul flees Thessalonica for Beroea, today’s Veroia, on the southwestern edge of the Thessalonian plain, and “when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea as well, they came there too, to stir up and incite the crowds” (Acts 17:13). Finally, Paul must flee again, this time “to the coast” for a boat “as far as Athens” (17:14–15). But, as noted above, fleeing Macedonia for Achaia (as earlier to flee Damascus for Jerusalem) was much more likely to have been to avoid Roman civil authority than to escape Jewish religious authority. There is, however, another passage in 1 Thessalonians that, while confirming the primary danger as Roman, also exposes the anti-Jewish tendency of Luke’s account. It also returns us to another topic from Chapter 1, namely, later interpolations within our present authentic Pauline letters. Paul tells the persecuted Thessalonians, You, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins; but God’s wrath has overtaken them at last. (2:14–16)

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Millions of couples retain an allegiance to the ideal of monogamy even though they occasionally violate it. A smaller number openly reject the constraints of monogamy, forging agreements that allow for some degree of sexual or even emotional involvement outside the primary bond. In the freewheeling 1970s open marriage was widely discussed. Ultimately, most couples—even those who saw value in the concept—were unable to handle the inevitable jealousies and insecurities. In the 1980s, as concerns about AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases increased, nonmonogamy slipped further into disfavor. Nonetheless, some couples still find that nonmonogamy makes sense for a variety of reasons, including: • Two partners have a wide discrepancy in their desired frequency of sex. • One partner has specific sexual desires that can’t be met by the primary partner. • One or both partners feels bored and wants outside stimulation. • Circumstance requires partners to be apart for extended periods. • One or both partners is bisexual. Hardly any couples who venture beyond monogamy adopt an anything-goes attitude. Some work out tacit understandings without much talk. For example, discreet dalliances are acceptable when either partner is out of town. I’ve seen situations in which one or both partners pursued not altogether secret affairs for extended periods virtually without discussion, and with few obvious problems. Other couples engage in detailed, often stormy negotiations about outside sex. Sometimes a “night off” is established when both can do whatever they please as long as they’re home by a specified time. Some prefer not to hear details of outside sex while others want to know everything so they don’t have to wonder. Still others only want to be informed of an emotional involvement. Virtually all nonmonogamous couples—like monogamous ones—need comfort rather than ridicule when jealousies and insecurities arise, as well as reassurance that their relationship is still primary. As we have seen, most but by no means all gay male couples allow at least some outside sex, especially as an antidote for sexual boredom after years of monogamy. Although lots of gay men have just as much trouble making this transition as their lesbian and straight counterparts, two factors make it a little easier. In the gay male subculture there is social support for open relationships and role models for making them work. Another crucial factor among gay men is what Blumstein and Schwartz call the “trick mentality,” in which sex as recreation is separated from emotional involvement.7 Gay male couples who want nothing more than casual outside sex usually find the adjustment relatively painless, particularly if they are sensitive to each other’s feelings and continue to enjoy sex, at least occasionally, together. But many male couples face the same discrepancy as heterosexual couples: one partner seeks casual outside sex while the other can’t imagine avoiding deeper involvement. For them nonmonogamy is just as stormy—and often unworkable—as it is for most opposite-sex or lesbian couples.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  MASTURBATION: HONORING THE PRIVATE SIDE OF SEXDespite a widespread belief that good sex with a partner renders private sexual acts superfluous, many partnered men and women continue enjoying masturbation and fantasy. Those who focus their sexual desires exclusively on their partners are most likely to be troubled by the realization that certain aspects of their partner’s sex life have little or nothing to do with them. A few go so far as to react with the kind of bitter jealousy most of us reserve for sexual indiscretions with other people. Not only is long-term loving not diminished by solo sex, but some people discover that an active private sex life is an essential ingredient for erotic vitality. On the most practical level solo sex keeps people in touch with their bodies. Virtually all sex therapists agree that conscious self-stimulation is one of the most effective ways for a woman to learn how to have orgasms reliably. Similarly, men with a tendency to ejaculate rapidly can use deep breathing and muscle relaxation during masturbation to increase awareness and control of their responses, lessons readily transferable to encounters with a partner. On a less clinical level, the erotic fantasies that typically accompany masturbation offer direct access to one’s CET, the inner wellspring of passion. Even when heightened desire is focused on a fantasy partner, in many instances the actual relationship benefits. Solo sex has yet another major advantage that is too often ignored. It is without question the most readily available way for lovers to cope with small to moderate discrepancies in desired sexual frequency. I’ve seen dozens of marriages that have literally been saved by masturbation. Rather than pestering a reluctant partner, the one who wants more sex satisfies some of his or her needs alone. Arguments are reduced, which often increases the quality of the sex they do have together. This approach doesn’t work so well when disparities in sexual desire are extreme because then the person with higher desires has to depend primarily on masturbation to satisfy his or her needs. Neither is this method effective for someone who derives little or no enjoyment from masturbation. Secrecy versus privacy To understand the role of masturbation and fantasy in committed relationships it is crucial to make a clear distinction between secrecy, hiding significant information, and privacy, the right to maintain a nonrelational sphere of existence. Secrecy hurts intimate relationships; privacy enhances them. Unfortunately, many people don’t recognize the difference. They fear secrets, and therefore they resent privacy. Ironically, when they refuse to recognize legitimate privacy rights, instead of making themselves more secure, they create the very secrecy they fear. Erotic couples honor each other’s sexual privacy. In most cases this comes down to not discussing masturbatory activities so that the private sexual realm never becomes an issue.

• From The Erotic Mind (1995)

  Sometimes, however, one partner unwittingly stumbles upon information that is genuinely perplexing or upsetting. I’ve worked with couples of all sexual orientations in which one person discovered a stash of erotic magazines or videos and became distraught by the idea of his or her partner fantasizing about someone else. Some people are mistakenly convinced that masturbation itself is a sign of trouble in their relationships. Believe it or not, I’ve also known more than a few couples who argued about vibrators, particularly their amazing ability to produce multiple orgasms on demand. Many women find the intense vibrations, enhanced by fantasy, to be quite compelling. But some of the partners of these women, male or female, see the machine as threatening because its feats of extended stimulation cannot be duplicated by mere mortals. Carl and Sandra: The plug-in rival Carl didn’t pay much attention when Sandra brought home a vibrator until it became a permanent fixture on her nightstand. A showdown came one morning when Sandra asked Carl if she could use the vibrator on her clitoris while he was inside her. He pulled out immediately and turned away. Later he accused her of preferring sex with “that damn machine.” Sandra tried to explain that she needed a little extra stimulation to climax during intercourse and that the vibrator was helping her to become more easily orgasmic. “I’d still be making love with you,” she assured him. Sandra’s difficulty with orgasms during intercourse, along with Carl’s inability to have intercourse for more than about ten minutes without ejaculating, had brought them to therapy. Logically, you might expect Carl to support any method that could help Sandra reach orgasm. But like many men Carl felt less than adequate because he couldn’t make her come before he did. He made his problem much worse by labeling himself a “premature ejaculator.”8 The pressure on Sandra was unbearable because she hardly ever climaxed during intercourse, no matter how long it lasted. It was a major breakthrough when Carl agreed that Sandra could rub her clitoris as they made love. Precisely because this seemed to be working so well, Sandra thought Carl might accept the vibrator. But because he was so jealous, Sandra put away the vibrator although she continued to enjoy it privately. The subject never came up again until, having made great strides in their communication and comfort with each other, they were almost ready to stop therapy.

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  The instinct of personal isolation, of which we have spoken, exists more strongly in men with respect to one another, and more strongly in women with respect to men. In women it is called coyness, and has to be positively overcome by a process of wooing before the sexual instinct inhibits it and takes its place. As Darwin has shown in his book on the 'Descent of Man and Sexual Selection,' it has played a vital part in the amelioration of all higher animal types, and is to a great degree responsible for whatever degree of chastity the human race may show. It illustrates strikingly, however, the law of the inhibition of instincts by habits—for, once broken through with a given person, it is not apt to assert itself again; and habitually broken through, as by prostitutes, with various persons, it may altogether decay. Habit also fixes it in us toward certain individuals: nothing is so particularly displeasing as the notion of close personal contact with those whom we have long known in a respectful and distant way. The fondness of the ancients and of modern Orientals for forms of unnatural vice, of which the notion affects us with horror, is probably a mere case of the way in which this instinct may be inhibited by habit. me can hardly suppose that the ancients had by gift of Nature a propensity of which we are devoid, and were all victims of what is now a pathological aberration limited to individuals. It is more probable that with them the instinct of physical aversion toward a, certain class of objects was inhibited early in life by habits, formed under the influence of example; and that then a kind of sexual appetite, of which very likely most men possess the germinal possibility, developed itself in an unrestricted way. That the development of it in an abnormal way may check its development in the normal way, seems to be a well-ascertained medical fact. And that the direction of the sexual instinct towards one individual tends to inhibit its application to other individuals, is a law, upon which, though it suffers many exceptions, the whole régime of monogamy is based. These details are a little unpleasant to discuss, but they show so beautifully the correctness of the general principles in the light of which our review has been made, that it was impossible to pass them over unremarked. Jealousy is unquestionably instinctive. Parental Love is an instinct stronger in woman than in man, at least in the early childhood of its object. I need do little more than quote Schneider's lively description of it as it exists in her:

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  Habit also fixes it in us toward certain individuals: nothing is so particularly displeasing as the notion of close personal contact with those whom we have long known in a respectful and distant way. The fondness of the ancients and of modern Orientals for forms of unnatural vice, of which the notion affects us with horror, is probably a mere case of the way in which this instinct may be inhibited by habit. me can hardly suppose that the ancients had by gift of Nature a propensity of which we are devoid, and were all victims of what is now a pathological aberration limited to individuals. It is more probable that with them the instinct of physical aversion toward a, certain class of objects was inhibited early in life by habits, formed under the influence of example; and that then a kind of sexual appetite, of which very likely most men possess the germinal possibility, developed itself in an unrestricted way. That the development of it in an abnormal way may check its development in the normal way, seems to be a well-ascertained medical fact. And that the direction of the sexual instinct towards one individual tends to inhibit its application to other individuals, is a law, upon which, though it suffers many exceptions, the whole régime of monogamy is based. These details are a little unpleasant to discuss, but they show so beautifully the correctness of the general principles in the light of which our review has been made, that it was impossible to pass them over unremarked. Jealousy is unquestionably instinctive. Parental Love is an instinct stronger in woman than in man, at least in the early childhood of its object. I need do little more than quote Schneider's lively description of it as it exists in her: "As soon as a wife becomes a mother her whole thought and feeling, her whole being, is altered. Until then she had only thought of her own well-being, of the satisfaction of her vanity; the whole world appeared made only for her; everything that went on about her was only noticed so far as it had personal reference to herself ; she asked of every one that he should appear interested in her, pay her the requisite attention, and as far as possible fulfil her wishes. Now, however, the centre of the world is no longer herself, but her child. She does not think of her own hunger, she must first be sure that the child is fed.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  Since he’s familiar with the entire building, we’re in constant dread that he’ll take it into his head to go have a look at what used to be the laboratory. We’re as still as baby mice. Who would have guessed three months ago that quicksilver Anne would have to sit so quietly for hours on end, and what’s more, that she could? Mrs van Daan’s birthday was the twenty-ninth. Though we didn’t have a large celebration, she was showered with flowers, simple gifts and good food. Apparently the red carnations from her spouse are a family tradition. Let me pause a moment on the subject of Mrs. van Daan and tell you that her attempts to flirt with Father are a constant source of irritation to me. She pats him on the cheek and head, hikes up her skirt and makes so-called witty remarks in an effort to get’s Pim’s attention. Fortunately, he finds her neither pretty nor charming, so he doesn’t respond to her flirtations. As you know, I’m quite the jealous type, and I can’t abide her behavior. After all, Mother doesn’t act that way toward Mr. van D., which is what I told Mrs. van D. right to her face. From time to time Peter can be very amusing. He and I have one thing in common: we like to dress up, which makes everyone laugh. One evening we made our appearance, with Peter in one of his mother’s skin-tight dresses and me in his suit. He wore a hat; I had a cap on. The grown-ups split their sides laughing, and we enjoyed ourselves every bit as much. Bep bought new skirts for Margot and me at The Bijenkorf. The fabric is hideous, like the burlap bag potatoes come in. Just the kind of thing the department stores wouldn’t dare sell in the olden days, now costing 24.00 guilders (Margot’s) and 7.75 guilders (mine). We have a nice treat in store: Bep’s ordered a correspondence course in shorthand for Margot, Peter and me. Just you wait, by this time next year we’ll be able to take perfect shorthand. In any case, learning to write a secret code like that is really interesting. I have a terrible pain in my index finger (on my left hand), so I can’t do any ironing. What luck! Mr. Van Daan wants me to sit next to him at the table, since Margot doesn’t eat enough to suit him. Fine with me, I like changes. There’s always a tiny black cat roaming around the yard, and it reminds me of my dear sweet Moortje. Another reason I welcome the change is that Mama’s always carping at me, especially at the table. Now Margot will have to bear the brunt of it. Or rather, won’t, since Mother doesn’t make such sarcastic remarks to her. Not to that paragon of virtue! I’m always teasing Margot about being a paragon of virtue these days, and she hates it.

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  I wanted to look through it some more. Margot got madder by the minute, and Mother butted in: “Margot was reading that book; give it back to her.” Father came in, and without even knowing what was going on, saw that Margot was being wronged and lashed out at me: “I’d like to see what you’d do if Margot was looking at one of your books!” I promptly gave in, put the book down and, according to them, left the room’ ‘in a huff.” I was neither huffy nor cross, but merely sad. It wasn’t right of Father to pass judgment without knowing what the issue was. I would have given the book to Margot myself, and a lot sooner, if Father and Mother hadn’t intervened and rushed to take Margot’s part, as if she were suffering some great injustice. Of course, Mother took Margot’s side; they always take each other’s sides. I’m so used to it that I’ve become completely indifferent to Mother’s rebukes and Margot’s moodiness. I love them, but only because they’re Mother and Margot. I don’t give a darn about them as people. As far as I’m concerned, they can go jump in a lake. It’s different with Father. When I see him being partial to Margot, approving Margot’s every action, praising her, hugging her, I feel a gnawing ache inside, because I’m crazy about him. I model myself after Father, and there’s no one in the world I love more. He doesn’t realize that he treats Margot differently than he does me: Margot just happens to be the smartest, the kindest, the prettiest and the best. But I have a right to be taken seriously too. I’ve always been the clown and mischief maker of the family; I’ve always had to pay double for my sins: once with scoldings and then again with my own sense of despair. I’m no longer satisfied with the meaningless affection or the supposedly serious talks. I long for something from Father that he’s incapable of giving. I’m not jealous of Margot; I never have been. I’m not envious of her brains or her beauty. It’s just that I’d like to feel that Father really loves me, not because I’m his child, but because I’m me, Anne. I cling to Father because my contempt of Mother is growing daily and it’s only through him that I’m able to retain the last ounce of family feeling I have left. He doesn’t understand that I sometimes need to vent my feelings for Mother. He doesn’t want to talk about it, and he avoids any discussion involving Mother’s failings. And yet Mother, with all her shortcomings, is tougher for me to deal with. I don’t know how I should act. I can’t very well confront her with her

• From The Diary of a Young Girl (The Definitive Edition) (2020)

  This morning Peter asked me if I’d come again one evening. He swore I wouldn’t be disturbing him, and said that where there was room for one, there was room for two. I said I couldn’t see him every evening, since my parents didn’t think it was a good idea, but he thought I shouldn’t let that me. So I told him I’d like to come some Saturday evening and also asked him if he’d let me know when you could see the moon. “Sure,” he said, “maybe we can go downstairs and look at the moon from there.” I agreed; I’m not really so scared of burglars. In the meantime, a shadow has fallen on my happiness. For a long time I’ve had the feeling that Margot likes Peter. Just how much I don’t know, but the whole situation is very unpleasant. Now every time I go see Peter I’m hurting her, without meaning to. The funny thing is that she hardly lets it show. I know I’d be insanely jealous, but Margot just says I shouldn’t feel sorry for her. “I think it’s so awful that you’ve become the odd one out,” I added. “I’m used to that,” she replied, somewhat bitterly. I don’t dare tell Peter. Maybe later on, but he and I need to discuss so many other things first. Mother slapped me last night, which I deserved. I mustn’t carry my indifference and contempt for her too far. In spite of everything, I should try once again to be friendly and keep my remarks to myself! Even Pim isn’t as nice as he used to be. He’s been trying not to treat me like a child, but now he’s much too cold. We’ll just have to see what comes of it! He’s warned me that if I don’t do my algebra, I won’t get any tutoring after the war. I could simply wait and see what happens, but I’d like to start again, provided I get a new book. That’s enough for now. I do nothing but gaze at Peter, and I’m filled to overflowing! Yours, Anne M. Frank Evidence of Margot’s goodness. I received this today, March 20, 1944: Anne, yesterday when I said I wasn’t jeal- ous of you, I wasn’t being entirely honest. The situation is this: I’m not jealous of either you or Peter. I’m just sorry I haven’t found anyone willi whom to share my

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Puddle said: ‘Very young—not yet twenty-two . . .’ then she glanced at Stephen, and fell silent. But now Stephen went on talking more quickly: ‘I’m glad you asked me about her, Puddle, because I intend to give her a home. She’s got no one except some distant cousins, and as far as I can see they don’t want her. I shall let her have a try at typing my work, as she’s asked to, it will make her feel independent; otherwise, of course, she’ll be perfectly free—if it’s not a success she can always leave me—but I rather hope it will be a success. She’s companionable, we like the same things, anyhow she’ll give me an interest in life. . . .’ Puddle thought: ‘She’s not going to tell me. ’ Stephen took out her cigarette case from which she produced a clear little snapshot: ‘It’s not very good, it was done at the front.’ But Puddle was gazing at Mary Llewellyn. Then she looked up abruptly and saw Stephen’s eyes—without a word she handed back the snapshot. Stephen said: ‘Now I want to talk about you. Will you go to Paris at once, or stay here until we come home from Orotava? It’s just as you like, the house is quite ready, you’ve only got to send Pauline a postcard; they’re expecting you there at any moment.’ And she waited for Puddle’s answer. Then Puddle, that small but indomitable fighter, stood forth all alone to do battle with herself, to strike down a sudden hot jealousy, a sudden and almost fierce resentment. And she saw that self as a tired old woman, a woman grown dull and tired with long service; a woman who had outlived her reason for living, whose companionship was now useless to Stephen. A woman who suffered from rheumatism in the winter and from lassitude in the summer; a woman who when young had never known youth, except as a scourge to a sensitive conscience. And now she was old and what had life left her? Not even the privilege of guarding her friend—for Puddle knew well that her presence in Paris would only embarrass while unable to hinder. Nothing could stay fate if the hour had struck; and yet, from the very bottom of her soul, she was fearing that hour for Stephen. And—who shall presume to accuse or condemn?—she actually found it in her to pray that Stephen might be granted some measure of fulfilment, some palliative for the wound of existence: ‘Not like me—don’t let her grow old as I’ve done.’ Then she suddenly remembered that Stephen was waiting.

• From Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble (2014)

  I should go get a job at one of these start-ups. Tech companies and VC firms are all poaching journalists to pump out blogs and get them some attention. They’re flush with cash and hiring like crazy. Two of my journalist friends have already made the leap. One is working at Evernote, the other at Flipboard. They both live in San Francisco. I see them all the time. These guys aren’t naïve. They just want to cash in on the madness. Out here, making money is the only thing anyone talks about. Funding rounds, valuations, deal terms, equity percentages, who made what—these are the topics of conversations when I visit friends for dinner in Marin County. The coffee shops are filled with techies who are hunched over laptops and frantically dashing out code, or pitching ideas to investors. Every morning when I’m waiting in line for my five-dollar caffè latte I see these meetings taking place. Sure, this bubble will pop one day, but before that happens a bunch of people are going to make a lot of money. That’s what happened last time—Netscape, which made the first web browser, never really succeeded as a company, yet its co-founder, Jim Clark, reportedly managed to put $2 billion into his pocket— and the same thing is happening now. Zynga and Groupon are losing hundreds of millions of dollars, yet their founders have become billionaires. Finally I have a sort of epiphany. This takes place on a rainy Friday evening in November 2012, in Anchor & Hope, a fancy restaurant on Minna Street, a block away from Market Street, in the part of San Francisco where the financial district and start-up land converge—a spot that is, quite literally, ground zero for the revolution. I’m on my way to the airport. Tonight I’ll be taking a redeye back to Boston, but before I do I’m meeting a friend for a drink. Anchor & Hope is packed with techies and bankers who are spending some of their easily raised money on $200 bottles of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and oysters sold at $50 per dozen. Tad is an investment banker. He’s sitting at the bar, way in back. He wears black glasses and a gray bespoke suit that probably costs more than I make in a week. Back in the 1990s he made a fortune managing IPOs for tech companies. For the past decade he’s been on the beach, but now he’s back, because the opportunity is so huge that he can’t ignore it. “Do you have any idea how big this is going to be?” he says. “This is going to be huge. It’s going to be way bigger than the last bubble.” Imagine there’s a giant tsunami, way out at sea, he says.

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  With Jacques, my jealousy took the form of a terrible feeling of eviction. The images I could draw up of some woman who, in my absence, would hide the end of his organ from view with her croup in a setting that was familiar to us, or whose whole enormous, ever expanding body inhabited the smallest part of our environment – the running board of the car, the leafy design of a sofa cover, the side of the sink you lean on with your tummy when you rinse out a cup – or whose hairs might even be left inside my motorbike helmet, these images caused me such acute pain that I had to extricate myself from them with the most drastic fantasising. I would imagine that, having caught them in the act, I would leave the house, set off along the boulevard Diderot towards the Seine, which wasn’t far away, and throw myself in. Or I would go on walking to the point of exhaustion, and I would be taken to hospital, speechless and out of my wits. Another, less pathetic, escape route consisted in intensive masturbatory activity. As I have already begun to disclose the sort of narratives that sustain this activity, it might be interesting if I said something about the modifications they undergo at a given point. My wanderings over waste land and the delivery-boy characters, profiteering phlegmatically from the situation, were replaced by a limited repertoire of scenes in which I myself no longer appeared and in which Jacques was the only male figure, accompanied by one or other of his girlfriends. The scenes would be partly imaginary, partly constructed from snippets harvested by trespassing into Jacques’ notebooks or his letters, because he himself is not very talkative on the subject. Cramped in an Austin parked under a railway bridge, he keeps her head down on his belly, holding it carefully with both hands as if manipulating the glass dome that houses a precious object, until his cum has spurted into the back of her throat and he has heard the ‘hic’ as she swallows reticently. Or a big white backside exposed on the sofa in the sitting room like a gigantic mushroom, and Jacques sinking into it as he slaps it smartly. Another option is for the girl to be standing with one foot up on a stool, in the position some women adopt to insert a tampon; Jacques, hanging on to her hips and braced on his tip-toes, pokes her in the same configuration: from behind. I would systematically orgasm at the point in my narrative when I allowed Jacques to ejaculate, when the watchful eye in my mind recognised that powerful asymmetrical contraction of his face. This confiscation of my old fantasies eventually produced a defensive reaction, but I still needed considerable perseverance and an effort of will for the sequences in which I myself was the protagonist to take back that zone of my imagination.

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  Those who obey moral principles are probably better equipped to confront demonstrations of jealousy than those with a libertine philosophy which leaves them feeling helpless in the face of passion. A person can prove their extensive and sincere liberality by sharing the pleasure they take with the person they most love, only for it to be pierced, without any warning, by an exactly proportional intolerance. Jealousy may have been bubbling within them like a source, and as the bubbles burst they might even have been giving a regular and subterranean form of irrigation to their libidinal field, until – suddenly – they formed a torrent and then the entire conscious mind is submerged by it, as has been described by so many people. I have learned this from observation as well as from experience. I personally have experienced my confrontations with these passionate expressions of jealousy in a sort of daze which even the brutal death of a loved one did not provoke. And I had to read Victor Hugo, yes, I had to go and seek out that portrayal of God the father, to understand that this torpor is comparable to the sort of denial displayed by children. ‘To accept facts as they are does not belong to realms of childhood. [A child forms] impressions as his terror grows but without making any connection between the two and without drawing any conclusions,’ I once read in L’Homme qui rit, finally finding an explanation for my mindless inertia. And I can confirm that, even after you have done all the growing you should do, you can still experience what I would describe as follows: a misunderstanding of an injustice which even stops you from seeing the feelings within that injustice. I was once beaten all the way along the path that runs from the rue Las Cases towards the area around the church of Notre-Dame-des-Champs, beaten and trampled in the gutter and, when I got back to my feet, forced to walk on by a series of punches to the top of my neck and my shoulders, the way they used to drive common thieves to the dungeons. We had just left a party which had had nothing of an orgy about it, but had at one point been enlivened by a sort of conga round the apartment during which a fairly prominent man had taken advantage of our passage through the ill-lit sitting room to push me onto a sofa and drench my ear with his saliva. And yet the friend who beat me had already come with me to other parties with much more dissolute ends. When, later that night, I retraced our steps all the way up the path, in the vain hope of finding a piece of jewellery which had fallen off under his blows, my thoughts were focused exclusively on this specific loss. On another occasion, one of my unwisely detailed accounts earned me a less furious – although equally aggressive – revenge: a slash with a razor on my right shoulder while I lay sleeping on my tummy, but not before the blade had been carefully disinfected on the gas hob in the kitchen. The scar that I still have, in the shape of a stupid little mouth, is a good illustration of what I felt at the time.

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  My own jealousy has been episodic. If I have used my sexual itinerary to satisfy my intellectual and professional curiosity, I have nevertheless remained perfectly indifferent to my friends’ love lives and marriages. It even goes beyond indifference, perhaps contempt. I have had rushes of jealousy only with the men I have lived with and then, oddly, on a quite different basis in both cases. It pained me every time Claude was seduced by a woman whom I judged to be prettier than myself. I am not ugly, but on condition that you take my appearance as a whole, not thanks to anything remarkable about my features. It galled me that I couldn’t enhance my sexual performances – which, in principle, had no limitations – with a physical appearance which, itself, could not be improved. I would really have loved it if the girl who gave the best blow-job, the one who was always first to get going at an orgy, hadn’t been short, her eyes slightly too close together, a long nose etc. I could describe incredibly accurately the physical traits that attracted Claude: a triangular face and the hairstyle of one of the secretaries whose slender chest provided a contrast to set off her rounded shoulders and conical breasts; the palecoloured eyes of another woman, who had brown hair like myself; the smooth temples and doll-like cheeks of a third. It goes without saying that such a powerful contradiction to the principles of sexual freedom meant that this agony could not be articulated and, therefore, reduced me to scenes and crying fits that were all the more implacable, and hysterical displays worthy of a Paul Richer drawing.

• From The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (2001)

  One of my girl friends puts me up for some months. I sleep in a tiny, little, unfurnished attic room, sometimes with the cats for company. When her boyfriend comes to see her, she leaves the door to her bedroom wide open and neither of them makes any attempt to contain their exclamations. It never occurs to me to join them. I don’t get involved in other people’s business and, anyway, snuggled in my narrow bed, I think of myself almost as their little girl. But with that stubbornness peculiar to children and animals, I make quite sure that they get involved with my business. Given that, to some extent, I share her life, there is no reason why my beautiful hostess shouldn’t systematically take the same cocks between her thighs as I do. It works four or five times. She resolutely allows herself to be pinned to the bed, her legs waving in the air like butterfly wings. I really like it when she looks right at Jacques (whose dick is reverberating from the twang of elastic when he pulled off his knickers) and says loudly that he’s ‘hung like a horse’. Jacques with whom I was just getting together at the time. He now reminds me that I once had a tantrum and set about kicking him wildly when he was fucking her. I had forgotten that too. Although, of course, I remember how I myself would niggle at the jealousies that other people never admitted. I feel as if I’m in a film about the free and easy lives of the young bourgeoisie when I go early one morning – stopping at the boulangerie on the way – to wake Alexis, who lives in a cute duplex on the rue des Saints-Pères. I notice the coolness of my skin next to his warm pyjamas, just moist enough to be good. He likes making fun of my promiscuity and he says that, at least at this time of day, he can be sure of being the first person of the day to penetrate me. Well, no, he isn’t actually! I spent the night with someone else, and we had a fuck before I left, I’ve still got his cum in my pussy. I stifle my exuberant laughter in the pillow. I can tell that he’s a little upset.