Shame

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  She heard him moving to the door, and this pleasure between her legs became suddenly an agony. But all she could do was cry softly into the pillow. She tried to keep her sex from touching the sheets because she feared that if it did she could not resist some undulating movement. And she felt sure he was watching her. Of course he'd meant her to feel pleasure. But without his permission? She lay rigid, afraid, crying. A moment later she heard voices behind her. "Bathe her and put a soothing ointment on her buttocks," the Prince was saying, "and you may talk to the Princess if you like, and she to you. You are to treat her with the utmost respect," said the Prince and then she heard his steps dying away. She lay too afraid to look behind her. The door was closed again. She heard steps. She heard the cloth in the basin of water. "It's me, dearest Princess," said a woman's voice, and she realized it was a young woman, a woman her own age, and could only be the Innkeeper's daughter. She buried her face in the pillow. "This is unbearable," she thought, and suddenly with all her heart she hated the Prince, but she was far too humiliated to think of it. She felt the girl's weight on the bed beside her, and just the rough cloth of her apron brushing against Beauty's buttocks caused the sore and stinging flesh to ache more keenly. She felt as if her buttocks must be enormous, though she knew they were not, or giving off some terrible light with all their redness. The girl would feel their heat; this girl, of all girls, who had tried so hard to please the Prince by spanking her far harder than the Prince had realized. The wet cloth stroked her shoulders, her arms, her neck. It stroked her back and then her thighs and legs and feet, the girl carefully avoiding her sex and the soreness. But then after the girl had wrung out the cloth, she touched the buttocks lightly. "O, I know it hurts, dearest Princess," she confided. "I'm so sorry, but what could I do when the Prince commanded me?" The rag was rough on the soreness, and Beauty realized this time that the Prince had left her with a score of welts. She moaned, and though she loathed this girl with a violent feeling she'd never had for anyone else in her brief life, the cloth nevertheless felt good to her. The moist cloth was cooling her; it was like the gently massaging of an itch.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Despite how it’s been spun by economists and others arguing against local resource management, the real tragedy of the commons doesn’t pose a threat to resources controlled by small groups of interdependent individuals. Forget the commons. We need to confront the tragedies of the open seas, skies, rivers, and forests. Fisheries around the world are collapsing because no one has the authority, power, and motivation to stop international fleets from strip-mining waters everybody (and thus, nobody) owns. Toxins from Chinese smokestacks burning illegally mined Russian coal lodge in Korean lungs, while American cars burning Venezuelan petroleum melt glaciers in Greenland. What allows these chain-linked tragedies is the absence of local, personal shame. The false certainty that comes from applying Malthusian economics, the prisoner’s dilemma, and the tragedy of the commons to pre-agricultural societies requires that we ignore the fine-grain contours of life in small-scale communities where nobody “could have escaped public scrutiny and judgment,” in Rousseau’s words. These tragedies become inevitable only when the group size exceeds our species’ capacity for keeping track of one another, a point that’s come to be known as Dunbar’s number. In primate communities, size definitely matters. Noticing the importance of grooming behavior in social primates, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar plotted overall group size against the neocortical development of the brain. Using this correlation, he predicted that humans start losing track of who’s doing what to whom when group size hits about 150 individuals. In Dunbar’s words, “The limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained.”7 Other anthropologists had arrived at the same number by observing that when group sizes grew much beyond that, they tend to split into two smaller groups. Writing several years before Dunbar’s paper was published in 1992, Marvin Harris noted, “With 50 people per band or 150 per village, everybody knew everybody else intimately, so that the bonding of reciprocal exchange could hold people together. People gave with the expectation of taking and took with the expectation of giving.”8 Recent authors, including Malcolm Gladwell in his best-selling The Tipping Point, have popularized the idea of 150 being a limit to organically functioning groups. Having evolved in small, intimate bands where everybody knows our name, human beings aren’t very good at dealing with the dubious freedoms conferred by anonymity. When communities grow beyond the point where every individual has at least a passing acquaintance with everyone else, our behavior changes, our choices shift, and our sense of the possible and of the acceptable grows ever more abstract.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  "You'll find me more reasonable than you expect," he said. He removed his long cloak, tossing it over a chair, and bolted the door. Then he snuffed all but a few candles. He would sleep in his clothes as he did most nights, in the forest, or in the country inns, or in the houses of those humble peasants at which he sometimes stopped, and that was no great inconvenience to him. And as he drew near her now, he thought he must be merciful and make her punishment quick. And seating himself on the side of the bed, he reached out for her, and pulling her wrists into his left hand he brought her naked body down over his lap so that her legs dangled over the floor helplessly. "Very, very lovely," he said, his right hand moving languidly over her rounded buttocks, forcing them ever so slightly apart. Beauty was crying aloud, but muffling her cries into the bed, her hands held out in front of her by his long left arm. And now with his right hand he spanked her buttocks hard and heard her cries grow louder. It wasn’t really much of a slap. But it left a red mark on her. And he spanked her hard again, and he felt her writhing against him, the heat and moisture of her sex against his leg, and again he spanked her. "I think you are sobbing more from the humiliation than the pain," he scolded her in a soft voice. She was struggling not to make her cries too loud. He flattened out his right hand, and feeling the heat of her reddened buttocks drew it up and delivered another series of hard, loud slaps, smiling as he watched her struggle. He could have spanked her much harder, for his own pleasure, and without really hurting her. But he thought better of it. He had so many nights ahead of him for these delights. He lifted her up now so that she was standing in front of him. "Toss your hair back," he commanded. Her tear-stained face was unspeakably beautiful, her lips trembling, her blue eyes gleaming with the dampness of the tears. She obeyed immediately. "I don't think you were so very spoilt," he said. "I find you very obedient and eager to please, and this makes me very happy." He could see her relief. "Clasp your hands behind your neck," he said, "under your hair. That's it. Very good." He lifted her chin again. "And you have a lovely modest habit of looking down. But now I want you to look directly at me." She obeyed shyly, miserably.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  I prayed she would break the skin before my will broke, but she was too clever for that. She spread the blows. She had them lower the chain slightly, so she could spread my legs even wider. "She held my cock now in her left hand, tightly, roughly, running her open palm over the tip to torment me, and then tightening her grip again as she spanked furiously. "When she slapped my nipples and my cock, and lifted my balls in her hands, I felt the tears flowing, and overcome with shame I groaned unable to conceal it. It was an astonishing moment of pain and pleasure. My buttocks were raw. "But she had only just begun. She ordered the other Princesses to lift my legs in front of me. I felt terror to feel myself hanging from the chain above me. They did not bind my ankles to my arms; they merely held them up, in place, as she brought her blows up from under, as hard as before, and then covering my balls with her left hand, paddled me from the front as hard as she could as I struggled and moaned now uncontrollably. "Meantime the other girls were feasting their eyes on me, touching me still, and enjoying my misery immensely. They even kissed the backs of my legs, my calves, my shoulders. "But the blows came harder and faster. She had me set down again, spread wide again, and went to work in earnest. I think she meant to break the skin if she could, but I was now broken down and wept uncontrollably. "This was what she wanted, and as I gave in, she applauded it. 'Very good, Prince Alexi, very good, let all of that spiteful pride go, you know very well you deserve it. That's better, that is exactly what I want to see,' she said almost affectionately, 'delicious tears,' as she touched them with her fingers, her paddle never stopping. "Then she had my hands released. I was forced down on all fours. And she drove me about the room telling me that I must move in a circle. Of course she drove me faster and faster. I didn't even realize now that I was no longer restrained. That is, I did not even realize that I might have broken and run. I had been defeated. And finally, it was as always when the punishment works, I could think of nothing but escaping each blow of her paddle. And how could I do that? Merely twist, squirm, try to avoid it. She was meantime very worked up with her commands, driving me faster. I rushed past the naked feet of the other Princesses. I saw them step aside for me.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  And the Price could see that the King would not raise his eyes to see his naked daughter, Beauty. “I will take Beauty to serve,” said the Prince. “She is mine now.” He took out his long silver knife and, cutting the hot, succulent pork, he laid several pieces on his own plate. The servants all about him vied with one another to place other dishes near him. Beauty sat with her hands over her breasts again; her cheeks were moist with tears, and she was trembling slightly. “Ass you wish,” said the King. “I am in your debt.” “You have your life and your Kingdom now,” said the Prince. “And I have your daughter. I will spend the night here. And tomorrow set out to make her my Princess across the mountains.” He had placed some fruit on his plate, and other hot morsels of cooked food, and now he snapped his fingers gently and in a whisper told Beauty to come around the table to him. He could see her shame before the servants. But he brushed her hand away from her sex. “Never cover yourself like that again,” he said. He spoke these words almost tenderly, as he lifted her hair back from her face. “Yes, my Prince,” she whispered. She had a lovely little voice. “But it’s so difficult.” "Of course it is," he smiled. "But for me you'll do it." And now he took her and placed her on his lap, cradling her in his left arm. "Kiss me," he said, and feeling her warm mouth on his again, he felt his desire rising too soon for his taste, but he decided he could savor this slight torment. "You may go," he said to the King. "Tell your servants to have my horse ready in the morning. I won't need a horse for Beauty. My soldiers you've found, no doubt, at your gates," and the Prince laughed. "They were afraid to come in with me. Tell them to be ready at dawn, and then you can say goodbye to your daughter, Beauty." The King glanced up very quickly to accept the Prince's commands and with unfailing courtesy he backed out of the doorway. The Prince turned his full attention to Beauty. Lifting a napkin he wiped at her tears. She kept her hands obediently on her thighs, exposing her sex, and he observed that she did not try to hide her stiff little pink nipples with her arms and he approved of this. "Now don't be frightened," he said to her softly, feeding a little on her trembling mouth again, and then slapping her breasts so they shivered lightly. "I could be old and ugly." "Ah, but then I could feel sorry for you," she said in a sweet, tremulous voice. He laughed. "I'm going to punish you for that," he said to her tenderly. "But now and then just a little very ladylike impertinence is amusing." She blushed darkly, biting her lip.

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  Once the Chinese established full control of the area in 1956, government officials began making annual visits to lecture the people on the dangers of sexual freedom and convince them to switch to “normal” marriage. In a bit of dubious publicity reminiscent of Reefer Madness, Chinese government officials showed up one year with a portable generator and a film showing “actors dressed as Mosuo…who were in the last stages of syphilis, who had gone mad and lost most of their faces.” The audience response was not what the Chinese officials expected: their makeshift cinema was burned to the ground. But the officials didn’t give up. Yang Erche Namu recalls “meetings night after night where they harangued and criticized and interrogated…. [The Chinese officials] ambushed men on their way to their lovers’ houses, they dragged couples out of their beds and exposed people naked to their own relatives’ eyes.” When even these heavy-handed tactics failed to convince the Mosuo to abandon their system, government officials insisted on bringing (if not demonstrating) “decency” to the Mosuo. They cut off essential deliveries of seed grain and children’s clothing. Finally, literally starved into submission, many Mosuo agreed to participate in government-sponsored marriage ceremonies, where each was given “a cup of tea, a cigarette, pieces of candy, and a paper certificate.”11 But the arm-twisting had little lasting effect. Travel writer Cynthia Barnes visited Lugu Lake in 2006 and found the Mosuo system still intact, though under pressure from Chinese tourists who, like Marco Polo 750 years earlier, mistake the sexual autonomy of Mosuo women for licentiousness. “Although their lack of coyness draws the world’s attention to the Mosuo,” Barnes writes, “sex is not the center of their universe.” She continues: I think of my parents’ bitter divorce, of childhood friends uprooted and destroyed because Mommy or Daddy decided to sleep with someone else. Lugu Lake, I think, is not so much a kingdom of women as a kingdom of family—albeit one blessedly free of politicians and preachers extolling “family values.” There’s no such thing as a “broken home,” no sociologists wringing their hands over “single mothers,” no economic devastation or shame and stigma when parents part. Sassy and confident, [a Mosuo girl will] grow up cherished in a circle of male and female relatives…. When she joins the dances and invites a boy into her flower room, it will be for love, or lust, or whatever people call it when they are operating on hormones and heavy breathing. She will not need that boy—or any other—to have a home, to make a “family.” She already knows that she will always have both.12

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  My smarting buttocks, my sore knees, and above all the shame that they could so easily see my face, and my genitals. "But as I took to sucking I found myself lost in contemplating the organ in my mouth, its size, its shape, its taste even and the sour salty taste of the fluids emptied into me. It was the rhythm of the sucking as much as anything else. The voices around me were a chorus that became noise at some point, and an odd feeling of being weak and abject came over me. It was very similar to the moments I'd experienced with my tall stable boy Lord when we had been alone in the garden, and he had made me squat on the table. I felt my excitement even on the surface of my skin then, and so it was now, sucking these various organs and being filled with their seed. I can't explain it. It became pleasurable. It became pleasurable because it was repeated and I was helpless. And it was repeated always as a respite from the paddle, the frenzy of the paddle. My buttocks would throb, but they felt warm; they were tingling, and I was tasting this delicious cock that was pumping its force into me. "I found I liked having so many eyes watch me. But I did not admit this to myself all at once. I felt not liking so much as this weakness again, this limpness of the spirit. I was lost in my suffering, my struggles, my anxiousness to please. "Well, so it would be with each new task that lay before me. I would at first resist with terror; I would cling to the Queen with my heart; then at some point in the midst of unspeakable humiliation, I would be released into some state of calm in which my punishment became sweet to me. "I saw myself as one of these Princes, one of these slaves. When they instructed me in sucking the penis better I listened to them. When they paddled me I received the blow, bent my body in response to it. "Perhaps it's impossible to explain. I was moving towards yielding. "When finally the six Princes were sent away, all of them properly rewarded, the Queen took me into her arms and rewarded me with her kisses. As I lay on the pallet by her bed, I felt the most delicious exhaustion. It seemed even the air stirring around me gave me pleasure. I felt it against my skin, as if my nakedness were being stroked. And I fell asleep content that I had served her properly. "But my next great test of strength came one afternoon when she, very cross with me for my ineptitude at brushing her hair, sent me to be the plaything of the Princesses.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl, brave Dolly Schiller. I recall certain moments, let us call them icebergs in paradise, when after having had my fill of her—after fabulous, insane exertions that left me limp and azure-barred—I would gather her in my arms with, at last, a mute moan of human tenderness (her skin glistening in the neon light coming from the paved court through the slits in the blind, her soot-black lashes matted, her grave gray eyes more vacant than ever—for all the world a little patient still in the confusion of a drug after a major operation)—and the tenderness would deepen to shame and despair, and I would lull and rock my lone light Lolita in my marble arms, and moan in her warm hair, and caress her at random and mutely ask her blessing, and at the peak of this human agonized selfless tenderness (with my soul actually hanging around her naked body and ready to repent), all at once, ironically, horribly, lust would swell again—and “oh, no ,” Lolita would say with a sigh to heaven, and the next moment the tenderness and the azure—all would be shattered. Mid-twentieth century ideas concerning child-parent relationship have been considerably tainted by the scholastic rigmarole and standardized symbols of the psychoanalytic racket, but I hope I am addressing myself to unbiased readers. Once when Avis’s father had honked outside to signal papa had come to take his pet home, I felt obliged to invite him into the parlor, and he sat down for a minute, and while we conversed, Avis, a heavy, unattractive, affectionate child, drew up to him and eventually perched plumply on his knee. Now, I do not remember if I have mentioned that Lolita always had an absolutely enchanting smile for strangers, a tender furry slitting of the eyes, a dreamy sweet radiance of all her features which did not mean a thing of course, but was so beautiful, so endearing that one found it hard to reduce such sweetness to but a magic gene automatically lighting up her face in atavistic token of some ancient rite of welcome—hospitable prostitution, the coarse reader may say. Well, there she stood while Mr. Byrd twirled his hat and talked, and—yes, look how stupid of me, I have left out the main characteristic of the famous Lolita smile, namely: while the tender, nectared, dimpled brightness played, it was never directed at the stranger in the room but hung in its own remote flowered void, so to speak, or wandered with myopic softness over chance objects—and this is what was happening now: while fat Avis sidled up to her papa, Lolita gently beamed at a fruit knife that she fingered on the edge of the table, whereon she leaned, many miles away from me.

• From The Annotated Lolita (1991)

  Barbara Burke, a sturdy blond, two years older than Lo and by far the camp’s best swimmer, had a very special canoe which she shared with Lo “because I was the only other girl who could make Willow Island” (some swimming test, I imagine). Through July, every morning—mark, reader, every blessed morning—Barbara and Lo would be helped to carry the boat to Onyx or Eryx (two small lakes in the wood) by Charlie Holmes, the camp mistress’ son, aged thirteen—and the only human male for a couple of miles around (excepting an old meek stone-deaf handyman, and a farmer in an old Ford who sometimes sold the campers eggs as farmers will); every morning, oh my reader, the three children would take a short cut through the beautiful innocent forest brimming with all the emblems of youth, dew, birdsongs, and at one point, among the luxuriant undergrowth, Lo would be left as sentinel, while Barbara and the boy copulated behind a bush. At first, Lo had refused “to try what it was like,” but curiosity and camaraderie prevailed, and soon she and Barbara were doing it by turns with the silent, coarse and surly but indefatigable Charlie, who had as much sex appeal as a raw carrot but sported a fascinating collection of contraceptives which he used to fish out of a third nearby lake, a considerably larger and more populous one, called Lake Climax, after the booming young factory town of that name. Although conceding it was “sort of fun” and “fine for the complexion,” Lolita, I am glad to say, held Charlie’s mind and manners in the greatest contempt. Nor had her temperament been roused by that filthy fiend. In fact, I think he had rather stunned it, despite the “fun.” By that time it was close to ten. With the ebb of lust, an ashen sense of awfulness, abetted by the realistic drabness of a gray neuralgic day, crept over me and hummed within my temples. Brown, naked, frail Lo, her narrow white buttocks to me, her sulky face to a door mirror, stood, arms akimbo, feet (in new slippers with pussy-fur tops) wide apart, and through a forehanging lock tritely mugged at herself in the glass. From the corridor came the cooing voices of colored maids at work, and presently there was a mild attempt to open the door of our room. I had Lo go to the bathroom and take a much-needed soap shower. The bed was a frightful mess with overtones of potato chips.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  It was no use. Very soon, I so craved the Queen's hands that I was moaning aloud and in one of these great tormented states, I did all that I could by gesture and manner to show that I would obey her. "Of course I had no intention of doing so. I did so only long enough to be rewarded. And I wonder if you can imagine how difficult this was for me. I was put free on my hands and knees, and told to kiss her feet. It was as if I had only just been stripped naked. Never had I obeyed any command; nor been made to obey while free of shackles. And yet so tortured was I for relief, my sex so swollen with desire, that I forced myself to kneel at her feet and kiss her slippers. I shall never forget the magic of her hands when she touched me. I could feel the shock of passion through me, and as soon as she stroked and toyed with my sex, my passion was at once released, which greatly angered her. "'You have no control,'" she said crossly to me, 'and for this you will be punished. But you have tried to submit and that is something.' But at that moment, I rose up and tried to run from her. I'd never had any intention of submitting to anything. "Of course the Pages apprehended me at once. You must never think yourself safe from them. You may be in a vast, dimly lit chamber alone with a Lord. You may think yourself quite free when he falls asleep with his wine cup. But should you try to rise and escape, at once the Pages appear to subdue you. Only now that I am the Queen's trusted valet am I allowed to sleep alone in her chamber. The Pages dare not enter the darkened room where the Queen sleeps. So they have no way of knowing that I am here with you. But this is rare, most rare. And even now we might be discovered..." "But what happened to you," Beauty pressed. "They apprehended you," she said fearfully. "The Queen gave little consideration to how I should be punished. She sent for Lord Gregory and told him I was most incorrigible. That in spite of my fine hands and skin, and royal birth, I should be taken at once to the kitchen, there to serve for as long as she should decree...and indeed, she hoped she would remember I was there and send for me. "I was carried down to the kitchen, protesting as usual. Mind you, I had little idea what was to happen to me.

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  And she had felt it when laid over the Queen's lap. All her composure had left her. "In this position alone all obedience and subjugation can be taught, I think," said Prince Alexi. "Well, so it was with me. I lay over her lap, my head dangling, my legs spread out behind me. She wanted them slightly apart, and of course I was to arch my back and keep my hands clasped in the small of my back just as you were instructed to do. I was to see that my penis did not touch the cloth of her gown, though with all my strength I wanted it to. And then she commenced her spanking. She showed me each paddle and told me its faults and virtues. Here was one that was light; it would sting; and it was fast. A heavier one, just as thin, caused more pain and must be used carefully. "She commenced to spank quite forcefully. And as with you, she could massage my buttocks, and pinch them when she chose. But she was steady in her work. She spanked hard and long until I was soon in terrible pain, and feeling as helpless as ever I had felt in my life. "It seemed I felt the shock of each blow disseminated through my limbs. My buttocks of course absorbed it first. They became the center of myself in their soreness and tenderness. But the pain passed through them and into me, and all I could do was quiver beneath each blow, shudder with each sound spank, and moan ever more louder but never with the slightest hint of asking for mercy. "The Queen was quite delighted with this show of suffering. As I told you before, she had encouraged it. She often lifted my face and wiped away my tears and rewarded me with kisses. Sometimes she would have me kneel on the floor upright. She would inspect my penis and ask if it were not hers. I would say 'Yes, your Highness, all of me is yours. I am your obedient slave.' She praised this answer, and said I must not hesitate in giving her long, devoted answers. "But she was quite determined. She picked up the paddle again quickly enough, pressed me down again on her lap, and commenced the loud and forceful spanking. I was soon moaning loudly behind my clenched teeth. I had no pride, none of that dignity you still display unless it was completely without my knowledge. Finally she said that my buttocks were now a perfect color. "She hated having to punish me further she so admired the color she had achieved, but she must know my limits. "'Are you sorry you were such a disobedient little Prince?' she asked me. 'Very sorry, your Highness,' I answered through my tears. But she continued with her spanking.

• From Querelle (1953)

  Querelle has forgotten his jersey in my cabin. It's lying on the Boor, just as he left it. I don't dare to touch it. The striped sailor's jersey has the power of a leopard skin. More than that, even. It is the animal itself, hiding there, wrapped up in itself, showing only its outward form. "Someone must have thrown it there.'' But il l should stretch out my hand to touch it, it would instantly swell up with all the muscles in Querelle's body. Cadiz. A Negro, dancing, with a rose between his teeth. As soon as the music starts up, he starts shaking. About him, I wrote: he exudes, a powerful fragrance-like horses do. Next to his image that of Querelle loses its brightness. Querelle, sewing on his buttons. I watch him tense his arm the better to thread the needle. The gesture cannot appear ridiculous: not in one who last night crushed his body against that of a 98 I JEAN GENET girl, pushing her up against a tree, with a conqueror's smile. When he is drinking coffee, Querelle often shakes the cup to dissolve all the sugar in the last drops with that rotary motion of the right hand, from right to left ( that is, counterclockwise) , most women use, and five minutes later he'll reverse the motion and swill it the way men do. Thus each one of Querelle's most insignificant actions is charged with the humanity, the gravity, of a nobler action that precedes it. Under the word "pederast," Larousse entry: "In the quarters of one of them was found a large quantity of artificial flowers, garlands and wreaths, intended, without any doubt, for use as decorations and ornaments in their grand orgies." Gil was asleep, lying on his belly. Like every Sunday morning, he woke up late. Although they were in the habit of indulging in a long lie-in on that day, some of the other workmen were up and about. The sun was already high in the sky, piercing the fog. In addition to a strong pressure in his bladder Gil immediately felt the anguish of having to face this coming day, its atmosphere thick with his own shame; as if to gulp it all down as fast as possible, he opened his mouth in a huge yawn. He was delaying the moment of getting out of bed. He decided to take the greatest care to remain unnoticed, as he would ncfw have to invent a whole new method in order to start in on a life which would-from now on-be lived under the sign of contempt. Thus, this very morning, he had to create a new relationship with his mates from the shipyard. Stretched out under the sheets, he remained motionless. He didn't intend to go back to sleep, but wanted to think some more about what lay in store for him, to get used to the new situation, to think it through, so 99 I QUERELLE

• From Querelle (1953)

  "Now, did you get it shaight? No need to go in too close. I've told you, no one suspects that you're in with me, but it's better if you don't let them spot you." "Don't worry, Mario." Dede was getting ready to leave. He wound a red woolen muffler round his neck and put on a small, gray cap, the kind still worn by lads in the villages. He pulled out a cigarette from a number of loose ones in his coat pocket and nimbly popped it into Mario's mouth, then one into his own; without cracking a smile in spite of what it brought to mind. And then, in a suddenly grave, almost solemn fashion, he donned his gloves, the only symbol of his minimal enough afBuence. Dede loved, almost venerated these poor objects and would never just carry them in his hand, but always put them on with great care. He knew that they were the only d�tail by which he himself, from the depths of his self-imposed-therefore ethical-dereliction, touched upon the world of society and wealth. By these clearly purposeful motions he put himself into his proper place again. It amazed him now that he had dared that kiss, and all the games that had preceded it. Like any other mistake, it made him feel ashamed. Never before had he shown Mario, nor Mario him, any sign of affection. Dede was serious by nature. In his dealings with the detective, he seriously went about collecting his clues, and reported them as seriously every week in some secluded spot that had been agreed on over the phone. For the first time in his life he had given in to his own imagination. "Stone cold sober, too," he thought. In saying that Dede was a serious person, we do not mean that this was a quality he thought desirable. It was rather that his inherent gravity made it hard for him to ever force himself into a semblance of gaiety. He struck a match and held out the little flame to Mario, with a gravity greater than his ignorance of the rites. Since Mario was the taller, the little fellow offered 53 I QUERELLE up his face at the same time, in all innocence, partly shadowed by the screen of his hands. "And what are you going to do?" HMe . . ? Nothing. \Vhat d'you suppose. I'll just be wait . ing for you to get back." Once again Dede looked a t Mario. He gazed at him for a 'couple of seconds, his mouth half-open and dry. "I'm scared," he thought. He took a pull at his cigarette and said : "All right."

• From The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (1983)

  This girl had seen her so closely, had seen the redness of her flesh as it was punished, and had felt her writhing uncontrollably. Beauty would have cried again, but she didn't want to. For the first time, through a film of ointment, she felt the girl's naked fingers on her. They massaged the welts. "Ooooh!" the Princess gasped. "I'm sorry," said the girl. "I am trying so to be gentle." "No, you must go on. Rub it in well," sighed Beauty, "it feels good, actually. Maybe it's that moment when you take your fingers away." How try to explain it, her buttocks flooded with this pain, itching with it, the welts little hard pebblelike bits of pain, and those fingers pinching them and then releasing them. "Everyone adores you, Princess," the girl whispered. "Everyone has seen your beauty, and nothing to disguise it or hide your defects, and you have no defects. And they are swooning over you, Princess." "Is that really so? Or do you say it to console me?" asked Beauty. "O, it is so," said the girl. "O, you should have heard the rich women out in the Inn yard tonight, all of them pretending they weren't envious, but all of them knew that stripped they couldn't hold a candle to you, Princess. And of course the Prince was so beautiful, so handsome and so..." "Ah, yes," sighed Beauty. The girl had coated the buttocks now and was putting even more ointment into the flesh. And she worked some of it into Beauty's thighs, her fingers stopping just before the hair between Beauty's legs, and again, with fierce annoyance and shame, Beauty felt that pleasure coming back. And with this girl! "O, if the Prince were to know it," she thought suddenly. She couldn't imagine him being pleased, and it suddenly occurred to her that he might punish her any time she felt this pleasure without his giving it to her. She tried to put it out of her mind. She wished she knew where he was now. "Tomorrow," the girl said, "when you go on to the Prince's castle, the road all along the way will be lined with those who want to see you. Word is spreading all through the Kingdom..." Beauty gave a little start at these words. "Are you sure of it?" she said fearfully. It was too much to think of suddenly. She remembered that peaceful moment in the afternoon forest. She had been alone ahead of the Prince and had some how managed to forget the soldiers following him. And suddenly to think of people all along the road waiting to see her! She remembered the crowded village streets, those inevitable moments when her naked thighs or breasts even had been brushed by an arm or the fabric of a skirt -- she felt her breath halt.

• From Querelle (1953)

  tha t his body would then be ready for it. Slowly, eyes closed as if still asleep, and hoping to look convincing in case all other eyes were attending his awakening, he turned round in his bed. A beam of sunlight from the window shone straight onto his blankets, on which some buzzing flies had settled. Without knowing what it was that attracted them, Gil knew that it had to do with the exposure of some secret. As nonchalantly as possible, he pulled the object-his briefs-down under the sheets, to find that they were a pair sligh tly soiled with shit and blood at the back : this, in the sunlight, had been attracting the flies. Now they buzzed off with such an infernal drone that the room was filled with the sound of it, revealing Gil's infamy, proclaiming it with the majesty and splendor of an organ voluntary. Gil felt certain that it was Thea's vengeful doing: he had gone through Gil's kit bag, come up with the disgusting item, and placed it on the young mason's bed while he was still asleep. The boys had watched these preparations gravely, silently, not interfering, as they knew Thea to be a violent character, and as that trait of his made them feel more real to themselves. And, well, there was no harm in taking that young guy down a peg or two, was there? The sun and the flies-Thea hadn't even reckoned with them-had added their talen ts to the show. \Vithout raising it fr01n the pillow, Gil turned his head to the left : he felt something hard under his cheek. Most carefully, slowly, he extended his hand and pulled the object down under the sheets, against h is chest. It was a huge eggplant. He held it in his hand; it was quite beautiful, terrifyingly large, violet in color, round. All of Gil's suppressed angermanifest in the taut muscles under the smooth white skin, in the fixed stare of his green eyes, in his lack of wit, in his mouth ill at case with his always unfinished smile that refused to disclose any but his front teeth and looked as tight-stretched as a cntcl length of clastic that must flip back and hurt you; in his dry, colorless, and rather sparse hair; in his silences; in his clea r 100 I JEAN GENET

• From Querelle (1953)

  At the first thrust, so strong it almost killed him, Querelle whimpered quietly, then more loudly, until he was moaning without restraint or shame. Such lively expression of pleasure gave Norbert reason to feel certain that this sailor was not really a man, in that he was not able to exercise, at the moment of pleasure, the traditionary reserve and restraint of the manly male. The murderer suddenly felt ill at ease, hardly able to formulate the reason for it : "Is that what it's like, being a real 76 I JEAN GENET fairy?" he thought. But at once he felt floored by the full weight of the French Police Force: without really succeeding, Mario's face was attempting to substitute itself for that of the man who was screwing him. Querelle ejaculated onto the velvet. A little higher up on the cover he softly buried his head with its strangely disordered black curls, untidy and lifeless like the grass on an upturned clump of turf. Norbert had stopped moving. His jaws relaxed, letting go of the downy nape of Querelle's neck which he- had been biting. Then the brothelkeeper's massive bulk, very gently and slowly, withdrew from Querelle. Querelle was still holding his belt. The discovery of the murdered sailor caused no panic, not even surprise. Crimes are no . more common in Brest than anywhere else, but by its climate of fog, rain, and thick low cloud, by the grayness of the granite, the memory of the galley slaves, by the presence, right next to the city but beyond its walls-and for that reason all the more stirring-of Bougen Prison, by the old penitentiary, by the invisible but durable thread that linked the old salts, admirals, sailors, fishermen, to the tropical regions, the -city's atmosphere is such, heavy yet luminous, that it seems to us not only conducive, but even essential to the flowering of a murder. Flowering is the word. It appears obvious to us that a knife slashing the fog at any conceivable spot, or a revolver bullet boring a hole in it, at the height of a man, might well burst a bubble full of blood and cause it to stream along the inside walls of the vaporous edifice. No matter where the blow falls, small stars of blood appear in the wounded fog. In whatever direction you extend your hand (already so far from your body that it no longer belongs to you) , now invisible, solitary and anonymous, the back of it will brush against-or your fingers grab hold of-the strong, trembling, naked, hot, ready-for-action, rid-of-its-underwear prick of a docker or sailor who waits there, burning hot and ice cold, 77 I QUERELLE

• From Querelle (1953)

  For the first time in his life he dared think those obscene words that he had never been able to employ in his speech, had not even liked to hear. "Dragging me through your shit! And the look on Nona's mug, that asshole, when he told me about it!" The three dockers shifted their ground. Dede caught a glimpse of Robert's head, jammed between Querelle's thick thighs, pummeled by both his fists. All of a sudden one of Robert's felt-slippered feet swung up to kick Querelle in the face so that he had to let go. Dede hesitated for a moment before bending down to pick up the sailor's beret. He held it in his hand for a second and then put it on top of a stone post. If Robert was going to lose, he should not have to suffer the humiliation of seeing his little buddy, looking disconsolate, but wearing that flamboyant beret, blatant as a searchlight-nor would he see the boy holding oat that remarkable piece of headgear to the winner, as if crowning him. \Vhile he had not hesitated long, the chain of deliberations involved quite amazed Dcde himself. It surprised him, and gave him a feeling that was both painful-there had been a breach-and almost voluptuous. He was astonished to find-having made up his mind on what seemed a trivial matter-that it had become a matter of importance. The importance lay in the revelation to the kid's consciousness that he was a free agent. He thought that over. 122 I JEAN GENET The previous evening he had, while kissing Mario, cut across the even flow of an emotion that had begun long ago, and this first act of audacity had given him a glimpse of freedom, intoxicated him and fortified him enough to permit him to make a second attempt. Yet that (successful ) attempt had seemed to repulse the man (who, as we've said, lay slumbering) within him, aod who really was his own longed-for resemblance both to Mario and, in a greater degree, to Robert. Dede had known Robert when the latter was still working in the dockyards. Together they had pulled a couple of jv�s in the warehouses, and when Robert had graduated from docker to pimp, Dede had not told him about his relationship with the detective. All the same, because of their old friendship, and out of respect for Robert's success, Dede never thought of spying on him, but managed to obtain information from him that he could pass on to Mario. Querelle had gotten up again. Dede watched his buttocks contract. A mocking but appreciative voice yelled : "Wow, what a piece of ass! Wanna try it?"

• From Querelle (1953)

  Thus there need be no fakery in their dealings in that regard, no need to be anything but what they are : two males, most virile, perhaps jealous of each other, perhaps even hating, but never loving each other. Almost inadvertently Nono had told Robert everything. Nono had never tried to seduce Robert, nor had Robert, knowing the rules of the game, ever asked him for· the Madam's favors. In fact, when he first came to the brothel as a client he only noticed Madame Lysiane when she picked him out herself. Noticing what he thought was Robert's indifference to the idea of his brother's sleeping with him, Nono 121 I QUERELLE was more than pleased. In some obscure way he hoped to establish a friendship with Robert and gain his recognition as a Hbrother-in-law." Two days later he made a full confession, but started out with care : "I think I've made it. With your bro, I mean." "No kidding." "Honest to God. But don't mention it, not even to him." "It's none of my business. But are you trying to tell me that you managed to bugger him?" Nono laughed, looking both embarrassed and triumphant. "No kidding, you've done that? It does surprise me, you know." Madame Lysiane was kind and gentle. The tasty gentleness of her pale meat was combined with that kindness of a woman whose most essential function consists in watching over brothel clients, treating them like charming invalids. She told her "girls" to be ministering angels to these gentlemen; to see that the official from Police Headquarters, in love with Carmen, was voluptuously deprived of his candy; to let the old Admiral strut about naked, clucking, with a feather stuck in his anus, pursued round the room by Elyane dressed up as a farmer's wife; to be an angel to Mr. Court Reporter who liked to be rocked to sleep; an angel to the one who was chained to the foot of the bed where he would bark like a dog; to be angels to all those stiff and secretive gentlemen who were stripped bare to their very souls by the warmth of the brothel and Madame Lysiane's ministrations; all of which goes to show that she carried within her the lushness and beauty of a Mediterranean landscape. To herself, \vith a shrug of her shoulders, ivladame Lysiane sometimes used to say: ·wen, my dear girls-it is fortunate that such men exist : it gives the lowly-born a chance to experience love." She was a kind lady. 0 0 us I JEAN GENET Still disbelieving, Robert smiled at Nono. "Well, that's what happened. But you'll keep it to yourself, right?" "Sure thing." As the boss told him all about it, all the details, including Querelle's cheating at dice, Robert began to seem more and more indifferent. Inwardly, he was seething. Shame kept his mouth shut, creased his pale cheeks, and Nono thought he was rather dim-witted and gutless, after all.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  For her this was one of those discoveries the consequences and deductions from which are so immense that all that one feels for the first instant is that it is impossible to take it all in, and that one will have to reflect a great, great deal upon it. This discovery, suddenly throwing light on all those families of one or two children, which had hitherto been so incomprehensible to her, aroused so many ideas, reflections, and contradictory emotions, that she had nothing to say, and simply gazed with wide-open eyes of wonder at Anna. This was the very thing she had been dreaming of, but now learning that it was possible, she was horrified. She felt that it was too simple a solution of too complicated a problem. _“N’est-ce pas immoral?”_ was all she said, after a brief pause. “Why so? Think, I have a choice between two alternatives: either to be with child, that is an invalid, or to be the friend and companion of my husband—practically my husband,” Anna said in a tone intentionally superficial and frivolous. “Yes, yes,” said Darya Alexandrovna, hearing the very arguments she had used to herself, and not finding the same force in them as before. “For you, for other people,” said Anna, as though divining her thoughts, “there may be reason to hesitate; but for me.... You must consider, I am not his wife; he loves me as long as he loves me. And how am I to keep his love? Not like this!” She moved her white hands in a curve before her waist with extraordinary rapidity, as happens during moments of excitement; ideas and memories rushed into Darya Alexandrovna’s head. “I,” she thought, “did not keep my attraction for Stiva; he left me for others, and the first woman for whom he betrayed me did not keep him by being always pretty and lively. He deserted her and took another. And can Anna attract and keep Count Vronsky in that way? If that is what he looks for, he will find dresses and manners still more attractive and charming. And however white and beautiful her bare arms are, however beautiful her full figure and her eager face under her black curls, he will find something better still, just as my disgusting, pitiful, and charming husband does.” Dolly made no answer, she merely sighed. Anna noticed this sigh, indicating dissent, and she went on. In her armory she had other arguments so strong that no answer could be made to them. “Do you say that it’s not right? But you must consider,” she went on; “you forget my position. How can I desire children? I’m not speaking of the suffering, I’m not afraid of that. Think only, what are my children to be? Ill-fated children, who will have to bear a stranger’s name. For the very fact of their birth they will be forced to be ashamed of their mother, their father, their birth.”

• From Querelle (1953)

  106 I JEAN GENET smile, as if it had been a joke. Over the next few days, almost unconsciously, feeling the mason's desire thickening around him, he let himself go to the extent of some coquettish gestures. He simply exaggerated his natural allure. He was stroliing about the yards bared to the waist, he thrust out his chest, he pushed his cap a bit farther back on his head to let more of his hair show, and when he then saw Thea's eyes devouring each one of these pointed routines-he smiled. Not long after, Thea re peated his advances. Without appearing visibly a nnoyed Gil declared that he did not go for that sort of thing . .. I'd like us to be buddies, for sure. But I won't put up with any of that other shit." Thea lost his temper. So did Gil, but he didn't dare hit him, because of the drink he had just consumed at the mason's expense. From then on, in the yards, both while at work and during the breaks, and in the living quarters, at table and even sometimes when he was in · bed, Thea would crack terrible jokes at the expense of Gil who did not know how to retaliate. Little by little, the gang-from laughing, to start with, at Thea's jokes-ended up laughing at Gil who tried to rid himself of those seductive mannerisms he now saw provided each joke with its point, but he could not destroy his natural beauty; the too green, too vivacious shoots, burgeoning within him and scenting him, refused to wilt and die, since they were per meated with, and drew their nourishment from, the very sap of adolescence. Without their being aware of it, all respect for the young man dwindled away in the minds of the others. Step by step, Gil lost his standing; word by word, his dignity. He became a mere pretext for belly laughs. No longer did he re ceive any exterior confirmation of his own sense of himself. That sense was now sustained within himself only by the presence of shame, its pale flame rising as if fanned by the wind of revolt. He let himself be run into the ground. Roger did not show up. What would he have had to say?