Love

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 Querelle (1953)

  161 I QUERELLE Roger \�v·as glad that the darkness obscured his blush. Never theless he raised his face toward Gil's, smiling wistfully. "Didn't mean to say you was ugly, that ain't so. As a matter of fact, you do have the same little mug." He bent over the boy's face and took it in his hands : "God, if I could be holding her the way I'm holding you now. Boy, I'd be off to a flying start." Of its own accord, rising from the clamp of Gil's hands, the upturned face of the boy approached Gil's. \Vith a quiet murmuring sound Gil touched Roger's forehead. TI1en their noses met and played at Eskimo kisses for ten seconds or so. As he had suddenly rediscovered the brother's resemblance to his sister and felt the emotion rising in him, Gil was unable to dissimulate. In one breath, his mouth close to Roger's, he whispered: "It is a pity that you ain't your sister." Roger smiled : "Is that right?" Roger's voice sounded clear, pure, apparently unmoved. Hav ing loved Gil for a long time and hoped for this moment, having prepared himself for it, he did not want to appear moved by anything beyond friendship. The same prudence that had enabled him t o deceive the police officers by his limpid look now made him couch his reply to Gil in an impassive tone. Gil's avowal of his feelings, having occurred first, allowed the proud child to demonstrate his own cool. But it's also true that he did not yet know the conventional signals of amorous abanpon , didn't know that the voluptuous groans have to be willed a little : "B y God, you're as nice to touch as a girl." Gil pressed his mouth on the boy's lips. Roger drew back, smiling. "Are you afraid?" "Oh, no!" "Well? What did you think I was going to do?"

• From Querelle (1953)

  I know that I'll never abandon Querelle. I shall devote my whole life to him. One day I fixed my stare on him and told him: "Do you have a slight cast in one eye?" Instead of getting angry or impertinent, that splendid boy answered, in a voice that was suddenly sad and revealed a small but incurable sorrow: "It's not my fault." I understood instantly that there was an opening here, into which I could pour my tenderness. Once his arrogance cracks its annor, Querelle is no longer such pure marble, but human flesh. And it is in this way that Madame Lysiane expressed her kindness and took care of her unfortunate clients. When I am suffering, I find myself unable to believe in God. I am, then, too keenly aware of my own impotence to address my complaints about a Being-and to Him-that is impossible to attain. In pain, I have recourse only to myself. When I am unhappy, I know I have someone to thank for it. 264 I JEAN GENET 0 0 0 Querelle appears so beautiful and so pure-but this appearance is real and sufficient-that I enjoy attributing all manner of crimes to him. Then again, I wony, not knowing whether I want to degrade and soil him, or if it is my desue to destroy what is evil, render it vain and inefficient, and in so doing compromise the human appearance by the very symbol of purity? The galley convicts' chains were called "the branches." What fruit did they bear! What is it he involves himself in when he goes ashore? Of what sort are his adventures? It pleases as well as upsets me to think that he may provide pleasure to any passer-by, any stray wanderer in the fog. After some strange gestures of hesitation one of these asks him if he might walk along with him for a while. Querelle, not surprised, smiles and accepts his company. As soon as they discover a suitable shelter, some comer of the city wall, Querelle, still smiling, still silent, proceeds to unbutton himself. The man gets down on his knees. When he rises again, he puts a h undred francs into Quere11e's indifferent palm, and then he is gone. Querelle returns on board or goes to the brothel. Thinking over what I have just written, it strikes me that such a servile function, letting himself be used as a smiling object, does not really fit Quere11e. He is too strong, and to see him thus is to add to his strength, is to tum him into some haughty machine capable of crushing me without even noticing. I have said before that I have sometimes wished him to be an impostor; in that sober and boyish sailor's outfit he hides an agile and violent body, and in that body, the soul of a bandit: Querelle ' is one, I am sure of that. 265 I QUERELLE 0 0 0

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  By his account, I said, “You can give it to me, or not give it to me, but you can’t ask me what it’s for.” He not only gave me the nickel but told me I was right. He loved to tell this story as proof of my spirit. In reality, it was his cherishing of a child’s spirit that was the gift. In college, I told these and other stories as a source of entertainment, yet all the while I was hoping against hope that my father wouldn’t turn up on campus in his food-stained suit and dusty car full of boxes, his great weight causing the driver’s side to list downward like a ship. I was glad he was too far away to come to Fathers’ Weekend, where he would have been too different from the other fathers. I could imagine him falling into a snoring sleep after eating, or getting sentimental tears in his eyes when talking about money, or uttering cheerfully naïve comments like “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” about the McCarthyite accusations being leveled at two of my professors, though bravely ignored by the college. From my classmates, I belatedly discovered that even outside the movies, families really did live in neat houses, take naps, have nine-to-five jobs, pay bills on time, and eat at a table instead of standing up next to a refrigerator. Just as my father had rebelled against the orderly life of his immigrant parents who had fled insecurity, I regretted insecurity and became vulnerable to the siren song of the conventional. In the years after college, my father’s influence became ever clearer in the choices I made—for instance, to go to India instead of seeking a regular job—but I still wasn’t admitting it. Like many children, I had been drawn to the needier parent. Like many daughters especially, I was living out the unlived life of my mother. Like my father, I inhabited the future, the land of possibilities, but that was something we never talked about. There wasn’t time or place to explore what I think we both knew: that in our small family, we were the most alike. For reasons of work and geography, we saw each other less and less in the years before he died. I never told him that I could see myself in him, and vice versa. I never thanked him for, say, stopping at endless horse farms, pony rides, and every palomino in a pasture, all to please a horse-crazy daughter. One summer he even bought me a horse of my own, though I was much too young and the horse was much too old. With the help of a neighboring farmer who told us what to do, my father helped me feed and groom him—until that farmer took pity on all three of us and gave the horse a retirement home. I never told my father how grateful I was that he was different from my best friend’s father.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  But tell me: in the time of the sweet sighs, by what and how love granted you to know the dubious desires?” And she to me: “There is no greater pain than to recall a happy time in wretchedness; and this thy teacher knows. 10 But if thou hast such desire to learn the first root of our love, I will do like one who weeps and tells. One day, for pastime, we read of Lancelot, 11 how love constrained him; we were alone, and without all suspicion. Several times that reading urged our eyes to meet, and changed the colour of our races; but one moment alone it was that overcame us. When we read how the fond smile was kissed by such a lover, he, who shall never be divided from me, kissed my mouth all trembling: the book, and he who wrote it, was a Galeotto. 12 that day we read in it no farther.” Whilst the one spirit thus spake, the other wept so, that I fainted with pity, as if I had been dying; and fell, as a dead body falls. 1. According to Orosius, Semiramis succeeded her husband Ninus as ruler of Assyria. She was known for her licentious character. Dante appears to have confused the ancient kingdoms of Assyria or Babylonia in Asia with the Babylon in Egypt, for only the latter was ruled by the Sultan. Or perhaps he followed a tradition according to which Ninus conquered Egypt. The mention of the many tongues is probably due to the fact that Babylon and Babel were commonly held to be identical. 2. Dido, Queen of Carthage, fell in love with Æneas, after the death of her husband Sichæus, to whose memory she had sworn eternal fidelity. When Æneas left her to go to Italy, she slew herself on a funeral pyre. 3. Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, the mistress of Caesar and Antony. 4. Helen, the wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta, was carried off by Paris of Troy, and was thus the cause of the Trojan war. 5. According to medieval legend, Achilles was slain by Paris in a Trojan temple, whither he had gone with the intention of marrying Paris’ sister Polyxena, who had been promised him as a reward if he would join the Trojans. 6. Tristan of Lyonesse, one of King Arthur’s knights, who loved Yseult, the wife of his uncle, King Mark of Cornwall, and was killed by the outraged husband. 7. Francesca, daughter of Guido Vecchio da Polenta (and aunt of the Guido Novello at whose court in Ravenna Dante found his last refuge), was, for political reasons, married to Gianciotto, the deformed son of Malatesta da Verrucchio, Lord of Rimini (ca. 1275). About ten years later Gianciotto, having surprised his wife with his younger brother Paolo, stabbed the guilty pair. These are the bald historical facts, to which legend early began to add romantic details, tampering not only with the dates of the events and the ages of the persons concerned, but with the actual facts. Thus, it is quite possible that Paolo took part in the preliminary negotiations connected with his brother’s marriage; but this circumstance was utilized in such a way as to make it appear as though Francesca actually went through the ceremony of marriage with the handsome Paolo, and did not discover the trick till it was too late. Dante followed this tradition. 8. Ravenna, situated close by the shore of the Adriatic Sea, at the mouth of the Po. 9. The region of Hell reserved for those who had slain a relative (see Canto xxxii). 10. Although these words are translated literally from Boethius, and although we know that Dante had made a special study of Boethius, yet we cannot well identify the teacher with this philosopher: for how can we be expected to assume that Francesca was acquainted with these two facts? The reference is probably to Virgil, and to his position in Limbo. 11. The passage in the Old French version of the Lancelot Romance which alone contains all the details given by Dante, here and in Par. xv, is now known, thanks to Mr. Paget Toynbee. That Dante was acquainted with the old French poems dealing with the matière de Bretagne is proved by De Vulg. El. i. 10. 12. Galeotto synonymous with “pander”: for, in the Old French poem, Gallehault renders Lancelot and Guinivere the same service that Pandarus rendered Troilus and Cressida, according to the Trojan legend.

• From Querelle (1953)

  143 I QUERELLE A Navy Officer. As an adolescent, even as an Ensign, I didn't realize what a perfect alibi a Navy career would give me. Re maining a bachelor seems so perfectly understandable. \Vomen don't ever ask you why you aren't married. They pity you for only knowing those brief affairs, never the durable fire. The sea. The solitude. "A woman in every port." No one bothers to en quire whether I have a fiancee. Not my fellow officers, nor my mother. We are traveling men. From the time I fell in love with Querelle I have become less of a disciplinarian. My love makes me more pliable. The more I love Querelle, the more the woman in me defines and refines herself and grieves over her lack of fulfilment. Faced with any thing that has no bearing on my relationship with Querelle, my own misery, my secret frustrations cause me just to stare at it and say: "What's the use of that?" Saw Admiral A ... again. It seems he is a widower, has been so for more than twenty years. The big guy who fo11ows him around (it is his chauffeur, not an orderly) is the glorious resur rection of his flesh. I come back from a ten-day mission. My meeting with Que rene gave me a shock-I felt it even around me, in the sunny air -a delicately tragic trauma. The entire day revolves, floats around a center of luminous vapor: the gravity of this re-turn. Return for good. QuereJle knows that I love him. He knows it from the way I look at him, and I know that he knows from his sly and almost insolent smile. But everything within him proves to him that I am attached to him, and thus everything in him seems to work toward the end of making my attachment grow even stronger. And a11 the embarrassment we are experiencing helps us to see the exceptional significance of this day even more clearly. Even if it had appeared necessary, I could not have made

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  But we won't be caught, and if we are I shall say I gagged you, forced you. You should suffer at most a few days in the Hall of Punishments, and what happens to me does not matter. And you must swear to me you will let me take all the blame, or I shall gag you, and carry you back and chain you up immediately." Beauty bowed her head. "I brought you here. I shall be punished if we're caught. That must be a rule between us. No arguments from you." "Yes, my Prince," she whispered. "No, don't say this to me," he pleaded. "I had not meant to command you. I'm Alexi to you, and nothing more than that, and I am sorry if I was harsh, only I cannot lead you into terrible punishment. Do as I ask because...because..." "Because I adore you, Alexi," she said. "Ah, Beauty, you are my love, my love," he answered. He kissed her again. "Now you must tell me, what are your thoughts, why do you suffer so?" "Why do I suffer? But don't you see it with your own eyes? Did I forget for one moment that you were watching me tonight? You see what was done to me, what is done to you, what is..." "Of course I watched you and was glad of the pleasure of it," he said. "Did you not enjoy seeing me paddled by the Crown Prince and did you not enjoy seeing me punished in the Great Hall when you were first brought in? What would you do if I told you I spilt the wine that first day so that you would notice me?" She was stunned. "I ask you why you suffer. I don't mean what you suffer from the paddle, or the relentless games of our Lords and Ladies. I mean what do you suffer in your heart? Why are you in such conflict? What prevents you from yielding?" "Have you yielded?" she demanded, slightly angry. "Of course," he said easily. "I adore the Queen and I adore pleasing her. I adore all those who torment me, because I must. It is profoundly simple." "And you feel no pain, no humiliation?" "I feel much pain and much humiliation. And that will never stop. If it did, even for a little while, our endlessly clever masters and mistresses would think of some new way to make us feel it. Do you think I was not humiliated in the Great Hall to be upended by Felix and spanked before an entire Court, and so casually, and for so little? I am a powerful Prince, my father is a powerful King. I never forget it. And surely it was painful to be so roughly treated by the Crown Prince for your benefit. And he thought it would make you love me less!"

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Countess Lidia Ivanovna had long given up being in love with her husband, but from that time she had never given up being in love with someone. She was in love with several people at once, both men and women; she had been in love with almost everyone who had been particularly distinguished in any way. She was in love with all the new princes and princesses who married into the imperial family; she had been in love with a high dignitary of the Church, a vicar, and a parish priest; she had been in love with a journalist, three Slavophiles, with Komissarov, with a minister, a doctor, an English missionary and Karenin. All these passions constantly waning or growing more ardent, did not prevent her from keeping up the most extended and complicated relations with the court and fashionable society. But from the time that after Karenin’s trouble she took him under her special protection, from the time that she set to work in Karenin’s household looking after his welfare, she felt that all her other attachments were not the real thing, and that she was now genuinely in love, and with no one but Karenin. The feeling she now experienced for him seemed to her stronger than any of her former feelings. Analyzing her feeling, and comparing it with former passions, she distinctly perceived that she would not have been in love with Komissarov if he had not saved the life of the Tsar, that she would not have been in love with Ristitch-Kudzhitsky if there had been no Slavonic question, but that she loved Karenin for himself, for his lofty, uncomprehended soul, for the sweet—to her—high notes of his voice, for his drawling intonation, his weary eyes, his character, and his soft white hands with their swollen veins. She was not simply overjoyed at meeting him, but she sought in his face signs of the impression she was making on him. She tried to please him, not by her words only, but in her whole person. For his sake it was that she now lavished more care on her dress than before. She caught herself in reveries on what might have been, if she had not been married and he had been free. She blushed with emotion when he came into the room, she could not repress a smile of rapture when he said anything amiable to her. For several days now Countess Lidia Ivanovna had been in a state of intense excitement. She had learned that Anna and Vronsky were in Petersburg. Alexey Alexandrovitch must be saved from seeing her, he must be saved even from the torturing knowledge that that awful woman was in the same town with him, and that he might meet her any minute.

• From Querelle (1953)

  then I drew back almost instantly, for feax that he should see me. To those tranquil, assured-and long-moments, perhaps granted us one day, to sleep in each other's anns, I still prefer these instants of discomfort, these rapid moments one has to destroy because the legs grow stiff from bending down, or an ann goes numb, or because a door or an eyelid isn't quite properly closed. I cherish those stolen moments, and Querelle pays no attention to them. Reception on board, for Admiral A . . . He's a tall and thin old man, with very white hair. He rarely smiles, but I know that behind that severe and even a little haughty exterior he conceals great gentleness, great kindness. He made his appearance up the gangway followed by a Marine, a . big bruiser in full battle chess -gaiters, cartridge belt, helmet and all. His bodyguard. The spectacle moved me a great deal, and I enjoy recollecting it. The fragile outline of the old man with his neat gestures, seen against the magnificent bearing of his orderly! One day I, too, shall be an old officer, decorated, gilded, and frail, but framed thus, by the solid muscular body of some twenty-year-old warrior. We are at sea. There is a storm. If we get shipwrecked, what will Querelle do? W auld he try to save me? He does not know that I love him. I would try to save him, but I would rather try to make him save me. In a shipwreck, everybody grabs hold of what is most precious to him: a violin, a manuscript, some photographs . . . Querelle would take me. But I know that he would first of all save his own beauty, even if I should die. He stood watching another crewman scrubbing the deck. Not having anything else to lean on, Querelle was leaning on his hands, one on top of the other, resting on his belt, above the 97 I QUERELLE flap. The whole upper part of his body was leaning forward, and under tha t weight the belt ( and the top of his pants) was sagging, like a stretched-out rope. No young prick to hold in my hand-I could cry. I howl out my pain, to the sea, to the· night, to the stars. I know that there are some marvelous ones, back there in the crew's quarters, but I shall never be permitted to touch them . The Admiral gives the order, and in the most docile fashion the goon who follows him everywhere enters his cabin, unfastens the flap and presents a rod, fully extended according to regulations, to his lips. I know no couple more elegant or more perfectly matched than that Admiral and his beast.

• From Querelle (1953)

  235 I QUERELLE .. What? \Vhat is a pity?" .. Eh? Oh, I don't know. I just said that, I don't know why. It's a pity I have to lose you." .. But you know, you're not losing me. We'll n1eet again. I'll keep you posted on what happens. And once you've done your time in the Navy you can come and stay with me." "Is that true, you'll still remember me?" .. I swear I will, J o. You're my buddy for life." All these exchanges were uttered in whispers growing quieter and quieter. Querelle felt a true feeling of friendship beginning to unfold inside hin1. The entire length of his body touched Gil's abandoned body. Querelle kissed him . once more, and again Gil returned the kiss . .. Here we are, pecking away at each other like lovers." Gil smiled. Querelle kissed him again, more fervently and very quickly, a fusillade of kisses, working his way up to the ear and covering that with a long kiss. Then he put his cheek against his friend's. Gil hugged him. "Goddamn kid. I real1y like you, you know." Querelle held Gil's head in the crook of his arm and kissed him again. He pressed Gil closer to himself, pushed a leg between his legs . .. So we're really buddies?" ··Yes, Jo. You are n1y one true friend." They remained a long time in their embrace, Querelle caress ing Gil's hair and showering him with further and warmer kisses. He now fel t a physical desire for GiL "You're really great, you know?" .. What's so great about me?" .,Yo\J, let me peck away at you like this, not saying anything, not complaining or anything." .. . Why should I? I tell you, you're my best buddy. Ain't nothing wrong wit h it, is there?" Gratefully Querclle gave him a fast and violent buss on the ear and then let his mouth slide down to Gil's. When he had

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  She had for the moment stopped crying. She had only just pulled down the covers for the Prince, with her teeth, her hands clasped behind her back, and then with her teeth had taken his boots to the edge of the room. And now she waited for further commands, trying to watch him, though her eyes were cast down, without his realizing it. He had bolted the door, and he was sitting on the side of the bed. And his black hair, loose and curling at his shoulders gleamed in the light of the tallow candle. His face was very beautiful to her, perhaps because in spite of the size of the features, they were all rather delicately molded. She did not know for certain. Even his hands enthralled her. The fingers were so long, so white, so delicate. She was terribly relieved to be alone with him. The moments below in the Inn had been such an agony to her, and even though he had brought the wooden paddle with him and might spank her much harder with it than that dreadful girl, she was so glad to be alone with him that she could not be afraid of it. She was afraid, however, that she hadn't pleased him. She searched her mind for faults. She had obeyed all his commands, and he understood how difficult it was for her. He knew completely what it meant for her to be stripped naked and revealed to everyone, to be helpless and made public and that this surrender of which he spoke could come in acts and gestures long before it could come from her mind. But no matter how hard she tried to excuse herself, she could not help but wondering if she could have tried harder. Did he want her to cry out more when she was spanked? She was uncertain. Just thinking of that girl spanking her in front of everyone made her cry again, and she knew that the Prince would see her tears, and he might wonder why now, when she'd been told to stand still at the foot of the bed, she was crying. This is my life, she told herself, trying to calm herself. He has awakened me and claimed me. My parents are restored, their Kingdom is theirs again, and more significantly, life is theirs again, and I belong to him. She felt a great relaxation when she thought these things and a stirring in herself that seemed to make her sore and throbbing buttocks feel suddenly warmer. The pain made her so shamefully aware of that part of her body!

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  11 And further had the site of this thrashing-floor been unfolded to me, save that the sun was in advance beneath my feet, served by a Sign and more from me. My enamoured mind, which held amorous converse ever with my Lady, burned more than ever to bring back my eyes to her; and whatsoever food nature or art e’er made, to catch the eyes and so possess the mind, be it in human flesh, be it in pictures, if all united, would seem nought towards the divine delight which glowed upon me when that I turned me to her smiling face. And the power of which that look made largess to me, from the fair nest of Leda 12 plucked me forth, and into the swiftest heaven thrust me.

• From Querelle (1953)

  .,Yo\J, let me peck away at you like this, not saying anything, not complaining or anything." should I? I tell you, you're my best buddy. Ain't nothing wrong with it, is there?" Gratefully Querclle gave him a fast and violent buss on the ear and then let his mouth slide down to Gil's. When he had 236 I JEAN GENET found it, and they stood there lip against lip, he whispered, in a breath : "So it's really true, it doesn't make you want to puke?" Breathing back, Gil answered : "No." Their tongues touched. "Gil?" "Yes, what?" "You have to be my best buddy for real. Forever. Do you understand?" "Yes." "D'you want to?" "Yes." Querelle's feeling of friendship toward Gil grew toward the limits of love. He regarded him with the tenderness of an elder brother. Like himself, Gil, too, had killed. He was a small Querelle, but one that would not be allowed to develop, who would not go any further; looking at him Querelle felt respect and curiosity, as if he had been admitted into the presence of himself as a fetus. He wanted to make love, because he thought that this would strengthen the tenderness inside him and would join him closer to Gil, by joining Gil closer to himself. But he did not know how to go about it. "My little buddy . . . " _ His hand on Gil's back slid down until it reached the trem· bling buttocks. Querelle squeezed them, with his large and solid hand. He took possession of them with a newly born authority. ' Then he stuck his fingers between the belt and the shirt. He loved Gil. He forced himself to love him. "It is a pity we can't stay together all the time, just the two of us . . ." "Yes, but we'll get together again . . ." Now Gil's voice was a little troubled, anguished even. "I would have liked us to live together, to stay just like th. , IS • • • 237 I QUERRLE The vision of the solitude in which their love might have grown enhanced his feelings for Gil; he knew that Gil existed only for him, was his only friend, his only family . .. I've never loved another guy, you know. You're the first one." "Is that true?" .. 1 give you my word." He pressed his friend's head against his cheek. .. I like you, you know. I really love you.'' .. 1 love you too." When they parted, Querelle had really fallen in love with Gil . . .

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Wilma did not run for a third term as principal chief; she had received a diagnosis of cancer and needed chemotherapy. I knew she dreaded the regular visits to the hospital for weeks of outpatient infusions. She had already spent way too much of her life in hospitals, and she was not as invulnerable as she seemed. Her two daughters had been with her faithfully in past health crises, but they had jobs and lives in Oklahoma. I asked Wilma if she would let me stay with her in Boston, instead of going on a scheduled trip to Australia that I could easily do another time—hoping but not believing that she, always the strong one, would say yes—but she actually did. Of all the gifts she had given me, that was the greatest.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  However many women and girls he thought of whom he knew, he could not think of a girl who united to such a degree all, positively all, the qualities he would wish to see in his wife. She had all the charm and freshness of youth, but she was not a child; and if she loved him, she loved him consciously as a woman ought to love; that was one thing. Another point: she was not only far from being worldly, but had an unmistakable distaste for worldly society, and at the same time she knew the world, and had all the ways of a woman of the best society, which were absolutely essential to Sergey Ivanovitch’s conception of the woman who was to share his life. Thirdly: she was religious, and not like a child, unconsciously religious and good, as Kitty, for example, was, but her life was founded on religious principles. Even in trifling matters, Sergey Ivanovitch found in her all that he wanted in his wife: she was poor and alone in the world, so she would not bring with her a mass of relations and their influence into her husband’s house, as he saw now in Kitty’s case. She would owe everything to her husband, which was what he had always desired too for his future family life. And this girl, who united all these qualities, loved him. He was a modest man, but he could not help seeing it. And he loved her. There was one consideration against it—his age. But he came of a long-lived family, he had not a single gray hair, no one would have taken him for forty, and he remembered Varenka’s saying that it was only in Russia that men of fifty thought themselves old, and that in France a man of fifty considers himself _dans la force de l’âge_, while a man of forty is _un jeune homme_. But what did the mere reckoning of years matter when he felt as young in heart as he had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth to feel as he felt now, when coming from the other side to the edge of the wood he saw in the glowing light of the slanting sunbeams the gracious figure of Varenka in her yellow gown with her basket, walking lightly by the trunk of an old birch tree, and when this impression of the sight of Varenka blended so harmoniously with the beauty of the view, of the yellow oatfield lying bathed in the slanting sunshine, and beyond it the distant ancient forest flecked with yellow and melting into the blue of the distance? His heart throbbed joyously. A softened feeling came over him. He felt that he had made up his mind. Varenka, who had just crouched down to pick a mushroom, rose with a supple movement and looked round. Flinging away the cigar, Sergey Ivanovitch advanced with resolute steps towards her. Chapter 5

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “No, no!” she began. “I am not afraid of him; I am afraid of death. Alexey, come here. I am in a hurry, because I’ve no time, I’ve not long left to live; the fever will begin directly and I shall understand nothing more. Now I understand, I understand it all, I see it all!” Alexey Alexandrovitch’s wrinkled face wore an expression of agony; he took her by the hand and tried to say something, but he could not utter it; his lower lip quivered, but he still went on struggling with his emotion, and only now and then glanced at her. And each time he glanced at her, he saw her eyes gazing at him with such passionate and triumphant tenderness as he had never seen in them. “Wait a minute, you don’t know ... stay a little, stay!...” She stopped, as though collecting her ideas. “Yes,” she began; “yes, yes, yes. This is what I wanted to say. Don’t be surprised at me. I’m still the same.... But there is another woman in me, I’m afraid of her: she loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget about her that used to be. I’m not that woman. Now I’m my real self, all myself. I’m dying now, I know I shall die, ask him. Even now I feel—see here, the weights on my feet, on my hands, on my fingers. My fingers—see how huge they are! But this will soon all be over.... Only one thing I want: forgive me, forgive me quite. I’m terrible, but my nurse used to tell me; the holy martyr—what was her name? She was worse. And I’ll go to Rome; there’s a wilderness, and there I shall be no trouble to anyone, only I’ll take Seryozha and the little one.... No, you can’t forgive me! I know, it can’t be forgiven! No, no, go away, you’re too good!” She held his hand in one burning hand, while she pushed him away with the other. The nervous agitation of Alexey Alexandrovitch kept increasing, and had by now reached such a point that he ceased to struggle with it. He suddenly felt that what he had regarded as nervous agitation was on the contrary a blissful spiritual condition that gave him all at once a new happiness he had never known. He did not think that the Christian law that he had been all his life trying to follow, enjoined on him to forgive and love his enemies; but a glad feeling of love and forgiveness for his enemies filled his heart. He knelt down, and laying his head in the curve of her arm, which burned him as with fire through the sleeve, he sobbed like a little child. She put her arm around his head, moved towards him, and with defiant pride lifted up her eyes.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The desire for life, waxing stronger with recovered health, was so intense, and the conditions of life were so new and pleasant, that Anna felt unpardonably happy. The more she got to know Vronsky, the more she loved him. She loved him for himself, and for his love for her. Her complete ownership of him was a continual joy to her. His presence was always sweet to her. All the traits of his character, which she learned to know better and better, were unutterably dear to her. His appearance, changed by his civilian dress, was as fascinating to her as though she were some young girl in love. In everything he said, thought, and did, she saw something particularly noble and elevated. Her adoration of him alarmed her indeed; she sought and could not find in him anything not fine. She dared not show him her sense of her own insignificance beside him. It seemed to her that, knowing this, he might sooner cease to love her; and she dreaded nothing now so much as losing his love, though she had no grounds for fearing it. But she could not help being grateful to him for his attitude to her, and showing that she appreciated it. He, who had in her opinion such a marked aptitude for a political career, in which he would have been certain to play a leading part—he had sacrificed his ambition for her sake, and never betrayed the slightest regret. He was more lovingly respectful to her than ever, and the constant care that she should not feel the awkwardness of her position never deserted him for a single instant. He, so manly a man, never opposed her, had indeed, with her, no will of his own, and was anxious, it seemed, for nothing but to anticipate her wishes. And she could not but appreciate this, even though the very intensity of his solicitude for her, the atmosphere of care with which he surrounded her, sometimes weighed upon her.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  I had just witnessed my first humiliating clean-your-plate-or-you-can’t-have-dessert incident at her house. When I came home, I tested my father. We were eating in our usual haphazard way in the living room—never on the debris-covered dining room table that was used only on national holidays—and he asked me if I wanted dessert. I pointed out that I hadn’t finished my dinner. “That’s okay,” he said as he went into the kitchen for ice cream. “Sometimes you’re hungry for one thing and not another.” I loved him so much at that moment. He listened to all my complaints about not going to school like other kids, yet years after his death, I realized that I’d also been spared the Dick and Jane limitations that school then put on girls. Nor was he around when I finally understood that having a loving and nurturing father made a lifetime difference. Only after I saw women who were attracted to distant, condescending, even violent men did I begin to understand that having a distant, condescending, even violent father could make those qualities seem inevitable, even feel like home. Because of my father, only kindness felt like home. It’s true that my father’s idea of childrearing was to take me to whatever movie he wanted to see, however unsuitable; buy unlimited ice cream; let me sleep whenever and wherever I got tired; and wait in the car while I picked out my own clothes. Salespeople were shocked to see a six- or eight-year-old with cash and making her own choices, but this resulted in such satisfying purchases as a grown-up ladies’ red hat, Easter shoes that came with a live rabbit, and a cowgirl jacket with fringe. All I knew was that my father enjoyed my company, asked my opinion, and treated me better than he treated himself. What more could any child want? Once I became a freelance writer, I also realized the value of his ability to live with and even love insecurity. He had two points of pride: he never wore a hat, and he never had a job—by which he meant he never had a boss. I knew I was my father’s daughter when I took a part-time editing job to pay the rent. It was work I could do at home, but when suddenly I was expected to spend two days a week in the office, I quit, bought an ice cream cone, and walked the sunny streets of Manhattan. My father would have done the same—except for the walking. It’s said that the biggest determinant of our lives is whether we see the world as welcoming or hostile. Each becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. My mother had performed the miracle of creating a welcoming world for my sister and me, even though she herself grew up in a hostile one. But her broken spirit could not help but let the darkness in—and I absorbed it during our long years together.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she would say to him, but she did not succeed in saying anything of it; his passion mastered her. She tried to calm him, to calm herself, but it was too late. His feeling infected her. Her lips trembled so that for a long while she could say nothing. “Yes, you have conquered me, and I am yours,” she said at last, pressing his hands to her bosom. “So it had to be,” he said. “So long as we live, it must be so. I know it now.” “That’s true,” she said, getting whiter and whiter, and embracing his head. “Still there is something terrible in it after all that has happened.” “It will all pass, it will all pass; we shall be so happy. Our love, if it could be stronger, will be strengthened by there being something terrible in it,” he said, lifting his head and parting his strong teeth in a smile. And she could not but respond with a smile—not to his words, but to the love in his eyes. She took his hand and stroked her chilled cheeks and cropped head with it. “I don’t know you with this short hair. You’ve grown so pretty. A boy. But how pale you are!” “Yes, I’m very weak,” she said, smiling. And her lips began trembling again. “We’ll go to Italy; you will get strong,” he said. “Can it be possible we could be like husband and wife, alone, your family with you?” she said, looking close into his eyes. “It only seems strange to me that it can ever have been otherwise.” “Stiva says that _he_ has agreed to everything, but I can’t accept _his_ generosity,” she said, looking dreamily past Vronsky’s face. “I don’t want a divorce; it’s all the same to me now. Only I don’t know what he will decide about Seryozha.” He could not conceive how at this moment of their meeting she could remember and think of her son, of divorce. What did it all matter? “Don’t speak of that, don’t think of it,” he said, turning her hand in his, and trying to draw her attention to him; but still she did not look at him. “Oh, why didn’t I die! it would have been better,” she said, and silent tears flowed down both her cheeks; but she tried to smile, so as not to wound him. To decline the flattering and dangerous appointment at Tashkend would have been, Vronsky had till then considered, disgraceful and impossible. But now, without an instant’s consideration, he declined it, and observing dissatisfaction in the most exalted quarters at this step, he immediately retired from the army. A month later Alexey Alexandrovitch was left alone with his son in his house at Petersburg, while Anna and Vronsky had gone abroad, not having obtained a divorce, but having absolutely declined all idea of one. PART FIVE Chapter 1

• From Querelle (1953)

  135 I QUERELLE his gift in the outstretched palm. More than anything, the very harmony of the two gestures tugged at the Lieutenant's heart strings. He said: .. lnank ''ou, sailor." . .. "Don't mention it, sir." Querelle turned back to his buddies, pulled off a few more tangerines and threw them over to them. The Lieutenant had walked off slowly and stood peeling the fruit with an affectation of carefree absent-mindedness, while telling himself, with great pleasure, that his lo\'e relationship with Querelle would surely remain pure, as their first gesture of union had just been accomplished according to the laws of such touching harmony that it could only have been created by their two souls, or even bette:-, by a unique power-love itself-that had but one focus, but two rays ... He glanced warily to left and right, and then, having now quite turned his back to the group of sailors, and certain that no one could observe him, he popped the whole tangerine into his mouth and held it there for a moment, one check bulging. "Just what us old sea dogs ought to chomp on," he said to himself, ((the balls of handsome young men." Circumspectly, he turned round again. In front of the sprawl ing sailors, who from this distance looked like one great blob of virility, stood Querclle, his back to the Lieutenant. And Seblon caught just the right moment to see him bending his strong legs in their white ducks, hands resting on buttocks, straining (the Lieutenant envisaged the congested face and the smile of the crewman waiting for deliverance, his eyes bulging out of his head, his smile freezing), straining even harder, and then let ting fly-straight at him-a barraee of sonorous, lively, rough and-tumble farts-so loud that they seemed to rend those glorious white bell-bottoms truly from top to bottom ( Querelle did, indeed, refer to them as his "farting-gear")-greeted by a thousand cheers and salutes, the gales of laughter emitted by his buddies. 1\.,tortified, the Lieutenant quickly averted his eyes and

• From Querelle (1953)

  The scene was over. Robert pushed up close to his mistress. For a moment, he didn't know whether he was her son or her lover. His closed lips were glued to her still-powdered cheek, now wet with tears. 14I love you so, my darling! You are my man." He whispered : .. Switch the light off." His feet were ice cold. At the end of their reunited bodies, their temperature alone prevented them from immediately plunging into that intoxication whence there is no emerging. He moved even closer to her. Madame Lysiane was glowing like a coal. "I'm all yours, you know, my darling." She had made her decision, and to make certain that it was not in vain, Madame Lysiane made her voice as inviting as possible. That evening, a veil was fina11y tom within her, that had resisted all her years. By sacrificing her modesty at the age of forty-five, she lost her true virginity, and like any virgin, she was at that moment ready to engage in previously unheard-of obscenities. "Let's do what you want, darling." And in another sigh, as all offertory phrases are short and a little breathless, she added : "The way you like it best." Almost imperceptibly, her body began to move farther down under tht sheets. In her love for Robert she had realized that if she wanted to join her life to the life of those ridiculously indistinguishable brothers, she herself had to descend back to the caves, in order to return to an undecided, protoplasmic, larval state that would enable her to fit in better between the.. two others, to finally mingle with them, like the egg white of one egg with the whites of two other eggs. Madame Lysiane's 190 I JEAN GENET love had to melt her down, to reduce her to zero, destroying that moral armature that made her into everything she was and lent her its authority. At the same time she felt ashamed and wished she could cling to a less monstrous man than this single half of a double statue was, a man who knew how to take care of money, who had no other preoccupations but those arising out of his everyday existence; she felt a vague nostalgia for Noilo. But then again, it was a great comfort to be thus con· quered and dedicated to slave's work; it gave her a new and truer, more essential life. Her mouth glued to the neck tendon of her lover she whispered : "My dear cabbage, you know, darling, I'll do what you want." Robert squeezed her hard, then relaxed his grip a little to allow her to continue her slide down his body. She moved on, slowly, and Robert's body stiffened as it moved up to meet her.