Joy

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.

Page 162 of 299 · 20 per page

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  I was so happy alone and in the woods, away from the dangers posed by other people. At first I wanted to tell someone else how happy I was; I needed a witness. But as the great day revolved slowly above me, as the scarlet tanager flew overhead on his black wings to the distant high trees, as an owl, hidden and remote, sounded a hoot as melancholy as winter, as the leaves, ruffled by the wind, tossed the sun about as though they were princesses at play with a golden ball, as the smell of sweet clover, of bruised sassasfras leaves, of the mulch of last year’s duff flowed over me, as I crushed the hot, sweet blueberries between my teeth and then chewed on an astringent needle from a balsam, as I sensed the descent of the sun and the slow decline of summer—oh, I was free and whole, safe from everyone, as happy as with my books. For I could thrive in the expressive, inhuman realm of nature or the expressive, human realm of books—both worlds so exalted, so guileless—but I felt imperiled by the hidden designs other people were drawing around me. The tender white bells of the flower by the rotting stump, the throbbing distillation of blue in the fringed gentian, the small, bright-green cone of the Scots pine—these were confidences nature placed in me, wordless but as trusting as a dog’s eyes. Or the pure, always comprehensible and sharply delineated thoughts and emotions of characters in fiction—these, too, were signs I could read, as one might read a marionette’s face. But the vague menace of Ralph with his increasingly haggard face, this boy at once pitiable and dangerous, who had already been caught twice this summer attempting to “hypnotize” younger campers and was now in danger of expulsion, who studied me at meals not with curiosity, much less with sympathy, but with crude speculation (Can I get him to do it? Can he relieve me?)—this menace was becoming more and more intense.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  When they spoke on the phone at lunch or after dinner, Marta listened to Sigrid’s smooth, warm voice as she explained why it was so important that she had found a re-creation of a re-creation of a re-creation of some middle passage from a diary of some shepherdess in Scotland. “That sounds great,” Marta would say, eating her sandwich on the grassy hill behind the plant. She could see the town, its gray, scraggly mass spread thin. It was cold in those early days, but she wanted to be alone to talk to Sigrid without being overheard. She hadn’t told anyone about dating women. She hadn’t wanted to explain herself to anyone—not to her roommate, Katie, not to the boys at the plant, not to any of the other faceless people who made up her life. Marta felt for the first time in a long time that she had an inner self she didn’t owe to anyone. Before, with Peter, living had always felt like a constant mingling of the outside and the inside, and people had worn her out just as a matter of course in the act of living, but Sigrid, in the quiet, small time they had spent together, allowed her, for a moment or two at least, to pretend she could be her own person in her own way. Even if she did not understand what Sigrid was talking about most of the time. Marta always signed off by sighing and saying, “Well, kiddo, I better mosey.” Sigrid would say, “Oh, I’m such a blabbermouth. I’m sorry. How are you? I wasted all our time.” And Marta would say, as easy as anything, “I’m doing fine. It’s work, you know.” And they’d talk another couple of minutes, Marta looking up at the sky, taking in a bit of the pale light, enjoying being fussed over, being told to eat her vegetables and moisturize and get some good sleep. They had not had sex and had slept in the same bed only twice in the weeks they had been seeing each other. In part this had to do with the fact that Marta lived in Baraboo and was only in Madison a few times a week, and in part it had to do with their roommates. Katie was always home, and Sigrid’s roommate, a tall law student named Thad, liked to have all his friends over, all the time. It may also have had something to do with how Marta cried the first time they went home together. She hadn’t been able to stop herself. The moment Sigrid kissed her, she’d started crying. Not because it was bad, but because it was so good and so right. She’d been waiting her whole life for it and hadn’t even known it, and the moment she felt Sigrid’s lips on hers, she’d felt a jolt, a crack of lightning in her body.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  More than a year elapsed before Pop Tingle showed Swim Slurp, one of Mr. Jack’s movies. The cold January night we watched it, Pop Tingle made Mr. Jack and me wear vibrating butt plugs. In addition to these accessories, Mr. Jack was dressed in whisper-thin spandex while I wore a cheerleader outfit with a skirt so short it barely covered my butt. After we watched a young Mr. Jack suck off the whole swim team, Pop Tingle ordered Mr. Jack to suck my dick. That was the first time. Excited, I sat in my chair with the vibrating plug up my ass, with Pop Tingle working the controls, while Mr. Jack blew me. I lolled back, relishing the vibrating fullness in my ass as the waves of pleasure grew in my dickhead. Raptures followed as my semen gushed. Mr. Jack’s throat was working as he took my cum. When he finished, he scrubbed my cock and balls with a warm washrag. Pop Tingle was sitting in his chair, fondling his cock and working the controls of my vibrator. “Don’t start thinking you’re a top because you got a blow job, Bottom,” he ordered. “You’re a receiver, not a penetrator.” Grinning, I stood and bent forward so my skirt pulled up over my ass and showed off the plug in my ass. “I could never be a top, Pop Tingle. I wish that you’d fuck my ass right now.” “Jack-Off, pull that plug out of Bottom’s asshole.” Mr. Jack hastened to comply. Pop Tingle put the remote control aside and came close behind me. “Let’s pretend we’re going to play leap frog, Bottom. You bend, and I’ll jump over you.” I assumed the position, joyfully aware that he wasn’t about to jump over me. “Keep your legs closer together,” Pop Tingle ordered. His cock was positioned a little above my asshole, so when he inserted his cock I gasped with surprise. “Keep your legs closer together, Bottom,” Pop Tingle ordered. “Won’t that hurt?” Mr. Jack rushed to reassure me. “Pop Tingle and I call it the Flying Doggie, but some gay guys say it’s Leap Frog,” Mr. Jack contributed. “In this position, keeping your legs shut slackens your anus, which is important because Pop Tingle’s angle will be downward—good for you because his cock will kindle special parts of your rectum and asshole.” “Thanks for the lecture, professor,” I quipped, which made even Pop Tingle snicker. Pop Tingle took me in the flying doggie position. Mounting my back, he drove his cock downward. When his dickhead hit my prostate, I felt a burst of sexual thrills so intense that I nearly came. Had I not just shot my load into Mr. Jack’s mouth, I would surely have gotten my rocks off. Mr. Jack smirked as Pop Tingle worked his cock in my ass. He lubed his hand and started pounding his shaft and thumbing his dickhead. Abruptly, Pop Tingle saw what Mr. Jack was doing.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  I thanked her and I said I hoped I’d see her soon. For a moment it seemed as though it would be the most natural thing to kiss her on those full, soft lips (had I not seen her a moment ago covertly pop some scented thing into her mouth to prepare for just such an inevitability?). Her eyes were veiled with her awareness of her own beauty. I suppose I suddenly liked myself and I could see a light in which I’d be plausible to others. My love for Tommy was shameful, something I was also proud of but tried to hide. This moment with Helen—our tallness on the moon-lashed porch, the cool winds that sent black clouds (lit by gold from within) caravelling past a pirate moon, a coolness that glided through opening fingers that now touched, linked, squeezed, slowly drew apart—this moment made me happy, hopeful. An oppression had been lifted. A long apprenticeship to danger had abruptly ended. After I left her I raced home through the deserted streets laughing and leaping. I sang show tunes and danced and felt as fully alive as someone in a movie (since it was precisely life that was grainy and sepia-tinted, whereas the movies had the audible ping, the habitable color, the embraceable presence of reality). I was more than ready to give up my attraction to men for this marriage to Helen Paper. At last the homosexual phase of my adolescence had drawn to a close. To be sure, I’d continue to love Tommy but as he loved me: fraternally. In my dream the stowaway in the single bunk with me, whom I was trying to keep hidden under a blanket, had miraculously transformed himself into my glorious bride, as the kissed leper in the legend becomes Christ Pantocrator. When I got home my mother was in bed with the lights out. “Honey?” “Yes?” “Come in and talk to me.” “Okay,” I said. “Rub my back, okay?” “Okay,” I said. I sat beside her on the bed. She smelled of bourbon. “How was your date?” “Terrific! I never had such a good time.” “How nice. Is she a nice girl?” “Better than that. She’s charming and sophisticated and intelligent.” “You’re home earlier than I expected. Not so hard. Rub gently. You bruiser. I’m going to call you that: Bruiser. Is she playful? Is she like me? Does she say cute things?” “No, thank God.” “Why do you say that? Is she some sort of egghead?” “Not an egghead. But she’s dignified. She’s straightforward. She says what she means.” “I think girls should be playful. That doesn’t mean dishonest. I’m playful.” “———” “Well, I am. Do you think she likes you?” “How can I tell? It was just a first date.” My fingers lightly stroked her neck to either side of her spine. “I doubt if she’ll want to see me again. Why should she?” “But why not? You’re handsome and intelligent.” “Handsome! With these big nostrils!”

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O I Prologue. The Poets issue on the low-lying shore east of the Mount of Purgatory, and Dante’s eyes, which in Hell have shared the misery of his heart, becomes once more the instruments of delight, as he looks into the clear blue sky and sees Venus near the eastern horizon. The South Pole of the Heavens is well above the southern horizon, and all is bathed in the light of the glorious constellation never seen since man, at the Fall, was banished to the Northern Hemisphere. Turning north, the Poet perceives the venerable figure of Cato, his face illuminated by the four stars, typifying the four moral virtues. He challenges the Poets as though fugitives from Hell; but Virgil pleads the command of a Lady of Heaven, and explains that Dante still lives, and is seeking that liberty for love of which Cato himself had renounced his life. He further appeals to him, by his love of Marcia, to further their journey through his realm. Cato is untouched by the thought of Marcia, from whom he is now inwardly severed; but in reverence for the heavenly mandate he bids Virgil gird Dante with the rush of humility and cleanse his face with dew from the stains of Hell, that he may be ready to meet the ministers of Heaven. The sun, now rising, will teach them the ascent. The Poets seek the shore, as the sea ripples under the morning breeze; and Virgil follows Cato’s behest, cleansing Dante’s face with dew, and plucking the rush, which instantly springs up again miraculously renewed. TO COURSE o’er better waters now hoists sail the little bark of my wit, leaving behind her a sea so cruel. And I will sing of that second realm, where the human spirit is purged and becomes worthy to ascend to Heaven. But here let dead poesy rise up again, O holy Muses, since yours am I, and here let Calliope 1 rise somewhat, accompanying my song with that strain whose stroke the wretched Pies felt so that they despaired of pardon. Sweet hue of orient sapphire which was gathering on the clear forehead of the sky, pure even to the first circle, to mine eyes restored delight, soon as I issued forth from the dead air which had afflicted eyes and heart. The fair planet which hearteneth to love 2 was making the whole East to laugh, veiling the Fishes that were in her train. I turned me to the right hand, and set my mind on the other pole, and saw four stars 3 never yet seen save by the first people. The heavens seemed to rejoice in their flames. O Northern widowed clime, since thou art bereft of beholding them!

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  “Everything you have is mine. I made you and I will hurt you, bleed you, eat you and fuck you as I please. That’s it, boy. Bleed for Daddy.” We share blood, Daddy and I. In that way, we make real the relationship we have created. The intensity of that sharing is what wraps around my neck and connects me to him. It is the deepest sense of belonging I know, to be Daddy’s boy, to feed him in all of his hungers. It takes everything within me to stay still for Daddy as he lays down his quirt and starts licking along my skin, drinking me in with his delicious mouth. I hold my breath with the effort, almost trembling with gladness. I can hear his boots on the floor as he walks away. “Belly on the floor. Get your mouth over here, boy.” It’s my job to use my mouth to please Daddy. I crawl on my belly toward him. He is sitting in his favorite chair. “Get your mouth on my boot, boy. Show me some appreciation for all the attention you are getting tonight.” I breathe in the scent of his boot and begin to lick. Nothing tastes like Daddy’s boots. Electric power fills them, and it surges through me as I worship. I can’t help writhing at the feel of it. This is my place. I belong on the floor at Daddy’s feet, my mouth on his boot. I know exactly what my job is, and that keeps me grounded. All of me is centered around his boot: the texture of the leather; the taste of the polish and saddle soap, with undertones of piss and cum and tears worked in over the years. I savor it all with every stroke of my tongue. “That’s it, boy. It’s your job to use your mouth to please Daddy. Show me how much you want to please me. Make me feel your mouth, boy.” His other boot comes to rest on the back of my neck, driving my mouth into his boot, making me writhe, my cock pulsing as it rubs against the floor. Daddy groans as I press my mouth onto the toe, taking it in like a cock, sucking on it. His other boot forces me onto it in a rhythm of his choosing, as I strain to take him in. “Your mouth feels so good, boy. Now pay some attention to the other one.” I lunge for the other boot, taking the toe into my mouth immediately, my cock thrusting into the floor as I work my mouth onto it. The first boot slides between my legs and drives into my balls. “The only dick that matters here is mine, boy. Daddy’s dick is the one to focus on.”

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  And yet on my third birthday a professional marionette troupe performed Sleeping Beauty in our living room before an audience of my mother’s lady friends’ children, imported for the occasion. The plates from which we kids had eaten cake and vanilla ice cream were collected and the curtains drawn, creating night in day, a magic trick I associated only with afternoon naps. It was a warm, sniffling, giggling audience. A little raised stage framed in blue cloth had been erected at one end of the room. The toe of a big brown shoe protruding from beneath the hem of the proscenium draperies kept in mind real dimensions only for a few more minutes; soon the reduced scale of the stage had engulfed me, as though I’d been precipitated through a beaker and sublimated into another substance altogether. I had never heard the story before. The curse of Carabosse, the Princess’s mishap in the Rose Garden, her long sleep and the funny, frozen postures of the courtiers, the arrival of the Prince and the joyous nuptials all transported me to a world of boldly modeled faces from which character could be readily deduced, a world in which menace foreshadowed disaster, evil was defeated and love crowned. In this lighted cube my emotions coalesced because they were given a firm bounding line and because things devolved with the logic of art, not life. For if the imaginary playmates were insubstantial, the overly material people who surrounded me were opaque. Now only these miniature figures—with a hooked nose punctuated by a wart, a skein of lustrous blond hair, lace cuffs, velvet trains—only they seemed lit from within and legible as they floated up out of the bottomless floor, gestured wildly, gazed as though blind in only the general direction of an interlocutor, shook with tearless sobs, growled or piped, then flew at one another for hearty, back-slapping embraces until they were whipped up into the wings. That was the secret of the imagination—its creations were feeble only to the maker but stronger than life itself to the observer. When the curtains were opened again and the puppeteers—balding husband and bespectacled wife—emerged with shy grins and joined the party, a deep sadness sounded inside me.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  I lifted my head. “How does he know I’m going to like it?” After all, Pop Tingle was a top, through and through. What cocksucking experience could he have? None! “Take it into your mouth, Bottom,” Mr. Jack whispered. “You will like it. You’re a natural sissy. All sissies like to suck cock. You’ll see.” “Suck him, Bottom,” Pop Tingle ordered. I let Mr. Jack’s cock slide along my tongue. I pulled my head back and went down again. His cock was filling my mouth. I teased his cock with my lips, then I licked down the shaft. I was in ecstasy. “You’ll suck Jack-Off until he comes, Bottom,” Pop Tingle said. “You’re going to swallow his cum. Meanwhile, I’ll be giving you your present. He held an elegant wooden gift box, which he opened to reveal a golden prostate massager. The goldplated massager did not vibrate but had fluid curves, and it was the smoothest metal I’d ever felt. Pop Tingle warmed it between his hands, and then he coated it with a thick lubricant. I slid my lips over Mr. Jack’s dick while Pop Tingle inserted his finger through the massager’s ringed end and slid it into my ass. Delicious feelings swept over me. I went down hard on Mr. Jack, sucking him ravenously. Pop Tingle slowly worked the massager inside of me. My body was a rapture of sensation. I felt Mr. Jack’s cock slacken for three seconds before it stiffened to supreme hardness. As I worried the head with my lips, it twitched. A hot tasty fluid covered my tongue. I swallowed it down while deep pleasure sensations filled my ass. My cock was not fully hard, but it was dripping cum. Delirious pleasure swept over me. More cum was in my mouth and I savored it before I swallowed. Meanwhile Pop Tingle kept massaging me with the golden tool, driving me to pinnacles of sexual rapture that were beyond imagining. Shortly after that day, I became aware of how much I’d changed. I’d been a good student in high school with all that implies: conformist, mundane, lackadaisical and ordinary. While I lived on the street I hadn’t read serious works, nor had I exercised my brain much. Pop Tingle gave me the leisure for study. He owned an impressive library, and one day I picked up a copy of Emerson’s Essays. I struggled through “Self-Reliance” until I had a fair idea what Emerson meant. I dipped into Thoreau, enjoying Walden and coming alive with “Civil Disobedience.” For the next six months I read my way through the greatest American authors, the profound and the downright fun. Meanwhile, Mr. Jack watched old movies. I watched classic films with him, but mostly I read. I moved into British literature, philosophy, history and religious studies.

• From Hot Daddies: Gay Erotic Fiction (2011)

  I spurted. And I continued to spurt through spasm after spasm. Because I was young. Because it had been so long. Because I wanted this man. And Craig took it all, took my essence, drew my boyhood into him. I screamed “Daddy,” and then clutched Craig in my crotch as I softened and my breathing subsided. I let go and he sat cross-legged in front of me. I leaned over and ran my fingers through his hair, a gentle caress of deep appreciation. Daddy stepped to the side and kissed me. I folded back into the bed, feet hanging over the side, and Craig joined me. Daddy reached for the bottles of water. I took one with trembling hands. “No, thanks,” Craig said. “I want to savor this boy as long as I can.” He ran his tongue languidly around his lips. Daddy nodded and drained his bottle. He leaned against the dresser and gazed at us. “You make a nice couple,” he said. My eyes widened. “Thanks,” Craig said. Silence hung in the air, not threatening, somehow welcoming. Finally, Daddy spoke in a unique, melodious flow of dulcet tones. “I’d like Craig to be your Hawaii Daddy. And I have to go away on business in two months. Perhaps Craig can come to California and keep an eye on you. How’s that sit with both of you?” Craig and I locked eyes. “Great. Very great,” Craig said. “Yes, Sir,” I answered. We remained motionless for a few seconds, absorbing our new situation. Craig broke the silence. “Can I give your boy a bracelet that matches his collar?” Daddy looked at me. My eyes said yes. “We’d both like that,” Daddy said. He drew Craig into a bear hug with me between them. I was glad I was shorter, so they wouldn’t see yet another shit-eatin’ grin. And a solitary, salty tear. Yes, a boy can have two Daddies. MEN OF THE OPEN ROAD Landon Dixon I was only a mile out of town when the first car stopped. It was a Benz, the driver a businessman in a flawless pin-striped suit and flashy pink tie. He had rings on his fingers, his white hair was perfectly coiffed, soft and flowing; his green eyes smiled into mine. For a guy over fifty, his face was smooth and young looking, though tanned a golden brown. “Where you headed?” he asked, as I filled the open passengerside window with my blond-haired head and broad, bare shoulders. Ignoring the ringing of his cell phone, he looked me over. “West,” I responded vaguely. “Then get in. I’m headed out to my cottage. I can take you about thirty miles down the road.” “Sounds good,” I said, and pulled the door open and slid into the leather bucket seat next to him.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Despite her advanced age, she was more of a nymphet than ever, with her apricot-colored limbs, in her sub-teen tennis togs! Winged gentlemen! No hereafter is acceptable if it does not produce her as she was then, in that Colorado resort between Snow and Elphinstone, with everything right: the white wide little-boy shorts, the slender waist, the apricot midriff, the white breast-kerchief whose ribbons went up and encircled her neck to end behind in a dangling knot leaving bare her gaspingly young and adorable apricot shoulder blades with that pubescence and those lovely gentle bones, and the smooth, downward-tapering back. Her cap had a white peak. Her racket had cost me a small fortune. Idiot, triple idiot! I could have filmed her! I would have had her now with me, before my eyes, in the projection room of my pain and despair! She would wait and relax for a bar or two of white-lined time before going into the act of serving, and often bounced the ball once or twice, or pawed the ground a little, always at ease, always rather vague about the score, always cheerful as she so seldom was in the dark life she led at home. Her tennis was the highest point to which I can imagine a young creature bringing the art of make-believe, although I daresay, for her it was the very geometry of basic reality. The exquisite clarity of all her movements had its auditory counterpart in the pure ringing sound of her every stroke. The ball when it entered her aura of control became somehow whiter, its resilience somehow richer, and the instrument of precision she used upon it seemed inordinately prehensile and deliberate at the moment of clinging contact. Her form was, indeed, an absolutely perfect imitation of absolutely top-notch tennis—without any utilitarian results. As Edusa’s sister, Electra Gold, a marvelous young coach, said to me once while I sat on a pulsating hard bench watching Dolores Haze toying with Linda Hall (and being beaten by her): “Dolly has a magnet in the center of her racket guts, but why the heck is she so polite?” Ah, Electra, what did it matter, with such grace! I remember at the very first game I watched being drenched with an almost painful convulsion of beauty assimilation. My Lolita had a way of raising her bent left knee at the ample and springy start of the service cycle when there would develop and hang in the sun for a second a vital web of balance between toed foot, pristine armpit, burnished arm and far back-flung racket, as she smiled up with gleaming teeth at the small globe suspended so high in the zenith of the powerful and graceful cosmos she had created for the express purpose of falling upon it with a clean resounding crack of her golden whip.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  I breathed into his mouth again—a strange sensation, intimate and yet symbolic, tasting his lips in an impersonal and disinterested way. Then I massaged his chest, with deep, almost offensive pressure, one hand on top of the other; and already he had come back to life. It had all been so rapid and inevitable that it was only when he was breathing regularly and we had laid him down on a coat and done up his fly that I felt shaken by a surge of delayed elation. I raced up the steps into mild sunshine and hung around waiting for the ambulance, unable to stop grinning, my hands trembling. Even so, it was too soon to understand. I told myself that I had scooped someone back from the threshold of death, but that seemed incommensurate with the simple routine I had followed, the vital little drill retained from childhood along with all the more complex knowledge that would never prove so useful—convection, sonata form, the names of birds in Latin and French. The Corinthian Club in Great Russell Street is the masterpiece of the architect Frank Orme, whom I once met at my grandfather’s. I remember he carried on in a pompous and incongruous way, having recently, and as if by mistake, been awarded a knighthood. Even as a child I saw him as a fraud and a hotchpotch, and I was delighted, when I joined the Club and learned that he had designed it, to discover just the same qualities in his architecture. Like Orme himself, the edifice is both mean and self-important; a paradox emphasised by the modest resources of the Club in the 1930s and its conflicting aspiration to civic grandeur. As you walk along the pavement you look down through the railings into an area where steam issues from the ventilators and half-open toplights of changing-rooms and kitchens; you hear the slam of large institutional cooking trays, the hiss of showers, the inane confidence of radio disc-jockeys. The ground floor has a severe manner, the Portland stone punctuated by green-painted metal-framed windows; but at the centre it gathers to a curvaceous, broken-pedimented doorway surmounted by two finely developed figures—one pensively Negroid, the other inspiredly Caucasian—who hold between them a banner with the device ‘Men Of All Nations’. Before answering this call, step across the street and look up at the floors above. You see more clearly that it is a steel-framed building, tarted up with niches and pilasters like some bald fact inexpertly disguised. At the far corner there is a tremendous upheaving of cartouches and volutes crowned by a cupola like that of some immense Midland Bank. Finances and inspiration seem to have been exhausted by this, however, and alongside, above the main cornice of the building, rises a two-storey mansard attic, containing the cheap accommodation the Club provides in the cheapest possible form of building.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O X X V I I I Dante enters the Garden of Eden from the west, facing the rising sun, and meeting a sweet breeze laden with the odours of Paradise and full of the song of birds to which the leaves of the divine forest murmur a pedal bass. On the opposing bank of a stream that flows pure under the forest shade, he perceives a lady gathering flowers and singing, as enamoured. It is Matilda, the genius of Eden; and in answer to Dante’s petition she approaches the stream with downcast eyes, the song on her lips growing ever more articulate. Then, her hands still busy with the flowers, she flings upon him the blaze of her laughing eyes. As a responsive rapture awakes in Dante’s heart, she initiates him into the frank and innocent love and joy of Eden, and proffers all further service he may desire. In answer to his question she confirms what Statius had already said as to the higher regions of the mount above the gate being unaffected by meteorological phenomena. The stream and the breeze, therefore, are not such as those on earth. The breeze is caused by the sweep of the atmospheric envelope of the earth, from east to west, with the primum mobile; and it bears with it germs from the divine forest; which may explain the seeming spontaneous generation of wondrous plants on earth. And the water of the stream does not rise from the pulsations of any mist- and rain-fed vein; but issues from a fountain which draws supplies for this and a companion stream direct from the will of God. These streams are Lethe and Eunoë, the one of which washes away all memory of sin, and the other restores the memory of all righteous doing; and for the full effect to be experienced, both alike must be tasted. So much in answer to Dante’s questions. But Matilda further delights her pupil by suggesting that some confused tradition of the state of innocence lay behind the dreams of the classical poets who sang of the Golden Age; whereon he sees a smile of recognition lighten the faces of Virgil and Statius. NOW EAGER to search within and around the divine forest dense and verdant, which to mine eyes was tempering the new day, without waiting more I left the mountain-side, crossing the plain with lingering step, over the ground which gives forth fragrance on every side.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O X I I A second circle of lights encloses the first and-with music whereof our sweetest strains are but as the reflection—the two, like the parallels of a double rainbow, circle Dante and Beatrice, first moving and then at rest. Like the needle of the compass to the north star so Dante is swept round to one of the new-come lights at the sound of its voice. It is Bonaventura, the Franciscan, who undertakes the enconium of Dominic, just as Thomas, the Dominican, had pronounced that of Francis. Dominic’s zeal for true learning and against heresy. If he was such, what must his colleague have been? But his disciples are ruined by the extremes of the strict and lax schools of observance. Bonaventura names himself and the other lights that circle with him. SOON AS the blessed flame had taken up the final word to speak, began the sacred millstone to revolve, 1 and in its rolling had not turned full round ere a second, circling, embraced it and struck motion to its motion and song to its song; song which so far surpasseth our Muses, our Sirens, in those sweet tubes, as the first splendour that which it back throweth. 2 As sweep o’er the thin mist two bows, parallel and like in colour, when Juno maketh behest to her handmaiden, the one without born from the one within—in fashion of the speech of that wandering nymph whom love consumed as the sun doth the vapours,— making folk here on earth foreknow, in virtue of the compact that God made with Noah, that the world never shall be drowned again; 3 so of those sempiternal roses revolved around us the two garlands, and so the outmost answered to the other. 4 Soon as the dance and high great festival,—alike of song and flashing light with light, gladsome and benign,— accordant at a point of time and act of will had stilled them, like to the eyes which at the pleasure that moveth them must needs be closed and lifted in accord, from out the heart of one of the new lights there moved a voice which made me seem the needle to the star in turning me to where it was; and it began: 5 “the love which maketh me beautiful draweth me to discourse of the other chief, on whose account such fair utterance is made to us concerning mine. 6 Meet is it that wherever is the one the other be led in, that, as they warred together, so may their glory shine in union.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  After this we returned home glad and merry of so great vengeance upon them, and the riches which we carried was committed to the public treasury, and this done the maid was married to Tlepolemus, according to the law, whom by so much travail he had valiantly recovered. Then my good mistress looked about for me, calling me her saviour and deliverer, and asking for me, commanded, the very same day as her marriage, that my manger should be filled with barley, and that I should have hay and oats abundantly, as much as would be enough for a camel of Bactria. But how greatly and worthily did I curse Fotis in that she had transformed me into an ass, and not into a dog, because I saw the dogs had filled their paunches to bursting with the relics and bones of so worthy a supper as they had. The next day, after that best of nights and her learning of the secrets of Venus, this new wedded woman (my mistress) did not forget to commend me before her parents and husband for the kindness I had shewed unto her, and never left off until such time as they promised to reward me with great honours. Then they called together all their friends of more dignity, to resolve in what manner it were most worthy to reward me; and thus it was concluded: one said that I should be closed in a stable and never work, x 321 15 LUCIUS APULEIUS hordeo lecto fabaque et vicia saginari: sed obtinuit alius qui meae libertati prospexerat, suadens ut rure- stribus potius campis in greges equinos lasciviens discurrerem, daturus dominis equarum inscensu generoso multas mulas alumnas. Ergo igitur evocato statim armentario equisone magna cum praefatione deducendus assignor : et sane gaudens laetusque prae- currebam, sarcinis et ceteris oneribus iam nunc re- nuntiaturus, nanctaque libertate veris initio pratis herbantibus rosas utique reperturusaliquas, Subibat me tamen illa etiam sequens cogitatio, quod tantis actis gratiis honoribusque plurimis asino meo tributis, humana facie recepta, multo tanto pluribus beneficiis honestarer. Sed ubi me procul a civitate gregarius ille perduxerat, nullae deliciae ac ne ulla quidem libertas excipit. Nam protinus uxor eius avara equidem nequissimaque illa mulier molae machinariae subiugum me dedit, frondosoque baculo subinde castigans, panem sibi suisque de meo parabat corio. Nectantum sui cibi gratia me fatigare con- tenta, vicinorum etiam frumenta mercenariis discur- sibus meis conterebat. Nec mihi misero statuta saltem cibaria pro tantis praestabantur laboribus : namque hordeum meum frictum et sub eadem mola meis quas- satum ambagibus colonis proximis venditabat, mihi vero per diem laboriosae machinae attento sub ipsa 322 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VII

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  Her husband being as it were inchanted with these words and compelled by violence of her often embracing, wiping away her teares with his haire, did yeeld unto his wife. And when morning came, departed as hee was accustomed to doe. Now her sisters arrived on land, and never rested til they came to the rock, without visiting their parents, and leapt down rashly from the hill themselves. Then Zephyrus according to the divine commandment brought them down, although it were against his wil, and laid them in the vally without any harm: by and by they went into the palace to their sister without leave, and when they had eftsoone embraced their prey, and thanked her with flattering words for the treasure which she gave them, they said, O deare sister Psyches, know you that you are now no more a child, but a mother: O what great joy beare you unto us in your belly? What a comfort will it be unto all the house? How happy shall we be, that shall see this Infant nourished amongst so great plenty of Treasure? That if he be like his parents, as it is necessary he should, there is no doubt but a new cupid shall be borne. By this kinde of measures they went about to winne Psyches by little and little, but because they were wearie with travell, they sate them downe in chaires, and after that they had washed their bodies in baines they went into a parlour, where all kinde of meats were ready prepared. Psyches commanded one to play with his harpe, it was done. Then immediately others sung, others tuned their instruments, but no person was seene, by whose sweet harmony and modulation the sisters of Psyches were greatly delighted. Howbeit the wickednesse of these cursed women was nothing suppressed by the sweet noyse of these instruments, but they settled themselves to work their treasons against Psyches, demanding who was her husband, and of what Parentage. Then shee having forgotten by too much simplicity, what shee had spoken before of her husband, invented a new answer, and said that her husband was of a great province, a merchant, and a man of middle age, having his beard intersparsed with grey haires. Which when shee had spoken (because shee would have no further talke) she filled their laps with Gold and Silver, and bid Zephyrus to bear them away.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER How Apuleius supped with Byrrhena, and what a strange tale Bellephoron told at the table. It fortuned on a day, that Byrrhena desired me earnestly to suppe with her; and shee would in no wise take any excusation. Whereupon I went to Fotis, to aske counsell of her as of some Divine, who although she was unwilling that I should depart one foot from her company, yet at length shee gave me license to bee absent for a while, saying, Beware that you tarry not long at supper there, for there is a rabblement of common Barrettors and disturbers of the publique peace, that rove about in the streets and murther all such as they may take, neither can law nor justice redress them in any case. And they will the sooner set upon you, by reason of your comelinesse and audacity, in that you are not afeared at any time to walke in the streets. Then I answered and sayd, Have no care of me Fotis, for I esteeme the pleasure which I have with thee, above the dainty meats that I eat abroad, and therefore I will returne againe quickly. Neverthelesse I minde not to come without company, for I have here my sword, wherby I hope to defend my selfe.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  The sun burned hotter and hotter, as if someone were holding a magnifying glass over me. I took off my T-shirt and felt the sweat flow down my sides to my stomach as I bent over to pick blueberries from low bushes. The ground was wet. A huge bee hung buzzing, motionless, in the air. I was so happy alone and in the woods, away from the dangers posed by other people. At first I wanted to tell someone else how happy I was; I needed a witness. But as the great day revolved slowly above me, as the scarlet tanager flew overhead on his black wings to the distant high trees, as an owl, hidden and remote, sounded a hoot as melancholy as winter, as the leaves, ruffled by the wind, tossed the sun about as though they were princesses at play with a golden ball, as the smell of sweet clover, of bruised sassasfras leaves, of the mulch of last year’s duff flowed over me, as I crushed the hot, sweet blueberries between my teeth and then chewed on an astringent needle from a balsam, as I sensed the descent of the sun and the slow decline of summer—oh, I was free and whole, safe from everyone, as happy as with my books. For I could thrive in the expressive, inhuman realm of nature or the expressive, human realm of books—both worlds so exalted, so guileless—but I felt imperiled by the hidden designs other people were drawing around me. The tender white bells of the flower by the rotting stump, the throbbing distillation of blue in the fringed gentian, the small, bright-green cone of the Scots pine—these were confidences nature placed in me, wordless but as trusting as a dog’s eyes. Or the pure, always comprehensible and sharply delineated thoughts and emotions of characters in fiction—these, too, were signs I could read, as one might read a marionette’s face. But the vague menace of Ralph with his increasingly haggard face, this boy at once pitiable and dangerous, who had already been caught twice this summer attempting to “hypnotize” younger campers and was now in danger of expulsion, who studied me at meals not with curiosity, much less with sympathy, but with crude speculation (Can I get him to do it? Can he relieve me?)—this menace was becoming more and more intense. After the other campers appeared and the summer’s activities had been under way for a week, I understood that I’d been betrayed. There wouldn’t be any plays for me to put on, and I had exhausted myself for no good reason with all-night fantasies of the rehearsals, the performances, the triumphs. My mother’s promises had just been a way of getting me out of the house for the summer. A few miles away my sister—shy to the point of invisibility in the winter, unpopular, pasty, overweight—had emerged once again into her estival beauty.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Cork was pretending to be shocked by the innocent improprieties that so excited my stepmother. I could tell Mrs. Cork had palled around with real screwballs, even unwed couples—it was just a sense I had. When I took her out one day in a motorboat alone, she and I happily discussed opera. We cut the motor and drifted. I relaxed and became animated to the point of effeminacy; she relaxed and became coarser. “Oh, my boy,” she promised me in her brogue, “you want to hear fine singing, I’ll play you my John McCormack records, make you weep your damn eyes out of their bloody sockets. That ‘Lucevan le stelle,’ it’ll freeze your balls.” I shrieked with delight—we were conspirators who’d somehow found ourselves stranded together here in a world of unthrillable souls. I dreamed of running off and becoming a great singer; I walked through the woods and vocalized. Tonight we had not yet made our rapport explicit, but I was already wise to her. She had through circumstance ended up not on the La Scala stage but in this American cottage, married to an affable, overweight businessman. Now her job was to ingratiate herself with people who would help her husband in his career (lawyer for industry); she was retaining just enough brogue and temperament to be a “character.” Characters—conventional women with minor eccentricities—flourished in our world, as Mrs. Cork had no doubt observed. But she’d failed to notice that the characters were all old, rich and pedigreed. Newcomers, especially those of moderate means, were expected to form an attractive but featureless chorus behind our few madcap divas. “Time for bed, young fella,” my father said at last. Downstairs I undressed by the colored light of the glass-brick bar and, wearing just a T-shirt and jockey shorts, hurried into the dark dormitory and slipped into my cot. Nights on the lake are cold even in July; the bed had two thick blankets on it that had been aired outside that day and smelled of pine needles. I listened to the grown-ups; the metal vents conducted sound better than heat. Their conversation, which had seemed so lively and sincere when I had witnessed it, now sounded stilted and halting. Lots of fake laughter. Silences became longer and longer. At last everyone said good night and headed upstairs. Another five minutes of moaning pipes, flushing toilets and padding feet. Then long murmured consultations in bed by each couple. Then silence. “You still awake?” Kevin called from his bed. “Yes,” I said. I couldn’t see him in the dark but I could tell his cot was at the other end of the room; Peter was audibly asleep on the cot between. “How old are you?” Kevin asked. “Fifteen. And you?” “Twelve. You ever done it with girls?” “Sure,” I said. I knew I could always tell him about the black prostitute I’d visited. “You?” “Naw.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  But Cupid being now healed of his wound and Maladie, not able to endure the absence of Psyches, got him secretly out at a window of the chamber where hee was enclosed, and (receiving his wings,) tooke his flight towards his loving wife, whom when he had found, hee wiped away the sleepe from her face, and put it againe into the boxe, and awaked her with the tip of one of his arrows, saying: O wretched Caitife, behold thou wert well-nigh perished againe, with the overmuch curiositie: well, goe thou, and do thy message to my Mother, and in the meane season, I will provide for all things accordingly: wherewithall he tooke his flight into the aire, and Psyches brought her present to Venus.

• From A Boy's Own Story (1982)

  Like them she must remain eternally young—hence her flamboyant clothes and gestures and hectic displays of energy (the middle-aged imagine the young are energetic). Later, much later, when I was sixteen and eighteen and twenty, I’d meet her downtown where she worked at a museum and we’d go off in the middle of a dim winter afternoon to a deserted bar and drink manhattans (I remember because they were the first drinks I ever ordered). Another afternoon I attended a madrigal concert she sang in at the public library, something planned in conjunction with an exhibition of one page from the hand of that monster Gesualdo. There she was, breasts half-exposed and working, eyes turned inward, trembling upper lip rising on one side until it had suddenly been everted, her face painted an unlikely yellow and her hair dyed a brittle blue-black, her clothes still “youthful” but now so out of date that the few members of the audience under twenty-five would have had no idea what she was signifying. They might have thought that she was an émigrée wearing the national costume of Estonia and that these songs—these gliding transits, startling rhythms and suave, uncomfortable harmonies—were folk songs in need of a pitch pipe. One afternoon over manhattans I confessed to Marilyn I was gay and she told me she was, too, and that she and Fred had known all along that I would be, even when I was eleven. “And Fred? Was he gay?” “Oh yes. Didn’t you know? I thought we all knew about each other,” Marilyn said as she redrew her eyes in the compact mirror. “Well, I knew you both liked me and that I felt good with you, better than with most grown-ups.” “Then why did you stop coming by the shop? Waiter, another round.” “Because my mother told me I couldn’t see you anymore. The old ladies in our hotel told my mother that you and Fred were Communists and living in sin.” Marilyn laughed and laughed. “Of course the truth is we’re both Catholics and gay and never touched each other. Perhaps those ladies even knew the truth but—but”—shriek of laughter—“assumed that communism and living in sin, that those two things together equaled being gay.” I was wearing a Brooks Brothers sack suit of black and brown twill that ran on the diagonal and a soft felt fedora from Paris, and this getup, which seemed so stylish to me, cast our conversation into the light of an excited urbanity, as did the cocktails, no doubt. Elevated tracks ran outside above the bar, and whenever a train passed by, our table trembled under our elbows and the glasses, accidentally touching each other, registered the shock in a muted chime. The light in the bar was as murky as old water in an aquarium dimmed by storms of fish food beat up by lazy fins.