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 Anna Karenina (1877)

  But he could not at once recall what he had been going to say. These fits of jealousy, which of late had been more and more frequent with her, horrified him, and however much he tried to disguise the fact, made him feel cold to her, although he knew the cause of her jealousy was her love for him. How often he had told himself that her love was happiness; and now she loved him as a woman can love when love has outweighed for her all the good things of life—and he was much further from happiness than when he had followed her from Moscow. Then he had thought himself unhappy, but happiness was before him; now he felt that the best happiness was already left behind. She was utterly unlike what she had been when he first saw her. Both morally and physically she had changed for the worse. She had broadened out all over, and in her face at the time when she was speaking of the actress there was an evil expression of hatred that distorted it. He looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered, with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have torn that love out of his heart; but now, when as at that moment it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound him to her could not be broken. “Well, well, what was it you were going to say about the prince? I have driven away the fiend,” she added. The fiend was the name they had given her jealousy. “What did you begin to tell me about the prince? Why did you find it so tiresome?” “Oh, it was intolerable!” he said, trying to pick up the thread of his interrupted thought. “He does not improve on closer acquaintance. If you want him defined, here he is: a prime, well-fed beast such as takes medals at the cattle shows, and nothing more,” he said, with a tone of vexation that interested her. “No; how so?” she replied. “He’s seen a great deal, anyway; he’s cultured?” “It’s an utterly different culture—their culture. He’s cultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture, as they despise everything but animal pleasures.” “But don’t you all care for these animal pleasures?” she said, and again he noticed a dark look in her eyes that avoided him. “How is it you’re defending him?” he said, smiling. “I’m not defending him, it’s nothing to me; but I imagine, if you had not cared for those pleasures yourself, you might have got out of them. But if it affords you satisfaction to gaze at Thérèse in the attire of Eve....”

• From Querelle (1953)

  Gil described him. When Quere11e met him one evening, just as he was about to part from Mario, Querelle felt a deep wound reopening within himself. He recognized the boy who had witnessed his dispute with Robert, and his own rival for Mario's favors. Nevertheless, he held out his hand. He felt there was something like a cunning sneer in Dede's behavior, in his smile, in his voice. When the boy had walked away from them, Querelle asked, with a smile : "Who's that, now? Is that your little lover?" Responding with an equal, slightly mocking smile in his voice, Mario said : ''\\That's it to you? He's a sweet little kid. You aren't jealous or anything?" Querelle laughed and had the audacity to say : "\Vhat if I am? Wh y not?" ''Oh '' , come on . . . lS6 I JEAN GENET But then he went on, in an excited, broken voice : "Come on, suck mel" Querelle, too, was in a highly excited mood. Furiously, desperately, he kissed Mario on the mouth. Then, with greater ardor than was customary and with great dedication, he tried his damnedest to really feel the detective's prick penetrating his mouth and throat. Mario noticed his desperate mood. To the fleeting but repeating fear that the wild sailor might chomp off his member in one feii swoop, the detective added the spices of excited lovers' hiccoughs and dangerous confessions, expressing the latter in the form of groans or pr�yers. Certain that his lover rejoiced in cowering on his knees in front of a cop, Mario exhaled ail his own ignominy. Teeth clenched, face turned up into the fog, he murmured : "Yes, I'm a cop! Yes, I'm a dirty bastard! I've screwed a lot of guys! And they're ali in the joint now, doing time! I love that, you know, it's my job . . . " The more he described his abject desires, the harder his muscles grew and imposed on Quereiie an imperious, dominant, invincible and beneficial presence. When they were face to face again, standing, buttoning up, retransformed into men, neither one of them dared to mention their delirious state of a moment ago; in order to disperse the disquiet that separated them from one another, Quereiie smiled and said : "Weii, you stiii haven't told me if that kid's your piece of ass?" "You reaiiy want to know?" Suddenly Querelle was frightened, but he kept his voice calm : "Yes. Well, then?" "He's my informer." "No kidding!" Now they could go on, talk shop. In low voices, trying, nevertheless, to keep them calm and clear, so as not to show any signs of how bizarre and possibly sham�ful they felt the subject to be, 257 I QUERELLE they went on talking, and at one point Querelle made this statement : ''You know, I could fix i t so you'd get to arrest that Turko." Mario took it in his stride. "Is that right?'' he said.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Vronsky listened attentively, but he was not so much interested by the meaning of the words as by the attitude of Serpuhovskoy who was already contemplating a struggle with the existing powers, and already had his likes and dislikes in that higher world, while his own interest in the governing world did not go beyond the interests of his regiment. Vronsky felt, too, how powerful Serpuhovskoy might become through his unmistakable faculty for thinking things out and for taking things in, through his intelligence and gift of words, so rarely met with in the world in which he moved. And, ashamed as he was of the feeling, he felt envious. “Still I haven’t the one thing of most importance for that,” he answered; “I haven’t the desire for power. I had it once, but it’s gone.” “Excuse me, that’s not true,” said Serpuhovskoy, smiling. “Yes, it is true, it is true ... now!” Vronsky added, to be truthful. “Yes, it’s true now, that’s another thing; but that _now_ won’t last forever.” “Perhaps,” answered Vronsky. “You say _perhaps_,” Serpuhovskoy went on, as though guessing his thoughts, “but I say _for certain_. And that’s what I wanted to see you for. Your action was just what it should have been. I see that, but you ought not to keep it up. I only ask you to give me _carte blanche_. I’m not going to offer you my protection ... though, indeed, why shouldn’t I protect you?—you’ve protected me often enough! I should hope our friendship rises above all that sort of thing. Yes,” he said, smiling to him as tenderly as a woman, “give me _carte blanche_, retire from the regiment, and I’ll draw you upwards imperceptibly.” “But you must understand that I want nothing,” said Vronsky, “except that all should be as it is.” Serpuhovskoy got up and stood facing him. “You say that all should be as it is. I understand what that means. But listen: we’re the same age, you’ve known a greater number of women perhaps than I have.” Serpohovskoy’s smile and gestures told Vronsky that he mustn’t be afraid, that he would be tender and careful in touching the sore place. “But I’m married, and believe me, in getting to know thoroughly one’s wife, if one loves her, as someone has said, one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of them.” “We’re coming directly!” Vronsky shouted to an officer, who looked into the room and called them to the colonel. Vronsky was longing now to hear to the end and know what Serpuhovskey would say to him.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “No; you laugh,” said Anna, laughing too in spite of herself, “but I never could understand it. I can’t understand the husband’s rôle in it.” “The husband? Liza Merkalova’s husband carries her shawl, and is always ready to be of use. But anything more than that in reality, no one cares to inquire. You know in decent society one doesn’t talk or think even of certain details of the toilet. That’s how it is with this.” “Will you be at Madame Rolandak’s fête?” asked Anna, to change the conversation. “I don’t think so,” answered Betsy, and, without looking at her friend, she began filling the little transparent cups with fragrant tea. Putting a cup before Anna, she took out a cigarette, and, fitting it into a silver holder, she lighted it. “It’s like this, you see: I’m in a fortunate position,” she began, quite serious now, as she took up her cup. “I understand you, and I understand Liza. Liza now is one of those naïve natures that, like children, don’t know what’s good and what’s bad. Anyway, she didn’t comprehend it when she was very young. And now she’s aware that the lack of comprehension suits her. Now, perhaps, she doesn’t know on purpose,” said Betsy, with a subtle smile. “But, anyway, it suits her. The very same thing, don’t you see, may be looked at tragically, and turned into a misery, or it may be looked at simply and even humorously. Possibly you are inclined to look at things too tragically.” “How I should like to know other people just as I know myself!” said Anna, seriously and dreamily. “Am I worse than other people, or better? I think I’m worse.” “_Enfant terrible, enfant terrible!_” repeated Betsy. “But here they are.” Chapter 18 They heard the sound of steps and a man’s voice, then a woman’s voice and laughter, and immediately thereafter there walked in the expected guests: Sappho Shtoltz, and a young man beaming with excess of health, the so-called Vaska. It was evident that ample supplies of beefsteak, truffles, and Burgundy never failed to reach him at the fitting hour. Vaska bowed to the two ladies, and glanced at them, but only for one second. He walked after Sappho into the drawing-room, and followed her about as though he were chained to her, keeping his sparkling eyes fixed on her as though he wanted to eat her. Sappho Shtoltz was a blonde beauty with black eyes. She walked with smart little steps in high-heeled shoes, and shook hands with the ladies vigorously like a man.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  First-born children often feel jealous when a younger sibling is born. Wise parents make a special point of reassuring the child that she’ll always be special, that the baby doesn’t represent any kind of threat to her status, and that there’s plenty of love for everyone. Why is it so easy to believe that a mother’s love isn’t a zero-sum proposition, but that sexual love is a finite resource? Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins asks the pertinent question with characteristic elegance: “Is it so very obvious that you can’t love more than one person? We seem to manage it with parental love (parents are reproached if they don’t at least pretend to love all their children equally), love of books, of food, of wine (love of Château Margaux does not preclude love of a fine Hock, and we don’t feel unfaithful to the red when we dally with the white), love of composers, poets, holiday beaches, friends…why is erotic love the one exception that everybody instantly acknowledges without even thinking about it?”14 Why, indeed? How would the prevalence and experience of jealousy be affected in Western societies if the economic dependence trapping most women and their children didn’t exist, leading female sexual access to be a tightly controlled commodity? What if economic security and guilt-free sexual friendships were easily available to almost all men and women, as they are in many of the societies we’ve discussed, as well as among our closest primate cousins? What if no woman had to worry that a ruptured relationship would leave her and her children destitute and vulnerable? What if average guys knew they’d never have to worry about finding someone to love? What if we didn’t all grow up hearing that true love is obsessive and possessive? What if, like the Mosuo, we revered the dignity and autonomy of those we loved? What if, in other words, sex, love, and economic security were as available to us as they were to our ancestors? If fear is removed from jealousy, what’s left? Human beings will be happier—not when they cure cancer or get to Mars or eliminate racial prejudice or flush Lake Erie but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again. That’s my utopia. KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “I gave that life up long ago,” said he, wondering at the change in her face, and trying to divine its meaning. “And I confess,” he said, with a smile, showing his thick, white teeth, “this week I’ve been, as it were, looking at myself in a glass, seeing that life, and I didn’t like it.” She held the work in her hands, but did not crochet, and looked at him with strange, shining, and hostile eyes. “This morning Liza came to see me—they’re not afraid to call on me, in spite of the Countess Lidia Ivanovna,” she put in—“and she told me about your Athenian evening. How loathsome!” “I was just going to say....” She interrupted him. “It was that Thérèse you used to know?” “I was just saying....” “How disgusting you are, you men! How is it you can’t understand that a woman can never forget that,” she said, getting more and more angry, and so letting him see the cause of her irritation, “especially a woman who cannot know your life? What do I know? What have I ever known?” she said, “what you tell me. And how do I know whether you tell me the truth?...” “Anna, you hurt me. Don’t you trust me? Haven’t I told you that I haven’t a thought I wouldn’t lay bare to you?” “Yes, yes,” she said, evidently trying to suppress her jealous thoughts. “But if only you knew how wretched I am! I believe you, I believe you.... What were you saying?”

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  "But you must never look at the faces of your masters and mistresses, you must never try to meet their eyes, and there is not to be a sound out of you," he directed, "save your answers to me." "Yes, Lord Gregory," she whispered. The stone floor beneath her was swept very clean and polished, but it hurt her knees nevertheless because it was stone. Yet she followed him at once past the other beds on which slaves were being groomed, and the baths in which two young men were being bathed, just as she had been bathed, their eyes flashing over her with mild curiosity as she risked a glance at each of them. "All handsome," she mused. But when a stunningly beautiful young woman was driven across her path, she felt a hot flush of jealousy. This was a girl with a mane of silvery hair much fuller and curlier than Beauty's, and as she was on her knees, her huge magnificent breasts hung down showing their large pink nipples to great advantage. The Page who drove her with the paddle seemed very engaged with her, laughing at her little cries, and forcing her to move faster with the force of his blows as well as the mocking and cheerful commands he gave her. Lord Gregory paused as if he, too, enjoyed the sight of this girl as she was brought up, and into the bath, her legs forces apart as Beauty's had been. Beauty could not help but notice her breasts again, and how large were the pink nipples. The girl's hips were ample for her size, and to Beauty's amazement, she was not really crying as she was lowered into the water. Her moans were more complaints as the paddle still smacked her. Lord Gregory made some approving sound. "Lovely," he said so that Beauty could hear him. "And three months ago she was as wild and untamed as a nymph from the forest. The transformation is quite exquisite." Lord Gregory turned sharply to his left and when Beauty did not at once realize it, he gave her a sound spank and then another. "Now, Beauty," Lord Gregory said, as they passed through a doorway into a long room, "do you wonder how others are trained to show the passion you exhibit with such abandon?" Beauty knew her cheeks were crimson. She could not bring herself to answer. The room was dimly lit by a nearby fire, but its doors were open to the garden. And here Beauty saw that many captives were positioned on tables as she had been in the Great Hall, each with a Page in attendance. And all the Pages worked diligently taking no note of cries or commotion at any other table. Several young men knelt with their hands strapped behind them.

• From Querelle (1953)

  l30 I JEAN GENET "Let go, or I'll kill you." The Lieutenant relinquished his grip and Gil, satchel in hand, staggered a step back, turned round and was off to a flying start. He disappeared in the fog. Fifteen minutes later he was back in his hiding place. The police did not regard him as a possible suspect. They made enquiries . among the sailors but found out nothing. Querelle did not have to worry one minute. As Querelle became more and more important, Roger sadly watched Gil drifting away from him. When he went to see him, Gil no longer had any caresses for him. Gil simply shook his ha nd. Roger had the feeling that everything was now happening above his head, above his youth. Without hating him he was jealous of Querelle. It had pleased him to have his own small degree of importance, in such a dramatic sequence of events. Finally, having fallen in . love with the Doppelganger beauty of the two brothers, he himself withdrew from Gil. He was caught in some kind of complex system of transmission belts, and the faces of Querelle and Robert became necess�ties for the fulfilment of his happiness. He lived in the anticipation of another miracle that would bring him into the presence of bot h those young me rl , in a situation where he would be loved by both of them. Every evening he went long stretches out of his way to pass by the vicinity of La Feria-which to him truly seemed like a chapel; the day he had gone to see Gil at work he had heard one of the masons say: "Me, I go to Mass at that chapel in the Rue du Sac." Roger remembe�;ed the mason's great horselaugh, his big white hand holding a trowel, plunging it into a trough filled with mortar with sharp, regular movements. Roger had not cared to ask himself what rites the big tough bruiser might practice in that chapel of his: Roger knew the brothel by loca tion and reputation, but now the sight of La Feria excited him because he knew it to be the temple of that god (that bicepha lous monster on his mind, although he had no · name for it)

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Seeing Alexey Alexandrovitch with his Petersburg face and severely self-confident figure, in his round hat, with his rather prominent spine, he believed in him, and was aware of a disagreeable sensation, such as a man might feel tortured by thirst, who, on reaching a spring, should find a dog, a sheep, or a pig, who has drunk of it and muddied the water. Alexey Alexandrovitch’s manner of walking, with a swing of the hips and flat feet, particularly annoyed Vronsky. He could recognize in no one but himself an indubitable right to love her. But she was still the same, and the sight of her affected him the same way, physically reviving him, stirring him, and filling his soul with rapture. He told his German valet, who ran up to him from the second class, to take his things and go on, and he himself went up to her. He saw the first meeting between the husband and wife, and noted with a lover’s insight the signs of slight reserve with which she spoke to her husband. “No, she does not love him and cannot love him,” he decided to himself. At the moment when he was approaching Anna Arkadyevna he noticed too with joy that she was conscious of his being near, and looked round, and seeing him, turned again to her husband. “Have you passed a good night?” he asked, bowing to her and her husband together, and leaving it up to Alexey Alexandrovitch to accept the bow on his own account, and to recognize it or not, as he might see fit. “Thank you, very good,” she answered. Her face looked weary, and there was not that play of eagerness in it, peeping out in her smile and her eyes; but for a single instant, as she glanced at him, there was a flash of something in her eyes, and although the flash died away at once, he was happy for that moment. She glanced at her husband to find out whether he knew Vronsky. Alexey Alexandrovitch looked at Vronsky with displeasure, vaguely recalling who this was. Vronsky’s composure and self-confidence here struck, like a scythe against a stone, upon the cold self-confidence of Alexey Alexandrovitch. “Count Vronsky,” said Anna. “Ah! We are acquainted, I believe,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch indifferently, giving his hand. “You set off with the mother and you return with the son,” he said, articulating each syllable, as though each were a separate favor he was bestowing. “You’re back from leave, I suppose?” he said, and without waiting for a reply, he turned to his wife in his jesting tone: “Well, were a great many tears shed at Moscow at parting?” By addressing his wife like this he gave Vronsky to understand that he wished to be left alone, and, turning slightly towards him, he touched his hat; but Vronsky turned to Anna Arkadyevna. “I hope I may have the honor of calling on you,” he said.

• From Querelle (1953)

  217 I QUERELLE she developed an appetite for muscular young men . But exactly at a time when she could have achieved happiness, she began to be consumed by a jealousy she was unable to demonstrate to anyone. No 9ne would have understood her. She loved Robert. \Vhen she thought of his hair, the nape of his neck, his thighs, her nipples hardened as they were moving forward to their reunion with the evoked image, and all day long, in the feverish joy of an only barely restrained desire, Madame Lysiane pre pared herself for nights of love. Her man! Robert was her man. The first one, the true one. Now, if they really loved each other, did they, too, make love? Like pederasts. Pederasts were shame ful . To mention them in this brothel was comparable to the evocation of Satan in the choir of a basilica. 1;1adame Lysiane despised them. No one of them ever crossed her doorstep. She only admitted certain clients with bizarre tastes wh o demanded things one did not otherwise expect women to do, and no doubt these_were tainted with a touch of queerness: but it was women they went upstairs with, and so one could assume that it was women they liked. In their own way. But homosexuals-never. "But what am I trying to do there? Robert's no faggot ... " In her mind's eye she saw her lover's regular, tough, com posed features-but with incredible speed these faded into an image of the sailor's face, and this again became Robert's, changing into Querelle's, and Querelle, again, into Robert ... A composite face with an unchanging expression: hard eyes, mouth severe and calm, the chin solid, and over all that, a pecul iar air of innocence in regard to the unceasing confusi�n. Querelle never dared mention Mario' s name. Sometimes he wondered if anyone knew about his escapade with the detec tive. But why would he brag about it. It didn't look as if Madame Lysiane had heard anything about it. Having met her that first day he walked into La Feria, he had ignored her ever since. But little by little, with her habitual authority, she

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “No! Come along, Levin, let’s go together!” Veslovsky called. “Really, there’s not room. Laska, back, Laska! You won’t want another dog, will you?” Levin remained with the wagonette, and looked enviously at the sportsmen. They walked right across the marsh. Except little birds and peewits, of which Vassenka killed one, there was nothing in the marsh. “Come, you see now that it was not that I grudged the marsh,” said Levin, “only it’s wasting time.” “Oh, no, it was jolly all the same. Did you see us?” said Vassenka Veslovsky, clambering awkwardly into the wagonette with his gun and his peewit in his hands. “How splendidly I shot this bird! Didn’t I? Well, shall we soon be getting to the real place?” The horses started off suddenly, Levin knocked his head against the stock of someone’s gun, and there was the report of a shot. The gun did actually go off first, but that was how it seemed to Levin. It appeared that Vassenka Veslovsky had pulled only one trigger, and had left the other hammer still cocked. The charge flew into the ground without doing harm to anyone. Stepan Arkadyevitch shook his head and laughed reprovingly at Veslovsky. But Levin had not the heart to reprove him. In the first place, any reproach would have seemed to be called forth by the danger he had incurred and the bump that had come up on Levin’s forehead. And besides, Veslovsky was at first so naïvely distressed, and then laughed so good-humoredly and infectiously at their general dismay, that one could not but laugh with him. When they reached the second marsh, which was fairly large, and would inevitably take some time to shoot over, Levin tried to persuade them to pass it by. But Veslovsky again overpersuaded him. Again, as the marsh was narrow, Levin, like a good host, remained with the carriage. Krak made straight for some clumps of sedge. Vassenka Veslovsky was the first to run after the dog. Before Stepan Arkadyevitch had time to come up, a grouse flew out. Veslovsky missed it and it flew into an unmown meadow. This grouse was left for Veslovsky to follow up. Krak found it again and pointed, and Veslovsky shot it and went back to the carriage. “Now you go and I’ll stay with the horses,” he said. Levin had begun to feel the pangs of a sportsman’s envy. He handed the reins to Veslovsky and walked into the marsh. Laska, who had been plaintively whining and fretting against the injustice of her treatment, flew straight ahead to a hopeful place that Levin knew well, and that Krak had not yet come upon. “Why don’t you stop her?” shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch. “She won’t scare them,” answered Levin, sympathizing with his bitch’s pleasure and hurrying after her.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Gil described him. When Quere11e met him one evening, just as he was about to part from Mario, Querelle felt a deep wound reopening within himself. He recognized the boy who had witnessed his dispute with Robert, and his own rival for Mario's favors. Nevertheless, he held out his hand. He felt there was something like a cunning sneer in Dede's behavior, in his smile, in his voice. When the boy had walked away from them, Querelle asked, with a smile : "Who's that, now? Is that your little lover?" Responding with an equal, slightly mocking smile in his voice, Mario said : ''\\That's it to you? He's a sweet little kid. You aren't jealous or anything?" Querelle laughed and had the audacity to say : "\Vhat if I am? Wh y not?" ''Oh '' , come on . . . lS6 I JEAN GENET But then he went on, in an excited, broken voice : "Come on, suck mel" Querelle, too, was in a highly excited mood. Furiously, desperately, he kissed Mario on the mouth. Then, with greater ardor than was customary and with great dedication, he tried his damnedest to really feel the detective's prick penetrating his mouth and throat. Mario noticed his desperate mood. To the fleeting but repeating fear that the wild sailor might chomp off his member in one feii swoop, the detective added the spices of excited lovers' hiccoughs and dangerous confessions, expressing the latter in the form of groans or pr�yers. Certain that his lover rejoiced in cowering on his knees in front of a cop, Mario exhaled ail his own ignominy. Teeth clenched, face turned up into the fog, he murmured : "Yes, I'm a cop! Yes, I'm a dirty bastard! I've screwed a lot of guys! And they're ali in the joint now, doing time! I love that, you know, it's my job . . . " The more he described his abject desires, the harder his muscles grew and imposed on Quereiie an imperious, dominant, invincible and beneficial presence. When they were face to face again, standing, buttoning up, retransformed into men, neither one of them dared to mention their delirious state of a moment ago; in order to disperse the disquiet that separated them from one another, Quereiie smiled and said : "Weii, you stiii haven't told me if that kid's your piece of ass?" "You reaiiy want to know?" Suddenly Querelle was frightened, but he kept his voice calm : "Yes. Well, then?" "He's my informer." "No kidding!" Now they could go on, talk shop. In low voices, trying, nevertheless, to keep them calm and clear, so as not to show any signs of how bizarre and possibly sham�ful they felt the subject to be, 257 I QUERELLE they went on talking, and at one point Querelle made this statement : ''You know, I could fix i t so you'd get to arrest that Turko." Mario took it in his stride. "Is that right?'' he said.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  She took him by the hand, and without taking her eyes off him, gazed at him while she ransacked her mind for the words to say that would keep him. “Wait a minute, there’s something I want to say to you,” and taking his broad hand she pressed it on her neck. “Oh, was it right my asking him to dinner?” “You did quite right,” he said with a serene smile that showed his even teeth, and he kissed her hand. “Alexey, you have not changed to me?” she said, pressing his hand in both of hers. “Alexey, I am miserable here. When are we going away?” “Soon, soon. You wouldn’t believe how disagreeable our way of living here is to me too,” he said, and he drew away his hand. “Well, go, go!” she said in a tone of offense, and she walked quickly away from him. Chapter 32 When Vronsky returned home, Anna was not yet home. Soon after he had left, some lady, so they told him, had come to see her, and she had gone out with her. That she had gone out without leaving word where she was going, that she had not yet come back, and that all the morning she had been going about somewhere without a word to him—all this, together with the strange look of excitement in her face in the morning, and the recollection of the hostile tone with which she had before Yashvin almost snatched her son’s photographs out of his hands, made him serious. He decided he absolutely must speak openly with her. And he waited for her in her drawing-room. But Anna did not return alone, but brought with her her old unmarried aunt, Princess Oblonskaya. This was the lady who had come in the morning, and with whom Anna had gone out shopping. Anna appeared not to notice Vronsky’s worried and inquiring expression, and began a lively account of her morning’s shopping. He saw that there was something working within her; in her flashing eyes, when they rested for a moment on him, there was an intense concentration, and in her words and movements there was that nervous rapidity and grace which, during the early period of their intimacy, had so fascinated him, but which now so disturbed and alarmed him. The dinner was laid for four. All were gathered together and about to go into the little dining-room when Tushkevitch made his appearance with a message from Princess Betsy. Princess Betsy begged her to excuse her not having come to say good-bye; she had been indisposed, but begged Anna to come to her between half-past six and nine o’clock. Vronsky glanced at Anna at the precise limit of time, so suggestive of steps having been taken that she should meet no one; but Anna appeared not to notice it. “Very sorry that I can’t come just between half-past six and nine,” she said with a faint smile. “The princess will be very sorry.”

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Yes, really, let’s not go to bed at all! Capital!” Veslovsky chimed in. “Oh, we all know you can do without sleep, and keep other people up too,” Dolly said to her husband, with that faint note of irony in her voice which she almost always had now with her husband. “But to my thinking, it’s time for bed now.... I’m going, I don’t want supper.” “No, do stay a little, Dolly,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, going round to her side behind the table where they were having supper. “I’ve so much still to tell you.” “Nothing really, I suppose.” “Do you know Veslovsky has been at Anna’s, and he’s going to them again? You know they’re hardly fifty miles from you, and I too must certainly go over there. Veslovsky, come here!” Vassenka crossed over to the ladies, and sat down beside Kitty. “Ah, do tell me, please; you have stayed with her? How was she?” Darya Alexandrovna appealed to him. Levin was left at the other end of the table, and though never pausing in his conversation with the princess and Varenka, he saw that there was an eager and mysterious conversation going on between Stepan Arkadyevitch, Dolly, Kitty, and Veslovsky. And that was not all. He saw on his wife’s face an expression of real feeling as she gazed with fixed eyes on the handsome face of Vassenka, who was telling them something with great animation. “It’s exceedingly nice at their place,” Veslovsky was telling them about Vronsky and Anna. “I can’t, of course, take it upon myself to judge, but in their house you feel the real feeling of home.” “What do they intend doing?” “I believe they think of going to Moscow.” “How jolly it would be for us all to go over to them together! When are you going there?” Stepan Arkadyevitch asked Vassenka. “I’m spending July there.” “Will you go?” Stepan Arkadyevitch said to his wife. “I’ve been wanting to a long while; I shall certainly go,” said Dolly. “I am sorry for her, and I know her. She’s a splendid woman. I will go alone, when you go back, and then I shall be in no one’s way. And it will be better indeed without you.” “To be sure,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “And you, Kitty?” “I? Why should I go?” Kitty said, flushing all over, and she glanced round at her husband. “Do you know Anna Arkadyevna, then?” Veslovsky asked her. “She’s a very fascinating woman.” “Yes,” she answered Veslovsky, crimsoning still more. She got up and walked across to her husband. “Are you going shooting, then, tomorrow?” she said.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “She doesn’t believe in his love. So what is she so pleased about? Revolting!” thought Levin. He looked at the princess, who had been so dear to him a minute before, and he did not like the manner in which she welcomed this Vassenka, with his ribbons, just as though she were in her own house. Even Sergey Ivanovitch, who had come out too onto the steps, seemed to him unpleasant with the show of cordiality with which he met Stepan Arkadyevitch, though Levin knew that his brother neither liked nor respected Oblonsky. And Varenka, even she seemed hateful, with her air _sainte nitouche_ making the acquaintance of this gentleman, while all the while she was thinking of nothing but getting married. And more hateful than anyone was Kitty for falling in with the tone of gaiety with which this gentleman regarded his visit in the country, as though it were a holiday for himself and everyone else. And, above all, unpleasant was that particular smile with which she responded to his smile. Noisily talking, they all went into the house; but as soon as they were all seated, Levin turned and went out. Kitty saw something was wrong with her husband. She tried to seize a moment to speak to him alone, but he made haste to get away from her, saying he was wanted at the counting-house. It was long since his own work on the estate had seemed to him so important as at that moment. “It’s all holiday for them,” he thought; “but these are no holiday matters, they won’t wait, and there’s no living without them.” Chapter 7 Levin came back to the house only when they sent to summon him to supper. On the stairs were standing Kitty and Agafea Mihalovna, consulting about wines for supper. “But why are you making all this fuss? Have what we usually do.” “No, Stiva doesn’t drink ... Kostya, stop, what’s the matter?” Kitty began, hurrying after him, but he strode ruthlessly away to the dining-room without waiting for her, and at once joined in the lively general conversation which was being maintained there by Vassenka Veslovsky and Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Well, what do you say, are we going shooting tomorrow?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Please, do let’s go,” said Veslovsky, moving to another chair, where he sat down sideways, with one fat leg crossed under him. “I shall be delighted, we will go. And have you had any shooting yet this year?” said Levin to Veslovsky, looking intently at his leg, but speaking with that forced amiability that Kitty knew so well in him, and that was so out of keeping with him. “I can’t answer for our finding grouse, but there are plenty of snipe. Only we ought to start early. You’re not tired? Aren’t you tired, Stiva?” “Me tired? I’ve never been tired yet. Suppose we stay up all night. Let’s go for a walk!”

• From Querelle (1953)

  Gil realized that he no longer meant the world to Roger: once the kid was out of the old prison, he lived a life in which there was no room for Gil at all. He was afraid that that life 233 I QUERELLE might tum out to be more exciting than his own. In any case, not being attached to Gil any longer, Roger could move about unscathed and participate in festivities from which he, Gil, was excluded, in the rooms of the brothel where the two brothers came and went, from one room to another (whose arrangement and furnishings he mistakenly visualized as corresponding to the dilapidated fa�de of the building) , looking for each other, finding each other (and their meeting would give rise to a command ) only to part again, to lose themselves and look for each other in the great to-and-fro of women dressed in veils and lace. Gil managed to see the two brothers. standing there, holding hands and smiling at the boy. They had the same smile. They extended an ann to reach for the boy, who came along willingly, and held him between themselves for a moment. At home, Roger could never n1ention the two brothers, couldn't talk about a pimp and a thief. One word about such people and his sister would have reported it to his mother. His infatuation, however, created such violent pressure inside him that he was running the risk of giving himself away at any moment. In any case, he thought about them in such awkward and childlike terms; one day he exclaimed : "The Gallant Knights!" , But he found it hard to imagine himself involved in numerous deeds of derring-do in their company. Only certain images formed in his mind, and in these he saw himself offering the reunited brothers something-he did not know what it was, only that it belonged to the most precious part of himself. He even had the notion of transmitting a double image of his own face and body to Jo and Robert, on a mission to make them accept this friendship the unique and essential person, who remained in his room all the while, was offering them. Querelle returned one evening when he knew Roger would not be there. "Well, old hoss, \ve're all set. Everything's ready. I got you a ticket to Bordeaux. The only thing is, you have to catch that train at Quimper." 234 I JEAN GENET "But what about my clothes? I still haven't got any." "That's just it, you'll get some in Quimper. You can't buy anything here a�yway. But now you've got money, you'll get by. Five thousand, for godssakes. You can take it easy for a while." "I've been lucky to have you on my side, you know, Jo?" "That's for sure. But now you've got to watch out so's you won't get caught. And I guess I can count on you not to spill the beans even if that should happen."

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  His jealousy had in these few moments, especially at the flush that had overspread her cheeks while she was talking to Veslovsky, gone far indeed. Now as he heard her words, he construed them in his own fashion. Strange as it was to him afterwards to recall it, it seemed to him at the moment clear that in asking whether he was going shooting, all she cared to know was whether he would give that pleasure to Vassenka Veslovsky, with whom, as he fancied, she was in love. “Yes, I’m going,” he answered her in an unnatural voice, disagreeable to himself. “No, better spend the day here tomorrow, or Dolly won’t see anything of her husband, and set off the day after,” said Kitty. The motive of Kitty’s words was interpreted by Levin thus: “Don’t separate me from _him_. I don’t care about _your_ going, but do let me enjoy the society of this delightful young man.” “Oh, if you wish, we’ll stay here tomorrow,” Levin answered, with peculiar amiability. Vassenka meanwhile, utterly unsuspecting the misery his presence had occasioned, got up from the table after Kitty, and watching her with smiling and admiring eyes, he followed her. Levin saw that look. He turned white, and for a minute he could hardly breathe. “How dare he look at my wife like that!” was the feeling that boiled within him. “Tomorrow, then? Do, please, let us go,” said Vassenka, sitting down on a chair, and again crossing his leg as his habit was. Levin’s jealousy went further still. Already he saw himself a deceived husband, looked upon by his wife and her lover as simply necessary to provide them with the conveniences and pleasures of life.... But in spite of that he made polite and hospitable inquiries of Vassenka about his shooting, his gun, and his boots, and agreed to go shooting next day. Happily for Levin, the old princess cut short his agonies by getting up herself and advising Kitty to go to bed. But even at this point Levin could not escape another agony. As he said good-night to his hostess, Vassenka would again have kissed her hand, but Kitty, reddening, drew back her hand and said with a naïve bluntness, for which the old princess scolded her afterwards: “We don’t like that fashion.” In Levin’s eyes she was to blame for having allowed such relations to arise, and still more to blame for showing so awkwardly that she did not like them.

• From Querelle (1953)

  As Querelle became more and more important, Roger sadly watched Gil drifting away from him. When he went to see him, Gil no longer had any caresses for him. Gil simply shook his hand. Roger had the feeling that everything was now happening above his head, above his youth. Without hating him he was jealous of Querelle. It had pleased him to have his own small degree of importance, in such a dramatic sequence of events. Finally, having fallen in . love with the Doppelganger beauty of the two brothers, he himself withdrew from Gil. He was caught in some kind of complex system of transmission belts, and the faces of Querelle and Robert became necess�ties for the fulfilment of his happiness. He lived in the anticipation of another miracle that would bring him into the presence of both those young merl, in a situation where he would be loved by both of them. Every evening he went long stretches out of his way to pass by the vicinity of La Feria-which to him truly seemed like a chapel; the day he had gone to see Gil at work he had heard one of the masons say: "Me, I go to Mass at that chapel in the Rue du Sac." Roger remembe�;ed the mason's great horselaugh, his big white hand holding a trowel, plunging it into a trough filled with mortar with sharp, regular movements. Roger had not cared to ask himself what rites the big tough bruiser might practice in that chapel of his : Roger knew the brothel by location and reputation, but now the sight of La Feria excited him because he knew it to be the temple of that god ( that bicephalous monster on his mind, although he had no · name for it) 231 I QUERELLE consisting of two persons, a bizarre object of veneration exercising its spells on his young soul with devastating force; and no doubt the masons went there, too, to render homage to it, not carrying flowers, but their own fears and hopes. Roger also remembered that after this joke had been uttered (he did not know this, but it hadn't been merely a joke ) , one of the other masons shrugged his shoulders. At first Roger had been surprised by the fact that a one-liner referring to the brothels could offend the sensibilities of a laborer whose shirt, open to the waist, displayed a large, hairy chest, whose hair was stiff and covered with chalk, dust and sunlight, whose chalk-powdered arms looked strong and hard-who was, in short, such an hombre. That shrugging response-to the joke and the laughter was now a disturbing element in the otherwise certain affirmation of the existence of that secret cult. It introduced the sign of doubt into the faith, doubt and scorn; perennial fellow travelers of all religious belief.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “I’ve seen it,” answered Golenishtchev. “Of course, he’s not without talent, but it’s all in a wrong direction. It’s all the Ivanov-Strauss-Renan attitude to Christ and to religious painting.” “What is the subject of the picture?” asked Anna. “Christ before Pilate. Christ is represented as a Jew with all the realism of the new school.” And the question of the subject of the picture having brought him to one of his favorite theories, Golenishtchev launched forth into a disquisition on it. “I can’t understand how they can fall into such a gross mistake. Christ always has His definite embodiment in the art of the great masters. And therefore, if they want to depict, not God, but a revolutionist or a sage, let them take from history a Socrates, a Franklin, a Charlotte Corday, but not Christ. They take the very figure which cannot be taken for their art, and then....” “And is it true that this Mihailov is in such poverty?” asked Vronsky, thinking that, as a Russian Mæcenas, it was his duty to assist the artist regardless of whether the picture were good or bad. “I should say not. He’s a remarkable portrait-painter. Have you ever seen his portrait of Madame Vassiltchikova? But I believe he doesn’t care about painting any more portraits, and so very likely he is in want. I maintain that....” “Couldn’t we ask him to paint a portrait of Anna Arkadyevna?” said Vronsky. “Why mine?” said Anna. “After yours I don’t want another portrait. Better have one of Annie” (so she called her baby girl). “Here she is,” she added, looking out of the window at the handsome Italian nurse, who was carrying the child out into the garden, and immediately glancing unnoticed at Vronsky. The handsome nurse, from whom Vronsky was painting a head for his picture, was the one hidden grief in Anna’s life. He painted with her as his model, admired her beauty and mediævalism, and Anna dared not confess to herself that she was afraid of becoming jealous of this nurse, and was for that reason particularly gracious and condescending both to her and her little son. Vronsky, too, glanced out of the window and into Anna’s eyes, and, turning at once to Golenishtchev, he said: “Do you know this Mihailov?”

• From Querelle (1953)

  "Two brothers who love each other so much that they look alike . . . there's one of those veils. There it is. It's moving, gently, unfurled by two naked arms with closed fists, clenched tight inside me. And now it is like a coil. It is sliding. Another one comes to meet it, and it is black too, but of a different texture. And this new veil means : two brothers who look so alike that they love each other . . . And it, too, slides down into the vat, covers the other one . . . No, it is the same one, only turned over . . . Another pjece of material, of another shade of black. And it means : I love one of the brothers, only one . . . Another veil : If I love one of the brothers, I love the other one, too· . . . I have to go into all this, I have to put my finger on it. But it's impossible to get them out. Do I love Robert? I certainly do, or we wouldn't have stayed together these six months. But that, evidently, doesn't mean a thing. I love Robert. I don't love Jo. Why not? Perhaps I do. They adore each other. Nothing I can do about that. They adore each other: does that mean they make love, as well? But where? Where? They're never together. But that's just it, they take care not to be seen. Where then? In other regions . . . And they've both had that boy . . . That kid, he's their love-boy . . . I'm an idiot, what does one of those dresses matter compared to my veils-but I better give Germaine a piece of my mind for sweeping the floor with her dress. It is a matter of principle. How is it that a woman like me never gets to experience a little · peace and quiet?" Madame Lysiane had waited for love a long time. Males had never excited her a great deal. Only after she had turned fortv 217 I QUERELLE she developed an appetite for muscular young men . But exactly at a time when she could have achieved happiness, she began to be consumed by a jealousy she was unable to demonstrate to anyone. No 9ne would have understood her. She loved Robert. \Vhen she thought of his hair, the nape of his neck, his thighs, her nipples hardened as they were moving forward to their reunion with the evoked image, and all day long, in the feverish joy of an only barely restrained desire, Madame Lysiane prepared herself for nights of love. Her man! Robert was her man.