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 63 of 267 · 20 per page

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “Nothing? That’s amazing! I used to get ten Hail Marys and ten Our Fathers just for disrespecting my mother.” This was not going well. Anaïs had swooned back onto her pillow. She was now so still that I wondered if she really had died, and my negativity had been responsible. Wait, what had she said just before expiring? “Nothing.” That was quotable. But no, her lips were moving! I held my breath and bent my ear close. I heard her faint, plaintive cry, “I’ve started to wear my father’s ring. Why do you suppose I’m wearing my father’s ring?” I looked at her skeletal hands. There were no rings. I wondered if the painkillers she was taking had made her delusional. “I don’t see a ring,” I told her. “I put it on this morning. It’s too big. It falls off.” She giggled like a little girl. “Is it a wedding band?” I whispered. “That’s what I’m asking,” she cried impatiently. “Why am I wearing my father’s wedding ring?” She groaned, then cried out in pain, “Rupert! Help! It burns! Like a hot poker! It burns!” Rupert came rushing back with the nurse. Anaïs pleaded to them with a child’s helpless panic, “The bag broke again.” Rupert shooed me back into the entry hall, and the nurse replaced the screen. I wanted to leave, but Rupert, desperation in his bloodshot eyes, begged me to wait. “It will only take fifteen minutes. Please don’t go.” I stood again in the entry hall, shifting my weight from side to side, berating myself. Stupid! Why did I blabber on about Extreme Unction? My shame was displaced, though, by my rising anger. How could Rupert, and how could her doctors, have made her go on like this, in piercing pain, surrounded by her own stench? In our last phone conversation, Renate, who had mended fences with Rupert, had insisted that it wasn’t just Rupert and the doctors; Anaïs herself refused to let go. Renate had warned me not to visit anymore. I checked my watch impatiently; it had been more than twenty minutes. I promised myself that if Rupert ever thought to bring me a chair, I was going to say I had an appointment and leave. With nothing else to do, I worried Anaïs’s question: “Why am I wearing my father’s wedding ring?”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Then from the receiver I heard the whisper of an aged, shrunken Sybil delivering a riddle as from an ampulla: “The mask should be held eighteen inches in front of the face.” I visualized a Venetian festival mask on a stick, cardboard thin. She was saying that because I didn’t hold my mask far enough away, I didn’t know the difference between myself and a persona, and that’s why I was such a superficial phony. I expected she would elaborate, but Rupert must have taken the receiver from her. “Did you understand that? A mask eighteen inches in front of the face.” “Yes, thank you,” I said, feeling annoyed at his repeating her words. And that was it; he hung up. I was devastated. Not only had Anaïs not apologized to me, she’d stuck the knife in deeper. A week later, Anaïs called again without Rupert’s intervention. Her voice, though still faint, was back to its musical lilt. “How are you?” she asked. I exhaled with relief. I could tell by her tone that this time she was calling to soothe my feelings. “I’m okay,” I answered. “How are you?” “Oh, I have good days and bad days.” I waited for her apology. Instead she said, “I wanted to get back to you right away. I read your diary.” I stopped breathing. Be calm, I told myself. She’ll give you her compliments first. The way she always did with the students. She began, “Everything is there, other people, places, descriptions … but you are not there.” “But the whole thing is my point of view.” “Yes, but your feelings are absent, so the writing is superficial.” Superficial, that word again. How could my diaries be superficial? That was the worst thing you could say about somebody’s diary, and she’d hardly said anything good. I bet she hadn’t even read more than a page. She was still looking to justify Jamie’s criticism of me. She continued, “You need to ask yourself when you are writing, ‘What did I feel?’ You report what someone said but not how you reacted to it. And your intellect is a tyrant, a kind of madman that takes over.” How dare she! My intellect was the only thing about myself of which I was proud. She saw my trained intellect as a tyrant because she had no respect for rationality. She hadn’t been through grad school! I rebutted, “I thought there was an excess of feeling. That’s why I never let you read them before.” “Anxiety, exaggeration, and over-dramatization are not the same thing as real feelings, Tristine.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘If only the gods had so willed it, Gisippus, I would much rather have died than continued to live, when I think how Fortune has driven me to the point where my virtue had to be put to the test, and where, to my very great shame, you have found it wanting. But I confidently expect to receive, before long, my just reward in the form of my death, and this will be dearer to me than to go on living with the memory of my baseness, which, since there is nothing I either could or should conceal from you, I shall tell you about, though I burn with shame to speak of it.’ And so, starting from the beginning, he explained the cause of his melancholy, describing the conflict that had raged between his contrasting thoughts, which of them had won the day, and how he was wasting away for love of Sophronia. Moreover he declared that since he knew his attitude to be wholly improper, he had resolved that he would die by way of penance, and believed he would shortly achieve this desirable aim. On hearing what Titus had said, and observing how bitterly he wept, Gisippus was at first somewhat taken aback, for although his own passionate feelings towards the beautiful Sophronia were more restrained, he too was fascinated by her charms. But he instantly decided that his friend’s life meant more to him than Sophronia, and being moved to tears by the tears of his comrade, he replied, sobbing continuously:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  inasmuch as you do right to love Sophronia, at the same time you do wrong to complain about Fortune (though you make no mention of this) for conceding her to me, as though you felt that there would be nothing improper about loving her if she belonged to another. But if you are still as wise as you always were, you should be counting your lucky stars that she was given to me and not to anyone else. For had she belonged to another, no matter how proper your love may have been, he would have preferred to keep her to himself rather than allow you to love her, whereas in my case, if you consider me your friend, as I am, you must hope for a kindlier fate. And the reason is this, that ever since our friendship began, I cannot recall possessing anything that was not as much yours as it was mine. ‘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.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But if you are still as wise as you always were, you should be counting your lucky stars that she was given to me and not to anyone else. For had she belonged to another, no matter how proper your love may have been, he would have preferred to keep her to himself rather than allow you to love her, whereas in my case, if you consider me your friend, as I am, you must hope for a kindlier fate. And the reason is this, that ever since our friendship began, I cannot recall possessing anything that was not as much yours as it was mine. ‘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.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  It could be argued that the narrator’s light-hearted attitude towards his narrative indicates that this, the most problematical story in the whole of the Decameron, should be read rather as an elaborate parable on obedience to the Lord’s will rather than as a literal, realistic account of a husband’s sadistic cruelty. Parallels with the biblical story of the patience of Job are evident, both in the text and in the narrative itself. The Clerk’s Tale, Chaucer’s version of the same story, was almost certainly based on Petrarch’s Latin translation of B.’s novella, as can be seen for instance in its bowdlerization of the episode in which Griselda is stripped naked in the presence of all the bystanders, men and women alike. Both in Petrarch and in Chaucer, she is stripped of her peasant’s garb and regally re-clothed in private by the ladies of the court.2. Saluzzo A town at the foot of the Alps about thirty miles south of Turin, the seat of the marquises of Saluzzo from 1142 to 1548.3. Griselda The name appears to be an invention of B.’s own, perhaps constructed from that of a very different character, Criseida (Cressida), the heroine of his narrative poem Filostrato, on which Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is based.4. My lord, deal with me as you think best Griselda’s words recall the response of the Virgin Mary to the Angel Gabriel in Luke i, 38: ‘Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuurn (‘Be it unto me according to thy word’).5. do exactly as your lord… has instructed you Griselda’s apparent sacrifice of her daughter (and later of her son) at her lord’s command forms part of a long tradition of such intensely dramatic moments in classical and biblical literature, for instance Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia, Idomeneo’s sacrifice of his son Idamante and God’s command to Abraham (as a test of his obedience) that he sacrifice his only son, Isaac.6. naked as on the day I was born Griselda’s submissive reply to her husband’s announcement echoes the words of Job: ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away’ (Job i, 21).7. Panago A form taken from popular speech, Panago (i.e. Pánico, near Bologna) was a feudatory of the counts of Alberti.8. My lord, I am ready to do as you ask Yet another biblical echo, this time of the Virgin’s ‘Ecce ancilla Dei’ (‘Behold the handmaid of the Lord’). from Luke i, 38.9. I think I can boast The Italian text reads ‘credendomi poter dar vanto’. Luigi Russo pointed out that the phrase had a precise and solemn meaning in feudal society. It has to do with the ‘vaunts’ or boasts made by knights, often over the dinner table, concerning some outstanding personal achievement, defying their companions to cite a more worthy deed of their own.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Gladys’ story, while extreme, is typical of denial. Denial keeps the traumatized person in its grip until the primitive processes that guard the system decide to let go. We may come out of denial because we feel safe, because another event triggers a “memory,” or because our biologys say, “Enough.” While there are things that friends, loved ones, and therapists can do to help (i.e., intervention), a sensitivity to timing is critical to the success of these approaches. What Trauma Survivors Expect The young girl whose father molests her will freeze in her bed because she cannot escape the terror and shame of the experience by running away. In having her active defensive escape response thwarted, the child’s ability to orient to normal stimuli will change. She will no longer respond with curiosity and expectancy. Her actions will be constricted and frozen in fear. The sound of footsteps, which the “normal” child orients to with alert expectancy, evokes frozen terror in the incest child. When the incest is ongoing, the child responds by becoming habitually frozen in the immobility state. For children who are threatened, however, immobility becomes a dysfunctional symptom of their trauma. Children become both psychological and physiological victims, and will carry that posture throughout their lives. They will be unable to make a full switch from immobility back to the possibility of active escape, regardless of the situation they find themselves in. They become so identified with helplessness and shame that they literally no longer have the resources to defend themselves when attacked or put under pressure. All humans who are repeatedly overwhelmed become identified with states of anxiety and helplessness. In addition, they bring this helplessness to many other situations that are perceived as threats. They make the “decision” that they are helpless, and continue in many varied ways to prove this victimization to themselves and to others. They give in to the helpless feelings even in situations that they have the resources to master. Sometimes (in what is known as a counter-phobic reaction), they may attempt to disprove what they don’t like about themselves by deliberately provoking danger. Either way, they are behaving as victims and their behaviors propagate further victimization. Career criminals speak of using body language to choose their victims. They have learned through experience that certain people do not defend themselves as well as others. What they look for are the telltale signs revealed in the stiff, uncoordinated movements and the disoriented behavior of their potential prey. The Last Turn As trauma symptoms grow more complex, they begin incorporating all the aspects of the trauma sufferer’s experience into their web. These symptoms have a physiological basis, but by the time their development has reached the last turn in its downward spiral, they will be not only affecting, but actually driving the mental aspects of our experience as well. What is most frightening is that a large portion of this impact will remain unconscious.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  And though I was all yours without this token of your love, from now on I shall assuredly belong to you even more completely; nor shall I ever forget that you saved my brother’s life. God knows that I am reluctant to accept your offer, knowing that you are a merchant, and merchants do all their business with money. But I shall accept the money all the same, for my need is very urgent and I am quite confident that I shall be able to repay you in the near future. And as to the remainder of the sum I require, if I cannot find any swifter way of raising it, I shall place all these belongings of mine in pawn.’ Whereupon she flung herself in tears across the bed, and buried Salabaetto’s head in her bosom. Salabaetto then set about consoling her as best he could, and after spending the night with her, he proved his generosity and devotion towards her by bringing her five hundred sparkling gold florins without waiting to be asked. These she accepted with laughter in her heart and tears in her eyes, promising to repay them as soon as she could, which was all that Salabaetto required by way of bond. Now that she had her hands on the money, it became a different story altogether; for whereas he had always had free access to the lady whenever he pleased, she now began to fob him off with various excuses, so that nine times out of ten he was turned away from the house, and even when he did get in to see her, she no longer greeted him with the smiling countenance, the caresses, or the lavish hospitality to which he had previously been accustomed. Not only did the lady fail to repay Salabaetto by the date she had promised, but a further month went by, then another, and when he asked her for his money, all he could get out of her was a string of excuses. Salabaetto now realized how cleverly he had been taken in by her villainy, and knowing that he could prove nothing against her (for he had no written evidence of the transaction, and there was no independent witness), he was exceedingly distressed and reproached himself bitterly for his foolishness. Moreover, he was too ashamed to lodge a complaint with the authorities, because he had been warned of her character beforehand and had only himself to blame if he was made a laughing-stock for behaving so stupidly. And when he received several letters from his principals ordering him to change the money and forward it to them, fearing lest his lapse should be discovered if he remained in Palermo any longer without obeying their instructions, he decided to leave. So he boarded a small ship, and instead of sailing to Pisa as he should have done, he went to Naples.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  He having spoken, Sicurano, as he were the Soldan's minister in the matter, turned to Bernabo and said to him, 'And thou, what didst thou to thy lady for this lie?' Whereto Bernabo replied, 'Overcome with wrath for the loss of my money and with resentment for the shame which meseemed I had gotten from my wife, I caused a servant of mine put her to death, and according to that which he reported to me, she was straightway devoured by a multitude of wolves,' These things said in the presence of the Soldan and all heard and apprehended of him, albeit he knew not yet to what end Sicurano, who had sought and ordered this, would fain come, the latter said to him, 'My lord, you may very clearly see how much reason yonder poor lady had to vaunt herself of her gallant and her husband, for that the former at once bereaved her of honour, marring her fair fame with lies, and despoiled her husband, whilst the latter more credulous of others' falsehoods than of the truth which he might by long experience have known, caused her to be slain and eaten of wolves; and moreover, such is the goodwill and the love borne her by the one and the other that, having long abidden with her, neither of them knoweth her. But that you may the better apprehend that which each of these hath deserved, I will,--so but you vouchsafe me, of special favour to punish the deceiver and pardon the dupe,--e'en cause her come hither into your and their presence.' The Soldan, disposed in the matter altogether to comply with Sicurano's wishes, answered that he would well and bade him produce the lady; whereat Bernabo marvelled exceedingly, for that he firmly believed her to be dead, whilst Ambrogiuolo, now divining his danger, began to be in fear of worse than paying of monies and knew not whether more to hope or to fear from the coming of the lady, but awaited her appearance with the utmost amazement. The Soldan, then, having accorded Sicurano his wish, the latter threw himself, weeping, on his knees before him and putting off, as it were at one and the same time, his manly voice and masculine demeanour, said, 'My lord, I am the wretched misfortunate Ginevra, who have these six years gone wandering in man's disguise about the world, having been foully and wickedly aspersed by this traitor Ambrogiuolo and given by yonder cruel and unjust man to one of his servants to be slain and eaten of wolves.' Then, tearing open the fore part of her clothes and showing her breast, she discovered herself to the Soldan and all else who were present and after, turning to Ambrogiuolo, indignantly demanded of him when he had ever lain with her, according as he had aforetime boasted; but he, now knowing her and fallen well nigh dumb for shame, said nothing.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  I said, “You know that I admire you and I want to be like you—” “Oh, I don’t know why anyone would want that!” Her hand brushed away the thought as if it were smoke. “No, Jamie thinks you overcompensate; that you try to act sophisticated and Hollywood so you appear superficial, and that’s not who you really are. I used to do that, too. I wore hats and flamboyant outfits, because I didn’t feel interesting enough in myself.” “Maybe Jamie’s right,” I admitted to Anaïs. “Maybe I do want to seem Hollywood and glamorous because I’m afraid of being boring.” I hoped that copping to it would stop what felt like her attack on me. My admission did seem to disarm her. Her pitch lowered to her wise Djuna voice, soothing and gentle. “It’s because you grew up in the Valley with such a limited life.” Even though I was upset, I was struck by her insight. “But that is past now,” she crooned. “Now you have interesting friends and work. You have a wonderful house at the beach. The research you have done on women’s diaries is very important. I believe in your writing. I’ve shown you in every way that I want your friendship. Why do you think that is?” “Because I’m devoted to you?” “No, Tristine! I think you are a sensitive, intelligent, and talented person, and I’m telling you not to be devoted to me. To be my friend but to be devoted to your own growth. You know that in all the years we have known each other, you have never let me read your diary. Why is that?” I told her the truth. That I was too embarrassed by the writing. “Do you write about sex? You know how much I liked those tapes you made with your women friends.” Yes, I knew. I thought about reminding her that she’d never returned the tapes but realized that would only raise her hackles again. Yet I could hardly trust her with my diaries. I answered her truthfully and strategically: “Sometimes I write about sex, but that’s not why I’m embarrassed. It’s because my thoughts are all over the place and so much of my diary is just moaning and griping about my life. Believe me, my diaries aren’t like yours. They’re no fun to read, even for me.” “Tristine! You know my diaries are rewritten. You can’t compare! Why don’t you let me read just one volume?” “My handwriting is so sloppy you’d never be able to make it out.” “Oh yes, after a few pages, I’ll be able to.” I recognized she was not going to back down and conceded. “Maybe I could type out a volume like you used to.” At least then I could cut out the most chaotic parts and the sexual descriptions she’d likely share with Rupert. “Do what you wish.” She sounded exhausted. “But don’t wait long.” She didn’t object when I offered to go.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  I am ashamed to say it, since in condemning others I condemn myself: but these over-dressed, heavily made-up, excessively ornamented females either stand around like marble statues in an attitude of dumb indifference, or else, on being asked a question, they give such stupid replies that they would have been far better advised to remain silent. And they delude themselves into thinking that their inability to converse in the company of gentlemen and ladies proceeds from their purity of mind. They give the name of honesty to their dull-wittedness, as though the only honest women are those who speak to no one except their maids, their washerwomen, or their pastrycooks. Whereas if, as they fondly imagine, this had been Nature’s intention, she would have devised some other means for restricting their prattle. In this as in other things one must, it is true, take account of the time and the place and the person with whom one is speaking. For it sometimes happens that men or women, thinking to make a person blush through uttering some little pleasantry, and having underestimated the other person’s powers, find the blush intended for their opponent recoiling upon themselves. Wherefore, in order that you may learn to be on your guard, and also in order that people should not associate you with the proverb commonly heard on everyone’s lips, namely that women are always worsted in any argument, I desire that the tale which it falls to me to relate, and which completes our storytelling for today, should be one which will make you conversant with these matters. Thus you will be able to show that you are different from other women, not only for the noble qualities of your minds, but also for the excellence of your manners.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  It was the English department secretary who had given me the stationery. She told me that Dr. Inch wanted to meet with me in his office. I had never been called into a professor’s office before and I assumed it was because the secretary had conveyed a question I’d asked, about how I’d apply for a Fulbright scholarship to Italy. My heart took flight with fantasies of getting a Fulbright. I could live in Rome with Gerardo Palmieri as my lover or maybe in Siena with several Italian lovers. Dr. Inch, a slight, faded man, seemed dwarfed behind his huge wood desk covered with tall stacks of books and papers. He rose to search for something in one of his piles. After not finding it, he sat again, and peered at me disapprovingly. “I received a phone call, young woman, from a Mr. Guiler who said he had in his possession an invitation addressed to his wife from you on behalf of the English department.” I was stunned. “How did Hugo get that letter? It wasn’t mailed to him.” “So you admit you wrote it?” “It was for Anaïs Nin. She’s a writer. I’m apprenticing to her.” I hoped that Dr. Inch, as a literature professor, would look kindly on the fact that I was working for a writer. “I’ve never heard of her, and for your information, I choose whom to invite to speak on behalf of the English department!” “It wasn’t a real invitation; it was just for her to show around to eastern colleges.” I hoped I wasn’t breaking Anaïs’s confidence. I had to defend myself. Dr. Inch crossed his arms. “Now I know you are lying to me.” “I’m not! Why do you think I’m lying?” “East Coast colleges wouldn’t care whom West Coast colleges invite. They aren’t impressed by that.” My stomach sank. Of course, he was right. I hadn’t thought that taking a few sheets of stationery was a big deal but suddenly I realized that it was everything, my whole future. Dr. Inch could impede my graduation and applications to grad school. “All I did was type the letter for her,” I pleaded. “You didn’t just type the letter. You procured the stationery for it. We have your signature on record. This is a case of fraud, and I will see that you receive the consequences you deserve. I looked up your record, young lady. State scholarships are not intended for bad apples.” Oh, my God. I could lose my scholarship, everything I’d worked so hard for! “I’m not a bad apple! I’m not. I’m getting As. You can check. What are you going to do?” “I haven’t decided whether to recommend your suspension to the academic senate or the dean. You will be hearing from me. In the meanwhile, speak of this with no one.”

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  History of success or failure. Whether or not we are able to use these instinctual action plans is greatly influenced by our past successes and failures in similar situations. Causes of Trauma I have been amazed at the broad range of traumatic events and reactions I have observed throughout my career. Some, like childhood surgeries, are significant but seemingly benign events in the person’s memory. A client describes the following formative childhood experience at age four: I struggled with masked giants who were strapping me to a high, white table. Silhouetted in the cold, harsh light that glared in my eyes was the figure of someone coming towards me with a black mask. The mask had a vile smell that caused me to choke and I continued to struggle as it was forced down onto my face. Trying desperately to scream and turn away, I spun into a dizzying, black tunnel of horrific hallucinations. I awoke in a gray-green room, devastated. Except for a very bad sore throat, it appeared that I was perfectly okay. I was not. I felt utterly and completely abandoned and betrayed. All that I had been told was that I could have my favorite ice cream and that my parents would be with me. After the operation I lost the sense of a safe, comprehensible world where I had the ability to respond. I became consumed by a helpless sense of shame and a feeling that I was bad” [the rational brain assumes that he must be bad to deserve this kind of punishment]. For years after this annihilating experience, I feared bedtime and would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night. Gasping for breath and too scared and ashamed to cry out, I lay alone, terrified of suffocating to death. By the age of six or seven, family stress and the pressure of school intensified my symptoms. I was sent to see a child psychiatrist. Her main concern was a shaggy, dirty, white, stuffed dog that I needed to have beside me to fall asleep. The reason for my anxiety and excessive shyness went undiscovered. The doctor’s approach was to further frighten me by telling me about the problems needing a stuffed friend would cause me as an adult. I must say that the therapy “worked” in that regard (I threw my dog away). However, my symptoms continued and I developed chronic anxiety attacks, frequent stomach-aches, and other “psychosomatic” problems that lasted from junior high into graduate school. Many events can cause traumatic reactions later in life, depending on how the person experienced them at the time. Some examples of common traumatic antecedents are:  Fetal trauma (intra-uterine)  Birth trauma  Loss of a parent or close family member  Illness, high fevers, accidental poisoning  Physical injuries, including falls and accidents  Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, including severe abandonment, or beatings  Witnessing violence  Natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, and floods  Certain medical and dental procedures

• From The Decameron (1353)

  What Agilulf does, in fact, is to proceed at once to the sleeping-quarters of his servants, where he tests the heartbeats of each of the sleeping forms until he eventually reaches the groom, discovers that his heart is pounding, and rightly concludes that this man is the culprit. He then shears away a portion of the hair on one side of the groom’s head, using a pair of scissors that he had brought along for the purpose, the better to identify him when he summons a general assembly of the household the following morning. The groom’s resourcefulness is equal to the occasion, and he shears the hair of all his sleeping fellow-servants in exactly similar fashion, so that the identity parade next morning concludes with no more than a stern word of warning from the king to show the culprit that his deed has not passed undetected: ‘Whoever it was that did it,’ he said, addressing the whole assembly, ‘had better not do it again. And now, be off with you.’ 32 There then follows the second of Boccaccio’s authorial interventions in this particular novella, when, through Pampinea, he declares: Many another man would have wanted all of them strung up, tortured, examined and interrogated. But in so doing, he would have brought into the open a thing that people should always try their utmost to conceal. And even if, by displaying his hand, he had secured the fullest possible revenge, he would not have lessened his shame but greatly increased it, as well as besmirching the fame of his lady. 33 The story of Agilulf and the groom is an excellent example of the author’s ability to transform an improbable series of events into a superficially convincing realistic narrative. The conversion of fantasy into the realm of the possible is what constitutes the Decameron’s peculiar dynamic. But granted that Boccaccio’s main purpose is storytelling, this is not to deny the relevance of his occasional asides, which in this instance are especially revealing in that they show the clear-headed, practical common sense that he brings to bear upon the highly emotive question of marital honour. His vindication of Agilulf’s low-key response, first to the discovery that his marriage-bed has been violated by a stranger and then to the thwarting of his scheme to identify the culprit, is reminiscent for its clarity and persuasiveness of that section of his earliest major narrative work, the Filocolo, where the thirteen questioni d’amore are debated.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  These she accepted with laughter in her heart and tears in her eyes, promising to repay them as soon as she could, which was all that Salabaetto required by way of bond. Now that she had her hands on the money, it became a different story altogether; for whereas he had always had free access to the lady whenever he pleased, she now began to fob him off with various excuses, so that nine times out of ten he was turned away from the house, and even when he did get in to see her, she no longer greeted him with the smiling countenance, the caresses, or the lavish hospitality to which he had previously been accustomed. Not only did the lady fail to repay Salabaetto by the date she had promised, but a further month went by, then another, and when he asked her for his money, all he could get out of her was a string of excuses. Salabaetto now realized how cleverly he had been taken in by her villainy, and knowing that he could prove nothing against her (for he had no written evidence of the transaction, and there was no independent witness), he was exceedingly distressed and reproached himself bitterly for his foolishness. Moreover, he was too ashamed to lodge a complaint with the authorities, because he had been warned of her character beforehand and had only himself to blame if he was made a laughing-stock for behaving so stupidly. And when he received several letters from his principals ordering him to change the money and forward it to them, fearing lest his lapse should be discovered if he remained in Palermo any longer without obeying their instructions, he decided to leave. So he boarded a small ship, and instead of sailing to Pisa as he should have done, he went to Naples. Now, there happened at that time to be living in Naples a compatriot of ours, Pietro dello Canigiano, 4 who was treasurer to Her Highness the Empress of Constantinople 5 – a man of great intelligence and shrewdness, and a very close friend of Salabaetto and his family. Knowing him to be the very soul of discretion, Salabaetto took him into his confidence a few days after his arrival, told him about what he had done and about the sad fate which had befallen him, and requested his assistance and advice in finding some means of livelihood in Naples, declaring that he had no intention of ever returning to Florence. Saddened by what he had heard, Canigiano replied: ‘A fine state of affairs, I must say; a fine way to carry on; a fine sense of loyalty you have shown to your employers. No sooner do you lay your hands on a large sum of money, than you squander the lot in riotous living.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Then from the receiver I heard the whisper of an aged, shrunken Sybil delivering a riddle as from an ampulla: “The mask should be held eighteen inches in front of the face.” I visualized a Venetian festival mask on a stick, cardboard thin. She was saying that because I didn’t hold my mask far enough away, I didn’t know the difference between myself and a persona, and that’s why I was such a superficial phony. I expected she would elaborate, but Rupert must have taken the receiver from her. “Did you understand that? A mask eighteen inches in front of the face.” “Yes, thank you,” I said, feeling annoyed at his repeating her words. And that was it; he hung up. I was devastated. Not only had Anaïs not apologized to me, she’d stuck the knife in deeper. A week later, Anaïs called again without Rupert’s intervention. Her voice, though still faint, was back to its musical lilt. “How are you?” she asked. I exhaled with relief. I could tell by her tone that this time she was calling to soothe my feelings. “I’m okay,” I answered. “How are you?” “Oh, I have good days and bad days.” I waited for her apology. Instead she said, “I wanted to get back to you right away. I read your diary.” I stopped breathing. Be calm, I told myself. She’ll give you her compliments first. The way she always did with the students. She began, “Everything is there, other people, places, descriptions … but you are not there.” “But the whole thing is my point of view.” “Yes, but your feelings are absent, so the writing is superficial.” Superficial, that word again. How could my diaries be superficial? That was the worst thing you could say about somebody’s diary, and she’d hardly said anything good. I bet she hadn’t even read more than a page. She was still looking to justify Jamie’s criticism of me. She continued, “You need to ask yourself when you are writing, ‘What did I feel?’ You report what someone said but not how you reacted to it. And your intellect is a tyrant, a kind of madman that takes over.” How dare she! My intellect was the only thing about myself of which I was proud. She saw my trained intellect as a tyrant because she had no respect for rationality. She hadn’t been through grad school! I rebutted, “I thought there was an excess of feeling. That’s why I never let you read them before.” “Anxiety, exaggeration, and over-dramatization are not the same thing as real feelings, Tristine.”

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  History of success or failure. Whether or not we are able to use these instinctual action plans is greatly influenced by our past successes and failures in similar situations. Causes of Trauma I have been amazed at the broad range of traumatic events and reactions I have observed throughout my career. Some, like childhood surgeries, are significant but seemingly benign events in the person’s memory. A client describes the following formative childhood experience at age four: I struggled with masked giants who were strapping me to a high, white table. Silhouetted in the cold, harsh light that glared in my eyes was the figure of someone coming towards me with a black mask. The mask had a vile smell that caused me to choke and I continued to struggle as it was forced down onto my face. Trying desperately to scream and turn away, I spun into a dizzying, black tunnel of horrific hallucinations. I awoke in a gray-green room, devastated. Except for a very bad sore throat, it appeared that I was perfectly okay. I was not. I felt utterly and completely abandoned and betrayed. All that I had been told was that I could have my favorite ice cream and that my parents would be with me. After the operation I lost the sense of a safe, comprehensible world where I had the ability to respond. I became consumed by a helpless sense of shame and a feeling that I was bad” [the rational brain assumes that he must be bad to deserve this kind of punishment]. For years after this annihilating experience, I feared bedtime and would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night. Gasping for breath and too scared and ashamed to cry out, I lay alone, terrified of suffocating to death. By the age of six or seven, family stress and the pressure of school intensified my symptoms. I was sent to see a child psychiatrist. Her main concern was a shaggy, dirty, white, stuffed dog that I needed to have beside me to fall asleep. The reason for my anxiety and excessive shyness went undiscovered. The doctor’s approach was to further frighten me by telling me about the problems needing a stuffed friend would cause me as an adult. I must say that the therapy “worked” in that regard (I threw my dog away). However, my symptoms continued and I developed chronic anxiety attacks, frequent stomach-aches, and other “psychosomatic” problems that lasted from junior high into graduate school. Many events can cause traumatic reactions later in life, depending on how the person experienced them at the time. Some examples of common traumatic antecedents are:  Fetal trauma (intra-uterine)  Birth trauma  Loss of a parent or close family member  Illness, high fevers, accidental poisoning  Physical injuries, including falls and accidents  Sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, including severe abandonment, or beatings  Witnessing violence  Natural disasters such as earthquakes, fires, and floods  Certain medical and dental procedures

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  For the good of the house, Dickie ordered champagne; it was warm and sweet and unpleasantly heady. Only Jeanne and Mary and Dickie herself had the courage to sample this curious beverage. Wanda stuck to her brandy and Pat to her beer, while Stephen drank coffee; but Valérie Seymour caused some confusion by gently insisting on a lemon squash—to be made with fresh lemons. Presently the guests began to arrive in couples. Having seated themselves at the tables, they quickly became oblivious to the world, what with the sickly champagne and each other. From a hidden recess there emerged a woman with a basket full of protesting roses. The stout vendeuse wore a wide wedding ring—for was she not a most virtuous person? But her glance was both calculating and shrewd as she pounced upon the more obvious couples; and Stephen watching her progress through the room, felt suddenly ashamed on behalf of the roses. And now at a nod from the host there was music; and now at a bray from the band there was dancing. Dickie and Wanda opened the ball—Dickie stodgy and firm, Wanda rather unsteady. Others followed. Then Mary leant over the table and whispered: ‘Won’t you dance with me, Stephen?’ Stephen hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she got up abruptly and danced with Mary. The handsome young man with the tortured eyebrows was bowing politely before Valérie Seymour. Refused by her, he passed on to Pat, and to Jeanne’s great amusement was promptly accepted. Brockett arrived and sat down at the table. He was in his most prying and cynical humour. He watched Stephen with coldly observant eyes, watched Dickie guiding the swaying Wanda, watched Pat in the arms of the handsome young man, watched the whole bumping, jostling crowd of dancers. The blended odours were becoming more active. Brockett lit a cigarette. ‘Well, Valérie darling? You look like an outraged Elgin marble. Be kind, dear, be kind; you must live and let live, this is life. . . .’ And he waved his soft, white hands. ‘Observe it—it’s very wonderful, darling. This is life, love, defiance, emancipation!’ Said Valérie with her calm little smile: ‘I think I preferred it when we were all martyrs!’ The dancers drifted back to their seats and Brockett manœuvred to sit beside Stephen. ‘You and Mary dance well together,’ he murmured. ‘Are you happy? Are you enjoying yourselves?’ Stephen, who hated this inquisitive mood, this mood that would feed upon her emotions, turned away as she answered him, rather coldly: ‘Yes, thanks—we’re not having at all a bad evening.’

• 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 Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  In the days of the hunter-gatherer, fighting was apparently limited by the same sorts of inhibiting behaviors that work effectively for animal species. Obviously this is not the case for modern “civilized” humans. Being human, we recognize the evolutionary prohibition against killing members of the same species in the same way that animals do. Generally, there are rules or laws that exact some form of punishment for killing a member of one’s own community, but these laws don’t apply to the killing that takes place in war. When we look more closely at the anthropology of human warfare, we do not find killing and maiming the enemy to be a universal objective. Among some groups, at least, we find evidence of a reticence to engage in violence and brutality on a large scale. Some peoples use ritualistic behaviors quite reminiscent of the animal manner of dealing with aggression. Among Eskimo cultures, aggression between tribes or neighboring communities is unheard of. Within these communities, conflict between opponents may be settled by wrestling, cuffing ears, or butting heads. Eskimos are also known to settle conflicts through singing duels in which songs are composed to fit the occasion and the winner is determined by an audience. Some “primitive” cultures terminate their skirmishes when one of the tribal members is injured or killed. These are a few examples of human ritual behavior whose purpose is to maintain the taboo against killing within the species. At the biological level, we find a creature more easily distinguished from other animals by its intelligence rather than by its teeth, venom, claws, or strength. Is intelligence an attribute intended to be used in service of torture, rape, death, and violence? If you listen to the news, it might lead you to think so. Why Do Humans Kill, Maim, and Torture One Another? Even when competing for their most basic resources-food and territory-animals typically do not kill members of their own species. Why do we? What has happened to propagate large-scale killing and violence as human populations increase in number and complexity? While there are many theories of war, there is one root cause that seems not to have been widely acknowledged. Trauma is among the most important root causes for the form modern warfare has taken. The perpetuation, escalation, and violence of war can be attributed in part to post-traumatic stress. Our past encounters with one another have generated a legacy of fear, separation, prejudice, and hostility. This legacy is a legacy of trauma fundamentally no different from that experienced by individual s except in its scale. Traumatic re-enactment is one of the strongest and most enduring reactions that occurs in the wake of trauma. Once we are traumatized, it is almost certain that we will continue to repeat or re-enact parts of the experience in some way. We will be drawn over and over again into situations that are reminiscent of the original trauma. When people are traumatized by war, the implications are staggering.