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 Decameron (1353)

  EIGHTH STORY A husband grows suspicious of his wife, and discovers that her lover comes to her at night, forewarning her of his arrival by means of a string attached to her toe. Whilst the husband is giving chase to the lover, his wife gets out of bed and puts another woman in her place, who receives a beating from the husband and has her tresses cut off. The husband then goes to fetch his wife’s brothers, who, on discovering that his story is untrue, subject him to a torrent of abuse. Filomena’s listeners were all of the opinion that Madonna Beatrice had adopted a curiously subtle means of duping her husband, and everyone declared that Anichino must have had a terrible fright when the lady was holding him so tightly and he heard her saying that he had made advances to her. The king, however, seeing that Filomena had finished, turned to Neifile and said: ‘Now it’s your turn.’ Neifile smiled a little, then began: Fair ladies, if I am to entertain you with a story as excellent as the ones with which you have been regaled by my predecessors, my task will indeed be difficult; but I hope, with God’s aid, to give a good account of myself. You are to know, then, that in our fair city there once lived a very rich merchant called Arriguccio Berlinghieri, 1 who, like many of his counterparts of the present day, foolishly decided to marry into the aristocracy, and took to wife a young gentlewoman, quite unsuited to him, whose name was Monna Sismonda. And since, as is commonly the way with merchants, he was always going out and about and rarely stayed at home with his wife, she fell in love with a young man called Ruberto, who had been courting her for some little time. Having become his mistress, she took such a delight in his company that she possibly grew a little careless, for Arriguccio, either because he had got wind of the affair or for some other reason, suddenly became exceedingly jealous, and, having stopped going out and about, he left all his other affairs hanging in abeyance, and devoted almost the whole of his time to keeping her under close surveillance. Nor would he ever drop off to sleep until he saw that she was safely abed. Consequently the lady was utterly mortified, because it was now quite impossible for her to be with her Ruberto. But having given a great deal of thought to devising some means of consorting with her lover, and being under constant pressure from Ruberto himself to find a way out of this impasse, she eventually hit upon the following expedient: since her bedroom overlooked the street, and she had frequently had occasion to observe that Arriguccio, once he was asleep, slept like a log, she would ask Ruberto to come to the front door towards midnight and she would go and let him in.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  amusing, perhaps of a sort-to stimulate carnal desire, and we have continually partaken of excellent food and drink, played music, and sung many songs, all of which things may encourage unseemly behaviour among those who are feeble of mind, neither in word nor in deed nor in any other respect have I known either you or ourselves to be worthy of censure. On the contrary, from what I have seen and heard, it seems to me that our proceedings have been marked by a constant sense of propriety, an unfailing spirit of harmony, and a continual feeling of brotherly and sisterly amity. All of which pleases me greatly, as it surely redounds to our communal honour and credit. ‘Accordingly, lest aught conducive to tedium should arise from a custom too long established, and lest, by protracting our stay, we should cause evil tongues to start wagging, I now think it proper, since we have all in turn had our share of the honour still invested in me, that with your consent we should return whence we came. If, moreover, you consider the matter carefully, our company being known to various others hereabouts, our numbers could increase in such a way as to destroy all our pleasure. And so, if my advice should command your approval, I shall retain the crown that was given me until our departure, which I propose should take effect tomorrow morning. But if you decide otherwise, I already have someone in mind upon whom to bestow the crown for the next day to follow.’ The ladies and the young men, having debated the matter at considerable length, considered the king’s advice, in the end, to be sensible and just, and decided to do as he had said. He therefore sent for the steward and conferred with him with regard to the following morning’s arrangements, and having dismissed the company till supper-time, he rose to his feet. The ladies and the other young men followed suit, and turned their attention to various pastimes as usual. When it was time for supper, they disposed of the meal with infinite relish, after which they turned to singing and music and dancing. And while Lauretta was leading a dance, the king called for a song from Fiammetta, who began to sing, most charmingly, as follows: ‘If love could come unmixed with jealousy Then there is not a living woman born Who could be merrier than I would be. ‘If these effects a woman may content: Deserving virtue and gay youthfulness; Wisdom; fair conduct; prowess; dauntlessness; Perfection of address; speech which doth move; Then I should be that she, whose happiness Is thus attained in person of my love. ‘But other women are as wise as I, I fear the worst, and tremble with dismay Seeing those others seek to steal away Him who has stolen mine own soul, and so Turning my great bliss into misery Whereat I sigh aloud and live in woe. ‘Felt I his faith as equal to his worth I would not feel this jealousy and pain. But such his worth, and such the ways of men And such the wiles of women who allure, I fear that each one seeks my love to gain And, heartsick, I would gladly death endure. ‘But, in God’s name, let every woman know Not to attempt such injury on me: For if there should be one whose flattery Or words or gestures should entice him hence Then may I be deformed if bitterly I do not make her weep for her offence.’ No sooner did Fiammetta end her song, than Dioneo, who was standing beside her, laughed and said to her: ‘You would be doing all the others a great kindness, madam, if you were to tell them his name, in case they unwittingly take him’ away from you, seeing that you are bound to be so angry about it.’ After this song of Fiammetta’s, they sang a number of others, and when it was nearly midnight, they all, at the king’s behest, retired to bed. Next morning they arose at the crack of dawn, by which time all their baggage had been sent on ahead by the steward, and with their wise king leading the way they returned to Florence. Having taken their leave of the seven young ladies in Santa Maria Novella, whence they had all set out together, the three young men went off in search of other diversions; and in due course the ladies returned to their homes.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  He began to pretend that, having abandoned all hope of winning Catella’s affection, he had fallen in love with another lady, and that it was now for her sake that he tilted and jousted and did all the things he had formerly done for Catella. Nor did it take him very long before he convinced nearly everyone in Naples, including Catella, that he was madly in love with this other lady. And so successful was he in sustaining this pretence, that Catella herself, not to mention various other people who had previously snubbed him on account of the attentions he was paying her, began to offer him the same civil, neighbourly greeting, whenever she met him, that she accorded to others. 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.

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

  Recognizing that Adam and Eve originally were created to live together in a harmonious order of authority and obedience, superiority and subordination, like soul and body, “we must conclude,” says Augustine, “that a husband is meant to rule over his wife as the spirit rules the flesh.” But once each member of the primal couple had experienced that first internal revolt in which the bodily passions arose against the soul, they experienced analogous disruption in their relationship with one another. Although originally created equal with man in regard to her rational soul, woman’s formation from Adam’s rib established her as the “weaker part of the human couple.”74 Being closely connected with bodily passion, woman, although created to be man’s helper, became his temptress and led him into disaster.75 The Genesis account describes the result: God himself reinforced the husband’s authority over his wife, placing divine sanction upon the social, legal, and economic machinery of male domination. Apart from the relationship between the sexes, however, Augustine again agrees with Chrysostom that “God did not want a rational being, made in his image, to have dominion over any except irrational creatures; not man over men, but man over the beasts.”76 Unlike man’s dominion over woman, man’s dominion over other men violates their original equality; hence, “such a condition as slavery could only have arisen as a result of sin.”77 Augustine diverges sharply from Chrysostom, however, when he traces how sin, transmitted from the primal parents through sexual reproduction, infected their offspring, so that now “everyone, arising as he does from a condemned stock, is from the first necessarily evil and carnal through Adam.”78 So Cain, when another form of carnal desire, envy, overcame his rational judgment, murdered his brother, exemplifying the lust for power that now dominates and distorts the whole structure of human relationships. Those who share Augustine’s vision of the disastrous results of sin must, he believes, accept as well the rule of one man over others—master over slave, ruler over subjects—as the inescapable necessity of our universal fallen nature: Such, as men are now, is the order of peace. Some are in subjection to others and, while humility helps those who serve, pride harms those in power. But as men once were, when their nature was as God created it, no man was a slave either to man or to sin. However, slavery is now penal in character, and planned by that law which commands the preservation of the natural order and forbids its disturbance.79 Human nature, Augustine explains, instinctively desires social harmony: “By the very laws of his nature man is, so to speak, forced into social relationships and peace [societatem pacemque] with other men, so far as possible.”80 Yet sin distorts this universal impulse, turning it instead into the enforced order that constitutes “earthly peace.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  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. But a few days later, it happened that because of some other piece of villainy, the old woman who had concocted the poisonous potion for Ninetta was arrested. Under torture, she confessed to this particular crime along with the others she had committed, and supplied a full account of what had happened. The Duke of Crete said nothing about it to anyone, but one night he threw a cordon round Folco’s palace, quietly arrested Ninetta, and took her away without a struggle. There was no need to resort to torture, for he very quickly learned from Ninetta everything he wanted to know about Restagnone’s death. Folco and Ughetto had been secretly informed by the Duke of the reason for Ninetta’s arrest, and they in turn informed their ladies. All four were greatly distressed, and spared no effort to save Ninetta from being burnt at the stake, which was the punishment to which they realized she would be condemned, as she richly deserved.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  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. So when her husband was not at home, she went from room to room carefully inspecting the wall, until eventually, in a very remote part of the house, she came across a place where it was cracked. She peered through to the other side, and although she could not make very much out, she could see enough to realize that it was a bedroom, and she said to herself: ‘If this turned out to be the bedroom of Filippo’ (the name of the youth next door) ‘there wouldn’t be much left for me to do.’ So she got one of her maidservants, who was feeling rather sorry for her, to keep watch whenever there was nobody about, and discovered that it was indeed the young man’s bedroom, and that he slept there all by himself.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Just tell me who this priest is, and be quick about it.’ His wife began to smile, and said: ‘It’s an edifying sight, I must say, when a there woman leads an intelligent man by the nose, as though she were leading a ram by its horns to the slaughter. Not that you are all that intelligent, nor ever have been since the day you allowed the evil spirit of jealousy to enter your heart, without any obvious reason. And the more thickheaded and stupid you are, the lesser my achievement. ‘Do you suppose, dear husband, that my eyes are as defective as your reasoning? Because if so, you’re greatly mistaken. I recognized my confessor from the moment I set eyes on him, I knew perfectly well it was you. I was determined to let you have what you were looking for, and I succeeded. But if you were as clever as you imagine, you would never have resorted to that sort of trick for discovering the secrets of your good little wife; nor would you have become a prey to idle suspicion, for you would have realized that she was confessing the truth to you without having sinned in the least. ‘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.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When he had arrived at a ripe old age without ever wearying of dispensing his largesse, his reputation chanced to reach the ears of a young man called Mithridanes, who lived in that same part of the world, and who, feeling himself to be no less wealthy than Nathan, grew jealous of Nathan’s fame and excellence, and resolved, through a display of greater liberality, either to nullify or darken the old man’s name. And so, having built a palace similar to Nathan’s, he began to entertain all those who came and went on a more lavish scale than any ever previously known, and there is no doubt that within a short time he became very famous. Now one day, whilst the young man was sitting all alone in the main courtyard, a woman happened to enter the palace by one of the gates, ask him for alms, and be given them. She then returned by way of a second gate, approached him again, and was given a further sum of money. This happened twelve times in succession, and when she returned for the thirteenth time, Mithridanes said to her: ‘My good woman, you are very persistent with this begging of yours.’ But he gave her the alms just the same. On hearing what he had said, the old woman exclaimed: ‘Ah, how wonderful is the generosity of Nathan! For his palace has thirty-two gates, just like this one, and I passed through each of them in turn, asked him for alms, and obtained them every time, without his ever so much as hinting that he knew who I was. Yet here I have only to pass through thirteen before I am recognized and given a scolding.’ And so saying, she went away and never returned. Mithridanes took the old woman’s words about Nathan as a slight on his own reputation, and flying into a violent rage, he exclaimed: ‘Poor fool that I am! How can I ever hope to match Nathan’s generosity in greater things, let alone surpass him as I sought, when even in the most trivial affairs I cannot even approach him? All my efforts will be quite futile until he is removed from the face of the earth. He shows no sign of dying from old age, so I shall have to do the job with my own hands, and the sooner the better.’

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

  A surprised smile lifted the corners of her mouth and lingered as she studied me. “Perhaps we have been reacquainted to help each other.” She inhaled deeply and began, “Remember I confided in you that Hugo and I had not been sexually compatible?” “Because you were both inexperienced when you married.” She nodded. “Our lovemaking never really got much better, though we loved each other and tried. It was a terrible thing because I was so happy with him in every other way.” “I could see you were in love. He was devoted to you.” “Devoted, yes, but from the time I was a girl I dreamt of a marriage of passion as well as devotion. Don’t you want that, too?” “Yes … I don’t expect to find it, though.” “Oh, Tristine, you can’t give up hope so young! I never gave up expecting both passion and devotion. And because with Hugo I had only devotion, I was always looking elsewhere for the passion.” I realized she was telling me that she’d had affairs while married to Hugo; it must have been what led to their divorce. So my inkling when I read A Spy in the House of Love was correct: Sabina’s sexual adventures were autobiographical; the cuckolded Alan was Hugo. I asked, “So were you Sabina then?” “Yes. In her desperate way, Sabina is hunting for the great passion that can subdue and defeat her.” So that was it! That was why, though I longed for one true passion, I behaved like Sabina, who seduced and discarded men for her own amusement. Seemingly out of context, Anaïs asked, “Do you know who Gore Vidal is?” I recalled she had twice dropped his name when she’d shooed me out of her apartment in New York. Was that what she was afraid to tell? She’d been having an affair with Gore Vidal? I said, “I know that he’s a famous writer, but I’ve never read anything by him.” “He’s best known for The City and the Pillar, published when he was only nineteen. By that age, he’d already published two other novels.” A cramp contracted my ribs. I was already twenty-one and hadn’t published anything. Actually, I hadn’t even written anything other than some short stories and term papers. “Gore was an enfant terrible.” Anaïs’s smile twisted. “I met him in 1946. He was only seventeen then, and I was forty-three.” Had she seduced an underage boy? I had never heard of statutory rape by a woman. “Was he your lover?” I whispered. She laughed but not with her high jingling notes. “Everyone knows Gore is homosexual. He never made a secret of it.” “Oh.” “Not that it mattered to me.” I must have looked confused because she sighed. “When I met Gore, he was part of a clique of homosexuals who included me at all their parties in the Village.” She looked at me pleadingly. “You must be patient. I am trying to explain so that you can understand.”

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

  “You’re going to let me read your diary?” Seeing my delight, she grinned her big gummy smile. I opened the top flap and riffled through typed pages with scattered dates: March, 1934; November, 1934; January, 1935. “You typewrote it?” I asked, disappointed that the thermofaxed pages weren’t of handwritten originals. “No, I handwrite it first, but I selected and typed out the entries about my relationships with Henry Miller and Gonzolo Mores for you. Gonzolo was my Paris lover who was a Marxist like your Neal. I thought that reading about my sexual frenzy with them might help you with yours.” “That is so great of you! But my relationship with Neal isn’t just sex,” I clarified. “I’m completely in love with him.” “Oh, I was in love with Henry and Gonzolo, too.” The waiter brought our iced teas, and we paused to hydrate ourselves after our uphill hike. “When I first fell for Henry,” she resumed, “I thought that I would never desire another man. Henry owned my body.” “Like Neal owns mine.” “But I learned from Henry.” Her dry laugh cracked her words. “Perhaps I learned too well how to take sex for its own sake. He taught me a taste for the new and the aphrodisiac of danger.” I had to admit that danger was part of Neal’s appeal—the danger of his politics, of his sexual wildness, of not being able to hold onto him. “Why are we attracted to men like that?” I asked. “It’s projection. Do you know what that is?” “It’s when you see yourself in another person.” “It’s more covert than that.” The waiter delivered our niçoise salads and she picked up her fork with her left hand, and I did likewise. “We choose men who play out parts of ourselves we aren’t ready to acknowledge. As I did with Henry and Gonzolo. They were both rebels from convention, like your Neal.” “Are you saying that I feel I can’t live without Neal because he’s playing out my rebelliousness for me?” “Exactly, Tristine! So you don’t have to! Neal is your man from the earth, as Henry was mine. Neal is your revolutionary firebrand, as Gonzolo was mine.” Urgently, I went to the heart of my dilemma. “But it’s swept me away. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m so consumed with what Neal does, where he’s going, who he’s with. How can I get rid of this jealousy?” Anaïs shrugged. “If you love someone, you will feel jealous.” So it was that simple. All of Neal’s intellectual justifications couldn’t change the nature of feelings. “Should I go out with other guys to make him jealous, so he knows what it feels like?” “No, those are not good games to get into.” “So I just have to suffer?”

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

  “You just gave your books to the wrong producer,” Renate said to Anaïs. “No,” Anaïs chirped. “My intuition tells me he’s the right producer. I liked the way he talked about his wife.” In the T-bird, on the way to drop Renate at her house, we laughed about the confusion caused by Alan Miller and Alan Rosen. We were convinced that everything had happened just the way it was supposed to. We agreed that I would call the number Alan Rosen had given us the next day to make sure he was legit and leave him my phone number and Renate’s, but not Anaïs’s. She would remain the slightly mysterious, elusive author. When I got home in my flirty, feminine new dress, Neal was waiting for me. The more evasive I was in answering how I’d been invited to a Malibu party where John Huston, director of The Maltese Falcon and The African Queen, was a guest, the more Neal wanted to know. He assumed I’d been with another guy, and with his mounting jealousy I felt Sabina’s power return to me. That night Neal’s lovemaking was sweetened with emotion and, for the first time, he whispered that he loved me; though afterward he withdrew, as if his declaration had stolen something from him, something he wanted back. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] The next morning I phoned Alan Rosen’s number and got an answering service, but he called right back and asked to have a two-week exclusive so he could read through all the novels. He invited the three of us to lunch at the Old World on Sunset. The lunch with Alan got rescheduled a few times and when it was finally set, Anaïs couldn’t come because she was flying back to New York to prepare Hugo for her move to Paris. She’d instructed me: “You and Renate are my representatives. Tell Alan that you both should have some participation in the project.” She added invitingly, “So you’ll have money to join me in Paris. I’m counting on you, Tristine, to keep Renate engaged.” Keeping Renate engaged turned out to be easy, since both she and I were soon living alone and needed each other’s company. Renate had asked Ronnie to move out because she could now care for herself, and Neal had packed all his things, excited about an invitation to join up with other civil rights activists in Selma.

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

  “Oh, yes he does, and I’ve seen how they look at each other,” she said evenly, but then her eyes welled as she clutched my hand. “I know Rupert cannot be without a woman, and I don’t want him to be alone in this house when I’m gone, but Tristine!” Her tears overflowed. “I am suffering so from jealousy.” I was furious with Rupert. How could he be so careless as to let Anaïs know that he had found someone already? Why couldn’t he have waited? Why couldn’t he, at least, have been vigilant in hiding it, as she had been for him? I wanted her to be joyful again, as she had been only moments before, but her tears were smearing the ink on the manuscript in her hands. Not knowing how to comfort her, I restated what she had once said to me: “If you love someone, you will be jealous. If you weren’t jealous, it would mean that you don’t really love Rupert, and you do.” She clung to my words. “Dear Tristine, how did you get so wise?” “From you.” She gave me a grateful smile and pulled a tissue from a box by her typewriter. Drying her tears, she changed the subject, practicing her trick of displacement. “You know that little red bird you gave me at the hospital? You inspired me! I asked Rupert to tape-record the finches in the yard. He went out at dawn to capture their song so I could replay it at the hospital while looking at your sweet bird on my bedpost!” She then dashed around her office, placing files into storage boxes like a girl assembling her trousseau. She seemed so fully recovered that I dared to hope that Dr. Brugh Joy was right: guilt had caused her cancer, so released from her guilt she would be cured. This is where I wanted her story to end, with her elation and freedom. With our friendship reconciled and my love proclaimed. She had flown higher than any woman, taken more emotional risks, and at the eleventh hour, pulled off a last triumphal arabesque. In the end, she’d told the truth to both husbands, and they loved her so much, they both forgave her to save her life. When I think about Anaïs and Hugo and Rupert, I don’t see how it could have been any other way. Both men kept themselves from knowing about Anaïs’s double life because they wanted to be with her. They both realized that having half of Anaïs Nin was better than all of any other woman.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Deserving virtue and gay youthfulness; Wisdom; fair conduct; prowess; dauntlessness; Perfection of address; speech which doth move; Then I should be that she, whose happiness Is thus attained in person of my love. ‘But other women are as wise as I, I fear the worst, and tremble with dismay Seeing those others seek to steal away Him who has stolen mine own soul, and so Turning my great bliss into misery Whereat I sigh aloud and live in woe. ‘Felt I his faith as equal to his worth I would not feel this jealousy and pain. But such his worth, and such the ways of men And such the wiles of women who allure, I fear that each one seeks my love to gain And, heartsick, I would gladly death endure. ‘But, in God’s name, let every woman know Not to attempt such injury on me: For if there should be one whose flattery Or words or gestures should entice him hence Then may I be deformed if bitterly I do not make her weep for her offence.’ No sooner did Fiammetta end her song, than Dioneo, who was standing beside her, laughed and said to her: ‘You would be doing all the others a great kindness, madam, if you were to tell them his name, in case they unwittingly take him’ away from you, seeing that you are bound to be so angry about it.’ After this song of Fiammetta’s, they sang a number of others, and when it was nearly midnight, they all, at the king’s behest, retired to bed. Next morning they arose at the crack of dawn, by which time all their baggage had been sent on ahead by the steward, and with their wise king leading the way they returned to Florence. Having taken their leave of the seven young ladies in Santa Maria Novella, whence they had all set out together, the three young men went off in search of other diversions; and in due course the ladies returned to their homes. AUTHOR’S EPILOGUENoble young ladies, for whose solace I undertook this protracted labour, I believe that with the assistance of divine grace (the bestowal of which I impute to your compassionate prayers rather than to any merit of my own) those objectives which I set forth at the beginning of the present work have now been fully achieved. And so, after giving thanks, firstly to God and then to yourselves, the time has come for me to rest my pen and weary hand. Before conceding this repose, however, since I am fully aware that these tales of mine are no less immune from criticism than any of the other things of this world, and indeed I recall having shown this to be so at the beginning of the Fourth Day, I propose briefly to reply to certain trifling objections which, though remaining unspoken, may possibly have arisen in the minds of my readers, including one or two of yourselves.

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

  “You’re going to let me read your diary?” Seeing my delight, she grinned her big gummy smile. I opened the top flap and riffled through typed pages with scattered dates: March, 1934; November, 1934; January, 1935. “You typewrote it?” I asked, disappointed that the thermofaxed pages weren’t of handwritten originals. “No, I handwrite it first, but I selected and typed out the entries about my relationships with Henry Miller and Gonzolo Mores for you. Gonzolo was my Paris lover who was a Marxist like your Neal. I thought that reading about my sexual frenzy with them might help you with yours.” “That is so great of you! But my relationship with Neal isn’t just sex,” I clarified. “I’m completely in love with him.” “Oh, I was in love with Henry and Gonzolo, too.” The waiter brought our iced teas, and we paused to hydrate ourselves after our uphill hike. “When I first fell for Henry,” she resumed, “I thought that I would never desire another man. Henry owned my body.” “Like Neal owns mine.” “But I learned from Henry.” Her dry laugh cracked her words. “Perhaps I learned too well how to take sex for its own sake. He taught me a taste for the new and the aphrodisiac of danger.” I had to admit that danger was part of Neal’s appeal—the danger of his politics, of his sexual wildness, of not being able to hold onto him. “Why are we attracted to men like that?” I asked. “It’s projection. Do you know what that is?” “It’s when you see yourself in another person.” “It’s more covert than that.” The waiter delivered our niçoise salads and she picked up her fork with her left hand, and I did likewise. “We choose men who play out parts of ourselves we aren’t ready to acknowledge. As I did with Henry and Gonzolo. They were both rebels from convention, like your Neal.” “Are you saying that I feel I can’t live without Neal because he’s playing out my rebelliousness for me?” “Exactly, Tristine! So you don’t have to! Neal is your man from the earth, as Henry was mine. Neal is your revolutionary firebrand, as Gonzolo was mine.” Urgently, I went to the heart of my dilemma. “But it’s swept me away. I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m so consumed with what Neal does, where he’s going, who he’s with. How can I get rid of this jealousy?” Anaïs shrugged. “If you love someone, you will feel jealous.” So it was that simple. All of Neal’s intellectual justifications couldn’t change the nature of feelings. “Should I go out with other guys to make him jealous, so he knows what it feels like?” “No, those are not good games to get into.” “So I just have to suffer?”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  O Love, how manifold and mighty are your powers! How wise your counsels, how keen your insights! What philosopher, what artist could ever have conjured up all the arguments, all the subterfuges, all the explanations that you offer spontaneously to those who nail their colours to your mast? Every other doctrine is assuredly behindhand in comparison with yours, as may clearly be seen from the cases already brought to our notice. And to these, fond ladies, I shall now add yet another, by telling you of the expedient adopted by a woman of no great intelligence, who to my way of thinking could only have been motivated by Love. In the city of Arezzo,1 then, there once lived a man of means, Tofano by name, who, having taken to wife a woman of very great beauty, called Monna Ghita, promptly grew jealous of her without any reason. On perceiving how jealous he was, the lady took offence and repeatedly asked him to explain the reason, but since he could only reply in vague and illogical terms, she resolved to make him suffer in good earnest from the ill which hitherto he had feared without cause. Having observed that a certain young man, a very agreeable sort of fellow to her way of thinking, was casting amorous glances in her direction, she secretly began to cultivate his acquaintance. And when she and the young man had carried the affair to the point where it only remained to translate words into deeds, she once again took the initiative and devised a way of doing it. She had already discovered that one of her husband’s bad habits was a fondness for drink, and so she began not only to commend him for it, but to encourage him deliberately whenever she had the chance. With a little practice, she quickly acquired the knack of persuading him to drink himself into a stupor almost as often as she chose, and once she saw that he was blind drunk, she put him to bed and forgathered with her lover. This soon became a regular habit of theirs, and they met together in perfect safety. Indeed, the lady came to rely so completely on the fellow’s talent for drinking himself unconscious that she made bold, not only to admit her lover to the premises, but on occasion to go and spend a goodly part of the night with him at his own house, which was no great distance away.

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

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Renate chided. “Those tapes aren’t going anywhere. Anaïs just wants to keep them. If they worked to arouse Rupert once, they’ll probably work again. It’s not so easy anymore, you know.” “What do you mean? He’s still crazy about her. They’re always spooning in front of everyone.” Renate’s great sympathy for Anaïs came through in her saddened voice. “She sees the way he gawks at all the young women who come there to pay her their obeisance.” “That’s the other thing. She treats those come-lately ‘Ninnies’ the same as me.” “That is not true, Tristine,” Renate objected. “Now you are being unfair.” “She praises them, encourages their writing, calls them her daughters …” “Stop! That’s just Anaïs wanting to hold onto every morsel of her celebrity. She knows it won’t last forever. It’s already fading. What time is it?” “Four twenty-five.” “I hate to interrupt this fascinating conversation, but John Houseman gave me two tickets to see Nureyev tonight at the Dorothy Chandler.” I couldn’t tell if she was inviting me, so I didn’t say anything. “Why don’t you meet me at the restaurant? They validate the parking.” I hesitated, but Renate clinched the deal. “Don’t you want to see that perfect male body in a leotard spinning and leaping across the stage?” [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] The restaurant turned out to be so expensive that we just ordered vodka gimlets. I shared with Renate Anaïs’s advice when she and Rupert had last come to dinner, that I should stay in LA with Philip and pursue my interest in screenwriting. “Hmm. I’m not surprised Anaïs told you to stay with Philip instead of going for the lectureship. I completely disagree with her, but she believes a woman can’t be happy without a man.” “I’ve never heard her say that.” “Haven’t you heard her repeat, ‘A woman alone is not a beautiful thing’? What do you think that means? I’ve told her not to say it. The feminists don’t like it.” “I don’t think she really is a feminist.” “Probably not. I am though. It’s our one bone of contention; she disapproves of my solitude. Otherwise, we are completely copacetic.” The alcohol seemed to have gone to Renate’s head. She was suddenly capricious and more voluble than usual. “You know why Anaïs and I are so alike, don’t you?” She gave me a thin-lipped smile. “I mean besides our both being European transplants and culture hounds.” She was playing one-upsman. She liked to remind me that she had known Anaïs longer and was her closest friend. “Because you’re the same age?” “No, actually Anaïs is eighteen years older than I.” I was surprised. They looked the same age; I’d assumed they were. But maybe it was true what Anaïs had said, that Renate’s bitterness toward men had aged her. Renate used her cloth napkin to pat her lips, leaving a lipstick stain. She said, “Did Anaïs tell you that she and I were both in incestuous relationships?”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  THIRD STORY Mithridanes is filled with envy over Nathan’s reputation for courtesy, and sets out to murder him. He comes across Nathan by accident but fails to recognize him, and after learning from Nathan’s own lips the best way to carry out his intentions, he finds Nathan in a copse, as arranged. When he realizes who it is, he is filled with shame, and thenceforth becomes Nathan’s friend . The tale they had just been told, about an act of generosity performed by a member of the clergy, was certainly felt by one and all to be something akin to a miracle. But once the ladies had finished debating its novelty, the king called upon Filostrato to proceed, and he forthwith began, as follows: Noble ladies, great though the munificence of the King of Spain undoubtedly was, and that of the Abbot of Cluny possibly without precedent, you will perhaps be no less amazed to hear of a person who, in order to extend his generosity to another man who was thirsting not only for his blood but for his very life, astutely arranged to give him what he was seeking. Moreover, as I propose to show you in this little story of mine, he would have succeeded therein if his adversary had chosen to accept his offer. It is quite certain (if the word of various Genoese 1 and of others who have been to those parts may be trusted) that in the region of Cathay 2 there once lived a man of noble lineage, wealthy beyond compare, whose name was Nathan. This man owned a small estate not far from a road along which anyone travelling from the West to the East or vice versa was more or less obliged to pass, and since he was a person of lofty and generous sentiments, who desired to be known by his works, he gathered about him a number of architects and craftsmen, who within a short space of time built for him one of the finest and largest and richest palaces ever seen, and furnished it in excellent taste with all things meet for the reception and entertainment of gentlefolk. There he kept a splendid and numerous retinue of servants, and took pains to ensure that all those people who came and went were received and entertained in a most festive and agreeable manner. To this laudable custom he was so unswervingly attached that before very long his fame had spread, not only throughout the Orient, but to most parts of the western world as well. When he had arrived at a ripe old age without ever wearying of dispensing his largesse, his reputation chanced to reach the ears of a young man called Mithridanes, who lived in that same part of the world, and who, feeling himself to be no less wealthy than Nathan, grew jealous of Nathan’s fame and excellence, and resolved, through a display of greater liberality, either to nullify or darken the old man’s name.

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

  She thought, closing her eyes. When she opened them, she said, “In the pages I gave you, you will see that I suffered from jealousy, too. When Henry told me his wife was coming from New York to join him in Paris, I was consumed with jealousy.” As Anaïs spoke, I could tell she was pulling the memories together. “My way of dealing with it was to defuse the enemy through seduction. But I didn’t expect that June, beautiful, mysterious June, would be even better at the game of seduction than I was. Now I was obsessed with them both, Henry and June. I was jealous of Henry’s relationship with her and of her relationship with him. I projected different aspects of myself onto them. Henry was the writer I wanted to be. June was the woman I wanted to be. Are you attracted to the woman Neal is sleeping with?” “I think it’s more than one woman and I haven’t met any of them.” Then I told her something very private. “I have a fantasy image of his other woman, though. She’s soft and blond and passive, the opposite of me. In my nightmares she is in the shower with Neal, and he loves her.” “She is also a projection of a disowned self.” Anaïs nodded. “How are you even sure Neal really has other lovers, and it isn’t all your imagination?” “Because I pester him with questions, and sometimes he answers them honestly.” “You shouldn’t do that,” Anaïs said. “I know, but I can’t help myself. What can I do? Tell me, please!” I confessed to her how my obsession with him had extinguished my purposefulness and intelligence. “I’m like the professor in The Blue Angel who falls for Marlene Dietrich, and it destroys his life.” She laughed so heartily that the few other people in the café looked up from their copies of Hollywood Reporter. “Be careful of exaggeration,” she said, but seeing my chagrin, she softened her voice. “I hope you are putting this in your diary.” I nodded. “So I’ll remember it someday.” “No, so you can move through it.” I must have looked perplexed because she explained, “It’s a process of addition.” She put down her fork and raised her hands like a conductor with a baton. She pointed to my left shoulder with the imaginary baton. “You feel this”—she pointed to my chest—“and then you feel this”—and to my right shoulder—“and then this. It doesn’t matter if the feelings contradict each other.” She swung her graceful arms, bent at the elbow, as if I were her orchestra. “All that matters is that the feelings are true to their moment.” She lowered her arms and picked up her fork again. “And don’t make judgments on yourself as you write. You have to give yourself that freedom.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  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. So when her husband was not at home, she went from room to room carefully inspecting the wall, until eventually, in a very remote part of the house, she came across a place where it was cracked. She peered through to the other side, and although she could not make very much out, she could see enough to realize that it was a bedroom, and she said to herself: ‘If this turned out to be the bedroom of Filippo’ (the name of the youth next door) ‘there wouldn’t be much left for me to do.’ So she got one of her maidservants, who was feeling rather sorry for her, to keep watch whenever there was nobody about, and discovered that it was indeed the young man’s bedroom, and that he slept there all by himself.