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 Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  "The touch of her naked breasts, which were then just beginning to acquire their full, round form, quite delighted me, and it was while playing with them that the first voluptuous sensations were awakened within me. I had previously been sometimes surprised, especially on awakening in the morning, to find a certain little gentleman quite hard and stiff, and had been at a loss to ascertain what was the cause. And I was now still more surprised that as I played with her soft, yielding globes, the same effect occurred, but although the sensation was most agreeable, I was too ignorant regarding such matters to be able to connect the cause with the effect. Laura continued to kiss and play with me for some time, and at last I became aware that while with one hand she caressed me, the other was employed in some movement about her own person, the object of which I did not understand and did not think of investigating. The effect, however, seemed to be pleasant to her, for her kisses and caresses increased in ardour till at last with a heavy sigh they ceased at once; and she remained for a few minutes perfectly still. Then after another kiss she said she was afraid her aunt might come and find her away. So making me promise to say nothing of her visit she left me.

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  Betsy's discovery was made in a different manner. When she came, Frank kept under the bedclothes until I had stripped her, and getting into bed with her performed the hymenial rites in due order. When we had finished, I slipped off her on the other side of the bed from Frank, leaving her lying on her back all exposed to his observation. He commenced a survey of every part of her, joking her on the beauties he discovered and on the manner in which she had enjoyed the operation that had just been performed, and wondering whether it would give her as much satisfaction. Gradually he began to embrace her, and at last got upon her, asking me if that was the way Sir Charles would do it to her. "Yes that is it," said I, as he got between her thighs and placed himself in the position in which I had lately been, "only he would not have this stupid night dress about him, and he will have something stiff between his legs to put into that pretty little hole you see before you, now try what you can do to imitate him." While Frank clasped her in his arms and pressed his mouth to hers, I raised his shirt, and pointing his weapon at the mark, he thrust himself forward, and it slipped into her in an instant. Betsy's consternation was extreme as she felt the warm flesh within her. She had on many occasions tried the effect of Laura's substitute, but her experience of the real article had been quite enough to satisfy her that this was something of a different description, and she exclaimed, "Goodness gracious Miss Laura, what is the meaning of this?" Frank replied, tearing off his cap and exhibiting his short curls instead of Laura's flowing ringlets, "Well, I am glad I have got something to prove I am not a girl, for I was beginning to be afraid that the change of dress had effected a complete transformation." It was too late for any objection now. Nor did Betsy appear at all disposed to make any. On the contrary, the lascivious boy's motions were so lively and so well directed and his capacity for conferring pleasure so much greater than she had expected that she at once yielded herself up to the enjoyment, and joined in his amorous transports with hearty good will. And when he had given and drawn from her the first proof of their mutual satisfaction with each other and the young rogue still retained his position and proceeded to give her a second dose of his prolific balm, she was quite transported with delight and exerted herself with so much vigor and set to second his endeavours that they very soon sank exhausted in each other's arms enjoying to the utmost the second proof of the completion of their mutual overwhelming bliss.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  It was Koroviev, alias Fagott. True, Koroviev’s appearance was quite changed. The flickering light was reflected not in the cracked pince-nez, which it had long been time to throw in the trash, but in a monocle, which, true, was also cracked. The little moustache on his insolent face was twirled up and waxed, and Koroviev’s blackness was quite simply explained—he was in formal attire. Only his chest was white. The magician, choirmaster, sorcerer, interpreter—devil knows what he really was—Koroviev, in short, made his bows and, with a broad sweep of the lamp in the air, invited Margarita to follow him. Azazello disappeared. ‘An amazingly strange evening,’ thought Margarita, ‘I expected anything but this. Has their electricity gone off, or what? But the most striking thing is the size of the place . . . How could it all be squeezed into a Moscow apartment? There’s simply no way it could be! . . .’ However little light Koroviev’s lamp gave out, Margarita realized that she was in an absolutely enormous hall, with a colonnade besides, dark and on first impression endless. Koroviev stopped by some sort of little settee, put his lamp on some sort of pedestal, gestured for Margarita to sit down, and placed himself beside her in a picturesque attitude, leaning his elbow on the pedestal. ‘Allow me to introduce myself to you,’ creaked Koroviev, ‘Koroviev. You are surprised there’s no light? Economy, so you think, of course? Unh-unh! May the first executioner to come along, even one of those who later this evening will have the honour of kissing your knee, lop my head off on this very pedestal if it’s so! Messire simply doesn’t like electric light, and we’ll save it for the very last moment. And then, believe me, there’ll be no lack of it. Perhaps it would even be better to have less.’ Margarita liked Koroviev, and his rattling chatter had a soothing effect on her. ‘No,’ replied Margarita, ‘most of all I’m struck that there’s room for all this.’ She made a gesture with her hand, emphasizing the enormousness of the hall. Koroviev grinned sweetly, which made the shadows stir in the folds of his nose. ‘The most uncomplicated thing of all!’ he replied. ‘For someone well acquainted with the fifth dimension, it costs nothing to expand space to the desired proportions. I’ll say more, esteemed lady—to devil knows what proportions!

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  One of the convoy legionaries rapped with his spear, handed it to another, went over and took the ropes off the prisoner. The secretary picked up his scroll, having decided to record nothing for now, and to be surprised at nothing. ‘Admit,’ Pilate asked softly in Greek, ‘that you are a great physician?’ ‘No, Procurator, I am not a physician,’ the prisoner replied, delightedly rubbing a crimped and swollen purple wrist. Scowling deeply, Pilate bored the prisoner with his eyes, and these eyes were no longer dull, but flashed with sparks familiar to all. ‘I didn’t ask you,’ Pilate said, ‘maybe you also know Latin?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ the prisoner replied. Colour came to Pilate’s yellowish cheeks, and he asked in Latin: ‘How did you know I wanted to call my dog?’ ‘It’s very simple,’ the prisoner replied in Latin. ‘You were moving your hand in the air’—and the prisoner repeated Pilate’s gesture—‘as if you wanted to stroke something, and your lips . . .’ ‘Yes,’ said Pilate. There was silence. Then Pilate asked a question in Greek: ‘And so, you are a physician?’ ‘No, no,’ the prisoner replied animatedly, ‘believe me, I’m not a physician.’ ‘Very well, then, if you want to keep it a secret, do so. It has no direct bearing on the case. So you maintain that you did not incite anyone to destroy . . . or set fire to, or in any other way demolish the temple?’ ‘I repeat, I did not incite anyone to such acts, Hegemon. Do I look like a halfwit?’ ‘Oh, no, you don’t look like a halfwit,’ the procurator replied quietly and smiled some strange smile. ‘Swear, then, that it wasn’t so.’ ‘By what do you want me to swear?’ the unbound man asked, very animated. ‘Well, let’s say, by your life,’ the procurator replied. ‘It’s high time you swore by it, since it’s hanging by a hair, I can tell you.’ ‘You don’t think it was you who hung it, Hegemon?’ the prisoner asked. ‘If so, you are very mistaken.’ Pilate gave a start and replied through his teeth: ‘I can cut that hair.’ ‘In that, too, you are mistaken,’ the prisoner retorted, smiling brightly and shielding himself from the sun with his hand. ‘You must agree that surely only he who hung it can cut the hair?’ ‘So, so,’ Pilate said, smiling, ‘now I have no doubts that the idle loafers of Yershalaim followed at your heels. I don’t know who hung such a tongue on you, but he hung it well. Incidentally, tell me, is it true that you entered Yershalaim by the Susa gate 17 riding on an ass, 18 accompanied by a crowd of riff-raff who shouted greetings to you as some kind of prophet?’

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Before I knew it, her face was between my legs, tickling my clit almost as good as Telly. Her sex was so good. I just went with the flow, blocking out everything but the tingle crawling through me. I gapped my legs wider as she lashed me with a knowing tongue. I felt myself about to squirt, and I tightened my pussy muscles. I hadn’t been dicked down in weeks. I wanted this shit to last. “Ooh,” I moaned. “You like that, Star?” she asked, her whisper traveling from between my legs. “Yeah,” I admitted. Her dainty fingers opened my pussy lips, then slid in and out of me. I gripped the couch when she licked me, then stuck something inside me. A dildo. “You like that, Star?” she repeated, this time her words drifted directly into my ear. What the fuck? How can she be in my ear and sucking, and fucking me with a toy at the same time? Better not be that damn dog!My eyes shot open. Telly smiled. On his knees, he was between my legs feeding my pussy with the head of his dick. I jumped up. He pushed me back down. Brooklyn massaged my temples. “The best of both worlds,” Telly said. “Star, meet my wife.” Brooklyn kissed my cheek, then licked my earlobe. She laughed. “We already met.” I sat there, dazed, but not confused. I’d been set up, and it felt good as hell. AYEESHA Erick S. Gray I woke up to my six-twenty alarm, only to hear my man taking a shower. I sighed and stared over at the empty space. That man just doesn’t sleep, I thought. He came in late last night after doing whatever the fuck he did out on the streets, and now he’s gettin’ ready to bounce outta this house again. This niggah is up before me every fuckin’ morning, and obviously makin’ that money is more important than fuckin’ his wife. But I kept my mouth shut about it. I didn’t have to be at work until nine this morning, so that gave me time to play around and to try to get me some dick—for what it was worth. But instead of lying next to me in the sheets, he was in the fuckin’ shower. I’d had a crazy-ass dream last night, and I woke up with my pussy on fire. I’d dreamed that I was in a barn surrounded by huge black stallions that kept staring at me. I was encircled by at least a dozen long-dicked horses as I lay butt naked on a pile of hay. It was getting dark outside, springtime, and the wind softly skimmed my skin and sounded like it was faintly calling my name—Ayeesha—as it held me in my dream. I was in heaven for real.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  I think that the reason why I did not immediately recognize her, said Austerlitz, although despite her fragility she seemed quite unchanged, was my agitated condition, in which I could hardly believe my eyes. So I merely stammered out the sentence I had laboriously learnt by heart the day before: Promirite, prosim, ze Vas obtézuji. Hledam pani Agdtu Austerlitzovou, kterd zde moznd v roce devatendct set tricet osm bydlela. I am looking for a Mrs. Agata Austerlitzova who may have been living here in 1938. With a gesture of alarm, Vera covered her face with both hands, hands which, it flashed through my mind, were endlessly familiar to me, stared at me over her spread fingertips, and very quietly but with what to me was a quite singular clarity spoke these words in French: Jacquot, she said, dis, est-ce que c’est vraiment toi? We embraced, we held each other’s hands, we embraced again, I don’t know how often, before Vera led me through the dark hall into a room where everything was just as it had been almost sixty years ago. The furniture she had inherited in May 1933 together with her great-aunt’s flat, the display cabinet with a masked Meissen china Pulcinello on the left and his beloved Columbine on the right, the glass-fronted bookcase with the fifty-five small volumes of the Comédie humaine bound in

• From The Surprising Lives of Christian Saints (2023)

  1. Saints and the People Who Make Them The Story of Saint Guinefort The old inquisitor jolted down the little road toward Dombes on his donkey, bones creaking. Stephen of Bourbon was approaching 70, and this was one of the last trips he would make in his long career rooting out heresies on the backroads of France. He was looking for an extraordinary saint named Guinefort. Stephen had heard about Guinefort from women who had sought her help with healing miracles for their children through a series of strange rituals. At first, the friar was intrigued. Guinefort seemed like a valiant defender of children and a most efficacious and miraculous intercessor—a saint worth looking into. Imagine, then, his shock when he learned that Guinefort was, in fact, a dog. 2 1. Saints and the People Who Make Them Her story begins like this: A couple went out for the day, leaving their baby boy with his nanny. She put the child down for a nap and left him alone with the family dog. It was a peaceful scene until a large snake got into the room and slithered over to the cradle. The dog, a greyhound, lunged at the snake and knocked the cradle down. Dog and snake grappled until the dog won and the snake was dead. The nanny came back to a shocking scene: the dog covered in blood, crouched over the baby. Her screams brought the father running, sword drawn. Thinking the dog had attacked the baby, he killed the dog in anger. Then, the couple found the baby unharmed and the snake’s body nearby. They realized how they had wronged the dog. But it was too late to do anything but throw her body in a well, cover it with stones, and plant trees nearby to commemorate the valiant animal. In later years, the manor was abandoned, but the story of the dog’s bravery and unjust death spread. Local peasants honored the dog as a martyr and prayed to her, particularly mothers with sick children. Eventually, they developed a number of curing rituals, some of which actually put children’s lives in danger. That drew Stephen’s attention, and when he showed up in the village, he gave them a strong sermon about superstition and infanticide, cut down the trees, and dug up the dog’s body so that they couldn’t make it into a shrine. He believed that the cult had been thoroughly suppressed. He returned to Lyons, where he wrote up the incident and died a year later. A saint’s cult doesn’t have the same negative connotations we use for modern cults. In fact, an active cult was and is a requirement for official recognition of a saint. 3

• From From the Streets to the Sheets: Noire's Urban Erotic Quickies (2007)

  Monique drove in the snow straight past the G-Spot and parked two blocks over. She’d gotten a pretty good look at the windows on her way past, and even though Pluto claimed they were having a private baller party, the Spot looked dark and deserted and there wasn’t a single hustler or pimped-out ride to be seen sitting outside. Monique got out of her car and trudged through the snow back toward the Spot, hugging the buildings and staying in the shadows. She turned left at the corner, then ran across the street and slipped down the alley behind the Spot where she saw G’s Benz parked and waiting. It was cold as shit outside, and steam was coming from the tailpipe as the car idled. She walked in the tire tracks, then ducked behind a small garbage Dumpster when she saw Pluto, Moonie, Cooter, and Ace come out the side door, carrying something big that was wrapped up in plastic. “What the fuck!” Monique muttered under her breath as she watched them dump whatever it was in the back of the Benz, then fling a small plastic garbage bag in there along with it. Moonie slammed the trunk and all four of them went back inside the Spot, leaving the car running. Monique waited a few minutes then crept out of the shadows of the Dumpster, and keeping her feet in the tire tracks, inched her way over to the car. Whatever the fuck was in all that plastic had looked soft and heavy, and curiosity gnawed at her as she imagined what it could be. She was halfway between the Dumpster and the car when the door popped open again. Monique scuttled back to the Dumpster saying fuck the tire tracks, and dove behind it just as the four gangstas appeared once again. This time they were carrying something else. Something wrapped in a red sheet from one of the fuck rooms, and when Moonie yanked the trunk open and then slid the bundle halfway in, Monique gasped out loud at what she saw under the trunk lights. A hand and foot were sticking out. The hand hung from an opening in the sheet and something glinted in the darkness that Monique had seen a million times before. Gold and onyx. A special-order twenty-thousand-dollar ring. G used to twirl that shit constantly, like a bad habit. Especially when he was mad. Monique noticed that the foot hanging out was wearing a fly leather shoe. Italian leather, probably. The kind of shoes that paid niggahs like G had imported from overseas. Monique sat down on her ass in all that ice and snow. Her heart wanted to stop beating and she could barely believe what the fuck her eyes were telling her. Her dreams were dead.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Styopa croaked, feeling that his hangover had presented him with a new symptom: it seemed to him that the floor beside his bed went away, and that at any moment he would go flying down to the devil’s dam in the nether world. ‘My dear Stepan Bogdanovich,’ the visitor said, with a perspicacious smile, ‘no aspirin will help you. Follow the wise old rule—cure like with like. The only thing that will bring you back to life is two glasses of vodka with something pickled and hot to go with it.’ Styopa was a shrewd man and, sick as he was, realized that since he had been found in this state, he would have to confess everything. ‘Frankly speaking,’ he began, his tongue barely moving, ‘yesterday I got a bit . . .’ ‘Not a word more!’ the visitor answered and drew aside with his chair. Styopa, rolling his eyes, saw that a tray had been set on a small table, on which tray there were sliced white bread, pressed caviar in a little bowl, pickled mushrooms on a dish, something in a saucepan, and, finally, vodka in a capacious decanter belonging to the jeweller’s wife. What struck Styopa especially was that the decanter was frosty with cold. This, however, was understandable: it was sitting in a bowl packed with ice. In short, the service was neat, efficient. The stranger did not allow Styopa’s amazement to develop to a morbid degree, but deftly poured him half a glass of vodka. ‘And you?’ Styopa squeaked. ‘With pleasure!’ His hand twitching, Styopa brought the glass to his lips, while the stranger swallowed the contents of his glass at one gulp. Chewing a lump of caviar, Styopa squeezed out of himself the words: ‘And you . . . a bite of something?’ ‘Much obliged, but I never snack,’ the stranger replied and poured seconds. The saucepan was opened and found to contain frankfurters in tomato sauce. And then the accursed green haze before his eyes dissolved, the words began to come out clearly, and, above all, Styopa remembered a thing or two. Namely, that it had taken place yesterday in Skhodnya, at the dacha of the sketch-writer Khustov, to which this same Khustov had taken Styopa in a taxi. There was even a memory of having hired this taxi by the Metropol, and there was also some actor, or not an actor . . . with a gramophone in a little suitcase. Yes, yes, yes, it was at the dacha! The dogs, he remembered, had howled from this gramophone. Only the lady Styopa had wanted to kiss remained unexplained . . . devil knows who she was . . . maybe she was in radio, maybe not . . . The previous day was thus coming gradually into focus, but right now Styopa was much more interested in today’s day and, particularly, in the appearance in his bedroom of a stranger, and with hors d’oeuvres and vodka to boot.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Set me at ease, tell me, you’re not violent?’ ‘Yesterday in a restaurant I socked one type in the mug,’ the transformed poet courageously confessed. ‘Your grounds?’ the guest asked sternly. ‘No grounds, I must confess,’ Ivan answered, embarrassed. ‘Outrageous,’ the guest reproached Ivan and added: ‘And besides, what a way to express yourself: “socked in the mug” . . . It is not known precisely whether a man has a mug or a face. And, after all, it may well be a face. So, you know, using fists . . . No, you should give that up, and for good.’ Having thus reprimanded Ivan, the guest inquired: ‘Your profession?’ ‘Poet,’ Ivan confessed, reluctantly for some reason. The visitor became upset. ‘Ah, just my luck!’ he exclaimed, but at once reconsidered, apologized, and asked: ‘And what is your name?’ ‘Homeless.’ ‘Oh-oh . . .’ the guest said, wincing. ‘What, you mean you dislike my poetry?’ Ivan asked with curiosity. ‘I dislike it terribly.’ ‘And what have you read?’ ‘I’ve never read any of your poetry!’ the visitor exclaimed nervously. ‘Then how can you say that?’ ‘Well, what of it?’ the guest replied. ‘As if I haven’t read others. Or else . . . maybe there’s some miracle? Very well, I’m ready to take it on faith. Is your poetry good? You tell me yourself.’ ‘Atrocious!’ Ivan suddenly spoke boldly and frankly. ‘Don’t write any more!’ the visitor asked beseechingly. ‘I promise and I swear!’ Ivan said solemnly. The oath was sealed with a handshake, and here soft footsteps and voices were heard in the corridor. ‘Shh!’ the guest whispered and, jumping out to the balcony, closed the grille behind him. Praskovya Fyodorovna peeked in, asked Ivan how he was feeling and whether he wished to sleep in the dark or with a light. Ivan asked her to leave the light on, and Praskovya Fyodorovna withdrew, wishing the patient a good night. And when everything was quiet, the guest came back again. He informed Ivan in a whisper that there was a new arrival in room 119—some fat man with a purple physiognomy, who kept muttering something about currency in the ventilation and swearing that unclean powers were living in their place on Sadovaya. ‘He curses Pushkin up and down and keeps shouting: “Kurolesov, encore, encore!” ’ the guest said, twitching nervously. Having calmed himself, he sat down, said: ‘Anyway, God help him,’ and continued his conversation with Ivan: ‘So, how did you wind up here?’ ‘On account of Pontius Pilate,’ Ivan replied, casting a glum look at the floor. ‘What?!’ the guest cried, forgetting all caution, and clapped his hand over his own mouth. ‘A staggering coincidence!

• From Laura Middleton; Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

  At this sight, so suddenly and unexpectedly presented to her, without her at first being able to discover who it was that thus presented himself in such a guise, she was so struck with surprise and astonishment that she was in the utmost consternation and completely lost her presence of mind, remaining motionless even after I had fully appeared before her and approached her so that she must have recognised me. Aware that, if I was to profit by the opportunity, I must not lose a moment in explanation, I at once got between her thighs which were stretched out widely extended, and withdrawing the wretched mock article from its darling retreat, I threw myself upon her and instantly without the least hesitation replaced it with the reality. I was quite aware I should find some difficulty in getting admission, but most fortunately her situation was so extremely favourable that I was enabled so far to effect my object as to get the head of my weapon fairly inserted within the delicious lips of her charmer before she had recovered from her surprise sufficiently to offer any opposition. Then, indeed, she attempted to rise up, exclaiming, "Oh! Frank, Frank, this will never do." By this time, however, I had got my arms fairly round her waist and held her locked in a close embrace, and while I endeavoured to stifle her remonstrances with burning kisses on her fair lips, I exerted my utmost efforts to improve my position. My thrusts and heaves, driven with the greatest vigour my burning passion could inspire me with, evidently hurt her severely, but this I had expected and was fully prepared for, as I was aware from my previous inspections of the charming spot that it never had been stretched to such an extent as to enable me to attain free admission, and consequently I was not disposed to relax in my efforts on that account, trusting that the overwhelming pleasure that would ensue would fully make up for all suffering, and that I should obtain full possession, as soon as she should be enabled to join in my transports.

• From Trash (1988)

  “Come on, Paula.” I drop the half-melted ice back into my glass and wipe my hands on a napkin. “You lecture your friends, Margaret works too hard, Jackie lets herself be pushed around, and I flirt. It’s our natures. In all the time we’ve known each other, none of us has changed a bit.” Paula’s face freezes for a moment, then loosens, and her lips pull up slightly as if she would smile but can’t quite. Instead she reaches across the table and puts her hand on mine. “We’ve changed. We’ve all changed. I can remember when you would never talk back to anybody, when Margaret was on unemployment more than she worked, and Jackie would have bounced Fawn’s head off Pris’s backside before she would have let them fuck with her.” She’s right, but it’s a shock to hear her say it. It’s a shock to remember her as she used to be, the blunt and perceptive Paula who used to make me laugh all night with her caustic dissections of our neighbors. I loved her for it once, and stopped loving her when she got too careful to say those things anymore. It’s amazing what we have put up with from each other over the years, what we have seen each other go through, and what we have put each other through. Whenever I wonder why people hang on to old friends so desperately, I remember Jackie telling me she felt like her friends were the only record she had of what had happened in her life. “You still keep a journal?” she asked me. “I’ve always imagined that someday I might sit down and read all those journals you kept, see what happened that I wasn’t keeping track of.” “It’s Jackie we ought to be talking about. She needs our help.” Margaret puts both hands back on the table and looks at Paula and me expectantly. “What about Fawn and Pris?” I ask her. “I’ve got a few things to say about them.” “I think they need someone to really confront them with what they did.” Paula’s voice has gone flat again, her face become impassive. “That kind of thing doesn’t come out of nowhere.” “Confront,” I mouth back to her, wondering if all the women who use that word so easily know what they mean by it. I know what Paula’s gonna say now before she says it. She’s never seemed to notice how predictably her judgments peel off when she’s acting like the feminist therapist, like so many layers of toasted onion, each clinging delicately to the lower layers. “Jackie should have taken them to court,” Margaret announces.

• From Austerlitz (2001)

  Although Austerlitz did not reappear in the Glove Market in Antwerp that June day in 1967 on which, in the end, I went out to Breendonk, our paths kept crossing, in a way that I still find hard to understand, on all my Belgian excursions of that time, none of them planned in advance. A few days after our first encounter in the Salle des pas perdus of the Centraal Station, I met him again in an industrial quarter on the southwestern outskirts of the city of Liége, which I had reached towards evening, coming on foot from St. Georges—sur— Meuse and Flémalle. The sun was just breaking once again through the inky blue wall of cloud heralding a storm, and the factory buildings and yards, the long rows of terraced housing for the laborers, the brick walls, the slate roofs, and the windowpanes shone as if a fire were glowing within them. When the rain began lashing down on the streets I took refuge in a tiny bar called, as I remember, the Café des Espérances, where to my considerable surprise I found Austerlitz bent over his notes at one of the Formica tables. On this second meeting, as on all subsequent occasions, we simply went on with our conversation, wasting no time in commenting on the improbability of our meeting again in a place like this, which no sensible person would have sought out. From where we sat until late that evening in the Café des Espérances, you could look through a back window down into a valley, perhaps a place of water meadows in the past, where now the reflected light from the blast furnaces of a gigantic iron foundry glared against the dark sky, and I remember clearly how, as we both gazed intently at this spectacle, Austerlitz launched into a discourse of over two hours on the way in which, during the nineteenth century, the vision of model towns for workers entertained by philanthropic entrepreneurs had inadvertently changed into the practice of accommodating them in barracks—just as our best-laid plans, said Austerlitz, as I still remember, always turn into the exact opposite when they are put into practice. It was several months after this meeting in Liége that I came upon Austerlitz, again entirely by chance, on the old Gallows Hill in Brussels, on the steps of the Palace of Justice which, as he immediately told me, is the largest accumulation of stone blocks anywhere in Europe.

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  A soldier, standing alone in the cleared space of the square with a standard in his hand, waved it anxiously, and then the procurator, the legate of the legion, the secretary and the convoy stopped. A cavalry ala, at an ever-lengthening trot, flew out into the square, so as to cross it at one side, bypassing the mass of people, and ride down a lane under a stone wall covered with creeping vines, taking the shortest route to Bald Mountain. At a flying trot, small as a boy, dark as a mulatto, the commander of the ala, a Syrian, coming abreast of Pilate, shouted something in a high voice and snatched his sword from its sheath. The angry, sweating black horse shied and reared. Thrusting his sword back into its sheath, the commander struck the horse’s neck with his crop, brought him down, and rode off into the lane, breaking into a gallop. After him, three by three, horsemen flew in a cloud of dust, the tips of their light bamboo lances bobbing, and faces dashed past the procurator—looking especially swarthy under their white turbans—with merrily bared, gleaming teeth. Raising dust to the sky, the ala burst into the lane, and the last to ride past Pilate was a soldier with a trumpet slung on his back, blazing in the sun. Shielding himself from the dust with his hand and wrinkling his face discontentedly, Pilate started on in the direction of the gates to the palace garden, and after him came the legate, the secretary, and the convoy. It was around ten o’clock in the morning. CHAPTER 3: The Seventh Proof, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA CHAPTER 3 The Seventh Proof ‘Yes, it was around ten o’clock in the morning, my esteemed Ivan Nikolaevich,’ said the professor. The poet passed his hand over his face like a man just coming to his senses, and saw that it was evening at the Patriarch’s Ponds. The water in the pond had turned black, and a light boat was now gliding on it, and one could hear the splash of oars and the giggles of some miss in the little boat. The public appeared on the benches along the walks, but again on the other three sides of the square, and not on the side where our interlocutors were. The sky over Moscow seemed to lose colour, and the full moon could be seen quite distinctly high above, not yet golden but white. It was much easier to breathe, and the voices under the lindens now sounded softer, eveningish. ‘How is it I didn’t notice that he’d managed to spin a whole story? . . .’ Homeless thought in amazement. ‘It’s already evening! . . .

• From The Master and Margarita (1966)

  Well, both you and I know,’ here Bengalsky smiled a wise smile, ‘that there’s no such thing in the world, and that it’s all just superstition, and Maestro Woland is simply a perfect master of the technique of conjuring, as we shall see from the most interesting part, that is, the exposure of this technique, and since we’re all of us to a man both for technique and for its exposure, let’s bring on Mr Woland! . . .’ After uttering all this claptrap, Bengalsky pressed his palms together and waved them in greeting through the slit of the curtain, which caused it to part with a soft rustle. The entrance of the magician with his long assistant and the cat, who came on-stage on his hind legs, pleased the audience greatly. ‘An armchair for me,’ Woland ordered in a low voice, and that same second an armchair appeared on-stage, no one knew how or from where, in which the magician sat down. ‘Tell me, my gentle Fagott,’ Woland inquired of the checkered clown, who evidently had another appellation than Koroviev, ‘what do you think, the Moscow populace has changed significantly, hasn’t it?’ The magician looked out at the hushed audience, struck by the appearance of the armchair out of nowhere. ‘That it has, Messire,’ Fagott-Koroviev replied in a low voice. ‘You’re right. The city folk have changed greatly . . . externally, that is . . . as has the city itself, incidentally . . . Not to mention their clothing, these . . . what do you call them . . . trams, automobiles . . . have appeared . . .’ ‘Buses . . .’ Fagott prompted deferentially. The audience listened attentively to this conversation, thinking it was a prelude to the magic tricks. The wings were packed with performers and stage-hands, and among their faces could be seen the tense, pale face of Rimsky. The physiognomy of Bengalsky, who had retreated to the side of the stage, began to show some perplexity. He raised one eyebrow slightly and, taking advantage of a pause, spoke: ‘The foreign artiste is expressing his admiration for Moscow and its technological development, as well as for the Muscovites.’ Here Bengalsky smiled twice, first to the stalls, then to the gallery.

• From Saint Augustine (Penguin Lives) (1999)

  Augustine’s own appreciation of his mother’s worth seems to have come late—specifically at Cassiciacum. In earlier parts of The Testimony he had been harsh on Monnica when she lived only “on the outskirts” of God’s favor (2.8; O’Donnell 2.308). But at Cassiciacum, in accordance with a Neoplatonic openness toward women as philosophers, Monnica joined in the philosophical discussions—at just the time when Augustine was judging all human relations in terms of their usefulness to the search for truth. Though Monnica was very likely illiterate (O’Donnell 3.115), she amazed her son by her shrewd insights. He laughed at her earthy response when she learned that Academics elaborately prove they cannot prove anything. “They have the falling sickness,” she said (Happiness 16). She made an even sharper observation when a student denied Augustine’s claim that the mind feeds on wisdom. She chimed in: “Didn’t you yourself show us, just today, whence and where the mind is fed? After eating a bit, you said you had no idea what was being served, since you were thinking of something or other. Where was your mind when you were eating without knowing it?” (Happiness 8) Monnica had stumbled on one of Plotinus’ proofs that the soul is detachable from the body: “You could list many worthy activities, theoretical and practical, which might as well not exist, so far as we are aware when we are thinking while doing them” (Plotinus, The Nines 1.4.10). Some of Monnica’s remarks seemed almost oracular to Augustine, coming from one with no philosophical preparation. His own surprise, and her initial reluctance to participate, show that Monnica had not taken part in philosophical conversation before. Her son says, “I am daily struck anew by your natural ability” (O 2.45). Her piety he had long recognized, but not her natural acuteness (ingenium). There is pathos in the fact that this belated recognition was followed so soon by her death. But before she died she shared with her son a conversation in Ostia that lifted them to a joint experience of what they were contemplating, carrying them above (and almost out of) their bodies. Augustine describes his inability to describe this moment (T 9.25) in a single long mounting and subsiding sentence (its climax I italicize):

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  I was flabbergasted. I felt like giving her every damned thing I had. That touched me, that crazy little gesture. I thought to myself, it’s good to be rich once in a while, just to get a new thrill like that. Just the same, I didn’t lose my head. Fifty francs! That was quite enough to squander on a rainy night. As I walked off she waved to me with that crazy little bonnet which she didn’t know how to wear. It was as though we were old playmates. I felt foolish and giddy. “My dear kind sir... you have such a gentle face... you are so good, etc.” I felt like a saint. When you feel all puffed up inside it isn’t so easy to go to bed right away. You feel as though you ought to atone for such unexpected bursts of goodness. Passing the “Jungle” I caught a glimpse of the dance floor; women with bare backs and ropes of pearls choking them—or so it looked—were wiggling their beautiful bottoms at me. Walked right up to the bar and ordered a coupe of champagne. When the music stopped, a beautiful blonde—she looked like a Norwegian—took a seat right beside me. The place wasn’t as crowded or as gay as it had appeared from outside. There were only a half dozen couples in the place—they must have all been dancing at once. I ordered another coupe of champagne in order not to let my courage dribble away. When I got up to dance with the blonde there was no one on the floor but us. Any other time I would have been self-conscious, but the champagne and the way she clung to me, the dimmed lights and the solid feeling of security which the few hundred francs gave me, well. ... We had another dance together, a sort of private exhibition, and then we fell into conversation. She had begun to weep —that was how it started. I thought possibly she had had too much to drink, so I pretended not to be concerned. And meanwhile I was looking around to see if there was any other timber available. But the place was thoroughly deserted. The thing to do when you’re trapped is to breeze—at once. If you don’t, you’re lost. What retained me, oddly enough, was the thought of paying for a hat check a second time. One always lets himself in for it because of a trifle. The reason she was weeping, I discovered soon enough, was because she had just buried her child. She wasn’t Norwegian either, but French, and a midwife to boot. A chic midwife, I must say, even with the tears running down her face. I asked her if a little drink would help to console her, whereupon she very promptly ordered a whisky and tossed it off in the wink of an eye. “Would you like another?” I suggested gently. She thought she would, she felt so rotten, so terribly dejected.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  When everything has been loaded into the taxi there is only room for one of us inside. As soon as we commence to roll Van Norden gets out a newspaper and starts bundling up his pots and pans; in the new place all cooking is strictly forbidden. By the time we reach our destination all his luggage has come undone; it wouldn’t be quite so embarrassing if the madam had not stuck her head out of the doorway just as we rolled up. “My God!” she exclaims, “what in the devil is all this? What does it mean?” Van Norden is so intimidated that he can think of nothing more to say than “C’est moi... c’est moi, madame!” And turning to me he mumbles savagely: “That cluck! Did you notice her face? She’s going to make it hard for me.” The hotel lies back of a dingy passage and forms a rectangle very much on the order of a modern penitentiary. The bureau is large and gloomy, despite the brilliant reflections from the tile walls. There are bird cages hanging in the windows and little enamel signs everywhere begging the guests in an obsolete language not to do this and not to forget that. It is almost immaculately clean but absolutely poverty-stricken, threadbare, woebegone. The upholstered chairs are held together with wired thongs; they remind one unpleasantly of the electric chair. The room he is going to occupy is on the fifth floor. As we climb the stairs Van Norden informs me that Maupassant once lived here. And in the same breath remarks that there is a peculiar odor in the hall. On the fifth floor a few windowpanes are missing; we stand a moment gazing at the tenants across the court. It is getting toward dinner time and people are straggling back to their rooms with that weary, dejected air which comes from earning a living honestly. Most of the windows are wide open: the dingy rooms have the appearance of so many yawning mouths. The occupants of the rooms are yawning too, or else scratching themselves. They move about listlessly and apparently without much purpose; they might just as well be lunatics. As we turn down the corridor toward room 57, a door suddenly opens in front of us and an old hag with matted hair and the eyes of a maniac peers out. She startles us so that we stand transfixed. For a full minute the three of us stand there powerless to move or even to make an intelligent gesture.

• From Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can Get Out (2014)

  Psychologist Margaret Singer observed, “LGAT programs tend to last at least four days and usually five.”968 She explained, “Such programs seem designed more to get participants emotionally pumped up, suspending their judgment and following orders of the ‘trainers,’ than to impart anything connected with job performance.”969 Once the initial training is completed, it is often followed up and reinforced by continuing group involvement and a commitment to ongoing coaching through the LGAT organization. Subsequent to their enlightenment through the LGAT process, participants may become enmeshed in a kind of subculture revolving around the LGAT. This may include volunteer work for the LGAT despite the fact that most LGATs are for-profit, privately owned enterprises, not charities. LGAT graduates may also be encouraged to recruit and enroll others, essentially serving as a volunteer sales force for the LGAT company or organization. Such recruitment efforts not only provide the company with more paying customers but also serve to solidify the loyalty of its true believers. Frequently in an LGAT environment, emotions or feelings can become a subjective substitute for cognitive processes and objective reality. Reality in this sense can be turned on its head, denigrated, and even dismissed as if nonexistent. Psychologist Margaret Singer said, “The draw of these groups was the idea that each person is able to create his or her own reality.”970 The stripping away of individual defenses, coupled with the seemingly arbitrary labeling of thoughts and emotions as either “good” or “bad” according to the LGAT philosophy, has at times produced very negative results. In his book The Politics of Transformation: Recruitment-Indoctrination Processes in a Mass Marathon Psychology Organization ,971 author Philip Cushman warned about what he called “mass marathon training,” also known as LGATs. Cushman found that four potentially dangerous characteristics concerning encounter groups could also often be seen in mass marathon training. For this purpose he specifically cited the research of Irvin D. Yalom, MD, an authority concerning group dynamics, and his fellow researcher, Morton A. Lieberman, PhD.972 The four warning signs Yalom and Lieberman identified—and which Cushman referenced—are the following: “Leaders had rigid, unbending beliefs about what participants should experience and believe, how they should behave in the group and when they should change.”“Leaders had no sense of differential diagnosis and assessment skills, valued cathartic emotional breakthroughs as the ultimate therapeutic experience, and sadistically pressed to create or force a breakthrough in every participant.”“Leaders had an evangelical system of belief that was the one single pathway to salvation.”“Leaders were true believers and sealed their doctrine off from discomforting data or disquieting results and tended to discount a poor result by, ‘blaming the victim.’” The following examples of controversial LGAT programs provide a better understanding of why some LGATs have often been called deceptive and potentially unsafe. 2004—Executive Success Programs (ESP) Suicide In February 2004, thirty-five-year-old Kristin Marie Snyder killed herself. According to authorities, she paddled a kayak into a glacier-fed bay in Alaska and capsized it.

• From Tropic of Cancer (1934)

  That afternoon Collins confided to us that he was thinking of returning to his ranch in Idaho; he hadn’t been home for eight years and he wanted to have a look at the mountains again before making another voyage East. We were sitting in a whorehouse at the time, waiting for a girl to appear; he had promised to slip her some cocaine. He was fed up with Le Havre, he told us. Too many vultures hanging around his neck. Besides, Jimmie’s wife had fallen in love with him and she was making things hot for him with her jealous fits. There was a scene almost every night. She had been on her good behavior since we arrived, but it wouldn’t last, he promised us. She was particularly jealous of a Russian girl who came to the bar now and then when she got tight. A troublemaker. On top of it all he was desperately in love with this boy whom he had told us about the first day. “A boy can break your heart,” he said. “He’s so damned beautiful! And so cruel!” We had to laugh at this. It sounded preposterous. But Collins was in earnest. Around midnight Sunday Fillmore and I retired; we had been given a room upstairs over the bar. It was sultry as the devil, not a breath of air stirring. Through the open windows we could hear them shouting downstairs and the gramophone going continually. All of a sudden a storm broke—a regular cloudburst. And between the thunderclaps and the squalls that lashed the window-panes there came to our ears the sound of another storm raging downstairs at the bar. It sounded frightfully close and sinister; the women were shrieking at the tops of their lungs, bottles were crashing, tables were upset and there was that familiar, nauseating thud that the human body makes when it crashes to the floor. About six o’clock Collins stuck his head in the door. His face was all plastered and one arm was stuck in a sling. He had a big grin on his face. “Just as I told you,” he said. “She broke loose last night. Suppose you heard the racket?” We got dressed quickly and went downstairs to say good-bye to Jimmie. The place was completely demolished, not a bottle left standing, not a chair that wasn’t broken. The mirror and the show window were smashed to bits. Jimmie was making himself an eggnog. On the way to the station we pieced the story together. The Russian girl had dropped in after we toddled off to bed and Yvette had insulted her promptly, without even waiting for an excuse. They had commenced to pull each other’s hair and in the midst of it a big Swede had stepped in and given the Russian girl a sound slap in the jaw—to bring her to her senses. That started the fireworks. Collins wanted to know what right this big stiff had to interfere in a private quarrel.