Sadness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

Page 99 of 212 · 20 per page

• From Querelle (1953)

  17% I JEAN GENET "It wasn't me, I swear! I can't tell you who did it, I don't know nothing about it. But I'm telling you, by all that's sacred, I swear I didn't do it." "The papers said they was sure it was you, all right. I'm willing to believe you, but you'd have so in e explaining to do if the cops got you. See, they found your cigarette lighter, right by that stiff. Anyhow , you better keep the profile low." Gil resigned himself to the second murder. When the mon strousness o_f his deed had first blurred his vision, he had thought of turning himself in. He had thought that once the police had recognized his innocence of the second crime, they would let him go, so that he could go and hide again because of the first one. He thought they would respect the rules of the game. The insanity of this train of thought soon became apparent to him. Thus, little by little, Gil took the murder of the sailor upon himself. He tried to think of reasons for doing it. Sometimes he wondered who the true murderer might be. He interrogated himself to find our how he had managed to lose his cigarette lighter at the scene of the crime. "I would really like to know who did it. I hadn't even noticed I didn't have that lighter any more." "I'm telling you, you better stay put. I'll talk to my buddies and see what we can do for you. I'll come and see you as often as I'm able. I'll even give your little buddy here some coins so he can buy you some stuff to eat and some smokes." "That's damn white of you. Thanks." But the moment before, in order to lose himself, to concen trate himself into his stare and disperse it among the shadows, Gil had used up too much of his energy to be able to express his gratitude with the fuii warmth of his being. He was tired. An immense sadness had crept over his face, dragging down the comers of the mouth Querelle recalled seeing in a different state-a little moist, gay, open in song. His body was sagging on the comer of the crate, and his entire gestalt was that of some one who thinks : "What the fucking hell am I going to do

• From Querelle (1953)

  Nevertheless, as soon as Roger vanished, he became for Querelle a "mysterious link," more precious than he had realized until then. It was his absence that gave the boy such a rare quality and sudden importance. Querelle smiled, but could not help being worried by the fact that the boy was the go-between of two murderers, and, it seemed, a quick and lively one. He was now running along the imaginary connecting line whose very spirit he was, and he could choose to extend or shorten it, at his pleasure. Roger was, in fact, walking briskly. His separation from Querelle made him feel more solemn than before, because he knew that he was bringing Gil the essence of Querelle, in other words that in Querelle which he vaguely understood to be the motive force that propelled Querelle in Gil's direction. He knew that in him, a mere boy in short pants whose cuffs had been turned up over the solid thighs, now was vested all the pomp and circumstance due to ambassadors-and seeing the child's serious demeanor one could well understand why such delegates are always more heavily decorated than their masters. On his frail person, laden down .with a thousand ceremonial chains, converged Gil's almost haggard attention, as he sat there in his lair, and Querelle's patience, as he stood waiting by the gateway to the domain. Querelle took out a cigarette and lit it, then stuck both his hands back in the 161 I QUERELLE pockets of his pcacoat. He wasn't thinking at all. Nothing stirred in his imagination. His consciousness was attentive, soft and shapeless, though still a little troubled by the sudden importance of the boy he was waiting for. ''It's me. Roger." Quite close to him Gil's voice came in a whisper: "Is he beret' "Yes. I told him to wait for me. You want me to go and get him?" Sounding somewhat tense, Gil replied : "Yup. Bring him here. Get going." \Vhen Querelle arrived in front of the den, Roger prcr claimed, in a loud and clear voice: "This is it, we're here. Gil, we're here." The boy was overwhelmed by misery at the sudden feeling that his life was coming to an end with those very words. He felt himself shrinking, losing his raison d' etre. All the treasures with which he had been entrusted for a couple of minutes were now melting away, very quickly. He fully knew, now, the vanity of mankind, and how it melteth away like wax. He had labored faithfully to bring about a meeting that would abolish him. His whole life had been involved in this giant task of ten minutes' duration, and now his glory dimmed, almost disappeared, taking with it the high proud sense of joy that had made him swell up: to a size great enough to accommodate Querelle, whom he had described, whose words he had reported, and Gil, whom he had conveyed to Querelle. "Here, brought you some ciggies."

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  8 A mountain is there, called Ida, which once was glad with waters and with foliage; now it is deserted like an antiquated thing. Rhea of old chose it for the faithful cradle of her son; 9 and the better to conceal him, when he wept, caused cries to be made on it. Within the mountain stands erect a great Old Man, 10 who keeps his shoulders turned towards Damietta, and looks at Rome as if it were his mirror. His head is shapen of fine gold, his arms and his breast are pure silver; then he is of brass to the cleft; from thence downwards he is all of chosen iron, save that the right foot is of baked clay; and he rests more on this than on the other. Every part, except the gold, is broken with a fissure that drops tears, which collected perforate that grotto. Their course descends from rock to rock into this valley; they form Acheron, Styx, and Phlegethon, then, by this narrow conduit, go down

• From Escape (2007)

  Merril had several older daughters—former nusses—who were my age and still unmarried in their early twenties. Tension was building in FLDS communities in Colorado City, Hildale, Salt Lake, and Canada because there were so many girls who were getting older and were still unmarried. The prophet usually arranged hundreds of marriages for girls every year. But when Uncle Rulon became head of the FLDS he fell behind in arranging marriages. Part of the problem was that he’d always lived in Salt Lake City and didn’t know most of the families who lived in Colorado City and Hildale. Parents feared that if their daughters weren’t assigned in marriage they would begin to think that they could choose someone for themselves. When complaints were made to Uncle Rulon, he told fathers to place their daughters in marriages themselves. We all knew this was what was happening, but no one spoke of it because it was against the precepts of the FLDS. A man could receive revelations from God about his family, but only the prophet received divine revelations about matchmaking. Merril took several of his wives with him to Salt Lake City when he went for the priesthood meeting on the third weekend of the month. Tammy and I were sharing a hotel room. The night of the priesthood meeting she came into our room in a daze. Tammy sat on the bed and stared at the wall, trancelike. “Tammy, is something wrong?” I asked. She walked over to a table and cradled her head in her hands. A few moments later she pounded her fist on the table. “Yes! There’s something wrong and I’m a bad person for feeling this way.” I was perplexed and could not imagine what might have happened. Tammy turned to me with tears streaming down her face. Uncle Rulon had just married Bonnie, who was Barbara and Ruth’s little sister. Bonnie was in her early twenties; Uncle Rulon was in his early eighties. Tammy grabbed a Kleenex and wiped the tears from her face. “Carolyn, I can’t stand this! This is what happened to me and I hate to see it happening to another girl. I know what it is like to have to marry a man who is so much older. You don’t have anything in life to live for anymore.” Her chest was heaving with sobs. All the grief in her life from having had to marry Uncle Roy when she was a young girl overwhelmed her. Tammy’s life had been stolen from her just as Bonnie’s was being stolen now. Tammy had been eighteen and Uncle Roy eighty-eight when she was assigned to him in marriage. She told me that Uncle Roy was so old he had only slept with her a few times in the decade that they were married. During most of their marriage he was sick and bedridden. Tammy never felt she had any kind of relationship with him at all.

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

  When I was in the open, on the fifth circle, I saw people about it who wept, lying on the ground all turned downwards. “Adhæsit pavimento anima mea,” 5 I heard them say with such deep sighs that hardly were the words understood. “O chosen of God, whose sufferings both justice and hope make less hard, direct us towards the high ascents.” If ye come secure from lying prostrate, and desire to find the way most quickly, let your right hands be ever to the outside.” 6 Thus prayed the poet, and thus a little in front of us was answer made; wherefore I noted what else was concealed in the words, 7 and turned mine eyes then to my Lord; whereat he gave assent with glad sign to what the look of my desire was craving. When I could do with me according to my own mind, I drew forward above that creature whose words before made me take note, saying: “Spirit, in whom weeping matures that without which one cannot turn to God, stay a while for me thy greater care. Who thou wast, and why ye have your backs turned upward, tell me, and if thou wouldst that I obtain aught for thee yonder, whence living I set forth.”

• From Escape (2007)

  We spent the last day of our trip driving through California’s redwood forest and shopping in San Francisco’s Chinatown. My father had been in real estate and often took us with him when he had to travel. I’d been to San Francisco and the redwood forest with him several times before when I was younger. I was fortunate to have seen as much as I did before I married Merril because it opened my eyes and taught me a lot about the world outside my own. But it felt weird to see these places with a strange man and know that he was now my husband. Merril made a big point of buying some cheap Chinese fans for his daughters and wives. We drove through much of the night to get back home to Colorado City. Merril stayed with me for an hour or two before heading into Barbara’s bedroom. My first impression the next morning was that the house was immaculate and well organized. I’d soon see that this was a sham. The first clue that something might be off was when Ruth came out of the kitchen, where she’d been preparing breakfast, to greet Merril, who’d emerged from Barbara’s room showered and dressed. He kissed her and said, “It’s good to see you, Ruthie.” Ruth nodded stiffly. “It is very good to see you. It was hard not to talk to you all week.” That seemed odd. Merril was always on the phone. I’d assumed when he wasn’t talking to Barbara, he was speaking to his other wives, Ruth and Faunita. Merril responded by asking Ruth to gather up his beautiful daughters and lovely wives. He took my hand and led me back into my bedroom. Kissing me, he asked me to get the fans we’d bought in Chinatown. I dug the fans out of my suitcase and went into the kitchen. Barbara was there, and I noticed her eyes were red and swollen. It looked like she had been crying all night. Merril’s ten teenage daughters—the nusses—surrounded him like a tribe of smiling girls. He had four other daughters between the ages of nine and twelve and they were part of the adoring chorus around him. Everyone seemed excited about the fans from Chinatown. It seemed fake and unnatural to me, but not to them. After the fans were handed out to his wives and daughters, Merril turned and handed me the last one, saying, “This fan is for my lovely wife Carolyn as a memory of our first trip together.” He then announced that he and Barbara were leaving that morning for Page and his construction company. Merril told me to help Ruth in the kitchen and spend time getting to know his family.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  So did her belief that Franklin and Eleanor understood our lives at the bottom, even though they were born at the top. “Always look at what people do,” as my mother said, “not at who they are.” She also was sure the Roosevelts wanted us to become independent, not dependent. Since, like most children, I said things like “It’s not fair” and “You are not the boss of me,” this idea made me love them even more. Not all my mother’s stories had a happy ending. When I saw a mysterious newspaper photo of police dragging dark-skinned people through city streets, she explained there were race riots in nearby Detroit—because the Depression had never ended for people called Negroes. I imagined people making soup from potato peelings and coats from blankets, yet somehow I couldn’t imagine my family being attacked by police. She also sat with me as we listened to a radio drama about a mother and child trying to survive in a place called a concentration camp. I knew my mother didn’t want to frighten me, only to teach me something serious, and this made me feel important and grown-up. In later years, I wondered if she meant such small doses of hard realities to immunize me against the depression that, in her, could be triggered by as little as a sad movie or a hurt animal. Yet I never asked why my happy-go-lucky father had zero interest in politics. Both were kind and loving, just very different. I was eleven when President Roosevelt died. By then, my mother and I were living in the small town in Massachusetts where we had moved after she and my father separated. I can still see the exact look of the cracks in the sidewalk where I was riding my bike when my mother came out to tell me. It was hard to believe that Franklin and Eleanor would no longer be part of our lives. It was harder still when I realized that not everyone was sorry. Some in that town blamed the president for getting us into World War II, and others thought his idea of a United Nations would just let foreigners tell us what to do. A newspaper cartoon said, “Goodbye to President Rosenfeld.” My mother explained that no, Roosevelt wasn’t Jewish; it was just that prejudiced people linked together things they didn’t like. Our only companion in mourning was an elderly man across the street who wore a tie with FDR woven into it, something he showed to us as if to coconspirators. My mother was brave enough to put a black-draped photo of the president in our front window, but not brave enough to explain it to the neighbors. I was beginning to suspect that conflict follows politics as night follows day, yet the mere thought of conflict was enough to depress my already depressed mother.

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

  So many independence movements were active in the early 1900s that New York tabloids printed fearful articles about the “Yellow Peril” of Asia joining the “Black Peril” of Africa to encircle the globe. The young Ho Chi Minh of those days is described in Jean Lacouture’s classic biography as slender and beardless, wearing a dark suit, a high-collared shirt, and “a small hat perched on top of his head, looking delicate and unsure of himself, a bit lost, a bit battered, like Chaplin at his most affecting.” When I walk past old New York buildings he might have seen, I try to imagine him looking at them, too. Due to the last-minute chaos and printing problems of the first issue of New York, my article is cut by two-thirds. It becomes so concentrated that readers will have to pour water on it.6 Still, I hope the Prophet of the Diner sees it. Now as I write this almost four decades later, Ho Chi Minh, who owned nothing in his life but a typewriter, remains the only leader ever to defeat the United States in a war. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than on all of Europe during World War II. About sixty thousand U.S. troops died; twice as many Vietnamese soldiers died; and nearly two million civilians in North and South Vietnam lost their lives. Both here and in a now-independent, unified, and prosperous Vietnam, where tourists travel, there are still broken families, traumatized veterans, chemicals in the soil—and much more. In South Korea when I visited in this new millennium, newspaper headlines were protesting Agent Orange, stored underground by the United States on its way to deforesting North Vietnam. Now it was leaking and poisoning the water table. According to the wisdom of Indian Country on my own continent, it takes four generations to heal one act of violence. What if Americans had heard the Prophet in the Diner? VI.In 1978 Father Harvey Egan, pastor of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church in Minneapolis, invites me to join him on a Sunday morning and give the homily or sermon to his congregation. This isn’t as surrealistic as it sounds. He has invited other laypeople, from union organizers to peace activists, and at least one woman, Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers. He also welcomes gays and lesbians into his congregation, supports peace movements from here to Latin America, and generally behaves in a way that he and many other Catholics believe Jesus had in mind. Though it’s just a coincidence that his church bears the name of a woman who was burned at the stake for being a heretic who wore men’s clothes (not for being a witch, as Hollywood told us), I think Father Egan enjoys inviting someone who’s been regarded as a jeans-wearing heretic, too. He himself prays to God the Mother to make up for centuries of Catholic priests and popes who pray only to God the Father.

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

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

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

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

• From Escape (2007)

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

• From Escape (2007)

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

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

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

• From Escape (2007)

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

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

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

• From The Divine Comedy (1950)

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

• From Filthy Animals (2021)

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

• From My Life on the Road (2015)

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

• From The Sexual Outlaw (1977)

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

• From Escape (2007)

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