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.

Page 126 of 212 · 20 per page

• From Best Erotic Romance

  She’d known it when she’d turned her car off the highway and headed for the lake. She’d known it when she passed the “For Sale” sign at the end of wooded drive. She’d known it when she got out of the car and smelled the early autumn air, with its melancholy reminder that the seasons changed, that time moved on. That the past was lost. She’d known it when she twisted the key in the lock and opened the front door. The realtor hadn’t bothered with a lock box. The open house tomorrow would bring a slew of interested buyers, and there would be a bidding war for the vacation home. Bella had simply wanted to see the place one more time. No, not simply. There was nothing simple about divorce. She and Ethan had agreed to sell the cabin prior to the final paperwork and split the money. Neither of them wanted the other to have it. As far as Bella knew, Ethan didn’t want the place anyway. God knew she didn’t. Too many memories. Too many reminders of how happiness could drift away like autumn leaves falling from their trees, to be trampled underfoot and turned to dust. Inside, late afternoon light slanted off the lake and through the wall of windows and glass doors that led out onto the porch, filling the room with a warm glow and turning the wood to a gleaming deep honey. This had always been her favorite time of day here. She loved the play of the sunbeams on the water as the sun sank. She could sit on an Adirondack chair on the porch for hours, sipping a tart chardonnay, listening to the outboard motor hum of boats on the water and the occasional shout of an enthusiastic skier. Other than that, the rustle of the wind through the trees, the chatter of a squirrel or call of a bird was all that broke the peaceful silence. If the sliding glass door was open, she might also have heard Ethan banging pots and dishes in the kitchen as he made dinner. They tended to make simple meals when they came out here for the weekend: pasta aglio e olio with a salad of tomato and freshly shaved Parmesan. Omelets stuffed with feta and basil and garlic. Grilled chicken, the occasional steak. Fruit and cheese for dessert. Bella shook her head, trying to dislodge the remembrances. She shouldn’t have come. And yet she stepped inside, shut the door behind her. The cabin wasn’t tiny, but it was a comfortable size for a weekend getaway. The open plan meant that the view from the door was straight out the back to the lake. In the living room, simple Mission-style furniture gathered around a stone fireplace. Over the mantle was a painting of a proud buck (they had joked about hanging a deer’s head, but neither of them had really meant it), and boldly striped Indian-woven blankets were draped over the sofa and chairs.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  From that point on we lived in the garage. It was a warehouse, basically, and not the fancy, romantic sort of warehouse hipsters might one day turn into lofts. No, no. It was a cold, empty space. Gray concrete floors stained with oil and grease, old junk cars and car parts everywhere. Near the front, next to the roller door that opened onto the street, there was a tiny office built out of drywall for doing paperwork and such. In the back was a kitchenette, just a sink, a portable hot plate, and some cabinets. To bathe, there was only an open wash basin, like a janitor’s sink, with a showerhead rigged up above. Abel and my mom slept with Andrew in the office on a thin mattress they’d roll out on the floor. I slept in the cars. I got really good at sleeping in cars. I know all the best cars to sleep in. The worst were the cheap ones, Volkswagens, low-end Japanese sedans. The seats barely reclined, no headrests, cheap fake-leather upholstery. I’d spend half the night trying not to slide off the seat. I’d wake up with sore knees because I couldn’t stretch out and extend my legs. German cars were wonderful, especially Mercedes. Big, plush leather seats, like couches. They were cold when you first climbed in, but they were well insulated and warmed up nicely. All I needed was my school blazer to curl up under, and I could get really cozy inside a Mercedes. But the best, hands-down, were American cars. I used to pray for a customer to come in with a big Buick with bench seats. If I saw one of those, I’d be like, Yes! It was rare for American cars to come in, but when they did, boy, was I in heaven. Since Mighty Mechanics was now a family business, and I was family, I also had to work. There was no more time for play. There wasn’t even time for homework. I’d walk home, the school uniform would come off, the overalls would go on, and I’d get under the hood of some sedan. I got to a point where I could do a basic service on a car by myself, and often I did. Abel would say, “That Honda. Minor service.” And I’d get under the hood. Day in and day out. Points, plugs, condensers, oil filters, air filters. Install new seats, change tires, swap headlights, fix taillights. Go to the parts shop, buy the parts, back to the workshop. Eleven years old, and that was my life. I was falling behind in school. I wasn’t getting anything done. My teachers used to come down on me. “Why aren’t you doing your homework?” “I can’t do my homework. I have work, at home.”

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Setting the bags on the kitchen counter, she glanced at the blinking light on the answering machine and pressed Play. “Kim, it’s Maria. I’ve been meaning to call you. Drake told me about Terry, and I’m so sorry—we both are. Keep in touch, and if there’s anything I can do, please let me know.” She paused. Kim could picture Maria’s blue eyes shining with sincerity, delicate features emanating concern. “As you may know, Drake’s not altogether certain about his job either at this point. Anyway, feel free to give me a call, Kim. Take care.” Kim sighed. She remembered the first time she’d met Maria, the wife of her husband’s colleague—former colleague now—Drake, several years ago at the company’s annual gala. “Oh my god—your husband looks exactly like Denzel Washington!” had been one of the first things Maria had ever said to her, after their husbands were whisked away for an informal conference immediately following their introduction. She’d giggled, hiccupping a bit as she turned wide eyes back to Kim. “I hope you don’t mind my saying that.” Kim had laughed. She’d liked Maria immediately, charmed by the bubbling spunk that seemed somewhat spurred by the glasses of white wine that occupied the petite woman’s hand most of the evening. She knew what Maria meant, of course, was that she hoped Kim didn’t mind that she had just spent the last several seconds ogling her husband. Kim didn’t mind, and she’d given Maria a wink as she answered, “I know.” Writing herself a note to call Maria, Kim stuck the Post-it near the phone and turned to unload the bags on the counter. It was Tuesday. The news had come a week ago the previous Friday, when Terry had gone to work as usual with no wisp of an idea that he would return home a few hours later without a job. The layoff was a surprise to individual employees, but it was not surprising in the face of the current economy. Kim hadn’t panicked—it wasn’t her style—but the effect it had on Terry was dramatic. She suspected it was more than concern about their financial well-being. Losing the job he had worked so hard at to make his way to second-tier management hurt something inside him. Something he had taken for granted, that external circumstances had allowed to be latent. If Kim was right, though, it wasn’t about anything external. She felt her stomach tighten as she put away the groceries. The financial implications, of course, would soon make themselves known. They would be okay for this month, and probably the next. After that was uncertain.

• From Combating Cult Mind Control: The Guide to Protection, Rescue and Recovery from Destructive Cults (1988)

  Imagine, then, how they react when I tell them that this lack of awareness is the result of disinformation campaigns, not just by cults but by the very institutions that are supposed to protect our constitutional freedoms. Cults And The United States Government Public reaction to the Jonestown massacre on November 18, 1978, was shock and disbelief. The murder of a United States congressman showed that some cult leaders would stop at nothing to keep anyone, especially someone in a legitimate position of authority, from exposing them to public scrutiny. I was deeply saddened by news of the assassination of congressman Leo Ryan. I knew that he was highly knowledgeable and concerned about destructive cults. He had been a leading member of the Congressional investigation of Korean-American Relations headed by congressman Donald Fraser. Released on October 31, 1978—just a few short weeks before the mass suicide at Jonestown—the Fraser Report, as it came to be known, recommended that an Executive branch inter-agency task force be set up to pursue illegal activities committed by the Moon organization.196 No action was taken on that recommendation. (Moon was convicted four years later of felony tax fraud, and served thirteen months in a minimum security prison in Danbury, Connecticut). It seemed that something was being done about the cult problem, given all the activity on Capitol Hill, in the late 1970s. After Jonestown, Congress launched a formal inquiry. On May 15, 1979, a House Foreign Affairs Committee issued its report, describing in detail the brainwashing tactics of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple. They concluded by recommending that the National Institute of Mental Health be given funds to further research on mind control and destructive cult groups. Nothing was ever done to follow up on that recommendation, either. However, Senator Bob Dole did put together a hearing on cults after Jonestown at which I was invited to speak. On the morning of the hearing, I was suddenly told that no former cult member would be permitted to speak. We were told that this was to avoid allowing current cult members equal time to speak. Yet in the hearing room—which was filled with ex-members holding up signs saying, “Elect Bob Dole President, Repeal the First Amendment”—we found that Neil Salonen, the spokesperson for the Moonies, had, nonetheless, been allowed to deliver a statement. I was beginning to realize the political clout of the cults. But I came to realize much more. What the Jonestown “inquiry” showed me—and many others—was that in the face of an outrageous and evil act, the best our government could do was to hold a highly-censored hearing—a public show that neither got to the details of what happened nor took steps to see that such terrible events would never happen again.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  My mom would have to fight with the bigger kids to get a handful of meat or a sip of the gravy or even a bone from which to suck out some marrow. And that’s when there was food for dinner at all. When there wasn’t, she’d steal food from the pigs. She’d steal food from the dogs. The farmers would put out scraps for the animals, and she’d jump for it. She was hungry; let the animals fend for themselves. There were times when she literally ate dirt. She would go down to the river, take the clay from the riverbank, and mix it with the water to make a grayish kind of milk. She’d drink that to feel full. But my mother was blessed that her village was one of the places where a mission school had contrived to stay open in spite of the government’s Bantu education policies. There she had a white pastor who taught her English. She didn’t have food or shoes or even a pair of underwear, but she had English. She could read and write. When she was old enough she stopped working on the farm and got a job at a factory in a nearby town. She worked on a sewing machine making school uniforms. Her pay at the end of each day was a plate of food. She used to say it was the best food she’d ever eaten, because it was something she had earned on her own. She wasn’t a burden to anyone and didn’t owe anything to anyone. When my mom turned twenty-one, her aunt fell ill and that family could no longer keep her in Transkei. My mom wrote to my gran, asking her to send the price of a train ticket, about thirty rand, to bring her home. Back in Soweto, my mom enrolled in the secretarial course that allowed her to grab hold of the bottom rung of the white-collar world. She worked and worked and worked but, living under my grandmother’s roof, she wasn’t allowed to keep her own wages. As a secretary, my mom was bringing home more money than anyone else, and my grandmother insisted it all go to the family. The family needed a radio, an oven, a refrigerator, and it was now my mom’s job to provide it. So many black families spend all of their time trying to fix the problems of the past. That is the curse of being black and poor, and it is a curse that follows you from generation to generation. My mother calls it “the black tax.” Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  “Oh, she had a family obligation.” They stood close, Connie quickly scanning the back of the room while Franklin’s eyes wandered over her head. “Yo, Dave, I’ve gotta talk to you before you leave! Connie, the hooch is over there, there’s some cake and stuff in the kitchen. And don’t disappear! There’s somebody I want to introduce you to.” He squeezed her shoulder and moved away, and she penetrated more deeply into the crowd, heading for the discordant light-reflective arrangement of bottles and tumbling towers of paper cups. As she approached the table and reached for the slim neck of a vodka bottle, a woman turned around and she stood facing Alice. The neat proportions of surprise, warmth and compassion in the resulting declaration—“Connie!”—suggested that Alice had been prepared for this. She made a tentative half move with her upper body that looked like the first stage of a hug; Connie half moved in response and then stopped, so Alice stopped and they paused to look at each other, slowly recovering their distance. Connie wondered if Alice was inspecting her crow’s-feet. “So, how’ve you been?” she asked. “How’s your painting?” “Good! I mean, I’m much more productive than I was when I knew you. I don’t spend half as much time tearing my hair out.” “Do you still have the feelings of resentment you had about Roger’s success?” Alice’s eyes slid sideways toward her with a short burst of expression that was like the gliding movement of a bird; this was a reference to their old discussions about Roger’s commercial success and Alice’s bitter jealousy. “Yes, I do, but I’ve dealt with it. I’m not such a bitch about it. My own productivity has made it easier.” They stood linked by a delicate membrane of remembered intimacy. “I hear your writing is going well.” “Yeah, it is.” Connie listed the year’s accomplishments, becoming for an annoying moment the girl from out of town who was trying to impress imperious Alice. The conversation was not what she had planned; they were talking like acquaintances at a party, perhaps because they were. “The magazine was fun at first,” she finished. “But I’m not so happy there now. I don’t have the influence that I thought I would. And it pays nothing.” “Still, it’s a good spot, right? To make connections?” “Yeah.” They stood looking in slightly different directions as the connective tissue began to dissolve in an anomaly of music and party chatter. Connie glanced sideways at Alice’s face; there were tiny lines and a faint dryness that made her skin look frail, but the bone structure and demeanor still had the imposing, impenetrable look of a fashion model staring down a lifetime of cameras. “How’s your mother?” asked Connie. Again there was the gliding appearance of open expression. “She died a few years ago. Just a little while after I talked to you last.” Another threadlike connection stretched between them, but Connie wasn’t sure what it was.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  He wouldn’t be able to see Jane much at all once Sylvia got back. He thought of his wife getting on the plane in her green-and-white dress, the handle of her wicker suitcase in hand, her gray hair wound into an elegant bun that displayed her graceful neck and gently erect shoulders. Her smile was beautiful when she turned to wave good-bye. He pictured Sylvia sitting in her favorite armchair across from him. She would be relaxed but sitting up straight on the tautly stuffed, salmon-colored cushions. Her legs would be crossed at the ankle. She would have her pale beige glasses on her nose, she would be in a trance over her latest book catalogues. If he stood up and put his hand on her shoulder, he would feel how slender and strong she still was, how well defined her small bones were. He thought of her collection of rare books, arranged and locked in the glass cabinet in a sunny corner of her study. They were beautiful to look at and extremely expensive; other book dealers had offered her thousands of dollars for some of them. Every time he looked at them, he felt depressed. One Christmas, he bought Sylvia a book entitled Beautiful Sex. It made him unhappy to remember that night when, with Beautiful Sex lying open on their bed to reveal a series of glossy pink-and-white photos, she cooperatively arranged herself into one of the more conventional positions illustrated, sighing as she did so. “Now, honey,” she said, “tell the truth. Don’t you feel foolish doing this?” He clicked off the TV and left the room, making a mental note to put the plates in the dishwasher before he went to bed. — The next day he drove to Manhattan right after work, without stopping at home for a shower. Perhaps Jane would notice the vague animal smell on him. She might ask him about it and he could tell her the truth about what he did.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  “So why did you come back?” she asked. He dashed salt and pepper over the thick steak, not looking at her. “Nostalgia, I suppose. One last night in the cabin. You?” “Same thing, although I just wanted to stop by.” She leaned against the counter, shook her head. “I guess I didn’t really comprehend that it was for sale, that it wouldn’t be ours any longer, until I saw the sign.” “Same here.” He ran water over the vegetables in the colander. “Look, Bella, I…” “I know,” she said. “Me, too.” She looked down at the wine, but it didn’t give her any easy answers. There probably weren’t any. She looked back up. “I’d like to stay for dinner. What can I do?” She rinsed off two baking potatoes—he’d grabbed a bag of them at the store—and pricked them with a fork, smelling the earthy scent of them. She was, she realized, famished. Astonishing, really, how easy it was to fall into the old routines. The two of them in the kitchen, she being sous chef to his head cook. But at the same time, it was also awkward; they’d lost the automatic way they’d had of moving around each other, not bumping into each other (unless they really wanted to, sharing a laughing kiss before turning back to the task at hand). Somewhere along the line, they’d lost that. It had been a gradual transition. Bella couldn’t look back and find one instant, one moment when everything turned. It came down to a series of missteps, and before they noticed the stumbles, it was too late to catch up and right themselves, and the marriage. Ethan’s business had gone under, and although she still had a good job, he stressed about money. He pulled away from her, confided in another woman. It had been a purely emotional relationship, not physical in the least, but for Bella that had cut deeper than if he’d had an affair. It had been her mistake to fall into bed with someone else. She and Ethan had argued (again), she’d stayed late at work and then gone out for a drink that had turned into several, followed by a tumble with an acquaintance. She didn’t forgive herself by the fact that she’d been tipsy, because it had happened a few more times, until her lover had gone back to his own wife. It had been a mistake, and it had been the final nail in the coffin. After that, she and Ethan tried and failed (finally) to reconcile, to come to some middle ground. They were so far apart that they couldn’t see the middle. Certainly they couldn’t see each other. Now, she chopped vegetables, crumbled bleu cheese, and tossed a salad, and then they went onto the porch with their wine to wait for the potatoes to bake. Ethan would throw the steaks on at the last minute. A loon called, low and haunting.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  “The same garbage. If I’d known I was going to work for a clone of my mother, I never would’ve taken the job.” Deana rinsed her three shaved carrots meticulously, then went into the bathroom to tear off a large piece of toilet paper, folded it on the counter and put the carrots on it to drain. (One of her idiosyncrasies, which still caused Connie a pang of tender amusement, was her aversion to eating wet vegetables or fruit; she routinely dried pieces of cut fruit before putting them in her cereal.) “So what’s your problem?” Connie shrugged and sank into the mattress again. “I ran into somebody…not somebody I dislike really, just somebody I associate with anxiety.” “Who?” “Somebody I haven’t seen in years. Do you remember me mentioning Franklin Weston?” Deana snapped off the end of a carrot. “Was he the guy you used to proofread with, who became some sort of quasi-famous art critic or something?” “Yeah.” Rat Fink, the male cat, came into grabbing range, and Constance scooped him into her lap like a large plush bunny, his eyes agog, paws helpless and limp in the air. “He’s connected with some people I used to know before I met you. One person who—who hurt me, who rejected me in fact. Did I ever tell you about Alice?” “A bit,” said Deana, quietly crunching. “Well, she came up in conversation and it depressed me. That’s all.” Rat Fink squeaked and flailed in her arms, wildly swatted his helpless tail, then jumped from her lap and hit the female cat on the nose. “The last time Alice and I talked was three years ago. It was when I was doing horribly, everything was going wrong, my writing was a disaster, I couldn’t breathe, and I got so depressed that I couldn’t eat. I was afraid to say anything about it to anyone and finally I decided to trust Alice enough to talk to her. Franklin kept saying ‘Connie, Alice loves you,’ in that stupid way he has, and I thought, Well, we’ve been friends for two years, so I told her. And she said, ‘Connie, nobody wants to be around somebody who’s unhappy.’ She told me I should see a therapist, and never called me again. She didn’t return my calls either.” “Why didn’t you call her and yell at her?” “I don’t know. I didn’t have the spirit, I guess. I felt pretty ravaged.” “It sounds like she was afraid of being unhappy herself,” said Deana. “Except that she didn’t have anything to be unhappy about. She had—still has—a rich husband, a beautiful apartment, a prefabricated social life—” “Oh, come on. Everybody has their sadness. And most people are scared of it. She sounds like one of those.” “All those clothes, those trips to Europe—sheer terror, I’m sure.” “Well, in any case, it doesn’t sound like she was much of a friend. I’d say you were well rid of her.”

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  She stood there not thinking about anything, just hearing the wind and the faint hum of the house. — Charles and Jarold had a fight. Charles was graduating from high school and he didn’t want to go to college. He just wanted to move out of the house. Jarold told him his attitude was stupid and weak. “Magdalen thought she’d go the unconventional, freaky route,” said Jarold at breakfast, “and look where it got her. Married, a mother. And happy for the first time in her mixed-up life.” “I still think Magdalen’s freaky,” said Charles. It went on for about a week. Then Charles lost his temper. He said, “I’d rather be on my face in the Bowery than be a horse’s ass like you.” “Charles,” said Virginia. Jarold crossed the room and belted Charles across the face, knocking him out of his chair. Virginia dropped her glass in the sink and ran to Charles. “Don’t you dare hit my son!” she screamed. “Oh, get out of here, you idiot,” said Charles. He wiped the blood from his mouth in a bored way. — Virginia began sitting up late at night in the den, drinking and staring at her gray feet. She made sarcastic comments that nobody paid any attention to. Jarold called her “Mother.” “Now, Mother,” he’d say. Charles moved to New York. He got a job in a record store and an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Other than that, it was hard to tell what he was doing. — Virginia called Camille. Camille was meeting wonderful new people and being successful. She told lots of funny stories. But then she said, “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but I’m having a hard time keeping it to myself. Last month Magdalen told me that John slapped her. Not hard or anything. But still.” She paused so Virginia could say something. Virginia sat quietly and stared at the kitchen. “Of course, we both know how annoying Magdalen can be,” continued Camille. “But that doesn’t give him the right to strike her.” Virginia left the conversation feeling cheated. Camille had told her about Magdalen at the end of the conversation, after all the good things. That seemed strange to Virginia. She sat for a long time on the stool under the phone with her legs tightly crossed and her elbows on the knee of one leg. She thought about how awful the kitchen was. There were balls of dust and tiny crumbs around the edges of the floor. Pans full of greasy water ranged across the counter. The top of the refrigerator was black. Everything in the room seemed disconnected from its purpose. — In the fall, Daniel decided that he didn’t like engineering school and dropped out. Jarold argued with him over the phone for a long time. When he hung up, Jarold went out into the garage and sat in the car with a scarf around his neck.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Deana snapped off the end of a carrot. “Was he the guy you used to proofread with, who became some sort of quasi-famous art critic or something?” “Yeah.” Rat Fink, the male cat, came into grabbing range, and Constance scooped him into her lap like a large plush bunny, his eyes agog, paws helpless and limp in the air. “He’s connected with some people I used to know before I met you. One person who—who hurt me, who rejected me in fact. Did I ever tell you about Alice?” “A bit,” said Deana, quietly crunching. “Well, she came up in conversation and it depressed me. That’s all.” Rat Fink squeaked and flailed in her arms, wildly swatted his helpless tail, then jumped from her lap and hit the female cat on the nose. “The last time Alice and I talked was three years ago. It was when I was doing horribly, everything was going wrong, my writing was a disaster, I couldn’t breathe, and I got so depressed that I couldn’t eat. I was afraid to say anything about it to anyone and finally I decided to trust Alice enough to talk to her. Franklin kept saying ‘Connie, Alice loves you,’ in that stupid way he has, and I thought, Well, we’ve been friends for two years, so I told her. And she said, ‘Connie, nobody wants to be around somebody who’s unhappy.’ She told me I should see a therapist, and never called me again. She didn’t return my calls either.” “Why didn’t you call her and yell at her?” “I don’t know. I didn’t have the spirit, I guess. I felt pretty ravaged.” “It sounds like she was afraid of being unhappy herself,” said Deana. “Except that she didn’t have anything to be unhappy about. She had—still has—a rich husband, a beautiful apartment, a prefabricated social life—” “Oh, come on. Everybody has their sadness. And most people are scared of it. She sounds like one of those.” “All those clothes, those trips to Europe—sheer terror, I’m sure.” “Well, in any case, it doesn’t sound like she was much of a friend. I’d say you were well rid of her.” “Yeah, I guess.” Connie pulled herself out of the mattress, readjusted her weight and sank in at another angle. “It’s just…the whole conversation was a vivid reminder of what it was like for me back then.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  What they would have done to us if they had caught us I don’t know. Anyway, so as not to arouse any suspicion we hurried home; we had cleaned up a bit on the way and had combed our hair. We walked in looking almost as immaculate as when we had left the house. Aunt Caroline gave us our usual two big slices of sour rye with fresh butter and a little sugar over it and we sat there at the kitchen table listening to her with an angelic smile. It was an extremely hot day and she thought we had better stay in the house, in the big front room where the blinds had been pulled down, and play marbles with our little friend Joey Kasselbaum. Joey had the reputation of being a little backward and ordinarily we would have trimmed him, but that afternoon, by a sort of mute understanding, Gene and I allowed him to win everything we had. Joey was so happy that he took us down to his cellar later and made his sister pull up her dress and show us what was underneath. Weesie, they called her, and I remember that she was stuck on me instantly. I came from another part of the city, so far away it seemed to them, that it was almost like coming from another country. They even seemed to think that I talked differently from them. Whereas the other urchins used to pay to make Weesie lift her dress up, for us it was done with love. After a while we persuaded her not to do it any more for the other boys—we were in love with her and we wanted her to go straight. When I left my cousin the end of the summer I didn’t see him again for twenty years or more. When we did meet what deeply impressed me was the look of innocence he wore—the same expression as the day of the rock fight. When I spoke to him about the fight I was still more amazed to discover that he had forgotten that it was we who had killed the boy; he remembered the boy’s death but he spoke of it as though neither he nor I had any part in it. When I mentioned Weesie’s name he had difficulty in placing her. Don’t you remember the cellar next door . . . Joey Kesselbaum? At this a faint smile passed over his face. He thought it extraordinary that I should remember such things. He was already married, a father, and working in a factory making fancy pipe cases. He considered it extraordinary to remember events that had happened so far back in the past. On leaving him that evening I felt terribly despondent. It was as though he had attempted to eradicate a precious part of my life, and himself with it.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Virginia called Magdalen late that night, when Jarold was in bed. She didn’t hear anything strange in her voice. When Virginia got off the phone, she put on an old gray sweater and walked from room to room. The rooms were dark and hollow. They seemed unfamiliar and eerie, but that didn’t make her go upstairs or turn on the light. She stood in the middle of the dark living room with her feet together, wrapping the sweater around her. She stood there not thinking about anything, just hearing the wind and the faint hum of the house. — Charles and Jarold had a fight. Charles was graduating from high school and he didn’t want to go to college. He just wanted to move out of the house. Jarold told him his attitude was stupid and weak. “Magdalen thought she’d go the unconventional, freaky route,” said Jarold at breakfast, “and look where it got her. Married, a mother. And happy for the first time in her mixed-up life.” “I still think Magdalen’s freaky,” said Charles. It went on for about a week. Then Charles lost his temper. He said, “I’d rather be on my face in the Bowery than be a horse’s ass like you.” “Charles,” said Virginia. Jarold crossed the room and belted Charles across the face, knocking him out of his chair. Virginia dropped her glass in the sink and ran to Charles. “Don’t you dare hit my son!” she screamed. “Oh, get out of here, you idiot,” said Charles. He wiped the blood from his mouth in a bored way. — Virginia began sitting up late at night in the den, drinking and staring at her gray feet. She made sarcastic comments that nobody paid any attention to. Jarold called her “Mother.” “Now, Mother,” he’d say. Charles moved to New York. He got a job in a record store and an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Other than that, it was hard to tell what he was doing. — Virginia called Camille. Camille was meeting wonderful new people and being successful. She told lots of funny stories. But then she said, “I don’t know if I should tell you this, but I’m having a hard time keeping it to myself. Last month Magdalen told me that John slapped her. Not hard or anything. But still.” She paused so Virginia could say something. Virginia sat quietly and stared at the kitchen. “Of course, we both know how annoying Magdalen can be,” continued Camille. “But that doesn’t give him the right to strike her.”

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Because of the thing with Franklin too. I don’t remember if I ever told you about him, but just before the thing with Alice happened, he made this monstrous come-on to me, saying how much he loved me, going on and on about how beautiful and special I was, literally trying to drag me onto his mattress—it was bewildering, and I didn’t quite trust it, and as it turned out, I was right. After a week of this he suddenly disappeared, and the next time I spoke to him, like two weeks later, he told me he was getting married to somebody named Emily, which he did.” “Another fine human being.” “But the thing about Franklin was that he had been a friend of mine up to that point. He virtually got me published in New York magazine. That’s why it felt so awful. It was as if he and Alice had simultaneously decided—” Deana left her carrots and, putting her fingers on Connie’s lips, pitched the two of them into the center of the mattress. “God, you must be really depressed. I haven’t heard you talk like this for ages.” She stroked Connie’s hair and smoothed her eyebrows. The mattress rasped and squeaked as they curled against each other like kittens in a shoe box. — “Franklin invited me to a party where Alice will be. I don’t know what to do.” “Are you still thinking about that?” They had just finished their take-out Chinese meal. Small white containers ranged over the table with fork handles protruding erectly from their centers; little balls of hardening rice trailed from container to plate; the cats circled beneath them with stiff, ardent steps. Deana was still lazily eating her spareribs and drinking her Vita-C. “Connie, if this woman is such a bad memory, why don’t you just forget it? Why dwell on her? She isn’t in your life anymore.” Connie looked at the bright, cold flower of broccoli splayed prettily on the edge of her plate. “The thing is, Alice and I had a good time together.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Virginia’s nightgown was hot and her feet were dry. She felt as if she couldn’t close her eyes. She remembered the afternoon conversations they had shared and their walks in the mountains. They seemed meaningless now—like bits of color glimpsed through a kaleidoscope. She felt an unhappy chill. Virginia turned, and the blankets rasped in the long silence. In a fiercely sudden move, she put her body against Lily’s, and her arm around her. She waited, almost frightened. For several seconds there was no reaction. Then Virginia could feel every muscle in Lily’s body slowly tightening. Lily’s body became rigid. Her back began to sweat. They lay like that, uncomfortably, for a long time. Having moved, it was hard for Virginia to turn away again. — The next day they ate birthday cake from paper plates on their laps as they watched TV. Jarold said, “Well, do you feel fifteen?” “I don’t know,” said Lily. It seemed like she really didn’t know. She looked badly shaken. Jarold didn’t say anything else. Charles stopped eating his cake and looked at Lily for a long moment. He looked puzzled and disturbed; for one thing, Lily loved cake and she hadn’t eaten any of the cake in her lap. — Virginia didn’t tell Jarold about the drugs, but he got rid of Lily anyway. She had stayed out with her friends one night, and he had her things packed when she came back the next morning. They drove her to the airport within the hour and left her waiting for a standby flight with her clothes in a big white shopping bag. Virginia kissed her good-bye, but it didn’t feel like anything. That night Anne called. Lily had not gone home. She had taken a plane to Canada instead. “I don’t think we’ll send anybody after her this time,” said Anne. “It wouldn’t do any good. Nothing we ever did was any good.” “Don’t blame yourself,” said Virginia. For a few days afterward, Jarold talked about how awful it had been to have Lily there. Then he forgot about it. Charles was the last person to mention her. It was shortly after Virginia got a call from Magdalen. He said, “You and Dad were always acting like Lily and Magdalen were alike. But they weren’t anything alike at all.” — For a while after that, life was okay. Magdalen was still acting like an idiot, but seemed to have stabilized in a harmless way; she had a steady job as a waitress in a health-food restaurant in South Carolina, and talked about astral travel and crystal healing when they called her. Camille was in law school at Harvard. She was engaged to a handsome, smiling med student.

• From Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood (2016)

  Slowly the rush would start to taper off and we’d wind down. We’d make our last collections, go over our CD stock, balance our accounts. If there was a party to DJ that night we’d start getting ready for that. Otherwise, we’d buy a few beers and sit around and drink, talk about the day, listen to the gunshots in the distance. Gunshots went off every night, and we’d always try to guess what kind of gun it was. “That’s a nine-millimeter.” Usually there’d be a police chase, cop cars flying through after some guy with a stolen car. Then everyone would go home for dinner with their families. I’d take my computer, get back in a minibus, ride home, sleep, and then come back and do it all again the next day. — A year passed. Then two. I had stopped planning for school, and was no closer to having the money to enroll. The tricky thing about the hood is that you’re always working, working, working, and you feel like something’s happening, but really nothing’s happening at all. I was out there every day from seven a.m. to seven p.m., and every day it was: How do we turn ten rand into twenty? How do we turn twenty into fifty? How do I turn fifty into a hundred? At the end of the day we’d spend it on food and maybe some beers, and then we’d go home and come back and it was: How do we turn ten into twenty? How do we turn twenty into fifty? It was a whole day’s work to flip that money. You had to be walking, be moving, be thinking. You had to get to a guy, find a guy, meet a guy. There were many days we’d end up back at zero, but I always felt like I’d been very productive. Hustling is to work what surfing the Internet is to reading. If you add up how much you read in a year on the Internet—tweets, Facebook posts, lists—you’ve read the equivalent of a shit ton of books, but in fact you’ve read no books in a year. When I look back on it, that’s what hustling was. It’s maximal effort put into minimal gain. It’s a hamster wheel. If I’d put all that energy into studying I’d have earned an MBA. Instead I was majoring in hustling, something no university would give me a degree for.

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

  DAMASCENE. (ubi sup.) This also our Lord commands, since He knew His disciples to be imperfect, seeing that they had not yet received the full measure of the Spirit, lest the hearts of others who had not seen should be prostrated by sorrow, and lest the traitor should be stirred up to a frantic hatred. 9:37–4337. And it came to pass, that on the next day, when they were come down from the hill, much people met him. 38. And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child. 39. And, lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him. 40. And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not. 41. And Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Bring thy son hither. 42. And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down, and tare him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father. 43. And they were all amazed at the mighty power of God. BEDE. Certain places accord with certain events. On the Mount our Lord prays, is transfigured, reveals the secrets of His glory to His disciples; as He descends to the lower parts, He is received by a large concourse. As it is said, And it came to pass, that on the next day, when he was come down from the hill, much people met him. Above He makes known the voice of the Father, below He expels the evil spirits. Hence it follows, And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee look upon my son.

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

  Reply to Objection 5: Affliction of the flesh affects contemplation accidentally and indirectly, as stated above. Whether sorrow is to be shunned more than pleasure is to be sought?Objection 1: It would seem that sorrow is to be shunned more than pleasure is to be sought. For Augustine says (QQ. 83, qu. 63): “There is nobody that does not shun sorrow more than he seeks pleasure.” Now that which all agree in doing, seems to be natural. Therefore it is natural and right for sorrow to be shunned more than pleasure is sought. Objection 2: Further, the action of a contrary conduces to rapidity and intensity of movement: for “hot water freezes quicker and harder,” as the Philosopher says (Meteor. i, 12). But the shunning of sorrow is due to the contrariety of the cause of sorrow; whereas the desire for pleasure does not arise from any contrariety, but rather from the suitableness of the pleasant object. Therefore sorrow is shunned more eagerly than pleasure is sought. Objection 3: Further, the stronger the passion which a man resists according to reason, the more worthy is he of praise, and the more virtuous: since “virtue is concerned with the difficult and the good” (Ethic. ii, 3). But the brave man who resists the movement of shunning sorrow, is more virtuous than the temperate man, who resists the movement of desire for pleasure: since the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 4) that “the brave and the just are chiefly praised.” Therefore the movement of shunning sorrow is more eager than the movement of seeking pleasure. On the contrary, Good is stronger than evil, as Dionysius declares (Div. Nom. iv). But pleasure is desirable for the sake of the good which is its object; whereas the shunning of sorrow is on account of evil. Therefore the desire for pleasure is more eager than the shunning of sorrow.

• From Best Erotic Romance

  Terry shook his head, not looking at her as he sorted through the stack of papers beside the phone. Kim watched him, unsure what to say. She couldn’t say everything would be okay, because she didn’t know that it would. She couldn’t tell him not to be scared, because she was too. She lowered her head with a frown, suspecting again that the demon Terry was wrestling went deeper than those things. Something in him questioned more than the situational concerns, more than what would happen. It wasn’t questioning circumstances or emotions or outcomes. It was questioning him. Kim set the head of lettuce she had pulled from the refrigerator down and walked over to her husband. He looked up as she fixed her dark eyes on his. Kim almost flinched at the hollow look she saw there, but she straightened herself tall, ready to tell the part of him she knew was saying those things to him to fuck off. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth. “I love you.” It wasn’t at all what she had expected to say, but neither her posture nor her gaze wavered. Terry’s eyes looked dull, though they stayed on hers. “I love you too.” His gaze slid away then, back to the papers on the counter in front of him. Kim let her breath out silently as Terry turned and wandered back to the living room. Reaching to straighten the pile of papers he had been examining, she returned to the counter and picked up the head of lettuce. It felt heavy in her hands. Thanks to her internal alarm clock, Kim woke up around the time she wanted to on Saturday morning. She glanced at Terry to make sure he was still asleep and eased out of bed, tying her short red satin robe around herself as she padded down the stairs. Terry had been without a job for three weeks, and his general state seemed even more lackluster than the professional prospects he’d found. Kim was well aware that her husband’s résumé was exemplary—highly educated, experienced, and commended, he had demonstrated unquestionable competence and even superiority in his field. The present job market was responsible for the dearth of opportunities, which was the reason he was unemployed in the first place. She opened the refrigerator and grabbed two eggs, setting them on the spotless counter. All that seemed to have been forgotten by Terry. Whenever she reminded him of either his own competence or the influence of the larger economic environment, it was as though the words dissolved in the air before they ever reached his consciousness.

• From The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch (2017)

  108The History of Christianity II CRISIS AND PERSECUTION õOne pattern from throughout history is that when leaders feel insecure, they often look for a religious minority to blame. From the late 18 th century onward, the Ottomans found themselves on the defensive against European Christian armies. õFirst, Russian soldiers marched into Crimea and the Caucasus. Then in 1798, Napoleon’s armies demolished Muslim forces in Egypt. As the 19 th century rolled on, the British joined the French and other European powers in nibbling away the edges of Ottoman territory and even threatening Istanbul itself. 109Lecture 11—Christians under Muslim Rule õChristians living in the empire watched these developments with increasing excitement. They became more assertive, sometimes rebelling against Turkish control in the hopes that they could take advantage of the empire’s weakened state to seize their independence. õWhen the Greeks revolted in 1821, the Turks struck back with a vengeance. They massacred Greek-speaking laypeople and clergy across the empire. They even hanged the patriarch of Constantinople himself outside his own cathedral, on Easter morning. õThese were the desperate, violent reactions of a crumbling empire. The Ottomans were hemorrhaging territory—and then they sided with Germany in World War I. That spelled the end. õIt’s in these last years that the Ottomans committed their most horrendous atrocities. Beginning in 1915, they began rounding up and massacring Armenian Christians and other Christian ethnic groups. At least 500,000 Armenians died. õMany scholars call their deaths one of the first cases of systematic genocide in the modern era. The Turkish government denies the scholarly consensus on this, insisting that historians have inf lated the numbers and that both sides did a lot of killing. õBy the end of the period this lecture covered, the dividing line was no longer theology—it was political power. Namely, Christians in the West had it, and Christians living under Muslim rule went for centuries without it. Their experience was a lot more like that of the very first Christians in ancient Rome, who sometimes got lucky under the rule of a tolerant or indifferent emperor and sometimes had to die for their faith. 110The History of Christianity II õToday, small communities of Christians still live in Turkey and the Middle East, although political and religious strife makes the continued existence of these communities very tenuous. The Coptic Christians in Egypt have fared better in the 21 st century, but they too are embattled. It’s impossible to understand their situation, or the broader dynamics between Muslims and Christians today, without considering the long history of that relationship—with its complicated mix of politics, ideology, and the timeless facts of human nature. SUGGESTED READING Finkel, Osman’s Dream. Jenkins, The Lost History of Christianity. Norwich, A Short History of Byzantium. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER äHow did the Ottomans view their Christian subjects? äWhy did so many Christians stop practicing their faith under Muslim rule? äHow do today’s politics inf luence our attempts to understand the history of Christian experience in Muslim lands?