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 28 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Debbie’s new husband, standing beside her in the picture, is a wizened, gray-haired man, almost four times as old as she is. “I got pregnant soon after that,” she says, “but I miscarried the baby. I was told it was because I had violated the Law of Chastity by having sex during my pregnancy. Ray blamed me for it, and made me feel wicked.” This double bind left Debbie reeling. “Ray would almost never talk to me,” she says. “He would ignore me for days on end. The only time he paid attention to me was when we had sex. It got so if I didn’t have a penis in me I didn’t think I was loved. And I was just a child when I was forced to deal with all of this! I was made to feel like a whore, a person with no worth beyond my vagina and my womb. Around town, I became the butt of mean jokes.” Ray Blackmore died of leukemia in 1974, after nineteen-year-old Debbie had been married to him for a little over three years and had given birth to his daughter. Soon thereafter Debbie was ordered, against her wishes, to marry Sam Ralston—one of Bountiful’s founding patriarchs, a violent, fifty-four-year-old sociopath who already had four wives. After giving birth to two of Ralston’s children and enduring years of cruelty at his hands, she became desperate enough to run away to the only refuge she could think of: her father’s home. The next time Prophet LeRoy Johnson—Uncle Roy—was in Canada, however, he commanded Debbie to return to Sam Ralston. “I begged him not to make me do it,” she says, “but he told me that when they married me to Sam they did it because they hoped it would encourage him in the priesthood and help him feel better toward my father. I was shocked, realizing for the first time that my marriage to Sam was something the men wanted me to do, not God.” Debbie dutifully returned to Ralston, whereupon he told her, she says, “that I was an evil woman and he would make me pay for my wickedness.” Debbie grew depressed, and increasingly self-destructive. Her father became so alarmed by her deteriorating condition that he clandestinely rescued Debbie and her children from Ralston’s home, installed them in his own household, and convinced Uncle Roy to “release” her from the marriage. But the failure of her second marriage reinforced the opinion in Bountiful that she was a dull-witted, disobedient nuisance, more trouble to the community than she was worth. “I began taking pills,” she says, “lots of pills: sleeping pills, painkillers, tranquilizers.” When Debbie sought solace from her father, he simply quoted scripture, telling her, “You must have a broken heart and a contrite spirit to know God.” In 1980, one night not long after this bit of advice, she was weeping and semicomatose from her medications when her father came into her bedroom and began to comfort her.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Then Anna began to speak very slowly as though nothing of what she would say must be lost; and that slow, quiet voice was more dreadful than anger: ‘All your life I’ve felt very strangely towards you;’ she was saying, ‘I’ve felt a kind of physical repulsion, a desire not to touch or to be touched by you—a terrible thing for a mother to feel—it has often made me deeply unhappy. I’ve often felt that I was being unjust, unnatural—but now I know that my instinct was right; it is you who are unnatural, not I. . . .’ ‘Mother—stop!’ ‘It is you who are unnatural, not I. And this thing that you are is a sin against creation. Above all is this thing a sin against the father who bred you, the father whom you dare to resemble. You dare to look like your father, and your face is a living insult to his memory, Stephen. I shall never be able to look at you now without thinking of the deadly insult of your face and your body to the memory of the father who bred you. I can only thank God that your father died before he was asked to endure this great shame. As for you, I would rather see you dead at my feet than standing before me with this thing upon you—this unspeakable outrage that you call love in that letter which you don’t deny having written. In that letter you say things that may only be said between man and woman, and coming from you they are vile and filthy words of corruption—against nature, against God who created nature. My gorge rises; you have made me feel physically sick—’ ‘Mother—you don’t know what you’re saying—you’re my mother—’ ‘Yes, I am your mother, but for all that, you seem to me like a scourge. I ask myself what I have ever done to be dragged down into the depths by my daughter. And your father—what had he ever done? And you have presumed to use the word love in connection with this—with these lusts of your body; these unnatural cravings of your unbalanced mind and undisciplined body—you have used that word. I have loved—do you hear? I have loved your father, and your father loved me. That was love.’ Then, suddenly, Stephen knew that unless she could, indeed, drop dead at the feet of this woman in whose womb she had quickened, there was one thing that she dared not let pass unchallenged, and that was this terrible slur upon her love. And all that was in her rose up to refute it; to protect her love from such unbearable soiling. It was part of herself, and unless she could save it, she could not save herself any more. She must stand or fall by the courage of that love to proclaim its right to toleration.

• 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

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘You have certainly paid me back, Rinieri, for the unpleasant night I caused you to spend, for although we are in the month of July, I was convinced, not having any clothes on, that I was going to freeze to death up here last night. But apart from this I’ve been crying so much over the trick I played on you and over being such a fool as to believe you, that it’s a miracle I have any eyes left in my head. I therefore implore you, not for love of me, whom you have no reason to love, but for your own sake, as a gentleman, to let this suffice by way of revenge for the injury I did you, and bring me my clothes and let me down. Please don’t deprive me of that which you could never restore to me even if you wished, in other words, my good name. For even if I did prevent you from spending one night with me, I can make amends for it whenever you like by letting you spend many another night with me in exchange for that one. Rest content with what you have done. Let it suffice you, as a gentleman, to have succeeded in avenging yourself and making me aware of the fact. Don’t apply your strength against a there woman: the eagle that conquers a dove has nothing to boast about. For the love of God and the sake of your honour, do have mercy on me.’ The scholar, indignantly reflecting on the injury she had done him, and perceiving her tears and her entreaties, was filled with pleasure and sorrow at one and the same time: the pleasure of that revenge which he had desired above all else, and the sorrow engendered by his compassionate nature at the sight of her distress. His compassion being unequal, however, to his craving for revenge, he replied:

• From Trash (1988)

  There are people in the world who are, but they are not us. Don’t show your fear to anyone. The things that would happen are too terrible to name. Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night to the call of my name shouted in my mama’s voice, rising from silence like an echo caught in the folds of my brain. It is her hard voice I hear, not the soft one she used when she held me tight, the hard voice she used on bill collectors and process servers. Sometimes her laugh comes too, that sad laugh, thin and foreshadowing a cough, with her angry laugh following. I hate that laugh; hate the sound of it in the night following on my name like shame. When I hear myself laugh like that, I always start to curse; to echo what I know was the stronger force in my mama’s life. As I grew up my teachers warned me to clean up my language, and my lovers became impatient with the things I said. Sugar and honey, my teachers reminded me when I sprinkled my sentences with the vinegar of my mama’s rage—as if I was supposed to want to draw flies. And, “Oh honey,” my girlfriends would whisper, “do you have to talk that way?” I did, I did indeed. I smiled them my mama’s smile and played for them my mama’s words while they tightened up and pulled back, seeing me for someone they had not imagined before. They didn’t shout, they hissed; and even when they got angry, their language never quite rose up out of them the way my mama’s rage would fly. “Must you? Must you?” They begged me. And then, “For God’s sake!” “Sweet Jesus!” I’d shout back but they didn’t know enough to laugh. “Must you? Must you?” Hiss, hiss. “For God’s sake, do you have to end everything with ass? An anal obsession, that’s what you’ve got, a goddamn anal obsession!” “I do, I do,” I told them, “and you don’t even know how to say Goddamn. A woman who says Goddamn as soft as you do isn’t worth the price of a meal of shit!” Coarse, crude, rude words, and ruder gestures—Mama knew them all. You Assfucker, Get out of my Yard, to the cop who came to take the furniture. Shitsucking Bastard! To the man who put his hand under her skirt. Jesus shit a brick, every day of her life. Though she slapped me when I used them, my mama taught me the power of nasty words. Say Goddamn. Say anything but begin it with Jesus and end it with shit. Add that laugh, the one that disguises your broken heart. Oh, never show your broken heart!

• From Trash (1988)

  Then she shook her head nervously and tried to persuade me to talk about myself, interrupting only to get me to switch topics as she moved restlessly from her rocking chair to a bolster to the couch beside me. She did not want to hear about my summers working in the mop factory, but she loved my lies about hitchhiking cross-country. “Meet me for lunch on Monday,” she insisted, while her eyes behind her glasses kept glancing at me, turning away and turning back. My palms were sweaty, but I nodded yes. At the door she stopped me, and put her hand out to touch my face. “Your family is very poor, aren’t they?” My face froze and burned at the same time. “Not really,” I told her, “not anymore.” She nodded and smiled, and the heat in my face went down my body in waves. I didn’t want to go on Monday but made myself. Her secretary was confused when I asked about lunch. “I don’t have anything written down about it,” she said, without looking up from her calendar. After class that afternoon the sociology professor explained her absence with a story about one of her children who had been bitten by a dog, “but not seriously. Come on Thursday,” she insisted, but on Thursday neither she nor her secretary were there. I stood in the doorway to her office and tilted my head back to take in her shelves of books. I wanted to pocket them all, but at the same time I didn’t want anything of hers. Trembling, I reached and pulled out the fattest book on the closest shelf. It was a hardbound edition of Sadism in the Movies, with a third of the pages underlined in red. It fit easily in my backpack, and I stopped in the Student Union bookstore on the way back to the dorm to buy a Hershey bar and steal a bright blue pen. On the next Monday, she apologized again, and again invited me to go to lunch the next day. I skipped lunch but slipped in that afternoon to return her book, now full of my bright blue comments. In its spot on the shelf there was now a collection of the essays of Georges Bataille, still unmarked. By the time I returned it on Friday, heavy blue ink stains showed on the binding itself . Eventually we did have lunch. She talked to me about how hard it was to be a woman alone in a college town, about how all the male professors treated her like a fool, and yet how hard she worked. I nodded. “You read so much,” I whispered. “I keep up,” she agreed with me. “So do I,” I smiled. She looked nervous and changed the subject but let me walk her back to her office. On her desk, there was a new edition of Malinowski’s The Sexual Life of Savages .

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘That is where you are mistaken,’ said the lady. ‘I swear to you by God’s wounds that he does it better than my husband, and he informs me that they do it up there as well. But he has fallen in love with me because he thinks me more beautiful than any of the women in Heaven, and he is forever coming down to keep me company. So there!’ On leaving Monna Lisetta, her friend could scarcely contain her eagerness to repeat what she had heard, and at the earliest opportunity, whilst attending a party with a number of other ladies, she recounted the whole of the story from beginning to end. These ladies passed the tale on to their husbands and to various of their female acquaintances, and thus within forty-eight hours the news was all over Venice. Unfortunately, however, the brothers of Monna Lisetta’s husband were among those to whose ears the story came, and they firmly made up their minds, without breathing a word to the lady herself, to run this angel to earth and discover whether he could fly. And for several nights running they lay in wait for his coming. Some tiny hint of what had occurred chanced to reach the ears of Friar Alberto, who, having called upon the lady one night with the intention of giving her a scolding, had scarcely stripped off his clothes before her brothers-in-law, who had seen him arrive at the house, were hammering at the door and trying to force it open. Hearing the noise and guessing what it signified, Friar Alberto leapt out of bed, and seeing that there was nowhere to hide, he threw open a window overlooking the Grand Canal and took a flying leap into the water. Friar Alberto was a good swimmer, and because the water was deep he came to no harm. Having swum across the canal, he dashed through the open door of a house on the other bank, and pleaded with its tenant, an honest-looking fellow, to save his life for the love of God, spinning him some yarn to account for his arrival there at such a late hour in a state of nudity. The honest man took pity on him, and since he was in any case obliged to go and attend to certain affairs of his, he tucked the Friar up in his own bed and told him to stay there until he returned. And having locked him in, he went about his business. On forcing their way into her room, the lady’s in-laws discovered that the Angel Gabriel had flown, leaving his wings behind. They were feeling discountenanced, to say the least, and bombarded the woman with a torrent of violent abuse, after which they left her there, alone and disconsolate, and returned home with the Angel’s bits and pieces.

• From Trash (1988)

  My contempt, my terror, took over my life, because they were the first things I felt when I looked at myself, until I became unable to see my true self at all. “You’re an animal,” she used to say to me, in the dark with her teeth against my thigh, and I believed her, growled back at her, and swallowed all the poison she could pour into my soul. Now I sit and think about Bobby’s thighs, her legs opening in the dark where no one could see, certainly not herself. My own legs opening. That was so long ago and far away, but not so far as she finally ran when she could not stand it anymore, when the lust I made her feel got too wild, too uncivilized, too dangerous. Now I think about what I did. What I did. What I was. What I do. What I am. “Sex,” I told her. “I will be sex for you.” Never asked, “You. What will you be for me?” Now I make sure to ask. I keep Bobby in mind when I stare at women’s thighs. I finger my seams, flash my teeth, and put it right out there. “You. What will you let yourself be for me?” This page constitutes an extension of the copyright page. “Deciding to Live.” Writing Women’s Lives: An Anthology of Autobiographical Narratives by Twentieth-Century Women Writers, edited by Susan Cahill. HarperPerennial, 1994. “Demon Lover.” Off Our Backs: A Women’s Liberation Bi-Weekly. Fiction/Poetry Supplement, July 1979. “Gospel Song.” Downhome: An Anthology of Southern Women Writers, edited by Susie Mee. Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1995. “Her Thighs.” The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader, edited by Joan Nestle. Alyson Publications, 1992. “I’m Working on My Charm.” Conditions Six. Spring, 1980. “A Lesbian Appetite.” Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the Seventeenth Century to the Present, edited by Lillian Faderman. Viking, 1994. “A Lesbian Appetite.” The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories, edited by Margaret Reynolds. Viking Penguin, 1994. “A Lesbian Appetite.” Women on Women: An Anthology of American Lesbian Short Fiction, edited by Joan Nestle and Naomi Holoch. Plume, 1990. “Mama.” Calling Home: Working-Class Women’s Writings, edited by Janet Zandy. Rutgers University Press, 1990. “Monkeybites.” The Second Gates of Paradise: The Anthology of Erotic Short Fiction, edited by Alberto Manguel. Macfarlane, Walter & Ross, 1994. “River of Names.” The Picador Book of Contemporary American Stories, edited by Tobias Wolff. Picador/Pan MacMillan, London, 1993. What’s next on your reading list? Discover your next great read!

• From Trash (1988)

  I grabbed her, pulling her back, doing it as gently as I could so I wouldn’t break the stitches from her operation. She had her other arm clamped across her abdomen and couldn’t fight me at all. She just kept shrieking. “That little bastard just screams and screams. That little bastard. I’ll kill him.” Then the words seeped in and she looked at me while her son kept crying and kicking his feet. By his head the mattress still showed the impact of her fist. “Oh no,” she moaned, “I wasn’t going to be like that. I always promised myself.” She started to cry, holding her belly and sobbing. “We an’t no different. We an’t no different.” Jesse wraps her arm around my stomach, presses her belly into my back. I relax against her. “You sure you can’t have children?” she asks. “I sure would like to see what your kids would turn out to be like.” I stiffen, say, “I can’t have children. I’ve never wanted children.” “Still,” she says, “you’re so good with children, so gentle.” I think of all the times my hands have curled into fists, when I have just barely held on. I open my mouth, close it, can’t speak. What could I say now? All the times I have not spoken before, all the things I just could not tell her, the shame, the self-hatred, the fear; all of that hangs between us now—a wall I cannot tear down. I would like to turn around and talk to her, tell her . . . “I’ve got a dust river in my head, a river of names endlessly repeating. That dirty water rises in me, all those children screaming out their lives in my memory, and I become someone else, someone I have tried so hard not to be.” But I don’t say anything, and I know, as surely as I know I will never have a child, that by not speaking I am condemning us, that I cannot go on loving you and hating you for your fairy-tale life, for not asking about what you have no reason to imagine, for that soft-chinned innocence I love. Jesse puts her hands behind my neck, smiles and says, “You tell the funniest stories.” I put my hands behind her back, feeling the ridges of my knuckles pulsing. “Yeah,” I tell her. “But I lie.” Meanest Woman Ever Left Tennessee M y Grandmother Mattie always said my Great-grandmother Shirley lived too long.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The lady, to whom it appeared more a time for comfort than for reproof, said, smilingly, 'Alack, my son, hast thou then for this suffered thyself to languish thus? Take comfort and leave me do, once thou shalt be recovered.' The youth, full of good hope, in a very short time showed signs of great amendment, whereas the lady, being much rejoiced, began to cast about how she might perform that which she had promised him. Accordingly, calling Jeannette to her one day, she asked her very civilly, as by way of a jest, if she had a lover; whereupon she waxed all red and answered, 'Madam, it concerneth not neither were it seemly in a poor damsel like myself, banished from house and home and abiding in others' service, to think of love.' Quoth the lady, 'An you have no lover, we mean to give you one, in whom you may rejoice and live merry and have more delight of your beauty, for it behoveth not that so handsome a girl as you are abide without a lover.' To this Jeannette made answer, 'Madam, you took me from my father's poverty and have reared me as a daughter, wherefore it behoveth me to do your every pleasure; but in this I will nowise comply with you, and therein methinketh I do well. If it please you give me a husband, him do I purpose to love, but none other; for that, since of the inheritance of my ancestors nought is left me save only honour, this latter I mean to keep and preserve as long as life shall endure to me.' This speech seemed to the lady very contrary to that whereto she thought to come for the keeping of her promise to her son,--albeit, like a discreet woman as she was, she inwardly much commended the damsel therefor,--and she said, 'How now, Jeannette? If our lord the king, who is a young cavalier, as thou art a very fair damsel, would fain have some easance of thy love, wouldst thou deny it to him?' Whereto she answered forthright, 'The king might do me violence, but of my consent he should never avail to have aught of me save what was honourable.' The lady, seeing how she was minded, left parleying with her and bethought herself to put her to the proof; wherefore she told her son that, whenas he should be recovered, she would contrive to get her alone with him in a chamber, so he might make shift to have his pleasure of her, saying that it appeared to her unseemly that she should, procuress-wise, plead for her son and solicit her own maid.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Just as I have shared my other possessions with you, so I would share Sophronia, if I were already married to her and no other solution were possible; but as the matter stands at present, I am able to ensure that she is yours alone, and that is what I intend to do. For I should be a poor sort of friend if I were unable to convert you to my own way of thinking when the thing can be so decorously arranged. It is perfectly true that Sophronia is my promised bride, that I love her a great deal, and that I was eagerly looking forward to our marriage; but because your love for her is greater, and because you desire more fervently than I to possess so precious an object, you may rest assured that she shall enter the bridal chamber, not as my wife, but as yours. Fret no more then, cast aside your gloom, retrieve your health, your spirits and your gaiety; and from this time forth, look forward cheerfully to the reward of your love – a love far worthier than mine ever was.’ To hear Gisippus speak in these terms, Titus was at one and the same time delighted and ashamed: delighted on account of the tempting picture Gisippus had drawn, and ashamed because common sense argued that the greater the generosity of his friend, the more unseemly did it appear for him to profit from it. And so, with tears still rolling down his cheeks, he replied with an effort as follows: ‘Gisippus, your true and generous friendship shows me very clearly where my duty lies. God forbid that I should ever accept from you as mine the wife that He has given you as a mark of your superior worth. Had He judged that she ought to be mine, neither you nor anyone else can deny that He would never have given her to you. Be content, therefore, that in His infinite wisdom He has chosen you as the recipient of His largesse, and leave me to waste away in the tears of woe He has allotted to one who is unworthy of such bounty; for either I shall conquer my grief, in which case you will be happy, or it will conquer me and I shall be released from my suffering.’ To which Gisippus replied:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Can you have so soon forgotten that it was Manfred’s abuse of his subjects’ womenfolk that opened the gates of this realm to you? Was there ever an act of betrayal more deserving of eternal punishment than this, whereby you deprive a man who does you honour, not only of his good name, but of his source of hope and consolation? What will people say of you, if you do such a thing? Perhaps you think it would be a sufficient excuse to say: “I did it because he is a Ghibelline” But is it consistent with the justice of a king that those who look to him for protection, no matter who they may be, should receive this kind of treatment? Let me remind you, my lord, that you covered yourself with glory by conquering Manfred and defeating Conradin.5 But it is far more glorious to conquer oneself. And therefore, as you have to govern others, conquer these feelings of yours, curb this wanton desire, and do not allow the splendour of your achievements to be dimmed by any such deed as this.’ The Count’s words pierced the King to the very core of his being, affecting him all the more deeply because he knew them to be true; and so after unloosing a fervent sigh or two, he said: ‘My dear Count, it is certainly true that to the experienced soldier, all other enemies, however powerful, are exceedingly weak and easy to conquer by comparison with his own desires. But although I shall suffer great torment, and the effort required is incalculable, your words have spurred me on to such a degree that I am determined, before many days have elapsed, to show you by my deeds that, just as I can conquer others, I am likewise able to master myself.’ Nor did many days elapse from the time these words were spoken before the King, having meanwhile returned to Naples, resolved to deprive himself of all occasion for straying from the path of virtue, at the same time repaying Messer Neri’s hospitality. And this he would do by bestowing the two girls in marriage as though they were his own daughters, even though it was hard for him to let others possess what he so ardently desired for himself. So with Messer Neri’s ready consent he supplied them both with splendid dowries and forthwith bestowed them in marriage, giving the lovely Ginevra to Messer Maffeo da Palizzi, and the fair Isotta to Messer Guiglielmo della Magna,6 who were noble knights and mighty barons both. And after consigning them to their respective husbands, he retired in agonies of despair to Apulia, where by dint of constant effort he mortified his ardent longings to such good and purposeful effect that the chains of Love were shattered, and for as long as he lived he was never a slave to this kind of passion again.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘They have done wrong, and well deserve to be punished, but not by you; for although wrongdoing requires a punishment, good deeds require a reward, to say nothing of pardon and clemency. Do you realize who these people are that you are so eager to put to death at the stake?’ The King replied that he did not know them, whereupon Ruggieri said: ‘Then I shall make it my business to tell you, so that you will see how unwise it is for you to let yourself be carried away by your anger. The young man is the son of Landolfo of Procida, blood-brother to Messer Gianni of Procida, through whose efforts you became King and master of this island. The girl is the daughter of Marin Bòlgaro, without whose power and influence Ischia would be lost to you tomorrow.7 What is more, these two youngsters have long been in love with one another, and it was not out of any disrespect towards your royal highness, but rather through being constrained by their love, that they committed this sin of theirs – if sin is a suitable word to describe the things young people do in the cause of love. Why, then, should you wish to have them put to death, when you ought to be entertaining them right royally and bestowing precious gifts upon them?’ On realizing that Ruggieri must be speaking the truth, the King was not only filled with horror over what he was proposing to do, but bitterly regretted the action he had already taken. So he promptly sent word that the two young lovers were to be released from the stake and brought into his presence. These orders were carried out, and after inquiring fully into their condition, the King decided that he must make amends, through largesse and hospitality, for the indignity he had caused them to suffer. He therefore had them newly clothed in courtly attire, and arranged, by their mutual consent, for Gianni and the girl to be married. And finally he sent them back, well content and laden with magnificent presents, to the place from which they had come. There they were received with tremendous rejoicing, and long thereafter lived in joy and happiness together. SEVENTH STORYTeodoro falls in love with Violante, the daughter of his master, Messer Amerigo. He gets her with child, and is sentenced to die on the gallows. But whilst he is being whipped along the road to his execution, he is recognized by his father and set at liberty, after which he and Violante become husband and wife. All the ladies were on tenterhooks, anxiously wondering whether the two lovers would be burnt, and on learning that they had escaped, they all rejoiced and offered thanks to God. Then, having heard the end of the story, the queen entrusted the telling of the next to Lauretta, who cheerfully began as follows:

• From Trash (1988)

  The me that will be waits for me. If I cannot dream myself new, how will I find my true self? “What about you?” Judy leaned toward me with an intent expression. “Do you have fantasies?” The roar in my ears was my heart, an ocean of shame and rage. My leg muscles pulled tight and cramped. My belly turned liquid and hot under my navel. I would throw up if I opened my mouth. I would throw up. My muscles failed me, failed me completely. “Not much, not really.” Peter denied Christ three times before cockcrow. I cursed myself for being such a piece of shit, such a piece of chickenshit. “Not any more, not really.” I kept my eyes on my hands where they twisted in my lap. If I looked up I might say anything, anything. Waking up and not being able to go back to sleep, I sit with a cup of coffee and my journal. I’ve kept one off and on since school, after the guidance counselor told me it was a way to keep control of your life, to look back and see your own changes. I don’t look back at it much, though, never seem to have the time, but it doesn’t matter. Sometimes writing in it is a way of smoothing things out inside me. The morning after the concert, I didn’t write about the concert or Roxanne or even Cass. I wrote about the muscles of the mind, what my old sensei used to call the secret of all karate, the disciplined belief in yourself. “We are under so many illusions about our powers,” I wrote, “illusions that vary with the moon, the mood, the moment. Waxing, we are all-powerful. We are the mother-destroyers, She-Who-Eats-Her-Young, devours her lover, her own heart; great-winged midnight creatures and the witches of legend. Waning, we are powerless. We are the outlaws of the earth, daughters of nightmare, victimized, raped, and abandoned in our own bodies. We tell ourselves lies and pretend not to know the difference. It takes all we have to know the truth, to believe in ourselves without reference to moon or magic. “The only magic we have is what we make in ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, and the sense of belief we create from nothing. I used to watch my mama hold off terror with only the edges of her own eyes for a shield, and I still don’t know how she did it. But I am her daughter and have as much muscle in me as she ever did. It’s just that some days I am not strong enough. I stretch myself out a little, and then my own fear pulls me back in. The shaking starts inside. Then I have to stretch myself again. Waxing and waning through my life, maybe I’m building up layers of strength inside.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Finally, since the Abbot showed no sign of coming, Primas, having finished the second loaf, started to eat the third. This too was reported to the Abbot, who began to ponder the matter and say to himself: “Now what on earth has got into me today? Why have I suddenly become such a miser? Why should I feel so much contempt for this unknown visitor? For years I have provided food for any man who cared to eat it, without inquiring whether he was a peasant or a gentleman, poor or rich, merchant or swindler. With my own eyes, I have seen any number of rogues devouring my food, and I have never felt as I do today about this fellow. No ordinary man can have caused me to be afflicted with such meanness. This fellow I regard as a knave must be someone important, for me to have set my heart so firmly against offering him my hospitality.” ‘Having said this to himself, he was anxious to know who the man might be. And when he discovered it was Primas, who had come there to see if the tales of his generosity were true, the Abbot felt thoroughly ashamed, for he had long been aware of the reputation Primas enjoyed as a man of excellent worth. Being desirous of making amends, he went out of his way to do him honour. After having fed him in a manner appropriate to his renown, he saw that he was richly clothed, provided him with money and a saddle-horse, and offered him the freedom of his household. Well satisfied, Primas thanked the Abbot as heartily as he could, before returning on horseback to Paris, whence he had set out on foot.’ Can Grande, being a man of some intelligence, had no need to hear any more in order to see exactly what Bergamino was driving at. And with a broad smile, he said to him: ‘Bergamino, you have given an apt demonstration of the wrongs you have suffered. You have shown us your worth, my meanness, and what it is that you want from me. To tell you the truth, I was never seized before with the meanness I have lately felt on your account. But I shall drive it away with the stock that you yourself have furnished.’ Can Grande saw that the innkeeper’s account was settled, then dressed Bergamino most sumptuously in one of his own robes, provided him with money and a saddle-horse, and offered him the freedom of his household for the rest of his stay. EIGHTH STORYWith a few prettily spoken words, Guiglielmo Borsiere punctures the avarice of Ermino de’ Grimaldi. Next to Filostrato was sitting Lauretta, who, knowing that she was expected to speak, without waiting to be bidden allowed the applause for Bergamino’s cleverness to subside, then gracefully began as follows:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Heaven help me, you are my child’s godfather; how could you suggest such a thing? It would be awfully wicked; in fact I was always told it was one of the worst sins anyone could commit, otherwise I should be only too willing to do as you suggest.’ ‘If that’s the only thing that deters you,’ said Friar Rinaldo, ‘then you’re just being silly. I don’t say it isn’t a sin, but God forgives greater sins than this to those who repent. However, tell me this, to whom is this child of yours more closely related: myself, who held him at his baptism, or your husband, by whom he was begotten?’ ‘My husband, naturally,’ she replied. ‘Exactly,’ said the friar, ‘and doesn’t your husband go to bed with you?’ ‘Of course he does,’ the lady replied. ‘Well then,’ said the friar, ‘since your husband’s more closely akin to the child than I am, surely I can do the same.’ Since logic was not one of her strong points, and she needed little persuasion in any case, the lady either believed or pretended to believe that the friar was speaking the truth, and she replied: ‘How could anyone refute so sensible an argument?’ After which, notwithstanding the fact that he was her child’s godfather, she allowed him to have his will of her. And thereafter, having taken the first step, they forgathered very frequently, for his sponsorship of the child made it easy for him to come and go without arousing suspicion. On one of these occasions, having called at the lady’s house with one of his fellow friars, to discover that she was alone except for the child and a very pretty and attractive little maidservant, he packed his companion off to the attic to teach the wench the Lord’s Prayer, whilst he and the lady, who was holding her little boy by the hand, made their way into her bedroom, locking the door behind them. And having settled down on a sofa, they began to have a merry time of it together. But while they were carrying on in this fashion, the child’s father happened to return home, and before anyone realized he was there, he was knocking at the door of the bedroom and calling for his wife. Hearing his voice, Madonna Agnesa said: ‘Oh my God, I’m done for, that’s my husband. Now he’s bound to discover why you and I are always so friendly.’ ‘That’s true enough,’ said Friar Rinaldo, who had nothing on except his vest, having discarded his habit and his hood. ‘If only I had my clothes on, we could invent some explanation. But if you open the door and he sees me like this, no excuse can possibly do any good.’

• From Trash (1988)

  I wondered if she had seen Billy’s hand on my ass. I leaned back into Cass’s embrace and tried to look happily innocent of any interest in Roxanne’s woman. That wasn’t too hard. Cass was just about the sexiest woman in the crowd, big and rough-looking in her worn denim jacket with her black hair cut close around her ears, but with soft brown eyes and a quick smile. She was a good-natured woman who liked me more than she was sure she wanted to. More important, she didn’t seem to feel the need to push her girlfriends around that Billy did. I loved having a woman in my life who prowled like a big old tiger, yet cuddled me close like a kitten licking mama’s ears. Billy talked about Roxanne as if the woman was a not quite bright child, and clearly had decided I had to have some special hidden sexual talent if Cass was so ready to put up with my sass. Part of what kept me seeing Cass was her casual acceptance of my temper and habits, and her grinning dismissal of Billy’s half-serious flirting with me. Cass was also nearly as tall as Billy and had told me frankly that they had become friends only after everybody they knew kept pushing them to fight each other. “We was supposed to do the fight of the week or something, and let everybody know who was butcher than who, you know. But providing that kind of free entertainment just an’t my style. Billy and I put them all through some changes when we took up with each other, I’ll tell you.” Two women I had met at the Women’s Center wiggled past us. One of them looked me in the eye and then up over my head into Cass’s face. I could feel Cass’s grin in the way her hands wiggled on me. The woman looked away quickly. “Did you hear about Angie?” her friend asked. “Yeah, I heard.” The woman pushed away from us hurriedly. “Don’t talk about her here.” “Did you see her face?” Roxanne spoke with her cigarette held between her teeth. “That woman needs to reconsider going without makeup.” I felt the heat come up in my face and didn’t know for a moment if I was angry or ashamed. I watched the expressions on the faces of the women who filed past us, then felt the skin at the back of my neck pull tight. We could have been animals in a cage from the way they looked at us. I kept going from indignant anger to shame with no pause between. The anger felt healthy but wouldn’t stay with me, while the shame was continuous and crippling. I wanted to be proud of Cass’s hands on my hips, to glare back coldly at the women who frowned at her.

• From Trash (1988)

  You watch how it goes; you watch how people treat me down at the mill. They can see who I am. It’s in the eyes if nothing else.” Mattie, the oldest girl, watched the way her mama’s lips thinned and tightened, the way her sisters and brothers held their own mouths pinched together so their lips stuck out. Shirley Boatwright was proud of getting on at the mill and of how much she earned there, as proud of that as she was ashamed that Tucker still worked in the coal mine. “A tight mouth,” Tucker Boatwright was heard to say. “A tight mouth betrays a tight heart, and a shallow soul.” His wife said nothing, but pulled her lips in tighter still, and the next day Tucker found the doors locked against him when he came home from the mine. “Woman, what do you think you’re doing?” He beat on the front door with a swollen dirty right fist. “Woman, open this door!” He spit and shouted and kicked the base of the doorjamb. “Kids, do you hear me? Shirley? Woman?” Inside, Shirley Boatwright sat at her kitchen table sipping hot tea and staring straight ahead of her. Mattie stood at the sink with her hands flat to the nozzle of the pump. She stood still, unsure of how she could get past her mama to let her father in the door, and absolutely sure that if she tried it, she’d find herself locked out with him before either of them could get inside. “Put on another kettle,” Shirley told her, looking directly in front of herself and using only her right hand to smooth her hair behind her pristine white collar. “Make me up another cup of tea.” Outside, Tucker went on screaming and kicking. Mattie made the tea while the other children sat quietly on the stairs to the second floor. After a while, the shouting let off and Tucker stomped off the porch. Shirley fed the kids sidemeat and grits, and then put them to bed. When they got up the next morning, Tucker was sitting at the kitchen table drinking cold water and looking like someone had tried to pull out all his hair. He said nothing, but at the end of the week, he quit his job in the mine and took a position at the JCPenney textile mill. “A machinist is a higher class of man,” Shirley told the children. Tucker never got the hang of fixing the big bobbin gears.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  All the men and women of Palermo immediately hurried to the square in order to see the two lovers: and whilst the men stood and gazed at the girl, unanimously praising her shapeliness and beauty, so the women were all clustering round the youth, expressing their warm approval of his fine figure and handsome features. But the pair of hapless lovers hung their heads in shame and bewailed their misfortune, expecting at any moment to be cruelly consumed by the fire. Whilst they were thus being held until the hour fixed for their execution, news of their offence was bruited abroad and reached the ears of Ruggieri de Loria, a man of inestimable worth, who at that time was the Admiral of the Royal Fleet. Curious to see who they were, he made his way towards the place where they stood bound to the stake, and, on reaching the spot, he looked at the girl and found her exceedingly beautiful. He then directed his gaze at the youth, whom he recognized without too much trouble, and moving a little nearer he asked him whether he was Gianni of Procida. Gianni raised his eyes, and, recognizing the Admiral, he replied: ‘My lord, I was indeed the man of whom you speak, but I am about to be that person no longer.’ Whereupon the Admiral asked what had brought him to such a pass, and Gianni replied: ‘Love, and the wrath of the King.’ The Admiral persuaded him to elaborate, and having heard the whole story from Gianni’s own lips, he turned to go. But Gianni called him back, and said: ‘Alas, my lord, procure me a favour, if this be possible, from the person who set me here.’ Ruggieri asked what favour he had in mind, and Gianni said: ‘I see that I must die, and very soon. Wherefore, seeing that I have been set here back to back with this young woman, whom I loved more dearly than life itself, being loved no less deeply in return, I should like us to be turned face to face, so that I may have the consolation of gazing into her eyes as I depart.’ ‘With pleasure!’ exclaimed Ruggieri, with a laugh. ‘And if I have my way, you shall see so much of her that before you die you’ll be sorry you ever asked such a favour.’ Leaving Gianni, he spoke to the men charged with carrying out the sentence, and ordered them not to proceed any further with-out new instructions from the King, to whom he forthwith made his way. And although he could see that the King was extremely distraught, he was not to be deterred from speaking his mind. ‘My lord,’ he said, ‘what injury have you suffered from the two young people you have sentenced to be burnt down there in the square?’ The King told him, and Ruggieri continued:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Messer Antonio d'Orso, a learned and worthy prelate, being Bishop of Florence, there came thither a Catalan gentleman, called Messer Dego della Ratta, marshal for King Robert, who, being a man of a very fine person and a great amorist, took a liking to one among other Florentine ladies, a very fair lady and granddaughter to a brother of the said bishop, and hearing that her husband, albeit a man of good family, was very sordid and miserly, agreed with him to give him five hundred gold florins, so he would suffer him lie a night with his wife. Accordingly, he let gild so many silver poplins,[301] a coin which was then current, and having lain with the lady, though against her will, gave them to the husband. The thing after coming to be known everywhere, the sordid wretch of a husband reaped both loss and scorn, but the bishop, like a discreet man as he was, affected to know nothing of the matter. Wherefore, he and the marshal consorting much together, it chanced, as they rode side by side with each other, one St. John's Day, viewing the ladies on either side of the way where the mantle is run for,[302] the prelate espied a young lady,--of whom this present pestilence hath bereft us and whom all you ladies must have known, Madam Nonna de' Pulci by name, cousin to Messer Alessio Rinucci, a fresh and fair young woman, both well-spoken and high-spirited, then not long before married in Porta San Piero,--and pointed her out to the marshal; then, being near her, he laid his hand on the latter's shoulder and said to her, 'Nonna, how deemest thou of this gallant? Thinkest thou thou couldst make a conquest of him?' It seemed to the lady that those words somewhat trenched upon her honour and were like to sully it in the eyes of those (and there were many there) who heard them; wherefore, not thinking to purge away the soil, but to return blow for blow, she promptly answered, 'Maybe, sir, he would not make a conquest of me; but, in any case, I should want good money.' The marshal and the bishop, hearing this, felt themselves alike touched to the quick by her speech, the one as the author of the cheat put upon the bishop's brother's granddaughter and the other as having suffered the affront in the person of his kinswoman, and made off, shamefast and silent, without looking at one another or saying aught more to her that day. Thus, then, the young lady having been bitten, it was not forbidden her to bite her biter with a retort." [Footnote 301: A silver coin of about the size and value of our silver penny, which, when gilded, would pass muster well enough for a gold florin, unless closely examined.] [Footnote 302: _Il palio_, a race anciently run at Florence on St. John's Day, as that of the Barberi at Rome during the Carnival.] THE FOURTH STORY