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 Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  “Leave him to me.” Julienne narrowed her eyes. “Even if that were true, I’ve already agreed to accompany Lord Fontaine to a literary luncheon tomorrow.” Lucien’s lips tightened grimly. “The day after, then.” She nodded. “If you can arrange to garner my brother’s approval, I would love to go on a picnic with you, Lucien.” She knew what he wanted. He wished to say good-bye, and she was touched he wanted to make it a memorable event. He cared for her, perhaps more than he knew, but he would never change, and she would never ask him to. Eventually he would resent her for the marital restrictions imposed on his lifestyle. No matter how much he desired her, desire alone would never be enough to bridge the gulf between them. However, she refused to think about that now. Instead she threw herself into the dance and allowed Lucien Remington, notorious libertine, to sweep her away. For this moment at least, she could pretend all of her dreams had come true. Chapter Ten He was very handsome. Julienne acknowledged that fact for the hundredth time as she studied Lord Fontaine furtively beneath her lashes. And quite charming. She glanced around the long table where they sat in Lady Busby’s London residence. Most of the other women in the room were eyeing him covetously. But Julienne could dredge up no pleasure in the day. All she desired was to be enjoying a picnic with Lucien. “Is the food not to your taste, Lady Julienne?” Fontaine asked solicitously. She smiled. “Everything is wonderful. I’m just not very hungry.” She glanced at his plate. “Liar,” he teased. “You want a bite of my scone.” He broke off a piece with his long, elegant fingers, swiped some softened butter on it with a knife, and brought it to her mouth. She parted her lips automatically, and he popped the morsel inside. She blushed, knowing everyone at the table had duly noted the intimate gesture. “I sense a scandalous side to you, my lord.” He grinned. “Does that disturb you?” “You know it doesn’t, or you wouldn’t indulge me with it.” “’Tis one of the reasons why I like you so well, Julienne.” He took a deep breath. “There is something I wish to discuss with you, but now is not the appropriate time. Perhaps tomorrow I could take you for a drive in the park?” Julienne knew exactly what he wished to discuss with her, and she knew what her answer would be. But first she had one more opportunity to spend time with Lucien. “I’m afraid I must decline. I have plans tomorrow.” She saw the troubled frown and sought to allay his concern. “But the following day would be lovely.” He nodded. “Of course. I look forward to it.”

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  It was okay by you as long as she didn’t take it seriously. When she started bringing home all this money it seemed even more okay. Once a week she said she was going to quit. She hated the photographers, the hustlers and the hype. She hated the models . She felt guilty making all this money on her looks, in which she didn’t believe anyway. You asked her if she thought being a secretary was fun. You told her to stick with it long enough to salt away some money, and then she could do whatever she wanted. You thought it was kind of kinky that she was doing this as long as she was slumming, as long as she wasn’t really a model. You both joked about the real models, the ones who developed ulcers over pimples and thought menopause set in at twenty-five. You both despised people who thought an invitation to X’s birthday bash at Magique was an accomplishment equal to swimming the English Channel. But you went to X’s birthday bash anyway, with your tongues in your cheeks, and while Amanda circulated you snorted some of X’s very good friend’s private stash of pink Peruvian flake in the upstairs lounge. Her agent used to lecture her, telling her that as a professional she had to take it more seriously, stop getting ten-dollar haircuts and start going to the right places. Amanda was amused. She did a fine imitation of this agent, a modeling star of the fifties who had the manner of a dorm mother and the heart of a pimp. Over the months, though, you started eating at better restaurants and Amanda started getting her hair cut on the Upper East Side. The first time she went to Italy for the fall showings, she cried at the airport. She reminded you that in a year and a half you had never spent a night apart. She said to hell with it, she would skip Italy, screw modeling. You convinced her to go. She called every night from Milan. Later on these separations did not seem so traumatic. You postponed your honeymoon indefinitely because she had to do the spring collections three days after the wedding. You were busy with your own work. There were nights you got home after she was asleep. You looked at her across the breakfast nook in the morning and it often seemed that she was looking through the walls of the apartment building halfway across the continent to the plains, as if she had forgotten something there and couldn’t quite remember what it was. Her eyes reflected the flat vastness of her native ground. She sat with her elbows on the butcher-block table, twisting a strand of hair in her fingers, head cocked to one side as if she were listening for voices on the wind. There was always something elusive about her, a quality you found mysterious and unsettling.

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  “Good morning, Father.” She pressed kisses to each of his rosy cheeks, then moved to the small table and chairs in the corner. When the footman set her plate and juice on the table, she dismissed him with a smile. “You look positively lovesick,” her father commented. “Are you that pleased with your husband?” “I . . . yes.” She had been, before he broke her heart, but she would never tell her father that. There was no way he could have foreseen what would occur when he endeavored to marry her into a title. And truly, wasn’t this mess her own fault? She had known how Sebastian was when she’d determined to keep him. Only her own foolishness had allowed her to hope for more. “I have to say, I had my doubts when I first saw him,” Jack admitted. “I know his type, wild and unruly. Not the sort of spouse a father would choose for his only daughter. But after speaking with him this morning—” Her pulse leapt. “You spoke with him this morning?” “Yes. We ate breakfast together. He doesn’t appear to be the scapegrace I first thought, though he has the looks for it. His handling of the situation last evening impressed me. He appears to be very protective of you, possessive even. I like that. He’s also astonishingly well versed in seamanship, seems not the least put-out with my work in trade, and . . . well, anyway, I found I liked him much better than that cousin of his, the one I thought was Lord Merrick.” Olivia stifled a groan at the reminder. As if she hadn’t enough problems of her own to attend to, she was now inextricably bound to the rest of the Blake family, and what she’d seen of the brood so far left a marked distaste in her mouth. “Did Merrick mention his plans to you?” Her father folded his paper and looked at her curiously. “He said he left you a note. Didn’t you read it?” She was out the door in a moment, shouting for the butler. He came running out, panting with the effort to make haste. But he knew nothing of a note, so she lifted her skirts and ran up the stairs. She found a chambermaid making the freshly changed bed. “Morning, milady,” the young servant greeted with a quick curtsy. “Did you find a note for me?” The girl nodded and moved to the end table, returning with a slip of folded parchment. Olivia murmured her thanks and retired to her room to read the missive in private. It was simple and heartbreaking. Trust me. I will return. Yours, S She sank to the floor and cried. Chapter Six London, England, June 1813

• From Scandalous Liaisons (2007)

  Again she was caught by the resemblance between Carr and Sebastian. They were very similar, both boasting shining black hair and startlingly blue eyes. But the resemblance was merely superficial. Carr was more like an exuberant puppy, while Sebastian was more of a panther on the prowl. Olivia rolled her shoulders back and forced a smile, since most eyes were on her. Her relentless pursuit of the height of fashion had been a large part of her success, an expensive accomplishment achieved through her husband’s largesse. She sighed audibly. She would gladly have given up everything if it would have won her Sebastian’s love. But it was too late for that now. “Lady Merrick, I believe this next set has been reserved for me.” Olivia turned. “I believe you are correct, Monsieur Robidoux.” The dashing Frenchman bowed elegantly over her proffered hand. His golden beauty had won him wide regard with the members of the ton. It did nothing for her, but she flashed him her best smile. He grinned as he escorted her to the gathering line of dancers. “You are even more ravishing tonight than usual, my lady.” She arched a brow. “Thank you, monsieur.” Robidoux had been brazenly forward with her since arriving in London a month ago, suggesting strolls through the gardens or drives in the park, all of which she refused. She braced herself at every meeting, his determination to be alone with her making her decidedly uncomfortable. “Lady Merrick,” he purred in his unctuous voice. “The Dunsmore title is an old and respected one, I’ve been told. And yet the earl who inherits it is not in attendance. In fact, no one has seen hide nor hair of the man in over five years.” She laughed—part in amusement, part in exasperation. The gossips were rife with speculation about the whereabouts of her husband. After all, it was odd for a missing man to suddenly acquire a wife. It was because of this unusual circumstance that Dunsmore’s assistance had been necessary to establish her credibility. “I assure you, Lord Merrick is not a figment of my imagination.” Robidoux’s fingers tightened on hers. “A beautiful woman should never be neglected.” She suppressed an unladylike snort. The man’s advances were growing tiresome. “I am not neglected, Monsieur Robidoux.” “Where is your husband then? I would very much like to make his acquaintance.” “And so you shall, in good time.” The country dance began, and she released a relieved breath. The Frenchman’s smile held no charm as they traversed the length of the line. “Perhaps you’d care to take a stroll in the gardens with me when the set is over?” he asked before they separated. “No, thank you.”

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  You do not resist as one of the men with a wire hanging out of his ear takes your arm and says “Let’s go.” You follow him down the row of seats and apologize to the people whose knees you are bumping. Once he gets you into the main aisle, he grips your arm uncompromisingly. The two robots escort you out through the lobby. You are temporarily engulfed by a band of Japanese tourists following a guide with a pink flag and ideographic lapel badge. Your escorts are talking into microphones attached to their sleeves. “Agitator apprehended. Proceeding to lobby.” Before shoving you out the door, one of the men leans down and says, “We don’t want to see you here again.” It is a blue, sunny day—much too sunny for you, thanks. Fortunately, for once you have not forgotten your Ray-Bans. The lunchtime crowd churns Park Avenue. You expect people to gaze at you, horror-stricken, yet nobody pays any attention. On the corner a fat man in a Yankees cap is selling pretzels from a pushcart. A woman in a fur coat holds her right arm erect, hoping to conjure a taxi. A bus roars past. Cautiously, as if you were entering a swimming pool for the first time in years, you ease yourself into the ranks of pedestrians. “Things happen, people change,” is what Amanda said. For her that covered it. You wanted an explanation, an ending that would assign blame and dish up justice. You considered violence and you considered reconciliation. But what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name. LINGUINE AND SYMPATHYAfter dark you return to the scene of your former crimes to gather up loose odds and ends. Since the magazine went to press this morning, you can assume everyone will have gone home. You feel strange walking into the building, an infidel penetrating the temple. Your hangover from the Waldorf doesn’t help. As you come out of the elevator on twenty-nine, the first person you see is the Ghost. The elevator doors close behind you. He stands in the middle of the reception area, head tilted to one side like a robin listening for worms, and says hello. You feel compelled to turn around and run. Your mere presence seems shameful, especially after last night. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes to speak. It’s as if he’s deaf and you’re dumb. “Evening,” you say in a weird, flickering voice. He nods his head. “I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving us,” he says. “If ever you need a good reference …” “Thank you. Thanks very much.” “Goodbye.” He turns and rolls off toward Collating. More than anything yet, this strange encounter makes you feel the sadness of leaving. You check the mirror at the corner of the hall.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  Sometimes the sound of his Christian name in an underling’s mouth is sacrilege to his ears. At other times his sense of hale fellowship is offended by a formal address. So this time you nod and say hello. “I’ve always wanted to ask someone from Fact,” he says as he takes up his position in front of the urinal, “does Clara piss in the Men’s Room or the Ladies’?” Now you’ve got the cue. “I don’t believe she pisses.” “Marvelous,” he says. It’s taking him a while to get going at the urinal. To fill in the silence he asks “So how do you like it down there?” as if you had joined the staff last week. “All in all, I’d rather be in Fiction.” He nods and tends to business for a while, then says, “You write, don’t you?” “That seems to be a matter of opinion.” “Hmmmm.” He shakes and zips. At the door he turns and fixes you with a serious look. “Read Hazlitt,” he says. “That’s my advice. Read Hazlitt and write before breakfast every day.” Advice to last a lifetime. Your advice to Walter Tyler is to give it an extra shake or two if he wants to return to his office with dry chinos. You make for the elevator. Some troll you have never seen sticks his head out of an office door and immediately retracts it. Rounding the corner, you narrowly miss running down the Ghost. The Ghost cocks his head to one side, peering, his eyelids fluttering. You say good afternoon and identify yourself. “Yes,” he says, as if he knew all along who it was. He likes to give the impression that his reclusiveness is an advantage, that he knows more than you could ever expect to. You’ve only seen him once before, this legend, this man who has been working on a single article for seven years. You excuse yourself and slide past. For his part, the Ghost glides away silently, as if on wheels. You escape the building without incident. Your jacket, small ransom, is back in the Department. It is a warm, humid afternoon. Spring, apparently. Late April or early May. Amanda left in January. There was snow on the ground the morning she called, a whiteness that turned gray and filthy by noon and then disappeared down the sewer grates. Later that morning the florist called about the bouquet you ordered for her return. Everything becomes symbol and irony when you have been betrayed. You slip into a bar on Forty-fourth, a nice anonymous Irish place where no one has anything on his mind except drinking and sports. On a big video screen at the far end of the long wooden bar is some kind of sporting event. You take a stool and order a beer, then turn your attention to the screen. Basketball. You didn’t realize basketball was in season this time of year, but you like the soothing back-and-forth movement of the ball.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  “I guess I’ll walk after all.” “Asshole.” He leaves rubber. You start north, holding a hand over your eyes. Trucks rumble up Hudson Street, bearing provisions into the sleeping city. You turn east. On Seventh Avenue an old woman with a hive of rollers on her head walks a German shepherd. The dog is rooting in the cracks of the sidewalk, but as you approach he stiffens into a pose of terrible alertness. The woman looks at you as if you were something that had just crawled out of the ocean trailing ooze and slime. An eager, tentative growl ripples the shepherd’s throat. “Good Pooky,” she says. The dog makes a move but she chokes it back. You give them a wide berth. On Bleecker Street you catch the scent of the Italian bakery. You stand at the corner of Bleecker and Cornelia and gaze at the windows on the fourth floor of a tenement. Behind those windows is the apartment you shared with Amanda when you first came to New York. It was small and dark, but you liked the imperfectly patched pressed-tin ceiling, the claw-footed bath in the kitchen, the windows that didn’t quite fit the frames. You were just starting out. You had the rent covered, you had your favorite restaurant on MacDougal where the waitresses knew your names and you could bring your own bottle of wine. Every morning you woke to the smell of bread from the bakery downstairs. You would go out to buy the paper and maybe pick up a couple of croissants while Amanda made the coffee. This was two years ago, before you got married. Down on the West Side Highway, a lone hooker totters on heels and tugs at her skirt as if no one had told her that the commuters won’t be coming through the tunnels from Jersey today. Coming closer, you see that she is a man in drag. You cross under the rusting stanchions of the old elevated highway and walk out to the pier. The easterly light skims across the broad expanse of the Hudson. You step carefully as you approach the end of the rotting pier. You are none too steady and there are holes through which you can see the black, fetid water underneath. You sit down on a piling and look out over the river. Downriver, the Statue of Liberty shimmers in the haze. Across the water, a huge Colgate sign welcomes you to New Jersey, the Garden State. You watch the solemn progress of a garbage barge, wreathed in a cloud of screaming gulls, heading out to sea. Here you are again. All messed up and no place to go. THE DEPARTMENT OF FACTUAL VERIFICATIONMonday arrives on schedule. You sleep through the first ten hours. God only knows what happened to Sunday. At the subway station you wait fifteen minutes on the platform for a train. Finally a local, enervated by graffiti, shuffles into the station.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  THE NIGHT SHIFT Michael is hungry and you are thirsty; a foray is proposed and seconded. All of uptown seems to be headed downtown for Saturday night. Everyone on the sidewalk looks exactly seventeen years old and restless. At Sheridan Square a ragged figure is tearing posters off the utility poles. He claws at the paper with his fingernails and then stomps it under his feet. “What is he, political?” Michael says. “No, just angry.” You walk down into the Lion’s Head, past all the framed dust jackets of all the writers who have ever gotten drunk here, heading for the back room where the lights are low. When you sit down, James, long-haired and black, jumps up on the table; the house cat. “I never really liked her much, to tell you the truth,” Michael says. “I thought she was fake. If I ever see her I’m going to rip her lungs out.” You introduce Michael to Karen, the waitress, and she asks you how the writing is going. You order two double vodkas. She tosses down a couple of menus and ducks around the corner. “At first,” you say, “I couldn’t believe she left me. Now I can’t believe we got married in the first place. I’m just starting to remember how cold and distant Amanda was when Mom got sick. She seemed to resent Mom’s dying.” “Do you think you’d have married her if Mom hadn’t been sick?” You have made such a point of not dwelling on the incidents associated with your mother’s death, almost denying that it was a consideration at all. You were living with Amanda in New York and marriage wasn’t high on your list of priorities, although on Amanda’s it was. You had your doubts about in sickness and in health till death do us part. Then your mother was diagnosed and everything looked different.

• From Bright Lights, Big City (1984)

  You pick up another picture, a boy with a fishing rod holding a trout, cabin and woods in the background. “Old boyfriend?” Meg shakes her head. She slides across the couch and takes the picture, studying it earnestly. “My son,” she says. “Son?” Megan nods, looking at the picture. “This was taken a couple of years ago. He’s thirteen now. I haven’t seen him in almost a year, but he’s coming for a visit as soon as school lets out.” You don’t want to appear too inquisitive. This sounds like a dangerous subject. You haven’t heard about a son before. Suddenly Megan seems much less scrutable than you had imagined. She reaches across your chest to put the picture back on the end table. You can feel her breath on your cheek. “He lives with his father in northern Michigan. It’s a good place for a boy to grow up. They do boy things—hunting and fishing. His father’s a logger. When I met him he was an aspiring playwright who couldn’t get his plays produced. It was hard. We were broke and it seemed like everyone else had money. And I wasn’t the greatest wife in the world. Jack—that’s my ex-husband—didn’t want his son growing up in the city. I didn’t want to leave. Of course I didn’t want my son to leave either, but when the decision was made I was in Bellevue stupefied with Librium. Obviously in no position to fight for custody.” You don’t know what to say. You are embarrassed. You want to hear more. Megan sips her wine and looks out the window. You wonder how painful this is for her. “Did your husband commit you?” “He didn’t have much choice. I was raving. Manic depression. They finally figured out a few years ago it was a simple chemical deficiency. Something called lithium carbonate. Now I take four tablets a day and I’m fine. But it’s a little late to become a full-time mother again. Anyway Dylan—that’s my son—has a wonderful stepmother and I see him every summer.” “That’s awful,” you say.

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  In his eyes, the slave was already free “in Christ.” Whether he was free in socioeconomic terms was of little consequence.29 Was it of little consequence to slaves themselves? Not all slaves were necessarily treated badly. Their status varied with the status of their masters.30 It could be better to be a rich man’s slave than an indigent free person. People sometimes sold themselves into slavery in the hope of being assured of the necessities of life. Some could save money and purchase their freedom. Some acquired skilled trades or became tutors or household managers. Many were awarded Roman citizenship when they were manumitted. But usually slavery was harsh. It has even been defined as the “permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons.”31 Slaves could be freed when they reached the age of thirty, but many died young and were worn out by that age. They had no legal rights. Slaves could not be acknowledged as fathers; their children belonged to their masters. They were sexually at the disposal of their masters.32 They could be beaten or even killed with impunity. In the words of one authority on Roman slavery, “The lot of bad slaves was to be beaten and that of good slaves to internalize the constant threat of a beating.”33 And of another: The bare record of fact shows that Roman slaves, like those in the Americas, were bought and sold like animals, were punished indiscriminately and violated sexually; they were compelled to labour as their masters dictated, they were allowed no legal existence, and they were goaded into compliance through cajolery and intimidation.34 If some people found slavery preferable to extreme poverty, they must have been in a desperate situation. Especially important in conveying Paul’s view of slavery is the brief letter to Philemon. In it Paul makes an appeal on behalf of a person named Onesimus. The key passage (verses 8–16) reads as follows: For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love . . . I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  In that case, his ear is pierced with an awl to signify that he is a slave for life.17 The law is tilted to the advantage of the slave owner by making it difficult for the slave to go free. A similar tilt in favor of slave owners is evident in Exodus 21:20–21. If an owner strikes a slave so that he dies, the owner is supposed to be punished. But if the slave survives for a day or two there is no punishment, “for the slave is the owner’s property.” In all of this, we see at most some slight adjustments to Near Eastern custom, toward providing protection for the slave, but no challenge to the institution of slavery itself. The slave laws of Exodus are revised in Deuteronomy 15. Again, there are very modest adjustments. Now the same law applies to male and female. (There is no longer any mention of marriage between master and female slave.) Deuteronomy also allows the slave to stay in servitude “because he loves you and your household.” Presumably, the slave’s children would remain the master’s property in any case if they were born in servitude. Deuteronomy exhorts the slave owners to provide liberally for manumitted slaves and invokes the memory of the Exodus: “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt” (15:15). But there is no suggestion that it is wrong in principle to own slaves, even Hebrew ones, and there is no requirement to free foreign slaves. Deuteronomy does provide, however, that “slaves who have escaped to you from their owners shall not be given back to them. They shall reside with you in your midst . . . you shall not oppress them” (23:15–16). The slaves in question appear to be ones who escaped from neighboring peoples, rather than slaves who were already living in Israel. The Priestly legislation in Leviticus 25:39–40 edges closer to prohibiting the enslavement of fellow Israelites: If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves. They shall remain with you as hired or bound laborers. They shall serve with you until the year of the jubilee. The difference between being a slave and being a bound laborer was one of degree. The bound laborer did not have the freedom to leave. Moreover, the length of service could be much longer than in the other codes: the year of the jubilee occurred every fifty years (25:11). This legislation is part of the Holiness Code, and we do not know that it was ever followed in practice. Leviticus further specifies that a slave’s children should go free with him (25:41). This would be a significant change in traditional law if it had ever been implemented, as it would deprive the slave owners of a significant source of free labor.

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  There is no restriction, however, on taking slaves from among foreign peoples or from among resident aliens, even when they were born in the land: “You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness” (25:45–46). It is sometimes suggested that slavery in the biblical context was quite different from slavery in other contexts, such as classical Rome or the American South. It is true that there were differences. Except for kings and temples, most people did not have very many slaves.18 This may be a reason why there were no slave revolts. Most people became slaves through debt and were used in agriculture or domestic service. Slaves could be treated as part of the family. They could be acknowledged as fathers, unlike the situation later in Rome. Yet it is clear from the biblical laws that slaves could be subject to abuse. In fact, the passage just cited from Leviticus 25:45–46 implies that to treat someone as a slave meant to treat him or her harshly. Female slaves were at their master’s disposal. Sexual use of slaves may not have been as rampant in the ancient Near East as it was in Rome, but it was assumed, nonetheless. Most crucially, slaves did not have freedom to pursue their own lives and interests. Harshness of treatment may have varied, but slavery inherently denied the dignity and agency of the enslaved. Only rarely are voices raised against slavery in the Hebrew Bible. The prophet Amos railed against those who would “sell the poor for silver and the righteous for a pair of sandals” (2:6; 8:6), but his condemnation does not amount to a rejection of slavery as such. The most eloquent testimony to the reality of debt slavery is found in Nehemiah 5, where people come to Nehemiah to complain: Now our flesh is the same as that of our kindred; our children are the same as their children; and yet we are forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been ravished; we are powerless, and our fields and vineyards now belong to others. (5:5) It is clear that Nehemiah is only concerned with Judean slaves. He also bought back Judeans who had been sold to surrounding people. But at least he recognized the wrongness of slavery in the context of his own people. The concern about aliens, too, left something to be desired. Aliens were integrated into the Israelite and Judean communities in various ways,19 but they were still viewed as second class, and there was no objection to having them as slaves. SLAVES IN SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM We have only fragmentary evidence of the practice of slavery in Second Temple Judaism.20 The Samaria Papyri from the fourth century BCE consist largely of slave contracts.

• From What Are Biblical Values? (2019)

  The names of the slaves are Yahwistic, and this suggests that they were Judeans or Samaritans, but they are sold “in perpetuity” with no provision for their manumission. Ben Sira, writing in the early second century BCE, occasionally gives advice relating to slaves: Fodder and a stick and burdens for a donkey; bread and discipline and work for a slave. Set your slave to work, and you will find rest; leave his hands idle, and he will seek liberty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and if he does not obey, make his fetters heavy. (33:25–30) One should not be ashamed of drawing blood from the back of a wicked slave (42:5). If one has but one slave, however, one should treat him like a brother, lest he run away! (33:32). According to Philo and Josephus, the Essenes had no slaves (Philo, That Every Good Man Is Free , 79; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.21). Josephus adds that they consider slavery an injustice. If this is so, then they were exceptional in ancient Judaism and indeed in the ancient world. The Damascus Document, found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and believed to be related to the Essene sect, contains regulations forbidding the sale of slaves to Gentiles (CD 12.10–11) and the forcing of slaves to work on the Sabbath (CD 11.12).21 These regulations, however, are not necessarily specific to the Essenes. There is no mention of slaves in the Community Rule. But even if the reports in Philo and Josephus are idealized and not historically accurate, they still show that it was not inconceivable that a Jewish community should reject slavery, however unusual such rejection may have been. JESUS AND SLAVERY Jesus often refers to slaves in his parables without ever questioning the morality of the institution.22 The faithful and wise slave can expect a reward, but the wicked slave, who begins to beat his fellow slaves and indulge in drunken behavior, will be cut off and left to weep and gnash his teeth (Matthew 24:45–51). No master invites a slave who has been laboring in the fields to eat before he himself does; rather, he demands that the slave serve him at table (Luke 17:7–10). Even those who do what they are ordered to do are worthless (17:10). It has been suggested that the mercy of the king in the parable of the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:23–35) and the expectation that debtors be merciful in turn “must have struck Jesus’ hearers as profound critiques of an exceedingly oppressive practice that produced slaves.”23 Perhaps, but as often in the Gospels, the appeal is for humane implementation rather than for abolition of an oppressive system. THE PAULINE CORPUS The status of slaves is discussed more explicitly in the Epistles.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  military officers, and responsible for die fever blushes the girls be- trayed on the mornings of Dr. Philobosian's visits, as well as for the nature of their complaints, which ran from the ankle twisted on the dance floor to more intimate scrapes higher up. All of which the girls showed no modesty about, throwing open silk peignoirs to say, "It's all red, Doctor. Do something. I have to be at the Casin by eleven." These girls all gone now, taken out of the city by their parents after the first fighting weeks ago, off in Paris and London— where the Sea- son was beginning— the houses quiet as Dr. Philobosian passed by, the crisis receding from his mind at the thought of all those loosened robes. But then he turned the corner, reaching the quay, and the emergency came back to him. From one end of the harbor to the other, Greek soldiers, ex- hausted, cadaverous, unclean, limped toward the embarkation point at Chesme, southwest of the city, awaiting evacuation. Their tattered uniforms were black with soot from the villages they'd burned in re- treat. Only a week before, the waterfront's elegant open-air cafes had been filled with naval officers and diplomats; now the quay was a holding pen. The first refugees had come with carpets and armchairs, radios, Victrolas, lampstands, dressers, spreading them out before the harbor, under the open sky. The more recent arrivals turned up with only a sack or a suitcase. Amid this confusion, porters darted every- where, loading boats with tobacco, figs, frankincense, silk, and mo- hair. The warehouses were being emptied before the Turks arrived. Dr. Philobosian spotted a refugee picking through chicken bones and potato peels in a heap of garbage. It was a young man in a well- tailored but dirty suit. Even from a distance, Dr. Philobosian's med- ical eye noticed the cut on the young man's hand and the pallor of malnutrition. But when the refugee looked up, the doctor saw only a blank for a face; he was indistinguishable from any of the refugees swarming the quay. Nevertheless, staring into this blankness, the doctor called, "Are you sick?" "I haven't eaten for three days," said the young man. The doctor sighed. "Come with me." He led the refugee down back streets to his office. He ushered 46 him inside and brought gauze, antiseptic, and tape from a medical cabinet, and examined the hand. The wound was on the man's thumb, where the nail was missing. "How did this happen?" "First the Greeks invaded," the refugee said. "Then the Turks in- vaded back. My hand got in the way." Dr. Philobosian said nothing as he cleaned the wound. "I'll have to pay you with a check, Doctor," the refugee said. "I hope you don't mind. I don't have a lot of money on me at the moment." Dr. Philobosian reached into his pocket. "I have a little. Go on. Take it."

• From Middlesex (2002)

  Following this cold wind, which kept blowing through the Indian summer of 1932, 1 sail down the basement stairs to find my grandfa- ther, one morning, counting money. Shut out of his wife's affections, Lefty Stephanides concentrated on work. His business, however, had gone through some changes. Responding to the fall-off in customers at the speakeasy, my grandfather had diversified. It is a Tuesday, just past eight o'clock. Desdemona has left for work. And in the front window, a hand is removing the icon of St. George from view. At the curb, an old Daimler pulls up. Lefty hurries outside and gets into the backseat. My grandfather's new business associates: in the front seat sits Mabel Reese, twenty-six years old, from Kentucky, face rouged, hair giving off a burnt smell from the morning's curling iron. "Back in Pa- ducah," she is telling the driver, "there's this deaf man who's got a camera. He just goes up and down the river, taking pictures. He takes the darndest things." 157 "So do I," responds the driver. "But mine make money." Maurice Plantagenet, his Kodak box camera sitting in the backseat beside Lefty, smiles at Mabel and drives out Jefferson Avenue. Plantagenet has found these pre-WPA years inimical to his artistic inclinations. As they head toward Belle Isle he delivers a disquisition on the history of photography, how Nicephore Niepce invented it, and how Daguerre got all the credit. He describes the first photograph ever taken of a human being, a Paris street scene done with an exposure so long that none of the fast-moving pedestrians showed up except for a lone fig- ure who had stopped to get his shoes shined. "I want to get in the history books myself. But I don't think this is the right route, exacdy." On Belle Isle, Plantagenet pilots the Daimler along Central Av- enue. Instead of heading toward The Strand, however, he takes a small turnoff down a dirt road that dead-ends. He parks and they all get out. Plantagenet sets up his camera in favorable light, while Lefty attends to the automobile. With his handkerchief he polishes the spoked hubcaps and the headlamps; he kicks mud off the running board, cleans the windows and windshield. Plantagenet says, "The maestro is ready." Mabel Reese takes off her coat. Underneath she is wearing only a corset and garter belt. "Where do you want me?" "Stretch out over the hood." "Like this?" "Yeah. Good. Face against the hood. Now spread your legs just a bit." "Like this?" "Yeah. Now turn your head and look back at the camera. Okay, smile. Like I'm your boyfriend."

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  Sensing he was onto something, Chaplin shaped the role further in subsequent movies, rendering him more and more naive. The key was to make the character seem to see the world through the eyes of a child. In The Bank, he is the bank janitor who day- dreams of great deeds while robbers are at work in the building; in The Pawnbroker, he is an unprepared shop assistant who wreaks havoc on a grandfather clock; in Shoulder Arms, he is a soldier in the bloody trenches of World War I, reacting to the horrors of war like an innocent child. Chaplin made sure to cast actors in his films who were physically larger than he was, subliminally positioning them as adult bullies and himself as the helpless in- fant. And as he went deeper into his character, something strange hap- pened: the character and the real-life man began to merge. Although he had had a troubled childhood, he was obsessed with it. (For his film Easy Street he built a set in Hollywood that duplicated the London streets he had known as a boy.) He mistrusted the adult world, preferring the company of the young, or the young at heart: three of his four wives were teenagers when he married them. More than any other comedian, Chaplin aroused a mix of laughter and sentiment. He made you empathize with him as the victim, feel sorry for • "Agreed," said Hermes, and they shook hands on it. • . . . Apollo, taking the child back to Olympus, told Zeus all that had happened. Zeus warned Hermes that henceforth he must respect the rights oj property and refrain from telling downright lies; but he could not help being amused. "You seem to be a very ingenious, eloquent, and persuasive godling," he said. • "Then make me your herald, Father," Hermes answered, "and I will he responsible for the safety of all divine property, and never tell lies, though I cannot promise always to tell the whole truth." • "That would not be expected of you," said Zeus with a smile. . . . Zeus gave him a herald's staff with white ribbons, which everyone was ordered to respect; a round hat against the rain, and winged golden sandals which carried him about with the swiftness of the wind. —ROBERT GRAVES, THE GREEK MYTHS, VOLUME I A man may meet a woman and be shocked by her ugliness. Soon, if she is natural and unaffected, her expression makes him overlook the fault of her features. He begins to find her charming, it enters his head that she might be loved, and a week later he is living in hope. The following week he has been snubbed into despair, and the week afterwards he has gone mad. —STENDHAL, LOVE, TRANSLATED BY GILBERT AND SUZANNE SALE The Natural • 59 him the way you would for a lost dog.

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  I often stumbled to the kitchen for a glass of water late at night to find only a blanket and a pillow on the couch. When I asked my mother where Brother Terrell went at night, she said he was probably walking around outside praying, like he did at the tent. I almost believed her until she introduced him to our neighbor Nila as her brother, her real brother. It wasn’t a lie, she explained, because she had a brother named Dave, after all. And by the way, it would be better if we called Brother Terrell Uncle David in front of the neighbors.“Why?”“It just would. Don’t back-talk.”It worked out okay, until Gary and I slipped and called him Brother Terrell in front of Nila from time to time. She cocked her head and looked at us funny. We kept playing and pretended not to notice. We also pretended not to notice when Brother Terrell/Uncle David eventually went missing from the couch altogether and reappeared from our mother’s bedroom in the mornings.Whenever Brother Terrell left, Mama moved through the house like a ghost. Her sighs were long and labored, and her face was vacant. She didn’t talk unless we asked her a question, and sometimes even then she forgot to answer. It took a few days for her to find her way back to us. First Nila would come through the hedge that separated our houses to tell Mama she had a call from her brother. (We didn’t have a phone.) It was always Brother Terrell, of course. These calls had a positive effect on my mother. Afterward, she stumbled into our room and told us we were going to Big Boy’s for burgers and shakes. Everything was on its way back to our version of normal. I don’t know how long the three of us lived in Houston. My mother’s memory is vague and my brother prefers to forget rather than to remember, so I am on my own when reconstructing this period of our past. My best estimate is three months. Despite my initial resistance to happiness, the end of it took me by surprise.A plague of dead crickets littered the porches and sidewalks of our neighborhood and the sun flattened everything with its white light. Gary and I had just taken our place at the picture window to watch the smallest and most unremarkable of planes make their way across a washed-out sky. We were just tuning up for the I’m-bored chorus when two black women glided up the cracked sidewalk to our house. They shimmered in the heat and humidity of the Houston summer, a mirage of leopard-skin pillbox hats and matching fur stoles. They pulled something big behind them, a console TV that sat high on a primitive wooden sled. There was something of the ancient caravan in their slow, rhythmic progress. They didn’t stress or strain or stop to wipe a brow. Gary and I watched, arms and legs swimming against the glass.

• From The Art of Seduction (2001)

  that Emma is bored. A few weeks later he manages to run into her at a himself of the few clothes county fair, where he gets her alone. He affects an air of sadness and he was wearing, leaving gloom: "Many's the time I've passed a cemetery in the moonlight and asked himself completely naked. The girl followed his myself if I wouldn't be better off lying there with the rest. . . . " He men-example, and he sank to tions his bad reputation; he deserves it, he says, but is it his fault? "Do you his knees as though he really not know that there exist souls that are ceaselessly in torment?" Sev- Use Spiritual Lures • 365 eral times he takes Emma's hand, but she politely withdraws it. He talks of were about to pray, getting love, the magnetic force that draws two people together. Perhaps it has her to kneel directly opposite. • In this posture, roots in some earlier existence, some previous incarnation of their souls. the girl's beauty was "Take us, for example. Why should we have met? How did it happen? It displayed to Rustico in all can only be that something in our particular inclinations made us come its glory, and his longings blazed more fiercely than closer and closer across the distance that separated us, the way two rivers ever, bringing about the flow together." He takes her hand again and this time she lets him hold it. res u rrectio n of the flesh. After the fair, he avoids her for a few weeks, then suddenly shows up, Alibech stared at this in amazement and said: • claiming that he tried to stay away but that fate, destiny, has pulled him "Rustico, what is that I see back. He takes Emma riding. When he finally makes his move, in the sticking out in front of woods, she seems frightened and rejects his advances. "You must have some you, which I do not mistaken idea," he protests. "I have you in my heart like a Madonna on a possess?" • "Oh, my daughter," said Rustico, pedestal. . . . I beseech you: be my friend, my sister, my angel!" Under the "this is the devil I was spell of his words, she lets him hold her and lead her deeper into the telling you about. Do you woods, where she succumbs. see what he's doing? He's hurting me so much that I Rodolphe's strategy is threefold. First he talks of sadness, melancholy, can hardly endure it. " • discontent, talk that makes him seem nobler than other people, as if life's "Oh, praise be to God," common material pursuits could not satisfy him. Next he talks of destiny, said the girl, "I can see that I am better off than

• From Holy Ghost Girl (2012)

  It was late at night or early in the morning and Pam, Randall, Gary, and I fought to stay awake.“Afraid they’ll miss something,” the adults murmured, and they were right. We threaded a circle of twine through our fingers and snapped it. We arm-wrestled and popped our knuckles and kicked our feet until our bodies began to wind down and we moved slower and slower and then hardly at all. Gary went down first, then Randall. Pam and I hung on, despite knowing looks from the adults. I tried to figure out what those looks might mean, but couldn’t follow a thought.My head grew heavier until it leaned against Mama’s shoulder and my eyes shut for a minute, only a minute. They opened again as someone, a man, carried me from the tent into the cold, damp night air. He held me high on his shoulder, his arm wrapped tight around my legs. I breathed in familiar aftershave: Dockery or Brother Cotton, someone I knew. My head bounced and I saw my mother close behind with Gary in her arms. Low, serious voices moved around us. Smoke shot from a tailpipe, gray and blue against the blackness. Odd, how the mind records the most random detail and leaves the larger picture a blur. A car door opened and hands reached out and pulled me in and down, onto a scratchy weave of upholstery. My head settled on a broad thigh. A woman’s sob broke through the static of voices. What? A question, soft and unformed, rose from the bottom of my consciousness. I tried to push myself up and was pulled back down by hands, warm and soothing, on my shoulders, my forehead. The door closed. Car wheels crunched through gravel. We were moving. I let myself sink back into sleep. Everything was okay as long as we were moving. The Road Through Hell1962–1966 NOTHING IS SO MUTE AS A GOD’S MOUTH. Rainer Maria Rilke,“Straining So Hard Against the Strength of Night” Chapter ThirteenI WOKE THE NEXT MORNING WITH RANDALL’S FEET IN MY FACE AND PAM curled beside me. A familiar arrangement. We were used to rolling out of bed after a long night of travel, and tiptoeing around the new house or trailer while our parents slept. Their sprawled bodies and slack faces communicated everything we needed to feel secure. We must have lived in the cheapest and shabbiest of places, but I didn’t experience them that way. My mother’s presence, and her determination to scrub every corner of every place we lived in, made these temporary dwellings feel like home.Pam stirred and we sat up together and looked around. The dingy little room in which we found ourselves felt utterly forsaken. There was no window with morning light streaming through, no heater, no sad-sack Jesus staring down from the colorless wall, no boxes of sheets and bedspreads and whatnots waiting to be unpacked. I could feel my mother’s absence. She was gone; worse, she had never been here.

• From Middlesex (2002)

  which was roiled by complicated emotions, sadness, anger, and something else she couldn't name that hurt most of all. "The rent's unpaid, dear, we haven't a car," Lefty crooned in the sweet tenor I would later inherit; and beneath the music Desdemona now heard her mother's voice again, Euphrosyne Stephanides' last words spoken just before she died from a bullet wound, "Take care of Lefty. . and Desdemona, through her Promise me. Find him a wife!" . . . tears, replying, "I promise. I promise!" . . these voices all speaking at once in Desdemona's head as she crossed the yard to go into the house. She came through the small kitchen where she had dinner cooking (for one) and marched straight into the bedroom she shared with her brother. He was still singing—"Not much money, Oh! but honey"— fixing his cufflinks, parting his hair; but then he looked up and saw his sister—"Ain't we got"— and pianissimo now—"fun"— fell silent. For a moment, the mirror held their two faces. At twenty-one, long before ill-fitting dentures and self-imposed invalidism, my grandmother was something of a beauty. She wore her black hair in 23 long braids pinned up under her kerchief. These braids were not del- icate like a little girl's but heavy and womanly, possessing a natural power, like a beaver's tail. Years, seasons, and various weather had gone into the braids; and when she undid them at night they fell to her waist. At present, black silk ribbons were tied around the braids, too, making them even more imposing, if you got to see them, which few people did. What was on view for general consumption was Des- demona's face: her large, sorrowful eyes, her pale, candlelit com- plexion. I should also mention, with the vestigial pang of a once flat-chested girl, Desdemona's voluptuous figure. Her body was a constant embarrassment to her. It was always announcing itself in ways she didn't sanction. In church when she knelt, in the yard when she beat rugs, beneath the peach tree when she picked fruit, Desde- mona's feminine elaborations escaped the constraints of her drab, confining clothes. Above the jiggling of her body, her kerchief- framed face remained apart, looking slighdy scandalized at what her breasts and hips were up to. Eleutherios was taller and skinnier. In photographs from the time he looks like the underworld figures he idolized, the thin musta- chioed thieves and gamblers who filled the seaside bars of Athens and Constantinople. His nose was aquiline, his eyes sharp, the overall im- pression of his face hawk-like. When he smiled, however, you saw the softness in his eyes, which made it clear that Lefty was in fact no gangster but the pampered, bookish son of comfortably well-off parents.