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 The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Only sometimes, when Mary would talk to him freely as she did very often of such people as Wanda, of the night life of the cafés and bars of Paris—most of which it transpired he himself had been to—of the tragedy of Barbara and Jamie that was never very far from her thoughts, even although a most perfect spring was hurrying forward towards the summer—when Mary would talk to him of these things, Martin would look rather gravely at Stephen. But now they seldom went to the bars, for Martin provided recreations that were really much more to Mary’s liking. Martin the kindly, the thoroughly normal, seemed never at a loss as to what they should do or where they should go when in search of pleasure. By now he knew Paris extremely well, and the Paris he showed them during that spring came as a complete revelation to Mary. He would often take them to dine in the Bois. At the neighbouring tables would be men and women; neat, well tailored men; pretty, smartly dressed women who laughed and talked very conscious of sex and its vast importance—in a word, normal women. Or perhaps they would go to Claridge’s for tea or to Giro’s for dinner, and then on to supper at an equally fashionable restaurant, of which Mary discovered there were many in Paris. And although people still stared a little at Stephen, Mary fancied that they did so much less, because of the protective presence of Martin. At such places of course, it was out of the question for a couple of women to dance together, and yet every one danced, so that in the end Mary must get up and dance with Martin. He had said: ‘You don’t mind, do you, Stephen?’ She had shaken her head: ‘No, of course I don’t mind.’ And indeed she had been very glad to know that Mary had a good partner to dance with. But now when she sat alone at their table, lighting one cigarette from another, uncomfortably conscious of the interest she aroused by reason of her clothes and her isolation—when she glimpsed the girl in Martin’s arms, and heard her laugh for a moment in passing, Stephen would know a queer tightening of her heart, as though a mailed fist had closed down upon it. What was it? Good God, surely not resentment? Horrified she would feel at this possible betrayal of friendship, of her fine, honest friendship for Martin. And when they came back, Mary smiling and flushed, Stephen would force herself to smile also. She would say: ‘I’ve been thinking how well you two dance—’ And when Mary once asked rather timidly: ‘Are you sure you’re not bored, sitting there by yourself?’ Stephen answered: ‘Don’t be so silly, darling; of course I’m not bored—go on dancing with Martin.’ But that night she took Mary in her arms—the relentless, compelling arms of a lover.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And although people still stared a little at Stephen, Mary fancied that they did so much less, because of the protective presence of Martin. At such places of course, it was out of the question for a couple of women to dance together, and yet every one danced, so that in the end Mary must get up and dance with Martin. He had said: ‘You don’t mind, do you, Stephen?’ She had shaken her head: ‘No, of course I don’t mind.’ And indeed she had been very glad to know that Mary had a good partner to dance with. But now when she sat alone at their table, lighting one cigarette from another, uncomfortably conscious of the interest she aroused by reason of her clothes and her isolation—when she glimpsed the girl in Martin’s arms, and heard her laugh for a moment in passing, Stephen would know a queer tightening of her heart, as though a mailed fist had closed down upon it. What was it? Good God, surely not resentment? Horrified she would feel at this possible betrayal of friendship, of her fine, honest friendship for Martin. And when they came back, Mary smiling and flushed, Stephen would force herself to smile also. She would say: ‘I’ve been thinking how well you two dance—’ And when Mary once asked rather timidly: ‘Are you sure you’re not bored, sitting there by yourself?’ Stephen answered: ‘Don’t be so silly, darling; of course I’m not bored—go on dancing with Martin.’ But that night she took Mary in her arms—the relentless, compelling arms of a lover. On warm days they would all drive into the country, as Mary and she had so frequently done during their first spring months in Paris. Very often now it would be Barbizon, for Martin loved to walk in the forest. And there he must start to talk about trees, his face glowing with its curious inner light, while Mary listened half fascinated. One evening she said: ‘But these trees are so small—you make me long to see real forests, Martin.’ David loved these excursions—he also loved Martin, not being exactly disloyal to Stephen, but discerning in the man a more perfect thing, a more entirely fulfilling companion. And this little betrayal, though slight in itself, had the power to wound out of all proportion, so that Stephen would feel very much as she had done when ignored years ago by the swan called Peter. She had thought then: ‘Perhaps he thinks I’m a freak,’ and now she must sometimes think the same thing as she watched Martin hurling huge sticks for David—it was strange what a number of ridiculous trifles had lately acquired the power to hurt her.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  His pause is long enough that I ask if it makes him uncomfortable or if he’s perfectly fine with it. It seems impossible that he is so willing to share me, and if he is indeed so willing to, does he really care about me at all? “I’m definitely jealous, but also intrigued by your power. I understand there’s a risk here, that I might lose you to someone else you meet on your tour. But it’s not right for me to try to stop you.” I find his lack of possessiveness remarkable and very attractive. I recognize that it’s not that he’s so confident I will keep coming back to him but that he respects the space and freedom I need to get my bearings right now. He sees me as a fully separate entity from himself, but he wants to know too if the same is true in reverse, how will I feel if he dates other women? “Terrible,” I say, and he laughs. I explain why I have a double standard, that our situations are completely different, that he didn’t get married until he was forty years old and by that age in my own life, I had been married fifteen years and had three kids. He had years to sleep with different women and explore what he wanted in a sexual relationship, whereas I had none of that, so have to make up for lost time now. I admit that it’s unfair and hypocritical, but emphasize that even owning up to that won’t make me feel any less insecure or jealous. “Would you want to know about it?” he asks. “Yes, definitely. Wait no, definitely not. I don’t know, don’t do it and then I don’t have to choose,” I say, pouting, and he responds that it’s unlikely he would anyway, that he’s already having more sex with me than he’s had in years and doesn’t think he could handle more. “OK, let’s make a deal,” I say. “Have sex with anyone you want, but not in Manhattan. Go out of town, go to another borough, just no one local.” “Would that make you feel better?” he asks. “Yes, because then it won’t be so easy for you to make it a regular thing. Enjoy your ferry ride to Staten Island,” I say snarkily, and we both laugh. CHAPTER 39ConfessionsI do not follow my own outer-borough rule and later that week, take the subway to the Upper West Side to meet potential #8 for coffee. He lives in Harlem, so this is equidistant for us and I’m thrilled to get out of my neighborhood lest I run into someone I know downtown. We had spoken on the phone after connecting on Hinge and our conversation was easy and he had laughed a lot.

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

  Luke’s Version (Acts 9:23–25)In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.After some time had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night so that they might kill him; but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.The striking similarity between the two accounts certifies that Luke knows precise Pauline details, but there is also a significant difference. In Paul’s version the danger arose when the Nabatean ruler Aretas IV held the city between 37 and 39 C.E., and that, by the way, furnishes the only Paul-derived date for his biography. In Luke it arose from the Jews, no date is therefore possible, and such a scenario is all but impossible in an Arab-controlled city. Furthermore, if Luke knows the fact but changes or creates the enemy, we will have to watch very carefully what he says elsewhere about “the Jews” in opposition to Paul. For example, was there lethal or only nonlethal opposition from other Jews to Paul, and in either case what exactly was the reason for any such opposition? Luke can, for example, explain their refusal to believe Christianity as simple human “jealousy” over pagan acceptance. In Acts 13:45, “when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy; and blaspheming, they contradicted what was spoken by Paul.” And in Acts 17:5, “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.” Furthermore, Luke even goes back to the Old Testament for a prophetic model: “The patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God was with him” (Acts 7:9). One footnote in preparation for the next section. Notice the blur at the heart of Luke’s claim that Paul always goes first to preach to his fellow Jews in the synagogues on the Sabbath. Does he then turn to pagans because those fellow Jews reject him or do they reject him because he has turned to pagans? Is Jewish rejection cause or effect of pagan conversion? That is never clear in Luke because, as we shall argue below, Paul did not preach first to full Jews or to pure pagans, but to an in-between group of semi-Jewish, semipagan synagogue associates, sympathizers, the so-called God-fearers or God-worshipers. In summary, with that Damascus case as a paradigmatic warning, be careful to distinguish between Luke’s information about Paul and Luke’s interpretation of Paul, and be very careful to discern where Luke’s interpretation becomes Luke’s information about Paul. Roman Reaction

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

  In other words, Paul and Christianity were bad for pagan business. And that, of course, is not exactly false. It was also mentioned as a socioreligious problem around 112 C.E. when Pliny the Younger, the emergency governor of Bithynia-Pontus on the Black Sea’s southern coast, reported back to the emperor Trajan. In his Letters he says that he had moved against Christianity, “for this contagious superstition is not confined to the cities only but has spread through the villages and rural districts.” But he is curing the problem, he reports, so that temples are again frequented, festivals again celebrated, and “there is a general demand for sacrificial animals, which for some time past have met with but few purchasers” (10.96). Jewish Jealousy A third Lukan theme is that riots about Christians are also caused by Jews. Luke’s dominant emphasis in Acts is that because pagans accepted Christianity after the Jews refused it, Jews opposed gentile conversions out of “jealousy.” But first, on “the Jews” in general, here is an example of how Lukan fiction must be distinguished from Pauline fact even about the same incident. Both Paul and Luke record his somewhat ignominious departure from Damascus. Paul’s Version (2 Cor. 11:32–33)

• From The Pisces (2018)

  That little fucker. Who was he, even, lurking around in the ocean? I decided to take immediate action. Brushing past Dominic, who sniffed at me suspiciously and growled a little, I took to my phone. It was time to send Tinder Garrett a message. Hey I changed my mind. Want to meet up after all? I wrote. He wrote back within seconds: guess it didn’t work out with the other dude? haha, I said. want to come to downtown? i work in a loft down here. meet me on the roof of the Ace Hotel tmrw @ 7 sounds good I wrote, so casually. Immediately after that message came a text. It was from Jamie. How are you? I miss you. My stomach dropped. Claire was right! It was like he could smell that I was out with other men. Now it was raining attention. There was Adam, Garrett, Theo, and Jamie. I wanted to wait to text him back but wrote immediately, of course. I’m fine. deep in therapy, as instructed And how is megan? There was a pause. She is good Well, that was that… She’s no you, of course Now this was getting crazy. Was I a sorcerer? Had I conjured all of this? What was he trying to do? It was like I was the other woman and Megan was the one he was stuck with. I suddenly no longer felt hurt that he was with her. I liked being the desirable one. Also, I liked playing with him. I was going to ignore him. Already high on Garrett and our impending date, I would be able to do it. This was what I needed—multiple men at all times. Then I wouldn’t need any of them. Put me naked in a clamshell. Let them all fawn around me. 16. “You’re absolutely glowing! You’re not dating anyone, are you?” asked Annika. She was standing on the balcony of her hotel wearing a long embroidered caftan. Through video chat I could see the Provence sunset behind her. “No, I’m keeping to myself.” “Good,” she said. “Get that kundalini shakti recharged. Don’t go scattering that chi anywhere and you’ll be a warrior by the time I get back. How is the group?” “A nightmare,” I said. “But you’re going?” “I’m going.” “Let me see my baby.” I held the computer screen up to Dominic. She made cooing noises and he pawed it, whined a little. “He looks a touch sad,” she said. “You’re spending ample time with him?” “We’re thick as thieves.” “Good,” she said. “Maybe add a bit of coconut oil to his dry food. It keeps his coat nice and shiny.” “Already doing it.” “Thanks, and you should cook for him.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But Roger would have seen already, and would smile his slow, understanding, masterful smile. Sometimes he and Stephen would look at each other covertly, and their youthful faces would be marred by a very abominable thing; the instinctive repulsion of two human bodies, the one for the other, which neither could help—not now that those bodies were stirred by a woman. Then into this vortex of secret emotion would come Ralph. He would stare from Stephen to Roger and then at his wife, and his eyes would be red—one never knew whether from tears or from anger. They would form a grotesque triangle for a moment, those three who must share a common desire. But after a little the two male creatures who hated each other, would be shamefully united in the bond of their deeper hatred of Stephen; and divining this, she in her turn would hate. 4 It could not go on without some sort of convulsion, and that Christmas was a time of recriminations. Angela’s infatuation was growing, and she did not always hide this from Stephen. Letters would arrive in Roger’s handwriting, and Stephen, half crazy with jealousy by now, would demand to see them. She would be refused, and a scene would ensue. ‘That man’s your lover! Have I gone starving only for this—that you should give yourself to Roger Antrim? Show me that letter!’ ‘How dare you suggest that Roger’s my lover! But if he were it’s no business of yours.’ ‘Will you show me that letter?’ ‘I will not.’ ‘It’s from Roger.’ ‘You’re intolerable. You can think what you please.’ ‘What am I to think?’ Then because of her longing, ‘Angela, for God’s sake don’t treat me like this—I can’t bear it. When you loved me it was easier to bear—I endured it for your sake, but now—listen, listen. . . .’ Stark naked confessions dragged from lips that grew white the while they confessed: ‘Angela, listen. . . .’ And now the terrible nerves of the invert, those nerves that are always lying in wait, gripped Stephen. They ran like live wires through her body, causing a constant and ruthless torment, so that the sudden closing of a door or the barking of Tony would fall like a blow on her shrinking flesh. At night in her bed she must cover her ears from the ticking of the clock, which would sound like thunder in the darkness . Angela had taken to going up to London on some pretext or another—she must see her dentist; she must fit a new dress. ‘Well then, let me come with you.’ ‘Good heavens, why? I’m only going to the dentist!’ ‘All right, I’ll come too.’ ‘You’ll do nothing of the kind.’ Then Stephen would know why Angela was going. All that day she would be haunted by insufferable pictures.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  The surfers began to come in, but there was no sign of Theo. I always wondered where the surfers put their keys, their wallets. Out of all the things they did—choosing a wave, standing up on their boards, staying on their boards, somehow not dying—it seemed the most interesting to me where they put their stuff. Did they have secret compartments in their wet suits? Wouldn’t their phones get ruined? Maybe they didn’t bring their phones. There were definitely a lot of girls waiting to get texted back. I waited for hours, but Theo never came. He was probably avoiding me. Or maybe he was on land, out with a bunch of other young people. I imagined them drinking beer on a roof somewhere, setting off fireworks. The group laughed in unison, the tinkling of their voices echoing in the brisk Venice air. They didn’t give a fuck about anything. He was at the center of the group, lighting the fireworks and grinning. No, he was sitting over to the side of the group, sullen and mysterious. There were girls in the group—surfer girls with long beach hair, who smelled like vanilla and coconut. They wanted him. They wanted him for his distance. In turns they each came over to him, offering a hit off a joint, or a beer. He could have any of them he wanted. He could kiss them right there, up on the roof, and then lead them by the hand inside the house. But as each girl approached him, he held up his hand, silently. What an asshole, really. Why was he so sullen? Was he thinking about someone else? I pretended he was thinking about me. It made me happy for a moment. Then I felt a flush of shame for being so stupid. I went back inside and fell asleep cradling Dominic. I had given my power away to Garrett and I didn’t like the feeling. It reminded me of the past year with Jamie, only Garrett was someone much stupider. It was like I had taken that longing for Jamie and transplanted it onto the next closest body. How had I ended up here again? When I woke up in the middle of the night I had to pee like a motherfucker. I raced to the toilet and sat down, but nothing would come out. I squeezed out a few drops and they burned. Uh oh. I crawled back into bed hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was. But then I had to pee again ten minutes later. “Jesus fuck, why?” I whimpered, curling up in a fetal position. Dominic licked my cheek. He seemed to understand that I was hurting. He whined a little. I whined back at him and we whined together.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  One night, when we were lying on the sofa tangled up together, after a day of lovemaking, I asked him how many other women who lived on land he had been with. “There have been a few,” he said. He told me about a woman named Alexis with long black hair who was a heroin addict. He had licked her menstrual blood too, the first he ever tasted, and watched her shoot dope. She would come to the rocky shore in Monterey every night, when he lived farther north, already slurring her words. He never knew whether she believed he was real, or a side effect of the drugs. But he stayed with her as she sat by the ocean and nodded in and out. Then she stopped coming to the ocean entirely. He feared she had died, until one night, he heard her singing in an old wooden boathouse some feet from the shore. He dragged himself into the boathouse and stayed with her that night. In the boathouse were a few old blankets on the ground and a suitcase full of clothes. He realized then that she was homeless. He wished he could walk on land and bring her food. He would bring her fish, but their raw, dead bodies only nauseated her and he didn’t know how to build a fire to cook them. So he gave her licks of seawater and bites of seaweed. “I began to understand,” he said. “The humans and I were not all that different. I didn’t know that people on land were filled with so much yearning. I thought you all had it figured out, were satisfied.” “Hardly,” I said. “It was a beautiful realization,” he said. “So what happened?” “One day she just disappeared.” “Did she die?” “I don’t know what happened to her,” he said. “All of her things remained in the boathouse. But she never came back.” I could not take hearing all of that. I didn’t like that it was she who had left him, even for death, and that he would always long for her. And perhaps as punishment or to regain control of the narrative—that I might be like her and have a moment like that, the beloved vanisher—I confessed. “I suppose it won’t matter with me,” I said. “Now that you’ve been through it in such a sad way.” “What do you mean?” “I mean, I guess you will be okay when I leave here.” “What do you mean ‘leave’?” “I’ll be going away soon.” “For how long?” “Well, for good.” I told him everything: that I was from a place where there was no ocean and would be leaving in three weeks to return there, permanently. I asked him if he knew what the desert was. He only stared at me. Immediately I knew that I had hurt him. “Do you think—” I started to say.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  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. She said quietly: ‘Listen, my dear, I’ve been thinking; I don’t feel that I ought to leave your mother, her heart’s not very strong—nothing serious, of course—still, she oughtn’t to live all alone at Morton; and quite apart from the question of health, living alone’s a melancholy business. There’s another thing too. I’ve grown tired and lazy, and I don’t want to pull up my roots if I can help it. When one’s getting on in years, one gets set in one’s ways, and my ways fit in very well with Morton. I didn’t want to come here, Stephen, as I told you, but I was all wrong, for your mother needs me—she needs me more now than during the war, because during the war she had occupation. Oh, but good heavens! I’m a silly old woman—did you know that I used to get homesick for England? I used to get homesick for penny buns. Imagine it, and I was living in Paris! Only—’ And now her voice broke a little: ‘Only, if ever you should feel that you need me, if ever you should feel that you want my advice or my help, you’d send for me, wouldn’t you, my dear? Because old as I am, I’d be able to run if I thought that you really needed me, Stephen.’ Stephen held out her hand and Puddle grasped it. ‘There are some things I can’t express,’ Stephen said slowly; ‘I can’t express my gratitude to you for all you’ve done—I can’t find any words. But—I want you to know that I’m trying to play straight.’ ‘You’d always play straight in the end,’ said Puddle. And so, after nearly eighteen years of life together, these two staunch friends and companions had now virtually parted. CHAPTER 381T

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Yes, despite his shortcomings she envied young Roger with his thick, clumping boots, his cropped hair and his Etons; envied his school and his masculine companions of whom he would speak grandly as: ‘all the other fellows!’; envied his right to climb trees and play cricket and football—his right to be perfectly natural; above all she envied his splendid conviction that being a boy constituted a privilege in life; she could well understand that conviction, but this only increased her envy. Stephen found Violet intolerably silly, she cried quite as loudly when she bumped her own head as when Roger applied his most strenuous torments. But what irritated Stephen, was the fact that she suspected that Violet almost enjoyed those torments. ‘He’s so dreadfully strong!’ she had confided in Stephen, with something like pride in her voice. Stephen had longed to shake her for that: ‘I can pinch quite as hard as he can!’ she had threatened, ‘If you think he’s stronger than I am, I’ll show you!’ At which Violet had rushed away screaming . Violet was already full of feminine poses; she loved dolls, but not quite so much as she pretended. People said: ‘Look at Violet, she’s like a little mother; it’s so touching to see that instinct in a child!’ Then Violet would become still more touching. She was always thrusting her dolls upon Stephen, making her undress them and put them to bed. ‘Now you’re Nanny, Stephen, and I’m Gertrude’s mother, or you can be mother this time if you’d rather—Oh, be careful, you’ll break her! Now you’ve pulled off a button! I do think you might play more like I do!’ And then Violet knitted, or said that she knitted—Stephen had never seen anything but knots. ‘Can’t you knit?’ she would say, looking scornfully at Stephen, ‘I can—Mother called me a dear little housewife!’ Then Stephen would lose her temper and speak rudely: ‘You’re a dear little sop, that’s what you are!’ For hours she must play stupid doll-games with Violet, because Roger would not always play real games in the garden. He hated to be beaten, yet how could she help it? Could she help throwing straighter than Roger? They had nothing whatever in common, these children, but the Antrims were neighbours, and even Sir Philip, indulgent though he was, insisted that Stephen should have friends of her own age to play with. He had spoken quite sharply on several occasions when the child had pleaded to be allowed to stay at home. Indeed he spoke sharply that very day at luncheon: ‘Eat your pudding please, Stephen; come now, finish it quickly! If all this fuss is about the little Antrims, then Father won’t have it, it’s ridiculous, darling.’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  On warm days they would all drive into the country, as Mary and she had so frequently done during their first spring months in Paris. Very often now it would be Barbizon, for Martin loved to walk in the forest. And there he must start to talk about trees, his face glowing with its curious inner light, while Mary listened half fascinated. One evening she said: ‘But these trees are so small—you make me long to see real forests, Martin.’ David loved these excursions—he also loved Martin, not being exactly disloyal to Stephen, but discerning in the man a more perfect thing, a more entirely fulfilling companion. And this little betrayal, though slight in itself, had the power to wound out of all proportion, so that Stephen would feel very much as she had done when ignored years ago by the swan called Peter. She had thought then: ‘Perhaps he thinks I’m a freak,’ and now she must sometimes think the same thing as she watched Martin hurling huge sticks for David—it was strange what a number of ridiculous trifles had lately acquired the power to hurt her. And yet she clung desperately to Martin’s friendship, feeling herself to be all unworthy if she harboured so much as a moment’s doubt; indeed they both loyally clung to their friendship. He would beg her to accept his aunt’s invitations, to accompany Mary when she went to Passy: ‘Don’t you like the old thing? Mary likes her all right—why won’t you come? It’s so mean of you, Stephen. It’s not half as much fun when you’re not there.’ He would honestly think that he was speaking the truth, that the party or the luncheon or whatever it might be, was not half as much fun for him without Stephen. But Stephen always made her work an excuse: ‘My dear, I’m trying to finish a novel. I seem to have been at it for years and years; it’s growing hoary like Rip Van Winkle.’ 2 There were times when their friendship seemed well-nigh perfect, the perfect thing that they would have it to be, and on such a day of complete understanding, Stephen suddenly spoke to Martin about Morton. They two were alone together in her study, and she said: ‘There’s something I want to tell you—you must often have wondered why I left my home.’ He nodded: ‘I’ve never quite liked to ask, because I know how you loved the place, how you love it still . . .’ ‘Yes, I love it,’ she answered. Then she let every barrier go down before him, blissfully conscious of what she was doing. Not since Puddle had left her had she been able to talk without restraint of her exile.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Having taken on all the fresh provisions they needed, they put to sea again, making their way unimpeded from one port to the next until, a week later, they arrived in Crete. There, not far from Candia,1 they purchased vast and magnificent estates, upon which they built houses of great beauty and splendour. And what with their large retinue of servants, their dogs, their birds, and their horses, they began to live like lords, banqueting and merrymaking and rejoicing in the company of their ladies, the most contented men on God’s earth. This, then, was their way of life. But as we all know from experience, a surfeit of good things often leads to sorrow, and now that Restagnone, who had once been very much in love with Ninetta, was able to possess her whenever he liked without fear of discovery, he began to have second thoughts about her, with the result that his love began to wane. Furthermore, he was powerfully attracted to a beautiful and gently bred young woman of the neighbourhood whom he had glimpsed at a banquet, and he began to court her with the maximum of zeal, paying her extravagant compliments and putting on entertainments for her benefit. When Ninetta perceived what was happening, she was so distraught with jealousy that he was unable to make a move without her getting wind of it and pelting him with so much abuse and hostility that she made Restagnone’s life a misery as well as her own. In the same way, however, that a surfeit of good things generates distaste, so the withholding of a desired object sharpens the appetite, and Ninetta’s resentment merely served to fan the flames of Restagnone’s new-born love. Whether or not he eventually succeeded in possessing his beloved, we shall never know. But at all events somebody or other convinced Ninetta that he had, and she fell into a state of deep melancholy, which rapidly gave way to anger and finally to blazing fury. All her former love for Restagnone was transformed into bitter hatred, and in a paroxysm of rage she resolved to murder him and thus avenge the affront she believed him to have offered her. Having called in an old Greek woman who was expert in the preparation of poisons, she persuaded her by means of gifts and promises to concoct a lethal potion. And one evening, without giving the matter a second thought, she served this up to Restagnone, who was feeling thirsty because of the heat and was totally off his guard. The drink was so potent that it finished him off before matins, and the news of his death was sent to Folco, Ughetto, and their ladies. Without knowing that he had been poisoned, they joined their own bitter tears to those of Ninetta, and saw that he was given an honourable burial.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now it so happened that one day, during a spell of hot weather, several parties of the Neapolitan nobility, in accordance with local custom, set off for an outing along the sea-coast, where they would lunch and sup before returning home. And on discovering that Catella had gone there with a party of ladies, Ricciardo got together a little group of his own and made for the same place, which he no sooner reached than he received an invitation to join Catella’s party. This he accepted after a certain show of reluctance, as though he were not at all anxious to press himself on their company. The ladies then began, with Catella joining in the fun, to pull Ricciardo’s leg on the subject of his latest lady-love, whereupon he pretended to take violent offence, thus supplying them with further food for gossip. Eventually, as is the custom on such occasions, several of the ladies wandered off one by one in different directions, until only a handful of them, including Catella, were left behind with Ricciardo, who at a certain point threw off a casual reference to some affair that her husband was supposed to be having. Catella was promptly seized by an attack of jealousy, and her whole body began to throb with a burning desire to know what Ricciardo was talking about. She sat and brooded for a while, but in the end, unable to contain her feelings any longer, she implored Ricciardo, in the name of the lady he loved above all others, to be so good as to explain his remark about Filippello. ‘Since you have implored me for her sake,’ he told her, ‘I dare not refuse you anything, no matter what it may be. I am therefore prepared to tell you about it, but you must promise me never to breathe a word of it either to your husband or to anyone else until you have confirmed the truth of my story. This you can do quite easily, and if you like, I will show you how.’ The lady took him up on this offer, which convinced her all the more that he was telling the truth, and swore to him that her lips would remain sealed. They then drew aside from the others so that they would not be overheard.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But turning now to the story, there once lived in Rimini a very rich merchant and landowner, who, having married an exceedingly beautiful woman, became inordinately jealous of her. He had no other reason for this except that, because he loved her a great deal and thought her very beautiful and knew that she did everything she could to please him, he concluded that every other man must feel the same about her, and also that she would take just as much trouble to please other men as she did in pleasing her husband. And in his jealousy he kept such a constant watch upon her and guarded her so closely, that I doubt whether many of those condemned to death are guarded by their gaolers with the same degree of vigilance. It wasn’t just a question of her not being able to attend a party or a wedding, or go to church, or step outside her door for a single moment: he wouldn’t even allow her to stand at the window or cast so much as a solitary glance outside the house. Her life thus became a complete misery, and her suffering was all the more difficult to bear in that she had done nothing to deserve it. For her own amusement, finding herself persecuted so unfairly by her husband, the lady cast about her to see whether she could find any way of supplying him with a just and proper motive for his jealousy. Not being allowed to stand at the window, she was unable to offer signs of encouragement to any potential suitor who might be passing her way. But knowing there was a handsome and agreeable young man in the house next door, she calculated that if she could find a crack in the wall separating their two houses, she could keep on peering through it until an opportunity arose of speaking to the youth and offering him her love if he was prepared to accept it, after which, provided they could find some way of doing it, they could come together once in a while. And in this way she could keep body and soul together until her husband came to his senses.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I find his lack of possessiveness remarkable and very attractive. I recognize that it’s not that he’s so confident I will keep coming back to him but that he respects the space and freedom I need to get my bearings right now. He sees me as a fully separate entity from himself, but he wants to know too if the same is true in reverse, how will I feel if he dates other women? “Terrible,” I say, and he laughs. I explain why I have a double standard, that our situations are completely different, that he didn’t get married until he was forty years old and by that age in my own life, I had been married fifteen years and had three kids. He had years to sleep with different women and explore what he wanted in a sexual relationship, whereas I had none of that, so have to make up for lost time now. I admit that it’s unfair and hypocritical, but emphasize that even owning up to that won’t make me feel any less insecure or jealous. “Would you want to know about it?” he asks. “Yes, definitely. Wait no, definitely not. I don’t know, don’t do it and then I don’t have to choose,” I say, pouting, and he responds that it’s unlikely he would anyway, that he’s already having more sex with me than he’s had in years and doesn’t think he could handle more. “OK, let’s make a deal,” I say. “Have sex with anyone you want, but not in Manhattan. Go out of town, go to another borough, just no one local.” “Would that make you feel better?” he asks. “Yes, because then it won’t be so easy for you to make it a regular thing. Enjoy your ferry ride to Staten Island,” I say snarkily, and we both laugh. CHAPTER 39 Confessions I do not follow my own outer-borough rule and later that week, take the subway to the Upper West Side to meet potential #8 for coffee. He lives in Harlem, so this is equidistant for us and I’m thrilled to get out of my neighborhood lest I run into someone I know downtown. We had spoken on the phone after connecting on Hinge and our conversation was easy and he had laughed a lot. He doesn’t have kids of his own but he enjoyed my stories of what it’s like to be a parent who is surreptitiously dating, and since I always laugh uproariously at my own jokes and stories, I appreciate anyone who goes along with me. I arrive at the café early so have time to shed my multiple winter layers and catch my breath before he arrives. When I’m sitting and trying to perfect my open-for-business-but-not-too eager face, I hear a loud and animated voice belt out, “Laura!”

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I will never fight you. I will never pull you under harder than you want to go. In the past, with the others, this is how I always did it. I need to feel you are there of your own will.” “The others?” I asked. I knew that there had been others on land. Alexis in the boathouse and who knew what else? But I hadn’t known any others had gone under. This made me hurt instantly. Then I felt stupid. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I didn’t want to think of it. He had such a want for me, a desperation that I go under. He had wanted so badly that it be my own want that brought me under, that was how vulnerable and powerless he was over his own feelings. His need was so big that he couldn’t own it. He needed it to be my need. But this didn’t mean I was the only one. I never considered that whoever came before me might also be under there. Now I shuddered. Who was he? An incubus needing so many women to want him? Needing so many women to die for him? How many women? In my own desire to feel chosen by this beautiful creature, I had never thought to ask if others had gone before. It had seemed impossible that his need to be wanted by others was more ravenous than mine. Sexually, I had encountered that kind of need amongst the playboys and assholes. But theirs was purely a physical desire. They sought nothing from me but sex, especially not love. They didn’t want my life. It was me who forced it on them. Now here was a man who needed my love and my life. But my love and my life, and the lives of how many other women? I felt a stinging in my eyes. I was crying. “The others?” He looked away. “How many are there, Theo?” “Some,” he said. “How many?” I demanded. He looked down at his hands. “How many bodies are under there?” He paused for a moment. I could see he was trying to decide whether to lie or not. “Just tell me the truth,” I said. “Seventeen,” he said finally. So he had a harem. Of what I was not sure. Maybe it was just their bones that were left, or whatever didn’t decay in the saltwater. I was not a scientist. But whether they were alive or dead, sand or flesh, I needed to maintain my singularity. What was I going to do now? Suddenly I thought of what Chickenhorse had said. Whatever it is you’re doing, you don’t have to do it. But I did have to do it.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘I told you I was in love with a priest: but is it not a fact that you, whom I am misguided enough to love, had turned into a priest? I told you he could open any door in the house when he wanted to come and sleep with me: but which of the doors in your own house has ever prevented you from coming to me, no matter where I happened to be? I told you the priest slept with me every night: but haven’t you always slept with me? And as you know very well, every time you sent that seminarist of yours to me, you had slept elsewhere, and so I sent you word that the priest had not been with me. How could anybody, other than a man who had allowed himself to be blinded by his jealousy, have been witless enough not to understand all this? But in your case, what do you do? You spin me some yarn every evening about going out to supper and staying the night with friends, then hang about the house keeping an allnight vigil at the front door. ‘Isn’t it time that you took yourself in hand, started behaving like a man again, and stopped allowing yourself to be made such a fool of by someone who knows you as well as I do? Leave off keeping such a strict watch over me, because I swear to God that if I were to set my heart on making you a cuckold, I should have my fling and you’d be none the wiser.’ And so it was that the jealous wretch, having thought himself very clever in ferreting out his wife’s secret, saw that he had made an ass of himself. Without saying anything by way of reply, he began to look upon his wife as a model of intelligence and virtue. And just as he had worn the mantle of the jealous husband when it was unnecessary, he cast it off completely now that his need for it was paramount. So his clever little wife, having, as it were, acquired a licence to enjoy herself, no longer admitted her lover by way of the roof as though he were some kind of cat, but showed him in at the front door. And from that day forth, by proceeding with caution, she spent many an entertaining and delightful hour in his arms. SIXTH STORYWhilst she is entertaining Leonetto, Madonna Isabella is visited by Messer Lambertuccio, who has fallen in love with her. Her husband returning unexpectedly, she sends Messer Lambertuccio running forth from the house with a dagger in his hand, and Leonetto is taken home a little later on by her husband. Fiammetta’s story was marvellously pleasing to the whole company, and everyone declared that the wife had taught the stupid man a salutary lesson. But now that this tale was concluded, the king enjoined Pampinea to tell the next, and she began:

• From Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety (2015)

  8 He often argued for such human qualities in animals, commonly characterizing their expressive behaviors with terms like “affectionate,” “cheerful,” “savage,” “pleased by being caressed,” “jealous,” and so on. He likewise made generous use of anthropomorphically based anecdotes: “What a strong feeling of inward satisfaction must impel a bird, so full of activity, to brood day after day over her eggs.” 9 The zeal of the master on this topic was shared by his disciples. George Romanes, a close friend of Darwin’s, wrote a book called Mental Evolution in Animals, 10 in which he described behavioral responses as “ambassadors of the mind” in humans and other animals. 11 According to Romanes, just as we use our own mental states to conceive of the mind of God, we use a similar anthropomorphism to understand the mind of animals by looking for behaviors we have in common with them. 12 Like Darwin, Romanes is often criticized for treating anecdotes about animal behavior as scientific data. 13 (On the basis of largely innate behaviors triggered by innate stimuli, for example, he described earwigs as affectionate to their offspring and fish as jealous and angry. 14 ) Such arguments based on analogy with human behavior are now viewed as on par with commonsense intuitions and should not, on their own, be taken as scientific evidence for mental state consciousness in other animals. 15 (Common sense is often a starting point in scientific research, but scientific conclusions require more.) But Romanes was not alone in such theorizing. The tendency to attribute mental states—typically humanlike mental states—to animals on the basis of behavioral responses was so rampant in the waning years of the nineteenth century that one researcher, Lloyd Morgan, warned that scientists should resist the temptation to “humanize the brute.” He argued that just because scientists necessarily start their exploration of animal behavior from their own subjective experiences does not justify the attribution of similar experiences to other animals. 16 This kind of attribution is desirable, he argued, when we interact socially with other humans, but is questionable when trying to understand animal behavior. 17 Morgan famously wrote that we should not call upon human mental states to account for animal behavior if a simpler, nonmental state explanation is available. This position is now known as Morgan’s Canon. It is so difficult to resist the pull of folk wisdom, though, that even Morgan himself transgressed, using the phrase “coalescence of mental problems in a conscious situation” in a description of his dog’s ability to open the garden gate. 18 Still, he acknowledged that although animals have intelligence, they lack reason—they think but “do not think the therefore.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  One thing only distressed her, and this was Stephen’s refusal to accompany her when she went to Passy; she could not understand it, so must put it down to the influence of Valérie Seymour who had met and disliked Martin’s aunt at one time, indeed the dislike, it seemed, had been mutual. Thus the vague resentment that Valérie had inspired in the girl, began to grow much less vague, until Stephen realized with a shock of surprise that Mary was jealous of Valérie Seymour. But this seemed so absurd and preposterous a thing, that Stephen decided it could only be passing, nor did it loom very large in these days that were so fully taken up by Martin. For now that his eyesight was quite restored he was talking of going home in the autumn, and every free moment that he could steal from his aunt, he wanted to spend with Stephen and Mary. When he spoke of his departure, Stephen sometimes fancied that a shade of sadness crept into Mary’s face, and her heart misgave her, though she told herself that naturally both of them would miss Martin. Then too, never had Mary been more loyal and devoted, more obviously anxious to prove her love by a thousand little acts of devotion. There would even be times when by contrast her manner would appear abrupt and unfriendly to Martin, when she argued with him over every trifle, backing up her opinion by quoting Stephen—yes, in spite of her newly restored gentleness, there were times when she would not be gentle with Martin. And these sudden and unforeseen changes of mood would leave Stephen feeling uneasy and bewildered, so that one night she spoke rather anxiously: ‘Why were you so beastly to Martin this evening?’ But Mary pretended not to understand her: ‘How was I beastly? I was just as usual.’ And when Stephen persisted, Mary kissed her scar: ‘Darling, don’t start working now, it’s so late, and besides . . .’ Stephen put away her work, then she suddenly caught the girl to her roughly: ‘How much do you love me? Tell me quickly, quickly!’ Her voice shook with something very like fear. ‘Stephen, you’re hurting me—don’t, you’re hurting! You know how I love you—more than life.’ ‘You are my life . . . all my life,’ muttered Stephen. CHAPTER 541F ate, which by now had them well in its grip, began to play the game out more quickly. That summer they went to Pontresina since Mary had never seen Switzerland; but the Comtesse must make a double cure, first at Vichy and afterwards at Bagnoles de l’Orne, which fact left Martin quite free to join them. Then it was that Stephen perceived for the first time that all was not well with Martin Hallam.