Relief

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 Austerlitz (2001)

  said Austerlitz, I myself found my years at Stower Grange a time not of imprisonment but of liberation. While most of us, even those who tormented their contemporaries, crossed off the days on the calendar until they could go home, I would have preferred never to return to Bala at all. From the very first week I realized that for all the adversities of the school it was my only escape route, and I immediately did all I could to find my way around its strange jumble of countless unwritten rules, and the often almost carnivalesque lawlessness that prevailed. It was a great advantage that I soon began to distinguish myself on the rugby field, perhaps because a dull pain always present within me, although I was unaware of it at the time, enabled me to lower my head and make my way through ranks of opponents better than any of my fellow pupils. The fearlessness I displayed in rugger matches, as I remember them always played under a cold winter sky or in pouring rain, very soon gave me special status without my having to try for it by other means, such as recruiting vassals or enslaving weaker boys. Another crucial factor in my good progress at school was the fact that I never found reading and studying a burden. Far from it, for confined as I had been until now to the Bible in Welsh and homiletic literature, it seemed as if a new door were opening whenever I turned a page. I read everything in the school library, which contained an entirely arbitrary selection of works, and everything I could borrow from my teachers—works on geography and history, travel writings, novels, biographies—and sat up until late in the evening over reference books and atlases. My mind thus gradually created a kind of ideal landscape in which the Arabian desert, the realm of the Aztecs, the continent of Antarctica, the snow-covered Alps, the North-West Passage, the river Congo, and the Crimean peninsula formed a single panorama, populated by all the figures proper to those places. As I could move into that world at any time I liked—in a Latin lesson, during divine service, on the interminable weekends—I never fell into the depression from which so many of the boys at Stower Grange suffered. I felt miserable only when it was time to go home for the holidays. Even on my first return to Bala at half-term on All Saints’ Day, I felt as if my life were once again under the unlucky star which had been my companion as long as I could remember. Gwendolyn had gone further downhill during my two months’ absence. She now lay in bed all day looking fixedly up at the ceiling. Elias came in to see her for a while every morning and every evening, but neither he nor Gwendolyn spoke a single word. It seems to me now, looking back, said Austerlitz, as if they were slowly being killed by the chill in their hearts. I don’t know what kind of illness Gwendolyn died of, and I suspect that she herself could not have said. At least, she had no weapon against it but the curious compulsion which came over her several times a day, and perhaps

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Brockett tactfully changed the subject; he was far too wise not to know when to stop. So now he told her about his new play, which for him was a very unusual proceeding. And as he talked on there came over Stephen a queer sense of relief at the thought that he knew. . . . Yes, she actually felt a sense of relief because this man knew of her relations with Mary; because there was no longer any need to behave as if those relations were shameful—at all events in the presence of Brockett. The world had at last found a chink in her armour. 6‘We must go and see Valérie Seymour one day,’ Stephen remarked quite casually that evening. ‘She’s a very well-known woman in Paris. I believe she gives rather jolly parties. I think it’s about time you had a few friends.’ ‘Oh, what fun! Yes, do let’s—I’d love it!’ exclaimed Mary. Stephen thought that her voice sounded pleased and excited, and in spite of herself she sighed a little. But after all nothing really mattered except that Mary should keep well and happy. She would certainly take her to Valérie Seymour’s—why not? She had probably been very foolish. Selfish too, sacrificing the girl to her cranks— ‘Darling, of course we’ll go,’ she said quickly. ‘I expect we’ll find it awfully amusing.’ 7Three days later, Valérie, having seen Brockett, wrote a short but cordial invitation: ‘Do come in on Wednesday if you possibly can—I mean both of you, of course. Brockett’s promised to come, and one or two other interesting people. I’m so looking forward to renewing our acquaintance after all this long time, and to meeting Miss Llewellyn. But why have you never been to see me? I don’t think that was very friendly of you! However, you can make up for past neglect by coming to my little party on Wednesday. . . .’ Stephen tossed the letter across to Mary. ‘There you are!’ ‘How ripping—but will you go?’ ‘Do you want to?’ ‘Yes, of course. Only what about your work?’ ‘It will keep all right for one afternoon.’ ‘Are you sure?’ Stephen smiled. ‘Yes, I’m quite sure, darling.’ CHAPTER 441V alérie’s rooms were already crowded when Stephen and Mary arrived at her reception, so crowded that at first they could not see their hostess and must stand rather awkwardly near the door—they had not been announced; one never was for some reason, when one went to Valérie Seymour’s. People looked at Stephen curiously; her height, her clothes, the scar on her face, had immediately riveted their attention.

• From The World of Biblical Israel (2013)

  105 against them. At the same time, he preserves a remnant and protects his city of Jerusalem. Ultimately, he teaches the Assyrian king a lesson, killing thousands of his troops, sending him back to his own land, and possibly even orchestrating his murder at the hands of his sons. o The Assyrian sources record a victory for Sennacherib, who destroys countless fortified cities, exacts heavy tributes, and deports the inhabitants of the conquered cities. Instead of fleeing the angel of death sent by the Israelite god, Sennacherib leaves Judah, having received the tribute he wanted from Hezekiah. And as it turns out, his death comes years later, not immediately. • The survival of Jerusalem and, therefore, Judah has profound implications for the history of Israel and the formation of the Bible. o If Judah had been completely conquered by the Assyrians, the Judeans would have been scattered in exile, as the Israelites from the north had been. They would have become yet another “lost tribe.” o Instead, likely because Hezekiah agreed to pay a heavier tribute and remain a loyal vassal, Judah survived, and with its survival, the stories of the Bible continued to take shape and get passed down to succeeding generations. Carr, An Introduction to the Old Testament, pp. 131–164. Chapman, The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter, pp. 20–111. Machinist, “The Rab Sāqêh at the Wall of Jerusalem.” Suggested Reading 106 Lecture 14: Life under Siege 1. In what ways did common Judeans experience Assyria’s efforts at psychological warfare? 2. What aspects of Judah’s religious beliefs are challenged by the military encounter with Assyria? 3. How can we account for the Rab Shakeh’s detailed knowledge of Judean language and internal disputes? Questions to Consider

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  His will seemed to crack, and he felt himself weak, in need of advice. ‘What am I to do, then?’ he asked, timidly this time. ‘Well, how very nice!’ Stravinsky replied. ‘A most reasonable question. Now I am going to tell you what actually happened to you. Yesterday someone frightened you badly and upset you with a story about Pontius Pilate and other things. And so you, a very nervous and high-strung man, started going around the city, telling about Pontius Pilate. It’s quite natural that you’re taken for a madman. Your salvation now lies in just one thing—complete peace. And you absolutely must remain here.’ ‘But he has to be caught!’ Ivan exclaimed, imploringly now. ‘Very good, sir, but why should you go running around yourself? Explain all your suspicions and accusations against this man on paper. Nothing could be simpler than to send your declaration to the proper quarters, and if, as you think, we are dealing with a criminal, it will be clarified very quickly. But only on one condition: don’t strain your head, and try to think less about Pontius Pilate. People say all kinds of things! One mustn’t believe everything.’ ‘Understood!’ Ivan declared resolutely. ‘I ask to be given pen and paper.’ ‘Give him paper and a short pencil,’ Stravinsky ordered the fat woman, and to Ivan he said: ‘But I don’t advise you to write today.’ ‘No, no, today, today without fail!’ Ivan cried out in alarm. ‘Well, all right. Only don’t strain your head. If it doesn’t come out today, it will tomorrow.’ ‘He’ll escape.’ ‘Oh, no,’ Stravinsky objected confidently, ‘he won’t escape anywhere, I guarantee that. And remember that here with us you’ll be helped in all possible ways, and without us nothing will come of it. Do you hear me?’ Stravinsky suddenly asked meaningly and took Ivan Nikolaevich by both hands. Holding them in his own, he repeated for a long time, his eyes fixed on Ivan’s: ‘You’ll be helped here . . . do you hear me? . . . You’ll be helped here . . . you’ll get relief . . . it’s quiet here, all peaceful . . . you’ll be helped here . . .’ Ivan Nikolaevich unexpectedly yawned, and the expression on his face softened. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Well, how very nice!’ Stravinsky concluded the conversation in his usual way and stood up: ‘Goodbye!’ He shook Ivan’s hand and, on his way out, turned to the one with the little beard and said: ‘Yes, and try oxygen . . . and baths.’ A few moments later there was no Stravinsky or his retinue before Ivan. Beyond the window grille, in the noonday sun, the joyful and springtime pine wood stood beautiful on the other bank and, closer by, the river sparkled.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  That left Christians as the most numerous of the early Caliphate’s subjects in west Asia until at least the tenth or eleventh centuries: until then, this was an ‘Islamicate’ rather than a predominantly ‘Islamic’ society. Above all, for Dyophysite Christianity, the new dispensation was a change from often downright hostile Zoroastrian monarchs to a rather more congenial form of monotheism. If Dyophysites read what the Qur’an said about Mary – chief among examples of believers, into whom God breathed his Spirit – they might have been reminded of Patriarch Nestorios’s effort to give Mary an appropriate honour that avoided the title Theotokos . [10] Indeed, the Church of the East found it easier to find a cultural niche alongside Islam than it had done under the Sasanians. It is remarkable to read the relieved words of the Dyophysite Patriarch Isho‘yahb III in 649, soon after the Muslim conquest: ‘Not only do they not oppose Christianity, but they praise our faith, honour the priests and saints of our Lord, and give aid to churches and monasteries.’ [11] When the Abbasid dynasty overthrew the Umayyads as Caliphs in 750, they moved the centre of power eastwards from Damascus into Mesopotamia and in 762 created a new capital, Baghdad. This move east particularly favoured the Dyophysite Church hierarchy over its more westerly Miaphysite or Byzantine rivals. The Abbasids granted the Dyophysite Patriarch a newly enhanced authority which really did create a Church of the East. His writ extended over all Christians in the Caliphate, which now extended from Cairo into Central Asia, and he was in charge of Christian missions beyond the Caliphate’s eastern frontiers as far as China. It is no exaggeration to say that, in the eighth and ninth centuries, the great and long-lived Patriarch Timothy I (reigned 780–823), who supervised bishops from Tibet to the Mediterranean and saw some of his Christian layfolk well-placed among the Baghdad governing class, looked out on a flock as numerous and certainly far more extended than that of the Bishop of Rome in the far west. [12] Nevertheless, the patriarchs of the Church of the East and the other religious leaders of west Asia faced some very porous boundaries between Christians, Jews, Muslims and Zoroastrians. This was an age when many people had an interest in not declaring a definite religious identity. Rabbinic Judaism was still in the process of formation across a varied and widespread set of Jewish communities, while among Christians the partisan bitterness left by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 did not necessarily percolate downwards from the leadership to the relaxed practice of local churches. Out in the countryside the faithful might just regard their liturgy as something that Christians did, without bothering too much about the dismal history of Christological debates that had created rival episcopal hierarchies. Muslims would certainly sympathize, and might value personal relationships above confessional ones.

• From Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity (2024)

  The relationship with Roger subsided into elegant epistolary friendship, and Erasmus would never again venture into such uninhibited self-disclosure – certainly not to declare himself an adherent of the Reformation. He concentrated on enjoying his extraordinary literary curiosity and cultivating charming young men who additionally possessed brains and preferably also money, in the course of devising a means of surviving in lifelong financial comfort for himself. The conventional way of doing that was to find some pleasant and well-paid niches in ecclesiastical office, but Erasmus did not do that; he virtually invented the vocation of independent freelance writer, supported by financial agreements with publishers and subventions from admiring rich patrons (two of whom, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and Johannes à Lasco, became prominent early adopters of the Reformation). [9] Erasmus’s extraordinary literary accomplishments had provided the escape route from Steyn, when in 1492 he became secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai, and he never looked back, in any sense: particularly not to monastic life, nor, after a little time, to the Bishop either. This interestingly complicated man may not seem the most obvious potential champion of marriage and the family, but what Erasmus wrote praising marriage should really be construed as an attack on monasticism. In the background was his radical undercutting of monastic life, when he remarked to a friend (an abbot of reforming and humanist sympathies, who later became a Lutheran) that a secular commonwealth ruled by a godly prince was ‘a great monastery’: everybody, laity just as much as clergy, should aspire to the same self-restraint as was demanded in the ideal of monasticism. [10] Music to the ears of princes was the additional implication that they themselves should play the role of abbot in their great monastery, plus the corollary that revenues of existing monasteries might be better diverted into their own hands. In 1518, Erasmus published the first version of what proved a very popular and influential essay in praise of marriage ( Encomium matrimonii ). [11] In its introduction he claimed to have written it twenty years earlier as a rhetorical exercise for the young Englishman Lord Mountjoy, first in his series of glamorous aristocratic patrons; that would take its composition back to the years immediately after Erasmus escaped his misery at Steyn. Much of his enthusiasm for marriage (not something of which he ever had direct experience) will have been motivated by those memories. He tackled Gregorian clerical assumptions head-on, bluntly stating that the single state is ‘a barren way of life hardly becoming to a man…let us leave celibacy for bishops…the holiest kind of life is wedlock, purely and chastely observed.’ That ‘chastity’ did not equate with celibacy. [12] In 1518, only a year after Martin Luther’s first confrontation with the Church hierarchy, it might still have been possible to present such statements as theologically uncontroversial (and at least the Eastern Orthodox would have agreed that celibacy was best left for bishops).

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  A broad path of moonlight stretches from his bed to the window, and a man in a white cloak with blood-red lining gets on to this path and begins to walk towards the moon. Beside him walks a young man in a torn chiton and with a disfigured face. The walkers talk heatedly about something, they argue, they want to reach some understanding. ‘Gods, gods!’ says that man in the cloak, turning his haughty face to his companion. ‘Such a banal execution! But, please,’ here the face turns from haughty to imploring, ‘tell me it never happened! I implore you, tell me, it never happened?’ ‘Well, of course it never happened,’ his companion replies in a hoarse voice, ‘you imagined it.’ ‘And you can swear it to me?’ the man in the cloak asks ingratiatingly. ‘I swear it!’ replies his companion, and his eyes smile for some reason. ‘I need nothing more!’ the man in the cloak exclaims in a husky voice and goes ever higher towards the moon, drawing his companion along. Behind them a gigantic, sharp-eared dog walks calmly and majestically. Then the moonbeam boils up, a river of moonlight begins to gush from it and pours out in all directions. The moon rules and plays, the moon dances and frolics. Then a woman of boundless beauty forms herself in the stream, and by the hand she leads out to Ivan a man overgrown with beard who glances around fearfully. Ivan Nikolaevich recognizes him at once. It is number one-eighteen, his nocturnal guest. In his dream Ivan Nikolaevich reaches his arms out to him and asks greedily: ‘So it ended with that?’ ‘It ended with that, my disciple,’ answers number one-eighteen, and then the woman comes up to Ivan and says: ‘Of course, with that. Everything has ended, and everything ends . . . And I will kiss you on the forehead, and everything with you will be as it should be . . .’ She bends over Ivan and kisses him on the forehead, and Ivan reaches out to her and peers into her eyes, but she retreats, retreats, and together with her companion goes towards the moon . . . Then the moon begins to rage, it pours streams of light down right on Ivan, it sprays light in all directions, a flood of moonlight engulfs the room, the light heaves, rises higher, drowns the bed. It is then that Ivan Nikolaevich sleeps with a happy face. The next morning he wakes up silent but perfectly calm and well. His needled memory grows quiet, and until the next full moon no one will trouble the professor—neither the noseless killer of Gestas, nor the cruel fifth procurator of Judea, the equestrian Pontius Pilate. [1928–1940] Notes, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA Notes Epigraph 1 . The epigraph comes from the scene entitled ‘Faust’s Study’ in the first part of the drama Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1842).

• From The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (2006)

  Lobster bisque tasted like lobster—a welcome relief from the two lobsters I'd previously seen victimized in the name of the chef's larger Vision. "Vitello tonnato" actually added something to the moribund tuna tartare idea, pairing it with veal sweetbreads. Cod and clam basquaise was robustly flavored, amazingly fresh, and unpretentious, and a lobster salad only reinforced the notion that it takes a great chef to let the ingredients do the talking. Desserts were appropriately demure, the service exactly the right balance of friendly, good-humored, casual, and bloodlessly efficient. They should send Boulud and Rispoli next door to Okada to show them how the big boys do it. You have to love a town where you can both smoke and gamble in a pharmacy. That night, temporarily burned out on fine dining and casino hotels, I wheeled the red Caddy into the parking lot of Tiffany's Cafe and White Cross Drugs, just off the skanky end of the Strip. Loaded up with aspirin to soothe my pounding head, I had corned beef hash and eggs at the counter. At Tiffany's counter, you can see the other side of Vegas. There's no glitz or glamour here. Things must have slid pretty far if you're dropping your quarters into a slot machine at an all-night drugstore. I looked carefully at the weathered faces of my fellow customers—half expecting to see Ruhlman. I tried his cell phone. No answer. I trawled the Double Down Saloon, the somewhat downscale Golden Gate, Binion's, and Riviera casinos, looking among the desperate and downtrodden for my friend's face—with no success. I drank a pink, basketball- size Scorpion at local fave, the Fireside Lounge, hoping that Ruhlman might show up for a mound of nachos and a drink with an umbrella in it. But he never did. The next day, still unable to reach my fellow doctor of gastronomy, I had a soul-restoring bowl of menudo (tripe soup) at the El Sombrero Cafe on South Main. The perfect antidote to the Casinos of the Damned. I put in a little pool time at the Wynn, watching the hardcore gamblers play blackjack in their bathing suits. I was crossing the casino floor when I felt my elbow enclosed in a steel-like, desperate grip. "Money! I need money," said Ruhlman, in a pair of dirty shorts and a Dead Boys T-shirt covered with a mix of frozen daiquiris and deep-fried Twinkie from Fremont Street. "I've been at the Mermaid for the last forty-eight hours," wailed the one-time budding TV star. "I lost everything. Everything! I was jacked up on some hideous sugar high from those Twinkies. And the Oreos! They deep-fry Oreos here, Bourdain! I was helpless under their influence. Now give me money. I'm on a roll at the keno.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ith Martin’s return Stephen realized how very deeply she had missed him; how much she still needed the thing he now offered, how long indeed she had starved for just this—the friendship of a normal and sympathetic man whose mentality being very much her own, was not only welcome but reassuring. Yes, strange though it was, with this normal man she was far more at ease than with Jonathan Brockett, far more at one with all his ideas, and at times far less conscious of her own inversion; though it seemed that Martin had not only read, but had thought a great deal about the subject. He spoke very little of his studies, however, just accepting her now for the thing that she was, without question, and accepting most of her friends with a courtesy as innocent of patronage as of any suspicion of morbid interest. And thus it was that in these first days they appeared to have achieved a complete reunion. Only sometimes, when Mary would talk to him freely as she did very often of such people as Wanda, of the night life of the cafés and bars of Paris—most of which it transpired he himself had been to—of the tragedy of Barbara and Jamie that was never very far from her thoughts, even although a most perfect spring was hurrying forward towards the summer—when Mary would talk to him of these things, Martin would look rather gravely at Stephen. But now they seldom went to the bars, for Martin provided recreations that were really much more to Mary’s liking. Martin the kindly, the thoroughly normal, seemed never at a loss as to what they should do or where they should go when in search of pleasure. By now he knew Paris extremely well, and the Paris he showed them during that spring came as a complete revelation to Mary. He would often take them to dine in the Bois. At the neighbouring tables would be men and women; neat, well tailored men; pretty, smartly dressed women who laughed and talked very conscious of sex and its vast importance—in a word, normal women. Or perhaps they would go to Claridge’s for tea or to Giro’s for dinner, and then on to supper at an equally fashionable restaurant, of which Mary discovered there were many in Paris. And although people still stared a little at Stephen, Mary fancied that they did so much less, because of the protective presence of Martin. At such places of course, it was out of the question for a couple of women to dance together, and yet every one danced, so that in the end Mary must get up and dance with Martin. He had said: ‘You don’t mind, do you, Stephen?’ She had shaken her head: ‘No, of course I don’t mind.’ And indeed she had been very glad to know that Mary had a good partner to dance with.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  The good-natured nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna visited the poet during the storm, became alarmed on seeing him weeping, closed the blinds so that the lightning would not frighten the patient, picked up the pages from the floor, and ran with them for the doctor. He came, gave Ivan an injection in the arm, and assured him that he would not weep any more, that everything would pass now, everything would change, everything would be forgotten. The doctor proved right. Soon the woods across the river became as before. It was outlined to the last tree under the sky, which cleared to its former perfect blue, and the river grew calm. Anguish had begun to leave Ivan right after the injection, and now the poet lay calmly and looked at the rainbow that stretched across the sky. So it went till evening, and he did not even notice how the rainbow melted away, how the sky saddened and faded, how the woods turned black. Having drunk some hot milk, Ivan lay down again and marvelled himself at how changed his thinking was. The accursed, demonic cat somehow softened in his memory, the severed head did not frighten him any more, and, abandoning all thought of it, Ivan began to reflect that, essentially, it was not so bad in the clinic, that Stravinsky was a clever man and a famous one, and it was quite pleasant to deal with him. Besides, the evening air was sweet and fresh after the storm. The house of sorrow was falling asleep. In quiet corridors the frosted white lights went out, and in their place, according to regulations, faint blue night-lights were lit, and the careful steps of attendants were heard more and more rarely on the rubber matting of the corridor outside the door. Now Ivan lay in sweet languor, glancing at the lamp under its shade, shedding a softened light from the ceiling, then at the moon rising behind the black woods, and conversed with himself. ‘Why, actually, did I get so excited about Berlioz falling under a tram-car?’ the poet reasoned. ‘In the final analysis, let him sink! What am I, in fact, his chum or in-law? If we air the question properly, it turns out that, in essence, I really did not even know the deceased. What, indeed, did I know about him?

• From Soaking Wet: Lesbian Sex Stories (2014)

  Tremors shook the thighs tightening around me and made her belly jump. Her head thrashed, her eyes squeezed shut. I worked two more fingers inside, cupping them to make them fit, and began the rhythmic push-pull while I bent closer and swirled my tongue over her clit, which had swelled past its hood. She came hard, jerking up her hips. I suctioned harder, pulling with my lips until she let loose a breathless, choked scream and settled again. Her fingers threaded through my hair and tugged, and I moved up her body, covering her. Resting on my elbows, I cupped her face and kissed her. When I broke the kiss, I framed her face with my palms. “I don’t want anyone but you. But if you need more, if you aren’t ready for it to be just about you and me, I’ll wait until you’re sure. I won’t push.” Her eyes glittered and her arms wrapped around me. “I was going to ask you if I could move in with you. My lease is up. I need to make plans.” I held still, trying not to get too excited. “You’re welcome to live with me. You can take my office—” Kari pressed a finger to my lips. “Shut up. I’ll be straight. I don’t know if I’ll never want anyone else again. But I’d like that to be our decision, because I’m with you. We aren’t going to be roommates. I plan to sleep in your bed.” The tightness in my chest that I hadn’t been aware of until that moment eased. I grinned down at her, watched her expression soften, watched her flick her tongue around her mouth and knew she wanted me to kiss her again. It was enough for now. More than I’d hoped for when I arrived. “And to think we still have two more days…” CRUISING Lee Cairney When I’m getting ready to go out on the prowl I often get a feeling like the excitement of being sick but without the nausea, like my stomach lining is trying to peel away. It feels good in the same way that inhaling sherbet up your nose feels good, and believe me, I do mean good. I pull on my heavy, steelcapped biker boots, tucking them under my leather trousers, and sling my battered black leather jacket over my white vest. One large silver spike rivets my ear. My hair is dark and cropped short, snug against my head. I was once told that I had eyes like flakes from an iceberg—whatever that means. I’m wearing bondage cuffs, tight confections of soft, supple, leather and stainless steel, around both wrists for the constriction and sheer pleasure of it. I know I’m looking good.

• From The Girls (2016)

  At some point, the water started resisting her with less force, and then she was moving along, getting closer to shore, and then close enough that her feet touched the sand. She was out of breath, yes. Her arms were sore, her heartbeat juddered out of sync. She was much farther down the beach. But fine—she was fine. The fear was already forgotten. No one on the shore noticed her, or looked twice. A couple walked past, heads bent, studying the sand for shells. A man in waders assembled a fishing pole. Laughter floated over from a group under a sun tent. Surely, if Alex had been in any real danger, someone would have reacted, one of these people would have stepped in to help. —SIMON’S CAR WAS FUN to drive. Frighteningly responsive, frighteningly fast. Alex hadn’t bothered to change out of her swimsuit, and the leather upholstery cooked her thighs. Even at a good speed, the car windows down, the air was thick and warm. What problem did Alex need to solve at this moment? Nothing. No variables to calculate, the painkiller still doing its good work. Compared to the city, this was heaven. The city. She was not in the city, and thank god for that. It was Dom, of course, but not only Dom. Even before Dom, something had soured. In March she had turned twenty-two without fanfare. She had a recurring stye that drooped her left eyelid unpleasantly. The makeup she applied to cover it only made it worse: she reinfected herself, the stye pulsing for months. Finally she’d gotten an antibiotic prescribed at a walk-in clinic. Every night she tugged on her lids and squeezed a line of medicated ointment straight into the socket. Involuntary tears streamed only from her left eye. On the subway, or on the sidewalks, woolly with new snow, Alex had started to notice strangers giving her a certain look. Their gaze lingering. A woman in a plaid mohair coat studied Alex with unnerving focus, her expression twisted with what seemed like mounting concern. A man, his wrists white under the strain of many plastic bags, stared at Alex until she finally got off the train. What were people seeing in her aura, what stink was emanating? Maybe she was imagining it. But maybe not. She’d been twenty when she first arrived in the city. Back when she still had the energy to use a fake name and still believed gestures like that had value, meant the things she was doing weren’t actually happening in her real life. Back when she kept lists: The names of the places she went with the men. Restaurants that charged for bread and butter. Restaurants that refolded your napkin when you went to the bathroom. Restaurants that only served steak, pink but flavorless and thick as a hardcover book. Brunches at mid-range hotels, with unripe strawberries and too-sweet juice, slurry with pulp.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  And Margarita went through this slightly opened door. CHAPTER 24: The Extraction of the Master, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA CHAPTER 24 The Extraction of the Master In Woland’s bedroom everything turned out to be as it had been before the ball. Woland was sitting on the bed in his nightshirt, only Hella was no longer rubbing his leg, but was setting out supper on the table on which they had been playing chess. Koroviev and Azazello, having removed their tailcoats, were sitting at the table, and next to them, of course, was the cat, who refused to part with his bow-tie, though it had turned into an utterly filthy rag. Margarita, swaying, came up to the table and leaned on it. Then Woland beckoned her to him like the other time and indicated that she should sit down beside him. ‘Well, did they wear you out very much?’ asked Woland. ‘Oh, no, Messire,’ Margarita answered, but barely audibly. ‘Nobless obleege,’ the cat observed and poured some transparent liquid into a goblet for Margarita. ‘Is that vodka?’ Margarita asked weakly. The cat jumped up on his chair in resentment. ‘Good heavens, Queen,’ he croaked, ‘would I allow myself to pour vodka for a lady? It’s pure alcohol!’ Margarita smiled and made an attempt to push the glass away. ‘Drink boldly,’ said Woland, and Margarita took the glass in her hand at once. ‘Hella, sit down,’ Woland ordered and explained to Margarita: ‘The night of the full moon is a festive night, and I have supper in the small company of my retinue and servants. And so, how do you feel? How did this tiring ball go?’ ‘Stupendous!’ rattled Koroviev. ‘Everybody’s enchanted, infatuated, crushed! So much tact, so much skill, charm, and loveliness!’ Woland silently raised his glass and clinked with Margarita. Margarita drank obediently, thinking that this alcohol would be the end of her. But nothing bad happened. A living warmth flowed into her stomach, something struck her softly on the nape, her strength came back, as if she had got up after a long, refreshing sleep, with a wolfish appetite besides. And on recalling that she had eaten nothing since the previous morning, it flared up still more . . . She greedily began gulping down caviar. Behemoth cut a slice of pineapple, salted it, peppered it, ate it, and then tossed off a second glass of alcohol so dashingly that everyone applauded.

• From Crazy Brave (2012)

  AFTERWORD The panic followed me for many years. In the beginning it almost took my life. Like a comet hurtling on a journey through a sky path, I lost particles and let go of that which did not support me. One winter dusk, thirty years later, I paddled an outrigger canoe in deep turquoise waters off the shore of Maunalua Bay on the beloved island of O‘ahu in the Hawaiian Islands. I noticed how my thoughts had become like waves, rising and falling without anxiety or urgency to them. And I realized that I had let go of the remnant tentacles of panic that had been planted in me years ago, when I was a young mother, lost in the middle of traffic. I let it go. I let it go in beauty, with love, in the spirit of vnvketkv, aloha or compassion. I let my thoughts of forgiveness for myself and for others in the story follow the waves of the ocean in prayer. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is a journey of several years. I thank my editor at Norton, Jill Bialosky, for her faith, belief, and patience. Two important American writers made this book possible: the storyteller, poet, and artist N. Scott Momaday and the Laguna Pueblo writer, artist, and prophet Leslie Silko. A 2008 Rasmussen Fellowship from United States Artists, the NEA, and the Barbara Deming Fund provided financial assistance. For editing and advice with the story along the way: Laura Coltelli, Sharon Oard Warner, Lurline Wailana McGregor, Tanaya Winder, Sarita London, Tony James, John Crawford, William Pitt Root, Pam Uschuk, Candyce Childers, Dennis Mathis, Cynthia Hess, Pam Kingsbury, Gayle Elliott, and Charlie Hill. For assistance with photographs: Patrick Carr. With special thanks to my cousin George Coser, Jr., who shares stories with other tribal members and me to ensure that we continue; and to the knowing and my ancestors for their teachings and insights. I thank my many teachers from the many directions, in all their many forms. Mvto, mvto. I thank my mother, Wynema Jewell Baker, and my father, Allen W. Foster, Jr., for their part in the story, for their ongoing love, and my brothers, Allen and Boyd, and sister, Margaret, for walking alongside me. I also acknowledge my stepsister, Sandra Aston, for her protection and love. I am grateful for my children, Ratonia, Phil, and Rainy, for my nieces and nephews, for my beloved grandchildren, and for those who will follow us. You inspire me. May you always find support for your own creative gifts, your insights, and your visions. I also thank my children’s fathers for their part in the story. We have continued to grow in understanding. May our eyes and ears continue to open to hear and know our ancestors. May we remember the stories. May this story be food for your own. Prologue, from The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, New York: W. W. Norton, 1994.

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

  100 hcruhC dehsilbatsE eht dna enitnatsnoC :41 erutceL Trained in rhetoric and philosophy, Julian was lifted from o his life as a student in Athens when Constantius II made him Caesar of the west in 355. He proved a more than adept soldier, and in 360, when he was acclaimed Augustus by his troops, he openly renounced Christianity. When he became sole emperor in 361, Julian promoted a o syncretistic form of religion, in which Jesus was honored with other great men who manifested the divine, and restored the pagan temples to their full functioning. He removed Christians from high office and sought to return o education to pagan standards. To please the Jews, he began the project of restoring the Temple in Jerusalem, but he did not persecute Christians in any active fashion. It remains a fascinating historical question as to what might o have happened if Julian had not been cut down in battle and his reign had lasted for decades. • Succeeding emperors quickly and decisively restored Christian privileges but continued to allow a certain freedom of worship. In contrast, the emperor Gratian (375–383) rejected emperor worship, removed the altar of victory from the Roman forum, discontinued state subsidy for pagan worship, and confiscated temple funds. • The decisive establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the empire took place under Theodosius I, who ruled the East from 379 to 392 and was sole ruler of both East and West from 392 to 395. His edict “On the Catholic Faith” (380) imposed Christianity o on all inhabitants of the empire. He closed all temples, including the temple of Apollo at Delphi. o Many of them he seized for Christian worship, and in 391, he forbade any pagan worship. In 392, he declared sacrifice to the gods to be high treason, punishable by death. Theodosius I closed all pagan temples, including the Serapeum in alexandria and the ancient temple of apollo at Delphi. Despite such repressive measures against paganism, o Theodosius continued to maintain the right of Jews to assemble for worship. But in addition to not being allowed to proselytize, they could not enter into mixed marriages with Christians. The Effects of Establishment on Christianity • Official sponsorship of Christianity was a decidedly mixed blessing for the Christian religion, considered as religion. The positive benefits were obvious and on the surface. Security from danger and persecution were an obvious good; o being Christian was no longer a crime punishable by the state. Political advantage to Christians extended from the o occupation of magnificent buildings and land to an edge in bureaucratic advancement. 101 .kcotsknihT/otohpkcotSi ©

• From Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives) (1999)

  Since Self-Control is a figure in Augustine’s imagination, and the fig tree is symbolic, Courcelle argued that the child’s voice Augustine now hears must also be a psychic event, not literal—Courcelle even used a rare textual variant to say the voice came from God’s house (divina domo) not from a nearby house (vicina domo). But Augustine does not treat this like a metaphor or an interior event. He wonders if any child’s game had the repeated chant Tolle, lege. Unable to think of one, he accepts the hint, understanding the words to mean “Pick up and read,” and turns back to what he had been reading. A. Sizoo thinks one indication that the voice was real is the possibility that Augustine records it without really understanding it. Since lege often meant “select” rather than “read,” he could have been repeating a harvesters’ work chant, “Pick up and sort” (O’Donnell 3.63), an Italian chant not familiar to an African like Augustine. In any event, Augustine instantly saw the meaning of the text he picked up under the voice’s prodding: “Be clothed in Jesus Christ.” The very instant I finished that sentence, light was flooding my heart with assurance, and every shadow of doubt evanesced (T 8.29). 3. Cassiciacum: 386–387 AS A CONVERT, Augustine wanted to make a clean break with his past life. Una had already left. He laid plans to give up his court post, pleading ill health. He changed scene, going to a villa loaned him by a friend, Verecundus. He was not becoming just a Christian but a Christian ascetic. Verecundus regretted he could not join the company at the villa, since he was married. This elite Christian community would be made up of celibates (T 9.5). There was a competitive note to this ascetical break with “lower” life. Though it was possible to be a Christian but not an ascetic, that did not fit late-antique views of what was proper for a philosophical adherent to any serious moral program. When Augustine had heard his last conversion story, just before he burst into the garden, he said to Alypius: What’s the matter with us? Has it come to this—do you hear so?—that non-philosophers surge ahead and snatch at heaven, while we, with our cold learning—we, look at us, are stuck in the mire of our own flesh and blood? Just because they have got ahead, should we be ashamed to follow at all rather than shamed at least into following? (T 8.18) This need for a strict renunciation in the pursuit of reason was part of what Peter Brown calls a Mediterranean-wide phenomenon. It shows up in the praise for pagan sages, as in Ammianus’ tribute (5.4.2) to Julian the Apostate:

• From The Girls (2016)

  “Of course he told me,” she said after a moment. “Yeah, of course. He’ll be back tomorrow.” So he had left her. My first thought was irritation. I wasn’t a babysitter. Then relief. Sasha was a kid—she shouldn’t go with him to Humboldt. Ride an ATV through barbed-wire checkpoints to some shithole tarp ranch in Garberville just to pick up a duffel bag of weed. I was even a little glad for her company. “I don’t like the drive, anyway,” Sasha said, gamely adapting to the situation. “I get sick on those small roads. He drives so crazy, too. Super fast.” She leaned up against the counter, yawning. “Tired?” I said. She told me that she had been trying polyphasic sleep but had to quit. “It was too weird,” she said. Her nipples were apparent through her shirt. “Polyphasic sleep?” I said, pulling my own robe tight in a prudish surge. “Thomas Jefferson did it. You sleep in hour bursts, like, six times a day.” “And you’re awake the rest of the time?” Sasha nodded. “It’s kind of great, the first couple of days. But I crashed hard. It seemed like I’d never sleep normal again.” I couldn’t link the girl I’d overheard the night before to the girl in front of me, talking about sleep experiments. “There’s enough hot water in the kettle if you want some,” I said, but Sasha shook her head. “I don’t eat in the mornings, like a ballerina.” She glanced at the window, the sea a pewter sheet. “Do you ever swim?” “It’s really cold.” I had only seen the occasional surfer venture into the waves, their bodies sheathed in neoprene, hoods over their heads. “So you’ve gone in?” she asked. “No.” Sasha’s face moved with sympathy. Like I was missing out on some obvious pleasure. But no one swam, I thought, feeling protective of my life in this borrowed house, the local orbits of my days. “There are sharks out there, too,” I added. “They don’t really attack humans,” Sasha said, shrugging. She was pretty, like a consumptive, eaten by an internal heat. I tried to spot some pornographic residue of the night before, but there was nothing. Her face as pale and blameless as a lesser moon. —Sasha’s proximity, even for the day, forced some normalcy. The built-in preventative of another person meant I couldn’t indulge the animal feelings, couldn’t leave orange peels in the kitchen sink. I dressed right after breakfast instead of haunting my robe all day. Swiped on mascara from a mostly dried-up tube. These were the cogent human labors, the daily tasks that staved larger panics, but living alone had gotten me out of the habit—I didn’t feel substantial enough to warrant this kind of effort. I’d last lived with someone years ago, a man who taught ESL classes at one of the sham colleges that advertised on bus-stop benches. The students were mostly wealthy foreigners who wanted to design videogames.

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  22. Josephine Bakhita: Freed from Slavery There ensued a long legal struggle over Bakhita’s rights and freedom. The mother superior pleaded Bakhita’s case to the patriarch of Venice, Giuseppe Sarto, the future Pope Pius X. Meanwhile, as the church intervened on Bakhita’s side, the Michielis sought help from the royal court. The court eventually found, in what must’ve been a bittersweet judgment for Bakhita, that not only was she not the Michielis’ slave but also that she’d never legally been a slave, as slavery had been outlawed in the Sudan since 1877 and in Italy during her lifetime. Bakhita was baptized in early 1890, and 6 years later, in her mid-20s, she completed her novitiate and became a sister herself. Religious life proved varied and energizing for Sister Josephine. The Canossians mixed elements of the traditional religious life with public service work, including ministering to the sick. Her community was deeply interested in Bakhita’s life story, and she was interviewed by a fellow sister in 1910—the beginning of many records and retellings she was asked to conduct throughout her life. Her convent, in the town of Schio near Venice, was requisitioned during World War I as a military hospital. The appearance of male soldiers must have been a significant change for the community, which rallied to meet their needs. Sister Josephine cooked and also served as an ad hoc nurse for the soldiers, who greatly admired her. After 25 years with the community, Sister Josephine was a respected elder, entering her 50s but still an active and vital voice among the sisters. By 1922, she was made doorkeeper, a position of great trust that relied on her discretion and ability to interact with the public. The interwar years saw her shoot to fame as Madre Moretta, the “Black Mother” of the convent. Her story was popularized by Ida Zanolini, a local teacher, who wrote the highly popular biography Tale of Wonder. Visitors began to seek her out, and she was suddenly in great demand as a public speaker at other Canossian convents. A Vatican photographer sought her out, and her portrait became known around the country. Bakhita struggled with her suddenly public image after decades living in quiet and calm. 170

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

  Vic or no damn vic, she decided to play her trump card, show Ms. Crossover who was really in charge. Hopping from Slim’s stage, Flame strutted her jiggling jelly over to Power and snatched him up. “Miss me, Daddy?” was all she said as he snatched her up by her arm and practically dragged her to one of Slim’s back rooms. Flame tried to contain her smile when Power cursed, but she couldn’t. He was a joke to her now, and she’d risk a beat-down, knowing it’d only be a short one with Enrique lurking around somewhere in the Palace. Nothing Power had to say moved her; he was full of shit. Window dressing, like Enrique had said. “So you were comin’ back for me?” she asked, deaf to anything that had fallen from his lips. “Come on now, Ma. You just caught a nigga where he re-up at. Y’know I sold Enrique’s shit, right? Only got a quarter left. I just got here right before you came. Matter fact, what the fuck you doin’ up in here?” She shook her head. “No you didn’t, lying bastard. You been laying your head here in Brooklyn the whole time. Wanna know what I’m doin’ in here? What I did while you was gone?” “What?” Power snapped. “What the fuck you say, Flame? What the fuck did you do that was so got-damn important?” “She freed herself and got her a house,” Enrique said from the doorway, AK in hand. “And handed me the mu’fucka I been looking for.” The widest grin spread across Flame’s face. She’d been so consumed with catching Power, finding out that he’d left her to Enrique’s fate, she hadn’t thought about being free to walk. “Go ’head, mami. You earned everything you got—including cuttin’ loose from him. A woman like you,” he said, nodding his head, “could be on my team anytime.” He reached in his pocket, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to her. “Good ol’ Richard moves fast. This was just delivered to me. I don’t need another house, I got what I want right here.” He kicked Power in the gut, started pulverizing him with the AK. Flame nodded and thanked Enrique, then started to haul ass before he changed his mind, then a thought occurred to her: Power has to pay, beg just like Richard. “May I?” Flame interrupted Power’s ass-whooping. Enrique grinned, handed Flame a burner. “See, Lucky,” he said to his worker, “this is what I talking about! Mami here, she nut’ing to play with.” Crazy Lucky laughed, took a hit of cocaine he had in a baggie. Flame held the gun with shaky hands and watched Lucky. “Enrique, is it true that shit numbs you?” “Yeah, mami. Why? You need a little?” Flame nodded. “Yeah, I need a lot.” “Give ’er your stash, Lucky.”

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  I declare to you that I do not consider it necessary to try you. You did all you could, and no one in the world’—here the procurator smiled—‘could do more than you! Penalize the sleuths who lost Judas. But here, too, I warn you, I would not want it to be anything of a severe sort. In the last analysis, we did everything to take care of the blackguard!’ ‘Yes, although . . .’ Here Aphranius tore the seal off the packet and showed its contents to Pilate. ‘Good heavens, what are you doing, Aphranius, those must be temple seals!’ ‘The procurator needn’t trouble himself with that question,’ Aphranius replied, closing the packet. ‘Can it be that you have all the seals?’ Pilate asked, laughing. ‘It couldn’t be otherwise, Procurator,’ Aphranius replied very sternly, not laughing at all. ‘I can imagine the effect at Kaifa’s!’ ‘Yes, Procurator, it caused great agitation. They summoned me immediately.’ Even in the semi-darkness one could see how Pilate’s eyes flashed. ‘That’s interesting, interesting . . .’ ‘I venture to disagree, Procurator, it was not interesting. A most boring and tiresome business. To my question whether anyone had been paid money in Kaifa’s palace, I was told categorically that there had been nothing of the sort.’ ‘Ah, yes? Well, so, if no one was paid, no one was paid. It will be that much harder to find the killers.’ ‘Absolutely right, Procurator.’ ‘It suddenly occurs to me, Aphranius: might he not have killed himself?’ 6 ‘Oh, no, Procurator,’ Aphranius replied, even leaning back in his chair from astonishment, ‘excuse me, but that is entirely unlikely!’ ‘Ah, everything is likely in this city. I’m ready to bet that in a very short time rumours of it will spread all over the city.’ Here Aphranius again darted his look at the procurator, thought for a moment, and replied: ‘That may be, Procurator.’ The procurator was obviously still unable to part with this question of the killing of the man from Kiriath, though everything was already clear, and he said even with a sort of reverie: ‘But I’d like to have seen how they killed him.’ ‘He was killed with great art, Procurator,’ Aphranius replied, glancing somewhat ironically at the procurator. ‘How do you know that?’ ‘Kindly pay attention to the bag, Procurator,’ Aphranius replied. ‘I guarantee you that Judas’s blood gushed out in a stream. I’ve seen murdered people in my time, Procurator.’ ‘So, of course, he won’t rise?’ ‘No, Procurator, he will rise,’ replied Aphranius, smiling philosophically, ‘when the trumpet of the messiah they’re expecting here sounds over him. But before then he won’t rise.’ ‘Enough, Aphranius, the question is clear. Let’s go on to the burial.’ ‘The executed men have been buried, Procurator.’ ‘Oh, Aphranius, it would be a crime to try you.