Resentment

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 Fear of Flying (1973)

  I was the one they counted on to tell funny stories about her former lovers. I was the one they envied in public and laughed at in private. I could imagine the reporting of these events in Class News : Isadora White Wing and new hubby Doctor Adrian Goodlove are living in London near Hampstead Heath—not to be confused with Heathcliff, for the benefit of all you Math majors. Isadora would love to hear from fellow Barnardites abroad. She is busily engrossed in writing a novel and a new book of poems, and in her spare time attends the International Psychoanalytic, where she congresses…. All my fantasies included marriage. No sooner did I imagine myself running away from one man than I envisioned myself tying up with another. I was like a boat that always had to have a port of call. I simply couldn’t imagine myself without a man. Without one, I felt lost as a dog without a master; rootless, faceless, undefined. But what was so great about marriage? I had been married and married. It had its good points, but it also had its bad. The virtues of marriage were mostly negative virtues. Being unmarried in a man’s world was such a hassle that any thing had to be better. Marriage was better. But not much. Damned clever, I thought, how men had made life so intolerable for single women that most would gladly embrace even bad marriages instead. Almost anything had to be an improvement on hustling for your own keep at some low-paid job and fighting off unattractive men in your spare time while desperately trying to ferret out the attractive ones. Though I’ve no doubt that being single is just as lonely for a man, it doesn’t have the added extra wallop of being downright dangerous, and it doesn’t automatically imply poverty and the unquestioned status of a social pariah. Would most women get married if they knew what it meant? I think of young women following their husbands wherever their husbands follow their jobs. I think of them suddenly finding themselves miles away from friends and family. I think of them living in places where they can’t work, where they can’t speak the language. I think of them making babies out of their loneliness and boredom and not knowing why. I think of their men always harried and exhausted from being on the make. I think of them seeing each other less after marriage than before. I think of them falling into bed too exhausted to screw. I think of them farther apart in the first year of marriage than they ever imagined two people could be when they were courting. And then I think of the fantasies starting. He is eyeing the fourteen-year-old postnymphets in bikinis. She covets the TV repairman.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Having written The Feminine Mystique, a sanity-saving book for millions of college-educated homemakers in the suburbs who were feeling, There must be more to life than this, she had been crowned “the Mother Superior to Women’s Lib” by The New York Times. Earlier that summer, when she hadn’t been reelected to an NWPC position, she had threatened to sue and sent a lawyer to examine the ballots; but no irregularities were found. She also took it personally when Bella Abzug said she didn’t want to replace “a white, male, middle-class elite with a white, female, middle-class elite.” I agreed with Bella and thought it was okay to say since that description fit us, too. We were explaining we wanted to transform the system, not imitate it. Still, Betty yelled at Bella for being anti-elite, and yelled at me for inviting my speaking partner, Flo Kennedy, to the founding meeting of the NWPC. She feared that Flo would “mau-mau” the meeting, though actually Flo set a unifying tone. Also, Friedan had made clear in the media for several years that she thought Bella, Kate Millett, I, and others were damaging the movement by supporting the issues of lesbians, welfare mothers, and others she regarded as outside the mainstream. As Betty wrote in The New York Times, “The disrupters of the women’s movement were the ones continually trying to push lesbianism or hatred of men, even though many weren’t lesbians themselves and didn’t act privately as if they hated men.” Together with Flo Kennedy, Kate Millett, Robin Morgan, and others, I was named one of the disrupters.5 Betty’s antipathy to Bella, me, and others would persist for years to come. For instance, all of us who started Ms. magazine were fine with the financial sacrifice and fund-raising that required, but we were shocked to find ourselves accused by Friedan of “profiteering off the movement.” Most painful to me, Friedan refused to shake my mother’s hand when Millie Jeffrey, a leader of labor union women, tried to introduce them. Bella and I each handled this hostility in our own way. Bella once literally damaged her vocal cords by shouting back at Betty, and as a result Friedan attacked her less. I never responded in person or print, on the grounds that it would only feed the stereotype that women couldn’t get along, so Friedan wasn’t afraid of me and attacked more. Truthfully and in retrospect, I was avoiding conflict. I was being my mother’s daughter. I needed a teacher in surviving conflict, and Friedan was definitely it. When the Democratic convention was about to meet in Miami, I was worried about private tensions turning public, not only with Bella and me, but with such rising stars as Sissy Farenthold, a Texas legislator who was among Friedan’s rivals for the leadership of the NWPC.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Their conversation about horses interested him, but he did not for an instant forget Anna, and could not help listening to the sound of steps in the corridor and looking at the clock on the chimney piece. “Anna Arkadyevna gave orders to announce that she has gone to the theater.” Yashvin, tipping another glass of brandy into the bubbling water, drank it and got up, buttoning his coat. “Well, let’s go,” he said, faintly smiling under his mustache, and showing by this smile that he knew the cause of Vronsky’s gloominess, and did not attach any significance to it. “I’m not going,” Vronsky answered gloomily. “Well, I must, I promised to. Good-bye, then. If you do, come to the stalls; you can take Kruzin’s stall,” added Yashvin as he went out. “No, I’m busy.” “A wife is a care, but it’s worse when she’s not a wife,” thought Yashvin, as he walked out of the hotel. Vronsky, left alone, got up from his chair and began pacing up and down the room. “And what’s today? The fourth night.... Yegor and his wife are there, and my mother, most likely. Of course all Petersburg’s there. Now she’s gone in, taken off her cloak and come into the light. Tushkevitch, Yashvin, Princess Varvara,” he pictured them to himself.... “What about me? Either that I’m frightened or have given up to Tushkevitch the right to protect her? From every point of view—stupid, stupid!... And why is she putting me in such a position?” he said with a gesture of despair. With that gesture he knocked against the table, on which there was standing the seltzer water and the decanter of brandy, and almost upset it. He tried to catch it, let it slip, and angrily kicked the table over and rang. “If you care to be in my service,” he said to the valet who came in, “you had better remember your duties. This shouldn’t be here. You ought to have cleared away.” The valet, conscious of his own innocence, would have defended himself, but glancing at his master, he saw from his face that the only thing to do was to be silent, and hurriedly threading his way in and out, dropped down on the carpet and began gathering up the whole and broken glasses and bottles. “That’s not your duty; send the waiter to clear away, and get my dress coat out.”

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Come, tell me what I ought to do to give you peace of mind? I am ready to do anything to make you happy,” he said, touched by her expression of despair; “what wouldn’t I do to save you from distress of any sort, as now, Anna!” he said. “It’s nothing, nothing!” she said. “I don’t know myself whether it’s the solitary life, my nerves.... Come, don’t let us talk of it. What about the race? You haven’t told me!” she inquired, trying to conceal her triumph at the victory, which had anyway been on her side. He asked for supper, and began telling her about the races; but in his tone, in his eyes, which became more and more cold, she saw that he did not forgive her for her victory, that the feeling of obstinacy with which she had been struggling had asserted itself again in him. He was colder to her than before, as though he were regretting his surrender. And she, remembering the words that had given her the victory, “how I feel on the brink of calamity, how afraid I am of myself,” saw that this weapon was a dangerous one, and that it could not be used a second time. And she felt that beside the love that bound them together there had grown up between them some evil spirit of strife, which she could not exorcise from his, and still less from her own heart. Chapter 13 There are no conditions to which a man cannot become used, especially if he sees that all around him are living in the same way. Levin could not have believed three months before that he could have gone quietly to sleep in the condition in which he was that day, that leading an aimless, irrational life, living too beyond his means, after drinking to excess (he could not call what happened at the club anything else), forming inappropriately friendly relations with a man with whom his wife had once been in love, and a still more inappropriate call upon a woman who could only be called a lost woman, after being fascinated by that woman and causing his wife distress—he could still go quietly to sleep. But under the influence of fatigue, a sleepless night, and the wine he had drunk, his sleep was sound and untroubled. At five o’clock the creak of a door opening waked him. He jumped up and looked round. Kitty was not in bed beside him. But there was a light moving behind the screen, and he heard her steps. “What is it?... what is it?” he said, half-asleep. “Kitty! What is it?” “Nothing,” she said, coming from behind the screen with a candle in her hand. “I felt unwell,” she said, smiling a particularly sweet and meaning smile. “What? has it begun?” he said in terror. “We ought to send....” and hurriedly he reached after his clothes.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal, which would be a perfect godsend to his enemies for calumny and attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to define the position with the least amount of disturbance possible, would not be attained by divorce either. Moreover, in the event of divorce, or even of an attempt to obtain a divorce, it was obvious that the wife broke off all relations with the husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And in spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexey Alexandrovitch still had one feeling left in regard to her—a disinclination to see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be to her advantage. The mere notion of this so exasperated Alexey Alexandrovitch, that directly it rose to his mind he groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his place in the carriage, and for a long while after, he sat with scowling brows, wrapping his numbed and bony legs in the fleecy rug. “Apart from formal divorce, One might still do like Karibanov, Paskudin, and that good fellow Dram—that is, separate from one’s wife,” he went on thinking, when he had regained his composure. But this step too presented the same drawback of public scandal as a divorce, and what was more, a separation, quite as much as a regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms of Vronsky. “No, it’s out of the question, out of the question!” he said again, twisting his rug about him again. “I cannot be unhappy, but neither she nor he ought to be happy.”

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “Why, Alexey Alexandrovitch, what are you cutting us like this for?” said Dolly, smiling. “I was very busy. Delighted to see you!” he said in a tone clearly indicating that he was annoyed by it. “How are you?” “Tell me, how is my darling Anna?” Alexey Alexandrovitch mumbled something and would have gone on. But Stepan Arkadyevitch stopped him. “I tell you what we’ll do tomorrow. Dolly, ask him to dinner. We’ll ask Koznishev and Pestsov, so as to entertain him with our Moscow celebrities.” “Yes, please, do come,” said Dolly; “we will expect you at five, or six o’clock, if you like. How is my darling Anna? How long....” “She is quite well,” Alexey Alexandrovitch mumbled, frowning. “Delighted!” and he moved away towards his carriage. “You will come?” Dolly called after him. Alexey Alexandrovitch said something which Dolly could not catch in the noise of the moving carriages. “I shall come round tomorrow!” Stepan Arkadyevitch shouted to him. Alexey Alexandrovitch got into his carriage, and buried himself in it so as neither to see nor be seen. “Queer fish!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch to his wife, and glancing at his watch, he made a motion of his hand before his face, indicating a caress to his wife and children, and walked jauntily along the pavement. “Stiva! Stiva!” Dolly called, reddening. He turned round. “I must get coats, you know, for Grisha and Tanya. Give me the money.” “Never mind; you tell them I’ll pay the bill!” and he vanished, nodding genially to an acquaintance who drove by. Chapter 7 The next day was Sunday. Stepan Arkadyevitch went to the Grand Theater to a rehearsal of the ballet, and gave Masha Tchibisova, a pretty dancing-girl whom he had just taken under his protection, the coral necklace he had promised her the evening before, and behind the scenes in the dim daylight of the theater, managed to kiss her pretty little face, radiant over her present. Besides the gift of the necklace he wanted to arrange with her about meeting after the ballet. After explaining that he could not come at the beginning of the ballet, he promised he would come for the last act and take her to supper. From the theater Stepan Arkadyevitch drove to Ohotny Row, selected himself the fish and asparagus for dinner, and by twelve o’clock was at Dussots’, where he had to see three people, luckily all staying at the same hotel: Levin, who had recently come back from abroad and was staying there; the new head of his department, who had just been promoted to that position, and had come on a tour of revision to Moscow; and his brother-in-law, Karenin, whom he must see, so as to be sure of bringing him to dinner.

• 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 Anna Karenina (1877)

  The irritability that kept them apart had no external cause, and all efforts to come to an understanding intensified it, instead of removing it. It was an inner irritation, grounded in her mind on the conviction that his love had grown less; in his, on regret that he had put himself for her sake in a difficult position, which she, instead of lightening, made still more difficult. Neither of them gave full utterance to their sense of grievance, but they considered each other in the wrong, and tried on every pretext to prove this to one another. In her eyes the whole of him, with all his habits, ideas, desires, with all his spiritual and physical temperament, was one thing—love for women, and that love, she felt, ought to be entirely concentrated on her alone. That love was less; consequently, as she reasoned, he must have transferred part of his love to other women or to another woman—and she was jealous. She was jealous not of any particular woman but of the decrease of his love. Not having got an object for her jealousy, she was on the lookout for it. At the slightest hint she transferred her jealousy from one object to another. At one time she was jealous of those low women with whom he might so easily renew his old bachelor ties; then she was jealous of the society women he might meet; then she was jealous of the imaginary girl whom he might want to marry, for whose sake he would break with her. And this last form of jealousy tortured her most of all, especially as he had unwarily told her, in a moment of frankness, that his mother knew him so little that she had had the audacity to try and persuade him to marry the young Princess Sorokina. And being jealous of him, Anna was indignant against him and found grounds for indignation in everything. For everything that was difficult in her position she blamed him. The agonizing condition of suspense she had passed in Moscow, the tardiness and indecision of Alexey Alexandrovitch, her solitude—she put it all down to him. If he had loved her he would have seen all the bitterness of her position, and would have rescued her from it. For her being in Moscow and not in the country, he was to blame too. He could not live buried in the country as she would have liked to do. He must have society, and he had put her in this awful position, the bitterness of which he would not see. And again, it was his fault that she was forever separated from her son. Even the rare moments of tenderness that came from time to time did not soothe her; in his tenderness now she saw a shade of complacency, of self-confidence, which had not been of old, and which exasperated her.

• From Querelle (1953)

  184 I JEAN GENET brought up new details in order to make his mistress suffer while at the same time he strengthened his own position and cut himself off from the world to be with Querelle, whom he became profoundly aware of within himself, for the second time in his life. Madame Lysiane both refused to hear and provoked those further revelations. She waited for them. She wanted them to become ever more monstrous. Together (with out being fully aware of it), the two lovers knew that a return to health would only be possible once they had managed to ex_tract all the venom, all the pus. Then Robert came up with a terrifying phrase that contained the notion of his and his brother's being merely one: ". . . yeah, even when we were little kids, they always mistook us, one for the other. We used to wear the same duds, same pants, same shirts. Had the same little mugs. No way of getting around that." He detested his brother-or thought he did-but now he put a great deal of effort into identifying with him, strengthening their relation ship-a relationship stretching so far back in time that the mental image was of a blob of molasses, as it were, containing and confusing their two bodies. At the same time Robert was afraid of having Madame Lysiane discover what he, Robert, regarded as his brother's vice: this made him exaggerate the nature of their relationship-make it appear, while retaining the straightest of faces, like a rather demoniacal affair. "I have it up to here, Roberti I don't want to hear any-more about your filthy doings!" "What filthy doings? There weren't any. We're brothers , Madame Lysiane was surprised, herself, at having brougJ-tt up the notion of "filth." Obviously, there was nothing wrong (the way one says "wrong" when meaning "that's not right") in the mere fact that two brothers looked alike; the true evil consisted of that quicker-than-the-eye trick by which two beings were turned into one (a trick th_at is called love, when it involves two disparate beings), or which, by the magic of a single love,

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “I know no man more strict in the performance of his duties,” said Darya Alexandrovna, irritated by Vronsky’s tone of superiority. “For my part,” pursued Vronsky, who was evidently for some reason or other keenly affected by this conversation, “such as I am, I am, on the contrary, extremely grateful for the honor they have done me, thanks to Nikolay Ivanitch” (he indicated Sviazhsky), “in electing me a justice of the peace. I consider that for me the duty of being present at the session, of judging some peasants’ quarrel about a horse, is as important as anything I can do. And I shall regard it as an honor if they elect me for the district council. It’s only in that way I can pay for the advantages I enjoy as a landowner. Unluckily they don’t understand the weight that the big landowners ought to have in the state.” It was strange to Darya Alexandrovna to hear how serenely confident he was of being right at his own table. She thought how Levin, who believed the opposite, was just as positive in his opinions at his own table. But she loved Levin, and so she was on his side. “So we can reckon upon you, count, for the coming elections?” said Sviazhsky. “But you must come a little beforehand, so as to be on the spot by the eighth. If you would do me the honor to stop with me.” “I rather agree with your _beau-frère_,” said Anna, “though not quite on the same ground as he,” she added with a smile. “I’m afraid that we have too many of these public duties in these latter days. Just as in old days there were so many government functionaries that one had to call in a functionary for every single thing, so now everyone’s doing some sort of public duty. Alexey has been here now six months, and he’s a member, I do believe, of five or six different public bodies. _Du train que cela va,_ the whole time will be wasted on it. And I’m afraid that with such a multiplicity of these bodies, they’ll end in being a mere form. How many are you a member of, Nikolay Ivanitch?” she turned to Sviazhsky—“over twenty, I fancy.” Anna spoke lightly, but irritation could be discerned in her tone. Darya Alexandrovna, watching Anna and Vronsky attentively, detected it instantly. She noticed, too, that as she spoke Vronsky’s face had immediately taken a serious and obstinate expression. Noticing this, and that Princess Varvara at once made haste to change the conversation by talking of Petersburg acquaintances, and remembering what Vronsky had without apparent connection said in the garden of his work in the country, Dolly surmised that this question of public activity was connected with some deep private disagreement between Anna and Vronsky.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Levin did not answer. What they had said in the conversation, that he acted justly only in a negative sense, absorbed his thoughts. “Can it be that it’s only possible to be just negatively?” he was asking himself. “How strong the smell of the fresh hay is, though,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting up. “There’s not a chance of sleeping. Vassenka has been getting up some fun there. Do you hear the laughing and his voice? Hadn’t we better go? Come along!” “No, I’m not coming,” answered Levin. “Surely that’s not a matter of principle too,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling, as he felt about in the dark for his cap. “It’s not a matter of principle, but why should I go?” “But do you know you are preparing trouble for yourself,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, finding his cap and getting up. “How so?” “Do you suppose I don’t see the line you’ve taken up with your wife? I heard how it’s a question of the greatest consequence, whether or not you’re to be away for a couple of days’ shooting. That’s all very well as an idyllic episode, but for your whole life that won’t answer. A man must be independent; he has his masculine interests. A man has to be manly,” said Oblonsky, opening the door. “In what way? To go running after servant girls?” said Levin. “Why not, if it amuses him? _Ça ne tire pas à conséquence_. It won’t do my wife any harm, and it’ll amuse me. The great thing is to respect the sanctity of the home. There should be nothing in the home. But don’t tie your own hands.” “Perhaps so,” said Levin dryly, and he turned on his side. “Tomorrow, early, I want to go shooting, and I won’t wake anyone, and shall set off at daybreak.” “_Messieurs, venez vite!_” they heard the voice of Veslovsky coming back. “_Charmante!_ I’ve made such a discovery. _Charmante!_ a perfect Gretchen, and I’ve already made friends with her. Really, exceedingly pretty,” he declared in a tone of approval, as though she had been made pretty entirely on his account, and he was expressing his satisfaction with the entertainment that had been provided for him. Levin pretended to be asleep, while Oblonsky, putting on his slippers, and lighting a cigar, walked out of the barn, and soon their voices were lost.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  There is no reason that it should be Grace here and not Davis. When they were young, their grandfather always favored Davis. She wants to call her brother now and tell him to come, urge him to get in the car, to break any speed limit, to come home and have dinner. But she knows she can’t. She’s promised to work on Big Davis, to try, in small, slow ways. She has no skill for this sort of game. When they were little, Davis always beat her at checkers and chess. She was always the one to grow impatient before the game was done, to turn away and pout, sometimes to throw the board over. Davis played the long game, but he played it boldly, directly, in strong, clear moves. She was scatterbrained, collecting in small flurries of movements, tiny advancements, minor miracles of displacement. But in truth she never got far across the board before her willpower gave out. She never completed the game, begun in all the earnestness of childhood and the eagerness of believing that this time she would win. Davis is a fool for entrusting her with this task. Big Davis puts the plate in front of her. It’s full of greens with white turnip roots sliced and spread around the plate. The roast portion is tiny, minuscule, and yet it is still more than she can bear. But it smells rich and a little musky from the vinegar. “So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” he asks. He neatly slices his roast portion, much larger than either of theirs. Grace feels awkward, coltish, her body starting and jutting into curious directions with even the smallest movement. Enid watches her keenly. “I’ll do what I do every day—lay around until I have to hobble to the bathroom.” Big Davis grunts. “Outcomes are better if you stay active. Keep your strength up.” “I have doctors.” “Don’t be disrespectful,” he snaps. The fork and knife glint under the kitchen light. His gaze hardens. “I have doctors, sir,” she sneers. “I know what my protocols are.” “You have to keep her active,” he says to Enid. “She is active.” “I’m right here,” she says. “You were too easy on them kids. Look at them now.” Enid’s eyes widen and go buck in exasperation. She lets out a sharp sigh. “I did all I could. On my own.” “You weren’t on your own,” he says. “Them kids was here after school every day. And every weekend. And in the summer. If you was on your own, it was in some way I’ve never heard of.” “I never made you,” she says. “I never forced you or Mama Lil to look after them. You offered.” “What was we supposed to do? With a dead pappy and a mammy hooked on that stuff?”

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  “He’s right!” she said; “of course, he’s always right; he’s a Christian, he’s generous! Yes, vile, base creature! And no one understands it except me, and no one ever will; and I can’t explain it. They say he’s so religious, so high-principled, so upright, so clever; but they don’t see what I’ve seen. They don’t know how he has crushed my life for eight years, crushed everything that was living in me—he has not once even thought that I’m a live woman who must have love. They don’t know how at every step he’s humiliated me, and been just as pleased with himself. Haven’t I striven, striven with all my strength, to find something to give meaning to my life? Haven’t I struggled to love him, to love my son when I could not love my husband? But the time came when I knew that I couldn’t cheat myself any longer, that I was alive, that I was not to blame, that God has made me so that I must love and live. And now what does he do? If he’d killed me, if he’d killed him, I could have borne anything, I could have forgiven anything; but, no, he.... How was it I didn’t guess what he would do? He’s doing just what’s characteristic of his mean character. He’ll keep himself in the right, while me, in my ruin, he’ll drive still lower to worse ruin yet....” She recalled the words from the letter. “You can conjecture what awaits you and your son....” “That’s a threat to take away my child, and most likely by their stupid law he can. But I know very well why he says it. He doesn’t believe even in my love for my child, or he despises it (just as he always used to ridicule it). He despises that feeling in me, but he knows that I won’t abandon my child, that I can’t abandon my child, that there could be no life for me without my child, even with him whom I love; but that if I abandoned my child and ran away from him, I should be acting like the most infamous, basest of women. He knows that, and knows that I am incapable of doing that.”

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The building of the hospital, too, interested her. She did not merely assist, but planned and suggested a great deal herself. But her chief thought was still of herself—how far she was dear to Vronsky, how far she could make up to him for all he had given up. Vronsky appreciated this desire not only to please, but to serve him, which had become the sole aim of her existence, but at the same time he wearied of the loving snares in which she tried to hold him fast. As time went on, and he saw himself more and more often held fast in these snares, he had an ever growing desire, not so much to escape from them, as to try whether they hindered his freedom. Had it not been for this growing desire to be free, not to have scenes every time he wanted to go to the town to a meeting or a race, Vronsky would have been perfectly satisfied with his life. The rôle he had taken up, the rôle of a wealthy landowner, one of that class which ought to be the very heart of the Russian aristocracy, was entirely to his taste; and now, after spending six months in that character, he derived even greater satisfaction from it. And his management of his estate, which occupied and absorbed him more and more, was most successful. In spite of the immense sums cost him by the hospital, by machinery, by cows ordered from Switzerland, and many other things, he was convinced that he was not wasting, but increasing his substance. In all matters affecting income, the sales of timber, wheat, and wool, the letting of lands, Vronsky was hard as a rock, and knew well how to keep up prices. In all operations on a large scale on this and his other estates, he kept to the simplest methods involving no risk, and in trifling details he was careful and exacting to an extreme degree. In spite of all the cunning and ingenuity of the German steward, who would try to tempt him into purchases by making his original estimate always far larger than really required, and then representing to Vronsky that he might get the thing cheaper, and so make a profit, Vronsky did not give in. He listened to his steward, cross-examined him, and only agreed to his suggestions when the implement to be ordered or constructed was the very newest, not yet known in Russia, and likely to excite wonder. Apart from such exceptions, he resolved upon an increased outlay only where there was a surplus, and in making such an outlay he went into the minutest details, and insisted on getting the very best for his money; so that by the method on which he managed his affairs, it was clear that he was not wasting, but increasing his substance.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Also they hadn’t objected to sons, brothers, and sons-in-law using family connections and political names to further careers—say, the Bushes or the Rockefellers or the Kennedys—yet they objected to Hillary doing the same. The more they talked, the more it was clear that their own husbands hadn’t shared power with them. If Hillary had a husband who regarded her as an equal—who had always said this country got “two presidents for the price of one”—it only dramatized their own lack of power and respect. After one long night and a lot of wine, one woman told me that Hillary’s marriage made her aware of just how unequal hers was. In San Francisco and Seattle, I listened to self-identified Hillary Haters condemn her for staying with her husband, despite his well-publicized affairs. It turned out that many of them had suffered a faithless husband, too, but lacked the ability or the will to leave. They wanted Hillary to punish a powerful man in public on their behalf. I reminded them that presidents from Roosevelt to Kennedy had affairs, but the haters identified with those First Ladies and assumed they couldn’t leave. It was Hillary’s very strength and independence that made them blame her. When I tried describing the public condemnation Hillary would have suffered had she abandoned her duties in the White House for such a personal reason, this changed the minds of some—but not many. Finally, I resorted to explaining my own reasons for thinking the Clintons just might be, in Shakespeare’s phrase, “the marriage of true minds.” I had seen them together for a long afternoon during a White House ceremony for recipients of the Medal of Freedom. One medalist was my friend Wilma Mankiller, chief of the Cherokee Nation. She and I were both struck by the obvious connection between the Clintons as they walked from one group of awardees and their families to the next, talking to guests and each other. In a roomful of interesting people, they seemed just as interested in listening and talking to each other. What they were sharing, I don’t know, but what was clear was their intimacy and pleasure in each other’s company. Of how many long-married couples could that be said? Yet when I brought this up, some Hillary Haters became even angrier. Many were longtime wives and others were new wives replacing older ones, but the fact that Bill valued Hillary as an equal partner—and vice versa—seemed to make them more aware that their own marriages were different. It dawned on me that if a sexual connection is the only bond between a husband and wife, an affair can make her feel replaceable—and perhaps cause her to be replaced. This was not only emotionally painful but devastating when it also meant losing social identity and economic security as well. I began to understand that Hillary represented the very public, in-your-face opposite of the precarious and unequal lives that some women were living.

• From The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

  influences what we see and how we interpret events. Then, when we reach our twenties and into our thirties, we enter a new phase of life and experience a shift. Now we are in a position to assume some power, to actually alter this world according to our own values and ideals. As we progress in our work, we begin to influence the culture and its politics. We inevitably clash with the older generation that has held power for some time, as they insist on their own way of acting and evaluating events. Many of them often view us as immature, unsophisticated, soft, undisciplined, pampered, unenlightened, and certainly not ready to assume power. In some periods, the youth culture that is generated is so strong that it comes to dominate the culture at large—in the 1920s and the 1960s, for instance. In other periods, the older generation in positions of leadership is much more dominant, and the influence of the emerging adults in their twenties is less noticeable. In any event, to a greater or lesser degree, a struggle and clash occurs between these two generations and their perspectives. Then, as we enter our forties and midlife and assume many of the leadership positions in society, we begin to take notice of a younger generation that is fighting for its own power and position. Its members are now judging us and finding our own style and ideas rather irrelevant. We begin to judge them in return, describing them as immature, unsophisticated, soft, et cetera. We might begin to entertain the notion that the world is heading downhill fast, the values we found so important no longer mattering to this youthful set. When we judge in this way, we are not aware that we are reacting according to a pattern that has existed for at least three thousand years. (There is an inscription on a Babylonian clay tablet that dates from around 1000 BC that reads, “Today’s youth is rotten, evil, godless and lazy. It will never be what youth used to be, and it will never be able to preserve our culture.” We find similar complaints in all cultures and in all time periods.) We think we are judging the younger generation in an objective manner, but we are merely succumbing to an illusion of perspective. It is also true that we are probably experiencing some hidden envy of their youth and mourning the loss of our own. When it comes to the changes generated by the tensions between two generations, we can say that the greater part of them will come from the young. They are more restless, in search of their own identity, and more attuned to the group and how they fit in. By the time such a younger generation emerges into their thirties and forties, they will have shaped the world with their changes and given it a look and feel that is distinct from their parents. When looking at any generation, we naturally see variations

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  1 Diomede, king of.the Bistones in Thrace. His final destruction was one of the twelve labours of Hereules. 325 LUCIUS APULEIUS 1" Ad eundem modum distractus et ipse variis equo- rum incursibus, rursus molares illos circuitus require- am. "Verum Fortuna meis cruciatibus insatiabilis alam mihi denuo pestem instruxit: delegor enim ¥.gno monte devehundo, puerque mihi praefectus imponitur, omnibus ille quidem deterrimus. Nec me montis excelsi tantum arduum fatigabat iugum, nec saxeas tantum sudes incursando contribam ungulas, verum fustium quoque crebris ictibus prolixe dedola- bar, ut usque plagarum mihi medullaris insideret dolor; coxaeque dexterae semper ictus incutiens et unum feriendo locum dissipato corio et ulceris latis simi facto foramine, immo fovea vel etiam fenestra, nullus tamen desinebat identidem vulnus sanguine delibutum obtundere. Lignorum vero tanto me premebat pondere, ut fascium molem elephanto, non asino paratam putares: ille vero etiam quotiens in alterum latus praeponderans declinarat sarcina, cum deberet potius gravantis ruinae fustes demere et levata paulisper pressura sanare me, vel certe in alterum latus translatis peraequare, contra, lapidibus additis insuper, sic iniquitati ponderis medebatur. 18 Nec tamen post tantas meas clades immodico sar- cinae pondere contentus, cum fluvium transcende- remus, qui forte praeter viam defluebat, peronibus suis ab aquae madore consulens ipse quoque insuper lumbos meos insiliens residebat, exiguum scilicet et illud tantae molis superpondium: ac si quo casu limo caenoso ripae supercilio lubricante oneris impatientia 396 THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK VII

• From Escape (2007)

  Merril turned on the TV. Within moments, the phone was ringing. Tammy was still on the attack. Merril enjoyed the attention. It fed his narcissism. He loved that his wives were fighting over who would have sex with him. He didn’t care if Tammy was unstable. I’m not sure he even noticed. She called a few more times that evening. I learned later that she told Cathleen that part of her rant was that Merril had sex with me when I was pregnant, which was a sin within the FLDS. Part of the FLDS doctrine is that a man should abstain from sex with his pregnant wife. But there’s a loophole. A man who has attained priesthood is believed to have the spirit of God within him. His “inspirations” are seen as being transmitted from God. If he’s “inspired” to have sex with his pregnant wife, it’s within his rights since it comes from God. Pregnancy was a turn-on for Merril in a way I never understood and he never tried to explain. We never talked about sex, either before, during, or afterward. In seventeen years of marriage, I never saw him naked because we had sex in total darkness. It was rudimentary and over in minutes. Merril remained mute throughout. Afterward he’d lie on top of me for a long time. I felt crushed and sometimes almost suffocated. Eventually he’d roll over like a dead animal and sleep. What made it even more bizarre was that every time we had sex with each other we did it while clothed in our long underwear—except that night in Hawaii when we had sex completely naked. I was shocked when he took off my long underwear and began touching my skin. It felt different and far more enjoyable. But I didn’t let myself respond too emotionally because I knew it would probably never happen again. Every woman in a plural marriage knows that her only power in life will come from her relationship to her husband. I felt hostile to Merril. I hadn’t wanted to marry him and never wanted to sleep with him. But I knew that my survival and the caliber of life I could provide for my children depended on my forging a relationship with Merril. Pleasing him—or at least not aggravating him—was a skill I was determined to master no matter what it cost me at a personal level. Sublimating my needs to his felt natural to me at twenty-two. I knew this was how generations of women had lived in my family. In order to have power in Merril’s family, I had to make myself important to him. That gave me status over his other wives and protected me and my children from their attacks. It’s an insanely competitive environment. Only the strong survived. No one in our family ever tried to look out for a sister wife.

• From Escape (2007)

  Tammy had waited up for Barbara and Merril, who came back from Page late on Fridays. Merril came into her room and asked her to massage his feet. He did this often, and would hint that maybe he’d spend the night with Tammy, but then decided to sleep with Barbara. Tammy had been massaging Merril’s feet for an hour when he got up and said he was going into Barbara’s room and also planned to take her to Salt Lake City in the morning. Tammy snapped. She accused Merril of being a “true monogamous” and said he had never lived plural marriage. Barbara was the only woman he treated as a wife and her children were the only children he cared about. Tammy told Merril that he treated the rest of us as his property or slaves. Tammy spoke the truth that none of us dared speak. Merril’s abuse was well-known among his wives. But none of us had ever found the courage to stand up to him because we were afraid of the consequences. Merril said nothing when he stood up. He washed his hands in Tammy’s bathroom and left her room. The next morning Tammy went into the kitchen and tried to apologize to Barbara and Merril before they left for Salt Lake City. Neither of them spoke to her. She had crossed every boundary, and now she would have to pay. Merril stopped speaking to her altogether. Tammy begged for his mercy and forgiveness. But she was an outcast. A few weeks later, Merril told her that he would never have sex with her again under any conditions. It was Tammy’s fault. Because of her rebellion Tammy would never bear another child of his. This devastated her. Tammy had been celibate during the ten years of her marriage to Uncle Roy because he was in his eighties when she married him while still in her late teens. It had taken her six years to get pregnant with Parley. Tammy wanted more children. Her mother had twenty children, and while Tammy knew she’d never come close to that number, she felt embarrassed and ashamed to have only one. Children reflected a woman’s sexual status with her husband and social status in the community. Tammy tried to get Merril to reconsider, but even though he would sleep in her room, he’d never touch her. Merril once took Tammy and me on a trip to Salt Lake City. He slept in Tammy’s room the first night of the trip. The next morning he called me on the phone and asked me to come to their room. I knocked on their door, and when Merril answered, he pulled me to him and gave me a kiss. Tammy started sobbing. Merril completely ignored her. I asked, “What’s wrong?”

• From Querelle (1953)

  105 I QUERELLE mason's authority. Not consciously: simply submitting to the fact that Thea did order, and did pay, for those rounds. Querelle was able to treat his officer with a fair amount of insolence, merely because they did not speak the same language. No doubt the Lieutenant cracked a joke now and again, but with a restraint that indicated the timidity or the haughtiness behind which Querelle guessed at the existence of a violent, unadmitted desire. Querelle knew himself to be the light hearted and audacious half of the relationship. Even if the officer had not shown any timidity, the crewman would have openly despised him. First because he knew the officer's love placed him at his mercy, and secondly because the officer wanted that love to remain hidden. In Quereile's case, cynicism was possible. But Gil was defenseless, faced with the cynicism of Theo, who spoke the mason's jargon, liked heavy practical jo kes, was unafraid of proclaiming his interest in buggery and did not have to fear being given the sack because of it. Though Thea had decided to pay for a drink now and again, Gil sensed very clearly that he would never sheii out a sou for his favors. What finally reinforced the mason ' s power over him was that friendship-however casual-which had developed during the first month. The more clearly he realized that the friendship was not leading anywhere, and that it would never lead to the goal he had envisaged, the more venomous Theo became. He refused to believe that he had been wasting his time and trouble and consoled himself by trying to believe that he had in fact created the association with the very intention of bringing about those tortures Gil was now undergoing. He hated Gil, hated him all the more because he could see no reason for hati ng him, only reasons for making him suffer. Gil hated Theo for having gained such a strong upper hand. One evening when, on coming out of the bistro, Thea had offhandedly patted his as s, Gil had restrained himself from punching him. "Well, he just bought me a drink,'' he tho ught. He was content to merely push Theo's hand away, but with a