Shame

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 Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  But is it my fault that she held me locked inside her until the hour had passed? Destiny had prepared me to be such and such a person; the stars were in the right conjunction and I was right with the stars and kicking to get out. But I had no choice about the mother who was to deliver me. Perhaps I was lucky not to have been born an idiot, considering all the circumstances. One thing seems clear, however—and this is a hangover from the 25th—that I was born with a crucifixion complex. That is, to be more precise, I was born a fanatic. Fanatic! I remember that word being hurled at me from early childhood on. By my parents especially. What is a fanatic? One who believes passionately and acts desperately upon what he believes. I was always believing in something and so getting into trouble. The more my hands were slapped the more firmly I believed. I believed —and the rest of the world did not! If it were only a question of enduring punishment one could go on believing till the end; but the way of the world is more insidious than that. Instead of being punished you are undermined, hollowed out, the ground taken from under your feet. It isn’t even treachery, what I have in mind. Treachery is understandable and combatable. No, it is something worse, something less than treachery. It’s a negativism that causes you to overreach yourself. You are perpetually spending your energy in the act of balancing yourself. You are seized with a sort of spiritual vertigo, you totter on the brink, your hair stands on end, you can’t believe that beneath your feet lies an immeasurable abyss. It comes about through excess of enthusiasm, through a passionate desire to embrace people, to show them your love. The more you reach out toward the world the more the world retreats. Nobody wants real love, real hatred. Nobody wants you to put your hand in his sacred entrails—that’s only for the priest in the hour of sacrifice. While you live, while the blood’s still warm, you are to pretend that there is no such thing as blood and no such thing as a skeleton beneath the covering of flesh. Keep off the grass! That’s the motto by which people live. If you continue this balancing at the edge of the abyss long enough you become very very adept: no matter which way you are pushed you always right yourself. Being in constant trim you develop a ferocious gaiety, an unnatural gaiety, I might say. There are only two peoples in the world today who understand the meaning of such a statement—the Jews and the Chinese. If it happens that you are neither of these you find yourself in a strange predicament. You are always laughing at the wrong moment; you are considered cruel and heartless when in reality you are only tough and durable.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  But the married sister, the one who was “built too small,” as she used to say, was a wily bitch and besides she felt guilty toward her sister and if her sister had ever caught her in the act she’d probably have pretended that she was having a fit and didn’t know what she was doing. Nothing on earth could make her admit that she was actually permitting herself the pleasure of being fucked by a man. I knew her quite well because I was giving her lessons for a time, and I used to do my damnedest to make her admit that she had a normal cunt and that she’d enjoy a good fuck if she could get it now and then. I used to tell her wild stories, which were really thinly disguised accounts of her own doings, and yet she remained adamant. I had even gotten her to the point one day—and this beats everything—where she let me put my finger inside her. I thought sure it was settled. It’s true she was dry and a bit tight, but I put that down to her hysteria. But imagine getting that far with a cunt and then having her say to your face, as she yanks her dress down violently—“you see, I told you I wasn’t built right!” “I don’t see anything of the kind,” I said angrily. “What do you expect me to do—use a microscope on you?” “I like that,” she said, pretending to get on her high horse. “What a way of talking to me!” “You know damned well you’re lying,” I continued. “Why do you lie like that? Don’t you think it’s human to have a cunt and to use it once in a while? Do you want it to dry up on you?” “Such language!” she said, biting her underlip and reddening like a beet. “I always thought you were a gentleman.” “Well, you’re no lady,” I retorted, “because even a lady admits to a fuck now and then, and besides ladies don’t ask gentlemen to stick their fingers up inside them and see how small they’re built.” “I never asked you to touch me,” she said. “I wouldn’t think of asking you to put your hand on me, on my private parts anyway.” “Maybe you thought I was going to swab your ear for you, is that it?’ “I thought of you like a doctor at that moment, that’s all I can say,” she said stiffly, trying to freeze me out. “Listen,” I said, taking a wild chance, “let’s pretend that it was all a mistake, that nothing happened, nothing at all. I know you too well to think of insulting you like that. I wouldn’t think of doing a thing like that to you—no, damned if I would. I was just wondering if maybe you weren’t right in what you said, if maybe you aren’t built rather small.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  To be human only terrestrially, like a plant or a worm or a brook. To be decomposed, divested of light and stone, variable as the molecule, durable as the atom, heartless as the earth itself. It was just about a week before Valeska committed suicide that I ran into Mara. The week or two preceding that event was a veritable nightmare. A series of sudden deaths and strange encounters with women. First of all there was Pauline Janowski, a little Jewess of sixteen or seventeen who was without a home and without friends or relatives. She came to the office looking for a job. It was toward closing time and I didn’t have the heart to turn her down cold. For some reason or other I took it into my head to bring her home for dinner and if possible try to persuade the wife to put her up for a while. What attracted me to her was her passion for Balzac. All the way home she was talking to me about Lost Illusions. The car was packed and we were jammed so tight together that it didn’t make any difference what we were talking about because we were both thinking of only one thing. My wife of course was stupefied to see me standing at the door with a beautiful young girl. She was polite and courteous in her frigid way but I could see immediately that it was no use asking her to put the girl up. It was about all she could do to sit through the dinner with us. As soon as we had finished she excused herself and went to the movies. The girl started to weep. We were still sitting at the table, the dishes piled up in front of us. I went over to her and I put my arms around her. I felt genuinely sorry for her and I was perplexed as to what to do for her. Suddenly she threw her arms around my neck and she kissed me passionately. We stood there a long while embracing each other and then I thought to myself no, it’s a crime, and besides maybe the wife didn’t go to the movies at all, maybe she’ll be ducking back any minute. I told the kid to pull herself together, that we’d take a trolley ride somewhere. I saw the child’s bank lying on the mantelpiece and I took it to the toilet and emptied it silently. There was only about seventy-five cents in it. We got on a trolley and went to the beach. Finally we found a deserted spot and we lay down in the sand. She was hysterically passionate and there was nothing to do but to do it. I thought she would reproach me afterwards, but she didn’t. We lay there a while and she began talking about Balzac again. It seems she had ambitions to be a writer herself. I asked her what she was going to do.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  Why in Christ’s name don’t they put it down in plain English?” The old man’s ignorance was even harder for Grover to bear than his brutality. He was heartily ashamed of his old man and when the latter was out of sight he would ridicule him unmercifully. When he got a little older he used to insinuate that he wouldn’t have been born with a clubfoot if the old man hadn’t been such a mean bastard. He said that the old man must have kicked his mother in the belly when she was pregnant. This alleged kick in the belly must have affected Grover in diverse ways, for when he had grown up to be quite a young man, as I was saying, he suddenly took to God with such a passion that there was no blowing your nose before him without first asking God’s permission. Grover’s conversion followed right upon the old man’s deflation, which is why I am reminded of it. Nobody had seen the Watrouses for a number of years and then, right in the midst of a bloody snore, you might say, in pranced Grover scattering benedictions and calling upon God as his witness as he rolled up his sleeves to deliver us from evil. What I noted first in him was the change in his personal appearance; he had been washed clean in the blood of the Lamb. He was so immaculate, indeed, that there was almost a perfume emanating from him. His speech too had been cleaned up; instead of wild oaths there were now nothing but blessings and invocations. It was not a conversation which he held with us but a monologue in which, if there were any questions, he answered them himself. As he took the chair which was offered him he said with the nimbleness of a jack rabbit that God had given his only beloved Son in order that we might enjoy life everlasting. Did we really want this life everlasting—or were we simply going to wallow in the joys of the flesh and die without knowing salvation? The incongruity of mentioning the “joys of the flesh” to an aged couple, one of whom was sound asleep and snoring, never struck him, to be sure. He was so alive and jubilant in the first flush of God’s merciful grace that he must have forgotten that my sister was dippy, for, without even inquiring how she had been, he began to harangue her in this newfound spiritual palaver to which she was entirely impervious because, as I say, she was minus so many buttons that if he had been talking about chopped spinach it would have been just as meaningful to her. A phrase like “the pleasures of the flesh” meant to her something like a beautiful day with a red parasol.

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

  Reply to Objection 2: The Divine intention is not frustrated either in those who sin, or in those who are saved; for God knows beforehand the end of both; and He procures glory from both, saving these of His goodness, and punishing those of His justice. But the intellectual creature, when it sins, falls away from its due end. Nor is this unfitting in any exalted creature; because the intellectual creature was so made by God, that it lies within its own will to act for its end. Reply to Objection 3: However great was the inclination towards good in the highest angel, there was no necessity imposed upon him: consequently it was in his power not to follow it. Whether the sin of the highest angel was the cause of the others sinning?Objection 1: It would seem that the sin of the highest angel was not the cause of the others sinning. For the cause precedes the effect. But, as Damascene observes (De Fide Orth. ii), they all sinned at one time. Therefore the sin of one was not the cause of the others’ sinning. Objection 2: Further, an angel’s first sin can only be pride, as was shown above [560](A[2]). But pride seeks excellence. Now it is more contrary to excellence for anyone to be subject to an inferior than to a superior; and so it does not appear that the angels sinned by desiring to be subject to a higher angel rather than to God. Yet the sin of one angel would have been the cause of the others sinning, if he had induced them to be his subjects. Therefore it does not appear that the sin of the highest angel was the cause of the others sinning. Objection 3: Further, it is a greater sin to wish to be subject to another against God, than to wish to be over another against God; because there is less motive for sinning. If, therefore, the sin of the foremost angel was the cause of the others sinning, in that he induced them to subject themselves to him, then the lower angels would have sinned more deeply than the highest one; which is contrary to a gloss on Ps. 103:26: “This dragon which Thou hast formed—He who was the more excellent than the rest in nature, became the greater in malice.” Therefore the sin of the highest angel was not the cause of the others sinning. On the contrary, It is said (Apoc. 12:4) that the dragon “drew” with him “the third part of the stars of heaven.”

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  The last time Susan had heard from her was when she received an invitation to Leisha’s wedding (she was marrying an attorney at a country club), which Susan had scornfully thrown in the trash. Surely even Leisha couldn’t have gone from being a well-off wife to a bag lady in six years. And even if she had, she had a middle-class family ready (and alert for just this purpose) to sweep her into its bosom. Still, anything was possible, and, as Leisha herself had constantly pointed out, she was very unstable. She was unskilled except as a waitress, and Susan had always worried about what would happen to her once she lost her beauty. Turning the corner wasn’t simply a selfish desire to avoid unpleasantness; Susan could imagine the pain that Leisha would feel if she was recognized, and it made her cringe. But she would have to get her off the street, buy her a meal, get in touch with her family and so on. She acknowledged and then stifled the idea that her old friend might be too disturbed to remember her, and was appalled to suddenly identify a part of herself that was satisfied, even pleased, at the thought of Leisha the bag lady. This part of her wanted to help Leisha, but only out of duty and the pleasure of condescension; their friendship had ended angrily. Susan dropped her head and covered her face with her hands, raising it to the gawking gaze of a passing teenager. She stepped into the sidewalk march again, and the bag lady was gone. No, there she was, standing against the wall. Susan walked right up to her and started to speak, then realized that the woman wasn’t Leisha. The stranger looked at her with mild, glassy eyes (hazel, not dark brown) and put out her hand. Relieved but disconcerted, Susan groped through her purse, found five dollars and pressed it into the pinched little hand. The woman put it away without looking at it and said, “Jesus loves you.” Susan walked back to her friend’s apartment via Eighth Street, becoming depressed as she was reminded of expeditions with Leisha for shoes. Leisha had been part of an amorphous body of memories provoked by this visit to Manhattan, but now she was the lens through which all the other memories were seen, Susan cursed her impressionability and tried to think of something else. Susan was thirty-five years old, and Leisha thirty-four. When they were friends, Susan was an aspiring writer and Leisha an actress.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  Each time the door opened I saw another monster. And then I came at last to a poor simp who really wanted to improve himself and that broke me down. I felt truly ashamed of myself, of my country, my race, my epoch. I had a devil of a time persuading him not to buy the damned encyclopedia. He asked me innocently what then had brought me to his home—and without a minute’s hesitation I told him an astounding lie, a lie which was later to prove a great truth. I told him I was only pretending to sell the encyclopedia in order to meet people and write about them. That interested him enormously, even more than the encyclopedia. He wanted to know what I would write about him, if I could say. It’s taken me twenty years to answer that question, but here it is. If you would still like to know, John Doe of the City of Bayonne, this is it. . . . I owe you a great deal because after that lie I told you I left your house and I tore up the prospectus furnished me by the Encyclopaedia Britannica and I threw it in the gutter. I said to myself I will never again go to people under false pretenses even if it is to give them the Holy Bible. I will never again sell anything, even if I have to starve. I am going home now and I will sit down and really write about people. And if anybody knocks at my door to sell me something I will invite him in and say “why are you doing this?” And if he says it is because he has to make a living I will offer him what money I have and beg him once again to think what he is doing. I want to prevent as many men as possible from pretending that they have to do this or that because they must earn a living. It is not true . One can starve to death—it is much better. Every man who voluntarily starves to death jams another cog in the automatic process. I would rather see a man take a gun and kill his neighbor, in order to get the food he needs, than keep up the automatic process by pretending that he has to earn a living. That’s what I want to say, Mr. John Doe. I pass on. Not the stabbing horror of disaster and calamity, I say, but the automatic throwback, the stark panorama of the soul’s atavistic struggle. A bridge in North Carolina, near the Tennessee border. Coming out of lush tobacco fields, low cabins everywhere and the smell of fresh wood burning. The day passed in a thick lake of waving green. Hardly a soul in sight. Then suddenly a clearing and I’m over a big gulch spanned by a rickety wooden bridge. This is the end of the world!

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Turning the corner wasn’t simply a selfish desire to avoid unpleasantness; Susan could imagine the pain that Leisha would feel if she was recognized, and it made her cringe. But she would have to get her off the street, buy her a meal, get in touch with her family and so on. She acknowledged and then stifled the idea that her old friend might be too disturbed to remember her, and was appalled to suddenly identify a part of herself that was satisfied, even pleased, at the thought of Leisha the bag lady. This part of her wanted to help Leisha, but only out of duty and the pleasure of condescension; their friendship had ended angrily. Susan dropped her head and covered her face with her hands, raising it to the gawking gaze of a passing teenager. She stepped into the sidewalk march again, and the bag lady was gone. No, there she was, standing against the wall. Susan walked right up to her and started to speak, then realized that the woman wasn’t Leisha. The stranger looked at her with mild, glassy eyes (hazel, not dark brown) and put out her hand. Relieved but disconcerted, Susan groped through her purse, found five dollars and pressed it into the pinched little hand. The woman put it away without looking at it and said, “Jesus loves you.” Susan walked back to her friend’s apartment via Eighth Street, becoming depressed as she was reminded of expeditions with Leisha for shoes. Leisha had been part of an amorphous body of memories provoked by this visit to Manhattan, but now she was the lens through which all the other memories were seen, Susan cursed her impressionability and tried to think of something else. Susan was thirty-five years old, and Leisha thirty-four. When they were friends, Susan was an aspiring writer and Leisha an actress. Whenever she had a positive image of Leisha—a rarity during these last six years—she saw them together in Leisha’s apartment drinking tea, drinking wine, snorting coke, something, and talking about their careers. Leisha had loved the word “career.” “I think it’s going to happen for you really first,” she’d say. “Like boom, your career’s just going to skyrocket—I mean it.”

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  She thought of her last conversation with one of these people, a film production assistant on her lunch break. “Stephanie,” she said, “you’ve simply got to cut your hair. I know it sounds superficial, but really, things like that matter. Editors are very busy people; they can only see you for twenty minutes, so they have to act on impressions, and that includes style. Long hair is college—ideals, finding yourself, and all that. Nobody here has long hair.” She dug smartly into her pile of refried beans. She thought of Jackson, an ex-lover whom she had especially wanted to impress, and was perversely glad that she never did get a professional position. She remembered what a curious relief it had been to take her first job in a whorehouse, where a real job didn’t matter, where males and females performed the ancient, primal and wonderfully elementary dance of copulation, blandly, predictably and by appointment. “Is something wrong?” asked Bernard. “I was just thinking of someone.” She hesitated. “Someone I knew in college. I had a pretty awful relationship with this person and I couldn’t have sex for over a year afterward. The first time I fucked anybody else after him was my first trick in my first house.” “You’re kidding!” She laughed. “It’s too corny, isn’t it? Girl has heart broken by callous swine and turns to prostitution.” “Your life is very dramatic,” he said pleasantly. “It’s not so dramatic. These things happen. I mean, I’m over it now.” Bernard walked her back to her building, but to her surprise he didn’t want to come up to the apartment, even though she would have liked him to. In fact, they didn’t fuck until the second time she had dinner with him. It was a calm, affectionate event (“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, referring to his problematic size as he lay on top of her, gripping her firmly about the hips). The evening was marred only when he handed her a hundred dollars on his way out the door. She stared at him, stricken. “I don’t want that,” she said. “That’s not why I’m seeing you.” He looked embarrassed. “I know it’s not why you’re seeing me. It’s not why I’m seeing you. But I think you should have it.” “I don’t want it.” He sat on the bed. “Stephanie, it’s very simple. I have a lot of money. You do not. You need money. I can give it to you. Please take it.” “You didn’t give me money when we went out to dinner.” He groped for an explanation for this and gave up. “Well, the next time we go out to dinner, I’ll give you money.” “I won’t take it.” “If you don’t, I’ll just mail it to you.”

• From Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (2014)

  When I was a boy, my mother took me to church. When I was about ten years old, I was outside of our church with my friends, one of whom had brought a visiting relative to the service. The visiting child was a shy, skinny boy about my height who was clinging to his cousin nervously. He didn’t say anything as the group of us chatted away. I asked him where he was from, and when this child tried to speak he stumbled horribly. He had a severe speech impediment and couldn’t get his mouth to cooperate. He couldn’t even say the name of the town where he lived. I had never seen someone stutter like that; I thought he must have been joking or playing around, so I laughed. My friend looked at me worriedly, but I didn’t stop laughing. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mother looking at me with an expression I’d never seen before. It was a mix of horror, anger, and shame, all focused on me. It stopped my laughing instantly. I’d always felt adored by my mom, so I was unnerved when she called me over. When I got to her, she was very angry with me. “What are you doing?” “What? I didn’t do…” “Don’t you ever laugh at someone because they can’t get their words out right. Don’t you ever do that!” “I’m sorry.” I was devastated to be reprimanded by my mom so harshly. “Mom, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.” “You should know better, Bryan.” “I’m sorry. I thought…” “I don’t want to hear it, Bryan. There is no excuse, and I’m very disappointed in you. Now, I want you to go back over there and tell that little boy that you’re sorry.” “Yes, ma’am.” “Then I want you to give that little boy a hug.” “Huh?” “Then I want you to tell him that you love him.” I looked up at her and, to my horror, saw that she was dead serious. I had reacted as apologetically as I possibly could, but this was way too much. “Mom, I can’t go over and tell that boy I love him. People will—” She gave me that look again. I somberly turned around and returned to my group of friends. They had obviously seen my mother’s scolding; I could tell because they were all staring at me. I went up to the little boy who had struggled to speak. “Look, man, I’m sorry.” I was genuinely apologetic for laughing and even more deeply regretful of the situation I had put myself in. I looked over at my mother, who was still staring at me. I lunged at the boy to give him a very awkward hug. I think I startled him by grabbing him like that, but when he realized that I was trying to hug him, his body relaxed and he hugged me back. My friends looked at me oddly as I spoke.

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

  CHRYSOSTOM. It is to be noted, that onewhile the Lord brings the offender to him whom he has offended; as when he says, If thou remember that thy brother has might against thee, go, be reconciled to thy brother: (Mat. 5:23.) otherwhiles He bids him that has suffered the wrong to forgive his neighbour; as where he says, Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. (Mat. 6:12.) Here He has devised yet another method, for He brings him who has been grieved to him that grieved him, and therefore says, If thy brother sin against thee; for because he that did the wrong would not readily come to make amends, because of his shame, He draws to him him that has suffered the wrong; and not only draws him there, but with the very purpose of correcting what was done amiss; whence He says, Go and tell hint his fault. RABANUS. He does not command us to forgive indiscriminately, but him only that will hearken and be obedient, and do penitence; that neither should forgiveness be unattainable, nor sufferance be too far relaxed. CHRYSOSTOM. And He says not, Accuse him, nor, Chide with him, nor, Demand redress,—but, Tell him of his fault; that is, remind him of his sin, tell him what things you have suffered from him. For he is held down by anger or by shame, stupefied as one in a deep slumber. Wherefore it behoves you who are in your right senses to go to him who is in a disease. JEROME. If then your brother have sinned against you, or hurt you in any matter, you have power, indeed must needs forgive him, for we are charged to forgive our debtors their debts. But if a man sin against God, it is no longer in our decision. But we do all tho contrary of this; where God is wronged we are merciful, where the affront is to ourselves we prosecute the quarrel. CHRYSOSTOM. We are to tell his fault to the man himself who did it, and not to another, because the party takes it with the more patience from him, and above all when they are together alone. For when he who had a right to demand reparation, shews rather a carefulness to heal the sore, this has great power to propitiate. AUGUSTINE. (Serm. 82, 7.) When any one therefore offends against us, let us be very careful, not for ourselves, for it is glorious to forget an injury; forget therefore your own wrong, but not the wound your brother has sustained; and tell him of his fault between him and you alone, seeking his amendment and sparing his shame. For it may be that out of shame he will seek to defend his fault, and thus you will only harden, while you sought to do him good. JEROME. Thy brother is to be reproved in private, lest if once he has lost a sense of shame, he should continue in sin.

• From Stone Butch Blues (1993)

  Part of the nightmare was that it all seemed so matter of fact. I couldn’t make it stop, I couldn’t escape it, and so I pretended it wasn’t happening. I looked at the sky, at how pale and placid it was. I imagined it was the ocean and the clouds were white- capped waves. Another boy was huffing and puffing on top of me. I recognized him—Jeffrey Darling, an arrogant bully. Jeffrey grabbed my hair and yanked it back so 40 Leslie Feinberg hard I gasped. He wanted me to pay attention to the rape. He fucked me harder. “You dirty Kike bitch, you fucking bulldagger.” All my crimes were listed. I was guilty as charged. Is this how men and women have sex? 1 knew this wasn’t making love; this was more like making hate. But was this mechanical motion what all the jokes and dirty magazines and whispers were about? This was it? I gigeled, not because what was happening was funny, but because all the fuss about sex suddenly seemed so ridiculous. Jeffrey pulled his cock out of me and slapped my face, back and forth. “It’s not funny,” he shouted. “It’s not funny, you crazy bitch.” I heatd the sound of a whistle. “Shit, it’s the coach,” Frank Humphrey warned the other guys. Jeffrey jumped up and pulled up his pants. All the boys scattered toward the gym. I was alone on the field. The coach stood a distance away from me, staring. I wobbled as I tried to stand. There were grass stains on my skirt and blood and slimy stuff running down my legs. “Get out of here, you little whore,’ Coach Moriarty ordered. I had to walk the long distance home since my bus pass wasn’t valid this late. I didn’t feel like this was my life I was living anymore. It felt more like a movie. A?57 Chevy full of boys slowed down. “See you tomorrow, lesbo,” I heard Bobby yell as they passed. Was I their property now? If I wasn’t strong enough to stop them once, could I ever hope to defend myself again? I ran to the bathroom as soon as I got home and threw up in the toilet. Between my legs felt like chopped meat and the shooting pains frightened me. I took a long, long bubble bath. I asked my sister to tell my parents I was sick and went to bed. When I woke up it was time to go to school. But I couldn’t, I wasn’t ready! “Now!” My mother ordered me out of bed. My whole body hurt. I tried not to think about the pain between my legs. My parents didn’t seem to notice my split lip or the way I was limping a little on my ankle. I moved slow as molasses. I couldn’t think clearly. “Hurry up,” my mother scolded. “You’re going to be late for school.”

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  In my bitterness I often search for reasons to condemn them, the better to condemn myself. For I am like them too, in many ways. For a long while I thought I had escaped, but as time goes on I see that I am no better, that I am even a little worse, because I saw more clearly than they ever did and yet remained powerless to alter my life. As I look back on my life it seems to me that I never did anything of my own volition but always through the pressure of others. People often think of me as an adventurous fellow; nothing could be farther from the truth. My adventures were always adventitious, always thrust on me, always endured rather than undertaken. I am of the very essence of that proud, boastful Nordic people who have never had the least sense of adventure but who nevertheless have scoured the earth, turned it upside down, scattering relics and ruins everywhere. Restless spirits, but not adventurous ones. Agonizing spirits, incapable of living in the present. Disgraceful cowards, all of them, myself included. For there is only one great adventure and that is inward toward the self, and for that, time nor space nor even deeds matter. Once every few years I was on the verge of making this discovery, but in characteristic fashion I always managed to dodge the issue. If I try to think of a good excuse I can think only of the environment, of the streets I knew and the people who inhabited them. I can think of no street in America, or of people inhabiting such a street, capable of leading one on toward the discovery of the self. I have walked the streets in many countries of the world but nowhere have I felt so degraded and humiliated as in America. I think of all the streets in America combined as forming a huge cesspool, a cesspool of the spirit in which everything is sucked down and drained away to everlasting shit. Over this cesspool the spirit of work weaves a magic wand; palaces and factories spring up side by side, and munition plants and chemical works and steel mills and sanatoriums and prisons and insane asylums. The whole continent is a nightmare producing the greatest misery of the greatest number. I was one, a single entity in the midst of the greatest jamboree of wealth and happiness (statistical wealth, statistical happiness) but I never met a man who was truly wealthy or truly happy. At least I knew that I was unhappy, un-wealthy, out of whack and out of step.

• From Tropic of Capricorn (1934)

  Assistant editor—it sounded quite good, especially to the creditors in the neighborhood. And for a while I was so happy to be eating roast beef and chicken and tenderloins of pork that I pretended I liked the job. Actually it was difficult for me to keep awake. What I had to learn I had learned in a week’s time. And after that? After that I saw myself doing penal servitude for life. In order to make the best of it I whiled away the time writing stories and essays and long letters to my friends. Perhaps they thought I was writing up new ideas for the company, because for quite a while nobody paid any attention to me. I thought it was a wonderful job. I had almost the whole day to myself, for my writing, having learned to dispose of the company’s work in about an hour’s time. I was so enthusiastic about my own private work that I gave orders to my underlings not to disturb me except at stipulated moments. I was sailing along like a breeze, the company paying me regularly and the slave drivers doing the work I had mapped out for them, when one day, just when I am in the midst of an important essay on The Anti-Christ, a man whom I had never seen before walks up to my desk, bends over my shoulder, and in a sarcastic tone of voice begins to read aloud what I had just written. I didn’t need to inquire who he was or what he was up to—the only thought in my head was, and that I repeated to myself frantically—Will I get an extra week’s pay? When it came time to bid good-by to my benefactor I felt a little ashamed of myself, particularly when he said, right off the bat like—“I tried to get you an extra week’s pay but they wouldn’t hear of it. I wish there was something I could do for you—you’re only standing in your own way, you know. To tell you the truth, I still have the greatest faith in you—but I’m afraid you’re going to have a hard time of it, for a while. You don’t fit in anywhere. Some day you’ll make a great writer, I feel sure of it. Well, excuse me,” he added, shaking hands with me warmly, “I’ve got to see the boss. Good luck to you!” I felt a bit cut up about the incident. I wished it had been possible to prove to him then and there that his faith was justified. I wished I could have justified myself before the whole world at that moment: I would have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge if it would have convinced people that I wasn’t a heartless son of a bitch. I had a heart as big as a whale, as I was soon to prove, but nobody was examining into my heart.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  Stephanie hung up feeling vaguely humiliated. She thought of her job at Christine’s, almost so she could feel worse, but felt strangely comforted instead. This made no sense to her, but she accepted the comfort. She wished that she could tell Sandra about her real job, but she didn’t dare. Perhaps Sandra wouldn’t be shocked, but she would think it was self-destructive and insulting to women. Well, maybe it was. She never got any writing done while she was hooking. Somehow the idea of coming home after a day at Christine’s and sitting down to write was impossible; her thoughts were clotted by the clamoring, demanding ghosts of the men she’d seen that day. She needed to make herself a nourishing meal and sit still and take care of herself, as her mother used to say. Working at Christine’s was a time for making money and resting her brain, she told herself. Writing would come later. She pictured herself in the future, so successful that she could talk about being a hooker without anyone minding. “I didn’t do much writing then,” she’d say to her circle of successful friends as they stood around smiling and holding their drinks. “I spent most of my time just trying to re-form my personality.” And they’d all laugh at this adorable admission of her female vulnerability. The only person she’d ever told was her friend from college, Babette. Babette, who was trying to be an actress, had a whole gaggle of friends from the restaurant where she worked who wore a lot of leather and went en masse to some S&M bar in the West Village on weekends. It didn’t seem as though prostitution would faze Babette, but when Stephanie told her about her first experience three years earlier, she’d said, “Oh, Stephie! How could you do that to yourself? How could you?” Stephanie explained again and again that she didn’t think it was damaging her self-respect, but Babette would not be mollified. Stephanie suspected that Babette’s consternation had little to do with self-respect and a lot to do with Babette’s discomfort at discovering that she was friends with a prostitute instead of a writer. However, Babette was a fragile person who had done too much cocaine, had a breakdown, cut her wrist—shallowly, but still—and now saw a therapist twice a week, so she thought it was best not to speak to her again about subsequent episodes. —

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

  After rediscovering myself, I had a whole new string of questions in my mind. How could I have ever believed that a multimillionaire industrialist from Korea was the Messiah? How could I have turned my back on almost every moral and ethical principle I’d ever had? How could I have done so many cruel things to so many people? The fantasy I had used to inspire myself day after day and month after month was gone. What was left was a frightened, confused, indignant person. I felt as though I had awakened from a surreal dream and wasn’t sure what was reality—or as if I had stepped off a skyscraper and was headed toward the Earth, but I kept falling and never hit the ground. I was overwhelmed by many emotions. I was sad and missed my friends in the group, particularly my “spiritual children,” the people I recruited. I missed the excitement of feeling that what I was doing was cosmically important. I missed the feeling of power that single-mindedness brought. Now, all I knew was that my leg was broken. I was broken. I felt tremendous embarrassment about having fallen for a cult. My parents had told me it was a cult. So had my friends. Why hadn’t I listened to them? Why hadn’t I trusted them? It took me many weeks before I could thank my family for helping me. It was months before I could even refer to the Moonies as a cult, publicly. I read for months. For me, the burning issue was how the Moonies had ever managed to convert me and indoctrinate me so thoroughly that I could no longer think for myself. I read everything I could get my hands on about brainwashing, attitude change, persuasion, thought reform, mind control, undue influence, and cults. At first, the act of reading itself was extremely difficult. I had read only Moon literature for more than two years. I had trouble concentrating and was sometimes spaced out for long periods, not comprehending what I was reading. I was told that the mind is like a “muscle” and would regain its power through exercise. I forced myself to look up words in the dictionary. I forced myself to read line by line until I worked my way back to being able to concentrate and read pages at a time and be able to explain what I had read. Living at home was difficult. I was pretty depressed. My leg needed a second operation. Since I still had a full cast on my leg, I needed crutches to move about, to eat, even to go to the bathroom. I was unaccustomed to being so dependent. I had been running a house and controlling the lives of many members. Now I was a captain with no one to lead. I felt terrible for what I had put my family through. They were wonderful to me, but I felt a tremendous sense of guilt.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  I’ve really wanted to see you.” “Yeah?” “Yeah. Really.” His eyes looked so intensely vague, yet so sincere and so noble, she had the sense that the brown orbs could detach from their centers and wander all over his eyeball, slowly, with a certain majesty, each movement expressing the depth of his sincerity. “You could’ve called me.” “Yeah, I could have. But I was too ashamed.” He dropped his eyes and actually did look sincere for a minute. She cupped his face with her hand and kissed his cheek. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. They squeezed each other’s hands, communicated some sexual comradery and goodwill, and then walked away. Well, she thought, it was good to see Franklin, but she certainly wasn’t going to his party. It would be too depressing. It was strange to realize that the depressing part wouldn’t be her memory of his dizzy seduction attempt—she was never romantically interested in him anyway—but the presence of her ex- friend Alice, the mere mention of whose name had plunged her into a slight rancor. She eyed with disaffection and contempt the neatly hatted and booted, dyed and moisturized strangers marching toward her. Alice and Roger had been the first New Yorkers she had met in Manhattan. They had met accidentally, when Constance had sublet their loft with two other girls. She had been very impressed by them. They were so handsome—Roger, blond and tall, his potentially annoying symmetry broken by the stubborn cowlick on the back of his head, and Alice, tiny and sleekly dark, her short hair like the shiny, pleated wings of a beetle, her clothes fully color- coordinated and accessorized—very poised, and apparently secure. Alice had asked her a lot of questions about her plans, and seemed to be scrutinizing her answers for signs of acceptability, while Roger smiled and nodded affably. At first Constance resented it, but soon, to her embarrassment, she found that she was flattered by Alice’s eventual approval. Alice had been especially kind when Constance was thrown out of her first apartment after two days of tenancy with a psychotic roommate, rushing to her assistance with advice and a huge garbage bag of Salvation Army–bound clothes. “Don’t leave New York because of this,” she said. “Everybody gets mangled a little during the first few months.” She huffed up the five flights of stairs to her apartment, dropped the keys, swore unattractively and opened the door to find that the heat was too high, the cats were running around with mysterious desperation, and Deana wasn’t home. The cats moiled loudly around her legs as she wrestled with can and opener; they squabbled for position as she put the blobs of cold meat-and-cornmeal byproducts before them. “Oh, come on,” she said. “You guys aren’t that hungry.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  He sat there for over an hour. Virginia could hear the car’s engine start, chug awkwardly, and then shut off. This happened several times. She couldn’t tell whether Jarold was repeatedly deciding to drive somewhere and then changing his mind, or if he was just keeping warm. — Camille divorced Kevin two months later. She put her things in bags and boxes and moved into a girlfriend’s apartment. She tried to make it sound like fun. Virginia pictured her sitting on the couch with her friend, both of them bundled in blankets, drinking mugs of tea, being supportive. It was a nice picture, but it seemed adolescent. — Everybody came home for the holidays. Magdalen and Camille hugged each other constantly during the visit. On Christmas they wore their pajamas and slippers all day. They sat close together and squeezed each other’s hands. They had confidential conversations, which Virginia only half heard. When they talked to anyone else, their faces stiffened slightly. Magdalen had a hard time finishing a sentence. No one else seemed to notice. “Magdalen’s always been flighty,” said Jarold. Charles was very pale. He picked at the Christmas meal, eating very little. His dinner plate was a mass of picked-apart food. Daniel ate a lot. He ate while he talked or walked through the room. There were often light brown crumbs on his plaid shirt. Virginia took only one group picture. It came out ugly. Magdalen’s eyes were a dazed green slur. Camille’s neck was rigid and stretched, her eyes bulged. Daniel’s eyes were rolled up and his nostrils were flared. Charles hung back on the couch, his hand covering the face of a malignant elf. Jarold, half in the picture and seen from the side, was frozen in the middle of a senseless gesture. — Virginia and Jarold were in the den watching the late movie when Magdalen called. Virginia tried to ignore the phone. It rang eight times. “Are you going to get that, honey?” said Jarold. Magdalen’s voice was calm. “Mama, I’m calling from the bus station in Charleston. John and I had a fight. He broke my nose. Griffin and I are coming home.” She arrived at 4:30 in the morning. Virginia stood at the door in a flannel nightgown watching the taxi pull into the driveway. Magdalen emerged in the open-car-door light, a thin girl in a bulky army coat. The door shut and she became a slow, bundled figure kicking the driveway gravel with her shuffling steps. “Mom?” Her voice was sheepish and sweet. She carried one suitcase and a big shopping bag. Griffin had just started walking. He looked tired and wistful. His blond hair was much too long. John called the house, but they hung up on him.

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  I mean, I’m over it now.” Bernard walked her back to her building, but to her surprise he didn’t want to come up to the apartment, even though she would have liked him to. In fact, they didn’t fuck until the second time she had dinner with him. It was a calm, affectionate event (“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, referring to his problematic size as he lay on top of her, gripping her firmly about the hips). The evening was marred only when he handed her a hundred dollars on his way out the door. She stared at him, stricken. “I don’t want that,” she said. “That’s not why I’m seeing you.” He looked embarrassed. “I know it’s not why you’re seeing me. It’s not why I’m seeing you. But I think you should have it.” “I don’t want it.” He sat on the bed. “Stephanie, it’s very simple. I have a lot of money. You do not. You need money. I can give it to you. Please take it.” “You didn’t give me money when we went out to dinner.” He groped for an explanation for this and gave up. “Well, the next time we go out to dinner, I’ll give you money.” “I won’t take it.” “If you don’t, I’ll just mail it to you.” Accepting the money became less troublesome than arguing. She stared at the cash sitting on her dresser after he left and thought: So now it is my real life. Then she got up and put it in her wallet. The next few times she saw him, the cash factor didn’t seem so bad. It even felt perversely glamorous; it made her think of Babette’s friend Natalia, a dark, striking girl who was trying to be an actress. Babette was always telling Stephanie, with a certain awe, how Natalia collected men who bought her clothes and gave her money and drugs. If only Bernard would buy her a dress or something, perhaps it would seem less dubious, but she enjoyed his company, he was sexually pleasant, and she rather relished the novelty of the situation, much as he probably did. She told her friends that she was seeing a married man who “gave her money sometimes.” “Stephanie, that sounds really good for you,” said Sandra. “Sometimes it’s good to have somebody who will just come over to your house and be nice to you.” “I like that,” said Bernard as he held her in his arms. “I’m a person who comes over to your house and is nice to you.”

• From Bad Behavior (1988)

  The first time I fucked anybody else after him was my first trick in my first house.” “You’re kidding!” She laughed. “It’s too corny, isn’t it? Girl has heart broken by callous swine and turns to prostitution.” “Your life is very dramatic,” he said pleasantly. “It’s not so dramatic. These things happen. I mean, I’m over it now.” Bernard walked her back to her building, but to her surprise he didn’t want to come up to the apartment, even though she would have liked him to. In fact, they didn’t fuck until the second time she had dinner with him. It was a calm, affectionate event (“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, referring to his problematic size as he lay on top of her, gripping her firmly about the hips). The evening was marred only when he handed her a hundred dollars on his way out the door. She stared at him, stricken. “I don’t want that,” she said. “That’s not why I’m seeing you.” He looked embarrassed. “I know it’s not why you’re seeing me. It’s not why I’m seeing you. But I think you should have it.” “I don’t want it.” He sat on the bed. “Stephanie, it’s very simple. I have a lot of money. You do not. You need money. I can give it to you. Please take it.” “You didn’t give me money when we went out to dinner.” He groped for an explanation for this and gave up. “Well, the next time we go out to dinner, I’ll give you money.” “I won’t take it.” “If you don’t, I’ll just mail it to you.” Accepting the money became less troublesome than arguing. She stared at the cash sitting on her dresser after he left and thought: So now it is my real life. Then she got up and put it in her wallet. The next few times she saw him, the cash factor didn’t seem so bad. It even felt perversely glamorous; it made her think of Babette’s friend Natalia, a dark, striking girl who was trying to be an actress. Babette was always telling Stephanie, with a certain awe, how Natalia collected men who bought her clothes and gave her money and drugs. If only Bernard would buy her a dress or something, perhaps it would seem less dubious, but she enjoyed his company, he was sexually pleasant, and she rather relished the novelty of the situation, much as he probably did. She told her friends that she was seeing a married man who “gave her money sometimes.” “Stephanie, that sounds really good for you,” said Sandra. “Sometimes it’s good to have somebody who will just come over to your house and be nice to you.” “I like that,” said Bernard as he held her in his arms. “I’m a person who comes over to your house and is nice to you.”