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 Filthy Animals (2021)

  Milton doesn’t put the sweater with the dried blood back on. There’s too much of Abe on him already by the time they load him into the back of the ambulance, groaning and gummy. Milton leans against the side of a tree at the edge of the park. He feels like he’s made of something insubstantial. Nolan is coming toward him through the twilight of the cop car headlights. He’s just given his statement on the matter, probably. Milton had walked away after giving his, unable to stomach the way he knew Nolan could effortlessly tell a lie. They were all standing around, and Abe must have tumbled off the side of the hill. No, sir, they weren’t drinking. Freak accident. Tate had gone home, chewing his fingers raw, eaten up with nerves. Nolan, their fearless leader. Nolan reaches Milton, looking tired, run down. He smells like blood. Like a wild thing. Like when they used to play in the woods and come home smelling like wildcats, their mothers said, wrinkling their noses. Half raised, half animal. Nolan drops down to the ground and sits among the roots of the tree, and Milton wants to join him down there, to put an arm around his shoulder, to hold him close. Milton hands him the yellow hat from before. They’re both a little shocked it’s not covered in blood. Nolan lets out a snort. “Oh, thanks.” “Sure thing.” “Jesus,” Nolan says, shaking his head. Milton kicks one of the roots. “Think he’ll be okay?” “Some birthday.” Milton’s fingers are still sticky. He’s got blood caked under his fingernails. “Fucking Abe,” Nolan says, a wet creak of sympathy in his voice. “Ah, well.” “You really did a number on him.” “Seems like I did.” “You all right?” “What do you think, Milton? I bashed Abe’s head in. How do you think I feel?” “I wish I knew,” Milton says, which makes Nolan sigh loudly. He picks up a loose rock and hurls it into the night. “Man, I’m tired. Would you just spit it out already?” “I’m leaving,” Milton says. “Well, fine. You smell like shit anyway.” “No, I mean I’m leaving this spring. My parents are sending me away.” “Fuck. Where?” “Idaho,” Milton says. “They’re sending me there because I get into all this shit here, and they want to fix my fucking life.” “Maybe then you’ll stop being such a little bitch,” Nolan says, and there’s a hint of levity in his voice. “Oh, great, can’t wait,” Milton says. “Cannot wait.” “Hey, come on, Milton. It’s been a terrible night already.” “I can’t be here anymore,” Milton says. “What does that mean?”

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O X X V I I The Flame of Ulysses, having told its story, departs with permission of Virgil; and is immediately followed by another, which contains the spirit of Count Guido da Montefeltro, a Ghibelline of high fame in war and counsel. It comes moaning at the top, and sends forth eager inquiries about the people of Romagna, Guido’s countrymen. Dante describes their condition under various petty tyrants, in 1300. His words are brief, precise, and beautiful; and have a tone of large and deep sadness. Guido, at his request, relates who he is, and why condemned to such torment; after which, the Poets pass onwards to the bridge of the Ninth Chasm. THE FLAME was now erect and quiet, having ceased to speak, and now went away from us with license of the sweet Poet; when another, 1 that came behind it, made us turn our eyes to its top, for a confused sound that issued therefrom. As the Sicilian bull 2 (which bellowed first with the lament of him—and that was right—who had tuned it with his file) kept bellowing with the sufferer’s voice; so that, although it was of brass, it seemed transfixed with pain: thus, having at their commencement no way or outlet from the fire, the dismal words were changed into its language. But after they had found their road up through the point, giving to it the vibration which the tongue had given in their passage, we heard it say: “O thou, at whom I aim my voice! and who just now wast speaking Lombard, saying, ‘Now go, no more I urge thee’; though I have come perhaps a little late, let it not irk thee to pause and speak with me; thou seest it irks not me, although I burn. If thou art but now fallen into this blind world from that sweet Latian land, whence I bring all my guilt, tell me if the Romagnuols have peace or war: for I was of the mountains there, between Urbino and the yoke from which the Tiber springs.” 3 I still was eager downwards and bent, when my Leader touched me on the side, saying: “Speak thou; this is a Latian.” And I, who had my answer ready then, began without delay to speak: “O soul, that there below art hidden! thy Romagna is not, and never was, without war in the hearts of her tyrants; but openly just now I there left none. Ravenna stands, as it has stood for many years: the Eagle of Polenta 4 broods over it, so that he covers Cervia with his pinions. The city, which made erewhile the long probation, and sanguinary heap of the Frenchmen, finds itself again under the Green Clutches. 5 The old Mastiff of Verrucchio and the young, 6 who of Montagna made evil governance, there, where they are wont, ply their teeth.

• From Escape (2007)

  It was highly unusual for a man in our culture to ignore his new wives. The first wife was often unloved, mistreated, and ignored. Most men believed they would have an abundance of wives, so they didn’t put much effort into their first marriage. It was the later wives, the women who ended up marrying men twice their age, who were usually more valued and better treated by their spouses. Tammy tried to cajole Merril to sleep with her at Uncle Roy’s. He refused. Finally, after several days, she marched over to our house and commandeered a room. Merril had given Cathleen one of his sons’ bedrooms and sent the younger boys to share a room with their older brothers. Tammy took one of Merril’s daughter’s rooms, so it meant five of the girls would have to sleep together. Before I went back to college, I helped Cathleen bring some of her furniture over from Uncle Roy’s. As soon as she entered her former home she burst into loud sobs. The other wives hugged her and tried to be consoling, but she was too distraught to be comforted. Everything about her life was coming undone. She was giving up a large and beautiful bedroom and a private bath at Uncle Roy’s. In our house she had a room barely large enough to hold her furniture and sewing machine. She also had to share the four bathrooms in the house with dozens of children and Merril’s other wives. Cathleen had been forced to marry Merril without her father’s knowledge. He was enraged when he found out what had happened. But there was nothing he could do. Once a marriage is sealed by the prophet nothing can be done to take it apart. Cathleen told me she knew this marriage was not inspired by a revelation from God. It was put in motion by a power play of her Uncle Truman’s. She tried to pray and stay full of faith, hoping for divine revelation to get her out of her marriage. Cathleen had married Uncle Roy when she was seventeen and he was ninety-six. They never had sex, she told me, but he kissed her a lot and said he wanted to make love to her. She felt honored to serve him. Even though she did a lot of housecleaning as a younger wife, the house was so orderly it did not feel like the slave labor she was slammed into at Merril’s. Because Merril and Barbara took off for Page, Cathleen was left as the only stable adult in charge of twenty-eight children. I was spending the week at college, Faunita slept all day, and Ruth was descending deeper into madness.

• From Escape (2007)

  Being the wife of the prophet of God is a very public position, and every move a woman makes is monitored. If you are a younger wife, that scrutiny is compounded by the fact that all of your sister wives, who are old enough to be your mother, act superior, if not outright disdainful, toward you. When Tammy stopped sobbing she said, “It feels like her parents took her like a lamb to slaughter and sacrificed her purely for the purpose of having a daughter married to the Prophet of God.” With that she left the room and said she was going outside for some fresh air. I saw Bonnie a few times in public after her marriage to Uncle Rulon. The light was gone from her eyes. She was wearing even more restrictive clothing and looked distressed. It was as if her being had been evacuated. My stomach began churning and I felt sick. Bonnie was a year younger than I was and had always been a beautiful girl who sparkled with life. Now she looked so alone and forsaken. I knew how difficult it was to marry a man thirty years my senior, but the thought of being assigned to someone who was sixty years older was as horrifying as it was incomprehensible. Word was moving around the community now that fathers were arranging most of the marriages. The prophet had hardly any involvement with where girls were going or to whom. Our lives were currency for other people to spend. I remember my surprise one day about nine months later when I heard that Loretta, one of Merril’s daughters, was going to be married, because he had several who were still unmarried and older than she. When I asked him whom Loretta was marrying, he turned to me with a smile. “Well, it’s Uncle Rulon.” I sat down, too shocked to stand. I didn’t want to make a scene because marriages were supposedly arranged by God, so I quickly threw the switch to erase any emotion from my face. I did not dare let Merril know what I was thinking. But I knew in my bones that he had arranged this marriage. Tall and thin, with a mane of jet-black hair, Loretta had striking features and was one of Merril’s most beautiful daughters. My first memory of her was seeing her in high school as a staunch member of the nusses. She lived and breathed Fascinating Womanhood and was well-versed in the art of manipulating a man. Now she was about to marry the most powerful man in the FLDS who, at eighty-two, probably wouldn’t even notice if the Dixie cup dispenser was right side up or not. Loretta seemed to accept her fate without much enthusiasm. She began making her wedding dress as soon as she learned about her imminent marriage, which was to take place within days.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O V I Like a successful gamester who must cleave his way by payments through the host whose quickened sense of friendship overflows in obstructive congratulations and reminiscences, so Dante must pay his way by promises through the crowd of souls to whom he has power of granting such precious boons. Of some of these souls he tells us news, not without side thrusts of warning or reproach at the living When again free to converse with his guide, Dante asks him to explain the seeming contradiction between the anxiety of these souls for the prayers of others, and his (Virgil’s) declaration that the divine Fates cannot be bent by prayer. Virgil explains, firstly, that no bending of the divine will is involved in the granting of prayer; secondly, that his rebuke was uttered to souls not in grace; and, finally, that the complete solution of such questions is not for him (Virgil), but for Beatrice; at the mention of whose name Dante wishes to make greater speed in ascending the mountain, whereto Virgil answers that the journey is of more days than one. The Poets, now in the shade of the mountain (since they are on its eastern slope and the sun is already west of north) so that Dante no longer casts a shadow, and is therefore not instantly to be recognized as a living man, perceive the soul of Sordello gazing upon them like a couching lion; but on hearing that Virgil is a Mantuan, he breaks through all reserve and embraces him as his fellow-countryman. The love of these two fellow-citizens calls back to Dante’s heart the miserable dissensions that rend the cities of Italy, and the callousness with which the Emperors leave them to their fate. But from the reproaches thus launched against the Italians, Florence is sarcastically excepted, till the sarcasm breaks down in a wail of reproachful pity. WHEN THE GAME of dice breaks up, he who loses stays sorrowing, repeating the throws, and sadly learns: with the other all the folk go away: one goes in front, another plucks him from behind, and another at his side recalls him to his mind. He halts not and attends to this one and to that: those to whom he stretches forth his hand press no more; and so he saves him from the crowd. Such was I in that dense throng, turning my face to them, now here, now there, and by promising freed me from them. There was the Aretine 1 who by the savage arms of Ghin di Tacco met his death; and the other 2 who was drowned as he ran in chase. There was praying with outstretched hands Federigo Novello, and he of Pisa who made the good Marzucco 3 show fortitude.

• From Escape (2007)

  If the stepsons could consolidate all power around Uncle Roy, then the apostles would be nearly stripped of their power in the community. Since Uncle Roy had become sick and bedridden, there was jockeying among those who wanted to succeed him. The rupture was so severe in the community that my mother stopped speaking to her sister because she was married to one of the apostles. I was cut off from my friends, which upset me. Otherwise, I believed what I was told, that the brethren were trying to destroy Uncle Roy and take away all of his power. It was a time of tremendous accusations. People on the Uncle Roy side started telling stories about the apostles and all the horrible things they had done. Church services became so argumentative that we began to look forward to being entertained by the fights. The theatrics were far more galvanizing than learning the word of God. It was a strange time. Even though there were people we were forbidden to talk to or associate with, we dropped all those boundaries for holidays. We always celebrated the Fourth of July, as well as July 24. The twenty-fourth was the day when Brigham Young had brought the Latter-Day Saints into the valley and said, “This is the place.” It was one of our biggest holidays and we went all out with parades, food, dances, and fireworks. My family was growing rapidly because Mother and Rosie were both having babies nearly every year and a half. Rosie had a full-time job, so my mother was left in charge of all the children. She depended on Linda, Annette, and me to help take care of our siblings. It seemed like we were babysitting all the time. But one Saturday night when Linda and I were about thirteen and fourteen, we were given permission to go to a community dance. Neither Mother nor Rosie could go with us, so we were just dropped off at school. At the east of the auditorium was a section for the young unmarried ladies. We always sat there because it was next to the unmarried boys’ section. Linda and I were walking around toward the back of the school, which was the entrance closest to the girls’ section. Just as we approached, the doors flew open, unleashing a stampede of girls. “Run for your lives!” they screamed. I did not need convincing and started running with them until the stampede stopped near the south auditorium entrance. “Oh, yuck,” I heard someone say. “He got Laura.” Another voice chimed in: “She wasn’t paying attention when the signal was given, so she was the only one left in our section for him to pick.” Laura, my redheaded friend since childhood! I felt sad for her. We were still close friends. Her father had not chosen sides over the split, so there was no reason we couldn’t continue our friendship.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  It was as radical a statement as had ever been voiced on that street. Concurrently, the camaraderie—an increasing camaraderie—among hustlers is easing in its strict role-playing, slowly but perceptibly. Unacceptable before—disastrous to one's masculine hustling image—comments are now lightly exchanged routinely admiring of each other's attractiveness or specialty—muscles, handsome faces, unique clothes style, even reputed cock size. There is still the uneasiness, the sexual uneasiness, among masculine hustlers, but more and more cross turfs back and forth, from hustling to mutual cruising of other males; indeed, a type of non-hustling, non-paying goodlooking youngmen now roam the hustling streets attracting equally goodlooking malehustlers, not with money but with their own good looks. What remains unchanged are the lurking dangers of cop entrapment—and the brevity of the life on the hustling streets. A hustler's life is brief. Some hustlers begin in their young teens. New hustlers still arrive almost daily and find favorite spots nightly, on Selma or on the new turf Time created. The first weeks you won't wait around long, stepping in and out of cars friskily, waving back at your friends still waiting. Abruptly, the time of waiting stretches, the number of rides diminishes. You meet each other on the street and one of you asks, “What's happenin?” and the other answers noncommittally, shrugging, and asks back and the answer comes, “Not doin too good tonight, slow night,” Even as you speak, fresh competition hops into cars, waving back at you. There is the awareness—perceived as yet by only the two of you—that on the street you're becoming a has-been before you ever were, really a “has.” On Selma late one night a young hustler, there week after week, passes, nods in the easy camaraderie that happens among street hustlers recognizing each other. “How's it goin?” “All right-with you?” He shrugs, “Could be better,” and adds quickly, boosting himself, “Just made five bucks, the guy just played with my cock for a couple of minutes in his car, said he didn't have no place, I didn't even have to take my dick out—yeah, I made five bucks in a couple of minutes,” spotting the same man still driving around the block choosing, “five bucks for a couple of minutes, can't beat that.” He was right—you couldn't beat five bucks for two minutes, that's $150 an hour! Right up there. More than psychiatrists make, at least now. Unfortunately his clients, and the world that crowns youth only briefly, will make it impossible for him—unlike psychiatrists—to hook his clients for years. Another night. Another corner. And a young hustler comes by; perhaps eighteen, wearing that beauty that exists only because it is eighteen. But wait: the special street-youthfulness is tattered. He's perhaps nineteen; perhaps even twenty. He recognizes me from other streets. “Hey, man, can I ask you a question?”

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O I V Dante is roused by a heavy thunder, and finds himself on the brink of the Abyss. Not in his own strength has he crossed the dismal river. Virgil conducts him into Limbo, which is the First Circle of Hell, and contains the spirits of those who lived without Baptism or Christianity. The only pain they suffer is, that they live in the desire and without the hope of seeing God. Their sighs cause the eternal air to tremble, and there is no other audible lamentation amongst them. As Dante and Virgil go on, they reach a hemisphere of light amid the darkness, and are met by Homer and other Poets, and conducted into a Noble Castle, in which they see the most distinguished of the Heathen women, statesmen, sages, and warriors. Homer and the other Poets quit them; and they go on to a place of total darkness. A HEAVY thunder broke the deep sleep in my head; so that I started like one who is awaked by force; and, having risen erect, I moved my rested eyes around, and looked steadfastly to know the place in which I was. True is it, that I found myself upon the brink of the dolorous Valley of the Abyss, which gathers thunder of endless wailings. It was so dark, profound, and cloudy, that, with fixing my look upon the bottom, I there discerned nothing. “Now let us descend into the blind world here below,” began the Poet all pale; “I will be first, and thou shalt be second.” And I, who had remarked his colour, said: “How shall I come, when thou fearest, who are wont to be my strength in doubt?” And he to me: “The anguish of the people who are here below, on my face depaints that pity, which thou takest for fear. Let us go; for the length of way impels us.” Thus he entered, and made me enter, into the first circle that girds the abyss. Here there was no plaint, that could be heard, except of sighs, which caused the eternal air to tremble; and this arose from the sadness, without torment, of the crowds that were many and great, both of children, and of women and men. The good Master to me: “Thou askest not what spirits are these thou seest? I wish thee to know, before thou goest farther, that they sinned not; and though they have merit, it suffices not: for they had not Baptism, which is the portal of the faith that thou believest; and seeing they were before Christianity, they worshipped not God aright; and of these am I myself. For such defects, and for no other fault, are we lost; and only in so far afflicted, that without hope we live in desire.” Great sadness took me at the heart on hearing this; because I knew men of much worth, who in that Limbo were suspense.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Marta thought about that for a moment. She did not see how it related to Thad’s stealing Sigrid’s money. She did not see how it had anything to do with her, either. It seemed like the sort of thing that people did at parties. A game, a guessing game of the self. “So if I’m Anne of Cleves, what does that mean?” “It means you’re practical about your limitations, and you do the best you can.” “And who are you?” Marta asked. Sigrid smiled and lay back down. She closed her eyes. “I’m Catherine of Aragon.” “And what does that mean?” Marta asked. She put her hand on Sigrid’s stomach, came close to her on the bed. Sigrid turned to look at her and shook her head. “It means I’m mad as hell.” They did get the place that summer. It was a small cabin near a river—more a shack than a cabin, really, but Marta did not mind it. The air was fresh and clear, the clearest she’d breathed in a long time. The world had a deep, saturated hue, and the tops of the trees were so green that they were almost black. They fished but didn’t catch anything. They waded into the edge of the river, where it was still and cool, up to their ankles, and they splashed one another. Sigrid cut her foot on a sharp rock, and Marta bandaged it and drove her into town, where a local doctor, who had hair growing out of his ears, stitched it up for twenty dollars. At night, it was colder than Marta had thought summer could get. There were deer in the yard. There were birds in the trees. The sky was so vast that Marta felt small when she walked from the porch to the edge of the road. They drank lemonade on the swing, and Sigrid braided Marta’s hair for her, weaving in blue wildflowers. It was the most beautiful place. The most beautiful time. On their last night, they lay outside on a flannel blanket and watched the slow progression of the stars, the smooth carapace of the sky like glass. “I never want to leave here,” Sigrid said. “You’ll have to take it up with the owners,” Marta said, but she knew what Sigrid meant. She wrapped her arms around her, and they shed their clothes and held each other tight as they touched each other. They didn’t get off. They tried and tried, stroking and touching each other’s bodies every way they knew, but as the pressure inside them rose, it dissipated just as quickly, so that by the end of it they were frustrated and hot and damp. They couldn’t get traction on their desire. Every time it seemed that as they were cresting into the oblivion of orgasm, sadness drenched them. Sadness at leaving. Sadness at going back to their lives. The sadness of knowing it would never again be this perfect, this easy.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  Most wouldn’t have been imprisoned at all if it weren’t for a drug addiction, or a lack of literacy, or being, as one put it, “a man junkie.” With or without that self-understanding, women were often selling drugs or prostituting themselves for a controlling partner or a pimp. What struck me was not how different women in prison are, but how un-different. Inside, women tend to form familylike groups, blame themselves unreasonably, worry more about their children than about themselves, stylize uniforms to look a little better, need kindness, and want to tell their stories. What’s different is not who those women are but the higher percentage of them who have been abused as children or denied an education or forced to fight back in self-defense and then been criminalized for it. Women were unexpectedly familiar. But a growing mystery was the number of letters I received from men in prison. Polite and enigmatic, they asked me for a note or an autograph or a photo for their daughters or because they didn’t have visitors. If not for a distinctive prisoner number on the envelope, I wouldn’t have known where they came from. Only when a few men who were former prisoners came to public meetings—and stayed on afterward to talk—did I begin to understand. In the absence of women, they had been used as women. In the media, they had seen the women’s movement naming, protesting, and prosecuting sexual abuse, yet citing their own abuse in letters could have been punished as informing. They were reaching out for some contact in their own way. My first revelation came from a slender young Puerto Rican man at a Philadelphia conference on eating disorders. After hearing me say that a body invasion like rape could be more traumatic than a beating, he stayed afterward to agree. “I’ve been beaten up and I’ve been gang-raped,” he said, to the best of my memory, “and I’ll take beatings any day. My cellmate gave me a girl’s name and rented me out for oral, anal sex—everything. He got food and drugs in return. I would pass out—and wake up bleeding. I pretended I was in the ceiling, looking down on my body—that’s how I survived. I’ve been on the outside for nine years, but I still can’t go into a room if it’s all men and no women.” Like young children whose sexual abuse is often oral, he had developed an eating disorder, and was drawn to the conference. I noticed that these men often talked about their male prison partners and abusers in the same terms that women used to describe pimps and battering husbands. The combination of fear and dependency they described sounded like the capture-bonding known as the Stockholm Syndrome, the enmeshing of hostage and hostage-taker that can happen when an all-powerful person controls but spares the life of a powerless person.

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

  Gone with dead movie stars and the wind. And ghosts lurk in Venice West. An exalted madman was going to re-create Venice right here in Southern California. Venice West! he called it. He started. Built the canals, the bridges. A small town square. Quaint benches along the shoreline, wooden shelters from the water's glare. And that was that. They found oil. He stopped. Now giant-beaked machines drill remorselessly into the earth. The old Jews came here and built their synagogues and delicatessens along the beach. Wearing sunglasses and pasting cold cream on their noses, they sit together, eyes closed, facing the white sun. (Little urchin boys nasty in their sun-bleached blondness pedal with skinny bare legs past them—impossibly ignoring the kewpie-doll woman carrying a Vermeer reproduction, a FOR SALE sign pinned ambiguously to her bursting breasts.) Then the jazz outcasts came to Venice. Among the imitation-Venetian buildings, the voices roared good and bad poetry, shouting for mad sanity. While along the fabled Sunset Strip soon after, the insurgents of the legendary sixties—the most remote period in the history of time—proclaimed that flowers in one's hair meant love and peace, and, man, that's all you need. But the rampaging cops said ugh-uh! and, to prove it, crushed the flowers because the children had refused to move on, move on. And then they did move on. To Manson and Altamont. And to Venice West. Blood-initiated, the children turned to acid for pretty dreams and got bummers instead. They were zombies on the spent battlefield of love. They live now hunched like cold birds on the white beaches, rousing themselves occasionally to ask for change, to beat a drum funereally, or to walk stoned for hours along the glaring white beach. Betrayed. Beautiful dim ghosts in skeletal frames. Betrayed. Junk came. Blacks and whites together shoot up skinny vein-dried arms in dung-heaped alleys. Surviving. 12:29 P.M. Griffith Park. The Roads. The Hills. A s J IM ENTERS the area of the hunt, the road that winds up the hill for several miles past sporadic forests of bushes and hills, he notices red signs posted at irregular intervals on trees. Less than a foot by slightly more than a foot square, they were not in the area he left—only in the sex arena, and they were not here yesterday. Up the road, the signs recur. Motor of his car still running, Jim stops by one: RESTRICTED ENTRY Mountain Fire District MOTORCYCLES, MOTORSCOOTERS & OTHER MOTOR VEHICLES PROHIBITED! There's more; unintelligible, jumbled, obscurely legalistic sentences and clauses printed in tiny letters. Probably motorcycles and jeeps have been exploring the steep paths and trails. The hunting outlaws are apparently not affected. And there will be hundreds of sexhunters in the park this hot, hot Sunday afternoon. Though still not the peak hour, dozens of cars are already driving into the sexual turf. Others will come in shifts throughout the afternoon, from the beaches, bars, early parties.

• From Escape (2007)

  I said a few gentle words to Cathleen and she opened up immediately. She told me she’d had no warning that she was about to marry Merril. The order came out of the blue. She’d been told that all of Uncle Roy’s wives were going to be married off to two men. The late prophet didn’t want his family separated. Truman was her uncle, so she couldn’t marry him. That left Merril. She hadn’t been allowed to call her father or consider other options. She told me that she’d said over and over to anyone who would listen that she didn’t want to marry Merril Jessop. But she was told her feelings didn’t matter—only the will of her late husband did. Cathleen ran to her room and wept until she had to get in Merril’s van for the ride to her marriage. She was taken directly to the prophet’s home to stand before Rulon Jeffs and marry Merril. Cathleen was demolished by sadness. Barbara and Merril soon returned and insisted we all go to dinner. Afterward we returned to the hotel and Merril announced that I was to come to his room. I thought Cathleen had slept with him on her wedding night and that he didn’t want to sleep with her again because she was so upset. I later learned he hadn’t slept with her at all. Barbara was apparently so upset after his marriage to Cathleen that Merril slept with her. I hoped Cathleen and I could become friends. We were both mired in a weird and disturbed world. I would try to help her if I could. Maybe if we grew close we could find ways to help each other survive Merril’s oppression. Sunday night, Merril insisted I have sex with him. As always, I complied and went through the motions. When we returned home from Salt Lake City, the dysfunction within our family escalated. There was not enough space in our house in Colorado City for Merril’s six wives. Tammy and Cathleen had yet to sleep with their new husband. This infuriated Tammy, but to Cathleen it felt like an answered prayer. She had been praying to the late prophet to rescue her from this debacle, and her hope was that if her marriage remained unconsummated, she might have a chance to have it annulled. When we first returned from Salt Lake, Tammy went back to Uncle Roy’s. I was in Merril’s office with Merril’s other wives when Tammy called and asked when she should come over to meet her new family. Merril told her to wait until the next morning. Then he turned to me and said, “Carolyn, I will have Cathleen sleep in your room with you until I can make another room in the house available for her.” It felt strange beyond words to be sharing my bed with someone, especially my husband’s newest wife. Cathleen could barely talk, she was so frustrated and upset.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  C A N T O X X I X The numberless Shadows of discord and bloody strife have filled the Poet’s eyes with tears; and he still keeps gazing down, expecting to find his own father’s cousin, Geri del Bello, among them. Virgil makes him quit the miserable spectacle; and tells, as they go on, how he had seen Geri, at the foot of the bridge, pointing with angry gesture, and then departing in the crowd. From the arch of the Tenth Chasm, Dante now hears the wailings of a new class of sinners, the last in Malebolge. They are the Falsifiers of every sort: punished with innumerable diseases, in impure air and darkness. Pietro di Dante enumerates three classes of Falsifiers: in things, in deeds, and in words. Of the first class are the Alchemists, Forgers, &c., such as Griffolino of Arezzo, and Capocchio of Siena, in the present canto, and Adamo da Brescia in the next, where we shall also find the other two classes. THE MANY PEOPLE and the diverse wounds had made my eyes so drunken that they longed to stay and weep; but Virgil said to me: “Why art thou gazing still? wherefore does thy sight still rest, down there, among the dismal mutilated shadows? Thou hast not done so at the other chasms; consider, if thou thinkest to number them, that the valley goes round two-and-twenty miles; 1 and the Moon already is beneath our feet; 2 the time is now short, that is conceded to us; and other things are to be seen than thou dost see.” “Hadst thou,” I thereupon replied, “attended to the cause for which I looked, perhaps thou mightest have vouchsafed me yet to stay.” Meantime the Guide was going on; and I went behind him, now making my reply, and adding: “Within that cavern, where I kept my eyes so fixed, I believe that a spirit of my own blood laments the guilt which costs so much down there.” Then the Master said: “Let not thy thought henceforth distract itself on him; attend to somewhat else, and let him stay there: for I saw him, at the foot of the little bridge, point to thee, and vehemently threaten with his finger; and heard them call him Geri del Bello. 3 Thou wast then so totally entangled upon him who once held Altaforte, that thou didst not look that way; so he departed.” “O my Guide! his violent death, which is not yet avenged for him,” said I, “by any that is a partner of his shame, made him indignant: therefore, as I suppose, he went away without speaking to me; and in that has made me pity him the more.” Thus we spake, up to the first place of the cliff, which shows the other valley, if more light were there, quite to the bottom.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  It was the first one of the evening for them. They popped the tabs and toasted one another, toasted their loneliness. “So, your mother died,” Simon said. “Do you want to talk about it?” “No, I don’t suppose I do.” “People die.” “Such are the facts.” “How did she die?” “Francisco didn’t say.” “Francisco. It’s a family affair.” “Please don’t start.” “I didn’t know you were talking to Francisco.” “I’m not.” “So no teary reunion between brothers after all these years.” “I guess we’re all cried out,” Hartjes said. The beer was cheap and weak. Hartjes burped and wiped the foam from his lips. He saw, briefly, the outline of Francisco’s face: the somber brown eyes, the patchy beard, the flat, crooked nose, and the chipped tooth from the time they’d gone rolling down the hill, punching and kicking at each other. They were all cried out. Francisco had caught his face on the edge of a large rock, had almost sliced his lip right from his mouth. He had blamed Hartjes. It had been his fault. That’s true. It had been his fault for provoking Francisco, calling him Franny, delighting in the rage that had swelled his boy chest and sent him hurtling at Hartjes. Franny, Franny, Franny. Hartjes had been the younger one, but taller, so people mistook him for the older brother. “Family isn’t everything,” Simon said. “No, it isn’t,” Hartjes said. “Do you want another beer?” “It’s my fridge,” Simon said. “You can’t offer me something that’s not yours.” “Oh, and I guess you’re the one who bought it? I guess you’re the one who always buys it and stocks it so you don’t run out.” “I didn’t ask for it, Hartjes.” “You never ask for anything except what you know I won’t give,” Hartjes said, but he regretted it a little. He saw Simon flinch and then go still. Simon drew the blanket around himself. “Well, all right,” he said. “I’ll get that beer,” Hartjes said. Simon was looking at the trees. Hartjes stooped low in the kitchen and tore two cans from the plastic yoke. He held them in his palm, which was wide and paler than the rest of him. He counted the containers of food, the vegetables, the soups, the stock, the meat tumescent in its plastic wrap. He saw the jars of moonshine, the bottle of wine from two weeks earlier with a plastic stopper jammed into its neck, and gelatinous cubes of gristle and fat, which Simon used for broth and for taste. The light was off, but they had left a candle going on the table. He turned in Simon’s kitchen and looked back through the house into the living room, where the furniture slept like guests and where the windows were filled with the soft white glow of distant stars.

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  26 * Sic locuto deo pastore, nulloque sermone reddito sed adorato tantum numine salutari, Psyche pergit ire. Sed cum aliquam multum viae laboranti ves- tigio pererrasset, inscio quodam tramite, iam. die labente, accedit quandam civitatem, iri qua regnum maritus unius sororis eius obtinebat. Qua re cognita Psyche nuntiari praesentiam suam sorori desiderat : 236 | ; THE GOLDEN ASS, BOOK V the lack of her husband; howbeit the gentle water would not suffer her to be drowned, but took pity upon her, in the honour of Cupid which accustomed to broil and burn the very river, and so fearing for himself would not harm her, but threw her upon the bank amongst the herbs. Then Pan the rustical god was sitting on the river-side, embracing and teaching the goddess Echo of the mountains to tune her songs and pipes, by whom were feeding upon the grass of the margin the young and tender goats; and after that this goat-footed god perceived poor Psyche in so sorrowful case, not ignorant (I know not by what means) of her miserable estate, he called her gently beside him and endeavoured to pacify her in this sort: ‘O fair maid, I am a rustic and rude herds- man, howbeit (by reason of my old age) expert in many things ; for as far as I can learn by conjecture, which (according as wise men do term) is called divination, I perceive by your uncertain and trem- bling gait, your pale hue, your sobbing sighs, aye and your watery eyes, that you are greatly in love. Wherefore hearken to me, and go not about to slay yourself, nor weep not at all, but rather adore and worship the great god Cupid, and win him unto you, that is a delicate and wanton youth, by your gentle promise of service.’ «When the god of shepherds had spoken these words, she gave no answer, but made reverence unto him as to a god, and so departed: and after that she had gone more than a little way with weary feet, she fortuned unawares to take a certain path, and towards evening to come to a city where the husband of one of her sisters did reign ; which when Psyche did under- stand, she caused that her sister had knowledge of her coming. And so they met together, and after 237 LUCIUS APULEIUS

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  When night was come the Theeves awaked and rose up, and when they had buckled on their weapons, and disguised their faces with visards, they departed. And yet for all the great sleep that came upon me, I could in no wise leave eating: and whereas when I was a man I could be contented with one or two loaves at the most, now my huts were so greedy that three panniers full would scantly serve me, and while I considered these things the morning came, and being led to a river, notwithstanding my Assie shamefastnesse I quencht my thirst. And suddenly after, the Theeves returned home carefull and heavy, bringing no burthens with them, no not so much as traffe or baggage, save only a maiden, that seemed by her habit to be some gentlewoman borne, and the daughter of some worthy matron of that country, who was so fair and beautiful, that though I were an Asse, yet I had a great affection for her. The virgin lamented and tare her hair, and rent her garments, for the great sorrow she was in; but the theeves brought her within the cave, and assisted her to comfort in this sort, Weep not fair gentlewoman we pray you, for be you assured we wil do no outrage or violence to your person: but take patience a while for our profit, for necessity and poore estate hath compelled us to do this enterprise: we warrant you that your parents, although they bee covetous, will be contented to give us a great quantity of mony to redeeme and ransome you from our hands.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  And as the frog to croak, sits with his muzzle out of the water, when the peasant-woman oft dreams that she is gleaning: 3 so, livid, up to where the hue of shame appears, the doleful shades were in the ice, sounding with their teeth like storks. Each held his face turned downwards; by the mouth their cold, and by the eyes the sorrow of their hearts is testified amongst them. When I had looked round awhile, I turned towards my feet; and saw two so pressed against each other, that they had the hair of their heads intermixed. “Tell me, ye who thus together press your bosoms,” said I, “who you are.” And they bended their necks; and when they had raised their faces towards me, their eyes, which only inwardly were moist before, gushed at the lids, and the frost bound fast the tears between them, and closed them up again. Wood with wood no cramp did ever gird so strongly: wherefore they, like two he-goats, butted one another; such rage came over them. And one, who had lost both ears by the cold, with his face still downwards said: “Why art thou looking so much at us? If thou desirest to know who are these two, 4 the valley whence the Bisenzio descends was theirs, and their father Albert’s. They issued from one body; and thou mayest search the whole Caina, and shalt not find a shade more worthy to be fixed in gelatine: not him, whose breast and shadow at one blow were pierced by Arthur’s hand; 5 not Focaccia; 6 not this one, who so obstructs me with his head that I see no farther, and who was named Sassol Mascheroni: 7 if thou beest a Tuscan, well knowest thou now who he was. And that thou mayest not put me to further speech, know that I was Camicion de’ Pazzi, 8 and am waiting for Carlino to excuse me.” Afterwards I saw a thousand visages, made doggish by the cold: whence shuddering comes over me, and always will come, when I think of the frozen fords. And as we were going towards the middle at which all weight unites, and I was shivering in the eternal shade, whether it was will, or destiny or chance, I know not; but, walking amid the heads, I hit my foot violently against the face of one. Weeping it cried out to me: “Why tramplest thou on me? If thou comest not to increase the vengeance for Montaperti, 9 why dost thou molest me?” And I: “My Master!

• From The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) (2)

  THE FORTY-SECOND CHAPTER How Apuleius after the Baker was hanged, was sold to a Gardener, and what dreadfull things happened. There was a poore Gardener amongst the rest, which bought me for the summe of fifty pence, which seemed to him a great price, but he thought to gayne it againe by the continuall travell of my body. The matter requireth to tell likewise, how I was handled in his service. This Gardener accustomed to drive me, every morning laded with hearbes to the next Village, and when he had sold his hearbes, hee would mount upon my backe and returne to the Garden, and while he digged the ground and watered the hearbes, and went about other businesse, I did nothing but repose my selfe with great ease, but when Winter approached with sharpe haile, raine and frosts, and I standing under a hedge side, was welnigh killed up with cold, and my master was so poore that he had no lodging for himselfe, much lesse had he any littor or place to cover me withall, for he himselfe alwayes lay under a little roofe shadowed with boughes. In the morning when I arose, I found my hoofes shriveled together with cold, and unable to passe upon the sharpe ice, and frosty mire, neither could I fill my belly with meate, as I accustomed to doe, for my master and I supped together, and had both one fare: howbeit it was very slender since as wee had nothing else saving old and unsavoury sallets which were suffered to grow for seed, like long broomes, and that had lost all their sweet sappe and juice. It fortuned on a day that an honest man of the next village was benighted and constrained by reason of the rain to lodge (very lagged and weary) in our Garden, where although he was but meanely received, yet it served well enough considering time and necessity. This honest man to recompence our entertainment, promised to give my master some corne, oyle, and two bottels of wine: wherefore my master not delaying the matter, laded me with sackes and bottels, and rode to the Towne which was seaven miles off.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Enid’s expression is one of betrayal, but it passes. Grace puts the orange in her mouth and sucks the juice from it, as if in penance. It stings and slides down the back of her throat, alleviates some of the dryness but leaves only a sense of unslaked thirst. “We’ll stay, then, if it’s no trouble.” “Good,” he says. “I’ll help,” Enid says. “What do you need?” He hands her a bouquet of turnip greens, bits of dirt dropping to the floor. They are still warm from the garden. “You handle that,” he says. “I got this going.” The rain grows heavy, dropping into the windowsill behind her back, splattering her in fragments of cool. “What’s for dinner?” Grace asks, and they are elated. A sign of appetite, of hunger. “Turnips and some of this roast I made last night and some corn bread,” Big Davis says, and he’s proud of it. Enid is the one cutting up the greens and the turnip roots, which have always been Grace’s favorite. Her brother hates greens of all varieties, and he especially hates turnips. He says they’re too bitter, and Grace always has to remind him that he’s thinking of mustard greens, not turnips. But Davis hates to be corrected more than he hates greens, so he does not hear her, which usually results in a protracted silence over the phone. The kitchen is muggy with steam. She wishes she could get up and go outside, sit on the porch swing to watch the storm roll in. But she would have to ask someone, and they’d look at her with worry and pity. In truth, if she could get up, she’d walk out of this house and keep walking. Nothing would stop her. She’d keep going and going until she got to her brother in Maryland. She’d take his hand and walk both of them into the sea, far away from here. The thought feels like a betrayal—leaving home, leaving Enid and Big Davis—but she wants to take her brother away because it seems like the only way to protect him from the inevitable hurt of their grandfather dying without forgiving, kissing and making good.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

  Lenny’s face turned bright red. He looked like he was going to cry. Marta sat back down. He shook his head hard. “Why is it always like this,” he said. “Why don’t anybody want me back. Why don’t anyone ever want me.” Marta sat there clutching her beer can. Nobody had ever wanted her, either, except Peter. Except Lenny. “You get used to it,” she said. “After a while, you stop noticing.” Lenny chuckled bitterly. “Hell, I don’t know about that.” “You’re probably right,” she said. “You’re probably right.” She did not sleep with Lenny. But she did sit with him until the Daytona was over, and then she went home. He had been right about the walk back to her place. It was easy, and it was beautiful. She walked along the street that ran parallel to the stream, over a small bridge. She stopped to look through the trees that opened over it, and high above everything, the moon. It was cool then, and she wrapped her jacket around herself. When she got home, she lay awake in bed for a long time, and then she made a profile on a dating website. She had been thinking about that feeling she’d had when Peter had asked her to marry him, that sudden recognition of what she’d felt all the time they’d been together, the reason that she couldn’t with Lenny, the sharpening resolution with which she saw herself. When the website asked her what she was interested in, she selected women and not men. • • • That summer, Sigrid wanted to rent a place up north for a few days. She wanted to get out of the city and wake up to birds singing and deer in the yard. She wanted to spend some time reading for pleasure and not for work. It was difficult for Marta, because she did not have much money and did not have many days off. Sigrid kept saying that capitalism was a crime, that it robbed people of their will to live, and Marta would shake her head and think, Someone’s got to pay for all that living. They were thinking about moving in together. Marta’s roommate had cleared off with a boyfriend, and Sigrid’s roommate was getting worse by the day. Thad took Adderall to stay awake and to study. More than once—more than twice—Sigrid had found him standing buck naked in the kitchen in the middle of the night, staring out the window. She had also noticed that when she left her wallet on the coffee table, she came back to find money missing. Never a huge sum, five dollars here, three dollars there, but enough to notice and enough that, after a while, it could turn into a large sum. Sigrid didn’t think about that. Sigrid didn’t think about the future, really, whereas it was all that Marta could think about.