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.

Page 158 of 267 · 20 per page

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  against myself. I was almost struck blind and dumb in this den of vice. I sat near the woman on her bed, but I was tongue-tied. She naturally lost patience with me, and showed me the door, with abuses and insults. I then felt as though my manhood had been injured, and wished to sink into the ground for shame. But I have ever since given thanks to God for having saved me. I can recall four more similar incidents in my life, and in most of them my good fortune, rather than any effort on my part, saved me. From a strictly ethical point of view, all these occasions must be regarded as moral lapses; for the carnal desire was there, and it was as good as the act. But from the ordinary point of view, a man who is saved from physically committing sin is regarded as saved. And I was saved only in that sense. There are some actions from which an escape is a godsend both for the man who escapes and for those about him. Man, as soon as he gets back his consciousness of right, is thankful to the Divine mercy for the escape. As we know that a man often succumbs to temptation, however much he say resist it, we also know that Providence often intercedes and saves him in spite of himself. How all this happens,- how far a man is free and how far a creature of carcumstances,- how far free-will comes into play and where fate enters on the scene, all this is a mystery and will remain a mystery. But to go on with the story. Even this was far from opening my eyes to the viciousness of my friend’s company. I therefore had many more bitter draughts in store for me, until my eyes were actually opened by an ocular demonstration of some of his lapses quite unexpected by me. But of them later, as we are proceeding chronologically. One thing, however, I must mention now, as it pertains to the same period. One of the reasons of my differences with my wife was undoubtedly the company of this friend. I was both a devoted and a jealous husband, and this friend fanned the flame of my suspicions about my wife. I never could doubt his veracity. And

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  ladder of the steamer. It would just touch the ladder and be drawn away again by the current. The first whistle to start had already gone. I was worried. The Captain was witnessing our plight from the bridge. He ordered the steamer to wait an extra five minutes. There was another boat near the ship which a friend hired for me for ten rupees. This boat picked me up from the overloaded one. The ladder had already been raised. I had therefore to be drawn up by means of a rope and the steamer started immediately. The other passengers were left behind. I now appreciated the Captain’s warning. After Lamu the next port was Mombasa and then Zanzibar. The halt here was a long one eight or ten days and we then changed to another boat. The Captain liked me much but the liking took an undesirable turn. He invited an English friend and me to accompany him on an outing, and we all what the outing meant. And little did the Captain know what an ignoramus I was in such matters. We were taken to some Negro women’s quarters by a tout. We were each shown into a room. I simply stood there dumb with shame. Heaven only knows what the poor woman must have thought of me. He saw my innocence. At first I felt very much ashamed, but as I could not think of the thing except with horror, the sense of shame wore away, and I thanked God that the sight of the woman had no moved me in the least. I was disgusted at my weakness and pitied myself for not having had the courage to refuse to go into the room. This in my life was the third trial of its kind. Many a youth, innocent at first, must have been drawn into sin by a false sense of shame. I could have credit if I had refused to enter that room. I must entirely thank the All- merciful for having saved me. The incident increased my faith in God and taught me, to a certain extent, to cast off false shame. As we had to remain in this port for a week. I took rooms in the town and saw good deal by wandering about the neighbourhood. Only Malabar can give any idea of the luxuriant vegetation of Zanzibar. I was amazed at the gigantic trees and the size of the fruits. The next call was at Mozambique and thence we reached Natal towards the close of May. 34.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  Within two or three days of his arrival, he discovered certain irregularities that were going on under my roof without my knowledge, and he made up his mind to warn me. I had the reputation of being a credulous but straight man. The discovery was to him, therefore, all the more shocking. Every day at one o’clock I used to go home from office for lunch. At about twelve o’clock one day the cook came panting to the office, and said, ‘Please come home at once. There is a surprise for you.’ ‘Now, what is this?’ I asked. ‘You must tell me what it is. How can I leave the office at this hour to go and see it?’ ‘You will regret it, if you don’t come. That is all I can say.’ I felt an appeal in his persistence. I went home accompanied by a clerk and the cook who walked ahead of us. He took me straight to the upper floor, pointed at my companion’s room, and said, ‘Open this door and see for yourself.’ I saw it all. I knocked at the door. No reply! I knocked heavily so as to make the very walls shake. The door was opened. I saw a prostitute inside. I asked her to leave the house, never to return. To the companion I said, ‘From this moment I cease to have anything to do with you. I have been thoroughly deceived and have made a fool of myself. That is how you have requited my trust in you?’ Instead of coming to his senses, he threatened to expose me. ‘I have nothing to conceal,’ said I, ‘Expose whatever I may have done. But you must leave me this moment.’ This made him worse. There was no help for it. So I said to the clerk standing

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  their place in the house. My brother had thought it fit to keep some sort of English atmosphere ready for me on my return, and to that end, crockery and such other things, which used to be kept in the house only for special occasions, were now in general use. My ‘reforms’ put the finishing touch. I introduced oatmeal porridge, and cocoa was to replace tea and coffee. But in truth it became an addition to tea and coffee. Boots and shoes were already there. I completed the Europeanization by adding the European dress. Expenses thus went up. New things were added every day. We had succeeded in tying a white elephant at our door. But how was the wherewithal to be found? To start practice in Rajkot would have meant sure ridicule. I had hardly the knowledge of a qualified vakil and yet I expected to be paid ten times his fee! No client would be fool enough to engage me. And even if such a one was to be found, should I add arrogance and fraud to my ignorance, and increase the burden of debt I owed to the world? Friends advised me to go to Bombay for some time in order to gain experience of the High Court, to study Indian law and to try get what briefs I could. I took up the suggestion and went. In Bombay I started a household with a cook as incompetent as myself. He was a Brahman. I did not treat him as a servant but as a member of the household. He would pour water over himself but never wash. His dhoti was dirty, as also his sacred thread, and he was completely innocent of the scriptures. But how was I to get a better cook? ‘Well, Ravishankar,’ (for that was his name), I would ask him, ‘you may not know cooking, but surely you must know your sandhya (daily worship), etc. ‘#Sandhya#, sir! the plough is our sandhya and the spade our daily ritual. That is the type of Brahman I am. I must live on your mercy. Otherwise agriculture is of course there for me.’ So I had to be Ravishankar’s teacher. Time I had enough. I began to do half the cooking myself and introduced the English experiments in vegetarian cookery. I invested in a stove, and with Ravishankar began to run the kitchen. I had no scruples about interdining, Ravishankar too came to have none, and so we went on merrily together. There was only one obstacle. Ravishankar had sworn to remain dirty and to keep the food unclean! But it was impossible for me to get along in Bombay for more than four or five months, there being no income to square with the ever- increasing expenditure. This was how I began life. I found the barrister’s profession a bad job – much show and little knowledge. I felt a crushing sense of my responsibility. 30.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  has anything to say, let him apply through the proper channel. The answer was enough, was perhaps deserved. But selfishness is blind. I went on with my story. The sahib got up and said: ‘You must go now.’ ‘But please hear me out,’ said I. That made him more angry. He called his peon and ordered him to show me the door. I was still hesitating when the peon came in, placed his hands on my shoulders and put me out of the room. The sahib went away as also the peon, and I departed, fretting and fuming. I at once wrote out and sent over a note to this effect: ‘You have insulted me. You have assaulted me through your peon. If you make no amends, I shall have to proceed against you.’ Quick came the answer through his sowar: ‘You were rude to me. I asked you to go and you would not. I had no option but to order my peon to show you the door. Even after he asked you to leave the office, you did not do so. He therefore had to use just enough force to send you out. You are at liberty to proceed as you wish.’ With this answer in my pocket, I came home crest fallen, and told my brother all that had happened. He was grieved, but was at a loss as to how to console me. He spoke to his vakil friends. For I did not know how to proceed against the sahib. Sir Pherozeshah Mehta happened to be in Rajkot at this time, having come down from Bombay for some case. But how could a junior barrister like me dare to see him? So I sent him the papers of my case, through the vakil who had engaged him, and begged for his advice. ‘Tell Gandhi,’ he said, ‘such things are the common experience of many vakils and barristers. He is still fresh from England, and hot- blooded. He does not know British officers. If he would earn something and have an easy time here, let him tear up the note and pocket the insult. He will gain nothing by proceeding against the sahib, and on the contrary will very likely ruin himself. Tell him he has yet to know life.’ The advice was as bitter as poison to me, but I had to swallow it. I pocketed the insult, but also profited by it, ‘Never again shall I place myself in such a false position, never again shall I try to exploit friendship in this way,’ said I to myself, and since then I have been guilty of a breach of that determination. This shock changed the course of my life. 32.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  I began dropping in frequently at the gatherings that took place at the house of an old friend, knowing that they would leave nothing in my mind but the memory of idle conversation and a blank aftertaste. I went there because the people of smart society who came to those parties, unlike my classmates, seemed surprisingly friendly and easy to know. They included several stylishly affected young ladies, a famous soprano, a budding lady pianist, and various young wives who had only recently married. There would be dancing, a little drinking, and the playing of silly games, including a slightly erotic form of tag. Sometimes the parties would last until dawn.In the early hours of the morning we would often find ourselves falling asleep as we danced. Then to keep awake we would play a game, scattering cushions about the floor and dancing around them in a circle until the phonograph was suddenly stopped. At this signal we would sit down on the pillows two by two, and whoever failed to find a seat would have to do a stunt. Great excitement was created by the dancers' throwing themselves down in heaps upon the cushions. As the game progressed, being repeated many times, even the women seemed to become careless of their appearance. Perhaps it was because she was a little intoxicated, but I remember how I once saw the prettiest of the girls laughing excitedly, not noticing that in the confusion of failing to a cushion her skirt had been pulled up far above her thighs. The flesh of her thighs gleamed whitely. If this had happened a short time before, I probably would have imitated the way other young men shy away from their own desire in such a situation, and using all my skill at playing a part that was never forgotten a single moment, would have instantly averted my eyes. But since that certain day I had changed. Without the slightest feeling of shame—that is, without the slightest shame at my innate shamelessness—I stared at those white thighs as calmly as though I were examining some piece of inanimate matter. Suddenly I was struck by the astringent pain that comes from staring too long at something. The pain proclaimed: You're not human. You're a being who is incapable of social intercourse. You're nothing but a creature, non-human and somehow strangely pathetic. Fortunately, the time for preparing for the civil-service examinations was at hand and I had to devote all my energies to dry-as-dust studying for them. This automatically enabled me, both physically and mentally, to keep more tormenting matters at a distance. But even this distraction was effective for only a short time at the beginning. The sense of failure which that night had aroused in me gradually returned, spreading into every corner of my life. I became depressed. For days on end I would be unable to turn my hand to anything.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  I wanted you to have your own life, apart from fear—even apart from me. I am wounded. I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next. I think of your grandmother calling me and noting how you were growing tall and would one day try to “test me.” And I said to her that I would regard that day, should it come, as the total failure of fatherhood because if all I had over you were my hands, then I really had nothing at all. But, forgive me, son, I knew what she meant and when you were younger I thought the same. And I am now ashamed of the thought, ashamed of my fear, of the generational chains I tried to clasp onto your wrists. We are entering our last years together, and I wish I had been softer with you. Your mother had to teach me how to love you—how to kiss you and tell you I love you every night. Even now it does not feel a wholly natural act so much as it feels like ritual. And that is because I am wounded. That is because I am tied to old ways, which I learned in a hard house. It was a loving house even as it was besieged by its country, but it was hard. Even in Paris, I could not shake the old ways, the instinct to watch my back at every pass, and always be ready to go. A few weeks into our stay, I made a friend who wanted to improve his English as much as I wanted to improve my French. We met one day out in the crowd in front of Notre Dame. We walked to the Latin Quarter. We walked to a wine shop. Outside the wine shop there was seating. We sat and drank a bottle of red. We were served heaping piles of meats, bread, and cheese. Was this dinner? Did people do this? I had not even known how to imagine it. And more, was this all some elaborate ritual to get an angle on me? My friend paid. I thanked him. But when we left I made sure he walked out first. He wanted to show me one of those old buildings that seem to be around every corner in that city. And the entire time he was leading me, I was sure he was going to make a quick turn into an alley, where some dudes would be waiting to strip me of…what, exactly? But my new friend simply showed me the building, shook my hand, gave a fine bonne soirée, and walked off into the wide open night. And watching him walk away, I felt that I had missed part of the experience because of my eyes, because my eyes were made in Baltimore, because my eyes were blindfolded by fear.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  other passions becomes easy for a man who lives on such food. My co-workers and I have seen by experience that there is much truth in the Indian proverb that as a man eats, so shall he become. These views have been set out elaborately in the book. But unfortunately in India I have found myself obliged to deny some of my theories in practice. Whilst I was engaged on the recruiting campaign in Kheda, an error in diet laid me low, and I was at death’s door. I tried in vain to rebuild a shattered constitution without milk. I sought the help of the doctors, vaidyas and scientists whom I knew, to recommend a substitute for milk. Some suggested mung water, some mowhra oil, some almond-milk. I wore out my body in experimenting on these, but nothing could help me to leave the sickbed. The vaidyas read verses to me from Charaka to show that religious scruples about diet have no place in therapeutics. So they could not be expected to help me to continue to live without milk. And how could those who recommended beef-tea and brandy without hesitation help me to persevere with a milkless diet? I might not take cow’s or buffalo’s milk, as I was bound by a vow. The vow of course meant the giving up of all milks, but as I had mother cow’s and mother buffalo’s only in mind when I took the vow, and as I wanted to live, I somehow beguiled myself into emphasizing the letter of the vow and decided to take goat’s milk. I was fully conscious, when I started taking mother goat’s milk, that the spirit of my vow was destroyed. But the idea of leading a campaign against the Rowlatt Act had possessed me. And with it grew the desire to live. Consequently one of the greatest experiments in my life came to a stop. I know it is argued that the soul has nothing to do with what one eats or drinks, as the soul neither eats nor drinks; that it is not what you put inside from

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  a sheet of foolscap. Sjt. Mazmudar had to read it for me. His own speech was of course excellent and was received with applause. I was ashamed of myself and sad at heart for my incapacity. My last effort to make a public speech in England was on the eve of my departure for home. But this time too I only succeeded in making myself ridiculous. I invited my vegetarian friends to dinner in the Holborn Restaurant referred to in these chapters. ‘A vegetarian dinner could be had,’ I said to myself, ‘in vegetarian restaurants as a matter of course. But why should it not be possible in a non- vegetarian restaurant too?’ And I arranged with the manager of the Holborn Restaurant to provide a strictly vegetarian meal. The vegetarians hailed the new experiment with delight. All dinners are meant for enjoyment, but the West has developed the thing into an art. They are celebrated with great eclat, music and speeches. And the little dinner party that I gave was also not unaccompanied by some such display. Speeches, therefore, there had to be. When my turn for speaking came, I stood up to make a speech. I had with great care thought out one which would consist of a very few sentences. But I could not proceed beyond the first sentence. I had read of Addison that he began his maiden speech in the House of Commons, repeating ‘I conceive’ three times, and when he could proceed no further, a wag stood up and said, ‘The gentleman conceived thrice but brought forth nothing.’ I had thought of making a humorous speech taking this anecdote as the text. I therefore began with it and stuck there. My memory entirely failed me and in attempting a humorous for having kindly responded to my invitation,’ I said abruptly, and sat down. It was only in South Africa that I got over this shyness, though I never completely overcame it. It was impossible for me to speak impromptu. I hesitated whenever I had to face strange audiences and avoided making a speech

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  the flesh of birds and beasts, but ate fish, not to mention eggs. According to the second definition, meat meant flesh of all living creatures. So fish was here out of the question, but eggs were allowed. The third definition as all their products, thus covering eggs and milk alike. If I accepted the first definition, I could take not only eggs, but fish also. But I was convinced that my mother’s definition was the definition binding on me. If, therefore, I would observe the vow I had taken, I must abjure eggs. I therefore did so. This was a hardship inasmuch as inquiry showed that even in vegetarian restaurants many courses used to contain eggs. This meant that unless I knew what was what, I had to go through the awkward process of ascertaining whether a particular course contained eggs or no, for many puddings and cakes were not free from them. But though the revelation of my duty caused this difficulty, it simplified my food. The simplification in its turn brought me annoyance in that I had to give up several dishes I had come to relish. These difficulties were only passing, for the strict observance of the vow produced an inward relish distinctly more healthy, delicate and permanent. The real ordeal, however, was still to come, and that was in respect of the other vow. But who dare harm whom God protects? A few observations about the interpretation of vows or pledges may not be out of place here. Interpretation of pledges has been a fruitful source of strife all the world over. No matter how explicit the pledge, people will turn and twist the text to suit their own purposes. They are to be met with among all classes of society, from the rich down to the poor, from the prince down to the peasant. Selfishness turns them blind, and by a use of the ambiguous middle they deceive themselves and seek to deceive the world and God. One golden rule is to accept the interpretation honestly put on the pledge by the party administering it. Another is to accept the interpretation of the weaker party, where there are two interpretations possible. Rejection of these two rules gives rise to strife and

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  We returned from the Conference in the evening. After dinner we sat down to play a rubber of bridge, in which our landlady joined, as is customary in England even in respectable households. Every player indulges in innocent jokes as a matter of course, but here my companion and our hostess began to make indecent ones as well. I did not know that my friend was an adept in the art. It captured me and I also joined in. Just when I was about to go beyond the limit, leaving the cards and the game to themselves. God through the good companion uttered the blessed warning: ‘Whence this devil in you, my boy? Be off, quick!’ I was ashamed. I took the warning and expressed within myself gratefulness to my friend. Remembering the vow I had taken before my mother, I fled from the scene. To my room I went quaking, trembling, and with beating heart, like a quarry escaped from its pursuer. I recall this as the first occasion on which a woman, other than my wife, moved me to lust. I passed that night sleeplessly, all kinds of thoughts assailing me. Should I leave this house? Should I run away from the place? Where was I? What would happen to me if I had not my wits about me? I decided to act thenceforth with great caution; not to leave the house, but somehow leave Portsmouth. The Conference was not to go on for more than two days, and I remember I left Portsmouth the next evening, my companion staying there some time longer. I did not then know the essence of religion or of God, and how He works in us. Only vaguely I understood that God had saved me on that occasion. On all occasions of trial He has saved me. I know that the phrase ‘God saved me’ has a deeper meaning for me today, and still I feel that I have not yet grasped its entire meaning. Only richer experience can help me to a fuller understanding. But in all my trials of a spiritual nature, as a lawyer, in conducting institutions, and in politics I can say that God saved me. When every hope is gone. ‘When helpers

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  My entire calculation, which I had thought so very exact, had been destroyed by the discovery of that error I had made at the very outset, and consequently I had no idea how to analyze the feelings I had now when I looked at Sonoko. "Must you really go?""Yes, it's a must." I almost felt happy as I gave the answer. Again the machinery of deception had begun to work within me, superficially at first. My feeling of happiness was actually nothing but the emotion one feels upon escaping a great danger, but I interpreted it as arising out of a feeling of superiority toward Sonoko, out of the knowledge that I now possessed new power to tantalize her. Self-deception was now my last ray of hope. A person who has been seriously wounded does not demand that the emergency bandages that save his life be clean. I arrested my bleeding with the bandages of self-deception, with which I was at least already familiar, and thought of nothing but running to the hospital. I purposely described that slipshod arsenal to Sonoko as the strictest of barracks, insisting that if I did not return to it the next day I'd probably be put in a military prison. . . . The morning of my departure had arrived and I found myself gazing intently at Sonoko—like a traveler looking for the last time upon a scene he is about to leave. I now realized that everything was over—even though the people around me were thinking that everything was just beginning—even though I too was wanting to deceive myself and surrender to the atmosphere of gentle vigilance with which her family surrounded me.And yet Sonoko's air of tranquillity made me feel uneasy. She was helping me pack my bag, searching the room to see if I had forgotten something. After a time she stopped before a window and stared out it, not moving. Today again there was nothing to be seen distinctly except the cloudy sky and the fresh green leaves. The invisible passage of a squirrel had set a branch to swaying. As I looked at Sonoko's back something about her posture made it abundantly clear that she was quietly but childishly waiting. Given my methodical ways, I could no more have ignored this than I can endure leaving a room without closing the closet doors. I walked up behind her and embraced her gently. "You will come again, without fail, won't you?" She spoke easily, in a tone of complete confidence. It somehow sounded as though she had confidence not so much in me as in something deeper, something beyond me. Her shoulders were not shaking. The lace on her blouse was rising and falling as though proudly. "H'm, perhaps so, if I'm still alive." I was disgusted with myself as I spoke the words. Intellectually, I would have preferred by far to be saying: "Of course I'll come! Nothing could keep me from coming to you. Never doubt it.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  I can’t sit down because the chairs are piled with file folders and fat reports that threaten to escape their staples. The knocked-together bookshelves and battered gray file cabinets look too shaky to lean on. I don’t dare lean on anything anyway. The pose might call up sordid reverberations from my checkered past, and we’re going to hear enough about that any second now. The placement of the shrine contributes to my disorientation. The mirror (bigger than usual) is behind and to one side of her desk, right across from me. Above, it says, “Behold the heroine of today!” These damn things are everywhere, so I don’t even have to look below it to know that it says, “In her, the revolution lives on!” I see a woman who has square, but not broad, shoulders, and a body that looks wiry and muscular (I hope). Actually, she is thin and worn out because she’s been living on fifteen hundred calories a day and can’t sleep at night. She is wearing faded khaki pants (army surplus), a leather jacket, laced-up combat boots, a studded belt, and a crewcut. That’s me. The heroine of today, ha-ha. The heat presses in on me. I can feel it beating against my eardrums, but I refuse to take off my jacket. Its fragile, blood-stained lining is ripping out, but if I replace it, I will lose another piece of Jackie. I can still hear the crazy conviction in the voice of our trick-turned-killer, replying to her cool suggestion that we talk about where we were going and what we were going to do when we got there. “You’re going to be whatever I want you to be,” she said, putting a gun to Jackie’s head. Well, people had been telling Jackie that her whole life. Why should she believe it now? She curled her lip in disdain and grabbed for the wheel. These are terrible memories, but if I don’t work hard to keep them fresh, that andro will have won and Jackie will not-be, never will have been her vital, crazed, strung-out self. I am the only one who can keep her alive because I am the only one who knew her and the only one who cared, who cares. I should have left the jacket on her body, left it to burn up when the gas tank exploded and turned the psychotic jane’s car into shrapnel. I could have remembered her without the jacket, without wearing her blood around my ribs, but I needed it.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  She had a revulsion against the whole affair, and almost envied the Guthrie girls their gawky inexperience and crude maidenliness. And she now dreaded the thought that anybody would know about herself and the keeper. How unspeakably humiliating! She was weary, afraid, and felt a craving for utter respectability, even for the vulgar and deadening respectability of the Guthrie girls. If Clifford knew about her affair, how unspeakably humiliating! She was afraid, terrified of society and its unclean bite. She almost wished she could get rid of the child again, and be quite clear. In short, she fell into a state of funk. As for the scent-bottle, that was her own folly. She had not been able to refrain from perfuming his one or two handkerchiefs and his shirts in the drawer, just out of childishness, and she had left a bottle of Coty's Wood-violet perfume, half empty, among his things. She wanted him to remember her in the perfume. As for the cigarette-ends, they were Hilda's. She could not help confiding a little in Duncan Forbes. She didn't say she had been the keeper's lover, she only said she liked him, and told Forbes the history of the man. "Oh," said Forbes, "you'll see, they'll never rest till they've pulled the man down and done him in. If he has refused to creep up into the middle classes, when he had a chance; and if he's a man who stands up for his own sex, then they'll do him in. It's the one thing they won't let you be, straight and open in your sex. You can be as dirty as you like. In fact, the more dirt you do on sex, the better they like it. But if you believe in your own sex, and won't have it done dirt to: they'll down you. It's the one insane taboo left: sex as a natural and vital thing. They won't have it, and they'll kill you before they'll let you have it. You'll see, they'll hound that man down. And what's he done, after all? If he's made love to his wife all ends on, hasn't he a right to? She ought to be proud of it. But you see, even a low bitch like that turns on him, and uses the hyena instinct of the mob against sex, to pull him down. You have to snivel and feel sinful or awful about your sex, before you're allowed to have any. Oh, they'll hound the poor devil down." Connie had a revulsion in the opposite direction now. What had he done, after all? what had he done to herself, Connie, but give her an exquisite pleasure, and a sense of freedom and life? He had released her warm, natural sexual flow. And for that they would hound him down.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  7. AT THE HIGH SCHOOL I have already said that I was learning at the high school when I was married. We three brothers were learning at the same school. The eldest brother was in a much higher class, and the brother who was married at the same time as I was, only one class ahead of me. Marriage resulted in both of us wasting a year. Indeed the result was oven worse for my brother, for he gave up studies altogether. Heaven knows how many youths are in the same plight as he. Only in our present Hindu society do studies and marriage go thus hand in hand. My studies were continued. I was not regarded as a dunce at the high school. I always enjoyed the affection of my teachers. Certificates of progress and character used to be sent to the parents every year. I never had a bad certificate. In fact I even won prizes after I passed out of the second standard. In the fifth and sixth I obtained scholarships and rupees four and ten respectively, an achievement for which I have to thank good luck more than my merit. For the scholarships were not open to all, but reserved for the best boys amongst those coming from the Sorath Division of Kathiawad. And in those days there could not have been many boys from Sorath in a class of forty to fifty. My own recollection is that I had not any high regard for my ability. I used to be astonished whenever I won prizes and scholarships. But I very jealously guarded my character. The least little blemish drew tears from my eyes. When I merited, or seemed to the teacher to merit, a rebuke, it was unbearable for me. I remember having once received corporal punishment. I did not so much mind the punishment, as the fact that it was considered my desert. I wept piteously. That was when I was in the first or second standard. There was another such incident during the time when I was in the seventh standard.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  My knees were shaking with shame. I assumed that my friend had no suspicion of what had happened, and surprisingly enough, during the next few days I surrendered myself to the drab feelings of convalescence. I was like a person who has been suffering an unknown disease in an agony of fear: just learning the name of his disease, even though it is an incurable one, gives him a surprising feeling of temporary relief. He knows well, though, that the relief is only temporary. Moreover, in his heart he foresees a still more inescapable hopelessness, which, by its very nature, will give a more permanent feeling of relief. I too had probably come to expect a blow that it would be even more impossible to parry, or to say it another way, a more inescapable feeling of relief. During the following weeks I met my friend at school many times, but neither of us ever referred to the incident. About a month later he came to visit me one evening, accompanied by another student, a mutual acquaintance of ours. This was T, a great ladies' man, full of vanity and always boasting that he could make any girl in only fifteen minutes. In no time our conversation descended to the inevitable theme. "I just can't get along without it any more—I simply can't control myself," T said, looking closely at me. "If any of my friends were impotent I'd really envy them. More than that, I'd bow down to them." My friend saw that my face had changed color, and he turned the conversation to a new subject, addressing T: You promised to lend me a book by Marcel Proust, remember? Is it interesting?" "I'll say it's interesting. Proust was a sodomite" he used the foreign word. "He had affairs with footmen.”“What's a sodomite?" I asked. I realized that by feigning ignorance I was desperately pawing the air, clutching at this little question for support and trying to find some clue to their thoughts, some indication that they did not suspect my disgrace. "A sodomite's a sodomite. Didn't you know? It's a danshokuka." "Oh . . but I never heard Proust was that way."I could tell that my voice was quivering. To have looked offended would have been the same as giving my companions proof positive. I was ashamed of being able to maintain such a disgraceful outward show of equanimity. It was obvious that my friend had smelled out my secret. Somehow it seemed to me that he was doing all he could to avoid looking at my face. My cursed visitors finally left at eleven o'clock, and I shut myself up for a sleepless night in my room. I cried sobbingly until at last those visions reeking with blood came to comfort me. And then I surrendered myself to them, to those deplorably brutal visions, my most intimate friends. Some diversion was essential.

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  Then she became serious and got me into deep water." "Then there's no problem is there? The sooner you straighten it out the better for both of you. After all, the letter is only trying to find out how you feel about it. You'd better just send a plain answer—So I'll be getting back. Everything's all right now, isn't it?" "H'm," I answered and gave a little sigh. My mother went as far as the bamboo gate, around which corn was growing. Then she came running back nervously to the window where I was. Her expression now was somehow changed. "Listen, about what we were just saying—" She looked at me with an odd expression, as though she were a strange woman looking at me for the first time, "—about Sonoko. You—she—if you've—well—" Catching her meaning, I laughed and said: "Don't be foolish, Mother." I felt as though I had never before laughed so bitterly. "Do you really think I did any such thing? Do you trust me so little?""Oh, I knew it. I just had to make sure." She resumed her cheerful countenance, hiding her embarrassment. "That's what mothers are for—to worry about such things. Don't worry. I trust you." . . . That night I wrote a letter of indirect refusal, which sounded artificial even to me. I wrote that it was a very sudden thing and that as yet my feelings had not gone quite that far. On my way back to the arsenal next morning, I stopped by the post office to mail the letter. The woman at the special-delivery window looked suspiciously at my trembling hands. I stared at my letter as she took it up in her rough, dirty hands and stamped it swiftly. I found comfort in seeing my unhappiness handled in such an efficient, businesslike manner. The enemy planes had changed their targets now and were attacking smaller cities and towns. It seemed as though life had momentarily been delivered from all danger. Views favoring surrender had become fashionable among the students. One of our young assistant professors began making suggestive allusions to peace, trying to curry favor with the students. Seeing the smug bulge of his short nose as he gave voice to the most skeptical views, I thought: "Don't you try to fool me." And on the other hand I also despised the fanatics who still believed in victory. It was all the same to me whether the war was won or lost. The only thing I wanted was to start a new life. While visiting the house in the suburbs I was taken with a high fever, the cause of which was unknown. As I lay staring at the ceiling, which seemed to revolve feverishly, I muttered Sonoko's name continuously to myself as though it were a sacred scripture.

• From Between the World and Me (2015)

  I am speaking to you as I always have—as the sober and serious man I have always wanted you to be, who does not apologize for his human feelings, who does not make excuses for his height, his long arms, his beautiful smile. You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable. None of that can change the math anyway. I never wanted you to be twice as good as them, so much as I have always wanted you to attack every day of your brief bright life in struggle. The people who must believe they are white can never be your measuring stick. I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world. — One day, I was in Chicago, reporting a story about the history of segregation in the urban North and how it was engineered by government policy. I was trailing some officers of the county sheriff as they made their rounds. That day I saw a black man losing his home. I followed the sheriff’s officers inside the house, where a group of them were talking to the man’s wife, who was also trying to tend to her two children. She had clearly not been warned that the sheriff would be coming, though something in her husband’s demeanor told me he must have known. His wife’s eyes registered, all at once, shock at the circumstance, anger at the officers, and anger at her husband. The officers stood in the man’s living room, giving him orders as to what would now happen. Outside there were men who’d been hired to remove the family’s possessions. The man was humiliated, and I imagined that he had probably for some time carried, in his head, alone, all that was threatening his family but could not bring himself to admit it to himself or his wife. So he now changed all that energy into anger, directed at the officers. He cursed. He yelled. He pointed wildly. This particular sheriff’s department was more progressive than most. They were concerned about mass incarceration. They would often bring a social worker to an eviction. But this had nothing to do with the underlying and relentless logic of the world this man inhabited, a logic built on laws built on history built on contempt for this man and his family and their fate. The man ranted on. When the officers turned away, he ranted more to the group of black men assembled who’d been hired to sit his family out on the street. His manner was like all the powerless black people I’d ever known, exaggerating their bodies to conceal a fundamental plunder that they could not prevent.

• From Macho Sluts (1988)

  Joy did not hurt her. It was the return of her own blood to the nipples that caused the pain. A white-hot needle seemed to pierce the tip of each breast. Her cunt had not troubled her for some time, but it began to ache now, demanding some attention, some reassurance that it still existed. Joy stroked her as if she were a pet that needed soothing. Roxanne moaned in gratitude, and made useless attempts to rotate her pelvis against the knowing hand. Her thighs were wet, and Joy ran her fingers over the slick surface. Most dominants are fond of confronting their victims with their response to punishment and insult. There is no defense and no denial possible when one tastes the liquid evidence of lust that is flowing unhampered between one’s legs. Roxanne told herself she did not care, it did not matter, and she tried to lure Joy’s hand back up onto that sensitive point. But the more needy she became, the lighter the touch became, and the further it wandered from the place that cried out to be caressed. Finally, Joy withdrew her hand and withdrew herself and left Roxanne alone with Chris and her signal whip. This one was a third of the length of the bullwhip. Roxanne admired the sleight of hand that had distracted her from this important alteration in the pieces of the game. She would have covered her face, would have turned away, tried to shield herself—but her arms and legs were immobile, pinned, of no use. So she adopted the best defense available—she began to erase herself. She began to give up the idea that she had anything to hide or any right to demand pleasure instead of pain. She began to crumble herself at the edges, fade into the air, render herself will-less and invisible. But Chris required an exchange of words between them before the whipping could begin. Roxanne made the necessary responses— she acknowledged that it was she who had offered Chris anything, acknowledged that she had no right to appeal the matter to any other court, acknowledged that it would indeed be very hard to endure and that she had no choice but to endure it. And she asked for and was not granted permission to scream. Both of them knew she would scream anyway. This excuse to prolong the punishment was a formality, a ritual that was of value primarily to Chris, for it allowed her to gather her energy, feed her rage, and finally granted provocation to unleash that rage. I am not here, Roxanne told herself. This will happen, but it will not happen to me. I am not here for anything to happen to.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The young lady was incontinent seized by the other nuns and haled off, by command of the abbess, to the chapter-house, whilst her gallant dressed himself and abode await to see what should be the issue of the adventure, resolved, if any hurt were offered to his mistress, to do a mischief to as many nuns as he could come at and carry her off. The abbess, sitting in chapter, proceeded, in the presence of all the nuns, who had no eyes but for the culprit, to give the latter the foulest rating that ever woman had, as having by her lewd and filthy practices (an the thing should come to be known without the walls) sullied the sanctity, the honour and the fair fame of the convent; and to this she added very grievous menaces. The young lady, shamefast and fearful, as feeling herself guilty, knew not what to answer and keeping silence, possessed the other nuns with compassion for her. However, after a while, the abbess multiplying words, she chanced to raise her eyes and espied that which the former had on her head and the hose-points that hung down therefrom on either side; whereupon, guessing how the matter stood, she was all reassured and said, 'Madam, God aid you, tie up your coif and after say what you will to me.' The abbess, taking not her meaning, answered, 'What coif, vile woman that thou art? Hast thou the face to bandy pleasantries at such a time? Thinkest thou this that thou hast done is a jesting matter?' 'Prithee, madam,' answered Isabetta, 'tie up your coif and after say what you will to me.' Thereupon many of the nuns raised their eyes to the abbess's head and she also, putting her hand thereto, perceived, as did the others, why Isabetta spoke thus; wherefore the abbess, becoming aware of her own default and perceiving that it was seen of all, past hope of recoverance, changed her note and proceeding to speak after a fashion altogether different from her beginning, came to the conclusion that it is impossible to withstand the pricks of the flesh, wherefore she said that each should, whenas she might, privily give herself a good time, even as it had been done until that day. Accordingly, setting the young lady free, she went back to sleep with her priest and Isabetta returned to her lover, whom many a time thereafter she let come thither, in despite of those who envied her, whilst those of the others who were loverless pushed their fortunes in secret, as best they knew." THE THIRD STORY [Day the Ninth] MASTER SIMONE, AT THE INSTANCE OF BRUNO AND BUFFALMACCO AND NELLO, MAKETH CALANDRINO BELIEVE THAT HE IS WITH CHILD; WHEREFORE HE GIVETH THEM CAPONS AND MONEY FOR MEDICINES AND RECOVERETH WITHOUT BRINGING FORTH