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 223 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  To him, a bomb detonated after a years-long countdown and my not having heard the ticking is evidence of how little I understand him. The weight of having to decide our fate feels firmly planted on my shoulders. He wants me, pieced back together differently than I was before, but still, he says he wants me. It’s me now who can’t find my way back to him. There have been moments that flood me with shame in which I have wished he had died instead of having an affair so that the kids and I would have beautiful memories of him, not this painful and confusing knowledge that our life together wasn’t what I thought it had been. Now the kids have a father two of them refuse to see and I can’t find solid ground to stand on. If he had died, our life together would have ended, but at least it wouldn’t have proven itself to be a total fraud. I’m in a holding pattern, unwilling to move forward with him, unable to walk away. Barricaded in my room in the country house, I am at loose ends. Because this is not our primary residence, I have few friends here and a limited social life. I see myself with Tina on her deck yesterday, the two of us sipping watermelon margaritas amidst deep purple hydrangeas as the sun set, her advising me to put on a cute strapless sundress, show off my tan and go out and flirt – a good old-fashioned, non-committal flirt to shake off some of the sadness and attempt to locate the part of myself that is ready to move forward. I had adamantly protested: I’m not ready, I want to stay home with the kids and I don’t know how it’s done anymore and anyway, any man who looks at me will know I’m just a shell of a formerly decent flirt. Now her words echo through my mind – I could indeed go out, there’s really nothing to stop me but myself and the barrier of my bedroom door. It would be uncomfortable, but staying here is uncomfortable too, with the added downside of giving me way too much solitude in which to ruminate. I think strategically: if I can find a band playing, it’ll be less awkward to sit at a bar by myself as I will have something on which to focus my attention. I start googling places on my phone and it doesn’t take long to find a possibility – a music venue in town has a soul singer on the schedule. Tickets are still available, standing room only. If I get there early, maybe I can snag a seat at the bar.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  But she found Stephen sitting with her chin on her hand, and calmly staring out of the window; her eyes were still swollen and her face very pale, otherwise she showed no great signs of emotion; indeed she actually smiled up at Anna— it was rather a stiff little smile. Anna talked kindly and Stephen listened, nodding her head from time to time in acquiescence. But Anna felt awkward, and as though for some reason the child was anxious to reassure her; that smile had been meant to be reassuring—it had been such a very unchildish smile. The mother was doing all the talking she found. Stephen would not discuss her affection for Collins; on this point she was firmly, obdurately silent. She neither excused nor upheld her action in throwing a broken flower-pot at the footman. ‘She’s trying to keep something back,’ thought Anna, feeling more nonplussed every moment. In the end Stephen took her mother’s hand gravely and proceeded to stroke it, as though she were consoling. She said: ‘Don’t feel worried, ’cause that worries Father—I promise I’ll try not to get into tempers, but you promise that you won’t go on feeling worried.’ And absurd though it seemed, Anna heard herself saying: ‘Very well then—I do promise, Stephen.’ CHAPTER 3 1 S tephen never went to her father’s study in order to talk of her grief over Collins. A reticence strange in so young a child, together with a new, stubborn pride, held her tongue-tied, so that she fought out her battle alone, and Sir Philip allowed her to do so. Collins disappeared and with her the footman, and in Collins’ stead came a new second housemaid, a niece of Mrs. Bingham’s, who was even more timid than her predecessor, and who talked not at all. She was ugly, having small, round black eyes like currants—not inquisitive blue eyes like Collins. With set lips and tight throat Stephen watched this intruder as she scuttled to and fro doing Collins’ duties. She would sit and scowl at poor Winefred darkly, devising small torments to add to her labours—such as stepping on dustpans and upsetting their contents, or hiding away brooms and brushes and slop-cloths—until Winefred, distracted, would finally unearth them from the most inappropriate places. ‘ ’Owever did them slop-cloths get in ’ere!’ she would mutter, discovering them under a nursery cushion.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  therefore so let it be." As soon as the humble pope had pronounced his own sentence, he descended from the throne, divested himself of his pontifical robes, and implored pardon on his knees for the usurpation of the highest dignity in Christendom. He acted as pope de facto, and pronounced himself no pope de jure. He was used by the synod for deposing his two rivals, and then for deposing himself. In that way the synod saved the principle that the pope was above every human tribunal, and responsible to God alone. This view of the case of Gregory, rests on the reports of Bonitho and Desiderius. According to other reports in the Annales Corbeienses and Peter Damiani, who was present at Sutri, Gregory was deposed directly by the Synod.302 At all events, the deposition was real and final, and the cause was the sin of simony. But if simony vitiated an election, there were probably few legitimate popes in the tenth century when everything was venal and corrupt in Rome. Moreover bribery seems a small sin compared with the enormous crimes of several of these Judases. Hildebrand recognized Gregory VI. by adopting his pontifical name in honor of his memory, and yet he made relentless war the sin of simony. He followed the self-deposed pope as upon chaplain across the Alps into exile, and buried him in peace on the banks of the Rhine. Henry III. adjourned the Synod of Sutri to St. Peter’s in Rome for the election of a new pope (Dec. 23 and 24, 1046). The synod was to elect, but no Roman clergyman could be found free of the pollution of "simony and fornication." Then the king, vested by the synod with the green mantle of the patriciate and the plenary authority of the electors, descended from his throne, and seated Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, a man of spotless character, on the vacant chair of St. Peter amid the loud hosannas of the assembly.303 The new pope assumed the name of Clement II., and crowned Henry emperor on the festival of Christmas, on which Charlemagne had been crowned. The name was a reminder of the conflict of the first Clement of Rome with Simon Magus. But he outlived his election only nine months, and his body was transferred to his beloved Bamberg. The wretched Benedict IX. again took possession of the Lateran (till July 16, 1048). He died afterwards in Grotto Ferrata, according to one report as a penitent saint, according to another as a hardened sinner whose ghost frightened the living. A third German pontiff, Poppo, bishop of Brixen, called Damasus II., was elected, but died twenty-three days after his consecration (Aug. 10, 1048), of the Roman fever, if not of poison. The emperor, at the request of the Romans, appointed at Worms in December, 1048, Bruno, bishop of Toul, to the papal chair. He was a man of noble birth, fine appearance, considerable learning, unblemished character, and sincere piety, in full sympathy with the spirit of reform which emanated from Cluny. He accepted the appointment in presence of the Roman deputies, subject to the consent of the clergy and people of Rome.304 He invited the monk Hildebrand to accompany him in his pilgrimage to Rome. Hildebrand refused at first, because Bruno had not been canonically elected, but by the secular and royal power; but he was persuaded to follow him. Bruno reached Rome in the month of February, 1049, in the dress of a pilgrim, barefoot, weeping, regardless of the hymns of welcome. His election was unanimously confirmed by the Roman clergy and people, and he was solemnly consecrated Feb. 12, as Leo IX. He found the papal treasury empty, and his own means were soon exhausted. He chose Hildebrand as his subdeacon, financier, and confidential adviser, who hereafter was the soul of the papal reform, till he himself ascended the papal throne in 1073. We stand here at the close of the deepest degradation and on the threshold of the highest elevation of the papacy. The synod of Sutri and the reign of Leo IX. mark the beginning of a disciplinary reform. Simony or the sale and purchase of ecclesiastical dignities, and Nicolaitism or the carnal sins of the clergy, including marriage, concubinage and unnatural vices, were the crying evils of the church in the eyes of the most serious men, especially the disciples of Cluny and of St. Romuald. A reformation therefore from the hierarchical standpoint of the middle ages was essentially a suppression of these two abuses. And as the corruption had reached its climax in the papal chair, the reformation had to begin at the head before it could reach the members. It was the work chiefly of Hildebrand or Gregory VII., with whom the next period opens.

• From In Search of Paul: How Jesus's Apostle Opposed Rome's Empire with God's Kingdom (2005)

  Power and Imperialism Although Augustus and his wife Livia portrayed themselves as chaste models of his marital legislation, that program was surely his greatest failure. It was repealed later by the Senate but, more significant, it was totally ignored if not mocked by his own family and dynastic successors. In fact, Augustus himself might not have been so pure, as the banished Ovid’s more or less repentant Tristia suggests that the divi filius himself had some of those erotic scenes on his own household walls: Surely in our houses, even as figures of old heroes shine, painted by an artist’s hand, so in some place a small tablet depicts the varying unions and forms of love. (2.521–24) But that is very mild and nothing compared to what the gossipy historian Suetonius in his Lives of the Caesars records about Augustus’s successors. First, his Tiberius tells us that the emperor spent much of his reign on the island of Capri, where “he acquired a reputation for still grosser depravities that one can hardly bear to tell or be told, let alone believe,” but of course Suetonius’s gossip as history bears up well under the strain of both telling and believing (44.1). Next, in his Caligula, the emperor thought himself the incestuous son of Augustus and his daughter, Julia, and therefore committed incest with his own sisters. He “respected neither his own chastity nor that of anyone else” by seducing or raping any noblewomen he wanted, often at dinners with their husbands present (36.1–2). Then, in The Deified Claudius, the emperor’s impotence was lampooned; he divorced one wife “because of scandalous lewdness” and another for the same, and his last wife even married another man while still wed to the emperor (26.2). Finally, in Nero, that emperor’s various perversions and cruelties were legendary. He debauched even one of the Vestal Virgins, and he castrated and tried to make a woman of the boy Sporus in order to marry him. But, most shamefully, Nero later married another man, but made himself the woman, “going so far as to make the cries and lamentations of a maiden being deflowered” (29). We deliberately concluded this section with Suetonius’s gossip about the Caesars’ insatiable desire for sexual control and domination for one very specific reason. Even if all of those stories of Caesarian sexual perversity are just overdone facts, unfounded rumors, or prurient imaginings, they indicate, expect, and take for granted a certain dialectic of patriarchal power and penetrative possession on both sexual and imperial levels. That dialectic of sex and war is made visually obvious in the magnificent Sebasteion seen already in Chapter 1. We look now at imperial war on that monument, in the city of Aphrodite-Venus, goddess of love, consort of the war god Mars, and legendary ancestor of the Julian clan. By Phallus and by Sword

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  As Stephen and Mary were her nephew’s friends, she was predisposed to consider them charming, the more so as the former’s antecedents left little or nothing to be desired, and her parents had shown great kindness to Martin. He had told his aunt just what he wished her to know and not one word more about the old days at Morton. She was therefore quite unprepared for Stephen. Aunt Sarah was a very courteous old dame, and those who broke bread at her table were sacred, at all events while they remained her guests. But Stephen was miserably telepathic, and before the déjeuner was half-way through, she was conscious of the deep antagonism that she had aroused in Martin’s Aunt Sarah. Not by so much as a word or a look did the Comtesse de Mirac betray her feelings; she was gravely polite, she discussed literature as being a supposedly congenial subject, she praised Stephen’s books, and asked no questions as to why she was living apart from her mother. Martin could have sworn that these two would be friends—but good manners could not any more deceive Stephen. And true it was that the Comtesse de Mirac saw in Stephen the type that she most mistrusted, saw only an unsexed creature of pose, whose cropped head and whose dress were pure affectation; a creature who aping the prerogatives of men, had lost all the charm and the grace of a woman. An intelligent person in nearly all else, the Comtesse would never have admitted of inversion as a fact in nature. She had heard things whispered, it is true, but had scarcely grasped their full meaning. She was innocent and stubborn; and this being so, it was not Stephen’s morals that she suspected, but her obvious desire to ape what she was not—in the Comtesse’s set, as at county dinners, there was firm insistence upon sex-distinction. On the other hand, she took a great fancy to Mary, whom she quickly discovered to be an orphan.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Anna appeared to notice no change in Stephen, to feel no anxiety about her. As always, these two were gravely polite to each other, and as always they never intruded. Still, it did seem to Puddle an incredible thing that the girl’s own mother should have noticed nothing. And yet so it was, for Anna had gradually been growing more silent and more abstracted. She was letting the tide of life carry her gently towards that haven on which her thoughts rested. And this blindness of hers troubled Puddle sorely, so that anger must often give way to pity. She would think: ‘God help her, the sorrowful woman; she knows nothing—why didn’t he tell her? It was cruel!’ And then she would think: ‘Yes, but God help Stephen if the day ever comes when her mother does know—what will happen on that day to Stephen?’ Kind and loyal Puddle; she felt torn to shreds between those two, both so worthy of pity. And now in addition she must be tormented by memories dug out of their graves by Stephen—Stephen, whose pain had called up a dead sorrow that for long had lain quietly and decently buried. Her youth would come back and stare into her eyes reproachfully, so that her finest virtues would seem little better than dust and ashes. She would sigh, remembering the bitter sweetness, the valiant hopelessness of her youth—and then she would look at Stephen. But one morning Stephen announced abruptly: ‘I’m going out. Don’t wait lunch for me, will you.’ And her voice permitted of no argument or question. Puddle nodded in silence. She had no need to question, she knew only too well where Stephen was going. 4 With head bowed by her mortification of spirit, Stephen rode once more to The Grange. And from time to time as she rode she flushed deeply because of the shame of what she was doing. But from time to time her eyes filled with tears because of the pain of her longing. She left the cob with a man at the stables, then made her way round to the old herb-garden; and there she found Angela sitting alone in the shade with a book which she was not reading. Stephen said: ‘I’ve come back.’ And then without waiting: ‘I’ll do anything you want, if you’ll let me come back.’ And even as she spoke those words her eyes fell. But Angela answered: ‘You had to come back—because I’ve been wanting you, Stephen.’ Then Stephen went and knelt down beside her, and she hid her face against Angela’s knee, and the tears that had never so much as once fallen during all the hard weeks of their separation, gushed out of her eyes. She cried like a child, with her face against Angela’s knee.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  “The anger at me and at each other has to stop,” I say quietly but firmly, holding his gaze in the mirror. “I can handle your sadness and will listen to you cry all day everyday if that’s what it takes, but I can’t be a punching bag anymore. If you’re testing to see how far you can push before I break, please know you’re getting very close. If you hate living with me, you are free to go live with Dad. That’s your alternative.” Daisy and Hudson are silent as I pull back onto the highway. When we arrive in the city, we scatter like strangers. I go for a walk to clear my head and find myself immobilized on the sidewalk, watching people pass by, coming and going in all directions. When did everyone in this city get so beautiful, I wonder. I seem never to have noticed what an attractive, fit species New Yorkers are. Suddenly I perceive every woman who passes me as competition and I am crestfallen to recognize that I am no match for their vibrancy. How does anyone stand out here? My newfound sexual prowess and confidence drain out of me, leaving nothing but a small dirty puddle in the gutter. The two ways I have for decades identified myself – as a loving wife and dedicated mother – are on shaky ground, while my brand new way of identifying myself as a desirable woman now simply vanishes, leaving me with the uncomfortable understanding that I can no longer rely on the self I thought I was. I register that my successes with numbers one through four were completely situational, that my small victories on the amateur fields led me to foolishly believe that I was ready for the big leagues; while I thought I had been gaining a deeper understanding of myself I was actually slowly losing what tenuous understanding of myself I did have. I picture myself almost twenty years ago, standing on the corner outside a bakery on the Upper West Side. I had been trying and failing to get pregnant and had fallen into a deep depression, despondent that friends around me blinked and got pregnant while I seemed destined for barrenness. A therapist suggested I do a simple activity that made me feel happy, and I told her my greatest happiness was found in cleaning my apartment on a Sunday morning after Michael left for work, then going to the bakery for three Italian bakery cookies and a cup of coffee, which I would slowly savor as I paged through piles of manuscripts for work. My therapist had told me to go do it then, to bring a simple pleasure back into my life, to remind myself what happiness felt like. Ever the diligent student, I had done as she instructed.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  She sat smoking, with his letter spread out before her on the desk, his absurd yet courageous letter, and somehow it humbled her pride to the dust, for she could not so justify her existence. Every instinct handed down by the men of her race, every decent instinct of courage, now rose to mock her so that all that was male in her make-up seemed to grow more aggressive, aggressive perhaps as never before, because of this new frustration. She felt appalled at the realization of her own grotesqueness; she was nothing but a freak abandoned on a kind of no- man’s-land at this moment of splendid national endeavour. England was calling her men into battle, her women to the bedsides of the wounded and dying, and between these two chivalrous, surging forces she, Stephen, might well be crushed out of existence—of less use to her country, she was, than Brockett. She stared at her bony masculine hands, they had never been skilful when it came to illness; strong they might be, but rather inept; not hands wherewith to succour the wounded. No, assuredly her job, if job she could find, would not lie at the bedsides of the wounded. And yet, good God, one must do something! Going to the door she called in the servants: ‘I’m leaving for England in a few days,’ she told them, ‘and while I’m away you’ll take care of this house. I have absolute confidence in you.’ Pierre said: ‘All things shall be done as you would wish, Mademoiselle.’ And she knew that it would be so. That evening she told Puddle of her decision, and Puddle’s face brightened: ‘I’m so glad, my dear, when war comes one ought to stand by one’s country.’ ‘I’m afraid they won’t want my sort . . .’ Stephen muttered. Puddle put a firm little hand over hers: ‘I wouldn’t be too sure of that, this war may give your sort of woman her chance. I think you may find that they’ll need you, Stephen.’ 3 There were no farewells to be said in Paris except those to Buisson and Mademoiselle Duphot. Mademoiselle Duphot shed a few tears: ‘I find you only to lose you, Stévenne. Ah, but how many friends will be parted, perhaps for ever, by this terrible war—and yet what else could we do? We are blameless!’ In Berlin people were also saying: ‘What else could we do?

• From The Pisces (2018)

  She kissed each of my eyelids. I felt turned on, like I wanted to rub against those thighs of hers in her jeans. When I opened my eyes again in my dream, Sappho had become Claire. “I’m sorry I can’t drown with you,” said Claire. “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m really sorry, Lucy.” “Nobody is going to drown!” I said. “Go get your nails and toenails done instead. You can pretend you’re going on a date with David.” “Mani-pedi as the antidote to suicide,” she said. “It all makes so much sense now. But I just got them done. What do you do instead of kill yourself when your nails are already done?” “Maybe Le Pain Quotidien?” I said. “You should go get a Danish. But I need to stay by the water, just in case he surfaces.” “How long are you going to wait?” “It won’t be long now. I feel him watching.” 51. I got into the bathtub and ran the water, soaking and scrubbing away Chase’s semen, which had formed a crust on my thigh. I could see it leaking out of me too in the bathwater, like passing clouds. Really, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be a person who was content to just lie around and watch the clouds, without trying to consume anything? Was there something wrong with just being alive? Why was I so defective? Then again, it wasn’t my fault we were put on the planet and left to make our own meaning. I was making mine and doing the best I could. Drying off, I put on one of my sister’s silk kimonos, then went downstairs and got a glass of white wine. Was I cool? Was I glamorous? Was I living a life that others would crave, or was I out of my mind, fucking some strange driver? Part of me felt glamorous and part of me felt insane, the two feelings rotating over and over. I lay down on the floor and noticed that I felt better. I was relaxed, somewhat high even. The bad sex had served as some kind of methadone. Dominic came over and licked my face, whimpering. I would take him out later, so what if he shit in the pantry. I could just go to sleep, I thought. Now I felt certain that it would be sleep, and not death. I knew that it would just be sleep. But as I was drifting off, my phone rang. It was a Phoenix number and I answered it quickly, thinking that it might be Rochelle calling from her office to say that Megan had miscarried, or another piece of news involving Jamie. But it was the advisory committee, both the English and classics chairs, on the line. They were calling to let me know that they had read the outline and sample from my new thesis.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “I’ll pay for your cremation. Also, I will pay you to live here. I want you to treat yourself well while you are out here. Farm to table, spa, all that shit. You need to forget about Jamie. I know he’s at the root of this, even though you won’t admit it. You were always fucking crazy about men. You don’t think I remember when that poet guy dumped you in high school and Dad found you naked in the basement asleep with a steak knife?” “It was a butter knife,” I said. “I was trying to open a jar of peanut butter. I was bingeing.” “Whatever,” she said. “I spoke to the cop. You broke Jamie’s nose? They want you in therapy and I’m going to arrange it. Group, I think, something for codependents. I’ll ask my guy if he knows of anyone good. You need to be around women, no men, and you need to do the work.” “A group? Annika, no—” “Good, so it’s settled. You’ll come out here June fourth and stay until September tenth. I’ll be back for a week before Burning Man and we can hang out. And I’ll pay you double what you would make at the library to watch Dominic. I would be paying someone anyway.” “I’m not doing the group,” I said. “And I’m not taking your money. But maybe I can come out there. I have to check with the library.” “Do you want them to press charges?” she said. “If not, you’ll go to therapy. Also, I’m paying you, so stop.”

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  Indeed, his description, in a letter to a society virgin, of his struggles to avoid temptation in his monastery (‘I often imagined myself among bevies of girls: my face was pale with hunger, my lips chilled, but my mind burned with desire, the fires of lust leapt up before me though my flesh was almost dead’) one of the most frequently quoted of all patristic passages, enabled medieval artists devoutly to introduce the naked form into their paintings. Paradoxically, though, no passage did more to bring home to Christians the corruption and wickedness of sexual desire. To Jerome, sex was dirty in a literal or concrete sense; he writes often of his favourite virgins that they were ‘squalid with dirt’. Dirt, to him, both epitomized the sexual act and the therapeutic process by which the virgin concealed her charms. The virgin he most esteemed in Rome, Paula, came to Jerusalem with her daughter (the product of an earlier avocation) to care for Jerome’s old age. Both ladies dressed in rags and rarely washed or combed their hair. We see in Jerome the disjunction between normal existence and an evolving idea of Christian virtue which really bore little relation to the teaching of Jesus and Paul, but was itself a reaction to the growing worldliness which flowed from the agreement with Constantine. The harsh Christianity of Jerome was, or seemed, a necessary corrective to the urbanity of Damasus or even of Ambrose. It made Jerome an unhappy and a bitter man. He wrote with particular venom against the heterodox. He claimed with relish to have ‘destroyed in a single night’ the sceptical Livinius who doubted the efficacy of the relic-cult; and of the Roman monk Jovinian, who had criticized what he regarded as the excessive cult of celibacy, Jerome sneered: ‘After being condemned by the authority of the Roman church, and amid feasts of pheasant and pork, he did not so much breath out, as belch out, his spirit’ Other opponents were subjected to similar personal attacks, and Jerome could be equally sharp, even abusive, with his supposed allies. He had a donnish love of savage controversy, and seems to have quarrelled with most of his friends and acquaintances sooner or later. Palladius, whose Lausiac History is one of our chief sources for the period, said Jerome had a notoriously bad temper, and quotes the prophecy of another scholar, Posidonius: ‘The noble Paula, who looks after him, will die first and be freed from his bad temper, I think. Then no holy man will live here, but his envy will include his own brother.’ Jerome was the first Christian, of whom we have intimate knowledge, whose interpretation of his faith was quite incompatible with the realization of his nature – the result being profound misery.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I wanted to believe her. I kept trying to wriggle out of the reality of the situation, find some way to prove to myself that I wasn’t a dog killer. But no matter how I looked at it I was a murderer, third degree at the very least. I wanted to see myself the way Claire saw me. She was so nonjudgmental. But she only withheld her judgment of me so she didn’t have to judge herself. She couldn’t have me be a villain, or she would be one too. “What about your swimmer?” asked Claire. “Did he ever come back?” “Yes, he did.” “And?” “We’re going to run away together.” “To the desert?” “No,” I said. “To the depths of the ocean.” “Dark,” she said. “Like a suicide pact. So romantic, I love it.” “Sort of,” I said. “Sort of.” 55.Annika and Steve immediately got on a plane and headed home. I was terrified for their return. I sat on the white sofa, thinking of all that had gone on there, and dug my fingernails into my gums. When they bled a little, I imagined wiping the blood under the sofa cushions where my period bloodstains were. Now I understood the desire Claire had to hurt herself. I couldn’t drink anything or take a pill, because I needed to be clearheaded for their arrival. But the last thing I wanted was to be lucid. I needed an out, something to release me from the feelings of shame. So I took it out on my gums. When they pulled up in the driveway, Annika refused to get out of the taxi and only Steve came in. He had never liked me to begin with, but now he clearly hated me. I thought of his trench coat, covered in Garrett’s semen, in a dumpster somewhere. He issued a brusque hello and went into the pantry, where Dominic was still covered with the blanket. “Goddammit,” he said. He sounded angry. Then he went back outside. I crept over to the window and saw him talking softly to Annika, coaxing her out of the cab. But she refused to come. I heard her crying and saying, “No, no, no.” She looked up and our eyes met through the glass. She opened the cab door and came rushing into the house. I thought that she might yell at me, but she took me in her arms and hugged me. I sort of stood there as she cried on my shoulder, not knowing what to do. “I loved him so much, Lucy,” she said. “I know.” “He was the most special baby in the whole world. I just, I never loved anything like I loved him.” “Let’s sit down,” I said.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  We were both in shock. I didn’t know what to say. Two drops of blood ran from his nose, down his lip, and splattered onto the floor. He put his hands up to his face. “Son of a bitch,” he said. “Jamie,” I said. “Jamie, wait, let me see. Let me see.” “Just go,” he said. “Go!” He slammed the door. I pivoted on my heel and walked back down the street to my car. I felt worse. Later that night I got a visit from a police officer investigating the incident. Apparently, Megan had called the police from the hospital—or she had coerced him into it. I had broken Jamie’s nose. The cop said that the couple would not be pressing charges if I agreed to go to therapy. The couple? Now they were making decisions as a unit? “What did she look like?” I asked him. “Uh—” he faltered. “Would you say she’s better-looking than me?” “Ma’am,” said the cop, “I’m going to strongly recommend that you seek help for your anger issues. This time we’re only going to give you a warning. But if the couple hadn’t been so forgiving, you could be facing serious charges of battery right now.” “Battery!” I said. “Do I look like a batterer?” He was silent. “Can you just tell me. Aside from the broken nose, did they seem happy?” 6. “You have to get the fuck out of there,” said Annika. “I don’t know what that was with the doughnut incident, but something isn’t right.” “I’m fine,” I said. “Listen, Steve and I are going out of town for the whole summer. Yoga conference in Provence, then Budapest for two weeks, a month in Rome, and another conference. Oh, and then Burning Man with one of Steve’s start-ups. We need a house sitter and someone to watch Dom, love him, give him his medication. You should fly out here. Spend the whole summer. Get the hell out of the desert. It’s a nightmare for you ayurvedically.” “I don’t know if I can afford to take the summer off,” I said. I usually did summer work for the library, even when school wasn’t in session. “Yes, you can,” she said. “What happened to the money that Daddy left you?” Annika was actually my half sister, nine years older, but we had the same father. He had left us each about $20,000 when he died in his sleep at eighty-six. “I spent it on psychics. The rest I’m saving for when I die alone. The cremation,” I said. “I’ll pay for your cremation. Also, I will pay you to live here. I want you to treat yourself well while you are out here. Farm to table, spa, all that shit.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Hereford, Wyclif’s fellow-translator, appealed to Rome, was condemned there and cast into prison. After two years of confinement, he escaped to England and, after being again imprisoned, made his peace with the Church and died a Carthusian. In 1389, nine Lollards recanted before Courtenay, at Leicester. The popular preacher, William Swynderby, to whose sermons in Leicester the people flocked from every quarter, made an abject recantation, but later returned to his old ways, and was tried in 1891 and convicted. Whether he was burnt or died in prison, Foxe says, he could not ascertain. The number suffering death by the law of 1401 was not large in the aggregate. The victims were distributed through the 125 years down to the middle of Henry VIII.’s reign. There were among them no clergymen of high renown like Ridley and Latimer. The Lollards were an humble folk, but by their persistence showed the deep impression Wyclif’s teachings had made. The first martyr, the poor chaplain of St. Osythe, William Sawtré, died March 2, 1401, before the statute for burning heretics was passed. He abjured and then returned again to his heretical views. After trying him, the spiritual court ordered the mayor or sheriff of London to "commit him to the fire that he be actually burnt."633 The charges were that he denied the material presence, condemned the adoration of the cross and taught that preaching was the priesthood’s most important duty. Among other cases of burnings were John Badby, a tailor of Evesham, 1410, who met his awful fate chained inside of a cask; two London merchants, Richard Turming and John Claydon at Smithfield, 1415; William Taylor, a priest, in 1423 at Smithfield; William White at Norwich, 1428; Richard Hoveden, a London citizen, 1430; Thomas Bagley, a priest, in the following year; and in 1440, Richard Wyche, who had corresponded with Huss. Peter Payne, the principal of St. Edmund’s College, Oxford, took refuge in flight, 1417, and became a leader among the Hussites, taking a prominent part as their representative at the Council of Basel. According to Foxe there were, 1424–1480, 100 prosecutions for heresy in Norwich alone. The menace was considered so great that, in 1427, Richard Flemmyng, bishop of Lincoln, founded Lincoln College, Oxford, to counteract heresy. It was of this college that John Wesley was a fellow, the man who made a great breach in the Church in England.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  The idea of ecclesiastical foundations as atonement for grievous sin became a striking feature of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. It explains why so many abbeys and priories were endowed by wicked men. Thus a period of pillage and lawlessness might also be characterized by a luxuriant crop of new monasteries, like the England of Stephen’s reign. The Cistercians were outstanding beneficiaries of this syndrome. A robber-baron might also, it is true, have to perform a physical penance himself; but we hear less and less of such after the twelfth century. The mechanical process had taken over. And, of course, its forms proliferated. In 1095, Urban II, propagating the First Crusade, laid it down that a crusade to the Holy Land was a substitute for any other penance, and entailed complete remission of sin. This, of course, involved an actual and hazardous crusade, and the privilege, or indulgence, was hedged about with careful qualifications and terrific penalties if a man reneged. Throughout the twelfth century, crusading was the only source of indulgences, except in rare individual cases. But of course it was always these rare individual cases (that is, the rich, the well placed, the smart cleric) which shipwrecked the principle. Early in the thirteenth century, Innocent III extended crusader indulgences to those who helped merely with money and advice. Fifty years later, Innocent IV awarded indulgences without any conditions of crusader service, naturally only in special circumstances. By the end of the thirteenth century, indulgences were being granted to secular princes for political reasons. Soon after, individuals were allowed to buy plenary indulgences from their confessors on their death-beds; this meant they could enter Heaven immediately, provided they died in a state of grace, immediately after full confession. In the first six months of 1344, Clement VI granted this privilege to two hundred people in England alone; it cost them less than ten shillings each. The Pope justified this by saying: ‘A pontiff should make his subjects happy.’ By this time, the idea had already been extended to boost the pilgrimage trade to Rome. Boniface VIII gave a plenary indulgence to all confessed sinners who, in the course of the jubilee year 1300, and every hundredth year in future, visited the churches of the Holy Apostles in Rome. In 1343, Clement VI reduced the period to every fifty years, remarking: ‘One drop of Christ’s blood would have sufficed for the redemption of the whole human race. Out of the abundant superfluity of Christ’s sacrifice, there has come a treasure which is not to be hidden in a napkin or buried in a field, but to be used. This treasure has been committed by God to his vicars on earth.’ The period was reduced to a third of a century in 1389, to a quarter in 1470, and, from about 1400, extended to many local churches on special occasions.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  —The first time I came to Venice I thought it was weird, all of these millionaires living among the bums. If you moved here in the past decade, you either had a million-dollar home or you slept on the sidewalk in front of one. That visit had been a disaster. Annika and I rarely ever saw each other, although I had promised for many years to take a trip to the beach. I couldn’t get Jamie’s and my schedules to align, couldn’t get him interested, and I was afraid to go alone—to be intimate with her—without him as a buffer. I didn’t want to be seen too closely or I might have to look at me too. “Just come by yourself,” she would say. “I don’t care about him, it’s you I want to see.” This was easy for her to say from the comfort of couplehood. Her independence, even though it had been real once upon a time, was now a performance. How could she judge me for waiting for Jamie when she had Steve following her ass around like a Sherpa? I felt judged, even if she wasn’t judging. So I delayed for years. Then, finally, when Jamie was shooting a special on Joshua Tree, we decided I would come out to Venice at the end of his trip and he would take the Airstream out and meet me there. I was so nervous the afternoon I flew to see her that I got drunk on the plane. I couldn’t tell if she or Steve could smell it on me when I landed, although he looked at me funny. I was sitting in the backseat of their Prius and watching him gently rub her neck when the call came in. Jamie’s shoot had been extended and he was not going to be able to come. I spoke to him calmly and tried to contain my anger. I didn’t want Annika, or especially Steve, to see that I had any rage. If I could fool them then maybe I wouldn’t have to feel it myself. But that night I got so drunk on white wine that I puked all over Annika’s guest bed. Apparently, in a blackout, I talked to Steve about suicide. I wasn’t threatening to do it, just discussing its merits as a practical solution for the problems of life. I spent the remainder of the trip on good behavior. I used the bums to triangulate, inquiring about them often, giving them money. I thought that in the light of the bums I wouldn’t look so bad. I made up a game, “billionaire or bum,” in which I would ask Steve to place a bet on which one he thought a straggly-looking bohemian was. Apparently he was offended. She continued to invite me out there, especially once they got Dominic, but I always told her “soon.” I didn’t invite her to see my world.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Next, with his dick still inside me, pants around his ankles, he lifted me up and turned around, carrying me back down onto the floor. My back was on Steve’s coat. He thrust a few times in a missionary-type position, then commanded me to turn over. I flipped over onto my hands and knees and he began fucking me doggy-style. I could feel his dick up by my belly button. It hurt every time he thrust and now I just wanted for him to come, for it to be over. As hip as the hotel was, the music was terrible. Someone had chosen a range of sad ’80s and ’90s classic rock ballads: Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill,” Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven.” I was fucking on a bathroom floor to “Tears in Heaven.” Sorry, but no. What did it even mean to be alive? I started laughing. “Rub your clit,” he commanded. I obeyed. I could feel him spread my cheeks wider and begin to rub my asshole. He spit on his finger, then put it in. I could feel it. It felt like I had to shit, like there was something in there that needed to come out. I fucked him harder, trying to make him come already. Every moan I gave was out of pain. I wanted to fuck his finger out of me. But he put a second one in, then a third. I could tell he was trying to stretch my asshole. He pulled his dick out of my vagina. I felt it bang against my cheeks, then my asshole. He pushed a few times. I felt a searing pain: like a giant hemorrhoid was trying to make its way inside me. I turned around and looked at him. I was sweating. “Is it in?” I asked. “Wait a minute,” he said. He pushed some more. I felt his dick get softer and collapse a little. I imagined it forming a U-shape and going right back into him. I imagined him fucking his own belly button. “No,” he said. “It’s too tight. I’m just going to fuck your pussy.” That was fine with me. He fucked me for maybe a minute or two, then came. I wondered how he could come so quickly when he wasn’t even totally hard. “Sorry, baby. Want me to eat you some more?” he asked. I looked at Steve’s jacket on the floor. It was covered in dirt, and also a blob of semen. The strap of my new bra had ripped by the cup and frayed. “No, that’s okay,” I said. “That was really great. Really hot.” He tapped me on the ass. “You’re hot,” he said. “But we should get going so we don’t get caught.” “Yeah, as much as I would like to sit on the bathroom floor with you all night…”

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “You can get the prescriptions filled and start taking the medicines. The Cipro could take up to twenty-four hours to really start working, but the Pyridium should provide you with some relief almost immediately. We will call you with your results later this afternoon. If you don’t test positive for a urinary tract infection I strongly suggest that you come back in and get tested for everything.” “It’s definitely a urinary tract infection,” I said. The CVS pharmacist gave me the Pyridium right away but needed time to fill the Cipro, so I lingered in the magazine aisle. I took the Pyridium with apple juice, which I knew I wasn’t going to pay for. It made me feel powerful to steal the juice, drink it casually right there, then stick the bottle behind the magazines. I began to feel some relief from the Pyridium. But I also felt like I had to pee really badly. I figured it was probably just the infection, the illusion of having to pee. While I waited I shifted from foot to foot, reading a magazine about celebrity baby bumps. The whole magazine was dedicated to these bumps, not the babies themselves, just the bumps. If I had a bump, would I be in a better place? Maybe I was wrong for not having one. Suddenly, I felt a warm trickle between my legs. I looked down and in the crotch of my pants was a spreading stain of orange liquid. Fuck. I forgot that Pyridium turned your pee orange. I had pissed myself the color of a traffic cone. I ran to the counter, paid for my Cipro, then bailed out of there. I couldn’t get in a car like this, I would stink it up and stain the seats. Quickly I waddled down Main Street, past a group of brunchers, disoriented and reeking of piss. I felt like I could see in them what the homeless saw when they walked past these people. I felt hatred for them and shame about myself. But the brunchers didn’t notice me at all, or the orange pee stain. It made me want to disrupt their eating, their stupid conversations, and sit in the middle of their tables. I wanted them to be forced to deal with me. —At noon I turned on my phone. There was no word from Garrett, but twelve messages from Adam. I’m worried about you!!!!! I would come visit u at the hospital but I’m in tijuana I’m fine, I wrote, really Send pics of the blood, he wrote. Send nudes with the blood!!! There was also a message from Jamie asking how I was. I typed in three different answers: lovin the California lifestyle! do you still miss me? dying.

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  But secular science contains a vast number of such propositions, and on all these, therefore, the church has power to pronounce an infallible judgment.’ This attack on the intellect and the free pursuit of knowledge was only one aspect of the reassertion of control which characterized Roman Christianity in the nineteenth century. Among the English converts there was an impressive attempt to apply the full rigours of a moral theology which claimed to deal with every minute aspect of human action and thought, and left the penitent wholly in the hands of the clerical supervisor. Once again, the habit of Victorians of committing everything to paper (and preserving the results) enables us to penetrate the details of their spiritual lives. F. W. Faber, the poet and hymnwriter, came from a social and religious background similar to that of the Wilberforces; as a convert and a Catholic priest, he was a good exemplar of the new triumphalist pastoralism. Here he is, for instance, writing to one of his penitents, Mrs Elizabeth Thompson (11 August 1851): ‘All your faults turn on two things: you make yourself the centre of everything, and you are greatly wanting in simplicity. You have at present not the least notion of the literally desolating extent of this latter fault in your soul. Pray daily against these two faults and look particularly after them in your examen of conscience. You must read no high spiritual books. . . . Pray silence as much as you can – never . . . argue on religion. . . . There is at present no symptom whatever of God calling you to perfection. . . . So far your spiritual life has been no more than an unreal ambition and built on sand. Your work is to begin.’ We also have a note of remonstration, dating from 1860, which Fr Faber, in accordance with his invariable custom, slipped under the bedroom door of Fr William Morris, one of the priests in his charge: ‘The absence of supernatural principles illustrated in your refusing to give Miss Merewether Holy Communion, because it might have shortened your breakfast by five minutes (1) Want of obligingness to one of your brothers and that when he was sick. (2) The example of what Jesus would have done obviously not your rule of action. (3) Want of penance, for even an almost microscopic inconvenience. (4) Want of silence in speaking of the breakfast. (5) Clear loss of spiritual sense in letting the length of breakfast be an obstacle, and in quoting it without any sense of shame or unspirituality. (6) Want of charity to an extern, and she sick. (7) Want of zeal of souls, depriving an invalid of the Fountain of Grace. (8) Want of love of Jesus, who longs to communicate Himself to souls, and you hindered Him, rather than curtail your breakfast five minutes, and His three hours on the Cross for you!

• From The Pisces (2018)

  You need to forget about Jamie. I know he’s at the root of this, even though you won’t admit it. You were always fucking crazy about men. You don’t think I remember when that poet guy dumped you in high school and Dad found you naked in the basement asleep with a steak knife?” “It was a butter knife,” I said. “I was trying to open a jar of peanut butter. I was bingeing.” “Whatever,” she said. “I spoke to the cop. You broke Jamie’s nose? They want you in therapy and I’m going to arrange it. Group, I think, something for codependents. I’ll ask my guy if he knows of anyone good. You need to be around women, no men, and you need to do the work.” “A group? Annika, no—” “Good, so it’s settled. You’ll come out here June fourth and stay until September tenth. I’ll be back for a week before Burning Man and we can hang out. And I’ll pay you double what you would make at the library to watch Dominic. I would be paying someone anyway.” “I’m not doing the group,” I said. “And I’m not taking your money. But maybe I can come out there. I have to check with the library.” “Do you want them to press charges?” she said. “If not, you’ll go to therapy. Also, I’m paying you, so stop.” I didn’t protest any further. I needed the money and Annika had it. Tons of money. In the late ’90s she’d gotten into the yoga studio scene in Santa Monica, designed a line of mats made of bamboo. The mats were featured in Yoga Journal in a three-page profile about their biodegradable properties and rich texture for asana. Two days later she received a call. It was Hain Celestial. They wanted to buy the patent. Then Native Foods came calling. A bidding war ensued, and the patent was bought by Hain Celestial for $3.1 million, which she used to get into the tech and innovator conferences during the first dot-com bubble. That’s where she met Steve, a Jewish hippie investor deep in Silicon Valley 1.0. She got him into kombucha, taught him how to relax (sort of), and they got married in Sonoma. Then she moved him down to Venice Beach, used his money to build a giant glass-and-metal cube of a house right on Ocean Front Walk. Later they got Dominic: a purebred foxhound who became their child. Annika hadn’t practiced Ashtanga or Vinyasa yoga in years—only Hatha and restorative—and was fat now. Steve loved her ass and was always squeezing it. He tried to grow what remained of his hair long like Kenny G and casually ran an investment firm with offices in Century City. He wore linen shorts to work.