Pride

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 50 of 174 · 20 per page

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Although all Vronsky’s inner life was absorbed in his passion, his external life unalterably and inevitably followed along the old accustomed lines of his social and regimental ties and interests. The interests of his regiment took an important place in Vronsky’s life, both because he was fond of the regiment, and because the regiment was fond of him. They were not only fond of Vronsky in his regiment, they respected him too, and were proud of him; proud that this man, with his immense wealth, his brilliant education and abilities, and the path open before him to every kind of success, distinction, and ambition, had disregarded all that, and of all the interests of life had the interests of his regiment and his comrades nearest to his heart. Vronsky was aware of his comrades’ view of him, and in addition to his liking for the life, he felt bound to keep up that reputation. It need not be said that he did not speak of his love to any of his comrades, nor did he betray his secret even in the wildest drinking bouts (though indeed he was never so drunk as to lose all control of himself). And he shut up any of his thoughtless comrades who attempted to allude to his connection. But in spite of that, his love was known to all the town; everyone guessed with more or less confidence at his relations with Madame Karenina. The majority of the younger men envied him for just what was the most irksome factor in his love—the exalted position of Karenin, and the consequent publicity of their connection in society. The greater number of the young women, who envied Anna and had long been weary of hearing her called _virtuous_, rejoiced at the fulfillment of their predictions, and were only waiting for a decisive turn in public opinion to fall upon her with all the weight of their scorn. They were already making ready their handfuls of mud to fling at her when the right moment arrived. The greater number of the middle-aged people and certain great personages were displeased at the prospect of the impending scandal in society.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Alexey Alexandrovitch ordered tea to be brought to the study, and playing with the massive paper-knife, he moved to his easy chair, near which there had been placed ready for him a lamp and the French work on Egyptian hieroglyphics that he had begun. Over the easy chair there hung in a gold frame an oval portrait of Anna, a fine painting by a celebrated artist. Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at it. The unfathomable eyes gazed ironically and insolently at him. Insufferably insolent and challenging was the effect in Alexey Alexandrovitch’s eyes of the black lace about the head, admirably touched in by the painter, the black hair and handsome white hand with one finger lifted, covered with rings. After looking at the portrait for a minute, Alexey Alexandrovitch shuddered so that his lips quivered and he uttered the sound “brrr,” and turned away. He made haste to sit down in his easy chair and opened the book. He tried to read, but he could not revive the very vivid interest he had felt before in Egyptian hieroglyphics. He looked at the book and thought of something else. He thought not of his wife, but of a complication that had arisen in his official life, which at the time constituted the chief interest of it. He felt that he had penetrated more deeply than ever before into this intricate affair, and that he had originated a leading idea—he could say it without self-flattery—calculated to clear up the whole business, to strengthen him in his official career, to discomfit his enemies, and thereby to be of the greatest benefit to the government. Directly the servant had set the tea and left the room, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up and went to the writing-table. Moving into the middle of the table a portfolio of papers, with a scarcely perceptible smile of self-satisfaction, he took a pencil from a rack and plunged into the perusal of a complex report relating to the present complication. The complication was of this nature: Alexey Alexandrovitch’s characteristic quality as a politician, that special individual qualification that every rising functionary possesses, the qualification that with his unflagging ambition, his reserve, his honesty, and with his self-confidence had made his career, was his contempt for red tape, his cutting down of correspondence, his direct contact, wherever possible, with the living fact, and his economy. It happened that the famous Commission of the 2nd of June had set on foot an inquiry into the irrigation of lands in the Zaraisky province, which fell under Alexey Alexandrovitch’s department, and was a glaring example of fruitless expenditure and paper reforms. Alexey Alexandrovitch was aware of the truth of this. The irrigation of these lands in the Zaraisky province had been initiated by the predecessor of Alexey Alexandrovitch’s predecessor. And vast sums of money had actually been spent and were still being spent on this business, and utterly unproductively, and the whole business could obviously lead to nothing whatever.

• From Querelle (1953)

  preserved a redoubtable elegance. Without really appearing to be working, he took care of the Lieutenant's business; Seblon no longer dared to look him in the face, after that unequivocally ironical answer given with the perfect assurance of Querelle's power over one who was in love with him. Querelle dominated his shipmates by his strength, his toughness and his reputation, which increased when they found out that he went to La Feria every evening. However, he only frequented its public parlor, where some of the sailors had seen him shaking hands with the owner and with Madame Lysiane. The reputation of La Feria's owner spanned the seven seas. Sailors spoke of him among themselves (as we have said ) as they did of ducks in China, as they did of Crillolla, Bousbir and Bidonville. They were impatient to get to know the joint, but when they first saw, in a dark, dank street, that small dilapidated house, surrounded by a stench of urine, its shutters closed, they were both surprised and uneasy. Many did not find the courage to go through the studded door. Becoming a regular visitor added to Querelle's stature. It was inadmissible to suppose that -he had gambled with the boss. Querelle was powerful enough for his reputation to remain unsullied and even to be further enhanced by his association with the place. And if he was never seen with a whore round his neck, that was just further proof that he did not go there as a client, but as a friend or pimp. To have a girlfriend in a brothel made a man of him, no longer just a sailor: he had as much authority as the guys with the stripes. Querelle knew himself surrounded by immense respect, and bathing in that glory sometimes made him forget himself. He became arrogant toward the Lieutenant, whose suppressed desire he well knew. Maliciously Querelle tried to exacerbate it; with remarkable natural talent he found . the most suggestive poses; he would lean against the doorjamb, one arm raised to show off his armpit; he would sit on the table, flexing his thighs and letting his trouser leg ride up to exhibit his muscular, hairy calves; he would throw in a little "bump" for good measure, or - 133 I QUERELLE

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Meanwhile spring came on, beautiful and kindly, without the delays and treacheries of spring,—one of those rare springs in which plants, beasts, and man rejoice alike. This lovely spring roused Levin still more, and strengthened him in his resolution of renouncing all his past and building up his lonely life firmly and independently. Though many of the plans with which he had returned to the country had not been carried out, still his most important resolution—that of purity—had been kept by him. He was free from that shame, which had usually harassed him after a fall; and he could look everyone straight in the face. In February he had received a letter from Marya Nikolaevna telling him that his brother Nikolay’s health was getting worse, but that he would not take advice, and in consequence of this letter Levin went to Moscow to his brother’s and succeeded in persuading him to see a doctor and to go to a watering-place abroad. He succeeded so well in persuading his brother, and in lending him money for the journey without irritating him, that he was satisfied with himself in that matter. In addition to his farming, which called for special attention in spring, and in addition to reading, Levin had begun that winter a work on agriculture, the plan of which turned on taking into account the character of the laborer on the land as one of the unalterable data of the question, like the climate and the soil, and consequently deducing all the principles of scientific culture, not simply from the data of soil and climate, but from the data of soil, climate, and a certain unalterable character of the laborer. Thus, in spite of his solitude, or in consequence of his solitude, his life was exceedingly full. Only rarely he suffered from an unsatisfied desire to communicate his stray ideas to someone besides Agafea Mihalovna. With her indeed he not infrequently fell into discussion upon physics, the theory of agriculture, and especially philosophy; philosophy was Agafea Mihalovna’s favorite subject.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Gil went on eating. He and Querelle seemed to have run out of words already, but Roger perc.:eived that a relationship was being established between them in which there was no room for him. It was, now, a matter of two men talking, in all earnest, about things a boy his age could only daydream abo�t. "Say, you're Robert's brother, the one who's staying at Nono's?" "Yeah. And I know Nono, too." Not for one n1inute did Querelle consider the nature of his relationship with Nono. There was no undertone of irony in his statement. "No kidding, you're a buddy of Nono's?" "You heard me. \Vhat about it?" "D'you think he . . . (Gil was going to say: "could help me," but realized it would be too much heartbreak to get a "no" for an answer) . He hesitated, then said : "Do you think he might help me?" In turning him into -an outlaw his crime naturally encouraged Gil to seek refuge among pimps and prostitutes, as they were people who lived-or so he thought-at the very borderline of legality. The murder he had committed would have totally crushed any laboring man of a riper age. Gil, on the contrary, was hardened by it, it made him glow from within, conferring, as it did, a reputation he would not have attained otherwise, and from the lack of which he had been suffering. Gil was a mason, but his life had been too short for him to identify him· self with his trade. He was still entertaining all sorts of vague dreams, and these had suddenly become true (what we call "dreams" are those little peculiarities that may indicate fan· 110 I JEAN GENET

• From Querelle (1953)

  34 I JEAN GENET as ridiculous as the bigheads who played to the gaiiery and then got shown up for the braggarts they were. Never had Quereiie said, "Me, I'm one of the guys from the Vengeur." Or even, "Me, I'm a French salt ... " But.now, having done so, he felt no shame; he felt completely at ease. "OK, scram." . He pronounced these words with a twisted sneer directed right at the landlubber, and with his face fixed in that expres sion he waited, hands in pockets, until the young man had turned and gone. Then, feeling good and even a little tougher than before, he continued on down the Rue de Siam. Arriving on board Quereiie instantly perceived an opportunity for the dispensation of rough justice. He was seized by sudden and violent fury on noticing that one of the sailors on the larboard deck was wearing his beret the very same way he thought Quereiie alone should wear it. He felt positively robbed, when he recognized that particular angle, that lock of hair sticking up like a flame, licking the front of the beret, the whole effect of it as legendary, now, as the white fur bonnet worn by Vacher, the kiiier of shepherds. Quereiie walked up, his cruel eyes fixed on those of the hapless sailor, and told him, in a matter-of.fact tone: "Put it on straight." The other one did not understand. A little taken aback, vaguely frightened, he stared at Quereiie without budging. With a sweep of his hand Querelle sent the beret flying down on to the deck, but before the sailor could bend down to pick it up, Querelle pounded his face with his fists, rapidly, and with a vengeance. Querelle loved luxury. It seems obvious that he had a feeling for the common beliefs, that he did glory in his Frenchness, to some extent, and in being a Navy man, suscepbole like any male to national and military pride. Yet we have to remember some facts of his early youth, not because these extend across the entire psyche of our hero, but in order to make plausible an

• From Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1996)

  Clark began buying farmland in Southern California and invested in a sugar mill in Los Alamitos in Orange County. There was money to be made in sugar beets. The government supported domestic production with a protective tariff of 76 percent. In 1904, Clark organized his Southern California holdings as the Montana Land Company with his brother, J. Ross Clark. Later, they made Clark Bonner, J. Ross Clark’s nephew, president of the company. William A. Clark died in 1925 and left an estate worth $200 million. In 1926, Clark Bonner closed the sugar mill and leased the company’s former beet fields to tenant farmers. In 1929, Clark Bonner began subdividing the company’s farmland. The Depression and the Second World War followed. 122 According to Mark Taper, the stockholders arranged to sell the Montana Land Company because postwar corporate taxes were 77 percent. It wasn’t profitable, he said, for the company to subdivide its land in small tracts to real estate developers. According to his son, Bonner was frustrated by so many acres without landmarks. 123 The sale of the Montana Land Company included all the remaining lots in the middle-class subdivision Clark Bonner laid out in 1929. The sale also included the company-run golf course, which Bonner had intended to be an exclusive country club. In the late 1940s, the doctors, college professors, and retired naval officers who lived in the houses east of the golf course still called it “the country club.” It had never been one; it has always been a public golf course. The property owners in Bonner’s subdivision reacted immediately to the sale of the Montana Land Company and the golf course. They were afraid the three developers planned to subdivide the course into more lots for thousand-square-foot tract houses. They knew who would live in them. The three developers needed the cooperation of the county to build 17,500 houses in thirty-three months. The three men quickly leased the golf course to the county. 124 Near the first tee at the golf course is a memorial to Clark Bonner. County Supervisor Herbert Legg suggested the memorial on the day the three developers were forced to lease the golf course to the county. The memorial is a bronze plaque, originally paid for by the members of the Chamber of Commerce. When county workers removed the plaque and lost it many years later, Bonner’s son bought a new plaque and replaced it. The plaque is mounted on the side of a platform built of tan Palo Verde stone. An olive tree grows in the center of the platform. The monument used to include a drinking fountain and a bench for golfers coming off the front nine holes. The county recently took these out and replaced Bonner’s plaque. On the new plaque, the bronze letters that spell out the name of the county supervisor for this district are as big as those that spell Bonner’s name.

• From Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1996)

  On Monday nights, my father taught a class for teenage Catholics who attended public high school. On Sunday mornings, he went to the county juvenile hall in Downey to instruct young men for their first Communion, something that usually occurs in the second grade. My father also arranged the more elaborate ceremonies of the year at our parish church. No one else in the parish knew how. Our parish priests, some ordained in Ireland only a year or two before, were mainly responsible for building a church and the school. My father had been a member of a religious order. He had been a sacristan and knew the rubrics of the Holy Week services that took place only once a year. My father instructed the boys who served on the altar, including my brother and me. He explained to the pastor and his assistants how they should walk in procession and what each should do during the ceremony. On the afternoon before Easter Sunday, he laid out the priests’ vestments, the beeswax candles, and the charcoal for lighting the new fire of Easter. 310 My father didn’t give very much to the city in which he lived. He didn’t join the Lions Club or the Kiwanis. He didn’t coach one of the park sports leagues that the city set up in 1957 to meet the overwhelming demand for recreational activities for children. He wasn’t active in politics. All twelve thousand names on the petition to incorporate the city in 1954 had to be published in the local newspaper. It took nearly a week to set the type, and cost the backers of incorporation $9,000. My mother’s name was printed in the newspaper. My father hadn’t signed the petition. But after my father’s funeral, several people came up to my brother and me and told us that my father had given them advice, or helped them when their marriage was in trouble. 311 Far from anyone he thought might care, my uncle Jack had his body donated to a medical school when he died. 312 My city sponsors an annual awards program for property owners. About four hundred houses are entered in the contest each year. Teams of volunteers judge the houses on their landscaping, maintenance, and overall appearance. A volunteer committee, chaired by a city council member, selects grand prize and first place winners. One of the awards is for a “classic” house—a house hardly changed from one of the models the three developers put up in 1950. Choosing the houses is difficult. Selection of a winner comes down to details. Rust stains on the driveway, for instance, may prevent a house from winning a prize. 313 The ceremonies for Holy Thursday include washing the feet of twelve men of the parish in commemoration of Jesus, who had washed the feet of the twelve apostles.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Over their tea Levin heard all about the old man’s farming. Ten years before, the old man had rented three hundred acres from the lady who owned them, and a year ago he had bought them and rented another three hundred from a neighboring landowner. A small part of the land—the worst part—he let out for rent, while a hundred acres of arable land he cultivated himself with his family and two hired laborers. The old man complained that things were doing badly. But Levin saw that he simply did so from a feeling of propriety, and that his farm was in a flourishing condition. If it had been unsuccessful he would not have bought land at thirty-five roubles the acre, he would not have married his three sons and a nephew, he would not have rebuilt twice after fires, and each time on a larger scale. In spite of the old man’s complaints, it was evident that he was proud, and justly proud, of his prosperity, proud of his sons, his nephew, his sons’ wives, his horses and his cows, and especially of the fact that he was keeping all this farming going. From his conversation with the old man, Levin thought he was not averse to new methods either. He had planted a great many potatoes, and his potatoes, as Levin had seen driving past, were already past flowering and beginning to die down, while Levin’s were only just coming into flower. He earthed up his potatoes with a modern plough borrowed from a neighboring landowner. He sowed wheat. The trifling fact that, thinning out his rye, the old man used the rye he thinned out for his horses, specially struck Levin. How many times had Levin seen this splendid fodder wasted, and tried to get it saved; but always it had turned out to be impossible. The peasant got this done, and he could not say enough in praise of it as food for the beasts. “What have the wenches to do? They carry it out in bundles to the roadside, and the cart brings it away.” “Well, we landowners can’t manage well with our laborers,” said Levin, handing him a glass of tea. “Thank you,” said the old man, and he took the glass, but refused sugar, pointing to a lump he had left. “They’re simple destruction,” said he. “Look at Sviazhsky’s, for instance. We know what the land’s like—first-rate, yet there’s not much of a crop to boast of. It’s not looked after enough—that’s all it is!” “But you work your land with hired laborers?” “We’re all peasants together. We go into everything ourselves. If a man’s no use, he can go, and we can manage by ourselves.” “Father, Finogen wants some tar,” said the young woman in the clogs, coming in. “Yes, yes, that’s how it is, sir!” said the old man, getting up, and crossing himself deliberately, he thanked Levin and went out.

• From Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1996)

  Title : Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir Author: Waldie, D. J. ASIN : B00CFXTQX2 [image file=Image00021.jpg] [image "title_page" file=Image00000.jpg] [image "title_page" file=Image00000.jpg] ContentsIntroduction Acknowledgments Chapter One Holy Land A Conversation About the Author Photographs Further Praise for Holy Land Copyright Page INTRODUCTIONI live where a majority of Americans live: a tract house on a block of other tract houses in a neighborhood of even more. My place is at the extreme southeast corner of Los Angeles County in a 957-square-foot house of wood frame and stucco construction put up hastily during the Second World War on dead-level farmland just far enough from a Douglas Aircraft plant so that bombs dropped by Japanese planes might miss it. My parents bought this house in 1946, less than a year after the war ended, and they felt extraordinarily lucky. Maybe you wouldn’t regard a house like mine as a place of pilgrimage, but my parents did. Perhaps their one big move, from the Depression in New York and through the world war to California, had been enough. Their lives afterward seemed to be about that, too—about the idea of enough. Their neighbors had the same idea. The critics later said that all suburban places were about excess. But they were wrong. Despite everything that may have been ignored or squandered here, I believe a kind of dignity was gained. More men than just my father have said to me that living here gave them a life made whole and habits that did not make them feel ashamed. They knew what they had found and lost. Mostly, they found enough space to reinvent themselves, although some men finally knew that their work of reinvention had gone badly. Urban planners tell me that my neighborhood was supposed have been bulldozed away years ago. Yet these small houses on small lots resist, loyal to an idea of how a neighborhood could be made. There are plenty of toxic places in the gated enclaves and McMansion wastelands of America. They don’t have enough of the play between life in public and life in private that I see choreographed by design in my suburb. With neighbors just fifteen feet apart, we’re easily in each other’s lives, across fences, in front yards, and even through the thin stucco walls. A Puritan strain in American culture is repelled by the look of where I live, and has been since a young photographer working for the Lakewood Park Corporation took a series of aerial photographs beginning in 1951 that look down on the vulnerable wood frames of the houses the company was putting up. Except you can’t see the intersection of character and place from an altitude of 500 feet. I once thought my suburban life was an extended lesson in how to get along with other people. Now I think the lesson isn’t neighborliness; it’s humility.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Levin listened reluctantly, and at first made objections. He would have liked to interrupt Metrov, to explain his own thought, which in his opinion would have rendered further exposition of Metrov’s theories superfluous. But later on, feeling convinced that they looked at the matter so differently, that they could never understand one another, he did not even oppose his statements, but simply listened. Although what Metrov was saying was by now utterly devoid of interest for him, he yet experienced a certain satisfaction in listening to him. It flattered his vanity that such a learned man should explain his ideas to him so eagerly, with such intensity and confidence in Levin’s understanding of the subject, sometimes with a mere hint referring him to a whole aspect of the subject. He put this down to his own credit, unaware that Metrov, who had already discussed his theory over and over again with all his intimate friends, talked of it with special eagerness to every new person, and in general was eager to talk to anyone of any subject that interested him, even if still obscure to himself. “We are late though,” said Katavasov, looking at his watch directly Metrov had finished his discourse. “Yes, there’s a meeting of the Society of Amateurs today in commemoration of the jubilee of Svintitch,” said Katavasov in answer to Levin’s inquiry. “Pyotr Ivanovitch and I were going. I’ve promised to deliver an address on his labors in zoology. Come along with us, it’s very interesting.” “Yes, and indeed it’s time to start,” said Metrov. “Come with us, and from there, if you care to, come to my place. I should very much like to hear your work.” “Oh, no! It’s no good yet, it’s unfinished. But I shall be very glad to go to the meeting.” “I say, friends, have you heard? He has handed in the separate report,” Katavasov called from the other room, where he was putting on his frock coat. And a conversation sprang up upon the university question, which was a very important event that winter in Moscow. Three old professors in the council had not accepted the opinion of the younger professors. The young ones had registered a separate resolution. This, in the judgment of some people, was monstrous, in the judgment of others it was the simplest and most just thing to do, and the professors were split up into two parties. One party, to which Katavasov belonged, saw in the opposite party a scoundrelly betrayal and treachery, while the opposite party saw in them childishness and lack of respect for the authorities. Levin, though he did not belong to the university, had several times already during his stay in Moscow heard and talked about this matter, and had his own opinion on the subject. He took part in the conversation that was continued in the street, as they all three walked to the buildings of the old university.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Querelle stood there with his mouth half-open, his palate a little dry. "No, sure, that's all right. I'll take care of all that." Mario was wearing a very plainly cut double-breasted maroon suit, with a red tie. Like Querelle and Nono (Norbert) , he was drinking white wine, but like a true cop he seemed completely disinterested in their conversation. Querelle recognized the authority in the man's thighs and chest, the sobriety of movement that endows a man with total power: this, again, stemming from an undisputed moral authority, a perfect social organization, a gun, and the right to use it. Mario was one of the masters. Once more Querelle held out his hand, and then, turning up the collar of his peacoat, he headed for the back door: it was indeed better to leave through the small yard at the back of the house. "So long." Mario's voice, as we have observed, was loud and impassive. On hearing it, Querelle felt reassured in some strange way. As soon as he left the ho�se he compelled himself to be aware of his attire, his sailor's attributes: above all, of the stiff collar of the peacoat, which he felt protected his neck like armor. Within its seemingly massive enclosure he could feel how delicate his neck was, yet strong and proud, and at the base of that neck, the tender bones of the nape, the perfect point of vulnerability. Flexing his knees lightly he could feel them touching the fabric of his pants. Quereiie was stepping out like a true sailor who sees himself as one hundred per cent just that, a sailor. Rolling the shoulders, from left to right, but not excessively. He thought of hitching the coat up a bit and putting his hands in the vertical front pockets, but changed his mind and instead raised a finger to his beret and pushed it to the back of his head, almost to the nape of his neck, so that its edge brushed against the upturned collar. Such tangible certainty of being every inch a sailor reassured him and calmed him down. 32 I JEAN GENET

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Stay, stay,” he began, interrupting Oblonsky. “You talk of his being an aristocrat. But allow me to ask what it consists in, that aristocracy of Vronsky or of anybody else, beside which I can be looked down upon? You consider Vronsky an aristocrat, but I don’t. A man whose father crawled up from nothing at all by intrigue, and whose mother—God knows whom she wasn’t mixed up with.... No, excuse me, but I consider myself aristocratic, and people like me, who can point back in the past to three or four honorable generations of their family, of the highest degree of breeding (talent and intellect, of course that’s another matter), and have never curried favor with anyone, never depended on anyone for anything, like my father and my grandfather. And I know many such. You think it mean of me to count the trees in my forest, while you make Ryabinin a present of thirty thousand; but you get rents from your lands and I don’t know what, while I don’t and so I prize what’s come to me from my ancestors or been won by hard work.... We are aristocrats, and not those who can only exist by favor of the powerful of this world, and who can be bought for twopence halfpenny.” “Well, but whom are you attacking? I agree with you,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, sincerely and genially; though he was aware that in the class of those who could be bought for twopence halfpenny Levin was reckoning him too. Levin’s warmth gave him genuine pleasure. “Whom are you attacking? Though a good deal is not true that you say about Vronsky, but I won’t talk about that. I tell you straight out, if I were you, I should go back with me to Moscow, and....” “No; I don’t know whether you know it or not, but I don’t care. And I tell you—I did make an offer and was rejected, and Katerina Alexandrovna is nothing now to me but a painful and humiliating reminiscence.” “What ever for? What nonsense!” “But we won’t talk about it. Please forgive me, if I’ve been nasty,” said Levin. Now that he had opened his heart, he became as he had been in the morning. “You’re not angry with me, Stiva? Please don’t be angry,” he said, and smiling, he took his hand. “Of course not; not a bit, and no reason to be. I’m glad we’ve spoken openly. And do you know, stand-shooting in the morning is unusually good—why not go? I couldn’t sleep the night anyway, but I might go straight from shooting to the station.” “Capital.” Chapter 18

• From Querelle (1953)

  A tinge of irony began to spread over his features, then over his entire body, giving him and his relaxed posture leaning back against the wall an air of amused sarcasm. Altered by the raising of an eyebrow, to match the crooked smile, his expression became somewhat malicious as he continued his scrutiny of the two young men. The smile vanished from Gil's lips, as if the entire ball of string had been unrolled, and at the same moment expired on Roger's face; but four seconds later, regaining his breath and taking up the song again, Gil, once more on top of the table, resumed his smile, which brought back and sustained, until the very last couplet of the song, the smile on Roger's lips. Not for a second did their eyes stray from the eyes of the other. Gil was singing. Quere11e shifted his shoulders against the wall of the bistro. He became aware of himself, felt himself pitting his own living mass, the powerful muscles of his l;>ack, against the black and indestructible matter of that wall. Those two shadowy substances struggled in silence. Quere11e knew the beauty of his back. We shall see how, a few days later, he was to secretly dedicate it to Lieutenant Seblon. Almost without moving, he let his shoulders ripple against the wa11, its stones. He was a strong man. One hand-the other remaining in the pocket of his peacoat-raised a half-smoked cigarette to his lips, still holding the half-smile. Robert and the two other sailors were oblivious to everything but the song. Querelle retained his smile. To use an expression much favored by soldiers, Quere11e shone by his absence. After letting a little smoke drift in the t4 I JEAN GENET

• From Querelle (1953)

  He had his arm round the girl's shoulders. She half turned and let herself be carried along by the powerful strides of this big brute. Querelle didn't even wait until they got out of the well-lit part of the street. In a patch of shadow between two shop fronts he pushed her up against the wall. Excited, hardly worried about being seen, the girl put her arms round his neck and held on to him. Querelle breathed into her hair, kissed her face, murmured obscenities into her ear which made her laugh, nervously. He wound his legs around hers. From time to time, he withdrew his face for a moment and glanced up and down the street. When he saw how busy it was, he grew even prouder. His triumph was a public one. That was the moment at which he saw, between two officers from another ship, Lieutenant Seblon come walking down the street. Querelle went on smiling at the girl. When the officers passed the shadowy area, 211 I QUERELLE Querelle hugged her harder and kissed her on the mouth, pushing his tongue into it: but first of all, and retaining an interior smile, he imbued his back, his shoulders, his buttocks, with the entire significance of the moment-his entire powers of seduction directed themselves to that side of his body, and it became his true face, his sailor face. He tried to make it smile, to excite. Querelle wished for this so fervently that an imperceptible shudder ran the length of his spine, from neck to tailbone. He dedicated his most precious parts to the officer. He was sure he had been recognized. The Lieutenant's first impulse was to challenge Querelle in order to punish him for making such an indecent exhibition of himself in public. His respect for discipline was closely connected with his taste for pomp and circumstance-and with his conviction that he owed his actuality to the rigors of an order without which neither his rank nor his authority was able to function-: thus, to betray this order, even just a little, meant self-destruction. Yet he didn't budge. He would not have acted even without the presence of his fellow officers; while he knew the inner need to enforce discipline, to infringe it, or to tolerate an infraction, could make him feel the pleasure of freedom and even complicity with the culprit. In fact, it seemed quite elegant and "really rich'' (those were the words in his mind ) to show a smiling indulgence toward such a ravishing couple of young lovers. Querelle let the girl go, but as he did not dare to walk on in the direction of the port, where the officers were heading, he slowly retraced his steps. He felt both happy and discontented. Soon after he had turned around, a young girl detached herself from a group of friends and came running toward him, a big smile on her face.

• From Querelle (1953)

  She was literally shedding it. First, her shoulders appeared, white and divided from her torso by the narrow straps of velvet or satin holding up her slip and her breasts under all that black lace and a pink bra; then Madame Lysiane stepped out of the dress, ready for the joys of the bed. Very upright on her extremely high and pointed Louis Quinze heels she advanced toward the bed on which Robert was already reclining. She gazed at him, not a thought in her head. Suddenly she turned round, exclaiming : ''Ah!" and headed for her mahogany dressing table. She took off the four rings she wore on her fingers, and then, with motions equaiiy well-rounded, but even more sweeping than befo e, she undid her hair. As the shivers running through a lion's body make desert or jungle vibrate from ground to sky, so her room shook, from the short-pile rug to the last fold of the window curtains, when Madame Lysiane shook her head, her angry mane, her shoulders white as alabaster (or mother-of-pearl ) : proudly she set out, every night, to vanquish the already conquered male. She came back to the bubbling brook under the palm trees where Robert went on smoking, oblivious to everything but the physical aspect of the ceiling. "\Von't you let me in?" Casuaiiy, he flicked aside the comer of the sheet, so that his mistress could join him on the bed. Such lack of gallantry hurt �1adame Lysiane, yet that hurt was one she delighted in every time, because it showed that there still were realms to conquer. She was a courageous, yet vanquished woman. Her physical splendor, the wealth of her breasts and her hair, the total opulence of her body, as it offered itself to men, was, by its very nature (because all opulence is virginal ) , easily conquered and enjoyed. It is not beauty we are talking about, in her case. 180 I JEAN GENET Beauty can be an obstacle more fearsome than barbed wire: it can be pointed and barbed, it can kill at a distance, like a burst of gunfire. The opulence of Madame Lysiane's flesh was the exact form of her innate generosity. Her skin was white and soft. As soon as she had stretched out (Madame Lysiane hated the expression "go to bed," and respecting her sense of propriety we won't use it when discussing her, but hope to say a word or two about the "delicacy" of forbidden words ) , stretched out, she looked around the room. With a slow, circu·

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Chapter 20 Vronsky’s life was particularly happy in that he had a code of principles, which defined with unfailing certitude what he ought and what he ought not to do. This code of principles covered only a very small circle of contingencies, but then the principles were never doubtful, and Vronsky, as he never went outside that circle, had never had a moment’s hesitation about doing what he ought to do. These principles laid down as invariable rules: that one must pay a cardsharper, but need not pay a tailor; that one must never tell a lie to a man, but one may to a woman; that one must never cheat anyone, but one may a husband; that one must never pardon an insult, but one may give one and so on. These principles were possibly not reasonable and not good, but they were of unfailing certainty, and so long as he adhered to them, Vronsky felt that his heart was at peace and he could hold his head up. Only quite lately in regard to his relations with Anna, Vronsky had begun to feel that his code of principles did not fully cover all possible contingencies, and to foresee in the future difficulties and perplexities for which he could find no guiding clue. His present relation to Anna and to her husband was to his mind clear and simple. It was clearly and precisely defined in the code of principles by which he was guided. She was an honorable woman who had bestowed her love upon him, and he loved her, and therefore she was in his eyes a woman who had a right to the same, or even more, respect than a lawful wife. He would have had his hand chopped off before he would have allowed himself by a word, by a hint, to humiliate her, or even to fall short of the fullest respect a woman could look for. His attitude to society, too, was clear. Everyone might know, might suspect it, but no one might dare to speak of it. If any did so, he was ready to force all who might speak to be silent and to respect the non-existent honor of the woman he loved. His attitude to the husband was the clearest of all. From the moment that Anna loved Vronsky, he had regarded his own right over her as the one thing unassailable. Her husband was simply a superfluous and tiresome person. No doubt he was in a pitiable position, but how could that be helped? The one thing the husband had a right to was to demand satisfaction with a weapon in his hand, and Vronsky was prepared for this at any minute.

• From Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir (1996)

  Architectural critics and urban theorists reprinted the photographs in books with names like God’s Own Junkyard . Forty years later, the same four photographs still stand for the places in which most of us live. The photographs were images of the developers’ crude pride. They report that the grid, briefly empty of associations, is just a pattern predicting itself. The theorists and critics did not look again, forty years later, to see the intersections or calculate in them the joining of interests, limited but attainable, like the leasing of chain stores in a shopping mall. 14 In the Los Angeles basin, the possibility of rain is ignored until the rain falls. Since it hardly ever rains, ignorance has prevailed as climate. 15 The local newspaper in 1956 used a picture to show how much had changed. This picture “Harvesting, 1900.” It shows a team of mules, a combine harvester, the field, and the men. The mules are sawteeth of black; the combine is a grand contraption in gray; the field is all design. You cannot make out the men. They are patterns in the photograph. 16 My father’s kindness was as pure and indifferent as a certain kind of saint’s. My father did not have a passion for his giving; it came from him, perhaps after much spiritual calculation, as a product might come from a conveyor belt. The houses in this suburb were built the same way. As many as a hundred a day were begun between 1950 and 1952, more than five hundred a week. No two floor plans were built next to each other; no neighbor had to stare into his reflection across the street. Teams of men built the houses. Some men poured concrete into the ranks of foundations from mixing trucks waiting in a mile-long line. Other men threw down floors nailed with pneumatic hammers, tilted up the framing, and scaled the rafters with cedar shingles lifted by conveyer belts from the beds of specially built trucks. You are mistaken if you consider this a criticism, either of my father or the houses. 17 Construction crews in thirty-man teams built the rows of houses. Each team of workmen was subdivided by specialty. One man with a pneumatic hammer nailed subfloors on five houses a day. The framers finished lengths of precut lumber with new, electric saws. Another crew operated a power door hanger. Rough plaster laid by one crew was smoothed a few minutes later by another. Subcontractors delivered construction materials in exact amounts directly to each building site. Expediters coordinated the work from radio-equipped cars. The foreman used a loudspeaker to direct the movement of his men. 18 Mr. F laid rafters for hundreds of these houses. According to Mr. F, it didn’t take much skill. The most experienced men did the framing, by assembling pieces that had been precut at the mill. Laying rafters only required knowing how to swing a hammer all day.

• From Querelle (1953)

  The young boy turned rigid . He was waiting for Robert to defend his sullied honor until the blood flowed again . The big men would fight again . Nevertheless Querelle, as he went off to the right, was already thinking of ways to rub his brother's pale face in to some of his own medicine, so that, once they were quits in terms of their apparen t ( and real ) hatred, he might rejoin him within himself. His head held high, straight, rigid, staring straight ahead, his lips but a narrow line, h is elbows held close to the body-his entire bearing stiffer and more martinetlike than usual, he directed his steps toward the city ramparts, more exactly, toward the old wall in which he had hidden his treasure. The closer he got to his destination, the less bitter he felt. He did not, now, exactly remember the deeds of derring-do that had put him in possession of that treasure, but the jewels themselves-their mere proximity-were the effective proof of his courage and of his existence. Arrived on the slope facing the holy wall, invisible in the fog, Querelle stopped and stood still, legs wide apart, hands in the pockets of his peacoat : he knew himself to be very close to one of the hearths he had lit on the surface of the globe, he was enveloped by their sweet radiance. As his wealth, to him, was a refuge where he could feel comforted by his sense of power, Querelle was already making his hated brother the heir to it. Only one thing still bothered and depressed h im a little, the fact that Dcdc had been present at 140 I JEAN GENET the brawl. It wasn't shame, rather a vague notion that the kid wasn't to be trusted. Querelle knew that he had achieved a certain notoriety in this city of Brest. Night, facing the sea. Neither the sea nor the night can bring me peace of mind. On the contrary. It's enough for the shadow of a sailor to move past . . . In that shadow, and thanks to it, he can't help being anything but beautiful. Between its Banks this ship holds such delicious brutes, clad in white and azure. Whom to choose, from among these males? I could hardly let go of one before desiring another. The only reassuring thought: that there is only one sailor, the sailor. And each individual I see is merely the momentary representation-fragmentary as well, and diminished in scale-of The Sailor. He has all the characteristics: vigor, toughness, beauty, cruelty, etc.-all but one: multiplicity. Each sailor passing by may thus he compared to Him. Even if all sailors were to appear in front of me, alive and present, all of them-not one of them, separately, could he the sailor they jointly compose, who can only exist in my imagination, who can only live in me, and for me. This idea sets my mind a t rest.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  The bride may dispense with a tiara of orange blossoms securing her finger-tip veil, nor does she carry a white orchid in a prayer book. The bride’s little daughter might have added to the ceremonies uniting H. and H. a touch of vivid vermeil; but I knew I would not dare be too tender with cornered Lolita yet, and therefore agreed it was not worth while tearing the child away from her beloved Camp Q. My soi-disant passionate and lonely Charlotte was in everyday life matter-of-fact and gregarious. Moreover, I discovered that although she could not control her heart or her cries, she was a woman of principle. Immediately after she had become more or less my mistress (despite the stimulants, her “nervous, eager chéri ”—a heroic chéri! —had some initial trouble, for which, however, he amply compensated her by a fantastic display of old-world endearments), good Charlotte interviewed me about my relations with God. I could have answered that on that score my mind was open; I said, instead—paying my tribute to a pious platitude—that I believed in a cosmic spirit. Looking down at her fingernails, she also asked me had I not in my family a certain strange strain. I countered by inquiring whether she would still want to marry me if my father’s maternal grandfather had been, say, a Turk. She said it did not matter a bit; but that, if she ever found out I did not believe in Our Christian God, she would commit suicide. She said it so solemnly that it gave me the creeps. It was then I knew she was a woman of principle. Oh, she was very genteel: she said “excuse me” whenever a slight burp interrupted her flowing speech, called an envelope an ahnvelope, and when talking to her lady-friends referred to me as Mr. Humbert. I thought it would please her if I entered the community trailing some glamor after me. On the day of our wedding a little interview with me appeared in the Society Column of the Ramsdale Journal , with a photograph of Charlotte, one eyebrow up and a misprint in her name (“Hazer”). Despite this contretemps, the publicity warmed the porcelain cockles of her heart—and made my rattles shake with awful glee. By engaging in church work as well as by getting to know the better mothers of Lo’s schoolmates, Charlotte in the course of twenty months or so had managed to become if not a prominent, at least an acceptable citizen, but never before had she come under that thrilling rubrique , and it was I who put her there, Mr. Edgar H. Humbert (I threw in the “Edgar” just for the heck of it), “writer and explorer.” McCoo’s brother, when taking it down, asked me what I had written.