Sadness

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 Cleanness (2020)

  I looked at the others, who were sitting on the grass in silence, the woman who had called me over, the man with his phone lowered now, not pressed to his ear, whatever conversation he had been having was over; all of them seemed as helpless as I felt, they all kept their distance from S. Only K. was any use, she was holding him with both her arms again, rocking back and forth a little and murmuring to him in Bulgarian. The protesters had passed and the street was quiet, but I couldn’t make out what she was telling him; whatever she was saying was having an effect, S. was calmer now. Finally the man with the telephone spoke, They’re coming, he said, meaning the police, they say we should wait for them, they’ll be here soon. That’s what they said twenty minutes ago, someone said, and the man shrugged and then sat down, leaving me the only one on my feet. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, D. again, probably wondering where I was, but I ignored it, I looked at S. and K. huddled together, and then at the street. Volunteers were cleaning up after the last protesters, a man and a woman, each with a broom and dust pail, each sweeping one side of the boulevard, collecting plastic bottles and bits of paper where they had gathered at the curb, the occasional discarded flag; and when their bins were full they carried them to a second woman who stood between them, holding a large garbage bag open. I wondered if they were the same people I had seen before, whether their entire protest consisted of cleaning up, that gesture M. had been so proud of, leaving the city better than they had found it, leaving it pristine. My phone buzzed again, but I didn’t want to meet D. now, I would write him soon to say I wasn’t coming, or not for a while. It was pointless for me to stick around, I couldn’t do anything to help, I wasn’t any help at all, but I let my bag drop to the grass anyway, I sat down with them to wait. IILOVING R.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  R. had stepped away as she spoke, turning his attention to the walls. She began to tell us about the paintings, glad to have an audience; she paused between sentences for me to translate, though I couldn’t always follow what she said. It was easy to tell apart the three artists as we scanned the walls: Her own paintings were swirling pale abstractions, her son’s glossy female nudes. Her husband’s work was larger and more striking, painted with the angular stylization of socialist-era art. Almost all of Sofia’s public art was in this style, which I liked, more or less, though my Bulgarian friends pursed their lips at my admiration. Mnogo sots, they would say, very socialist, not just about murals and monuments but about music, too, about movies and books, dismissing at a stroke whole generations. The largest of the paintings in the main room formed a series, each of them featuring a central figure with a lyre, his neck bent toward it as if playing for himself alone. That’s Orpheus, the woman said, do you know the story? I did, I had read Ovid in school, and when I said this her whole face lifted and lit up. How wonderful, she said, and then, he was from here, you know, he was Bulgarian, you can see his tomb in the south. I made a sound of polite interest, I had heard this before, and knew that for many people here the spiritual nation was still defined by its most expansive borders, Bulgaria na tri moreta, Bulgaria of the three seas, when for a brief moment it encompassed the whole of Thrace. I translated this too for R., and then, since he didn’t know the story, I sketched it for him: the wedding and the snake, the descent, the trees that uprooted themselves to dance, and then (though this wasn’t in the paintings) the Bacchantes, the slaughter, the head singing its way to Lesbos. We moved slowly, respectfully, through each of the rooms, and then, in the last, the woman directed us down a narrow staircase to a lower level. It was too steep for her, she said, not following us down, but take your time, look at whatever you like. The wooden planks made alarming noises as we descended, and I steadied myself against the wall; halfway down R. placed his hand on my shoulder, as if I were leading him through the dark. The basement was partitioned like the story above it, but it was unfinished; the floors were concrete, the space lit by bare bulbs hanging from wires. The walls here were crammed even more frantically with paintings, which were mounted haphazardly, wherever there was space, without any thought for coherence. In one room there was a heap of canvases stacked one on top of another, several columns of them piled almost to the ceiling, and I paused before them while R. explored the other rooms. This was where they put the paintings that didn’t sell, I supposed; they were displayed upstairs for a while and then moved here to make room. There were hundreds of them, enough for a life’s work, for several lives. It was a kind of trash heap, I thought, or might as well be; they would just sit there, gathering dust and mold, they would never be looked at again. They were buried here, along with the hours and days they had taken, the effort. We have an idea that the things we make will last, but they never do, or almost never; we make them and value them for a while and then they’re cleared away. There’s no metaphysics in it, I thought as I stood there staring at the heap of canvas and paint; it was like an automatic process, biological almost, a kind of excretion, there wasn’t any meaning in it, it laid no claim upon the future. And of course I thought of the pages I number and stack like those paintings, the things I have made, how arduous and ardent the effort, I thought, though I might as well have been counting stones as pages, I might as well have been stacking grains of sand. I repeated the words to myself, ardor and arduous, struck as I had been before by the false similarity between them; I rolled them around without intention, it hardly counts as thought, until as if by their own engendering there appeared among or against them a new word, ordure, the three words linked and tumbling, consequence and cause, until R. came up behind me and placed his hand on my neck, pulling my face toward his own.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  We had a late lunch at a restaurant near the hotel. It was almost empty, there were only a few solitary men nursing beers, though the air was still heavy with smoke from the afternoon rush. The large windows along the back wall offered the same view as our room, and R. and I sat at a table next to one of them, looking out at the hills and their crowded houses. These had been grand once, I thought, they rose three or sometimes four stories high; the grandest were built at the very edge of the rock, their walls flush with the cliff. Most of the façades were white, and they gleamed where the sun struck them, their windows shuttered against the heat, but there were other colors too, the bright yellows and blues and reds of the National Revival. I’d be scared to live here, R. said, it looks like the houses could just slide down the hill. I hummed a reply and he laughed. You love it, don’t you, he said, you always love sad places. Then he lifted himself up in his seat to look down the slope of our own hill, toward the banks of the river. Look, he said, and pointed to a series of shacks, what seemed almost like temporary shelters among the trees that filled the valley, with cinder block walls and roofs of corrugated metal. Do you think somebody lives there, he asked, and I said I did, I could see a garden and a tiny yard barely large enough for the mule it enclosed. Why would they need a horse, R. said, and then answered his own question, maybe that’s where the gypsies live. He settled back into his seat, losing interest, but I kept looking at that little house shadowed by trees and in earshot of the river, where it must be cool, I thought, even on the hottest days. When I looked back at him R. was watching me, folding the edge of his napkin up and then pressing it back down. Are you sad, he said, and I shrugged, not sure if I was. I looked back to the window, not at the houses now but at the forested hills beyond Tsarevets, which looked almost pristine, except for one crest where large billboard letters spelled out TECHNOPOLIS, a chain of electronics stores. It’s the only thing we can do, right, R. said, it’s the only thing that makes sense. It was a conversation we had had many times in the past weeks, and since he knew what I thought I didn’t respond. The waiter came then, anyway, bringing the pizza we had ordered. Don’t you think so, R. continued once he had gone, and I hesitated before answering, looking down at the slice of pizza I had taken but not lifting it from the plate. I don’t know, I said finally, I don’t know if it’s the right thing. And then, after a pause, But it’s not the only thing, I said, you know that, you know you could stay, maybe we’re giving up too fast. I would have said more but R. cut me off, he made the annoyed sound I expected, clucking his tongue. But we tried, he said, and I can’t live here. I’d just sit all day by myself, waiting for you to come home, playing computer games, that’s not a life, he said, we couldn’t be happy like that. I started to say that he would make friends, that he could keep looking for a job; there were call centers where they needed European languages, with Portuguese and good English he could find something at one of them. Or he could take classes, I said, he could study again at the school in Studentski grad where he had spent a semester. You could stay, I said, you could make a life here, you wouldn’t have to just sit at home. But I couldn’t put much energy into what I said; he had made a decision, what was the point of talking. I love you, I said, we love each other, it should be enough, though even as I said this I knew it was unfair.

• From The History of World Literature (2007)

  34 Lecture 8: Virgil’s Aeneid The last six books of the Aeneid are modeled on the Iliad, as the ¿ rst six were on the Odyssey. Aeneas must ¿ ght another Trojan War over Lavinia, whom he must win away from Turnus so that he can marry her and found a race blended from Trojan and Latin blood. In the battle, Turnus is another Greek- style hero ¿ ghting for personal reasons, while Aeneas is by now pius Aeneas, ¿ ghting for duty, destiny, and Rome. As in the Iliad, where Hector’s killing of Patroclus precipitates the climactic ¿ ght between Hector and Achilles, the killing of Pallas precipitates the climactic ¿ ght between Aeneas and Turnus. Turnus is defeated, concedes victory to Aeneas, and begs for mercy; after hesitating, Aeneas kills him. Readers and critics have argued for 2,000 years about the meaning of the killing of Turnus. Is it yet another illustration of pietas, with Aeneas doing what he must do in spite of his own impulses? Is it the last impulsive thing Aeneas ever does: striking back at a destiny which has cost him his individuality just before he disappears into history? The second half of the poem keeps the question of the cost of Roman achievement before us through the deaths of beautiful young men in what seems an unnecessary war, the pervading sadness of its tone, and the making of Dido and Turnus into the poem’s most attractive characters. The unprecedented era of peace and prosperity across the Roman world will be achieved by force (all the future Roman heroes Aeneas sees in Hades are soldiers). Aeneas must give up art, beauty, and personal happiness to become an agent of destiny. In addressing both sides of the issue of establishing peace and rule of law, Virgil shows his greatness as a poet and makes the Aeneid the most subtle analysis of Roman history that we have. Rome created a new kind of hero for our course: the one who ¿ ghts for a cause. We will run across both kinds of heroes in future stories. The Christian tradition in the Western world especially found this Roman conception of heroism attractive and useful. Ŷ [This poem] is a story of history. … It’s also a story of a man who… by the time it’s done, becomes simply an agent of destiny, of history, of inevitability.

• From Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006)

  Maria has taken hold of this idea. “I think my ‘low desire’ is, more than anything else, related to my lack of ownership around sex and my conflict with pleasure, especially pleasure with my husband. I can’t explain why I’m so uncomfortable opening myself up to Nico erotically. What I do know is that family is never where I’ve gone to get anything extra.” “Right. For you, family is about self-sacrifice, not enjoyment. But a healthy sense of entitlement is a prerequisite for erotic intimacy.” Only when Maria starts to look at what she brings to the erotic stalemate does Nico’s contribution become apparent. She asks him some of the same questions we have hashed out in our sessions. “What does sex mean for you?” “How was sex treated in your family?” “What are the important events that shaped your sexuality?” “What would you like to experience most with me sexually, and what are you most afraid of?” They spark conversations that are provocative and inspiring, that focus on possibilities rather than on problems. Maria learns that, for Nico, sex is both liberating and connecting, an eloquent mark of love. When she rebuffs him, he feels unloved. Nico is not a talker. Instead, he expresses caring by doing things: washing the dishes, shining her shoes, always keeping chocolate in the refrigerator. He makes sure that they get out of the house on the weekend, guilt-free (which Maria finds difficult), and don’t get bogged down with interminable housekeeping. He is generous with his affection, both with Maria and with their daughter. But the caresses stop when the sex starts. While he likes sex, he’s less in his element with seduction. “He’s so eager to get to the sex part of sex, where he knows what he’s doing, that he tends to gloss over the pursuit and the romance. The games, you know. I wind up feeling rushed. It takes Nico about two minutes to go from watching TV to being completely physically and emotionally ready to have intercourse. I need a slower buildup. And in my typical way of trying to take care of him, I don’t want him to feel bad, so I try to get turned on really fast. It’s a total fiasco.” For Nico, sex is a play in one act. For Maria it is a continuum of pleasures, a successive unfolding. The problem arises when they become trapped in a linear, goal-oriented focus on intercourse and orgasm that bypasses eroticism. In this setup she struggles with the idea that lingering is implicitly selfish and shamelessly greedy. Her lack of prerogative and lack of self-affirmation are met with Nico’s hurriedness, which further reinforces her notion that she is not worthy of attention. Of course she wouldn’t worry that she was taking too long if she thought he was into it. But for Nico slowness inspires a different kind of anxiety, a fear of inadequacy that he won’t perform well enough.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  tain it— many have grown callous, many have grown vile, but these things in themselves are despair, Miss Gordon. Yet outside there are happy people who sleep the sleep of the so-called just and righteous. When they wake it will be to persecute those who, through no known fault of their own, have been set apart from the day of their birth, deprived of all sympathy, all understand- ing. They are thoughtless, these happy people who sleep — and who is there to make them think, Miss Gordon? ’ ‘They can read,’ she stammered, ‘there are many books: «cs? But he shook his head. ‘Do you think they are students? Ah, but no, they will not read medical books; what do such people care for the doctors? And what doctor can know the entire truth? Many times they meet only the neurasthenics, those of us for whom life has proved too bitter. They are good, these doctors — some of them very good; they work hard trying to solve our problem, but half the time they must work in the dark - the whole truth is known only to the normal invert. The doctors cannot make the ignorant think, cannot hope to bring home the sufferings of millions; only one of ourselves can some day do that. . . . It will need great courage but it will be done, because all things must work toward ultimate good; there is no real wast- age and no destruction.’ He lit a cigarette and stared thoughtfully at her for a moment or two. Then he touched her hand. ‘ Do you comprehend? There is no destruction.’ She said: ‘When one comes to a place like this, one feels horribly sad and humiliated. One feels that the odds are too heavily against any real success, any real achievement. Where so many have failed who can hope to succeed? Perhaps this is the end.’ Adolphe Blanc met her eyes. ‘ You are wrong, very wrong — this is only the beginning. Many die, many kill their bodies and souls, but they cannot kill the justice of God, even they cannot kill the eternal spirit. From their very degradation that spirit will rise up to demand of the world compassion and Justice.’ THE WELL OF LONELINESS 451 Strange — this man was actually speaking her thoughts, yet again she fell silent, unable to answer. Dickie and Pat came back to the table, and Adolphe Blanc slipped quietly away; when Stephen glanced round his place was empty, nor could she perceive him crossing the room through the press and maze of those terrible dancers. 5 Dickie went sound asleep in the car with her head against Pat’s inhospitable shoulder. When they got to her hotel she wriggled and stretched. ‘Is it . . . is it time to get up? ° she murmured.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  He was speaking to the protesters now, the last of them passing by on the boulevard, mrazya vi, mrazya vi , each time saying it more loudly and angrily, so that people began to look our way; it made me nervous, and the others too, everyone moved just slightly toward one another. But none of the marchers stopped, they looked at us a moment and then looked away. K. kept putting her hand on S.’s back and he kept shaking it off, he didn’t want to be comforted. Mrazya vi , he said a final time, almost shouting it, and then his voice caught, he lowered his forehead against his knees. He let K. put her arm around him then, and after a moment he leaned back into her and returned the ice to his eye. I looked at the others, who were sitting on the grass in silence, the woman who had called me over, the man with his phone lowered now, not pressed to his ear, whatever conversation he had been having was over; all of them seemed as helpless as I felt, they all kept their distance from S. Only K. was any use, she was holding him with both her arms again, rocking back and forth a little and murmuring to him in Bulgarian. The protesters had passed and the street was quiet, but I couldn’t make out what she was telling him; whatever she was saying was having an effect, S. was calmer now. Finally the man with the telephone spoke, They’re coming, he said, meaning the police, they say we should wait for them, they’ll be here soon. That’s what they said twenty minutes ago, someone said, and the man shrugged and then sat down, leaving me the only one on my feet. I felt my phone buzz in my pocket, D. again, probably wondering where I was, but I ignored it, I looked at S. and K. huddled together, and then at the street. Volunteers were cleaning up after the last protesters, a man and a woman, each with a broom and dust pail, each sweeping one side of the boulevard, collecting plastic bottles and bits of paper where they had gathered at the curb, the occasional discarded flag; and when their bins were full they carried them to a second woman who stood between them, holding a large garbage bag open.

• From This Boy's Life: A Memoir (1989)

  Norma married Kenneth, and had their baby, and they moved into a duplex near Bothell. When we came down for visits she acted happy and never complained about anything. But she was pale and angular, all her lazy lushness gone. Her green eyes blazed in the starkness of her face. She had taken up smoking—out on their little patio where Kenneth wouldn’t smell it when he got home—and she continuously excused herself during our visits to go outside and puff greedily on a cigarette, tapping her feet and looking up at the sky, now and then glancing back at us through the sliding glass door. I saw Bobby Crow in Concrete a year or so later, just after I’d started high school there. He was standing beside a truck with some other men, most of them Indians. Bobby still had a measure of renown for his gridiron magic, and I thought I would impress the two boys I was with by a show of familiarity. As we walked past the truck I said, “Hey, Bobo, how’s it going?” The men fell quiet and looked over at us. Bobby fixed me with a stare. “Who the hell are you talking to?” he said. His eyes were full of murder. WE WATCHED TV most of Christmas Eve. When it got dark, Dwight left the house lights off so we could get the full effect of the lights on the tree. We broke to eat, then went back to the set. By the time the “Lawrence Welk Christmas Special” came on we were glassy-eyed and slack-jawed, stunned with viewing. The Champagne Orchestra played a medley of Christmas favorites, the sacred and profane mixed effervescently together, and then someone wearing knee-britches and a tricorner hat acted the part of Franz Gruber while Lawrence Welk intoned the narrative: “It was Christmas Eve in the little town of Oberndorf, and snow was falling as the organist Franz Gruber made his weary way to the little church that was soon to become famous throughout the world....” The Gruber character paused on the church steps, looked up suddenly with the fire of inspiration in his eyes, then dashed inside and plunked out “Silent Night.” He had to change a couple of notes here and there, but after he got it right the orchestra segued in and subsumed it into their own champagne arrangement, with Joe Feeney sobbing out a verse a cappella at the very end. The scene shifted. We found ourselves in an elegant room where, under a shimmering tree, The Lovely Little Lennon Sisters began to sing a medley of their own. Firelight gleamed on their faces. Snow fell slowly past the window behind them, a glockenspiel chimed in accompaniment. They were singing “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” when Dwight nudged me and motioned me to follow him. He looked pleased with himself. “It’s about time we got some use out of those chestnuts,” he said. The chestnuts.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 2: In that instantaneous movement of contrition, although it is not possible to find an actually distinct intensity in respect of each individual sin, yet it is found in the way explained above; and also in another way, in so far as, in this general contrition, each individual sin is related to that particular motive of sorrow which occurs to the contrite person, viz. the offense against God. For he who loves a whole, loves its parts potentially although not actually, and accordingly he loves some parts more and some less, in proportion to their relation to the whole; thus he who loves a community, virtually loves each one more or less according to their respective relations to the common good. In like manner he who is sorry for having offended God, implicitly grieves for his different sins in different ways, according as by them he offended God more or less. Reply to Objection 3: Although each mortal sin turns us away from God and deprives us of His grace, yet some remove us further away than others, inasmuch as through their inordinateness they become more out of harmony with the order of the Divine goodness, than others do. OF THE TIME FOR CONTRITION (THREE ARTICLES)We must now consider the time for contrition: under which head there are three points of inquiry: (1) Whether the whole of this life is the time for contrition? (2) Whether it is expedient to grieve continually for our sins? (3) Whether souls grieve for their sins even after this life? Whether the whole of this life is the time for contrition?Objection 1: It would seem that the time for contrition is not the whole of this life. For as we should be sorry for a sin committed, so should we be ashamed of it. But shame for sin does not last all one’s life, for Ambrose says (De Poenit. ii) that “he whose sin is forgiven has nothing to be ashamed of.” Therefore it seems that neither should contrition last all one’s life, since it is sorrow for sin. Objection 2: Further, it is written (1 Jn. 4:18) that “perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath pain.” But sorrow also has pain. Therefore the sorrow of contrition cannot remain in the state of perfect charity. Objection 3: Further, there cannot be any sorrow for the past (since it is, properly speaking, about a present evil) except in so far as something of the past sin remains in the present time. Now, in this life, sometimes one attains to a state in which nothing remains of a past sin, neither disposition, nor guilt, nor any debt of punishment. Therefore there is no need to grieve any more for that sin.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 3: Further, a cause is known by its effect. But outward pain has more striking effects: since man dies sooner of outward pain than of interior sorrow. Therefore outward pain is greater and is shunned more than interior sorrow. On the contrary, it is written (Ecclus. 25:17): “The sadness of the heart is every wound [Douay: ‘plague’], and the wickedness of a woman is all evil.” Therefore, just as the wickedness of a woman surpasses all other wickedness, as the text implies; so sadness of the heart surpasses every outward wound. I answer that, Interior and exterior pain agree in one point and differ in two. They agree in this, that each is a movement of the appetitive power, as stated above [1307](A[1]). But they differ in respect of those two things which are requisite for pain and pleasure; namely, in respect of the cause, which is a conjoined good or evil; and in respect of the apprehension. For the cause of outward pain is a conjoined evil repugnant to the body; while the cause of inward pain is a conjoined evil repugnant to the appetite. Again, outward pain arises from an apprehension of sense, chiefly of touch; while inward pain arises from an interior apprehension, of the imagination or of the reason. If then we compare the cause of inward pain to the cause of outward pain, the former belongs, of itself, to the appetite to which both these pains belong: while the latter belongs to the appetite directly. Because inward pain arises from something being repugnant to the appetite itself, while outward pain arises from something being repugnant to the appetite, through being repugnant to the body. Now, that which is of itself is always prior to that which is by reason of another. Wherefore, from this point of view, inward pain surpasses outward pain. In like manner also on the part of apprehension: because the apprehension of reason and imagination is of a higher order than the apprehension of the sense of touch. Consequently inward pain is, simply and of itself, more keen than outward pain: a sign whereof is that one willingly undergoes outward pain in order to avoid inward pain: and in so far as outward pain is not repugnant to the interior appetite, it becomes in a manner pleasant and agreeable by way of inward joy. Sometimes, however, outward pain is accompanied by inward pain, and then the pain is increased. Because inward pain is not only greater than outward pain, it is also more universal: since whatever is repugnant to the body, can be repugnant to the interior appetite; and whatever is apprehended by sense may be apprehended by imagination and reason, but not conversely. Hence in the passage quoted above it is said expressively: “Sadness of the heart is every wound,” because even the pains of outward wounds are comprised in the interior sorrows of the heart.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  There was a wooden platform at the bottom of the stairs, beside which the others had piled their shoes. I could see the whole coast, stretching from the old town, where we had eaten, which was quiet and dark, to the new town with its high-rise hotels, their windows facing the sea. One restaurant was still open, brightly lit in red and blue, and I could hear music, Balkan pop, the uneven drums and pipes, a woman’s voice singing restlessly around them. I couldn’t make out the words but they were always the same: something about love, I thought, something about loss. The beach was artificial, someone had told us, they trucked tons of sand in to this particular cove; the rest of the coast was rocky, there was nowhere to bathe, though young men, despite the posted warnings, climbed the rock walls each summer to jump into the sea. The Roman wall along the old town was perpetually lit by floodlights bolted to the rocks beneath it. I had walked beside it earlier that day, with a friend who had traveled from Burgas so we could spend an hour or two together, and he had shown me where the original wall ended and modern reconstruction began, a thin strip of metal running between them. Only the lowest stones were ancient, and I knelt to lay my hands on them, jagged and pocked from the salt air, imagining the hands that, generations ago, had placed them there. This city had been a major port once, the Romans had dedicated it to Apollo, setting a great statue of the god like a guard against the sea, though the statue had disappeared long ago.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  Finally we heard them moving, G. went on, we heard a door closing and steps coming from above, and then they came down the stairs together. They were shy, holding hands, it was like they were nervous about us seeing them. Our friend whistled at them and laughed, clapping his hands, and then they all laughed together. But I couldn’t laugh with them, not really, I could only pretend to laugh. They had changed, the two of them, they seemed like different people sitting there in chairs they pulled together as close as they could, leaning against each other, like people I didn’t know; and even though I could see B. glancing at me now and again, I couldn’t make myself meet his eyes. G. paused, lighting another cigarette though the ashtray was already full. The restaurant was busy now, every table was taken, the room was loud with conversation and laughter, but G. hadn’t raised his voice as he spoke; I had to strain to hear him, leaning forward as best I could. He was silent for a while, dragging on his cigarette. I was grateful for the pause, I was exhausted by listening to him, by the effort of it in that noisy space but also by the obligation it imposed, not just to listen but to feel in a way I had grown unaccustomed to feel. I didn’t want him to keep talking, I knew what he would say; it was such an ordinary story, which was what I had tried to tell myself when I was young and felt what G. felt now. But for G. it wasn’t a story at all, it was the air he breathed, though it was even less like air than water, it was the opposite of air.

• From Cleanness (2020)

  This was where they put the paintings that didn’t sell, I supposed; they were displayed upstairs for a while and then moved here to make room. There were hundreds of them, enough for a life’s work, for several lives. It was a kind of trash heap, I thought, or might as well be; they would just sit there, gathering dust and mold, they would never be looked at again. They were buried here, along with the hours and days they had taken, the effort. We have an idea that the things we make will last, but they never do, or almost never; we make them and value them for a while and then they’re cleared away. There’s no metaphysics in it, I thought as I stood there staring at the heap of canvas and paint; it was like an automatic process, biological almost, a kind of excretion, there wasn’t any meaning in it, it laid no claim upon the future. And of course I thought of the pages I number and stack like those paintings, the things I have made, how arduous and ardent the effort, I thought, though I might as well have been counting stones as pages, I might as well have been stacking grains of sand. I repeated the words to myself, ardor and arduous, struck as I had been before by the false similarity between them; I rolled them around without intention, it hardly counts as thought, until as if by their own engendering there appeared among or against them a new word, ordure, the three words linked and tumbling, consequence and cause, until R. came up behind me and placed his hand on my neck, pulling my face toward his own. I drew away from him after a moment. Let’s go, I said, taking his hand and pulling him toward the stairs; I wanted to escape the house and the weight of what filled it. When we climbed from the basement we found the woman waiting for us in the main room, standing hopefully at the glass table that served for a counter. There was a slight wilting in her frame when she saw we were empty-handed, something like a wave receding, though her smile never faltered as she asked whether we had enjoyed what we had seen.

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Same time available next week?” “Yes. And—good work today. I’m pleased, Halston, honored, that you trusted me enough to remember and reveal to me this whole remarkable and frightening incident.” Two hours later, on his walk to Jasmine, a Clement Street Vietnamese restaurant where he often lunched, Ernest had time to think about his session with Halston. On the whole, he was satisfied with the way he had handled Halston’s inclination to terminate. Even though he was overscheduled, he would not have liked himself if he had just let his patient walk out. Halston was struggling to break through to something important, and Ernest knew that his concerned, methodical, but not overly aggressive tactics had saved the day. It was remarkable how, Ernest thought, as he grew more experienced, fewer and fewer patients terminated prematurely. How threatened he had been, as a young therapist, by termination, taking everything personally and regarding every patient who quit as a personal defeat, a mark of ineffectiveness, a public disgrace. And he was grateful to Marshal, his former supervisor, for teaching him that such a reaction ensures ineffectiveness. Whenever therapists have too much ego riding on a patient’s decision, whenever they need a patient to stay in therapy, that’s when they lose their effectiveness: they begin to wheedle, to be seductive, to give patients exactly what they wish—anything to get them to return the following week. Ernest was glad too that he had supported and complimented Halston rather than voicing any doubts about the authenticity of the dramatic recall of the Artemis evening. Ernest wasn’t sure how to evaluate what he had just heard. He knew, of course, of sudden returns of repressed memories, but he had had little personal experience with such phenomena in his clinical work. Though relatively common in post-traumatic stress disorder, to say nothing of Hollywood portrayals of therapy, it was rare in Ernest’s quotidian psychotherapy. But all of Ernest’s self-congratulatory impulses passed quickly, as did all of his benevolent thoughts about Halston. What really captured his attention was Artemis. The more he thought about it, the more horrified he was by Halston’s behavior toward her. What kind of monster would make love, fantastic love, to a woman and then abandon her with no explanation, no note, no phone call? It was beyond belief. Ernest’s heart went out to Artemis. He knew exactly how she must have felt. Once, fifteen years ago, he had arranged a weekend rendezvous with Judy, an old girlfriend, at a New York hotel. They had spent a lovely night together, or so Ernest believed. In the morning he had left for a brief appointment and returned with a huge, grateful bouquet of flowers. But no Judy. She had left without a trace. Packed her bags and absconded—no note, and no response to his later phone calls or letters.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Reply to Objection 3: External pain arises from hurt done to the body, so that it involves bodily transmutation more than inward sorrow does: and yet the latter is greater in regard to the formal element of pain, which belongs to the soul. Consequently bodily pain is a greater hindrance to contemplation which requires complete repose, than inward sorrow is. Nevertheless if inward sorrow be very intense, it attracts the intention, so that man is unable to learn anything for the first time: wherefore on account of sorrow Gregory interrupted his commentary on Ezechiel (Hom. xxii in Ezechiel). Whether the effect of sorrow or pain is to burden the soul?Objection 1: It would seem that it is not an effect of sorrow to burden the soul. For the Apostle says (2 Cor. 7:11): “Behold this self-same thing, that you were made sorrowful according to God, how great carefulness it worketh in you: yea, defence, yea indignation,” etc. Now carefulness and indignation imply that the soul is uplifted, which is contrary to being depressed. Therefore depression is not an effect of sorrow. Objection 2: Further, sorrow is contrary to pleasure. But the effect of pleasure is expansion: the opposite of which is not depression but contraction. Therefore depression should not be reckoned as an effect of sorrow. Objection 3: Further, sorrow consumes those who are inflicted therewith, as may be gathered from the words of the Apostle (2 Cor. 2:7): “Lest perhaps such an one be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.” But that which is depressed is not consumed; nay, it is weighed down by something heavy, whereas that which is consumed enters within the consumer. Therefore depression should not be reckoned an effect of sorrow. On the contrary, Gregory of Nyssa [*Nemesius, De Nat. Hom. xix.] and Damascene (De Fide Orth. ii, 14) speak of “depressing sorrow.”

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  “Meaning what? Talk plainly,” said Merges, who had stopped grooming his belly and now sat on his haunches. “Meaning that you seem so fearful of death that you refrain from entering into life. It’s as though you fear using up life. Remember what you taught me just a few minutes ago about essential catness? Tell me, Merges, where now is the territory you defend? Where are the toms you battle? Where are the lustful, howling females you subdue? And why,” Ernest asked, emphasizing each word, “do you allow your precious Merges sperm seeds to rot unused?” As Ernest spoke, Merges’s head bowed low. Then, somewhat mournfully, he asked, “And you have only one life? How far are you into it?” “About halfway through.” “How can you stand it?” Suddenly Ernest felt a sharp pang of sadness. He reached for one of the napkins from the Chinese dinner and dabbed at his eyes. “I’m sorry,” said Merges, unexpectedly gently, “to have caused pain.” “Not at all. I was prepared. This turn in our conversation was inevitable,” Ernest said. “You ask how I can stand it? Well, first of all, by not thinking about it. And more, sometimes I even forget about it. And at my age that’s not too hard.” “At your age? What does that mean?” “We humans go through life in stages. As very young children, we think about death a great deal; some of us even obsess about it. It’s not hard to discover death. We simply look around and see dead things: leaves and lilies and flies and beetles. Pets die. We eat dead animals. Sometimes we’re privy to the death of a person. And before long we realize that death will come to everyone—to our grandma, to our mother and father, even to ourselves. We brood about this in private. Our parents and teachers, thinking it’s bad for children to think about death, keep silent about it or give us fairy tales about a heaven and angels, eternal reunion, immortal souls.” Ernest stopped, hoping Merges was following his words. “And then?” Merges was following all right. “We comply. We push it out of our minds, or we openly defy death with great feats of daredevilry. And then, just before we become adults, we brood a great deal about it again. Although some cannot bear it and refuse to go on living, most of us blot out our awareness of death by immersing ourselves in the tasks of adulthood—building a career and family, personal growth, acquiring possessions, exercising power, winning the race. That’s where I am now in life. After that stage, we enter the later era of life, where awareness of death emerges again, and now death is distinctly menacing—in fact, imminent. At that point, we have the choice of thinking about it a great deal and making the most of the life we still have or pretending in various ways that death is not coming at all.”

• From Momma and the Meaning of Life (1999)

  Although she wasn’t being malicious, her comment shifted the frame and stung me sharply. She never called me again. I phoned her a few times and twice took her to lunch. The first lunch (which was so painful that it was many months before I called her for another) began ominously. Finding the restaurant of our choice crowded, we went across the street to Trotter’s, a huge, cavernous structure, utterly without grace, that had had many previous lives: an Oldsmobile dealership, a natural-foods grocery store, a dance parlor. Now it was a restaurant featuring a menu of “dance” sandwiches—the Waltz, the Twist, the Charleston. No, it was not right; I felt it wasn’t right when I heard myself order a Hula sandwich and knew it wasn’t when Paula opened her purse, extracted a rock about the size of a small grapefruit, and placed it on the table between us. “My anger rock,” she said. From this point on, my memory is uncharacteristically spotty. Fortunately, I took some notes after our lunch—my conversations with Paula being too important to me to be entrusted to memory. “Anger rock?” I repeated blankly, transfixed by the lichen-covered boulder sitting on the table between us. “I’ve been buffeted about so much, Irv, that I’ve been swallowed by anger. Now I’ve learned to put anger away. Into this rock. I had to bring it today. I wanted it here when I met you.” “Why are you angry with me, Paula?” “I’m no longer angry. There’s too little time left to be angry. But I’ve been hurt; I’ve been deserted when I needed help most of all.” “I’ve never deserted you, Paula,” I said, but she didn’t acknowledge my comment and went on. “After the workshop I was shattered. Looking at Dr. Lee standing there tossing that chalk in the air, ignoring me, ignoring the human concerns of all patients, I felt the whole world give way under me. Patients are human. We struggle. Sometimes we struggle with great courage against cancer. Often we talk about winning or losing our fight—it is a fight. Sometimes we’re plunged into despair, sometimes into sheer physical exhaustion, and sometimes we rise above our cancer. We are not ‘coping strategies.’ We are much, much more than that.” “But Paula, that was Dr. Lee—that’s not me. That’s not the way I felt. I defended you when I spoke to him later; I’ve told you that. After all our work together, can you believe that I consider you nothing more than a coping strategy? I hate that language and that perspective as much as you do!” “You know, I’m really not going to return to the group.” “That’s not the point, Paula.” And it wasn’t. It was no longer of urgent concern to me whether she returned to the group.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 4: Further, it is written (Rom. 8:28) that “to them that love God all things work together unto good,” even sins as a gloss declares [*Augustine, De Correp. et Grat.]. Therefore there is no need for them to grieve for sin after it has been forgiven. Objection 5: Further, contrition is a part of Penance, condivided with satisfaction. But there is no need for continual satisfaction. Therefore contrition for sin need not be continual. On the contrary, Augustine in De Poenitentia [*De vera et falsa Poenitentia, work of an unknown author] says that “when sorrow ceases, penance fails, and when penance fails, no pardon remains.” Therefore, since it behooves one not to lose the forgiveness which has been granted, it seems that one ought always to grieve for one’s sins. Further, it is written (Ecclus. 5:5): “Be not without fear about sin forgiven.” Therefore man should always grieve, that his sins may be forgiven him. I answer that, As stated above ([4829]Q[3], A[1]), there is a twofold sorrow in contrition: one is in the reason, and is detestation of the sin committed; the other is in the sensitive part, and results from the former: and as regards both, the time for contrition is the whole of the present state of life. For as long as one is a wayfarer, one detests the obstacles which retard or hinder one from reaching the end of the way. Wherefore, since past sin retards the course of our life towards God (because the time which was given to us for the course cannot be recovered), it follows that the state of contrition remains during the whole of this lifetime, as regards the detestation of sin. The same is to be said of the sensible sorrow, which is assumed by the will as a punishment: for since man, by sinning, deserved everlasting punishment, and sinned against the eternal God, the everlasting punishment being commuted into a temporal one, sorrow ought to remain during the whole of man’s eternity, i.e. during the whole of the state of this life. For this reason Hugh of St. Victor says [*Richard of St. Victor, De Pot. Lig. et Solv. 3,5,13] that “when God absolves a man from eternal guilt and punishment, He binds him with a chain of eternal detestation of sin.” Reply to Objection 1: Shame regards sin only as a disgraceful act; wherefore after sin has been taken away as to its guilt, there is no further motive for shame; but there does remain a motive of sorrow, which is for the guilt, not only as being something disgraceful, but also as having a hurt connected with it. Reply to Objection 2: Servile fear which charity casts out, is opposed to charity by reason of its servility, because it regards the punishment. But the sorrow of contrition results from charity, as stated above ([4830]Q[3], A[2]): wherefore the comparison fails.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Whether Penance is a virtue?Objection 1: It would seem that penance is not a virtue. For penance is a sacrament numbered among the other sacraments, as was shown above ([4732]Q[84], A[1];[4733] Q[65], A[1]). Now no other sacrament is a virtue. Therefore neither is penance a virtue. Objection 2: Further, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 9), “shame is not a virtue,” both because it is a passion accompanied by a bodily alteration, and because it is not the disposition of a perfect thing, since it is about an evil act, so that it has no place in a virtuous man. Now, in like manner, penance is a passion accompanied by a bodily alteration, viz. tears, according to Gregory, who says (Hom. xxxiv in Evang.) that “penance consists in deploring past sins”: moreover it is about evil deeds, viz. sins, which have no place in a virtuous man. Therefore penance is not a virtue. Objection 3: Further, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iv, 3), “no virtuous man is foolish.” But it seems foolish to deplore what has been done in the past, since it cannot be otherwise, and yet this is what we understand by penance. Therefore penance is not a virtue. On the contrary, The precepts of the Law are about acts of virtue, because “a lawgiver intends to make the citizens virtuous” (Ethic. ii, 1). But there is a precept about penance in the Divine law, according to Mat. 4:17: “Do penance,” etc. Therefore penance is a virtue. I answer that, As stated above (OBJ[2];[4734] Q[84], A[10], ad 4), to repent is to deplore something one has done. Now it has been stated above ([4735]Q[84] , A[9]) that sorrow or sadness is twofold. First, it denotes a passion of the sensitive appetite, and in this sense penance is not a virtue, but a passion. Secondly, it denotes an act of the will, and in this way it implies choice, and if this be right, it must, of necessity, be an act of virtue. For it is stated in Ethic. ii, 6 that virtue is a habit of choosing according to right reason. Now it belongs to right reason than one should grieve for a proper object of grief as one ought to grieve, and for an end for which one ought to grieve. And this is observed in the penance of which we are speaking now; since the penitent assumes a moderated grief for his past sins, with the intention of removing them. Hence it is evident that the penance of which we are speaking now, is either a virtue or the act of a virtue. Reply to Objection 1: As stated above (Q[84], A[1], ad 1; [4736]AA[2],3), in the sacrament of Penance, human acts take the place of matter, which is not the case in Baptism and Confirmation. Wherefore, since virtue is a principle of an act, penance is either a virtue or accompanies a virtue, rather than Baptism or Confirmation.

• From Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  Objection 2: Further, by original sin man has been turned away from God, since in punishment thereof he was to be deprived of seeing God. But every man should be displeased at having been turned away from God. Therefore man should be displeased at original sin; and so he ought to have contrition for it. On the contrary, The medicine should be proportionate to the disease. Now we contracted original sin without willing to do so. Therefore it is not necessary that we should be cleansed from it by an act of the will, such as contrition is. I answer that, Contrition is sorrow, as stated above ([4825]Q[1], AA[1],2), respecting and, so to speak, crushing the hardness of the will. Consequently it can regard those sins only which result in us through the hardness of our will. And as original sin was not brought upon us by our own will, but contracted from the origin of our infected nature, it follows that, properly speaking, we cannot have contrition on its account, but only displeasure or sorrow. Reply to Objection 1: Contrition is for sin, not by reason of the mere substance of the act, because it does not derive the character of evil therefrom; nor again, by reason of its deformity alone, because deformity, of itself, does not include the notion of guilt, and sometimes denotes a punishment. But contrition ought to be on account of sin, as implying deformity resulting from an act of the will; and this does not apply to original sin, so that contrition does not apply to it. The same Reply avails for the Second Objection, because contrition is due to aversion of the will. Whether we should have contrition for every actual sin?Objection 1: It would seem that we have no need to have contrition for every actual sin we have committed. For contraries are healed by their contraries. Now some sins are committed through sorrow, e.g. sloth and envy. Therefore their remedy should not be sorrow, such as contrition is, but joy. Objection 2: Further, contrition is an act of the will, which cannot refer to that which is not known. But there are sins of which we have no knowledge, such as those we have forgotten. Therefore we cannot have contrition for them. Objection 3: Further, by voluntary contrition those sins are blotted out which we committed voluntarily. But ignorance takes away voluntariness, as the Philosopher declares (Ethic. iii, 1). Therefore contrition need not cover things which have occurred through ignorance. Objection 4: Further, we need not be contrite for a sin which is not removed by contrition. Now some sins are not removed by contrition, e.g. venial sins, that remain after the grace of contrition. Therefore there is no need to have contrition for all one’s past sins.