Loneliness

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 Real Life (2020)

  Wallace a su très vite comment les choses allaient finir, su que l’espoir dans la voix de son frère relevait du déni, et pourtant, quand la fin est venue, il a été surpris, malgré ce qu’il savait, parce que son frère avait convaincu une infime partie de lui d’espérer malgré tout, de croire malgré tout, lui aussi, que tout pourrait s’arranger. Le désir d’appeler son frère, par conséquent, relève encore de la tentation du déni, au sujet de la fin de quelque chose : les dernières heures de sa vie ici, dans cette ville près du lac. Il pourrait appeler son frère en Géorgie, où il travaille comme menuisier dans le service public, l’appeler et lui exposer les faits. Ce serait facile. Et son frère aurait peut-être de l’espoir pour lui aussi, une foi dans la bonté des choses, dans la capacité du monde à changer de cap, et d’avis. Wallace sort son téléphone et le fixe des yeux. Il pourrait le faire. Il pourrait atténuer sa solitude rien qu’en appelant. « T’es trop con, se dit-il. T’es trop con, Wallace. » Il range le portable, se lève, et reprend le sentier dans l’autre sens, vers la jetée, où les gens se rassemblent déjà pour la soirée. On n’est qu’en fin d’après-midi, mais ils sont là, accaparant les célèbres tables multicolores. Dans cette ville, c’est le plus grand point de convergence entre les étudiants et ce que Wallace et ses amis appellent les vrais gens – autrement dit les citadins qui n’ont rien à voir avec la fac. Il est stupéfait de la rapidité avec laquelle il a oublié comment se mouvoir parmi ce genre de personnes, qui lui semblent mal dégrossies, hideuses quand elles le regardent, avec leurs visages bouffis et leurs dents manquantes. Elles se déplacent dans le monde avec une espèce d’aisance maladroite, comme si elles se moquaient de ce que leur réserve le lendemain – les possibilités sont pour elles si réduites, de toute façon. Ce ne sont pas des gens qui passent leurs vies à contempler les bouleversements minuscules de leurs destinées ; ils sont comme les poissons heureux, bien nourris, qui grandissent dans les pêcheries, qu’on fait éclore et élève dans des espaces minuscules et contrôlés. Avant de les engraisser pour les transformer en aliments. Wallace monte les marches grises qui vont du lac au kiosque et regarde autour de lui. Il n’est pas loin de son appartement. Il pourrait y être en un rien de temps, mais l’idée ne l’enchante pas. Il est trop stressé pour rester chez lui. La bibliothèque est toute proche. Il pourrait y aller lire quelques heures, passer le temps dans un coin frais et tranquille, en regardant l’eau. Un garçon et une fille passent devant lui en courant, main dans la main. Ils ont sept ou huit ans, ils sont petits, blancs et rapides. Ils rient, leurs petites têtes blondes remuent au rythme de leur course.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Oh, yes. Somewhere, someone turned on a radio. The day was here. He finished his drink, took off his shoes, loosened his belt, and stretched out beside Vivaldo. He put his head on Vivaldo’s chest, and, in the shadow of that rock, he slept. Ida told the taxi driver, “Uptown, please, to Small’s Paradise,” then turned, with a rueful smile, to Cass. “Their night,” she said, indicating the vanished Eric and Vivaldo, “is just beginning. So is mine, only mine won’t be as much fun.” “I thought you were going home,” Cass said. “Well. I’m not. I’ve got some people to meet.” She looked thoughtfully at her fingernails, then looked over to Cass. “I couldn’t tell Vivaldo, so don’t you tell him, please. He just gets upset when he’s around—some of those musicians. I can’t blame him. I really can’t blame them, either; I know how they feel. But I don’t like for them to take it out on Vivaldo, he’s having a rough enough time as it is.” And, after a moment, she added, under her breath, “So am I.” Cass said nothing, for she was too astonished. So far from imagining herself and Ida to be friends, she had long ago decided that Ida disliked and distrusted her. But she did not sound that way now. She sounded lonely and troubled. “I wish you’d come up and have one drink with me up there,” Ida said. She kept twisting the ring on her little finger. Cass thought, at once, I’ll feel terribly out of place up there, and if you’re meeting someone, what’s the good of my coming along? But she sensed, somehow, that she could not say this, that Ida needed a woman to talk to, if only for a few minutes, even if the woman were white. “Okay,” she said, “but just one drink. I’ve got to hurry home to Richard.” As she said this, both she and Ida laughed. It was almost the first time they had ever laughed together; and this laughter revealed to Cass that Ida’s attitude toward her had been modified by Ida’s knowledge of her adultery. Perhaps Ida felt that Cass was more to be trusted and more of a woman, now that her virtue, and her safety, were gone. And there was also, in that sudden and spontaneous laughter, the very faintest hint of blackmail. Ida could be freer with Cass now, since the world’s judgment, should it ever be necessary to face it, would condemn Cass yet more cruelly than Ida. For Ida was not white, nor married, nor a mother. The world assumed Ida’s sins to be natural, whereas those of Cass were perverse. Ida said, “Men are a bitch, aren’t they, baby?” She sounded sad and weary. “I don’t understand them, I swear I don’t.” “I always thought you did,” said Cass, “much better than I ever have.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  He did not follow this, except in spirit. “You are all too serious here. Cold and ugly.” “How long have you been here?” “Two years.” He smiled at her again. “I was lucky, I work hard, I get along.” He paused. “Only, sometimes, it’s lonely. So I sing.” They both laughed. “It makes the time go,” he said. “Don’t you have any friends?” she asked. He shrugged. “Friends cost money. And I have no money and no time. I must send money home to my family.” “Oh, are you married?” He shrugged again, turning his profile to her again, not smiling. “No, I am not married.” Then he grinned. “That also costs money.” There was a silence. They turned into her block. “Yes,” she said, idly, “you’re right about that.” She pointed to the house. “Here we are.” The cab stopped. She fumbled in her handbag. He watched her. “You are married?” he asked at last. “Yes.” She smiled. “With two children.” “Boy or girl?” “Two boys.” “That is very good,” he said. She paid him. “Good-bye. I wish you well.” He smiled. It was a really friendly smile. “I also wish you well. You are very nice. Good night.” “Good night.” She opened the door and the light shone full on their faces for a moment. His face was very young and direct and hopeful, and caused her to blush a little. She slammed the cab door behind her, and walked into her house without looking back. She heard the cab drive away. The light was on in the living room, and Richard, fully dressed except for his shoes, lay on the sofa, asleep. He was usually in bed, or at work, when she came home. She stared at him for a moment. There was a half-glass of vodka on the table next to him, and a dead cigarette in the ashtray. He slept very silently and his face looked tormented and very young.

• From Another Country (1962)

  You understand, don’t you?” “Of course I understand,” said Eric. “I’ll give you a call next week sometime.” They stood on the sidewalk, watching the aimless mob. “It must feel very strange for you,” said Vivaldo, “to be back here. But I hope you won’t think we’re not friends any more, because we are. I care a lot about you, Eric. I just want you to know that, so you won’t think I’m putting you down gently, sort of, tonight. It’s just one of those things.” He stared outward, looking very weary. “Sometimes that girl gets me so I don’t know if I’m coming or going.” “I know a little bit about it,” Eric said. “No sweat.” He held out his hand; Vivaldo held it for a moment. “I’ll give you a call in a couple of days, all right? Say good-bye to Ida for me.” “All right, Eric. Be well.” Eric smiled. “Stay well.” He turned and started walking toward Sixth Avenue, but he did not really know where he was going. He felt Vivaldo’s eyes on his back; then Vivaldo was swallowed up in the press of people behind him. On the corner of Sixth Avenue, he watched and waited, the lights banged on and off. A truck came by; he looked up into the face of the truck driver, and felt an awful desire to join that man and ride in that truck wherever the truck was going. But he crossed the street and started walking toward his apartment. It was the safest place to be, it was the only place to be. Strange people—they seemed strange to him now, but, one day, again, he might be one of them—passed him with that ineffable, sidelong, desperate look; but he kept his eyes on the pavement. Not yet, not you. Not yet. Not yet . 1 Eric sat naked in his rented garden. Flies buzzed and boomed in the brilliant heat, and a yellow bee circled his head. Eric remained very still, then reached for the cigarettes beside him and lit one, hoping that the smoke would drive the bee away. Yves’ tiny black-and-white kitten stalked the garden as though it were Africa, crouching beneath the mimosas like a panther and leaping into the air. The house and the garden overlooked the sea. Far down the slope, beyond the sand of the beach, in the thunderous blue of the Mediterranean, Yves’ head went under, reappeared, went under again. He vanished entirely. Eric stood up, looking out over the sea, almost poised to run. Yves liked to hold his breath under water for as long as possible, a test of endurance which Eric found pointless and, in Yves’ case, frightening. Then Yves’ head appeared again, and his arm flashed. And, even from this distance, Eric could see that Yves was laughing—he had known that Eric would be watching from the garden.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Mais tu sais, elle est, genre vegan , alors… » Wallace avait tenté de masquer sa déception en reprenant son plat de boulettes, intact, à la fin de la soirée, tenté de ne pas penser à l’argent qu’il avait dépensé ou au temps passé en cuisine, essuyant sa sueur et les taches marron sur ses mains, tentant d’exécuter la recette exactement comme il fallait, de leur mitonner la sauce parfaite – et le plat lui-même, il était si fier de son petit plat, rouge avec des rennes blancs bondissant. Pas suédois ni rien, mais pas loin, raccord, espérait-il. Depuis cette fois-là, Wallace s’est toujours bien gardé d’apporter de la viande à ces soirées. En général, il prend des crackers ou des fibres sous une autre forme, parce que ses amis accumulent tellement de merde intérieure, avec en plus toute cette cellulose de leurs légumes, qu’il faut les aider, de temps en temps, à effectuer une grande purge. Enfin, les rares fois où il a été invité à dîner avec ses amis. Il lui semble à présent qu’ils ne l’invitent plus parce qu’il a coutume de dire non, ou de partir très vite, juste à la fin du repas, au moment où ils se sentent tous bien et parlent tranquillement de ce qu’ils ont fait la dernière fois qu’ils se sont vus tous ensemble, des souvenirs qui n’impliquent pas Wallace, puisqu’il n’était pas venu ou était rentré tôt. C’est dans ces moments qu’il ressent avec le plus d’acuité son éloignement vis-à-vis de ces gens qu’il appelle ses amis. Leurs yeux brillants, leurs bouches humides et les doigts gras dont ils se pétrissent mutuellement les genoux – parodie d’intimité, culte du bonheur, culte de l’amitié. Il peut faire une salade de fruits, quelque chose comme ça. Il y a beaucoup de melons à cette période de l’année et c’est la saison des raisins, en particulier les verts qu’il préfère, avec leur jus acide et leurs grains pulpeux. Il se décide pour la salade de fruits, comme quand ils étaient tous enfants, avec plein de pêches, de cantaloup, de melon Galia, et de pomme ; mais pas d’oranges, trop de pépins. Une salade, c’est facile à faire. Quand Cole a quitté la colocation pour s’installer avec Vincent, Miller a emménagé avec Yngve et Lukas, reprenant sa chambre. Leur maison est chaleureuse, confortable. Après la première année, ils ont acheté des vrais meubles pour vrais adultes dans un vrai magasin, autrement dit ils les ont achetés à Ikea et les ont assemblés en un après-midi torride, torses nus. Wallace était passé leur apporter son soutien moral et des bouteilles d’eau, il avait regardé la sueur dégouliner dans leur dos et sur leurs ventres, s’accumulant au-dessus de l’élastique de leurs shorts, qu’elle tachait.

• From Real Life (2020)

  Pendant des semaines, après ça, il avait évité Miller. Et ils s’étaient réfugiés dans ce silence glacial qui s’impose entre deux personnes qui devraient être proches mais ne le sont pas à cause d’une erreur de calcul crucial dans les prémisses. Wallace s’était mis à regretter cette impasse, car elle les empêchait de discuter des choses qu’ils avaient en commun : ils étaient tous les deux les premiers de leurs familles à aller à la fac ; ils avaient tous les deux été intimidés par la taille de cette ville du Midwest en arrivant ; ils étaient tous les deux différents de leurs amis, car ils n’étaient pas habitués à la vie facile. Mais ils en étaient là. Le silence surpris de Miller, la méfiance sinistre de son visage dit à Wallace tout ce qu’il avait besoin de savoir sur sa proposition. « Bon, OK », dit-il doucement. Miller posa la tête sur la table et poussa un gémissement plaintif exagéré. Cole, qui était le plus bienveillant d’eux tous et pouvait par conséquent se permettre ce genre de gestes, tendit la main et lui ébouriffa les cheveux. « Viens, on y va », dit-il. Miller grogna, fit pivoter ses longues jambes et se leva de table. Cole embrassa Vincent sur la joue et l’épaule, et une nouvelle pointe d’envie transperça Wallace. La table derrière Yngve était occupée par les mecs d’une équipe de foot de la ligue en shorts de nylon bas de gamme et tee-shirts blancs sur lesquels ils avaient dessiné leurs numéros. Ils discutaient bruyamment, de tennis féminin, à ce que put entendre Wallace. Ils étaient tous athlétiques, bronzés et couverts de terre et d’herbe. L’un d’entre eux portait un bandeau arc-en-ciel dans les cheveux, et il désignait agressivement un autre homme, tout en lui criant dessus en espagnol ou peut-être en portugais. Wallace tenta de deviner de quoi ils parlaient, mais ses sept ans de français ne lui donnèrent aucune prise sur l’avalanche de diphtongues et de consonnes sans suite. Yngve était au téléphone, le visage pris dans la lueur artificielle, plus prononcée maintenant que la nuit tombait. L’obscurité se faisait dans le ciel comme une tache qui s’étale peu à peu. Le lac était devenu métallique, sinistre. C’était la partie d’une soirée d’été qui vient juste après l’heure bleue, et tout commençait à se rafraîchir et à se poser. Il y avait quelque chose de salé dans l’air, un potentiel électrique. « On t’a pas beaucoup vu cet été, fit remarquer Vincent. T’étais caché où ? — Chez moi, surtout. Mais j’avais pas l’impression de me cacher. — Roman et Klaus sont passés à la maison, l’autre soir – Cole t’a dit ? — C’est la première fois que je les vois de la semaine, il me semble. C’est un peu l’enfer. — Bah, c’était rien, juste un dîner. T’as pas raté grand-chose. » Si ce n’était rien, se dit Wallace, pourquoi en parler ? Il était allé à leur barbecue, non ?

• From Another Country (1962)

  He walked out of the phone booth into the bar, which was a workingman’s bar, and there was a wrestling match on the TV screen. He ordered a double shot and leaned on the bar. He was surrounded by precisely those men he had known from his childhood, from his earliest youth. It was as though, hideously, after a long and fruitless voyage, he had come home, to find that he had become a stranger. They did not look at him—or did not seem to look at him; but, then, that was the style of these men; and if they usually saw less than was present, they also, often, saw more than one guessed. Two Negroes near him, in working clothes, seemed to have a bet on the outcome of the wrestling match, which they did not, however, appear to be watching very closely. They kept talking to each other in a rumbling, humorous monotone—a smile kept playing on both their faces—and every once in a while they ordered a new round of drinks, or exploded with laughter, or turned their attention again to the screen. All up and down the bar, men stood silently, usually singly, watching the TV screen, or watching nothing. There were booths beside the bar, near the back. An elderly Negro couple and a young Negro couple shared one booth, another booth held three aimless youths, drinking beer, in the very last booth an odd-looking man, who might have been a Persian, was feeling up a pasty-faced, string-haired girl. The Negro couples were in earnest conversation—the elderly Negro woman leaned forward with great vehemence; and the three youths were giggling and covertly watching the dark man and the pasty girl; and if this evening ended as all the others had, they would presently drive off to some haven and watch each other masturbate. The bartender was iron-haired and pablum-faced, with spectacles, and leaned on a barrel at one end of the bar, watching the screen. Vivaldo watched the screen, seeing two ancient, flabby men throwing each other around on a piece of canvas; from time to time a sensually grinning blonde advertised soap—but her grin was far less sensual than the wrestling match—and a strong-jawed neuter in a crew cut puffed rapaciously, with unnerving pleasure, on a cigarette. Then, back to the groaning wrestlers, who really should have been home in bed, possibly with each other.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Please come and see us again; we don’t do this all the time, we really don’t. I’ll walk you to the door.” “It’s all right,” Eric said. “I’m a big boy, I understand.” He walked over to Cass and they shook hands. “It was nice seeing you.” “It was good seeing you. Don’t let all that light fade. ” He laughed, but these words chilled him, too. “I’ll try to keep burning,” he said. He and Richard walked to the hall door. Cass stood still in the center of the living room. Richard opened the door. “So long, kid. Can we call you—has Cass got your number?” “Yes. And I have yours.” “Okay. See you soon.” “Sure thing. So long.” “So long.” The door closed behind him. He was again in the anonymous, breathing corridor, surrounded by locked doors. He found his handkerchief and wiped his forehead, thinking of the millions of disputes being waged behind locked doors. He rang for the elevator. It arrived, driven by another, older man who was eating a sandwich; he was dumped into the streets again. The long block on which Cass and Richard lived was quiet and empty now, waiting for the night. He hailed a cab on the Avenue and was whirled downtown. His destination was a bar on the eastern end of the Village, which had, until recently, been merely another neighborhood bar. But now it specialized in jazz, and functioned sometimes as a showcase for younger but not entirely untried or unknown talents or personalities. The current attraction was advertised in the small window by a handprinted, cardboard poster; he recognized the name of a drummer he and Rufus had known years ago, who would not remember him; in the window, too, were excerpts from newspaper columns and magazines, extolling the unorthodox virtues of the place. The unorthodox, therefore, filled the room, which was very small, low-ceilinged, with a bar on one side and tables and chairs on the other. At the far end of the bar, the room widened, making space for more tables and chairs, and a very narrow corridor led to the rest rooms and the kitchen; and in this widened space, catty-corner to the room, stood a small, cruelly steep bandstand. Eric had arrived during a break. The musicians were leaping down from the stand, and mopping their brows with large handkerchiefs, and heading for the street door which would remain open for about ten minutes. The heat in the room was terrifying, and the electric fan in the center of the ceiling could have done nothing to alleviate it. And the room stank: of years of dust, of stale, of regurgitated alcohol, of cooking, of urine, of sweat, of lust. People stood three and four deep at the bar, sticky and shining, far happier than the musicians, who had fled to the sidewalk.

• From Every Woman's Battle: Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment (2003)

  Since becoming a widow two years ago at the age of fifty-three, Terri has often been invited to go out dancing with girlfriends from work. Tired of sitting around and feeling sorry for herself, she finally gave in. “The weekends are a particularly lonely time for me. I thought it would be good to get out of the house and back out onto the dance floor for some fun and exercise.” Slipping her slender figure into her starched Wrangler jeans, Terri took pride in how attractive she still was at her age. No doubt she would be asked to dance many times before the night was through. Walking into the honky-tonk, Terri’s heart pounded in sync with the base guitar, and her eyes twinkled as her gaze followed the colorful spotlights bouncing across the room. She and her friends struggled through the crowd to find an unoccupied table and settled onto the tall stools to order a round of drinks. Before her strawberry margarita had even arrived at the table, a tall gentleman in a dashing black cowboy hat leaned over her shoulder and shouted over the music into her ear, “Hello, ma’am. I’m Brett and I’d love to have this next dance!” Glancing at her friends and grinning with delight, Terri took Brett’s hand and shuffled out to the center of the floor where he wrapped one arm around her petite waist and cupped her hand in the palm of his own. Pressing his cheek against hers, Brett escorted her around and around with a two-step shuffle and an occasional twirl that sent her mind and her heart reeling with excitement. Midnight came quickly and after many dances and a few drinks, Brett asked if he could see her home. “My friends from the office would never let me hear the end of it if I didn’t go home the same way that I came,” Terri replied. Flattered by his obvious disappointment, she scribbled her phone number on a napkin and slipped it into his shirt pocket. Reluctantly, she turned to walk out of the beams of the neon moon to return home with her girlfriends, hoping that maybe Brett would invite her out the following weekend. Terri walked into her dark house, dreading another lonely night sleeping single in a double bed. Making her way into the kitchen to check her messages, she was startled when the phone rang. Pleasure washed over her at the sound of Brett’s voice. Still under the influence her margaritas, she agreed to have him over for a little while now that her girlfriends would never know.

• From Another Country (1962)

  They walked in silence, listening to the end of the concerto. When it ended, Yves clicked the radio off. “Will you have a drink with me?” Eric asked. He said, quickly, “I’m all by myself, I’ve got no one to talk to—and—and you don’t run into people playing Beethoven every day.” “That is true,” said Yves, with a smile. “You have a funny accent, where are you from?” “America.” “I thought it must be America. But which section you are from?” “The South. Alabama.” “Oh,” said Yves, and looked at him with interest, “then you are raciste.” “Why, no,” said Eric, feeling rather stunned, “we are not all like that.” “Oh,” said Yves, majestically, “I read your newspapers. And I have many African friends and I have noticed that Americans do not like that.” “Well,” said Eric, “that’s not my problem. I left Alabama as fast as I could and if I ever go back there, they’ll probably kill me.” “Have you been here long?” “About a year.” “And you still know no one?” “It’s hard to make friends with the French.” “Well. It is only that we are more réservé than you.” “I’ll say you are.” They stopped before the Royal St. Germain. “Shall we have a drink here?” “It does not matter.” Yves looked over the tables, which were full; looked through the glass walls into the bar, which was crowded, mostly with young males. “But it is terribly crowded.” “Let’s go someplace else.” They walked to the corner and crossed the street. All of the cafés were full. They crossed the street again, and passed the Brasserie Lipp. Eric had been watching Yves with more intensity than he realized; as they passed the brasserie, it suddenly flashed through him that Yves was hungry. He did not know how he knew it, for Yves said nothing, did not pause or sigh; and yet Eric could not have been more certain that the boy was faint with hunger had he abruptly collapsed on the sidewalk. “Look,” Eric said, “I’ve got an idea. I’m starving, I haven’t eaten any supper. Come on over to Les Halles with me and let’s get something to eat. And by the time we get back, it won’t be so crowded over here.” Yves looked at him, his head tilted in a kind of wary, waiting surprise. “It is so far,” he murmured. And he stared at Eric with a bright, suspicious bafflement; as though he were thinking, I am willing to play all games, my friend, but what are the rules of this one? and what are the penalties? “I’ll bring you back.” He grinned and grabbed Yves’ arm and started for the taxi stand. “Come on, be my guest, you’ll be doing me a favor. What’s your name?” “Je m’appel Yves.” “My name is Eric.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  It smelled of thousands of travelers, oceans of piss, tons of bile and vomit and shit. He added his stream to the ocean, holding that most despised part of himself loosely between two fingers of one hand. But I’ve got to stay there so long.… He looked at the horrible history splashed furiously on the walls—telephone numbers, cocks, breasts, balls, cunts, etched into these walls with hatred. Suck my cock. I like to get whipped. I want a hot stiff prick up my ass. Down with Jews. Kill the niggers. I suck cocks. He washed his hands very carefully and dried them on the filthy roller towel and walked out into the bar. The two boys were still at the juke box, the girl with the striped blouse was still talking to her friend. He walked through the bar to the door and into the street. Only then did he reach in his pocket to see what Cass had pushed into his palm. Five dollars. Well, that would take care of him until morning. He would get a room at the Y. He crossed Sheridan Square and walked slowly along West Fourth Street. The bars were beginning to close. People stood before bar doors, trying vainly to get in, or simply delaying going home; and in spite of the cold there were loiterers under street lamps. He felt as removed from them, as he walked slowly along, as he might have felt from a fence, a farmhouse, a tree, seen from a train window: coming closer and closer, the details changing every instant as the eye picked them out; then pressing against the window with the urgency of a messenger or a child; then dropping away, diminishing, vanished, gone forever. That fence is falling down, he might have thought as the train rushed toward it, or That house needs paint, or The tree is dead. In an instant, gone in an instant—it was not his fence, his farmhouse, or his tree. As now, passing, he recognized faces, bodies, postures, and thought. That’s Ruth. Or There’s old Lennie. Son of a bitch is stoned again. It was very silent.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He ordered a double shot and leaned on the bar. He was surrounded by precisely those men he had known from his childhood, from his earliest youth. It was as though, hideously, after a long and fruitless voyage, he had come home, to find that he had become a stranger. They did not look at him—or did not seem to look at him; but, then, that was the style of these men; and if they usually saw less than was present, they also, often, saw more than one guessed. Two Negroes near him, in working clothes, seemed to have a bet on the outcome of the wrestling match, which they did not, however, appear to be watching very closely. They kept talking to each other in a rumbling, humorous monotone—a smile kept playing on both their faces—and every once in a while they ordered a new round of drinks, or exploded with laughter, or turned their attention again to the screen. All up and down the bar, men stood silently, usually singly, watching the TV screen, or watching nothing. There were booths beside the bar, near the back. An elderly Negro couple and a young Negro couple shared one booth, another booth held three aimless youths, drinking beer, in the very last booth an odd-looking man, who might have been a Persian, was feeling up a pasty-faced, string-haired girl. The Negro couples were in earnest conversation—the elderly Negro woman leaned forward with great vehemence; and the three youths were giggling and covertly watching the dark man and the pasty girl; and if this evening ended as all the others had, they would presently drive off to some haven and watch each other masturbate. The bartender was iron-haired and pablum-faced, with spectacles, and leaned on a barrel at one end of the bar, watching the screen. Vivaldo watched the screen, seeing two ancient, flabby men throwing each other around on a piece of canvas; from time to time a sensually grinning blonde advertised soap—but her grin was far less sensual than the wrestling match—and a strong-jawed neuter in a crew cut puffed rapaciously, with unnerving pleasure, on a cigarette. Then, back to the groaning wrestlers, who really should have been home in bed, possibly with each other. Where was she? Where was she? With Ellis, certainly. Where? She had called the restaurant; but she had not called him. And she would say, “But we didn’t have any plans for tonight, sweetie, I knew you were seeing Cass, and I was sure you’d have supper with her! ” Where was she? the hell with her. She would say, “Oh, honey, don’t be like that, suppose I made a fuss every time you went out and had a drink with someone else?

• From Another Country (1962)

  Vivaldo said, “I don’t know if I can accept that, not yet. Not yet. As well—maybe. Well, surely.” He looked up at Eric. “But it’s not, really, is it? very complete. Look. This day is almost over. How long will it be before such a day comes for us again? Because we’re not kids, we know what life is like, and how time just vanishes, runs away—I can’t, really, like from moment to moment, day to day, month to month, make you less lonely. Or you, me. We aren’t driven in the same directions and I can’t help that, any more than you can.” He paused, watching Eric with enormous, tormented eyes. He smiled. “It would be wonderful if it could be like that; you’re very beautiful, Eric. But I don’t, really, dig you the way I guess you must dig me. You know? And if we tried to arrange it, prolong it, control it, if we tried to take more than what we’ve—by some miracle, some miracle, I swear—stumbled on, then I’d just become a parasite and we’d both shrivel. So what can we really do for each other except—just love each other and be each other’s witness? And haven’t we got the right to hope—for more? So that we can really stretch into whoever we really are? Don’t you think so?” And, before Eric could answer, he took a large swallow of his whiskey and said in a different tone, a lower voice, “Because, you know, when I was in the bathroom, I was thinking that, yes, I loved being in your arms, holding you”—he flushed and looked up into Eric’s face again—“why not, it’s warm, I’m sensual, I like—you—the way you love me, but”—he looked down again—“it’s not my battle, not my thing, and I know it, and I can’t give up my battle. If I do, I’ll die and if I die”—and now he looked up at Eric with a rueful, juvenile grin—“you won’t love me any more. And I want you to love me all my life.” Eric reached out and touched Vivaldo’s face. After a moment, Vivaldo grabbed his hand. “For you, the moon, baby,” Eric said. His voice, to his surprise, was a grave, hoarse whisper. He cleared his throat. “Do you want some coffee now?” Vivaldo shook his head. He emptied his glass and put it on the table. “Drink up,” he said to Eric. Eric finished his drink. Vivaldo took the glass from him and set it down. “I don’t want any coffee now,” he said. He opened his arms. “Let’s make the most of our little day.” By ten minutes to four, Eric was, somehow, showered, shaved, and dressed, with his raincoat and his rain cap on. The coffee was too hot, he only managed to drink half a cup. Vivaldo was still undressed. “You go on,” he said. “I’ll clean up a little and I’ll lock the door.”

• From Another Country (1962)

  And he kissed her again. “—–leaving so soon!” said Miss Wales. “And we never got a chance to talk!” “Vivaldo,” said Cass, “I’ll call you this week. Ida, I can’t call you, will you call me? Let’s get together.” “I’m waiting for a script from you, you bum,” said Ellis, “just as soon as you climb down out of that makeshift ivory tower. Nice meeting you, Miss Scott.” “He means it,” said Mrs. Ellis. “He really means it.” “I was happy to meet you both,” said Ingram, “very happy. Good luck with your novel.” Richard walked them to the door. “Are we still friends?” “Are you kidding? Of course, we’re still friends.” But he wondered if they were. The door closed behind them and they stood in the corridor, staring at each other. “Shall we go home?” he asked. She watched him, her eyes very large and dark. “You got anything to eat down there?” “No. But the stores are still open. We can get something.” She took his arm and they walked to the elevator. He rang the bell. He stared at her as though he could not believe his eyes. “Good,” she said. “We’ll get something and I’ll cook you a decent supper.” “I’m not very hungry,” he said. They heard the elevator door slam beneath them and the elevator began to rise. The smell of the chicken she had fried the night before still hung in the room, and the dishes were still in the sink. The wishbone lay drying on the table, surrounded by the sticky glasses out of which they had drunk beer, and by their sticky coffee cups. Her clothes were thrown over a chair, his were mainly on the floor. He had awakened, she was asleep. She slept on her side, her dark head turned away from him, making no sound. He leaned up a little and watched her face. Her face would now be, forever, more mysterious and impenetrable than the face of any stranger. Strangers’ faces hold no secrets because the imagination does not invest them with any. But the face of a lover is an unknown precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment. She slept. He felt that she was sleeping partly in order to avoid him. He fell back on his pillow, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling. She was in his bed but she was far from him; she was with him and yet she was not with him. In some deep, secret place she watched herself, she held herself in check, she fought him.

• From Wild (2012)

  I put my money back in my pocket, turned my headlamp off, and stared out my window to the west, feeling a sad unease. I was homesick, but I didn’t know if it was for the life I used to have or for the PCT. I could just barely make out the dark silhouette of the Sierra Nevada against the moonlit sky. It looked like that impenetrable wall again, the way it had to me a few years before when I’d first seen it while driving with Paul, but it didn’t feel impenetrable anymore. I could imagine myself on it, in it, part of it. I knew the way it felt to navigate it one step at a time. I would be back on it again as soon as I hiked away from Sierra City. I was bypassing the High Sierra—missing Sequoia and Kings Canyon and Yosemite national parks, Tuolumne Meadows and the John Muir and Desolation wildernesses and so much more—but I’d still be hiking another hundred miles in the Sierra Nevada beyond that, before heading into the Cascade Range. By the time the bus pulled into the station in Reno at 4 a.m., I hadn’t slept a minute. Greg and I had an hour to kill before the next bus would depart for Truckee, so we wandered blearily through the small casino that adjoined the bus station, our packs strapped to our backs. I was tired but wired, sipping hot Lipton tea from a Styrofoam cup. Greg played blackjack and won three dollars. I fished three quarters out of my pocket, played all three in a slot machine, and lost everything. Greg gave me a dry, I-told-you-so smile, as if he’d seen that coming. “Hey, you never know,” I said. “I was in Vegas once—just passing through a couple of years ago—and I put a nickel in a slot machine and won sixty bucks.” He looked unimpressed. I went into the women’s restroom. As I brushed my teeth before a fluorescently lit mirror above a bank of sinks, a woman said, “I like your feather,” and pointed to it on my pack. “Thanks,” I said, our eyes meeting in the mirror. She was pale and brown-eyed with a bumpy nose and a long braid down her back; dressed in a tie-dyed T-shirt and a pair of patched-up cutoff jeans and Birkenstock sandals. “My friend gave it to me,” I mumbled as toothpaste dribbled out of my mouth. It seemed like forever since I’d talked to a woman. “It’s got to be a corvid,” she said, reaching over to touch it delicately with one finger. “It’s either a raven or a crow, a symbol of the void,” she added, in a mystical tone. “The void?” I’d asked, crestfallen.

• From Another Country (1962)

  He was in a section of warehouses. Very few people lived down here. By day, trucks choked the streets, laborers stood on these ghostly platforms, moving great weights, and cursing. As he had once; for a long time, he had been one of them. He had been proud of his skill and his muscles and happy to be accepted as a man among men. Only—it was they who saw something in him which they could not accept, which made them uneasy. Every once in a while, a man, lighting his cigarette, would look at him quizzically, with a little smile. The smile masked an unwilling, defensive hostility. They said he was a “bright kid,” that he would “go places”; and they made it clear that they expected him to go, to which places did not matter—he did not belong to them. But at the bottom of his mind the question of Rufus nagged and stung. There had been a few colored boys in his high school but they had mainly stayed together, as far as he remembered. He had known boys who got a bang out of going out and beating up niggers. It scarcely seemed possible—it scarcely, even, seemed fair—that colored boys who were beaten up in high school could grow up into colored men who wanted to beat up everyone in sight, including, or perhaps especially, people who had never, one way or another, given them a thought. He watched the light in Rufus’ window, the only light on down here. Then he remembered something that had happened to him a long time ago, two years or three. It was when he had been spending a lot of time in Harlem, running after the whores up there. One night, as a light rain fell, he was walking uptown on Seventh Avenue. He walked very briskly, for it was very late and this section of the Avenue was almost entirely deserted and he was afraid of being stopped by a prowl car. At 116th Street he stopped in a bar, deliberately choosing a bar he did not know. Since he did not know the bar he felt an unaccustomed uneasiness and wondered what the faces around him hid. Whatever it was, they hid it very well. They went on drinking and talking to each other and putting coins in the juke box. It certainly didn’t seem that his presence caused anyone to become wary, or to curb their tongues. Nevertheless, no one made any effort to talk to him and an almost imperceptible glaze came over their eyes whenever they looked in his direction. This glaze remained, even when they smiled. The barman, for example, smiled at something Vivaldo said and yet made it clear, as he pushed his drink across the bar, that the width of the bar was but a weak representation of the great gulf fixed between them.

• From Wild (2012)

  “You getting a cone?” asked Greg, pulling out a couple of dollars. “Nah. Maybe later,” I said, keeping my voice light to hide my desperation. I wanted a cone, of course. It was that I didn’t dare purchase one, for fear of not being able to afford a room. When we stepped into the small crowded store, I tried not to look at the food. I stood near the cash register instead, scanning tourist brochures while Greg shopped. “This entire town was wiped out by an avalanche in 1852,” I told him when he returned, fanning myself with the glossy brochure. “The snow from the Buttes gave way.” He nodded as if he knew this already, licking his chocolate cone. I turned away, the sight of it a small torture to me. “I hope you don’t mind, but I need to find someplace cheap. For tonight, I mean.” The truth was, I needed to find someplace free, but I was too tired to contemplate camping. The last time I’d slept, I’d been on the PCT in the High Sierra. “How about this,” said Greg, pointing to an old wooden building across the street. The downstairs was a bar and restaurant; the upstairs had rooms for rent with shared bathrooms. It was only 1:30, but the woman in the bar allowed us to check in early. After I paid for my room I had thirteen dollars left. “You want to have dinner together downstairs tonight?” Greg asked when we reached our rooms, standing before our side-by-side doors. “Sure,” I said, blushing lightly. I wasn’t attracted to him, and yet I couldn’t help hoping he was attracted to me, which I knew was absurd. Perhaps he’d been the one who’d taken my condoms. The idea of that sent a thrill through my body. “You can go first if you’d like,” he said, gesturing down the hall to the bathroom we shared with all of the inhabitants of our floor. We seemed to be the only two occupants so far. “Thanks,” I said, and unlocked the door to my room and stepped inside. A worn-out antique wooden dresser with a round mirror sat against one wall and a double bed against the other with a rickety night-stand and chair nearby. A bare lightbulb dangled from the ceiling in the center of the room. I set Monster down and sat on the bed. It squealed and sank and wobbled precariously beneath my weight, but it felt excellent anyway. My body almost hurt with pleasure to merely sit on the bed, as if I were being the opposite of burned. The camp chair that doubled as my sleeping pad didn’t offer much cushioning, it turned out. I’d slept deeply most nights on the PCT, but not because I was comfortable: I was simply too spent to care.

• From Little Women (1868)

  Peeping through the meshes of the hammock, he saw the Marches coming out, as if bound on some expedition. "What in the world are those girls about now?" thought Laurie, opening his sleepy eyes to take a good look, for there was something rather peculiar in the appearance of his neighbors. Each wore a large, flapping hat, a brown linen pouch slung over one shoulder, and carried a long staff. Meg had a cushion, Jo a book, Beth a basket, and Amy a portfolio. All walked quietly through the garden, out at the little back gate, and began to climb the hill that lay between the house and river. "Well, that's cool," said Laurie to himself, "to have a picnic and never ask me! They can't be going in the boat, for they haven't got the key. Perhaps they forgot it. I'll take it to them, and see what's going on." Though possessed of half a dozen hats, it took him some time to find one, then there was a hunt for the key, which was at last discovered in his pocket, so that the girls were quite out of sight when he leaped the fence and ran after them. Taking the shortest way to the boathouse, he waited for them to appear, but no one came, and he went up the hill to take an observation. A grove of pines covered one part of it, and from the heart of this green spot came a clearer sound than the soft sigh of the pines or the drowsy chirp of the crickets. "Here's a landscape!" thought Laurie, peeping through the bushes, and looking wide-awake and good-natured already. It was a rather pretty little picture, for the sisters sat together in the shady nook, with sun and shadow flickering over them, the aromatic wind lifting their hair and cooling their hot cheeks, and all the little wood people going on with their affairs as if these were no strangers but old friends. Meg sat upon her cushion, sewing daintily with her white hands, and looking as fresh and sweet as a rose in her pink dress among the green. Beth was sorting the cones that lay thick under the hemlock near by, for she made pretty things with them. Amy was sketching a group of ferns, and Jo was knitting as she read aloud. A shadow passed over the boy's face as he watched them, feeling that he ought to go away because uninvited; yet lingering because home seemed very lonely and this quiet party in the woods most attractive to his restless spirit. He stood so still that a squirrel, busy with its harvesting, ran down a pine close beside him, saw him suddenly and skipped back, scolding so shrilly that Beth looked up, espied the wistful face behind the birches, and beckoned with a reassuring smile. "May I come in, please? Or shall I be a bother?" he asked, advancing slowly.

• From Push (1996)

  School I a joke: black monster, Big Bertha, Blimp B54 where are you? 'N the TVs in my head always static on, flipping picture. So much pain, shame—I never feel the loneliness. It such a small thing compare to your daddy climb on you, your muver kick you, slave you, feel you up. But now since I been going to school I feel lonely. Now since I sit in circle I realize all my life, all my life I been outside of circle. Mama give me orders, Daddy porno talk me, school never did learn me. It been a month now. I runs in from school nowadays. I don't pretend I'm not pregnant no more. I let it above my neck, in my head. Not that I didn't know it before but now it's like part of me; more than something stuck in me, growing in me, making me bigger. I run past my muver into my room. I wish I had TV in my room. My muver never let me have TV. She say come sit with her. I don't wanna. I sit in my room. I know too who I'm pregnant for. But I can't change that. Abortion is a sin. I hate bitches who kill they babies. They should kill them, see how they like it! I talk to baby. Boy be nice. Girl might be retarded, like me? But I not retarded. I bet chu one thing, I bet chu my baby can read. Bet a mutherfucker that! Betcha he ain' gonna have no dumb muver. I look down my stomach. I'm some big now. I'm only seven months but I know I look nine. I mean I am big. Scale just stop at 200 but I know if it a different scale like hospital scale it just keep going. I'm going to doctor tomorrow. Miz Rain fall out, I mean she fall out! when she finded out I ain' been to doctor. PRENATAL! PRENATAL! The whole damn class is screamin' preeeenatal! Whas that! You gotta this, they say, and you gotta that— I don't gotta though. I don't tell them I had first baby on kitchen floor, Muver kicking me, pains whipping me. Who gonna believe some shit like that? I look Farrakhan. I look out window at dirt bricks of other building, no sky like school. I got 'nother poster on wall now. Miz Rain give me poster like what we got on wall at school. Thas Harriet nex' to Farrakhan. She leaded over 300 black people out of slavery. You seen Roots'? I ain't. Miz Rain say see Roots, find out what it's all about. I put my han' on my stomach. I sit here, res' awhile 'fore Mama call me to fix dinner or clean up. It's 26 letters in the alphabet. Each letter got sound. Put sound to letters, mix letters together and get words. You got words. "Baby," start wif B, b for "baby," I says in nice soft voice.

• From Another Country (1962)

  Oh, yes. Somewhere, someone turned on a radio. The day was here. He finished his drink, took off his shoes, loosened his belt, and stretched out beside Vivaldo. He put his head on Vivaldo’s chest, and, in the shadow of that rock, he slept. Ida told the taxi driver, “Uptown, please, to Small’s Paradise,” then turned, with a rueful smile, to Cass. “Their night,” she said, indicating the vanished Eric and Vivaldo, “is just beginning. So is mine, only mine won’t be as much fun.” “I thought you were going home,” Cass said. “Well. I’m not. I’ve got some people to meet.” She looked thoughtfully at her fingernails, then looked over to Cass. “I couldn’t tell Vivaldo, so don’t you tell him, please. He just gets upset when he’s around—some of those musicians. I can’t blame him. I really can’t blame them, either; I know how they feel. But I don’t like for them to take it out on Vivaldo, he’s having a rough enough time as it is.” And, after a moment, she added, under her breath, “So am I.” Cass said nothing, for she was too astonished. So far from imagining herself and Ida to be friends, she had long ago decided that Ida disliked and distrusted her. But she did not sound that way now. She sounded lonely and troubled. “I wish you’d come up and have one drink with me up there,” Ida said. She kept twisting the ring on her little finger. Cass thought, at once, I’ll feel terribly out of place up there, and if you’re meeting someone, what’s the good of my coming along? But she sensed, somehow, that she could not say this, that Ida needed a woman to talk to, if only for a few minutes, even if the woman were white. “Okay,” she said, “but just one drink. I’ve got to hurry home to Richard.” As she said this, both she and Ida laughed. It was almost the first time they had ever laughed together; and this laughter revealed to Cass that Ida’s attitude toward her had been modified by Ida’s knowledge of her adultery. Perhaps Ida felt that Cass was more to be trusted and more of a woman, now that her virtue, and her safety, were gone. And there was also, in that sudden and spontaneous laughter, the very faintest hint of blackmail. Ida could be freer with Cass now, since the world’s judgment, should it ever be necessary to face it, would condemn Cass yet more cruelly than Ida. For Ida was not white, nor married, nor a mother. The world assumed Ida’s sins to be natural, whereas those of Cass were perverse. Ida said, “Men are a bitch, aren’t they, baby?” She sounded sad and weary. “I don’t understand them, I swear I don’t.” “I always thought you did,” said Cass, “much better than I ever have.”