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 Saint Thomas Aquinas Collection (22 Books) (2016)

  ORIGEN. Or otherwise; My soul is sorrowful even unto death; as much as to say, Sorrow is begun in me, but not to endure for ever, but only till the hour of death; that when I shall die for sin, I shall die also to all sorrow, whose beginnings only are in me. Tarry ye here, and watch with me; as much as to say, The rest I bade sit yonder as weak, removing them from this struggle; but you I have brought hither as being stronger, that ye may toil with me in watching and prayer. But abide you here, that every man may stay in his own rank and station; since all grace, however great, has its superior. JEROME. Or the sleep which He would have them forego is not bodily rest, for which at this critical time there was no room, but mental torpor, the sleep of unbelief. 26:39–4439. And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. 40. And he cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? 41. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. 42. He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. 43. And he came and found them asleep again: for their eyes were heavy. 44. And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words.

• From New Testament Words (1964)

  It so happened that this word became specially connected with the Christian and with the Christian Church. The Christian was exactly in this position—he lived in a community, and he undertook all the duties of that community, but his citizenship was in heaven. Clement writes his letter from the Church paroikousē (the present participle) at Rome to the Church paroikousē at Corinth. Polycarp uses the same way of speaking when he writes to the Church at Philippi. The Church was in these places, but the true home of the Church was not there. Now there comes a very interesting development. The word paroikos means a ‘resident alien’; the verb paroikein meant to stay in a place, but not to be a naturalized citizen of it. So the noun paroikia came to mean ‘a body of aliens in the midst of any community’; and it is from this word paroikia that the English word ‘parish’ is derived. The Christian community is a body of people who live in this world, but who have never accepted the standards and the methods and the ways of this world. Their standards are the standards of God. They accept the law of the place wherein they dwell, but beyond them and above them, for them there stands the law of God. The Christian is essentially a person whose only real citizenship is citizenship of the Kingdom of God. The idea of the Christian as a stranger and a pilgrim in the world became so much part of Christian thought that it is worthwhile to consider it a little further. (i) In the ancient world to be a stranger in a strange place was to be unhappy. It is true that there was respect for the stranger. In Greek religion one of the titles of Zeus was Zeus Xenios. ‘Zeus, the god of strangers’; and strangers were held to be under the protection of the gods; but none the less there was a certain wretchedness in the lot of the stranger. The Letter of Aristeas (249) has it: ‘It is a fine thing to live and to die in one’s own land; a foreign land brings contempt to the poor, and to the rich it brings suspicion that they have been exiled because of some evil they have done.’ Ecclesiasticus (29.22-28) has a famous and wistful passage about the lot of the stranger: Better the life of the poor under a shelter of logs, Than sumptuous fare in the house of strangers. With little or with much, be contented; So wilt thou not have to bear the reproach of thy wandering. An evil life it is to go from house to house, And where thou art a stranger thou must not open thy mouth. A stranger thou art in that case, and drinkest contempt; And besides this thou wilt have to bear bitter things: ‘Come hither, sojourner, from the face of honour, My brother is come as my guest, I have need of my house.’

• From Dirty Pretty Things (2014)

  “I love you, but, I just can’t live with you anymore,” the words she wrote with a voice frail and broken. A miserable ending to our magnificent love story. One that my pencil still refuses to write to this day. A Final Kiss May my last breath, be it faint, and whisper thin, meet death quietly. A final kiss, buried gently, within the warmth, of the only lips, I ever lived, to truly love. Fireworks She had a mind like a box of fireworks and hands that played recklessly with matches. The Apple Orchard He floated upon a gentle sea of rippling green. Where little yellow butterflies danced drunk pirouettes on the windy stage. Reading the words written by fluffy white poets who wrote ever-changing prose across an endless blue page. “Apples are funny things,” he said. “You can never be sure of what you are getting until you take that first bite.” His hand reaches slowly for the half-empty vodka bottle. “This afternoon I discovered an apple so wonderfully perfect, I wouldn’t be surprised if it came from the outstretched hand of a wicked old witch.” She pulled up her white cotton panties, brushing an ant from a grass-stained knee. “I’ve been called many things before but never an apple,” she laughed. Stormy Weather We made love on stormy summer nights. Our kisses wet and furious like rain running wild across the naked ground. Her gentle moans lost in the rumble of thunder. [image file=image_rsrc2H9.jpg] I Love You The most beautiful sound in the world to me is not forest birdsong or babbling brooks or even the ringing of church bells. It’s hearing you whisper “I love you” over and over again. Lollipops Yellow taxi tires screech to a sudden stop. A door slams shut. Steps stirring up swirling pavement puddles. Tripping over rusty tin cans in the cobblestone lane. Anticipation finally arrives in the shape of a corner shop. Rain-streaked heart-shaped windows. A seductive wink from a sultry flashing neon sign. Lollipops, meticulously written in silver scripted letterpressed letters. A place where generous sprinklings of sugary sex are swapped for a handful of crumpled dollar bills. A promise becomes permission. I walk you slowly through the red leather door. Little kitten heels and long white socks. A cotton candy smile. Nipples fighting hard against the tight tunic top that I bought you last summer. A ridiculously short gray pleated woolen skirt. Tired candles yawn. Casting cryptic shadows across the pink and cream striped hallway, where glory holes wait. You kneel down. I push the shiny black token into the slot. You look up at me. Eyes begging softly. I lean down and quietly whisper words, best left unsaid. A thick hard cock suddenly appears from a hole in the wall. Beautifully gift-wrapped in black cellophane and a red velvet ribbon bow. Furtive fingers reaching out. Silently untying.

• From Dirty Pretty Things (2014)

  Writer’s Block There was something quite perverse about my love of crisp, cold days, especially the ones touched by a weak watery warmth that spilled down from skies of winter blue. Perhaps it was the remoteness of being that appealed to me. Sitting in an empty park, surrounded by the towering trees, bare and lonely, their leaves long departed and now left decaying on the chilly ground. Even the odd flap of wings from startled sparrows, darting between bare limbs and twisted branches, did little to interrupt the stillness of this solitary moment. Where I found myself, as I often did, writing endless poetry in scrawly pencil strokes. My fingers frozen, as the faint gray words fell upon the pristine pages of a battered leather-bound journal. Every sentence formed, a furrow plowed across an empty field, where seeds refused to grow. I remember once, many years ago, finding myself transfixed and strangely hypnotized by the mechanical whirring of an automata. Two metal monkeys, grimaced faces covered in speckled paint and tuffs of tatty black hair, sitting opposite each other, weary combatants dueling across a tired-looking wooden chessboard . I watched as their arthritic paws moved the pieces with robotic precision, playing the same game over and over again with identical conclusion. After every checkmate, they reset the pieces to start playing again, only stopping to be rewound by the turn of an ornate brass key. A beautiful exercise in futility, repetitive and strangely cathartic. Like a pencil driven between the blue lines by a driver with no clear direction in mind. “The more you write, the more you write.” I can’t recall who said that to me, but the words stuck. An inky stain, dark black and impossible to remove. A throaty bark from a panting dog broke the silence. Its muddy paws kicking up leaves, tail wagging, chasing a faded green tennis ball thrown by a loved-up couple, wearing his and hers matching blue anoraks. I watched them walk away, a trail of faint laughter clinging to a tangled thread of wispy breeze. A distant memory left behind with every step and fast unraveling . A last kiss stolen from Lucy’s tear-stained lips. Salty and unforgiving. Her hand slowly slipping away from mine as we sat on this very bench. “I love you, but, I just can’t live with you anymore,” the words she wrote with a voice frail and broken. A miserable ending to our magnificent love story. One that my pencil still refuses to write to this day.

• From Dirty Pretty Things (2014)

  Virgin Snow Your scream startled birds, rising up from naked trees, laid bare by winter’s breath. Little clouds of spoken mist, from the lips of lovers lost, fade to nothing. Pretty knees turn to icy blue, on frozen sheets of brilliant white, in a bed of falling snow, stained red. Whispers Some nights I close my eyes and imagine feeling your lips on mine, your whispered words slowly pushing my legs apart. Uncharted Think of me as an uncharted map. I want your hands to explore every single city, town, and village. Dying Flowers Love came as it often does, all smiles and fragrant flowers, but when it left it left behind, the fallen petals of what was ours. Kiss Me Yes, I dream of many things, she said, and the thought of your hand between my legs is just one of them. Now shut up and kiss me. Pretty Torments I love, how you like to tease. Slowly crawling, while your legs do the talking, with knees that blush, on wooden floors. Dropping a pencil, and picking it up. Overwhelmed I know I shouldn’t be telling you this, she said, but I have an overwhelming urge to fuck you—right here, right now. Ice Cream Would you prefer chocolate or strawberry ice cream? I’m surprised I even have a choice, she replied. You don’t— Now close those eyes and open your pretty mouth. Changing Tides Sometimes if I stop to think, this life we share could drown and sink, beneath the waves— I contemplate, about the love we do create. Good Night May you fall asleep in the arms of a dream, so beautiful, you’ll wake up crying. The Thief It wasn’t right, you know it’s wrong, the heart you took, did not belong. But now it’s gone, it’s yours to keep, for another’s loss, is theirs to weep. Red She was obsessed with the color red, this dangerous girl with scarlet lips. Her reckless kisses written in blood upon a page I could not turn. Stars Magic tumbled from her pretty lips and when she spoke the language of the universe—the stars sighed in unison. Wet Dreams Such a gorgeous tangle your legs in mine a fantasy is sold. Our outstretched arms explore the charms of desire and sex well told. We live this dream of moans and screams, a life in bed all spent. Spring She wore the scent of early spring on her delicate neck and every kiss I stole tasted of bright yellow flowers and buzzing bees. Melancholia I am alone, love passes by. Crying tears, I wonder why— I cannot find what others found. First Kiss The first kiss is the last to be forgotten. The Drowning I fell into a sea of tears and sank beneath its waves, each breath I lost, became the cost, I paid for wasted years. To sink or swim a question posed, an answer lost within, a sorrow kept, drowned by regret, I cry for you again.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  amorous, or historical subjects ; eight dramatic pieces, includ- ing tour mysteries, two moralities, and two farces ; poetical epistles to her brother, her mother, and the King of Navarre ; and rondeaux, dixains, songs, and other small pieces. Accord- ing to the last editors of the Heptameron, some of Margaret's fugitive pieces, published by them for the first time, are superior as literary works to her more serious compositions, and in them alone are to be found the gayety and grace for which she has been so much celebrated by her contemporaries. There is one among them, of a graver character, which appears to us so remarkable for its impassioned force and its full and flowing rhythm that we gladly lay it before the reader : — Souvieigne voiis des lermes respandues, Qui par regret tres grand fiirent rendues Sur vostre tant amyable visaige ; Souvieigne voiis du dangercux oultraige Que vous cuida faire mon povre coeur, Presse par trop d'une e.xtreme douleur, Ouand il forca la voix de satistaire Au tres grand mal oil ne scavois que faire, Tant qu'a peu pres la pleur fut entendu Souvieigne vous du sens qui fut perdu, Tant que raison, parolle & contenance N'eurent pouvoir, ny force, ny puissance, De desclairer ma double passion. Ny aussi ]jeu ma grand affection ; Souvieigne vous du coeur qui bondissoit Pour la tristesse en quoy il perissoit ; Souvieigne vous des souspirs tres ardens Qui k la foule en despict de mes dentz Sortoient dehors, pour mieulx me soulaiger ; Souvieigne vous du peril & danger Ou nous estions, dont nous ne tenions compt Car vraye amour ne congnoist paour ny honte ; Souvieigne vous de nostre amour honneste, Dont ne devons pour nul baisser la teste, Car nous scavons tons deux certainement Qu'honneur & Dieu en sont le fondement ; Souvieigne vous du tr^s chaste embrasser Dont vous ne moy ne nous pouvions laisser ; Souvieigne vous do vostre foy promise • Par vostre main dedans la mienne mise ; Souvieigne vous de mes doubtes passees, QUEEN OF NA VARRE. xxxix

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  His name was Tom Toppins, and even though he had a goofy name, he overcame it because he rode an old Triumph motorcycle. In my story, Tom Toppins was casually dating a girl with blonde dreadlocks. She was a Buddhist; he was a Christian. He attended a Greek Orthodox church. She would go with him to church every once in a while, but he would not participate in her faith. He thought it was shallow, too much about fashion. He told her this over lunch at her loft apartment, and she exploded in anger. Then she cried, but he did not comfort her. He stood up and put on his jacket and lit up a cigarette and told her he was going to church. She screamed out, “How can you Christians maintain such an exclusive hold on truth!” He straightened his jacket while looking in a mirror and whispered to himself, “‘Cause that’s the way it is, baby. That’s the way it is.” He walked out the door and left her weeping in agony, rubbing the belly of her little statue of Buddha. He didn’t think of her again till the next day when he went by her apartment. Tom Toppins walked in and, though it was afternoon, found her sleeping, her face all red and wet with tears. He pulled a book of poems from his motorcycle jacket, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and read to her from Sonnets from the Portuguese until she gently woke up. He lay down next to her and set her head on his free arm. She buried her head in his armpit and sobbed, but he didn’t stop reading. My own beloved, who has lifted me From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown, And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully Shines out again, as all the angels see, Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own, Who camest to me when the world was gone, And I who looked for only God, found thee. I saw a movie the other day about all these people at this college back East, and it was a pretty grimy movie. There was a character in the movie, this guy who was a drug dealer and a jerk, and everybody else in the movie loved him and wanted to have sex with him. One of my housemates, Grant, was saying to me the other day that girls always like bad guys. My friend Amy is like that I think. And so was my friend Suzy, but Suzy said she got over it and now she likes guys who are relatively nice and stable.

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 74 < Lecture 11  Early Christianities ` Historians who try to determine what happened in the past, though, can use the terms orthodoxy and heresy if they slightly redefine them. The redefined versions refer not to what is theologically true but to the views and practices that became the widely accepted as true (orthodoxy) and any other set of views and practices that diverged from these eventually orthodox views (heresy). ` In this way of understanding the matter, there were struggles over what to believe and how to practice Christianity. One group won those struggles. That group became dominant. It took over Christianity, became the norm, and called itself orthodox. Diversity ` To give a deeper sense of the diversity of Christianity before the triumph of orthodoxy, the following is a summary of three kinds of groups of Jesus’s followers at the time. First, there was a range of groups at the time that we might call Jewish Christian. They went by different names: Ebionities, Nazareans, Hebrews, and so on. y There were differences among these groups, but unifying them was a commitment to the ongoing importance of the practice of Judaism for believers in Jesus. This appears have been the original view of the earliest Christians. y In this view, the law of Moses was given by God and was never revoked. God had not changed his mind about how he wanted people to live and worship him. y Moreover, the covenant God made with his people was an eternal covenant not to be circumvented. For that reason, anyone who wanted to belong to his people had to do what he required. y Gentile men who believed in Jesus had to be circumcised. Both men and women had to follow the other laws of Judaism, including kosher food laws and Sabbath observance.

• From The Triumph of Christianity (2018)

  < 161 < Lecture 24  The Triumph of Christianity: Gains and Losses ` Once emperors became Christian, converts poured in, and the path was open for the aristocracy to follow. The leaders of the churches shifted from being simply local believers who happened to be literate to comprising the most highly educated, well-connected, politically astute, wealthy, and revered elements of society. The wealth and the power of the church itself became enormous. ` There were, of course, fantastic cultural results. The history of Western philosophy, art, music, and literature as we know it would not have occurred. y There never could have been a Descartes, Kant, or Hume. y There could have been no Giotto, Michelangelo, or Rubens. y Nor could there have been a Handel, Bach, or Mozart. The same goes for Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, and so on. Cultural Losses ` At the same time, much was lost. That includes the potential for other philosophers, artists, musicians, and creators but also the great works known once to have existed that are with us no more. A great deal of ancient pagan culture was eventually destroyed or simply never preserved. ` Some remnants adorn many of the great museums and libraries of the world. But most of the art and architecture was not preserved, and most of the literature was simply never copied for posterity. ` That is completely understandable: Copyists reproducing literary texts in the Middle Ages were invariably monks working in Christian monasteries. They were far more interested in reproducing the letters of the Christian apostle Paul than the plays of the pagan author Plautus. ` As a result, thousands of ancient books known and suspected once to have existed are gone forever. Those include plays, novels, poems, histories, philosophical works, scientific treatises, essays, and so on.

• From Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family (1901)

  All eight ladies were dressed in black. It was a small family gathering to say goodbye, farewell to Gerda Buddenbrook who was about to leave the city and return to Amsterdam to play duos with her elderly father as she used to. No obligation held her back. Ms. Permaneder had nothing more to oppose to this decision. She surrendered to it, but deep inside she was unhappy about it. Had the senator's widow remained in town, had she retained her place and rank in society and left her fortune where it belonged, there would have been some prestige preserved in the family name... Whatever it was, Frau Antonie was willing to hold her head high as long as she was above the earth and people looked at her. Her grandfather used to drive four horses across the country... Despite the eventful life that lay behind her and despite the weakness of her stomach, she didn't look fifty years old. Her complexion had turned a little downy and dull, and the hairs on her upper lip—the pretty upper lip of Tony Buddenbrooks—were growing more profusely; but not a single white thread could be seen in the smooth parting under the mourning cap. Her cousin, poor Klothilde, took Gerda's departure, as one should take all things in this world, calmly and gently. She had eaten quietly and vigorously at supper earlier, and now sat there, ashen and thin as ever, with long, kind words. Erika Weinschenk, now thirty-one, was not the kind of woman to get excited about saying goodbye to her aunt. She had experienced harder things and adopted a resigned nature early on. In her weary, water-blue eyes - Herr Grünlich's eyes - you could read submission to a failed life, and her calm and sometimes a little plaintive voice sounded the same. As for the three ladies Buddenbrook, Uncle Gotthold's daughters, their expressions were piqued and full of criticism, as usual. Friederike and Henriette, the older ones, had become more and more gaunt and pointed over the years, while Pfiffi, the fifty-three-year-old youngest, seemed all too small and corpulent... The old Consul Kröger, Uncle Justus' widow, had also been invited; but she was unwell, and perhaps had no presentable dress to wear; that could not be decided. There was talk of Gerda's trip, of the train she intended to take, and the sale of the villa and furniture, which the broker Gosch had taken over. Because Gerda didn't take anything with her and left as she had come. Then Mrs. Permaneder came to speak of life, took it from its most important side and made reflections on the past and the future, although there was almost nothing to be said about the future. 'Yes, if I'm dead, Erika can move away for my sake too,' she said, 'but I can't live anywhere else, and as long as I'm alive we want to stick together here, we few people who are left...

• From Blue Like Jazz (2003)

  Still, I knew, because of my own feelings, there was something wrong with me, and I knew it wasn’t only me. I knew it was everybody. It was like a bacteria or a cancer or a trance. It wasn’t on the skin; it was in the soul. It showed itself in loneliness, lust, anger, jealousy, and depression. It had people screwed up bad everywhere you went—at the store, at home, at church; it was ugly and deep. Lots of singers on the radio were singing about it, and cops had jobs because of it. It was as if we were broken, I thought, as if we were never supposed to feel these sticky emotions. It was as if we were cracked, couldn’t love right, couldn’t feel good things for very long without screwing it all up. We were like gasoline engines running on diesel. I was just a kid so I couldn’t put words to it, but every kid feels it. (I am talking about the broken quality of life.) A kid will think there are monsters under his bed, or he will close himself in his room when his parents fight. From a very early age our souls are taught there is a comfort and a discomfort in the world, a good and bad if you will, a lovely and a frightening. There seemed to me to be too much frightening, and I didn’t know why it existed. I was recently reminded about all of this. It started while I was watching television. I live with four other guys, pretty cool guys in a pretty cool house in Laurelhurst. I have this killer room upstairs. It is tucked away from everybody, sort of hidden through a door in the back of the upstairs den. The walls in my room are cedar, like something you’d find in a wood cabin. There is a birch tree so big and dignified outside my window that I often feel I am in its limbs. In the evening when it rains, the birch sounds like an audience giving a standing ovation. Sometimes when the tree is clapping I stand at the window and say thank you, thank you, as if I am Napoleon.

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

  Whether the sin is aggravated by the fact that the aforesaid injuries are perpetrated on those who are connected with others?Objection 1: It would seem that the sin is not aggravated by the fact that the aforesaid injuries are perpetrated on those who are connected with others. Such like injuries take their sinful character from inflicting an injury on another against his will. Now the evil inflicted on a man’s own person is more against his will than that which is inflicted on a person connected with him. Therefore an injury inflicted on a person connected with another is less grievous. Objection 2: Further, Holy Writ reproves those especially who do injuries to orphans and widows: hence it is written (Ecclus. 35:17): “He will not despise the prayers of the fatherless, nor the widow when she poureth out her complaint.” Now the widow and the orphan are not connected with other persons. Therefore the sin is not aggravated through an injury being inflicted on one who is connected with others. Objection 3: Further, the person who is connected has a will of his own just as the principal person has, so that something may be voluntary for him and yet against the will of the principal person, as in the case of adultery which pleases the woman but not the husband. Now these injuries are sinful in so far as they consist in an involuntary commutation. Therefore such like injuries are of a less sinful nature. On the contrary, It is written (Dt. 28:32) as though indicating an aggravating circumstance: “Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given to another people, thy eyes looking on [*Vulg.: ‘May thy sons and thy daughters be given,’ etc.].” I answer that, Other things being equal, an injury is a more grievous sin according as it affects more persons; and hence it is that it is a more grievous sin to strike or injure a person in authority than a private individual, because it conduces to the injury of the whole community, as stated above ([2911]FS, Q[73], A[9]). Now when an injury is inflicted on one who is connected in any way with another, that injury affects two persons, so that, other things being equal, the sin is aggravated by this very fact. It may happen, however, that in view of certain circumstances, a sin committed against one who is not connected with any other person, is more grievous, on account of either the dignity of the person, or the greatness of the injury. Reply to Objection 1: An injury inflicted on a person connected with others is less harmful to the persons with whom he is connected, than if it were perpetrated immediately on them, and from this point of view it is a less grievous sin. But all that belongs to the injury of the person with whom he is connected, is added to the sin of which a man is guilty through injuring the other one in himself.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  He wanted me to see the pictures from his profile, which he enlarged until they filled the screen. This was two years ago, he said as I looked at the young man in the image, who stood on Vitosha Boulevard with a bag from one of the expensive stores there, smiling radiantly at whoever held the camera, showing his unbroken teeth. I was shocked by the difference between their faces, the man in the image and the man beside me; not only was his tooth unbroken, but also his head was unshaved, his hair full and light brown, conventionally cut. There was nothing rough or threatening about him at all; he looked like a nice kid, a kid I might have had in class at the prestigious school where I teach. It was hardly possible they could be the same person, this prosperous teenager and the man beside me, or that so short a time could have made such a difference, and I found myself looking repeatedly at the screen and then at Mitko, wondering which face was the truer face, and how it had been lost or gained. Look, Mitko said, pointing as he rattled off the brands of what seemed to me fairly nondescript items of clothing: jeans, a jacket, a button-down shirt; also a belt; also a pair of sunglasses. He even remembered the shoes he was wearing that day, though they weren’t visible on the screen; maybe they were special shoes, or maybe it was a special day. Hubavi , he said, a word that means lovely or nice, and then, fingering his collar, mrusen , and he pulled the offensive shirt off and turned back bare-chested to the screen. I leaned forward (I had sat down next to him) and kissed his shoulder, a chaste kiss, an expression of the sadness I felt for him, perhaps, though it wasn’t only sadness that I felt, with his torso now exposed beside me. He looked at me, smiling broadly, the same smile as in the photograph or almost the same, though they looked nothing alike, one transformed—it was astonishing how thoroughly—by the broken tooth, its evidence of something undergone. He bent his head toward mine, but not to engage in the kiss I expected; instead, in a quick surprise, playfully and without any hint of seduction he licked the tip of my nose, then turned back to his task. There were many more photographs, the young man featured in shifting scenes: here at the seaside, here in the mountains, always in the casual clothes of which he was so proud, the generic uniform of affluent young Americans, the stuff of endless racks in endless suburban malls.

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  Be sure you tell the truth, he said, be sure you say what you mean. But how could I say what I meant, I thought, when that meaning so entirely escaped me? I looked at him without speaking, at the length of him folded in the chair; it was a way of delaying an answer but it was also a valedictory look, I was taking him in with a sense already of regret. He saw me looking as he poured himself another drink, his third or fourth in a short time, the effects of it were beginning to show; and again I had the thought, more troubling now, that he was steeling himself for something to come. Well, he said, which is it, and though I hadn’t come any closer to a decision I felt pressed to meet his tone, a pressure I was grateful for, since it freed me from having to choose. Yes, I said then, yes, I think that’s best, but I didn’t stop there; I’m sorry, I said, I’m sorry, and then, this is sad for me, tuzhno mi e. He looked at me silently, then stood up and began pulling on his clothes, moving purposefully but also unsteadily. Think if I were someone else, he said, and there was tension in his voice, he was speaking more quickly and I had to strain to understand him, think if I were a different person, if I were like that guy who stole from you, have you thought about that? Did you think about that when you took me home with you? He looked different to me now as he stared at me again, he wore a face I hadn’t seen before, a face that grew stranger and unsettled me more as he went on. I could have been anyone, I could have robbed you, I could have taken your camera and your phone, your computer, I could have hurt you. Did you think about that, he asked again, and he paused, he looked at me with his new face, which was capable, it seemed to me, of any of those things, and I wondered whether it was a face he had just discovered or one he had hidden all along.

• From The Swimming-Pool Library (1988)

  ‘It’s another of my icons.’ He looked from me to an oval portrait which hung above the fireplace. From its mandorla of gilded oak leaves a livery-clad negro turned towards us. A sky of darkening blue was sketched behind him, and the shadowy form of a palm-tree could just about be made out. He appeared to be an eighteenth-century colonial servant; evidently a favoured one. ‘It’s Bill Richmond,’ Charles explained. No wiser, I stood up to look more closely at the pugnacious brown face with its thick lips, flat nose and short curly hair. It frowned ironically from the crimson and gilt of the high-necked footman’s coat. ‘I’m afraid he’s not as pretty as the King Akhnaten,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t in a pretty business, poppet. Well … he was a man with several lives: first of all he was a slave, then he got brought back to England by a General whatsaname in the War of Independence. He found him in Richmond, which is where his name comes from. Bill was one of those big strong lads we like so much, so the General trained him up as a boxer. He became quite well known for a while—along with Molineux, of course, that Byron sparred with. They were the first of their kind to break out, really—they were good fighters, so they made a figure in the world. Don’t he look kind of sad, though.’ ‘Very sad. He don’t—doesn’t look much like a boxer, either.’ ‘No. You see, he became a valet or what-have-you to some Lord. When he’d done with fighting he just carried on in service. Hence the livery. It makes for a good picture but a sad story. I’m sure the artist must have scaled him down, too. Byron says, when he met him later in life, that he was a great strong fellow. I’ll look it up for you some time. I believe he used to work in Molineux’s corner too.’ ‘You don’t know who it’s by?’ But Charles seemed to have lapsed into reflection on the fate of Bill Richmond, and wore a nostalgic expression as though he had known him personally. As ever, I let it pass; I was learning not to worry about silences in the conversation. I was happy to ponder his treasured artifacts and the secret metamorphoses that they enshrined. ‘A last leg, and a question,’ he proposed. ‘Both rather special.’ I took his arm again and we went out into the hall. ‘Are you interested in boxing? That’s not the question, by the way.’ ‘I suppose I am,’ I said. ‘I boxed a bit at school.’ ‘Oho! You be careful. You don’t want to get that pretty nose broken.’ ‘I don’t do it any more. Don’t worry.’ ‘It’s been a great interest of mine. You’ll have to find out about all that side if you go into this.’

• From Four Days to Glory: Wrestling with the Soul of the American Heartland (2005)

  (Courtesy of The Predicament) CHAPTER 12They Hand Out RosesYou get right down to it, it’s a lousy deal. For years, the Borschels, along with these countless other families whose kids never did get the first-place payoffs that people like Jay and Dan and Kyle and Mitch and Joey got repeatedly, have arranged whole chunks of their years around the questions of when the boys would wrestle and where. And all of this traveling, all of these tournaments and this incremental improvement and advance—it all ultimately has brought the Borschels right back to Marion, to the Linn-Mar team of which Jay now is almost finished being a member. To heartbreak, basically. For Carol, there was never going to be a way to make it easy at the end. She can be in denial with the best of them when it suits her purpose, and prior to this exact moment Carol has done a magnificent job of ignoring the reality that is creeping in around her where it concerns Jay. She is running out of chances to watch her oldest child do the thing he is the best at in the world. A night like this, kids like Matt McDonough can scarcely process—it’s so far away for them, beyond the scope of relevance. But Carol could tell you that it gets here faster than you think. A couple of days ago Jay was the freshman, making his first Linn-Mar varsity team, finding a niche at the lightest weight on the list. Now Jay is the senior who has grown beyond all measure, the one coming into the hallway to greet his mother and walk with her and Jim into the Linn-Mar gymnasium to shake Doug Streicher’s hand and listen to the words spilling out of Kevin McCauley as the assistant coach rattles off Jay’s astonishing athletic accomplishments—and the other things, too. He mentors an elementary-school student once a week. He maintains a 3.4 grade-point average. He’s a founding member of the Tailgating Club, which is basically an excuse to goof around in the parking lot before football games. He can eat a full meal and still make weight. Some things defy the odds. The Linn-Mar gym is a big, bright place, with huge bleachers that come way out without actually even getting close to the basketball court or the wrestling mats. Of course, for the wrestling team no such deep bleachers are needed; Jay is used to that and long ago stopped thinking about it. He has chosen a sport that, at Linn-Mar, has almost nothing to do with fans or attractive girls or mass appeal—that even living in Iowa, one can be a raging success at and largely anonymous at the same time. Of course, that was before Jay became the guy going for a four-timer while ditching his home state to go wrestle in the East. Now the people around here see him coming, for better and for worse.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  by people on foot, who, coming from Oleron, wish to pass the Gave. The abbot, very well pleased at their incurring an expense which would increase the number of pilgrims, fur- nished them with workmen ; but he was so miserly that he would not contribute a farthing of his own. The workmen, however, having declared that it would take at least ten or twelve days to construct the bridge, the company began to grow tired. Parlamente, the wife of Hircan, always active and never melancholy, having asked her husband's permis- sion to speak, said to old dame Oisille, " I am surprised, madam, that you, who have so much experience that you fill the place of a mother to the rest of us women, do not devise some amusement to mitigate the annoyance we shall suffer from so long a delay ; for unless we have something agree- able and virtuous to occupy us, we are in danger of falling sick." "What is still worse," said Longarine, the young widow, " we shall grow cross, which is an incurable malady ; the more so as there is not one of us but has cause to be extremely sad, considering our several losses." " Everyone has not lost her husband like you," said Enna- suite, laughing. " To have lost servants is not a matter to break one's heart, since they can easily be replaced. How- ever, I am decidedly of opinion that we should pass the time away as agreeably as we can." Nomerfide, her companion, said it was a very good idea, and that if she passed one day without amusement, she should be dead the next. The gentlemen all warmly approved of the proposal, and begged dame Oisille to direct what was to be done. " You ask a thing of me, my children," replied the old lady, " which I find very difficult. You want me to invent an amusement which shall dissipate your ennui. I have been in search of such a remedy all my life long, and I have never found but one, which is the reading of Holy Writ. It is in §uch reading that the mind finds its true and perfect joy 8 PROLOGUE

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

  PSEUDO-JEROME. He warms himself at the fire in the hall, with the servants. The hall of the High-Priest is the enclosure of the world, the servants are the devils, with whom whosoever remains cannot weep for his sins; the fire is the desire of the flesh. BEDE. (ubi sup.) For charity is the fire of which it is said, I am come to send fire on the earth, (Luke 12:49) which flame coming down on the believers, taught them to speak with various tongues the praise of the Lord. There is also a fire of covetousness, of which it is said, They are all adulterers as an oven; (Hosea 7:4) this fire, raised up in the hall of Caiaphas by the suggestion of an evil spirit, was arming the tongues of the traitors to deny and blaspheme the Lord. For the fire lit up in the hall amidst the cold of the night was a figure of what the wicked assembly was doing within; for because of the abounding of iniquity the love of many waxes cold. Peter, who for a time was benumbed by this cold, wished as it were to be warmed by the coals of the servants of Caiaphas, because He sought in the society of traitors the consolation of worldly comfort. It goes on, And the Chief Priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death. (Matt. 24:12) THEOPHYLACT. Though the law commanded that there should be but one High Priest, there were then many put into the office, and stripped of it, year by year, by the Roman emperor. He therefore calls chief priests those who had finished the time allotted to them, and had been stripped of their priesthood. But their actions are a sign of their judgment, which they earned on as they had prejudged, for they sought for a witness, that they might seem to condemn and destroy Jesus with justice. PSEUDO-JEROME. But iniquity lied as the queen did against Joseph, and the priests against Susannah, but a flame goes out, if it has no fuel; wherefore it goes on, And found none. For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together. For whatever is not consistent is held to be doubtful. There follows, And there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands. It is usual with heretics out of the truth to extract the shadow; He did not say what they said, but something like it, of the temple of His body, which He raised again after two days. THEOPHYLACT. For the Lord had not said, I will destroy, but, Destroy, nor did He say, made with hands, but, this temple.

• From Heptaméron (1559)

  " Sorrows, afflictions, long maladies," replied No- merfide. " Those who have to sustain such extreme pangs of body or of mind that they come to despise death and complain of its too tardy approach are in the out- skirts of death, and they will tell you how the inns are named in which they have sighed more than reposed. The lady in question could not help losing her husband by death ; but her brother's anger saved her from the pain of seeing him for a long time an invalid or ill- tempered, and she could deem herself happy in convert- mg to the service of God the satisfaction and joy she had with her husband." " Do you count for nothing the shame she underwent and the tedium of her prison ? " said Longarine. "lam persuaded," replied Nomerfide, "that when one loves well, and with a love founded on God's com- mand, one makes no account of shame, except so far as it lessens love ; for the glory of loving well knows no shame. As for her prison, as her heart was wholly devoted to God and her husband, I imagine she hardly felt the loss of her liberty ; for where one cannot see what one loves, the greatest blessing one can have is to think of it incessantly. A prison is never narrow when the imagination can range in it as it will." " Nothing can be truer than what Nomerfide alleges," said Simontault; "but the madman who effected this separation ought to have deemed himself a very wretch, offending as he did God, love, and honour." " I am astonished," said Geburon, " thai there is so Fourth day:\ QUEEN OF NA VARRE. 34^ much diversity in the nature of women's love ; and I see plainly that those who have the most love have the most virtue, but those who have the least love are the virtuous in false seeming." " It is true," said Parlamente, " that a heart that is virtuous towards God and man loves with more passion than a vicious heart, because the former is not afraid that the real nature of its sentiments should be apparent.'' " I have always understood," said Simontault, " that men are not blameable for paying court to women ; for God has put into the heart of man love and the boldness to sue, and into that of woman fear and the chastity to refuse. If a man has been punished for having used the power implanted in him, he has been treated with injustice."

• From What Belongs to You (2016)

  But from a distance Mitko didn’t seem to feel anything at all; these were only my own thoughts, I knew, they brought me no nearer him, this man I had in some sense loved and who had never in the years I had known him been anything but alien to me. He set off again, shaking the cup of yogurt he had never lowered from his ear, and I watched him until he turned out of sight, headed toward the boulevard and the bus that would carry him away. I stood there for some time, gazing at the corner from which he had vanished. Then I stepped inside, and sitting where he had been just a moment before beside me, I lowered my face into my hands. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS An earlier version of the first section of this novel was published as a novella in 2011. Thank you to Keith Tuma, Dana Leonard, and everyone at Miami University Press. Special thanks to David Schloss. * * * Anna Stein created a place in the world for this book by the sheer force of her belief in it. Thank you also to Alex Hoyt, Sally Riley, and Nishta Hurry. I’m grateful to Mitzi Angel for her heroic editing, and to everyone at Farrar, Straus and Giroux for being so welcoming of this novel and its author. Thank you especially to Will Wolfslau for his invaluable help. * * * It has been a privilege to spend the last two years at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Thank you to Connie Brothers, Deb West, Jan Zenisek, and Kelly Smith. I’m grateful to Lan Samantha Chang for her generous and brilliant teaching, and to the members of her Fall 2013 novel workshop, especially Micah Stack, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and D. Wystan Owen. Work on this book was supported by an Iowa Arts Fellowship and a Richard E. Guthrie Memorial Fellowship; many thanks to the University of Iowa and the Guthrie family for their generosity. * * * For advice and encouragement, thank you to Elizabeth Frank, Kyle Minor, Peter Cameron, Elizabeth Kostova, Honor Moore, Paul Whitlatch, Margot Livesey, Robert Boyers, and Stephen McCauley. For the inspiration of their teaching and example, thank you to Frank Bidart, Kevin Brockmeier, Carolyn Forché, Carl Phillips, Jorie Graham, and James Longenbach. For pointing me toward a title, thank you to Meredith Kaffel. For checking my Bulgarian, thank you to Maria Manahova and Boian Popunkiov. * * * For reading first and final drafts, thank you to Mary Rakow, Ilya Kaminsky, and Ricardo Moutinho Ferreira. * * * It is impossible to imagine my life without Alan Pierson and Max Freeman, my chosen family. Finally, thank you to Luis Muñoz, por una canción largamente esperada . A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR Garth Greenwell is the author of Mitko , which won the 2010 Miami University Press Novella Prize and was a finalist for the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award and a Lambda Award.