Surprise

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 Trash (1988)

  The night before we moved Mama into MacArthur, the thunking refrain went on too long. I made myself lie still as long as I could, but eventually I sneaked out to check on Arlene. The lights were dimmed way down and the television set provided most of the illumination. The stair-stepper was set up close to the TV, and my mouth went dry when I saw my little sister. She was braced between the side rails, arms extended rigidly and head hanging down between her arms. I watched her legs as they trembled and lifted steadily, up and up and up. A shiver went through me. I tried to think of something to say, some way to get her off those steps. Arlene’s head lifted, and I saw her face. Cheeks flushed red; eyes squeezed shut. Her open mouth gasped at the cold filtered air. She was crying, but inaudibly, her features rigid with strain and tightened to a grotesque mask. She looked like some animal in a trap, tearing herself and going on—up and up and up. I watched her mouth working, curses visible on the dry cracked lips. With a low grunt, she picked up her speed and dropped her head again. I stepped back into the darkened doorway. I did not want to have to speak, did not want to have to excuse seeing her like that. It was bad enough to have seen. But I have never understood my little sister more than I did in that moment—never before realized how much alike we really were. Jack has been sober for more than a decade, something Jo and I found increasingly hard to believe. Mama boasted of how proud she was of him. Her Jack didn’t go to AA or do any of those programs people talk about. Her Jack did it on his own. “Those AA people—they ask forgiveness,” Jo said once. “They make amends.” She cackled at the idea, and I smiled. Jack asking forgiveness was about as hard to imagine as him staying sober. For years we teased each other, “You think it will last?” Then in unison, we would go, “Naaa!” Neither of us can figure out how it has lasted, but Jack has stayed sober, never drinking. Of course, he also never made amends. “For what?” he said. For what? “I did the best I could with all those girls,” Jack told the doctor, the night Arlene was carried into the emergency room raving and kicking. It was the third and last time she mixed vodka and sleeping pills, and only a year or so after Jack first got sober, the same year I was working up in Atlanta and could fly down on short notice. Jo called me from the emergency room and said, “Get here fast, looks like she an’t gonna make it this time.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Next morning, Messer Ricciardo saw Paganino and engaged him in conversation, losing no time in getting on friendly and familiar terms with him, while Paganino, pretending not to know who he was, waited to see what he was proposing to do. At the earliest opportunity, Messer Ricciardo disclosed the purpose of his visit as concisely and politely as he could, then asked Paganino to hand the lady over, naming whatever sum he required by way of ransom. ‘Welcome to Monaco, sir,’ replied Paganino, smiling broadly. ‘And as to your request, I will answer you briefly, as follows. It is true that I have a young lady in my house, but I couldn’t say whether she is your wife or some other man’s wife, for I do not know you, and all I know about the lady is that she has been living with me for some time. I have taken a liking to you, however, and since you appear to be honest, I will take you to see her, and if you are indeed her husband, as you claim to be, she will no doubt recognize you. If she confirms your story and wants to go with you, you are such an amiable sort of fellow that I am content to leave the amount of the ransom to your own good judgement. But if your story isn’t true, it would be dishonest of you to try and deprive me of her, for I am a young man and no less entitled than anyone else to keep a woman, especially this one, for she is the nicest I ever saw.’ ‘Of course she is my wife,’ said Messer Ricciardo. ‘You will soon be convinced when you take me to see her, for she will fling her arms round my neck immediately. I could ask for nothing better than the arrangement you suggest.’ ‘In that case,’ said Paganino, ‘let us proceed.’ And so off they went to Paganino’s house, where they entered a large room and Paganino sent for the lady, who came in from another room, composed in appearance and neatly dressed, and walked over to where the two men were standing. But she took no more notice of Messer Ricciardo than if he were some total stranger coming into the house as Paganino’s guest. On seeing this, the judge was greatly astonished, for he had been expecting her to greet him with a display of frenzied rejoicing. ‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘the melancholy and prolonged suffering to which I have been subjected, ever since I lost her, have wrought such a change in my appearance that she no longer knows who I am.’ He therefore addressed her as follows:

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Now that she was fully informed about his family and the names of his various relatives, the young woman devised an ingenious plan for achieving her object. On arriving home, she gave the old woman enough work to occupy her for the rest of the day, so that she could not keep her appointment with Andreuccio. Then she took aside a maidservant of hers, to whom she had given a thorough grounding in affairs of this sort, and towards evening she sent her to the inn where Andreuccio was staying. On arriving at the door of the inn, she happened to run across our hero, who was by himself, and she asked him where she could find Andreuccio. When he told her that he was the very man, she drew him aside and said: ‘Sir, there is a gentlewoman of this city who would be glad of a few words with you, if you have no objection.’ When he heard this, Andreuccio immediately assumed, on looking himself up and down and thinking what a handsome fellow he was, that the woman must have fallen in love with him, as though he were the only good-looking youth at that time to be found in Naples. So he readily agreed, and asked where and when the lady would like to see him. ‘You may come whenever you wish, sir,’ said the maid. ‘She is waiting for you at her house.’ ‘Lead the way then,’ Andreuccio promptly replied. ‘I’ll follow you.’ And without leaving any message at the inn, off he went. The maid conveyed him to the lady’s house, which was situated in a quarter called The Fleshpots,1 the mere name of which shows how honest a district it was. But Andreuccio neither knew nor suspected anything of all this, being of the opinion that he was on his way to see a gentlewoman in a perfectly respectable part of the city. Eventually, with the maid leading the way, they arrived at the lady’s house, and Andreuccio went boldly in. The maid had already hailed her mistress with the words ‘Andreuccio’s here!’, and as he mounted the stairs he saw the lady coming out on the landing to receive him. She was still very young, tall in stature, with a very beautiful face, and her clothes and jewellery were a model of good taste. Just before Andreuccio reached her, she opened her arms wide and descended three steps to meet him. Then she clasped him round the neck and remained for some time without speaking, as though hindered by a surge of powerful emotion. Finally, her eyes filling with tears, she kissed his brow and said, in a somewhat faltering voice: ‘Oh, Andreuccio my dear, how delighted I am to see you.’ Not knowing what to make of this barrage of affection, he replied, in tones of deep astonishment: ‘My lady, the pleasure is mine.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Marchese and Stecchi thought this a splendid idea, so all three of them promptly left the inn and went to a lonely spot, where Martellino contorted not only his hands, fingers, arms and legs, but also his mouth, his eyes and the whole of his face, becoming such a horrifying spectacle that no one would have taken him for anything other than a genuine case of hopeless and total bodily paralysis. In this state he was taken up by Marchese and Stecchi, and they headed for the church, with pity written all over their faces, humbly beseeching all those blocking their path to make way, for the love of God. They persuaded people to move without any trouble, and in brief, to the accompaniment of almost continuous cries of ‘Make way! Make way!’, and with all eyes turned in their direction, they arrived at the place where the body of Saint Arrigo was lying. There were some gentlemen standing round the body, and they quickly took hold of Martellino and laid him across it, so that it might help him regain the use of his limbs. Martellino lay there motionless for a while, with all eyes fixed upon him to see what would happen. Then, like the skilled performer that he was, he began to go through the motions of straightening out one of his fingers, then a hand, then an arm, and so on until he had unwound himself completely. When the people saw this, they applauded Saint Arrigo so rowdily that a roll of thunder would have passed unnoticed. Now it happened that there was a Florentine standing nearby, and although he was very well acquainted with Martellino, he had failed to recognize him when he was first led in, because of the grotesqueness of his appearance. But when he saw him standing up straight, he knew at once who it was, and he burst out laughing and said: ‘God damn the fellow! Who would have thought, to see him arriving, that he was not really paralysed at all!’ ‘What?’ exclaimed a number of Trevisans, who had overheard the Florentine’s words. ‘Do you mean to say he was not paralysed?’ ‘Heaven forbid!’ the Florentine replied. ‘He has always stood as straight as the rest of us. But as you could see just now, he has this extraordinary knack of disguising himself in any manner he chooses.’ There was no need to say any more, for on hearing this they forced their way to the front, and began to shout: ‘Take hold of that blaspheming swindler! He comes here pretending to be a cripple, poking fun at our Saint and making fools of us when he wasn’t really crippled at all!’

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Allen arrived home around eight that evening, tired from the long workday. He walked up to the front door and was surprised to find it locked; they almost never locked their doors. He used his key to enter, and then was surprised again by the baseball game blaring from the television in the living room. Neither he nor Brenda liked baseball—they never watched it. After he’d turned off the TV, the apartment seemed preternaturally quiet to him, as though nobody was home. Allen figured Brenda had taken the baby and gone out. “I turned to go and see if maybe she was at the neighbors’,” he explained later, “and I noticed some blood near the door on a light switch.” And then he saw Brenda in the kitchen, sprawled on the floor in a lake of blood. Upon calling Brenda’s name and getting no reply, he knelt beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “I touched her,” he said, “and her body felt cool. . . . There was blood on her face and pretty much everywhere.” Allen reached for the kitchen phone, which was resting on the floor next to his wife, and dialed 911 before he realized there was no dial tone. The cord had been yanked from the wall. As he walked to their bedroom to try the extension in there, he glanced into the baby’s room and saw Erica slumped over in her crib in an odd position, motionless. She was wearing nothing but a diaper, which was soaked with blood, as were the blankets surrounding her. Allen hurried to the master bedroom only to find the phone in there out of order, as well, so he went next door to a neighbor’s apartment, where he was finally able to call for help. He described the carnage to the 911 dispatcher, then called his mother. While he waited for the police to show up, Allen returned to his apartment. “I went to Brenda and I prayed,” he said. “And then as I stood, I surveyed the situation a little more, and realized that there had been a grim struggle.” For the first time he noticed that the blood wasn’t confined to the kitchen: it smeared the living room walls, the floor, the doors, the curtains. It was obvious to him who was responsible. He’d known the moment he’d first seen Brenda on the kitchen floor. The cops took Allen down to the American Fork police station and grilled him throughout the night. They assumed he was the murderer; the husband usually is. By and by, however, Allen convinced them that the prime suspect was actually the oldest of his five brothers, Ron Lafferty. Ron had just returned to Utah

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  People had begun to turn round and stare; Wanda was causing quite a diversion. Dickie grinned and skilfully egged her on, not perceiving the tragedy that was Wanda. For in spite of her tender and generous heart, Dickie was still but a crude young creature, one who had not yet learnt how to shiver and shake, and had thus remained but a crude young creature. Stephen glanced anxiously at Mary, half deciding to break up this turbulent party; but Mary was sitting with her chin on her hand, quite unruffled, it seemed, by Wanda’s outburst. When her eyes met Stephen’s she actually smiled, then took the cigarette that Jeanne Maurel was offering; and something in this placid, self-assured indifference went so ill with her youth that it startled Stephen. She in her turn must quickly light a cigarette, while Pat still endeavoured to silence Wanda. Valérie said with her enigmatic smile: ‘Shall we now go on to our next entertainment?’ They paid the bill and persuaded Wanda to postpone her abuse of the ingratiating Pujol. Stephen took one arm, Dickie West the other, and between them they coaxed her into the motor; after which they all managed to squeeze themselves in—that is, all except Dickie, who sat by the driver in order to guide the innocent Burton. 3At le Narcisse they surprised what at first appeared to be the most prosaic of family parties. It was late, yet the mean room was empty of clients, for Le Narcisse seldom opened its eyes until midnight had chimed from the church clocks of Paris. Seated at a table with a red and white cloth were the Patron and a lady with a courtesy title. ‘Madame,’ she was called. And with them was a girl, and a handsome young man with severely plucked eyebrows. Their relationship to each other was . . . well . . . all the same, they suggested a family party. As Stephen pushed open the shabby swing door, they were placidly engaged upon playing belotte. The walls of the room were hung with mirrors thickly painted with cupids, thickly sullied by flies. A faint blend of odours was wafted from the kitchen which stood in proximity to the toilet. The host rose at once and shook hands with his guests. Every bar had its social customs, it seemed. At the Ideal one must share Monsieur Pujol’s lewd jokes; at Le Narcisse one must gravely shake hands with the Patron. The Patron was tall and exceedingly thin—a clean-shaven man with the mouth of an ascetic. His cheeks were delicately tinted with rouge, his eyelids delicately shaded with kohl; but the eyes themselves were an infantile blue, reproachful and rather surprised in expression.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Then said Giusfredi to him, 'Currado, you have made me glad of many things and have long honourably entertained my mother; and now, that no whit may remain undone of that which it is in your power to do, I pray you gladden my mother and bride-feast and myself with the presence of my brother, whom Messer Guasparrino d'Oria holdeth in servitude in his house and whom, as I have already told you, he took with me in one of his cruises. Moreover, I would have you send into Sicily one who shall thoroughly inform himself of the state and condition of the country and study to learn what is come of Arrighetto, my father, an he be alive or dead, and if he be alive, in what estate; of all which having fully certified himself, let him return to us.' Giusfredi's request was pleasing to Currado, and without any delay he despatched very discreet persons both to Genoa and to Sicily. He who went to Genoa there sought out Messer Guasparrino and instantly besought him, on Currado's part, to send him Scacciato and his nurse, orderly recounting to him all his lord's dealings with Giusfredi and his mother. Messer Guasparrino marvelled exceedingly to hear this and said, 'True is it I would do all I may to pleasure Currado, and I have, indeed, these fourteen years had in my house the boy thou seekest and one his mother, both of whom I will gladly send him; but do thou bid him, on my part, beware of lending overmuch credence to the fables of Giannotto, who nowadays styleth himself Giusfredi, for that he is a far greater knave than he deemeth.' So saying, he caused honourably entertain the gentleman and sending privily for the nurse, questioned her shrewdly touching the matter. Now she had heard of the Sicilian revolt and understood Arrighetto to be alive, wherefore, casting off her former fears, she told him everything in order and showed him the reasons that had moved her to do as she had done. Messer Guasparrino, finding her tale to accord perfectly with that of Currado's messenger, began to give credit to the latter's words and having by one means and another, like a very astute man as he was, made enquiry of the matter and happening hourly upon things that gave him more and more assurance of the fact, took shame to himself of his mean usage of the lad, in amends whereof, knowing what Arrighetto had been and was, he gave him to wife a fair young daughter of his, eleven years of age, with a great dowry. Then, after making a great bride-feast thereon, he embarked with the boy and girl and Currado's messenger and the nurse in a well-armed galliot and betook himself to Lerici, where he was received by Currado and went up, with all his company, to one of the latter's castles, not far removed thence, where there was a great banquet toward.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  No one spoke, they just sat and stared at each other with faces entirely devoid of emotion; their faces looked blank, like so many masks from which had been sponged every trace of expression —and they waited—listening to that silence. The door opened and in walked an untidy Poilu; his manner was casual, his voice apathetic: ‘Eh bien, mesdames, c’est l’Armistice.’ But his shining brown eyes were not at all apathetic. ‘Oui, c’est l’Armistice,’ he repeated coolly; then he shrugged, as a man might do who would say: ‘What is all this to me?’ After which he grinned broadly in spite of himself, he was still very young, and turning on his heel he departed. Stephen said: ‘So it’s over,’ and she looked at Mary, who had jumped up, and was looking in her turn at Stephen. Mary said: ‘This means . . .’ but she stopped abruptly. Bless said: ‘Got a match, anyone? Oh thanks!’ And she groped for her white metal cigarette case. Howard said: ‘Well, the first thing I’m going to do is to get my hair properly shampooed in Paris.’ Thurloe laughed shrilly, then she started to whistle, kicking the recalcitrant fire as she did so. But funny, old, monosyllabic Blakeney with her curly white hair cropped as close as an Uhlan’s—Blakeney who had long ago done with emotions—quite suddenly laid her arms on the table and her head on her arms, and she wept, and she wept. 2 Stephen stayed with the Unit right up to the eve of its departure for Germany, then she left it, taking Mary Llewellyn with her. Their work was over; remained only the honour of joining the army’s triumphal progress, but Mary Llewellyn was completely worn out, and Stephen had no thought except for Mary. They said farewell to Mrs. Claude Breakspeare, to Howard and Blakeney and the rest of their comrades. And Stephen knew, as indeed did they also, that a mighty event had slipped into the past, had gone from them into the realms of history—something terrible yet splendid, a oneness with life in its titanic struggle against death. Not a woman of them all but felt vaguely regretful in spite of the infinite blessing of peace, for none could know what the future might hold of trivial days filled with trivial actions. Great wars will be followed by great discontents —the pruning knife has been laid to the tree, and the urge to grow throbs through its mutilated branches. 3 The house in the Rue Jacob was en fête in honour of Stephen’s arrival.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  shared what Ken had told me with my wife. She and I both did a lot of questioning about whether it was true or not. We went through an intense period of investigating and fasting and praying. At the end both of us were impressed that the fundamentalist message was basically true. And if it was true, we couldn’t ignore it. That was the frame of mind I was in when I first met the Prophet Onias, Bob Crossfield.” Because Brady was a stockholder in the Dream Mine, he was well acquainted with the prophecies of John Koyle, one of which referred to a “lightly complected man with white hair who would come from the North with whom the stockholders would rally and bring remarkable changes in and around the mine.” This seemed to predict the arrival of Onias in Salem, impressing Brady. Coincidentally, at the time he met Onias, Onias was in the process of putting together an organization called the School of the Prophets, and he invited Brady to become one of the school’s six original counselors. Modeled on an institution of the same name established by Joseph Smith in 1832, Onias intended his School of the Prophets to be a mechanism for instilling crucial Mormon principles that had been forsaken by the modern LDS Church: plural marriage; the tenet that God and Adam, the first man, were one and the same; and the divinely ordained supremacy of the white race. All of which was customary fundamentalist fare. But there was one aspect of Onias’s School of the Prophets that set him apart from the leaders of other polygamist sects: he instructed his followers how to receive divine revelations. Indeed, teaching this sacred art—which had been widely practiced by Mormons in Joseph’s day yet all but abandoned by the modern Church—was the school’s main thrust. Onias intended to restore the gift of revelation by teaching twentieth-century Saints how to hear the “still small voice” of God, which, as Joseph explained in Section 85 of The Doctrine and Covenants, “whispereth through and pierceth all things, and often times it maketh my bones to quake.” Brady, energized by Onias’s ideas, set out to recruit worthy candidates for the school. One of them turned out to be a fellow named Watson Lafferty Jr. “He was a real quality individual,” Brady asserts. “And Watson said he had five brothers who were just like him. So I met them, and the whole Lafferty family was outstanding. They all had real strong convictions, but especially Watson’s older brother Dan. He would go out of his way to help others much more than most people would. And Dan was unique in the strength of his desire to do what

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Wherefore, in process of time, it befell that,--the time coming for a great assemblage, in the guise of a fair, of merchants, both Christian and Saracen, which was wont at a certain season of the year to be held in Acre, a town under the seignory of the Soldan, and to which, in order that the merchants and their merchandise might rest secure, the latter was still used to despatch, besides other his officers, some one of his chief men, with troops, to look to the guard,--he bethought himself to send Sicurano, who was by this well versed in the language of the country, on this service; and so he did. Sicurano accordingly came to Acre as governor and captain of the guard of the merchants and their merchandise and there well and diligently doing that which pertained to his office and going round looking about him, saw many merchants there, Sicilians and Pisans and Genoese and Venetians and other Italians, with whom he was fain to make acquaintance, in remembrance of his country. It befell, one time amongst others, that, having lighted down at the shop of certain Venetian merchants, he espied among other trinkets, a purse and a girdle, which he straightway knew for having been his and marvelled thereat; but, without making any sign, he carelessly asked to whom they pertained and if they were for sale. Now Ambrogiuolo of Piacenza was come thither with much merchandise on board a Venetian ship and hearing the captain of the guard ask whose the trinkets were, came forward and said, laughing, 'Sir, the things are mine and I do not sell them; but, if they please you, I will gladly give them to you.' Sicurano, seeing him laugh, misdoubted he had recognized him by some gesture of his; but yet, keeping a steady countenance, he said, 'Belike thou laughest to see me, a soldier, go questioning of these women's toys?' 'Sir,' answered Ambrogiuolo, 'I laugh not at that; nay, but at the way I came by them.' 'Marry, then,' said Sicurano, 'an it be not unspeakable, tell me how thou gottest them, so God give thee good luck.' Quoth Ambrogiuolo, 'Sir, a gentlewoman of Genoa, hight Madam Ginevra, wife of Bernabo Lomellini, gave me these things, with certain others, one night that I lay with her, and prayed me keep them for the love of her.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  They killed some people yesterday.’ ” Brady covers his face with his hands, then continues. “My legs buckled. I collapsed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.” SIXTEEN REMOVAL Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. * WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, “THE SECOND COMING ” Even though Brenda was unaware of the removal revelation, she had plenty of other reasons to fear all the Laffertys, including Allen. And fear them she did, but that didn’t deter her from standing up to the brothers on behalf of Dianna and the other wives. When Brenda disobeyed Allen, or her assertiveness embarrassed him in front of his brothers, he was apt to berate her with uncontrollable fury. Other times he vented his anger by beating her. One night toward the end of winter in 1984, Betty Wright McEntire was awakened after midnight by a frantic phone call from Brenda. “She told me to meet her at a McDonald’s halfway between Salt Lake and American Fork, where she and Allen lived,” Betty remembers. “I asked what was wrong, and she goes, ‘I just need to talk to you.’ So I got out of bed and drove down there. “When I got to the McDonald’s she told me, ‘I’m leaving him.’ I said, ‘What?! I had no idea things were that bad.’ She said, ‘Well, I’ve been secretly saving some money, and I’m going to go live with Grandpa and Grandma in Montana. I’ll get a job there and take care of the baby on my own.’ ” But immediately after this meeting with her sister, Brenda changed her mind and stayed with Allen, which raises the question, Why? Especially after she had been so resolute in urging Dianna Lafferty to leave Ron. “How come Brenda didn’t split? Because she loved Allen,” Betty explains, “and she wasn’t one to quit. He was the father of her baby girl. She wanted it to work. She really thought she could save him from his brothers. She was a very determined woman.” Betty makes a painful confession, however. When Brenda confided to her at McDonald’s under the cruel fluorescent glare that she was leaving Allen, Betty reflexively admonished, “But you can’t! You’re married now.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  Some of the young women begged the assassins after they had run out on us not to kill them, but they had no mercy on them, clubbing their guns and beating out their brains.” According to Nephi Johnson, a Mormon who later confessed his own culpability to historian Juanita Brooks, “White men did most of the killing.” The slaughter was over in a matter of minutes, leaving an estimated 120 emigrants dead. Approximately fifty of the victims were men, twenty were women, and fifty were children or adolescents. Out of the entire Fancher wagon train, only seventeen lives were spared—all of them children no more than five years old, deemed too young to remember enough to bear witness against the Saints. * When quiet settled over the killing field, the Mormons looted the corpses for valuables; after the Saints had gathered what they wanted, they allowed the Indians to take the rest. The dead emigrants were soon stripped of everything, including every shred of clothing they’d been wearing. Very little of the plunder went to the Indians, however. According to historian Will Bagley, “The Paiutes only got about twenty horses and mules while the Mormon officers claimed the best animals for themselves, a measure of contempt for their allies. . . . In the desperately poor country of southern Utah, the spoils of the slaughtered immigrants became a source of envy and conflict. Some of his neighbors felt that Lee had swindled them out of their share.” Colonel William Dame and Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Haight—whose orders had prompted the slaughter—arrived at the Mountain Meadow from Cedar City on the morning after the killing had ended. It was the forty-fifth birthday of John D. Lee, who escorted his commanding officers to the site of the butchery, where they were confronted with the naked, horribly brutalized bodies of men, women, and children scattered across the landscape in twisted poses of rigor mortis. “Colonel Dame was silent for some time,” recalled Lee. “He looked all over the field, and was quite pale, and looked uneasy and frightened. I thought then that he was just finding out the difference between giving and executing orders for wholesale killing.” Dame expressed shock at the carnage and tried to absolve himself of any responsibility for it. This infuriated Haight. “You ordered it done,” he spat back at his superior officer. “Nothing has been done except by your orders, and it is too late in the day for you to order things done and then go back on it.” Confronted with this irrefutable statement of fact, Dame lost his composure and appeared as though he might burst into tears.

• From Under the Banner of Heaven (2003)

  kingdom of glory.” Although Dan’s father adhered rigidly to Mormon doctrine, he could not be called a fundamentalist. “I don’t think the word polygamy was ever mentioned while I was growing up,” says Dan. “It never even crossed my mind. The first time I ever had a conversation with anyone about polygamy, it was about a group of missionaries in France who were excommunicated after they studied Section 132 together and decided polygamy was a principle that should be practiced. I can still remember thinking to myself, ‘How could anyone sacrifice their membership in the church over that old, discontinued principle?’ ” After high school Dan went on a two-year mission to Scotland, where he met Matilda Loomis, a divorced mother of two young girls, who made a powerful impression on him. Six years after returning from his mission, Dan bumped into Matilda by chance at a missionary reunion. “I was getting kind of old by then,” Dan says, “and my father and older brother, Ron, had been getting on me to get married. I had met a lot of lovely girls previously, but whenever I prayed about whether I should marry them, I realized none of them was the right one. So then I ran into Matilda at this reunion, and I thought, Well, I should probably pray about marrying her, too, before she goes back to Scotland, just in case that’s what God has in mind for me. And this time I was quite surprised to get a positive answer to my prayers. So I told Matilda that we should get married. “I thought it was going to be really awkward trying to explain that God intended her to be my wife, and I was worried how she would react. So I was kind of thrown off when she answered, ‘Yeah, I know.’ I said, What do you mean, ‘I know’? She explained that God had told her to come to America just for that reason, to get married. She said that she was expecting me to ask her.” Within three months Dan and Matilda were sealed as husband and wife in the Provo temple and moved to California, with Matilda’s kids in tow, so that Dan could enroll in the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic. One Sunday near the end of their five years in California, Dan and Matilda happened to hear a member of their local LDS ward give a talk about plural marriage. “During the talk this guy said, ‘Okay, let’s see a show of hands from everybody who comes from a polygamous background,’ ” Dan recalls. “And there were only like four people who didn’t raise their hands in the whole congregation. That really got my attention. I decided to learn everything I could

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  In absolute silence Stephen obeyed her. Thus it was that those two confronted each other, flesh of flesh, blood of blood, they confronted each other across the wide gulf set between them. Then Anna handed her daughter a letter: ‘Read this,’ she said briefly. And Stephen read: DEAR LADY ANNA, With deep repugnance I take up my pen, for certain things won’t bear thinking about, much less being written. But I feel that I owe you some explanation of my reasons for having come to the decision that I cannot permit your daughter to enter my house again, or my wife to visit Morton. I enclose a copy of your daughter’s letter to my wife, which I feel is sufficiently clear to make it unnecessary for me to write further, except to add that my wife is returning the two costly presents given her by Miss Gordon. I remain, Yours very truly, RALPH CROSSBY. Stephen stood as though turned to stone for a moment, not so much as a muscle twitched; then she handed the letter back to her mother without speaking, and in silence Anna received it. ‘Stephen—when you know what I’ve done, forgive me.’ The childish scrawl seemed suddenly on fire, it seemed to scorch Stephen’s fingers as she touched it in her pocket—so this was what Angela had done. In a blinding flash the girl saw it all; the miserable weakness, the fear of betrayal, the terror of Ralph and of what he would do should he learn of that guilty night with Roger. Oh, but Angela might have spared her this, this last wound to her loyal and faithful devotion; this last insult to all that was best and most sacred in her love—Angela had feared betrayal at the hands of the creature who loved her! But now her mother was speaking again: ‘And this—read this and tell me if you wrote it, or if that man’s lying.’ And Stephen must read her own misery jibing at her from those pages in Ralph Crossby’s stiff and clerical handwriting. She looked up: ‘Yes, Mother, I wrote it.’ Then Anna began to speak very slowly as though nothing of what she would say must be lost; and that slow, quiet voice was more dreadful than anger: ‘All your life I’ve felt very strangely towards you;’ she was saying, ‘I’ve felt a kind of physical repulsion, a desire not to touch or to be touched by you—a terrible thing for a mother to feel—it has often made me deeply unhappy. I’ve often felt that I was being unjust, unnatural—but now I know that my instinct was right; it is you who are unnatural, not I. . . .’ ‘Mother—stop!’ ‘It is you who are unnatural, not I.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  This done, she made haste to open to her husband, to whom quoth she, as soon as he entered the house, 'You have very soon despatched this supper of yours!' 'We have not so much as tasted it,' replied he; and she said, 'How was that?' Quoth he, 'I will tell thee. Scarce were we seated at table, Ercolano and his wife and I, when we heard some one sneeze hard by, whereof we took no note the first time nor the second; but, he who sneezed sneezing yet a third time and a fourth and a fifth and many other times, it made us all marvel; whereupon Ercolano, who was somewhat vexed with his wife for that she had kept us a great while standing at the door, without opening to us, said, as if in a rage, "What meaneth this? Who is it sneezeth thus?" And rising from table, made for a stair that stood near at hand and under which, hard by the stairfoot, was a closure of planks, wherein to bestow all manner things, as we see those do every day who set their houses in order. Himseeming it was from this that came the noise of sneezing, he opened a little door that was therein and no sooner had he done this than there issued forth thereof the frightfullest stench of sulphur that might be. Somewhat of this smell had already reached us and we complaining thereof, the lady had said, "It is because I was but now in act to bleach my veils with sulphur and after set the pan, over which I had spread them to catch the fumes, under the stair, so that it yet smoketh thereof."

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  THE ARK NARRATIVE (4:1B—7:1) The story of Samuel is interrupted in 4:1b—7:1 by an episode in which he plays no part. This episode is generally recognized as an independent source document incorporated by the Deuteronomists. The theme of the story is the capture of the ark of the covenant by the Philistines. The ark is variously called the ark of God, the ark of YHWH, the ark of the covenant, or the ark of testimony. The association of the ark with the covenant is typical of the Deuteronomists; the Priestly writers prefer “the ark of the testimony.” In Deut 10:1-5 Moses is told to make an ark of wood as a receptacle for the stone tablets of the covenant. The story in 1 Samuel 4–6, however, makes clear that it is no mere box. It is the symbol of the presence of the Lord. It is carried into battle to offset the superior force of the Philistines, in the belief that YHWH is thereby brought into the battle. (Compare the chant uttered when the ark set out, according to Num 10:35: “Arise, O L ORD , let your enemies be scattered.”) The ark was also associated with the divine throne as the footstool of the Deity. The drama of the story in 1 Samuel 4–6 comes from the fact that YHWH’s enemies are not scattered before the ark. The Philistines overcome their initial panic and capture the ark. The capture of a people’s god or gods was not unusual in the ancient Near East. When one people captured the city of another, they typically carried off the gods, represented by statues, as booty. Even the god of Babylon, Marduk, was carried off in this manner. This was meant to show the superior power of the victor’s gods. The defeated people, however, explained things differently. Their gods were supposed to have let themselves be carried off because of anger with their own people. Nonetheless, the capture of the ark in battle was evidently a great shock to the Israelites. The shock led directly to the death of Eli, and his daughter-in-law named her son Ichabod (“no glory”), for “the glory departed from Israel” when the ark was captured. The story of the ark, however, has a positive ending for the Israelites. YHWH asserts his power by mysteriously destroying the statue of the Philistine god

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  Isaiah, we shall discuss Isaiah’s response in that context, in light of Isaiah’s whole career. For the present, it is sufficient to note that Isaiah tells the king not to fear and predicts that God will deliver Jerusalem for the sake of his servant David. It should be noted, however, that the prophet also says that the Judeans would have to eat what grows of itself for a year, and then what grows from that. Only in the third year would they be able to sow and reap in a normal manner. The manner of the deliverance is miraculous. The angel of the Lord struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. Sennacherib had no choice but to return home. What are we to make of this as a historical report? It is certainly surprising that Sennacherib did not destroy Jerusalem. Various explanations are possible. An epidemic in the Assyrian army might have given rise to the tradition that the angel of the Lord had intervened. There is a report in Herodotus (2.141) that the Assyrian army was ravaged by a plague of mice at the border of Egypt, but Herodotus’s report is also quite fantastic and does not inspire much confidence. According to 2 Kgs 19:9, Sennacherib heard that “King Tirhakah of Ethiopia” had set out to fight against him. (Tirhakah became pharaoh of Egypt only c. 690 B.C.E., but he had been a general in the Egyptian army long before that.) Sennacherib claimed victory in the battle ( ANET, 287), but the victory may have been less decisive than he claimed. Another possibility is suggested by the words of Isaiah in 2 Kgs 19:7: “I will put a spirit in him so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land.” No doubt, Sennacherib could have conquered Jerusalem, but it would have taken time. He may have had pressing affairs back home. Timely submission by Hezekiah may have saved the city and his own life. The account in 2 Kings, however, presents us with two quite different outcomes of the episode. In the first, Hezekiah had to scrape the gold off the temple to pay off the Assyrians. In the second, the Assyrian army was devastated and went home in defeat. Some scholars have argued that Sennacherib invaded Judah twice. The mention of Tirhakah as king, which he became only about 690 B.C.E., lends a little support to this view, but not enough. There is no other archaeological or historical evidence for a second campaign. Thus it is most

• From Introduction to the Hebrew Bible and Deutero-Canonical Books (2018)

  has to do is fear God and keep his commandments. This is the only time that the commandments are mentioned in Qoheleth. The epilogue practically tells the reader not to pay too much attention to the book. One does not need wisdom; it is sufficient to keep the commandments. We find a somewhat similar attitude later in the book of Baruch (see chapter 28 below). Qoheleth, in contrast, never suggested that “the whole duty of everyone” could be identified so simply. It is not surprising, however, that some scribes found Qoheleth troubling and tried to limit its influence. The greater surprise is surely that it was included in the canon of Scripture at all. Its inclusion may have been due to its supposed Solomonic authorship, but it also testifies to the critical spirit that pervades so much of the Hebrew Scriptures. FOR FURTHER READING Job Commentaries S. E. Balentine, Job (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2006). Well-illustrated theological commentary. N. C. Habel, The Book of Job (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985). Detailed commentary. Distinctive for defending the authenticity of the Elihu speeches. J. G. Janzen, Job (Interpretation; Atlanta: John Knox, 1985). Theological consideration of existential questions raised by Job. C. A. Newsom, “The Book of Job,” NIB 4:319–637. Elegant, literate commentary with theological reflections. M. H. Pope, Job (AB 15; New York: Doubleday, 1979). Classic philological commentary, rich in parallels with ancient Near Eastern literature. C.-L. Seow, Job 1–21. Interpretation and Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). Literary-theological commentary with attention to reception history. Studies J. L. Crenshaw, “Job, Book of,” ABD 3:858–68. Excellent overview of the critical issues. ————, Reading Job (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2011). Literary and theological commentary. K. J. Dell, The Book of Job as Sceptical Literature (BZAW 197; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1991). Categorizes Job as different from Proverbs/Wisdom. G. Gutiérrez, On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1987). Interpretation of Job in light of liberation theology. Avi Hurvitz, “The Date of the Prose Tale of Job Linguistically Reconsidered,” HTR 67 (1974): 17–34. Argument for the date of the prologue on the basis of language. C. A. Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). Sophisticated literary and moral analysis. L. G. Perdue, Wisdom in Revolt: Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job (JSOTSup 112; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991). Good discussion of the critical issues. S. Terrien, The Iconography of Job through the Centuries (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). Superb illustrated volume. J. W. Whedbee, The Bible and the Comic Vision (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 221–62. Job as comedy.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  This confluence of events led Feeney’s Jesuit superior to address the situation by ordering him to leave his post as chaplain at the Center and to report to Holy Cross College (forty-five miles away in the diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts) as an English teacher for the fall semester in 1948. Feeney refused. In December of that year, the Jesuit provincial (Feeney’s superior) informed him in a letter that as of the year-end, he would no longer be allowed to exercise his priestly duties in the Boston diocese. The Center was now under siege. Three weeks later, on January 19, 1949, Feeney, Catherine Clarke, and fifty-one followers—students and married couples, including my parents, Jim and Betsy Walsh—signed a document establishing themselves as a religious order, with Father Leonard Feeney, S.J., as their spiritual director. They signed under a statement that read: “We, the undersigned, having banded together as a religious order, dedicated to the glory of God and the protection of the doctrines of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church, have made our vows under the title of The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.” Each one of them took simple vows as religious members, promising “to make the first interest of my life the doctrinal crusade of Saint Benedict Center….” In other words, they were dedicating their lives to the doctrine of “No Salvation Outside the Catholic Church.” There was an irony in that declaration, because they were heading down a path that would end in Feeney’s excommunication. In addition, each of the signors pledged blind allegiance to Feeney, promising “obedience to Father [Leonard Feeney] and to whomever he may delegate.” The members of the newly formed religious community continued to work in their professions and support their families. My father, together with Fakhri Maluf and Charlie Ewaskio, carried on as teachers at Boston College, but less than three months later, each of them received a letter from the president of the college requesting their presence in his office. In the verbal confrontation that ensued, the “three professors” (as they were referred to by the members of the Center) maintained their commitment to teaching strict orthodox Catholic doctrine. The meeting ended in their dismissal. The date was April 13, 1949, the Wednesday before Easter Sunday. The headlines in all the Boston newspapers the following morning screamed “B.C. Teachers Fired after Probe,” and the story covered the front pages of the papers. The community, consisting of nearly sixty members, was in shock. As they gathered together in the cavernous main room of the Center on that day in 1949, I was among them, just eight months old. The two photos on the opposite page display the joviality of the Center shortly before the troubles unfolded. Four days later, on Easter Sunday, the professors appealed by cablegram to the Vatican, and the following day they met in person with Archbishop Cushing. But the most shocking news was yet to come.

• From Little Sister: A Memoir (2019)

  The momentary pause before she continued heightened my tension. I held my breath, not knowing what to expect in this “little conversation.” “You know, dear, religious life is not for everyone,” she began, “and we have concluded that you do not have a vocation to be a nun. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, because not everyone receives a higher calling from God. We will always love you and support you, and you will forever be my dearest godchild, whom I remember each day in my prayers.” I was stunned, trying to absorb Sister Catherine’s words, which came to me almost like a foreign language because of their stark contrast to what she and Father (that was how everyone at the Center addressed Leonard Feeney) had repeated verbatim for as long as I could remember: “You thirty-nine children are among the chosen few who have been dedicated to God from your infancy. Each of you has received a special blessing and calling to follow His will in religious life.” All my life, I’d been raised to believe that my destiny was not mine to determine. Despite my intense curiosity about all things worldly, I was well aware that I would have to forgo a life in the real world. I was preordained to live within the confines of this community. Having taken the first step toward the life of a nun—postulancy—at age sixteen, now a year later, I was nearing the day when I would enter the novitiate, one rung closer to taking final vows, which would signify my lifelong marriage to Christ and no other. Suddenly, in a flash, Sister Catherine was reversing the course of my young life. She continued to speak as I tried to grapple with the full meaning of her enigmatic message. “Many girls out in the world get married,” she went on, her tone of voice uncharacteristically dulcet, her manner as though she were educating me on a subject I knew nothing about, which was mainly true. I had not borne witness to marriages, because marriages had been banished in the community, including that of my parents. “But,” she said, and there was a long pause before the sweet tone of her voice took on a more somber timbre, “you should know, dear, that life as a wife isn’t as wonderful as it might seem in books. Each day before your husband comes home from work at five o’clock, you will have to stop whatever you’re doing and make yourself look pretty for him by putting on lipstick and curling your hair.” I shifted my glance from Sister Catherine to my mother in a futile attempt to glean what this monologue meant, but she stood silent, a passive participant in this meeting. I could only listen in disbelief as Sister Catherine described as mine the very life she had been decrying for years. Is she really telling me I can have a husband? And lipstick? And curl my hair?