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 The Girls (2016)

  “From Trader Vic’s.” The banality of this remark—Suzanne and I caught each other’s eyes. “What?” Mitch said. When we kept laughing, he did, too. “This is fun,” he repeated over the music. He kept saying how much some actor he knew liked the song. “He really got it,” he said. “Wouldn’t stop playing it. Tuned-in guy.” It was new to me, that you could treat someone famous like they weren’t that special, that you could see all the ways they were disappointing and regular or notice the way his kitchen smelled of trash that hadn’t been taken out. The phantom squares on the wall where photographs had once hung, the gold records leaned against the baseboard, still wrapped in plastic. Suzanne acted like it was really only she and I that mattered, and this was all a little game we were playing with Mitch. He was the background to the larger story, which was our story, and we pitied him and felt grateful to him, at the same time, for how he sacrificed himself for our enjoyment. Mitch had a little coke, and it was almost painful to watch him shake it out carefully onto a book about TM, staring at his own hands with a queer distance, like they didn’t belong to him. He cut three lines, then peered at them. He fussed around until one was markedly bigger and snorted it quickly, breathing hard. “Ahh,” he said, leaning back, his throat raw and pricked with golden stubble. He held out the book to Suzanne, who danced over, sniffing up a line, and I did the last one. The coke made me want to dance, so I did. Suzanne grabbing my hands, smiling at me. It was a strange moment: we were dancing for Mitch, but I was eaten up by her eyes, how she urged me on. She watched me move with pleasure. Mitch was trying to talk, telling us some story about his girlfriend. How lonesome he’d been since she’d left for Marrakesh, on some tear about needing more space. “Baloney,” he kept saying. “Ah, baloney.” We were indulging him: I took my lead from Suzanne, who nodded when he spoke but rolled her eyes at me or loudly urged him to tell us more. He was talking about Linda that night, though her name meant nothing to me. I was barely listening: I’d picked up a small wooden box rattling with tiny silver balls and tipped it, trying to get the balls to drop into holes painted to look like the mouths of dragons. Linda would be his ex-girlfriend by the time of the murders, only twenty-six, though that age seemed vague to me then, like a knock on a faraway door. Her son, Christopher, was five years old but had already been to ten countries, bundled along on his mother’s travels like the pouch of her scarab jewelry. The ostrich-skin cowboy boots she stuffed with rolled-up magazines so they’d keep their shape.

• From The Girls (2016)

  “Mothers and daughters who’d take a trip together. Who are sweet with each other like you two.” “Oh, she’s great,” Sasha said. “I love my mom.” She cut me a tricky smile before she leaned her face close to mine. The dry press of her lips, the stingy brine of pickles on her mouth. The most chaste of kisses. Still. Victor was shocked. As she’d hoped he would be. “Goddamn,” Victor said, both disgusted and titillated. Straightening his bulky shoulders, retucking his blousy shirt. He suddenly seemed wary of us, glancing around for support, for confirmation, and I wanted to explain that Sasha wasn’t my daughter, but I was past the point of caring, the night stoking a foolish, confused sense that I had somehow returned to the world after a period of absence, had taken up residence again in the realm of the living. 1969 6 My father had always been in charge of pool maintenance—skimming the surface with a net, heaping wet leaves into a pile. The colored vials he used to test chlorine levels. He’d never been that assiduous with upkeep, but the pool had gotten bad since he’d left. Salamanders idling around the filter. When I propelled myself along the rim, there was some sloggy resistance, crud dispersing in my wake. My mother was at group. She’d forgotten a promise to buy me a new swimsuit, so I was wearing my old orange one: pale as cantaloupe, the stitching puckered and gaping around the leg holes. The top was too small, but the adult mass of cleavage pleased me. It had only been a week since the solstice party, and already I’d been back to the ranch, and already I was stealing money for Suzanne, bill by bill. I like to imagine that it took more time than that. That I had to be convinced over a period of months, slowly broken down. Wooed as carefully as a valentine. But I was an eager mark, anxious to offer myself. I kept bobbing in the water, algae speckling the hair on my legs like filings to a magnet. A forgotten paperback ruffled on the seat of the lawn chair. The leaves in the trees were silvery and spangled, like scales, everything full with June’s lazy heat. Had the trees around my house always looked like that, so strange and aquatic? Or were things already shifting for me, the dumb litter of the normal world transforming into the lush stage sets of a different life? — Suzanne had driven me home the morning after the solstice, my bike shoved in the backseat. My mouth was leached and unfamiliar from smoking so much, and my clothes were stale from my body and smelled of ash. I kept picking bits of straw from my hair—proof of the night before that thrilled me, like a stamped passport. It had happened, after all, and I

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Then finally, since it was his wish to make an end of what was begun, or in other words that she should become the King of Algarve’s wife, he wrote informing him of all that had happened, adding that, if he still desired to marry her, he should send his envoys to fetch her. The King of Algarve was delighted with these tidings, sent a suitably distinguished party to act as her escort, and upon her arrival he gave her a joyous welcome. And so, despite the fact that eight separate men had made love to her on thousands of different occasions, she entered his bed as a virgin and convinced him that it was really so. And for many years afterwards she lived a contented life as his queen. Hence the proverbial saying: ‘A kissed mouth doesn’t lose its freshness: like the moon it turns up new again.’15 EIGHTH STORYThe Count of Antwerp, being falsely accused, goes into exile and leaves his two children in different parts of England. Unknown to them, he returns from Ireland to find them comfortably placed. Then he serves as a groom in the army of the King of France, and having established his innocence, is restored to his former rank. The ladies heaved many a sigh over the fair lady’s several adventures: but who knows what their motives may have been? Perhaps some of them were sighing, not so much because they felt sorry for Alatiel, but because they longed to be married no less often than she was. However, leaving this question aside, when they had all finished laughing at Panfilo’s final words, from which the queen assumed his tale to be finished, she turned to Elissa and enjoined her to continue the proceedings with a story of her own. Being only too pleased to oblige, Elissa began as follows:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Seeing that her mind was made up, and knowing Federigo to be a gentleman of great merit even though he was poor, her brothers fell in with her wishes and handed her over to him, along with her immense fortune. Thenceforth, finding himself married to this great lady with whom he was so deeply in love, and very rich into the bargain, Federigo managed his affairs more prudently, and lived with her in happiness to the end of his days. TENTH STORYPietro di Vinciolo goes out to sup with Ercolano, and his wife lets a young man in to keep her company. Pietro returns, and she conceals the youth beneath a chicken coop. Pietro tells her that a young man has been discovered in Ercolano’s house, having been concealed there by Ercolano’s wife, whose conduct she severely censures. As ill luck would have it, an ass steps on the fingers of the fellow hiding beneath the coop, causing him to yell with pain. Pietro rushes to the spot and sees him, thus discovering his wife’s deception. But in the end, by reason of his own depravity, he arrives at an understanding with her. When the queen’s tale had reached its conclusion, they all praised God for having given Federigo so fitting a reward, and then Dioneo, who was not in the habit of waiting to be asked, began straightway as follows: Whether it is an accidental failing, stemming from our debased morals, or simply an innate attribute of men and women, I am unable to say; but the fact remains that we are more inclined to laugh at scandalous behaviour than virtuous deeds, especially when we ourselves are not directly involved. And since, as on previous occasions, the task I am about to perform has no other object than to dispel your melancholy, enamoured ladies, and provide you with laughter and merriment, I shall tell you the ensuing tale, for it may well afford enjoyment even though its subject matter is not altogether seemly. As you listen, do as you would when you enter a garden, and stretch forth your tender hands to pluck the roses, leaving the thorns where they are. This you will succeed in doing if you leave the knavish husband to his ill deserts and his iniquities, whilst you laugh gaily at the amorous intrigues of his wife, pausing where occasion warrants to commiserate with the woes of her lover.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The shepherds replied that some three miles away there was a castle belonging to Liello di Campo di Fiore, and that Liello’s wife was at present living there. Overjoyed, Pietro asked whether any of the shepherds would guide him as far as the castle, and two of them volunteered to do so. On reaching the castle, Pietro met various people he knew, and whilst he was trying to arrange for them to go out and search for the girl in the forest, he was told that Liello’s wife wanted to see him. He promptly answered her summons, and on finding that she had Agnolella with her, he was the happiest man that was ever born. He was positively longing to take her in his arms, but was too embarrassed to do so in the presence of the lady. And if his own joy knew no bounds, the girl was no less delighted on seeing him. The noble lady took him in and made him very welcome, and having heard the tale of his adventures from his own lips, she spoke to him severely for attempting to defy the wishes of his kinsfolk. But on seeing that he was quite unrepentant, and that the girl was eager to marry him, she said to herself: ‘Why should I go to all this trouble? They are in love, they understand one another, both are friends of my husband, and their intentions are honourable. Besides, it seems to me that they have God’s blessing, for one of them has been saved from being hanged, the other from being killed by a lance, and both of them from being devoured by wild beasts. So let them do as they wish.’ She therefore turned to them, and said: ‘If you have really set your hearts on becoming husband and wife, so be it; you shall have my blessing, the wedding can be celebrated here at Liello’s expense, and after you are married you can safely leave it to me to make peace between you and your kinsfolk.’ So there they were married, and Pietro’s enormous joy was only surpassed by that of Agnolella. The noble lady gave them as splendid a wedding as could possibly be arranged in her mountain retreat, and it was there that they tasted the first exquisite fruits of their love. Some days later, guarded by a powerful escort, they returned with the lady on horseback to Rome, where, on finding that Pietro’s kinsfolk were greatly angered by what he had done, she succeeded in restoring him to their good graces. And afterwards, he and Agnolella lived to a ripe old age in great peace and happiness. FOURTH STORYRicciardo Manardi is discovered by Messer Lizio da Valbona with his daughter, whom he marries, and remains on good terms with her father. Elissa, falling silent, listened as her companions lauded her tale, and the queen called upon Filostrato to tell his story. Laughing, he began as follows:

• From Carmina (-50)

  At, marite, ita me iuuent caelites, nihilo minus 190 pulcer es, neque te Venus Neglegit. sed abit dies. perge ne remorare. Non diu remoratus es. iam uenis. bona te Venus 195 iuuerit, quoniam palam Quae cupis capis et bonum non abscondis amorem. Ille pulueris Africei siderumque micantium 200 subducat numerum prius, Qui uostri numerare uolt multa milia ludei. Ludite ut lubet et breui liberos date. non decet 205 tam uetus sine liberis Nomen esse, sed indidem semper ingenerari. Torquatus uolo paruulus matris e gremio suae 210 porrigens teneras manus, Dulce rideat ad patrem semihiante labello. Sit suo similis patri Mallio et facile inscieis 215 noscitetur ab omnibus, Et pudicitiam suo matris indicet ore. Talis illius a bona matre laus genus approbet, 220 qualis unica ab optima Matre Telemacho manet fama Penelopeo. Claudite ostia uirgines. lusimus satis. at bonei 225 coniuges, bene uiuite et Munere assidue ualentem exercete iuuentam. LXII IVVENES Vesper adest, iuuenes, consurgite: Vesper Olympo exspectata diu uix tandem lumina tollit. surgere iam tempus, iam pinguis linquere mensas, iam ueniet uirgo, iam dicetur hymenaeus. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen ades O Hymenaee! 5 VIRGINES Cernitis, innuptae, iuuenes? consurgite contra; nimirum Oetaeos ostendit noctifer ignes. sic certest; uiden ut perniciter exsiluere? non temere exsiluere, canent quod uisere par est. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen ades O Hymenaee! 10 IVVENES Non facilis nobis, aequalis, palma parata est, aspicite, innuptae secuta ut meditata requirunt. non frustra meditantur, habent memorabile quod sit, nec mirum, penitus quae tota mente laborant. nos alio mentes, alio diuisimus aures, 15 iure igitur uincemur, amat uictoria curam. quare nunc animos saltem committite uestros, dicere iam incipient, iam respondere decebit. Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen ades O Hymenaee. VIRGINES Hespere, qui caelo fertur crudelior ignis? 20 qui natam possis complexu auellere matris, complexu matris retinentem auellere natam, et iuueni ardenti castam donare puellam. quid faciunt hostes capta crudelius urbe? Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen ades O Hymenaee! 25 IVVENES Hespere, qui caelo lucet iucundior ignis? qui desponsa tua firmes conubia flamma, quae pepigere uiri, pepigerunt ante parentes, nec iunxere prius quam se tuus extulit ardor. quid datur a diuis felici optatius hora? 30 Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen ades O Hymenaee! VIRGINES Hesperus e nobis, aequalis, abstulit unam. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen ades O Hymenaee! IVVENES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Namque tuo aduentu uigilat custodia semper, nocte latent fures, quos idem saepe reuertens, Hespere, mutato comprendis nomine eosdem. 35 at libet innuptis ficto te carpere questu. quid tum, si carpunt, tacita quem mente requirunt? Hymen O Hymenaee, Hymen ades O Hymenaee! VIRGINES

• From Carmina (-50)

  his corpus tremulum complectens undique uestis candida purpurea talos incinxerat ora, at roseo niueae residebant uertice uittae, aeternumque manus carpebant rite laborem. 310 laeua colum molli lana retinebat amictum, dextera tum leuiter deducens fila supinis formabat digitis, tum prono in pollice torquens libratum tereti uersabat turbine fusum, atque ita decerpens aequabat semper opus dens, 315 laneaque aridulis haerebant morsa labellis, quae prius in leui fuerant exstantia filo: ante pedes autem candentis mollia lanae uellera uirgati custodibant calathisci. haec tum clarisona pellentes uellera uoce 320 talia diuino fuderunt carmine fata, carmine, perfidiae quod post nulla arguet aetas. O decus eximium magnis uirtutibus augens, Emathiae tutamen opis, clarissime nato, accipe, quod laeta tibi pandunt luce sorores, 325 ueridicum oraclum: sed uos, quae fata secuntur, currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. adueniet tibi iam portans optata maritis Hesperus, adueniet fausto cum sidere coniunx, quae tibi flexanimo mentis perfundat amorem, 330 languidulosque paret tecum coniungere somnos, leuia substernens robusto brachia collo. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. nulla domus tales umquam contexit amores, nullus amor tali coniunxit foedere amantes, 335 qualis adest Thetidi, qualis concordia Peleo. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. nascetur uobis expers terroris Achilles, hostibus haud tergo, sed forti pectore notus, qui persaepe uago uictor certamine cursus 340 flammea praeuertet celeris uestigia ceruae. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. non illi quisquam bello se conferet heros, cum Phrygii Teucro manabunt sanguine campi, Troicaque obsidens longinquo moenia bello, 345 periuri Pelopis uastabit tertius heres. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. illius egregias uirtutes claraque facta saepe fatebuntur natorum in funere matres, cum incuruo canos soluent a uertice crines, 350 putridaque infirmis uariabunt pectora palmis. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. namque uelut densas praecerpens cultor aristas sole sub ardenti flauentia demetit arua, . . . . . . . . Troiugenum infesto prosternens corpora ferro. 355 currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. testis erit magnis uirtutibus unda Scamandri, quae passim rapido diffunditur Hellesponto, cuius iter caesis angustans corporum aceruis alta tepefaciet permixta flumina caede. 360 currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. denique testis erit morti quoque reddita praeda, cum teres excelso coaceruatum aggere bustum excipiet niueos perculsae uirginis artus. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. 365 nam simul ac fessis dederit fors copiam Achiuis urbis Dardaniae Neptunia soluere uincla, alta Polyxenia madefient caede sepulcra: quae, uelut ancipiti succumbens uictima ferro, proiciet truncum summisso poplite corpus. 370 currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. quare agite optatos animi coniungite amores. accipiat coniunx felici foedere diuam, dedatur cupido iam dudum nupta marito. currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. 375 non illam nutrix orienti luce reuisens hesterno collum poterit circumdare filo, currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. anxia nec mater discordis maesta puellae secubitu caros mittet sperare nepotes. 380 currite ducentes subtegmina, currite, fusi. talia praefantes quondam felicia Pelei carmina diuino cecinerunt pectore Parcae. praesentes namque ante domos inuisere castas heroum, et sese mortali ostendere coetu, 385 caelicolae nondum spreta pietate solebant. saepe pater diuum templo in fulgente reuisens, annua cum festis uenissent sacra diebus, conspexit terra centum procumbere tauros.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Whistling some quiet song, the rider made his way at an unhurried trot through the deserted streets of the Lower City, heading for the Antonia Tower, glancing occasionally at the five-branched candlesticks, such as the world had never seen, blazing above the temple, or at the moon that hung still higher than the five-branched candlesticks. The palace of Herod the Great took no part in the solemnities of the Passover night. In the auxiliary quarters of the palace, facing to the south, where the officers of the Roman cohort and the legate of the legion were stationed, lights burned and there was a feeling of some movement and life. But the front part, the formal part, which housed the sole and involuntary occupant of the palace—the procurator—all of it, with its columns and golden statues, was as if blind under the brightest moon. Here, inside the palace, darkness and silence reigned. And the procurator, as he had told Aphranius, would not go inside. He ordered his bed made up on the balcony, there where he had dined and where he had conducted the interrogation in the morning. The procurator lay on the made-up couch, but sleep would not come to him. The bare moon hung high in the clear sky, and the procurator did not take his eyes off it for several hours. Approximately at midnight, sleep finally took pity on the hegemon. With a spasmodic yawn, the procurator unfastened and threw off his cloak, removed the belt girded over his shirt, with a broad steel knife in a sheath, placed it on the chair by his couch, took off his sandals, and stretched out. Banga got on the bed at once and lay down next to him, head to head, and the procurator, placing his hand on the dog’s neck, finally closed his eyes. Only then did the dog also fall asleep. The couch was in semi-darkness, shielded from the moon by a column, but a ribbon of moonlight stretched from the porch steps to the bed. And once the procurator lost connection with what surrounded him in reality, he immediately set out on the shining road and went up it straight towards the moon. He even burst out laughing in his sleep from happiness, so wonderful and inimitable did everything come to be on the transparent, pale blue road. He walked in the company of Banga, and beside him walked the wandering philosopher. They were arguing about something very complex and important, and neither of them could refute the other. They did not agree with each other in anything, and that made their argument especially interesting and endless. It went without saying that today’s execution proved to be a sheer misunderstanding: here this philosopher, who had thought up such an incredibly absurd thing as that all men are good, was walking beside him, therefore he was alive.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  I was amused and delighted with his eagerness about it, but fearful of hurting him, I did not attempt to force my way in, until he asked me why I did not assist him in getting it farther in. I said simply because I was afraid that, as he had not tried it before, I might hurt him the first time, but that if he would allow me to try, I would endeavour to do it with as little suffering to him as possible. He at once told me to do anything I liked, that he could not expect me to allow him to enjoy himself within me again unless he reciprocated the pleasure and that he would willingly suffer any amount of pain to be permitted again to taste the delight he had already felt. I was in no way averse to take him at his word and accordingly set to work. As he gave me every facility, I was enabled with the aid of a little cold cream to make my way in with less difficulty than I had expected. My first penetration no doubt hurt him a little, but he bore it manfully and urged me to proceed till, to my infinite delight, I was fairly lodged within him up to the hilt. The avenue was as tight and delightful as possible, but it was of that charming elasticity which yielded sufficiently to admit the invader, and at the same time pressed upon him with that degree of force which occasioned the most consummate voluptuous gratifications. As soon as I was fairly in, all annoyance seemed fairly at an end and, judging from the rise of his thermometer which I held in my hand, there succeeded an increase of the pleasure heat which I had hardly anticipated. The result was that eagerly availing himself of the lessons I had given him, he set to work so deliciously and exerted himself so much to promote my pleasure that in spite of my efforts to prolong the enjoyment, he drew down from me in a very few minutes the first flow that had saturated his virgin premises. After some little fondling of each other he again wished to repeat the operation. I told him I was afraid of his exerting himself too much, and proposed that we should put it off till morning, but he would not be satisfied with this, and urged me to comply by appealing to an argument the strength and beauty of which I could not withstand. Again this fascinating charmer was plunged into my interior with the same lascivious results and again I was rewarded for my compliance by the full enjoyment of his delicious charms, and after we had each thus attained again to the height of felicity we fell asleep locked in a close embrace.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Truth be told, my plan was to come up to Santa Barbara, get freaked proper by my first good fuck, and then take my ass back to Compton. Things had swung serious though, and I knew Dushawn wasn’t just askin’ shit to be askin’. I told him I needed to think about that. “Take your time, baby. I got plenty a shit to keep me busy ’til you hit me back with your answer. I just need for you to know that I can’t ever come back to Compton. I did some serious dirt before I left.” “You askin’ me to move up here?” “That depends on whatchu got planned.” I felt like my brain was ’bout to bust. Everything had flipped so fast. I told him, “I need to come up here for a few weeks and take a look and see where I fit in. I can’t come up here blind, Dushawn. I gotta be able to take care of myself. I got a business to think about. I mean . . . every couple thinks they gon’ make it forever. Know what I mean?” He said, “If I say forever, I mean forever. Splittin’ up ain’t a option. I want some kids. Don’t you want kids, La La?” That shit blew me away. He was talkin’ marriage and family. I asked him, “Where the ring, fool?” I was just jokin’ but he went to the bedroom and started diggin’ through his suitcase. When he came back, he hit the floor and grabbed my hand. What he slid on my finger was some’m that would make the ladies say, “Oooooh!” It was at least three carats and slangin’ fire all over the room. There was a lotta shit I coulda said, but I kept it short and sweet. I said yes. Me and Dushawn spent our last day together fuckin’ each other’s brains out. We talked about er’ything—friends, family, work, old times, and times ahead. I felt like I was dreamin’. We talked about his moms. I saw her from time to time in the streets, and nothing had changed between us. She turned away when she saw me, just so she didn’t have to speak. Dushawn said, “Don’t worry about her. She’s down there and we’ll be up here.” I said, “That sounds all good and shit right now, but how do you think she’ll feel when she knows we’re gettin’ married?” He said, “She’ll get over it—or she won’t. My pops thinks she will.”

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  “Shit, I didn’t know I called you. Maybe I hit the wrong button. Sorry, ’bout that.” “Girl, stop lying. You hit up the right person, all right. The number showed up on my caller ID several times. No one makes a mistake that much. You gonna tell me your name now?” “Like I said, calling you was an accident. I made a mistake. My name is not perfect, it’s Yani.” “Well, I’m Life. I see you got some sass in your blood, Yani.” “Maybe. And what if I do?” I answered. After a few awkward moments we laughed and joked for hours. Soon, every time Smooth let me down, I began calling Life for my nightly fix. Life stimulated my mind and body with his dreams. He worked at a record shop, but was trying to negotiate and lease his beats to major rap labels, while shopping record deals for independent artists at the same time. Life was passionate about his craft, and I definitely was feeling that. “So why do they call you Life? I thought you were a straight thug when I met you. Is Life your real name?” I asked. “Nah, but life is what I’m all about. My biggest fear is becoming a statistic out here ’cause someone else is playing street games that don’t got nothing to do with me. I used to be in the drug game, but I left hustling a long time ago. I reevaluated a lot of shit after I lost my little brother to a senseless act of violence. That’s when I changed my name to Life. Through me, he lives—he still has life. Yo, my biggest wish is to put my bid in in the music game and have a queen standing right beside me when I make those millions. Shit is pointless if I ain’t got a wife and some kids to love. My dreams and goals are what keep my nose to the grind and help me stay on point. Ya feel me, Yani?” My heart fluttered. Life was so down-to-earth that I felt like I’d known him for ten years. He was about much more than Smooth. It finally hit me that Smooth had no dreams, except chasing dollars and poisoning our people. Smooth had a selfish, shallow streak that didn’t bother me when I was younger. But as I grew older, that shit grew stale. Life had goals and ambition. He never cut me off like Smooth often did when he had to leave to handle his business on the block. Hell, Life even helped me admit that I dabbled in poetry. When I did admit it, he asked me to read him some of my work. I dug in my closet and pulled out an overstuffed binder that Smooth Willie knew existed, but had never cared to inquire about. “Read somethin’ to me, Ma. Got anything wit hotness for me?” Life asked.

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  “Shhh,” I quieted her as I felt her pussy muscles squeeze around my fingers with the pressure of a boa constrictor. “Something that feels this good has to be right. Age ain’t nothin’ but a number,” I assured her. “I know what I’m doing. I know what I want, and right now I want to make you feel good, Sam. Am I making you feel good, Sam?” By then I was all up in her shit, pumping my ass like I actually had a dick up in her soaking-wet pussy. “Oh, Sin, baby,” Sam said as she grabbed me by my head. That was the prelude to her about to nut, so I quickly pulled away and tasted her creamy stream of sugar water. It was crazy, but I think I actually nutted on myself too. My panties were so wet and sticky that it was unbelievable. Just the feeling of making Sam feel so good actually made me cum. I knew I had to take care of her, take care of our situation, and that’s when I got the idea to start the phone-sex line. It only made sense. Niggas loved pussy, and this was the next best thing, and it proved to be a good money-maker. Within a few months we were able to move out of the projects and into the nice little condo we lived in now. In the beginning, Sam and I would alternate taking the calls, then eventually Sam got a “real” job, according to society’s standards, working in a check-cashing place. Within two years, we each owned a car. I started placing ads in the back of magazines, and my business shot through the roof. Just last year I bought Sam and me matching motorcycles, and paid for us to go on a Carnival Cruise that ported in Mexico and the Bahamas. While in Mexico we got someone to perform a civil ceremony, which, of course, isn’t legally recognized in the United States, but in Sam’s and my eyes, we are married. Out of the blue I drove Sam to New York and took her on a shopping spree. We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria, just because, while we were there. It only took me about a week of phone calls to replenish what I had spent on our weekend getaway. Something inside made me buy my moms a really nice headstone to replace the little cheap one the state gave her. I got her one of those huge marble ones that stands about three feet tall, with a crystal vase for keeping flowers. I guess it was just my way of saying that I forgave her, and at the same time a way to let her know that, to be whore’s daughter, I wasn’t doing that bad at all in life. Keep It in the Closet “Yes, yes, that’s right! Fuck me! Fuck me in my ass,” I yelled to the down-low homo-thug on the other end of my 900 line.

• From The Girls (2016)

  Russell’s eyes moved around each of our faces, the group sitting at his feet, and I flushed when he caught my gaze—he seemed unsurprised by my return. Suzanne’s hand touched my back lightly, possessively, and a hush came over me like in a movie theater or church. My awareness of her hand was almost paralyzing. Donna was playing with her orange hair. Weaving sections into tight, lacy braids, using her pinched fingernails to flay split ends. Russell looked younger when he sang, his mess of hair tied back, and he played the guitar in a funny, mocking way, like a TV cowboy. His voice wasn’t the nicest I’d ever heard, but that day—my legs in the sun, the stubble of oat grass—that day, his voice seemed to slide all over me, to saturate the air, so that I felt pinned in place. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to, even if I could imagine there was any place I could go. In the lull that followed Russell’s singing, Suzanne got to her feet, her dress already thick with dust, and picked her way to his side. His face changed as she whispered to him, and he nodded. Squeezing her shoulder. I saw her slip him my wad of money, which Russell put in his pocket. Resting his fingers there for a moment as if giving a blessing. Russell’s eyes crinkled. “We’ve got good news. We’ve got some resources, sweethearts. Because someone has opened themselves up to us, they’ve opened their hearts.” A shimmer passed through me. And all at once, it seemed worth it—trawling my mother’s purse. The stillness of Teddy’s parents’ bedroom. How cleanly that worry had been transmuted into belonging. Suzanne seemed gratified as she hurried to settle back beside me. “Little Evie’s shown us her big heart,” Russell said. “She’s shown us her love, hasn’t she?” And the others turned to look at me, a current of goodwill pulsed in my direction. —The rest of the afternoon passed in a drowsy span of sunlight. The skinny dogs retreating under the house, tongues heaving. We sat alone on the porch steps—Suzanne rested her head on my knees and recounted scraps of a dream she’d had. Pausing to take ripping bites from a length of French bread. “I was convinced I knew sign language, but it was obvious to me I didn’t, that I was just flailing my hands around. But the man understood everything I was saying, like I actually did know sign language. But later it just turned out he was only pretending to be deaf,” she said, “in the end. So it was all fake—him, me, the whole train.” Her laugh was an afterthought, a sharp addendum—how happy I was for any news of her interior, a secret meant for me alone. I couldn’t say how long we sat there, the two of us cut adrift from the rhythms of normal life.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  I think that the reason why I did not immediately recognize her, said Austerlitz, although despite her fragility she seemed quite unchanged, was my agitated condition, in which I could hardly believe my eyes. So I merely stammered out the sentence I had laboriously learnt by heart the day before: Promirite, prosim, ze Vas obtézuji. Hledam pani Agdtu Austerlitzovou, kterd zde moznd v roce devatendct set tricet osm bydlela. I am looking for a Mrs. Agata Austerlitzova who may have been living here in 1938. With a gesture of alarm, Vera covered her face with both hands, hands which, it flashed through my mind, were endlessly familiar to me, stared at me over her spread fingertips, and very quietly but with what to me was a quite singular clarity spoke these words in French: Jacquot, she said, dis, est-ce que c’est vraiment toi? We embraced, we held each other’s hands, we embraced again, I don’t know how often, before Vera led me through the dark hall into a room where everything was just as it had been almost sixty years ago. The furniture she had inherited in May 1933 together with her great-aunt’s flat, the display cabinet with a masked Meissen china Pulcinello on the left and his beloved Columbine on the right, the glass-fronted bookcase with the fifty-five small volumes of the Comédie humaine bound in

• From The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation (2012)

  27 experiences of Jesus after his death by his followers in a new mode of existence: As resurrected from the dead and exalted to God’s presence, Jesus is “Lord” and “Christ.” • Paul’s letters provide evidence for the claims made by the first believers, which are all the more startling because they were at odds with believers’ empirical circumstances. o First, believers claimed to have been saved; this salvation is not, in the New Testament, a future or a hoped-for state but a present reality. o Further, they claimed to be saved from negative conditions, such as slavery, law, sin, and death itself. o They believed they had been established in conditions of right- relatedness to God and other humans that could be described in terms of peace, joy, righteousness, and freedom. o They claimed new capacities of speech and action, both external (the working of powerful deeds) and internal (in moral dispositions). o At root, they claimed an experience of ultimate power that came from another and that transformed them. The symbol in the New Testament for this power is the Holy Spirit. The term “spirit” here refers to the medium of this power, which touches humans in their human capacities of knowing and willing. The term “holy” refers to the fact that the power comes from God, the Holy One. • The source for the earliest believers’ claim to empowerment—to being in possession of the Holy Spirit—was the conviction that Christ himself had been empowered by the very power of God. This is the Resurrection (exaltation) of Jesus. This combination— that Jesus had been raised and that believers possessed the Holy Spirit—was the fundamental conviction and experience of the earliest believers and the birth of the Christian religion.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  on hot days through the shadier grounds of the park of Schénborn Palace, we spoke French, and only when we came home late in the afternoon and Vera was making our supper did we revert to Czech, for the discussion of more domestic and childish matters, as it were. In the middle of her account Vera herself, quite involuntarily, had changed from one language to the other, and I, who had not for a moment thought that Czech could mean anything to me, not at the airport or in the state archives, or even while learning by heart the question which would have been of scant use to me addressed to the wrong quarters, now understood almost everything Vera said, like a deaf man whose hearing has been miraculously restored, so that all I wanted to do was close my eyes and listen forever to her polysyllabic flood of words. In the warm season of the year in particular, said Vera, she had always had to move the geraniums on the sill aside as soon as we came back from our daily walk, so that I could take my favorite place on the window seat and look down on the garden with its lilac trees and the low building opposite where the hunchbacked tailor Moravec had his workshop, and while she, so Vera said, cut bread and boiled the kettle, I used to give her a running commentary on whatever Moravec happened to be doing: mending the worn hem of a jacket, rummaging in his button box, or sewing a quilted lining into an overcoat. But I was particularly anxious, Vera told me, said Austerlitz, not to miss the moment when Moravec put down his needle and thread, his big scissors, and the other tools of his trade, cleared the baize-covered table, spread a double sheet of newspaper on it, and laid out on this sheet blackened with print the supper he must have been looking forward to for some time, a supper which varied according to the season and might be curd cheese with chives, a long radish, a few tomatoes with onions, a smoked herring, or boiled potatoes. He’s putting the sleeve dummy in the wardrobe, he’s going out into the kitchen, now he’s bringing in his beer, now he’s sharpening his knife, he’s cutting a slice of sausage, taking a long drink from his glass, wiping the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand—it was in this or some similar fashion, always the same yet always slightly different, that I used to describe the tailor’s supper to her almost every evening, said Vera, and I often had to be reminded not to forget my own bread-and-butter soldiers. As she told me about my curious love of such observation, Vera had risen and opened both the inner and the outer windows to let me look down into the garden next door, where the lilac happened to be in flower, its blossoms so thick and white that in the gathering dusk it looked as if there had been a snowstorm in the middle of spring. And the sweet fragrance wafting up from the walled garden, the waxing moon already in the sky above the rooftops, the sound of church bells ringing down in the city, and the yellow facade of the tailor’s house with its green balcony where Moravec, who as Vera

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  “Let the dead eat the dead. Let us living ones dance about the rim of the crater, a last expiring dance. But a dance!” “I love everything that flows,” said the great blind Milton of our times. I was thinking of him this morning when I awoke with a great bloody shout of joy: I was thinking of his rivers and trees and all that world of night which he is exploring. Yes, I said to myself, I too love everything that flows: rivers, sewers, lava, semen, blood, bile, words, sentences. I love the amniotic fluid when it spills out of the bag. I love the kidney with its painful gallstones, its gravel and what-not; I love the urine that pours out scalding and the clap that runs endlessly; I love the words of hysterics and the sentences that flow on like dysentery and mirror all the sick images of the soul; I love the great rivers like the Amazon and the Orinoco, where crazy men like Moravagine float on through dream and legend in an open boat and drown in the blind mouths of the river. I love everything that flows, even the menstrual flow that carries away the seed unfecund. I love scripts that flow, be they hieratic, esoteric, perverse, polymorph, or unilateral. I love everything that flows, everything that has time in it and becoming, that brings us back to the beginning where there is never end: the violence of the prophets, the obscenity that is ecstasy, the wisdom of the fanatic, the priest with his rubber litany, the foul words of the whore, the spittle that floats away in the gutter, the milk of the breast and the bitter honey that pours from the womb, all that is fluid, melting, dissolute and dissolvent, all the pus and dirt that in flowing is purified, that loses its sense of origin, that makes the great circuit toward death and dissolution. The great incestuous wish is to flow on, one with time, to merge the great image of the beyond with the here and now. A fatuous, suicidal wish that is constipated by words and paralyzed by thought.

• From An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (1995)

  My husband and I, although we had remained close friends and saw one another often, finally decided that our marriage was beyond the point of repair. I don’t think it ever really had a chance after I had impulsively left during my first manic episode. But we both tried. We talked a lot, and we discussed our mistakes and possibilities over many a meal and glass of wine. There was a great deal of goodwill and caring, but nothing could put our marriage back together after all that had happened in the wake of my illness. Somewhere in the midst of all of this, I wrote to David that I had again and finally separated from my husband. Life went on, a blur of clinic meetings, writing papers, seeing patients, and teaching residents, interns, and graduate students. I lived in terror that someone would find out how ill I had been, how fragile I still was, but—oddly and fortunately—sensitivity and keen observation are not always the long suits of academic psychiatrists. Then one day, more than eighteen months after he had left UCLA, I returned to my office to find David sitting in my chair, playing with a pencil, and smiling broadly. He said, half laughing, “Surely you’ll have dinner with me now. I’ve waited a long time and come a long way.” I did, of course, and we had several marvelous days in Los Angeles before he returned to England. He asked me to come stay with him for a few weeks in London. Although I was still recovering from a long suicidal depression, and my thoughts were so halting and my feelings so gray I could scarcely bear it, I somehow knew that things would be made better by being with him. They were. Immeasurably. We had long, late-spring evening walks in St. James’s Park, dinner at his club overlooking the Thames, and picnics in Hyde Park, which was just across the street from his flat. Gradually the exhaustion, wariness, and black faithlessness lifted. I began to enjoy music and paintings again, to laugh again, to write poetry again. Long nights and early mornings of incredible passion made me again believe in, or remember, how important a sense of life is to love, and love to life.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The Rhodians, seeing this, cast down their arms and all as with one voice confessed themselves prisoners; whereupon quoth Cimon to them, 'Young men, it was neither lust of rapine nor hate that I had against you made me depart Cyprus to assail you, arms in hand, in mid sea. That which moved me thereunto was the desire of a thing which to have gotten is a very grave matter to me and to you a very light one to yield me in peace; it is, to wit, Iphigenia, whom I loved over all else and whom, availing not to have of her father on friendly and peaceful wise, Love hath constrained me to win from you as an enemy and by force of arms. Wherefor I mean to be to her that which your friend Pasimondas should have been. Give her to me, then, and begone and God's grace go with you.' The Rhodians, more by force constrained than of freewill, surrendered Iphigenia, weeping, to Cimon, who, seeing her in tears, said to her, 'Noble Lady, be not disconsolate; I am thy Cimon, who by long love have far better deserved to have thee than Pasimondas by plighted faith.' Thereupon he caused carry her aboard his own ship and returning to his companions, let the Rhodians go, without touching aught else of theirs. Then, glad beyond any man alive to have gotten so dear a prey, after devoting some time to comforting the weeping lady, he took counsel with his comrades not to return to Cyprus at that present; wherefore, of one accord, they turned the ship's head towards Crete, where well nigh every one, and especially Cimon, had kinsfolk, old and new, and friends in plenty and where they doubted not to be in safety with Iphigenia. But fortune the unstable, which had cheerfully enough vouchsafed unto Cimon the acquisition of the lady, suddenly changed the inexpressible joyance of the enamoured youth into sad and bitter mourning; for it was not four full told hours since he had left the Rhodians when the night (which Cimon looked to be more delightsome than any he had ever known) came on and with it a very troublous and tempestuous shift of weather, which filled all the sky with clouds and the sea with ravening winds, by reason whereof none could see what to do or whither to steer, nor could any even keep the deck to do any office.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  I decided to wait for the night, to have a good look around, and then choose some attractive little joint in a quiet side street. At dinnertime I spent fifteen francs for a meal, just about twice the amount I had planned to allot myself. That made me so wretched that I wouldn’t allow myself to sit down for a coffee, even despite the fact that it had begun to drizzle. No, I would walk about a bit and then go quietly to bed, at a reasonable hour. I was already miserable, trying to husband my resources this way. I had never in my life done it; it wasn’t in my nature. Finally it began to come down in bucketsful. I was glad. That would give me the excuse I needed to duck somewhere and stretch my legs out. It was still too early to go to bed. I began to quicken my pace, heading back toward the Boulevard Raspail. Suddenly a woman comes up to me and stops me, right in the pouring rain. She wants to know what time it is. I told her I didn’t have a watch. And then she bursts out, just like this: “Oh, my good sir, do you speak English by chance?” I nod my head. It’s coming down in torrents now. “Perhaps, my dear good man, you would be so kind as to take me to a café. It is raining so and I haven’t the money to sit down anywhere. You will excuse me, my dear sir, but you have such a kind face… I knew you were English right away.” And with this she smiles at me, a strange, half-demented smile. “Perhaps you could give me a little advice, dear sir. I am all alone in the world… my God, it is terrible to have no money. …” This “dear sir” and “kind sir” and “my good man,” etc., had me on the verge of hysteria. I felt sorry for her and yet I had to laugh. I did laugh. I laughed right in her face. And then she laughed too, a weird, high-pitched laugh, off key, an altogether unexpected piece of cachinnation. I caught her by the arm and we made a bolt for it to the nearest café. She was still giggling when we entered the bistro . “My dear good sir,” she began again, “perhaps you think I am not telling you the truth. I am a good girl… I come of a good family. Only”—and here she gave me that wan, broken smile again—“only I am so misfortunate as not to have a place to sit down.” At this I began to laugh again. I couldn’t help it—the phrases she used, the strange accent, the crazy hat she had on, that demented smile. … “Listen,” I interrupted, “what nationality are you?” “I’m English,” she replied.