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.

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

  Renate nodded in approval. “Ordinarily, as Anaïs’s best friend, I would not give such an important responsibility to anyone else. I would continue to do it myself. But there are complications since I married Ronnie and my son moved home.” Renate eyed my plate. “You’ve hardly eaten anything. Don’t you like it?” “It’s good.” I fibbed to be polite. “I ate too big a breakfast.” Renate gave me a stern, all-knowing look, but also a nod to credit my manners. With her aristocratic bearing, she carried her empty plate and my full one into the kitchen. “There’s a photo of my husband Ronnie on the shelf behind you,” she called out. I located the framed black and white picture of a kneeling football player holding his helmet and smiling at the camera. Renate and Anaïs were marvels, I thought, both of them married to gorgeous, younger men. “Where is Ronnie? Will I meet him?” “No, he’s at the apartment he still keeps in Santa Monica so his father won’t suspect he’s living with me.” She returned with mints from the restaurant for us. “Ronnie goes there to try to write. He wants to be an author, too, but he keeps rewriting the same page over and over. His perfectionism is driving him crazy.” “I do that,” I admitted. Renate put out a palm for the cellophane from my mint just as a car screeched to a halt outside. Through the living room window overlooking the carport, I watched Anaïs emerge from a powder blue Thunderbird. She removed the kerchief tied under her chin and tousled her permed bob. “You invited Anaïs!” I cried, delighted as a six-year-old at seeing Snow White coming up the steps. “Your enthusiasm is charming.” Renate smiled. Anaïs swept through the door, her black cape flapping behind her like the wings of a great crow. I recalled her statement about always dressing the part for an occasion and wondered if she’d conceived this as some sort of clandestine, cloak-and-dagger meeting. “I had the most terrible drive here,” she announced. “I got so entranced by the sight of the ocean that I went through a red light. The other cars honked and an awful man in a pickup truck followed me to the turn-off, yelling at me.” “Here’s pure water to relax you.” Renate poured a glass from the tap and handed it to Anaïs. “Sip it slowly.” Anaïs perched herself on a stack of large pillows. She released the clasp on her cape and it fell in graceful folds so she appeared to be sitting on a draped pedestal. As Anaïs dutifully followed Renate’s instructions to take five little sips of water, Renate said, “Tristine told me that she would be thrilled to help you with some phone and mail issues. My intuition tells me she’s trustworthy, but you need to talk with her yourself to see how you feel.” I grinned at Renate. She was trying to help me get the apprentice position.

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

  We play child games. He spits water into my eyes, pulls down my shower cap, and kisses me. I grab his cock. He kisses me for real. When we make love in my bed, my new gray kitten, Jadu, watches us with round green eyes. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] It was a new year, and I wasn’t worrying about Anaïs’s marriages or the loss of them. I wasn’t thinking about Rupert’s and Renate’s disappearances. I wasn’t even suffering the coils of guilt that sprang like serpents from Mother’s Christmas gifts, each one adding to her astounding credit card debt. I wasn’t lonely. I wasn’t bored. I was in love—madly, lustfully, without reserve. I wasn’t thinking about having to warn Anaïs that I’d let someone move in who might answer my phone. I wasn’t concerned that I’d given myself entirely to a twenty-three-year-old college dropout whose only paid job was playing Saturday nights in a jazz combo and whose full-time unpaid gig was as a Marxist/Leninist organizer. The passion that D. H. Lawrence had promised in his novels, I’d found with Neal. He taught me to abandon myself to pleasure without a trace of shame. Neal was a confident, sexy junior I’d dated in my sophomore year, when I was still a virgin. With his fiery black eyes, straight, shiny black hair, and left-wing rhetoric, he wasn’t like the other guys at conservative USC. He was a half-Irish, half-Jewish boy from Georgia who loved jazz as I did and saw the South from the minority perspective. I’d likely have lost my virginity to him had he not suddenly left college for a chance to play jazz on the road. He phoned just after New Year’s to say he was in town, while I was still nursing my depression over having failed Anaïs. He invited me to come listen to him play at a hotel in Beverly Hills. My depression instantly lifted. That night I wore my slinky black dress, high patent heels, and my mother’s fox-trimmed sweater, which she’d somehow preserved from moth holes for twenty-two years. Neal was blowing “Tenderly” à la Chet Baker when I walked in, a strand of dark hair falling over his forehead. As I was seated, he followed me with his onyx eyes. I hadn’t ordered it, but the waiter brought me a hollowed coconut filled with a tropical drink. As the bassist took the solo, I mouthed, thank you to Neal. At the combo’s break, he came over and sat with me, gulping down soda water as we interrupted each other’s questions trying to cram everything that had happened to us in the past year and a half into twenty minutes before his next set. The rest of the night Neal didn’t take his eyes off me. He was making love to me as he played—his lips blowing on the delicate reed, his fingers on the gold keys, his hips moving with his instrument as he bent down towards me.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now that Calandrino was fully laden and the hour of breakfast was approaching, Bruno turned to Buffalmacco, as they had prearranged, and said: ‘Where’s Calandrino got to?’ Buffalmacco, who could see him quite plainly, turned to gaze in every direction, and then replied: ‘I’ve no idea. He was here a moment ago, just a little way ahead of us.’ ‘A moment ago, indeed! I’ll bet you he’s at home by now, tucking into his breakfast, after putting this crazy idea into our heads of searching for black stones along the Mugnone.’ ‘Well,’ said Buffalmacco, ‘I can’t say I blame him for leaving us in the lurch like this, seeing that we were stupid enough to believe him in the first place. What a pair of blockheads we are! No one in his right mind would ever have believed all that talk about finding such a valuable stone in the Mugnone.’ Hearing them talk in this fashion, Calandrino concluded that he must have picked up the stone without knowing it, and that because of its special powers they were unable to see him, even though he was standing just a few yards away. He therefore decided, being delighted with his good fortune, to go back home; and without saying anything to the others, he turned about and started to return by the way he had come. On seeing this, Buffalmacco turned to Bruno and said: ‘What’ll we do now? Why don’t we go home, the same as he did?’ ‘Come on then,’ Bruno replied. ‘But I swear to God that I won’t fall for any more of Calandrino’s tricks. If he were as close to me now as he’s been all morning, I’d give him such a rap on the heels with this pebble that he wouldn’t forget this little hoax of his for the best part of a month.’ No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he took aim and caught Calandrino squarely on the heel with the pebble, whereupon Calandrino, grimacing with pain, jerked his foot high in the air and began to puff and gasp for breath. But he none the less managed to hold his tongue, and continued on his way. Then Buffalmacco took between his fingers one of the stones he had collected earlier, and said to Bruno: ‘D’you see this nice sharp bit of flint? How I’d love to send it whizzing into Calandrino’s back!’ He then let it go, and it caught Calandrino a nasty blow in the small of the back. But to cut a long story short, they kept stoning Calandrino in this fashion, making various abusive remarks, all the way back along the Mugnone to the Porta San Gallo, where, having thrown away the rest of the stones they had collected, they paused to chat with the customs guards. These latter, having been let into the secret beforehand, had allowed Calandrino to pass unchallenged, and were splitting their sides with laughter.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  HERE BEGINNETH THE SEVENTH DAY OF THE DECAMERON WHEREIN UNDER THE GOVERNANCE OF DIONEO IS DISCOURSED OF THE TRICKS WHICH OR FOR LOVE OR FOR THEIR OWN PRESERVATION WOMEN HAVE HERETOFORE PLAYED THEIR HUSBANDS WITH OR WITHOUT THE LATTER'S COGNIZANCE THEREOF Every star was already fled from the parts of the East, save only that which we style Lucifer and which shone yet in the whitening dawn, when the seneschal, arising, betook himself, with a great baggage-train, to the Ladies' Valley, there to order everything, according to commandment had of his lord. The king, whom the noise of the packers and of the beasts had awakened, tarried not long after his departure to rise and being risen, caused arouse all the ladies and likewise the young men; nor had the rays of the sun yet well broken forth, when they all entered upon the road. Never yet had the nightingales and the other birds seemed to them to sing so blithely as they did that morning, what while, accompanied by their carols, they repaired to the Ladies' Valley, where they were received by many more, which seemed to them to make merry for their coming. There, going round about the place and reviewing it all anew, it appeared to them so much fairer than on the foregoing day as the season of the day was more sorted to its goodliness. Then, after they had broken their fast with good wine and confections, not to be behindhand with the birds in the matter of song, they fell a-singing and the valley with them, still echoing those same songs which they did sing, whereto all the birds, as if they would not be outdone, added new and dulcet notes. Presently, the dinner-hour being come and the tables spread hard by the fair lakelet under the thickset laurels and other goodly trees, they seated themselves there, as it pleased the king, and eating, watched the fish swim in vast shoals about the lake, which gave bytimes occasion for talk as well as observation. When they had made an end of dining and the meats and tables were removed, they fell anew to singing more blithely than ever; after which, beds having been spread in various places about the little valley and all enclosed about by the discreet seneschal with curtains and canopies of French serge, whoso would might with the king's permission, go sleep; whilst those who had no mind to sleep might at their will take pleasure of their other wonted pastimes. But, after awhile, all being now arisen and the hour come when they should assemble together for story-telling, carpets were, at the king's commandment, spread upon the grass, not far from the place where they had eaten, and all having seated themselves thereon hard by the lake, the king bade Emilia begin; whereupon she blithely proceeded to speak, smiling, thus: THE FIRST STORY [Day the Seventh]

• From The Decameron (1353)

  As soon as dawn arrived, the magistrates, confident that all the relevant facts were now in their possession, set Aldobrandino at liberty; and a few days later they had the delinquents beheaded at the scene of the murder. Aldobrandino was overjoyed to find himself at liberty, and so too were his wife and all his friends and relatives. Knowing full well that the whole thing was due to the efforts of the pilgrim, they offered him their hospitality for as long as he chose to remain in the city. And having brought him to their house, they feted and feasted him without being able to stop, especially the lady, since she alone knew who it was she was honouring. But before very long, having learned that his brothers were being held up to ridicule on account of Aldobrandino’s release and that they had armed themselves in fear and trembling, he decided that the time had come to reconcile the two sides, and reminded Aldobrandino of his promise. Aldobrandino readily agreed to carry it out, and the pilgrim persuaded him to arrange a sumptuous banquet for the following day, to which he was to invite not only his own relatives and womenfolk but also the four brothers and their wives. Moreover, the pilgrim offered to call on the four brothers in person and invite them to the reunion and banquet on Aldobrandino’s behalf. Aldobrandino gave his consent, whereupon the pilgrim immediately went to call upon the four brothers, and having told them as much as they needed to know, he eventually persuaded them without difficulty, using impeccable arguments, to ask Aldobrandino’s forgiveness and patch up their differences with him. He then invited them to take their wives along to Aldobrandino’s banquet on the following morning, and the brothers, being convinced of his good faith, gladly agreed to do so.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  In moving from the periphery of the experience to the freezing “shock core”, his unresolved freezing patterns were neutralized by flexible and resolvable patterns as the activation increased. As I encouraged Marius to gradually track the initial, positive experience with his pants towards the traumatic, freezing, “shock core”, a joyful experience became linked to his earlier experience of defeat and rejection. This gave him new resource s — natural aggression and competence. Armed with this newly found confidence, when Marius saw the image of the rocks, his resources began to constellate. In jumping from rock to rock and finding and picking up the stick, Marius’ creative process developed these resources to propel his forward movement toward meeting the impending challenge. In being the aggressor, like the hunters, he tracked the imagined polar bear while I tracked his bodily responses. Marius had become resourced by the images and feelings of his empowered legs and the connection with the men from his village. It is with this sense of power that he sights his dangerous prey and makes the kill. Finally, approaching ecstasy, he eviscerates the imagined bear. It is of the utmost importance to understand that, even though this experience was imagined, because of the presence of the felt sense, the experience was in every way as real for Marius’ as the original one, that is, mentally, physiologically, and spiritually. In the next sequence of events, the true test is made. Empowered and triumphant, he heads back down toward the village. His awareness has expanded. For the first time, he sees and describes the road and the dogs. Previously, these images were not available to him; they were constricted in a form of amnesia. He notices that he’s orienting his movements away from the attacking dogs and towards the electric pole. After experiencing the strength in his legs, Marius is no longer a prisoner of the immobility response. He now has a choice. The ecstatic trembling energy from the kill is transformed into the ability to run. This is just the beginning; he can run but cannot yet escape! I ask him to turn and face his attackers so he doesn’t fall back into immobility. This time he counter-attacks, at first with rage and then with the same triumph that he experienced in the previous sequence of killing and eviscerating the bear. The plan has succeeded. Marius is now victorious and no longer a victim of defeat. However, the renegotiation is still incomplete. In the next sequence, Marius orients himself toward the telephone pole and prepares to run. He had initiated this action years ago, but until this moment, he has not been able to execute it. With his new resources, he completes the escape by running away.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Dulcis Jesu matris pater Joachim, et Anna mater Justi, natu nobiles.1288 Gaude, mater Anna Gaude, mater sancta Cum sis Dei facta Genetrix avia.1289 In England, singing sacred songs seems to have been little cultivated before the 16th century. The singing of Psalms in the days of Anne Boleyn was a novelty and was greatly enjoyed at the court as it was later in Elizabeth’s reign, on the streets. The vast numbers of sacred pieces, written in Germany, France and the Lowlands, were intended for conventual devotions not for popular use.1290 Singing, however, was practised extensively in pilgrimages and processions and also in churches, and the Basel synod at its 21st session complained that the public services were interrupted by hymns in the vernacular. Germany took the lead in sacred popular music. From 1470–1520, nearly 100 hymns were printed from German presses, many of them with original tunes. Sometimes the hymns were in German from beginning to end, sometimes they were a mixture of Latin and German. As the Middle Ages drew to a close, religious song increased. The Reformation established congregational singing and begat the congregational hymnbook.1291 These adjuncts and elements of Christian worship and training were added to the usual service of the churches, the celebration of the mass, which was central, the confessional and preaching. The age was religious but doubt was growing. A writer of the 16th century says of England:1292 There are many who have various opinions concerning religion but all attend mass every day and say many pater nosters in public, the women carrying long rosaries in their hands and any who can read taking the Hours of our Lady with them and reciting them in church verse by verse in a low voice is the manner of the religious. They always hear mass in their parish church on Sunday and give liberal alms nor do they omit any form incumbent upon good Christians. The age of a more intelligent piety was still to come, though it was to prove itself less submissive to human authority. § 79. Works of Charity. Benevolence and philanthropy, which are of the very essence of the Christian religion, flourished in the later Middle Ages. In the endeavor to provoke his generation to good works, Luther asserted that "in the good old papal times everybody was merciful and kind. Then it snowed endowments and legacies and hospitals."1293 Institutions were established to care for the destitute and sick, colleges and bursaries were endowed and protection given to the dependent against the rapacity of unscrupulous money-lenders.

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

  Taken aback, she looked into his eager, open face. “Do you really want to endure your mother’s disapproval? I’m hardly the woman she’s dreamt of for you.” “But you’re the woman I’ve chosen. I’m in love with you!” She felt a rush of joy. She had longed to hear those words from the man she had searched for and found. But that warm wave of satisfaction was accompanied by a chill undertow. What about Hugo? “I love you, too,” she said. “I can’t imagine my life without you now,” he declared. “Well, we still don’t know each other very well.” “That’s why I want you to move to California. You said you were going to leave New York anyway and you told me you like it here.” “Yes, but I still have publishing business in New York.” “But you don’t have to live there. Now that your divorce is final.” “It’s not actually final.” “I heard you tell mother that you got divorced in Mexico.” “Well, there are complications. That’s why I have to go back.” His full lips turned downward. “Okay. Come in spring.” He raised her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. “I need to know so I can endure waiting for you. Promise me.” She laughed, remembering how glad she had been that she’d said yes when he’d asked her to run away with him. “Yes.” He gazed at her, blue eyes glowing; his sensitive, young face illuminated with pure love. As he worked his way down from kissing her breasts, to her stomach, to finding the opening of her mound, he murmured, “You’ve ruined me for any other woman, Anaïs, Anaïs.” [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Flying back to Acapulco, Anaïs prepared to write in her diary as she often did by closing her eyes and allowing an image to come to mind. She saw herself suspended in space, and Hugo pulling her down by her ankle, a drowning man. Above, Rupert, like Adam on the dome of the Sistine Chapel, extended a muscled arm to lift her into his embrace. After recording the image in her diary, she came to a decision: She had to divorce Hugo. CHAPTER 10 Malibu, California, 1964 TRISTINE I UNDERSTOOD NOW WHY SHE’D chosen Rupert over Hugo. Her story was like that of Lady Chatterley, who’d divorced her rich husband in order to marry a simple man with whom she had great sex. Though I felt bad for Hugo, I admired Anaïs for staking all for the dream of passionate romance. She was my inspiration.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  [Footnote 337: _i.e._ the tale-telling.] [Footnote 338: Lit. the northern chariot (_carro di tramontana_); _quære_ the Great Bear?] Hither then came the young ladies and after they had gazed all about and much commended the place, they took counsel together to bathe, for that the heat was great and that they saw the lakelet before them and were in no fear of being seen. Accordingly, bidding their serving maid abide over against the way whereby one entered there and look if any should come and give them notice thereof, they stripped themselves naked, all seven, and entered the lake, which hid their white bodies no otherwise than as a thin glass would do with a vermeil rose. Then, they being therein and no troubling of the water ensuing thereof, they fell, as best they might, to faring hither and thither in pursuit of the fish, which had uneath where to hide themselves, and seeking to take them with the naked hand. After they had abidden awhile in such joyous pastime and had taken some of the fish, they came forth of the lakelet and clad themselves anew. Then, unable to commend the place more than they had already done and themseeming time to turn homeward, they set out, with soft step, upon their way, discoursing much of the goodliness of the valley. They reached the palace betimes and there found the young men yet at play where they had left them; to whom quoth Pampinea, laughing. "We have e'en stolen a march on you to-day." "How?" asked Dioneo. "Do you begin to do deeds ere you come to say words?"[339] "Ay, my lord," answered she and related to him at large whence they came and how the place was fashioned and how far distant thence and that which they had done. The king, hearing tell of the goodliness of the place and desirous of seeing it, caused straightway order the supper, which being dispatched to the general satisfaction, the three young men, leaving the ladies, betook themselves with their servants to the valley and having viewed it in every part, for that none of them had ever been there before, extolled it for one of the goodliest things in the world. Then, for that it grew late, after they had bathed and donned their clothes, they returned home, where they found the ladies dancing a round, to the accompaniment of a song sung by Fiammetta. [Footnote 339: Alluding to the subject fixed for the next day's discourse, as who should say, "Have you begun already to play tricks upon us men in very deed, ere you tell about them in words?"]

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But I do know that when he came to see me last night and I gave him your message, he immediately took my soul and set it down amid a multitude of flowers and roses, more wonderful to behold than anything that was ever seen on earth. And there I remained until matins this morning, in one of the most delectable places ever created by God. As for my actual body, I haven’t the slightest idea what became of it.’ ‘But that’s exactly what I am telling you,’ said the lady. ‘Your body spent the whole night in my arms with the Angel Gabriel inside it. And if you don’t believe me, take a look under your left breast, where I gave the Angel such an enormous kiss that it will leave its mark there for the best part of a week.’ ‘In that case,’ said Friar Alberto, ‘I shall undress myself later today – which is a thing I have not done for a very long time – in order to see whether you are telling the truth.’ The woman chattered away for a good while longer before returning once more to her own house, which from then on Friar Alberto visited regularly without encountering let or hindrance. One day, however, Monna Lisetta was chatting with a neighbour of hers, and their conversation happened to touch upon the subject of physical beauty. She was determined to prove that no other woman was as beautiful as herself, and, being a prize blockhead, she remarked: ‘You would soon cease to prattle about the beauty of other women if I were to tell you who has fallen for mine.’ At this, her neighbour’s curiosity was thoroughly aroused, and, well knowing the sort of woman with whom she was dealing, she replied: ‘You may well be right, my dear, but you can hardly expect to convince me unless I know who it is that you are talking about.’ ‘My good woman,’ retorted Monna Lisetta, who was quick to take offence, ‘I should not be telling you this, but my admirer is the Angel Gabriel, who loves me more than his very self. And he informs me that it is all because I am the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth, and the face of the water too.’ Her neighbour wanted to burst out laughing there and then, but being eager to draw Monna Lisetta out a little further on the subject, she continued to keep a straight face. ‘God bless my soul!’ she exclaimed. ‘If your admirer is the Angel Gabriel, my dear, and if he tells you this, then it must be perfectly true. But I never imagined the angels did this sort of thing.’ ‘That is where you are mistaken,’ said the lady. ‘I swear to you by God’s wounds that he does it better than my husband, and he informs me that they do it up there as well.

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

  When she returned with a Bergdorf’s sack, her grin was so affectionate, it banished my angst over looking like a gargoyle. The upward curve of her smile mirrored the downward arcs of her eyebrows and eyes, giving the impression of features made of smiling crescent moons. Solicitously, she arranged the books for me in the sack, then surprised me with a long hug, her slender arms holding me as she spoke into my ear. “Come back and tell me what you think of my writing. We will be friends.” Her fingers turned my head to kiss me on one cheek, then guided my face the other direction to plant a delicate kiss on the other cheek. “How the French say au revoir,” she said. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] I almost skipped back to Lenore’s loft, swinging the Bergdorf’s sack, elevated by her hug and its promise. I felt like a girl in a musical with the refrain of Anaïs’s singsong voice in my head, We will be friends. I had found a world I wanted to live in. A sophisticated world where people owned life and enjoyed it. A world the opposite of the depressing confines I’d grown up in. Although I would defend my mother from anyone who criticized her, I hated how her mistakes had restricted my life. She should never have left the Women’s Army Corps to marry my father and have me. She should never have let herself fade into a housewife. She should never have gained 120 pounds after my father left. She shouldn’t have crammed all the junk she salvaged from the alley into our garage and closets and her bedroom and bathroom and the living room so there was no place to sit. She shouldn’t have gotten pregnant when she was forty-two and married a construction worker who hardly ever worked, and had another baby, and gotten poorer and poorer. Anaïs was the antithesis of my mother: slender, cared for, sophisticated, and literate. She was the antidote to my mother’s depression and fears. Now that I’d had a glimpse of Anaïs’s world, now that she had promised we would be friends, now that I’d learned from her how the French kiss au revoir, and practiced another kind of French kiss with a real French man, I never wanted to go home to the San Fernando Valley. To think I had stood in the kitchen with a steak knife held to my wrist when I was eight, waiting for the courage to kill myself. Thank goodness I was too afraid of the sight of blood to have done it, otherwise I would never have grown up to know what happiness felt like; I would never have met Anaïs Nin.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And on their arrival the company discovered, to their no small pleasure, that the place had been cleaned from top to bottom, the beds in the rooms were made up, the whole house was adorned with seasonable flowers of every description, and the floors had been carpeted with rushes. Soon after reaching the palace, they all sat down, and Dioneo, a youth of matchless charm and readiness of wit, said: ‘It is not our foresight, ladies, but rather your own good sense, that has led us to this spot. I know not what you intend to do with your troubles; my own I left inside the city gates when I departed thence a short while ago in your company. Hence you may either prepare to join with me in as much laughter, song and merriment as your sense of decorum will allow, or else you may give me leave to go back for my troubles and live in the afflicted city.’ Pampinea, as though she too had driven away all her troubles, answered him in the same carefree vein. ‘There is much sense in what you say, Dioneo,’ she replied. ‘A merry life should be our aim, since it was for no other reason that we were prompted to run away from the sorrows of the city. However, nothing will last for very long unless it possesses a definite form. And since it was I who led the discussions from which this fair company has come into being, I have given some thought to the continuance of our happiness, and consider it necessary for us to choose a leader, drawn from our own ranks, whom we would honour and obey as our superior, and whose sole concern will be that of devising the means whereby we may pass our time agreeably. But so that none of us will complain that he or she has had no opportunity to experience the burden of responsibility and the pleasure of command associated with sovereign power, I propose that the burden and the honour should be assigned to each of us in turn for a single day. It will be for all of us to decide who is to be our first ruler, after which it will be up to each ruler, when the hour of vespers

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The mother's joy at seeing her son again and that of the two brothers in each other and of all three in the faithful nurse, the honour done of all to Messer Guasparrino and his daughter and of him to all and the rejoicing of all together with Currado and his lady and children and friends, no words might avail to express; wherefore, ladies, I leave it to you to imagine. Thereunto,[110] that it might be complete, it pleased God the Most High, a most abundant giver, whenas He beginneth, to add the glad news of the life and well-being of Arrighetto Capece; for that, the feast being at its height and the guests, both ladies and men, yet at table for the first service, there came he who had been sent into Sicily and amongst other things, reported of Arrighetto that he, being kept in captivity by King Charles, whenas the revolt against the latter broke out in the land, the folk ran in a fury to the prison and slaying his guards, delivered himself and as a capital enemy of King Charles, made him their captain and followed him to expel and slay the French: wherefore he was become in especial favour with King Pedro,[111] who had reinstated him in all his honours and possessions, and was now in great good case. The messenger added that he had received himself with the utmost honour and had rejoiced with inexpressible joy in the recovery of his wife and son, of whom he had heard nothing since his capture; moreover, he had sent a brigantine for them, with divers gentlemen aboard, who came after him. [Footnote 110: _i.e._ to which general joy.] [Footnote 111: Pedro of Arragon, son-in-law of Manfred, who, in consequence of the Sicilian Vespers, succeeded Charles d'Anjou as King of Sicily.] The messenger was received and hearkened with great gladness and rejoicing, whilst Currado, with certain of his friends, set out incontinent to meet the gentlemen who came for Madam Beritola and Giusfredi and welcoming them joyously, introduced them into his banquet, which was not yet half ended. There both the lady and Giusfredi, no less than all the others, beheld them with such joyance that never was heard the like; and the gentlemen, ere they sat down to meat, saluted Currado and his lady on the part of Arrighetto, thanking them, as best they knew and might, for the honour done both to his wife and his son and offering himself to their pleasure,[112] in all that lay in his power. Then, turning to Messer Guasparrino, whose kindness was unlooked for, they avouched themselves most certain that, whenas that which he had done for Scacciato should be known of Arrighetto, the like thanks and yet greater would be rendered him. [Footnote 112: Or (in modern phrase) putting himself at their disposition.]

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

  Caresse lifted her large head from the mauve settee. “My organization, Women of the World Against War, denounces war as mass murder.” “Say the point I like about individualism,” Anaïs prompted. “We will guard our individualism and feminine qualities and use them for good!” With his heavy accent, Jean-Jacques volunteered, “Aahving no feminine qualities, I will just aahve to be bad.” “So that’s your excuse.” Anaïs’s laugh jingled. Anaïs, Hugo, Caresse, and Jean-Jacques continued their good-humored banter, looping from experimental music and off-Broadway theater to Bette Davis’s performance in All About Eve, to Marilyn Monroe’s death the previous week. As I was thinking how inconceivable Marilyn’s suicide was, given she was famous and had everything I wanted, they segued to Hemingway’s suicide the year before. Anaïs said that the way Hemingway had written—by denying all feeling—had predicted his end. I sat spellbound by Anaïs and Hugo and their guests, whose speech and gestures seemed to be from the black-and-white movies I’d watched on TV over long summer afternoons. Anaïs especially, with her delicate skin, bowed lips, and arched brows, had the glamour of a 1930s ingénue. Her every movement flowed as if there were a camera always on her. I’d studied the mannerisms of those beautiful people, who lived in mansions with balustraded stairways, chandeliered drawing rooms, and carts with ice and crystal liquor bottles from which to prepare cocktails. They were always going to or giving parties, falling in or out of love, and confiding their indiscretions to a doting maid. To a latchkey kid in front of her TV, it looked like an idyllic life. Now I felt as if I had walked onto the set of one of those old films, which was thrilling but also terrifying, because—as in one of my recurring nightmares where I’d been cast in a play but never learned my lines—I was afraid of saying the wrong thing and ruining the show. For the moment, though, I wasn’t called upon to deliver any lines. Everyone’s attention was on Anaïs. She was talking about Henry Miller’s novels. “Henry’s genital obsession is part of American realism. I’m more interested in the atmosphere of love in my novels, in sensuality, which for me is everywhere; a shrub can be erotic at twilight, the lines of an Eames chair, the moan of a sax from a curtainless window, the hiss of sprinklers in the morning, the way my husband refolds his Wall Street Journal.” She glanced affectionately at Hugo. I had never heard a woman speak that way, precisely and boldly, but also musically, and I agreed with her. I didn’t even want to go all the way with the boys I dated. I was happy just making out with them for hours. And I, like she, found sensuality everywhere, especially here in her apartment with its rosy, flattering lamplight and her carpets and furniture that seemed out of The Arabian Nights. “It’s time to get going,” Hugo announced.

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

  But if she said no to Rupert’s proposal she would lose an emotional and sexual connection so essential it was inexplicable, a love so romantic that her heart leapt in her chest whenever he walked through their dilapidated cabin door. She did not want to live without their engagement with music that took her to a transcendent state. Without Rupert’s physical love she would waste away and die. It was live now or live never. “Yes,” she heard herself say. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] As Rupert drove, Anaïs, in the passenger seat, pushed her foot down on an imaginary brake. Yet she remained mute, passively willing, carried as in a dream, as he hurtled the car towards the dusty town of Quartzite, Arizona. When they’d first driven cross-country he had noticed a justice of the peace’s office there. Sentimental and stubborn, Rupert was certain that Judge Hardly’s shingle would still be out and the office open. Anaïs’s only hope was that in the eight years since Rupert had spotted that sign board, the judge had retired. No such luck. She was about to become a bigamist. As pink-cheeked Mrs. Hardly led them into a little courtroom, Anaïs saw on a desk, next to the judge’s King James Bible, a large book titled Arizona Criminal Record. She imagined that after the marriage her name would be entered there. But which name? Anaïs Nin, Anaïs Guiler, or Anaïs Pole? They were all guilty. When the ceremony began, with the judge’s smiling wife as witness, Anaïs left her body. Detached, in a state of manic hilarity, she observed her wedding ceremony from up in the courtroom rafters. She had to keep from snickering at the thought of Judge Hardly performing a marriage that could hardly be legal. There was no one with whom she could share her dark mirth. The surrealists from her Paris days—Breton, Ernst, and Artaud—would have loved this wedding. They would have held a mad party to celebrate her mariage a trois. They would have carried her on their shoulders to showers of confetti, shouting, “Hail to la grande dame de l’absurd!” But there was no party, no spurting champagne, no all-night celebration. Instead, she and Rupert walked out of the judge’s office into the empty desert street and blinding sun. They sped directly back to Sierra Madre so that Rupert could be up for work the next morning at 5 a.m. As he drove, Anaïs glanced over at his handsome profile and tanned hands on the wheel, and she touched him, repeatedly and provocatively. She stroked his smooth young skin and the golden hairs exposed by his open shirt collar as she wondered what sentence she would get for bigamy. She recalled that Gore Vidal, when denouncing Virginia’s laws on sexual deviance, once said that the sentence for bigamy there was ten years in prison. “That’s progress,” he’d chuckled. “Used to be the death penalty.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  When he heard this, Salabaetto was the happiest man who ever lived, and taking the ring, he brushed it against his eyelids, kissed it, and put it on his finger, telling the good woman that Madonna Jancofiore’s love was fully reciprocated, since he loved her more than his very life, and that he was ready to meet her wherever and whenever she pleased. The go-between returned with this answer to her mistress, and soon afterwards Salabaetto was informed that he was to wait for her at a certain bagnio on the following day after vespers. Without giving the slightest hint to anyone about where he was going, Salabaetto swiftly made his way to the bagnio at the appointed hour, and found that it was reserved for the lady. He had not been there long before two slave-girls arrived, one of whom was carrying a fine big feather mattress on her head, whilst the other had a huge basket filled with this, that, and the other. And having laid the mattress on a bed in one of the rooms of the bagnio, they covered it with a pair of sheets, fine as gossamer and edged all round with silk, over which they placed a quilt of whitest Cyprian buckram, together with two exquisitely embroidered pillows. They then undressed, got into the bath, and washed and scrubbed it all over until it gleamed. Nor was it long before the lady herself arrived at the bagnio, attended by two more slave-girls. She no sooner saw Salabaetto than she rushed ecstatically forward to greet him, flung her arms round his neck, and smothered him with kisses; and after heaving several deep sighs, she said: ‘My fascinating Tuscan, I know of no other man who could have brought me to do this. My heart is all on fire because of you.’ She then undressed, bidding him do the same, and they both stepped naked into the bath, attended by two of the slave-girls. Nor would she allow either of the girls to lay a hand upon him, but she herself washed Salabaetto from head to toe with marvellous care, using soap that was steeped in musk and cloves; and finally, she had herself washed and rubbed down by the two slave-girls. This operation completed, the slave-girls fetched two sheets, white as snow and very finely woven, from which there came the fragrant smell of roses, so powerful that it seemed the bagnio was filled with roses and nothing else. Having wrapped Salabaetto in one of these and their mistress in the other, the slave-girls took them up and conveyed them both to the bed, where, when they had ceased to perspire, the sheets enfolding them were removed and they found themselves lying naked between the sheets of the bed.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The Soldan was beyond measure rejoiced at these things and besought God again and again to vouchsafe him of His grace the power of worthily requiting all who had succoured his daughter and especially the King of Cyprus, by whom she had been sent back to him with honour. After some days, having caused prepare great gifts for Antigonus, he gave him leave to return to Cyprus and rendered, both by letters and by special ambassadors, the utmost thanks to the king for that which he had done with his daughter. Then desiring that that which was begun should have effect, to wit, that she should be the wife of the King of Algarve, he acquainted the latter with the whole matter and wrote to him to boot, that, an it pleased him have her, he should send for her. The King of Algarve was mightily rejoiced at this news and sending for her in state, received her joyfully; and she, who had lain with eight men belike ten thousand times, was put to bed to him for a maid and making him believe that she was so, lived happily with him as his queen awhile after; wherefore it was said, 'Lips for kissing forfeit no favour; nay, they renew as the moon doth ever.'" THE EIGHTH STORY [Day the Second] THE COUNT OF ANTWERP, BEING FALSELY ACCUSED, GOETH INTO EXILE AND LEAVETH HIS TWO CHILDREN IN DIFFERENT PLACES IN ENGLAND, WHITHER, AFTER AWHILE, RETURNING IN DISGUISE AND FINDING THEM IN GOOD CASE, HE TAKETH SERVICE AS A HORSEBOY IN THE SERVICE OF THE KING OF FRANCE AND BEING APPROVED INNOCENT, IS RESTORED TO HIS FORMER ESTATE The ladies sighed amain over the fortunes of the fair Saracen; but who knoweth what gave rise to those sighs? Maybe there were some of them who sighed no less for envy of such frequent nuptials than for pity of Alatiel. But, leaving that be for the present, after they had laughed at Pamfilo's last words, the queen, seeing his story ended, turned to Elisa and bade her follow on with one of hers. Elisa cheerfully obeyed and began as follows: "A most ample field is that wherein we go to-day a-ranging, nor is there any of us but could lightly enough run, not one, but half a score courses there, so abounding hath Fortune made it in her strange and grievous chances; wherefore, to come to tell of one of these latter, which are innumerable, I say that:

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  They discussed many things quite simply together, for between these two was no vestige of shyness. His youth met hers and walked hand in hand with it, so that she knew how utterly lonely her own youth had been before the coming of Martin. She said: ‘You’re the only real friend I’ve ever had, except Father—our friendship’s so wonderful, somehow—we’re like brothers, we enjoy all the same sort of things.’ He nodded: ‘I know, a wonderful friendship.’ The hills must let Stephen tell him their secrets, the secrets of bypaths most cunningly hidden; the secrets of small, unsuspected green hollows; the secrets of ferns that live only by hiding. She might even reveal the secrets of birds, and show him the playground of shy, spring cuckoos. ‘They fly quite low up here, one can see them; last year a couple flew right past me, calling. If you were not going away so soon, Martin, we’d come later on—I’d love you to see them.’ ‘And I’d love you to see my huge forests,’ he told her, ‘why can’t you come back to Canada with me? What rot it is, all this damned convention; we’re such pals you and I, I’ll be desperately lonely—Lord, what a fool of a world we live in!’ And she said quite simply: ‘I’d love to come with you.’ Then he started to tell her about his huge forests, so vast that their greenness seemed almost eternal. Great trees he told of, erect, towering firs, many centuries old and their girth that of giants. And then there were all the humbler tree-folk whom he spoke of as friends that were dear and familiar; the hemlocks that grow by the courses of rivers, in love with adventure and clear running water; the slender white spruces that border the lakes; the red pines, that glow like copper in the sunset. Unfortunate trees these beautiful red pines, for their tough, manly wood is coveted by builders. ‘But I won’t have my roof-tree hacked from their sides,’ declared Martin, ‘I’d feel like a positive assassin!’ Happy days spent between the hills and the stables, happy days for these two who had always been lonely until now, and now this wonderful friendship—there had never been anything like it for Stephen. Oh, but it was good to have him beside her, so young, so strong and so understanding. She liked his quiet voice with its careful accent, and his thoughtful blue eyes that moved rather slowly, so that his glance when it came, came slowly—sometimes she would meet his glance half-way, smiling. She who had longed for the companionship of men, for their friendship, their good-will, their toleration, she had it all now and much more in Martin, because of his great understanding. She said to Puddle one night in the schoolroom: ‘I’ve grown fond of Martin—isn’t that queer after only a couple of months of friendship? But he’s different somehow—when he’s gone I shall miss him.’

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

  He picked her up like an actor in a Western. It was corny, but she laughed as he carried her into the master bedroom, pulled off the satin bedcover, and released her gently on the bed. Urgently he pulled off her clothes and his own, tossing them to the floor. She saw his body in the half-light: his lean, muscled physique; his compact, alert member. He thrust into her with the speed and agility of an athlete. In a blast of energy, he took her to the brink repeatedly, challenging her strength, and only when she was wild with readiness did he satisfy her with a long, long orgasm. She was delirious with joy. She had found a man who could meet her passion with his own! He held her through the night, reaching out for her when she rolled over. She did not want to fall asleep, aware of the touch of his slender thighs next to hers, his sinewy arms enfolding her. In the morning, he took her again in another tidal wave of pleasure and left only after covering her with kisses. She was sure he would call her that afternoon, want to see her again that night. Her body throbbed, remembering: him throwing his coat on the couch, gently lowering the phonograph arm onto the record, carrying her laughing into the bedroom, leaning over her, his penis sprung hard in the half light. She was mad to be with him again that night. She circled the phone. She let herself look up the number in the phonebook for the printer where he worked. She opened the cigarette box to keep her hands from dialing the number. The phone rang. She put a smile on her face before answering so that her voice wouldn’t betray her anxiety. She heard Gore Vidal’s young, Brahmin voice. “I have some good news for you, my dear, but don’t get too excited; nothing is ever for sure.” “Did Dutton say yes?” “Have you finished Children of the Albatross?” “No, but I’m close.” “If you can have a final manuscript in two weeks, they’ve tentatively agreed to put it on the spring list.” “Oh Gore, that’s wonderful. I know this is only because of you.” “I’ll sign off now. You don’t have time to talk.” She hung up, dazed. Her body was still crying out for Rupert, but now she simply could not listen. She had worked a lifetime for this opportunity with a real publisher. She snapped her fingers to wake herself. Get to work, Anaïs. It’s just as well Rupert hasn’t called. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] The spindly arms of her Bauhaus Olivetti typewriter drummed. She typed one last sentence and swung the carriage with satisfaction. She still had to proof the entire book but tonight she wanted to celebrate. Tonight she wanted Rupert.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  For this very reason, in fact, some people had condemned the pilgrim’s scheme for holding the banquet, and Tedaldo, who was well aware of their objections, felt that the time had now come to spring his surprise and disperse the mists of melancholy. He therefore rose to his feet while the others were still eating their dessert, and said: ‘All that this banquet requires to bring it to life is the presence of Tedaldo. He has been here all the time, as it happens, but since you have failed to notice him, I want to point him out.’ Then, throwing off his cloak and all his pilgrim’s clothing, he stood before them wearing a tunic of green taffeta, to be inspected and scrutinized at great length, and with no small display of astonishment, before anyone ventured to believe that he really was Tedaldo. Seeing how incredulous they looked, Tedaldo identified the families to which they belonged, told them about various things that had happened to them, and described his own adventures, whereupon his brothers and the other men rushed to embrace him, all weeping with joy, and the ladies followed their example, kinsfolk and others alike, with the sole exception of Monna Ermellina. ‘Ermellina!’ exclaimed Aldobrandino. ‘What is this that I see? Why are you not greeting Tedaldo, like the other ladies?’ ‘I would greet him more willingly,’ she replied, in everyone’s hearing, ‘than any of the ladies who have done so already, because it was thanks to him that you have been restored to me, and thus my debt to him is greater than anyone’s. But I refrain because of the mischievous things that were said when we were mourning the man we mistook for Tedaldo.’ ‘Away with you!’ said Aldobrandino. ‘Do you suppose I pay any attention to gossip-mongers? He has amply proved that the stories were untrue by securing my release, and I never believed them in the first place. Up you get, quickly; go and embrace him.’ The lady could desire nothing better, and was not slow to obey her husband’s instructions. Rising from her place, she threw her arms about his neck, as the other ladies had done, and gave him an ecstatic welcome. Tedaldo’s brothers were delighted by Aldobrandino’s magnanimous gesture, as were all the other gentlemen and ladies who were present; and so it was that every trace of the doubts implanted in certain people’s minds by the rumours was expelled. Now that everyone had given Tedaldo a handsome welcome, he himself stripped his brothers of their mourning, tore asunder the sombre dresses that their wives and sisters were wearing, and ordered different clothes to be brought. And when all were newly attired, they made merry with a number of songs, dances and other entertainments, so that in contrast to its subdued beginning the banquet had a noisy ending. Nor was this all, for they immediately made their way to Tedaldo’s house, singing and dancing as they went, and dined there that evening.