Tenderness

Passages

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

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• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  I sent to the Ashram for Chhotalal, Surendranath and my son Devdas. About this time Mahadev Desai and Narahari Parikh with their wives cast in their lot with me. Kasturbai was also summoned for the work. This was a fairly strong contingent. Shrimati Avantikabai and Shrimati Anandibai were educated enough, but Shrimati Durga Desai and Shrimati Manibehn Parikh had nothing more than a bare knowledge of Gujarati, and Kasturbai not even that. How were these ladies to instruct the children in Hindi? I explained to them they were expected to teach the children not grammar and the three R’s so much as cleanliness and good manners. I further explained that even as regards letters there was not so great a difference between Gujarati, Hindi and Marathi as they imagined, and in the primary classes, at any rate, the teaching of the rudiments of the alphabet and numerals was not a difficult matter. The result was that the classes taken by these ladies were found to be most successful. The experience inspired them with confidence and interest in their work. Avantikabai’s became a model school. She threw herself heart and soul into her work. She brought her exceptional gifts to bear on it. Through these ladies we could, to some extent, reach the village women. But I did not want to stop at providing for primary education. The villages were insanitary, the lanes full of filth, the wells surrounded by mud and stink and the courtyards unbearably untidy. The elder people badly needed education in cleanliness. They were all suffering from various skin diseases. They were all suffering from sanitary work as possible and to penetrate every department of their lives. Doctors were needed for this work. I requested the Servants of India Society to lend us the services of the late Dr. Dev. We had been great friends, and he readily offered his services for six months. The teachers men and women had all to work under him. All of them had express instructions not to concern themselves with grievances against planters or with politics. People who had any complaints to make were to be referred to me. No one was to venture out of his beat. The friends carried out these instructions with wonderful fidelity. I do not remember a single occasion of indiscipline. 144PENETRATING THE VILLAGESAs far as was possible we placed each school in charge of one man and one woman. These volunteers had to look after medical relief and sanitation. The womenfolk had to be approached through women. Medical relief was a very simple affair. Castor oil, quinine and sulphur ointment were the only drugs provided to the volunteers. If the patient showed a furred tongue or complained of constipation, castor oil was administered, in case of fever quinine was given after an opening dose of castor oil, and the sulphur ointment was applied in case of boils and itch after thoroughly washing the affected parts. No patient was permitted to take home any medicine.

• From Post Office (1971)

  attitude was a bit different. He faltered again. God o mighty, I thought, doesn’t anybody notice but me? I looked around, nobody was concerned. They all professed, at one time or another, to be fond of him—”G.G.’s a good guy.” But the “good old guy” was sinking and nobody cared. Finally I had less mail in front of me than G.G. Maybe I can help him get his magazines up, I thought. But a clerk came along and dropped more mail in front of me and I was almost back with G.G. It was going to be close for both of us. I faltered for a moment, then clenched my teeth together, spread my legs, dug in like a guy who had just taken a hard punch, and winged the mass of letters in. Two minutes before pull-down time, both G.G. and I had gotten our mail up, our mags routed and sacked, our airmail in. We were both going to make it. I had worried for nothing. Then The Stone came up. He carried two bundles of circulars. He gave one bundle to G.G. and the other to me. “These must be worked in,” he said, then walked off. The Stone knew that we couldn’t work those circs in and pull-down in time to meet the dispatch. I wearily cut the strings around the circs and started to case them in. G.G. just sat there and stared at his bundle of circs. Then he put his head down, put his head down in his arms and began to cry softly. I couldn’t believe it. I looked around. The other carriers weren’t looking at G.G. They were pulling down their letters, strapping them out, talking and laughing with each other. “Hey,” I said a couple of times, “hey!” But they wouldn’t look at G.G. I walked over to G.G. Touched him on the arm: “G.G.,” I said, “what can I do for you?” He jumped up from his case, ran up the stairway to the men’s locker room. I watched him go. Nobody seemed to notice. I stuck a few more letters, then ran up the stairs myself. There he was, head down in his arms on one of the tables. Only he wasn’t quietly crying now. He was sobbing and wailing. His whole body shook in spasms. He wouldn’t stop. I ran down the steps, past all the carriers, and up to The Stone’s desk. “Hey, hey, Stone! Jesus Christ, Stone!”

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  The vakils would charge more whenever they had to go out of headquarters, and so the clients had naturally to incur double the expenses. The inconvenience was no concern of the judge. The appeal of which I am talking was to be heard at Veraval where plague was raging. I have a recollection that there were as many as fifty cases daily in the place with a population of 5,500. It was practically deserted, and I put up in a deserted #dharmashala# at some distance from the town. But where the clients to stay? If they were poor, they had simply to trust themselves to God’s mercy. A friend who also had cases before the court had wired that I should put in an application for the camp to be moved to some other station because of the plague at Veraval. On my submitting the application, the sahib asked me. ‘Are you afraid?’ I answered: It is not a question of my being afraid. I think I can shift for myself, but what about the clients?’ ‘The plague has come to stay in India,’ replied the sahib. ‘Why dear it? The climate of Veraval is lovely. [The sahib lived far away from the town in a palatial tent pitched on the seashore.] Surely people must learn to live thus in the open.’ It was no use arguing against this philosophy. The sahib told his shirastedar: ‘Make a note of what Mr. Gandhi says, and let me know if it is very inconvenient for the vakils or the clients.’ The sahib of course had honestly done what he thought was the right thing. But how could the man have an idea of the hardships of poor India? How was he to understand the needs, habits, idiosyncrasies and customs of the people? How was one, accustomed to measure things in gold sovereigns, all at once to make calculations in tiny bits of copper? As the elephant is powerless to think in the terms of the ant, in spite of the best intentions in the world, even so is the Englishman powerless to think in the terms of, or legislate for, the Indian. But to resume the thread of story. In spite of my successes, I had been thinking of staying on in Rajkot for some time longer, when one day Kevalram Dave came to me and said: ‘Gandhi, we will not suffer you to vegetate here. You must settle in Bombay.’ ‘But who will find work for me there?’ I asked. ‘Will you find the expenses?’ ‘Yes, yes, I will,’ said he. ‘We shall bring you down here sometimes as a big barrister from Bombay and drafting work we shall send you there. It lies with us vakils to make or mar a barrister. You have proved your worth in Jamnagar and Veraval, and I have therefore not the least anxiety about you. You are destined to do public work, and we will not allow you to be buried in Kathiawad.

• From Post Office (1971)

  I picked her up and carried her to the other room, sat down in a chair with her in my lap. She wouldn’t look at me. I kissed her throat and ears. One hand around her shoulders and the other above the hip. I moved the hand above her hip up and down with her breathing, trying to work the bad electricity out. Finally, with the faintest of smiles, she looked at me. I reached out and bit the point of her chin. “Crazy bitch!” I said. She laughed and then we kissed, our heads moving back and forth. She began to sob again. I pulled back and said, “DON’T!” We kissed again. Then I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, placed her on the bed, got my pants and shorts and shoes off fast , pulled her pants down over her shoes, got one of the shoes off, and then with one shoe off and one on, I gave her the best ride in months. Every geranium plant shook off the boards. When I finished, I nursed her back slowly, playing with her long hair, telling her things. She purred. Finally she got up and went to the bathroom. She didn’t come back. She went into the kitchen and began washing dishes and singing. For Christ’s sake, Steve McQueen couldn’t have done better. I had two Picassos on my hands. 16After dinner or lunch or whatever it was—with my crazy 12-hour night I was no longer sure what was what—I said, “Look, baby, I’m sorry, but don’t you realize that this job is driving me crazy? Look, let’s give it up. Let’s just lay around and make love and take walks and talk a little. Let’s go to the zoo. Let’s look at animals. Let’s drive down and look at the ocean. It’s only 45 minutes. Let’s play games in the arcades. Let’s go to the races, the Art Museum, the boxing matches. Let’s have friends. Let’s laugh. This kind of life is like everybody else’s kind of life: it’s killing us. “ “No, Hank, we’ve got to show them, we’ve got to show them …” It was the little small-town Texas girl speaking. I gave it up. 17Each night as I got ready to go on in, Joyce had my clothing laid out on the bed. Everything was the most expensive money could buy. I never wore the same pair of pants, the same shirt, the same shoes two nights in a row. There were dozens of different outfits. I put on whatever she laid out for me. Just like mama used to do. I haven’t come very far, I thought, and then I’d put the stuff on. 18They had this thing called Training Class, and so for 30 minutes each night, anyhow, we didn’t have to stick mail. A big Italiano got up on the lecture platform to tell us where it was.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Christianity intensified this regard for the departed, and gave it a solid foundation by the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body. Julian the Apostate traced the rapid spread and power of that religion to three causes: benevolence, care of the dead, and honesty.685 After the persecution under Marcus Aurelius, the Christians in Southern Gaul were much distressed because the enraged heathens would not deliver them the corpses of their brethren for burial.686 Sometimes the vessels of the church were sold for the purpose. During the ravages of war, famine, and pestilence, they considered it their duty to bury the heathen as well as their fellow-Christians. When a pestilence depopulated the cities in the reign of the tyrannical persecutor Maximinus, "the Christians were the only ones in the midst of such distressing circumstances that exhibited sympathy and humanity in their conduct. They continued the whole day, some in the care and burial of the dead, for numberless were they for whom there was none to care; others collected the multitude of those wasting by the famine throughout the city, and distributed bread among all. So that the fact was cried abroad, and men glorified the God of the Christians, constrained, as they were by the facts, to acknowledge that these were the only really pious and the only real worshippers of God."687 Lactantius says: "The last and greatest office of piety is the burying of strangers and the poor; which subject these teachers of virtue and justice have not touched upon at all, as they measure all their duties by utility. We will not suffer the image and workmanship of God to lie exposed as a prey to beasts and birds; but we will restore it to the earth, from which it had its origin; and although it be in the case of an unknown man, we will fulfil the office of relatives, into whose place, since they are wanting, let kindness succeed; and wherever there shall be need of man, there we will think that our duty is required."688

• From Post Office (1971)

  They have no idea what is going on up here. They just walk on the sidewalk. Yet, it’s funny … they were once born themselves, each one of them.” “Yes, it is funny. “ I could feel the movements of her body through her hand. “Hold tighter,” she said. “Yes.” “I’ll hate it when you go.” “Where’s the doctor? Where is everybody? What the hell!” “They’ll be here.” Just then a nurse walked in. It was a Catholic hospital and she was a very handsome nurse, dark, Spanish or Portuguese. “You … must go … now,” she told me. I gave Fay crossed fingers and a twisted smile. I don’t think she saw. I took the elevator downstairs. 13My German doctor walked up. The one who had given me the blood tests. “Congratulations,” he said, shaking my hand, “it’s a girl. Nine pounds, three ounces.” “And the mother?” “The mother will be all right. She was no trouble at all.” “When can I see them?” “They’ll let you know. Just sit there and they’ll call you.” Then he was gone. I looked through the glass. The nurse pointed down at my child. The child’s face was very red and it was screaming louder than any of the other children. The room was full of screaming babies. So many births! The nurse seemed very proud of my baby. At least, I hoped it was mine. She picked the girl up so I could see it better. I smiled through the glass, I didn’t know how to act. The girl just screamed at me. Poor thing, I thought, poor little damned thing. I didn’t know then that she would be a beautiful girl someday who would look just like me, hahaha. I motioned the nurse to put the child down, then waved goodbye to both of them. She was a nice nurse. Good legs, good hips. Fair breasts. Fay had a spot of blood on the left side of her mouth and I took a wet cloth and wiped it off. Women were meant to suffer; no wonder they asked for constant declarations of love. “I wish they’d give me my baby,” said Fay, “it’s not right to separate us like this.” “I know. But I guess there’s some medical reason.” “Yes, but it doesn’t seem right.” “No, it doesn’t. But the child looked fine. I’ll do what I can to make them send up the child as soon as possible. There must have been 40 babies down there. They’re making all the mothers wait. I guess it’s to let them get their strength back. Our baby looked very strong, I assure you. Please don’t worry.” “I’d be so happy with my baby.” “I know, I know. It won’t be long.” “Sir,” a fat Mexican nurse walked up, “I’ll have to ask you to leave now.” “But I’m the father.” “We know. But your wife must rest.” I squeezed Fay’s hand, kissed her on the forehead.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The effect of Christianity upon this gigantic social evil is that of a peaceful and gradual care from within, by teaching the common origin and equality of men, their common redemption and Christian brotherhood, by, emancipating them from slavery unto spiritual freedom, equality, and brotherhood in Christ, in whom there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, but all are one moral person (Gal. 3:28). This principle and the corresponding practice wrought first an amelioration, and ultimately the abolition of slavery. The process was very slow and retarded by the counteracting influence of the love of gain and power, and all the sinful passions of men; but it was sure and is now almost complete throughout the Christian world; while paganism and Mohammedanism regard slavery as a normal state of society, and hence do not even make an attempt to remove it. It was the only wise way for the apostles to follow in dealing with the subject. A proclamation of emancipation from them would have been a mere brutum fulmen, or, if effectual, would have resulted in a bloody revolution of society in which Christianity itself would have been buried. Paul accordingly sent back Onesimus to his rightful master, yet under a new character, no more a contemptible thief and runaway, but a regenerate man and a "beloved brother," with the touching request that Philemon might receive him as kindly as he would the apostle himself, yea as his own heart (Philem. 16, 17). Such advice took the sting out of slavery; the form remained, the thing itself was gone. What a contrast! In the eyes of the heathen philosophers (even Aristotle) Onesimus, like every other slave, was but a live chattel; in the eyes of Paul a redeemed child of God and heir of eternal life, which is far better than freedom.1190 The New Testament is silent about the effect of the letter. We cannot doubt that Philemon forgave Onesimus and treated him with Christian kindness. In all probability he went beyond the letter of the request and complied with its spirit, which hints at emancipation. Tradition relates that Onesimus received his freedom and became bishop of Beraea in Macedonia; sometimes he is confounded with his namesake, a bishop of Ephesus in the second century, or made a missionary in Spain and a martyr in Rome, or at Puteoli. 1191 Paul and Philemon. The Epistle is at the same time an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of Paul. It reveals him to us as a perfect Christian gentleman. It is a model of courtesy, delicacy, and tenderness of feeling. Shut up in a prison, the aged apostle had a heart full of love and sympathy for a poor runaway slave, made him a freeman in Christ Jesus, and recommended him as if he were his own self. Paul and Pliny.

• From Fragments (7)

  Her son desired she to enfold And in her loving hands to hold. 164 Corinna THESPIA (II) O Thespia, with offspring fair, Which strangers loves, to Muses dear. CORINNA AT TANAGRA (12) A beauteous stately song I'll sing, which will delight The Tanagran women who are clad in robes of white ; For wonderfully do my citizens rejoice At my clear-sounding, eloquent, and lively voice. AWAKE, CORINNA (13) Corinna, thee asleep I see? 'Twas not thus with thee formerly. MYRTIS AND PINDAR (14) Though Myrtis' song rings bright and clear, I cannot this commend : She, though a woman, did not fear With Pindar to contend. 165 TELESILLA Telesilla of Argos is usually placed at the end of the sixth century b. c. ; for it is said that when the Spartans under Cleomenes had annihilated the Argive army in 510, she called upon the women of the city to arm themselves in defence. How- ever, Herodotus, although he relates the story of that struggle, is silent about Telesilla, and this leads to the suspicion that it is a later myth. Eusebius, doubtless more correctly, places her much later — 451/0 b. c. Aside from indirect quotations and single words there is only one extant fragment: O maidens, this is Artemis, Who from the Alpheus River flees. 166 PRAXILLA Praxilla of Sicyon lived about 455 b. c. according to Eusebius. She wrote various kinds of lyric poetry, but w^as best known for her skolia or drink- ing-songs, in fact no. 3 is expressly called a skolion by Aristophanes, though without mention of the author. It seems that she was particularly popu- lar at Athens, as Aristophanes on two occasions im- plies a general familiarity of his audience with cer- tain quotations from her. She is also mentioned as giving her name to a certain meter, as an example of which is quoted the original of fragment 5. In addition she wrote poems in hexameter, as is shown by nos. i and 2. The latter gave rise to the proverb " more foolish than the Adonis of Praxilla," but it may well be that she intentionally repre- sented Adonis as being naive rather than that it was a slip on her own part. Of the general merit and character of her poetry it is, of course, impossible to judge from the five short extant fragments. ACHILLES (I) But the will in thy breast till now I have never per- suaded. 167 Lyric Songs of the Greeks ADONIS (2) Fairest of things I leave is the sun so beauteously gleaming, Second, the face of the moon and all the stars brightly beaming. And the cucumbers and apples and pears with which orchards are teeming. LOVE THE BRAVE (3) These words thou of Admetus learn. My friend, to love the brave; From cowards do away thee turn, For they no graces have. BEWARE OF SCORPIONS (4) 'Neath every stone, companion dear. The presence of a scorpion fear. A WEDDED BRIDE (5)

• From The Decameron (1353)

  The lady now understood very well how the case stood and telling the maid what she had heard from the physician, besought her help to save Ruggieri, for that she might, an she would, at once save him and preserve her honour. Quoth she, 'Madam, teach me how, and I will gladly do anything.' Whereupon the lady, whose wits were sharpened by the urgency of the case, having promptly bethought herself of that which was to do, particularly acquainted the maid therewith, who first betook herself to the physician and weeping, began to say to him, 'Sir, it behoveth me ask you pardon of a great fault, which I have committed against you.' 'In what?' asked the doctor, and she, never giving over weeping, answered, 'Sir, you know what manner young man is Ruggieri da Jeroli. He took a liking to me awhile agone and partly for fear and partly for love, needs must I become his mistress. Yesternight, knowing that you were abroad, he cajoled me on such wise that I brought him into your house to lie with me in my chamber, and he being athirst and I having no whither more quickly to resort for water or wine, unwilling as I was that your lady, who was in the saloon, should see me, I remembered me to have seen a flagon of water in your chamber. Accordingly, I ran for it and giving him the water to drink, replaced the flagon whence I had taken it, whereof I find you have made a great outcry in the house. And certes I confess I did ill; but who is there doth not ill bytimes? Indeed, I am exceeding grieved to have done it, not so much for the thing itself as for that which hath ensued of it and by reason whereof Ruggieri is like to lose his life. Wherefore I pray you, as most I may, pardon me and give me leave to go succour Ruggieri inasmuch as I can.' The physician, hearing this, for all he was angry, answered jestingly, 'Thou hast given thyself thine own penance therefor, seeing that, whereas thou thoughtest yesternight to have a lusty young fellow who would shake thy skincoats well for thee, thou hadst a sluggard; wherefore go and endeavour for the deliverance of thy lover; but henceforth look thou bring him not into the house again, or I will pay thee for this time and that together.'

• From Confessions of a Mask (1958)

  She lifted her white hand wearily and tapped her mouth lightly several times with her white fingers, as though performing some superstitious ritual. "Aren't you tired too, Kochan?" For some unknown reason, as she said this she covered her face with both sleeves of her kimono and buried it with a plop upon my thigh. Then, rolling her cheek slowly against my trousers, she turned her face up and remained motionless for a time. The trousers of my uniform trembled at the honor of serving as her pillow. The fragrance of her perfume and powder confused me. I looked upon her unmoving profile as she lay there with her tired, clear eyes wide open; I was at a loss. . . . That is all that happened. And yet I never forgot the feeling of that luxurious weight pressing for a moment upon my thigh. It was not a sexual feeling, but somehow simply an extremely luxurious pleasure, like that feeling produced by the weight of a decoration hanging on the breast. I often encountered an anemic young lady on the buses I took to school. Her cold attitude caught my interest. She always stared disinterestedly out the window as though very bored with everything, and as she did so, the willfulness of her slightly pouting lips was striking. When she was not on the bus, something seemed to be missing, and before I realized it I was breathlessly hoping to see her every time I got on the bus. I wondered if this could be what was called love. I simply did not know. I had not the faintest idea that there was any connection between love and sexual desire. Needless to say, during the time of my infatuation with Omi I had made no effort to apply the word love to that diabolical fascination he exercised over me. And now again, even while I was wondering if the vague emotion I was feeling toward the girl on the bus could be love, at the same instant I could feel attracted to the rough young bus-driver, his hair gleaming with heavy pomade. My ignorance was so profound that I did not perceive the contradiction involved here.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Accordingly, having learned the house and name of the lady whose daughter the count loved, she one day repaired privily thither in her pilgrim's habit and finding the mother and daughter in very poor case, saluted them and told the former that, an it pleased her, she would fain speak with her alone. The gentlewoman, rising, replied that she was ready to hearken to her and accordingly carried her into a chamber of hers, where they seated themselves and the countess began thus, 'Madam, meseemeth you are of the enemies of Fortune, even as I am; but, an you will, belike you may be able to relieve both yourself and me.' The lady answered that she desired nothing better than to relieve herself by any honest means; and the countess went on, 'Needs must you pledge me your faith, whereto an I commit myself and you deceive me, you will mar your own affairs and mine.' 'Tell me anything you will in all assurance,' replied the gentlewoman; 'for never shall you find yourself deceived of me.' Thereupon the countess, beginning with her first enamourment, recounted to her who she was and all that had betided her to that day after such a fashion that the gentlewoman, putting faith in her words and having, indeed, already in part heard her story from others, began to have compassion of her. The countess, having related her adventures, went on to say, 'You have now, amongst my other troubles, heard what are the two things which it behoveth me have, an I would have my husband, and to which I know none who can help me, save only yourself, if that be true which I hear, to wit, that the count my husband is passionately enamoured of your daughter.' 'Madam,' answered the gentlewoman, 'if the count love my daughter I know not; indeed he maketh a great show thereof. But, an it be so, what can I do in this that you desire?' 'Madam,' rejoined the countess, 'I will tell you; but first I will e'en show you what I purpose shall ensue thereof to you, an you serve me. I see your daughter fair and of age for a husband and according to what I have heard, meseemeth I understand the lack of good to marry her withal it is that causeth you keep her at home. Now I purpose, in requital of the service you shall do me, to give her forthright of mine own monies such a dowry as you yourself shall deem necessary to marry her honorably.'

• From Post Office (1971)

  12 Fay was all right with the pregnancy. For an old gal, she was all right. We waited around at our place. Finally the time came. “It won’t be long,” she said. “I don’t want to get there too early.” I went out and checked the car. Came back. “Oooh, oh,” she said. “No, wait.” Maybe she could save the world. I was proud of her calm. I forgave her for the dirty dishes and The New Yorker and her writers’ workshop. The old gal was only another lonely creature in a world that didn’t care. “We better go now,” I said. “No,” said Fay, “I don’t want to make you wait too long. I know you haven’t been feeling well.” “To hell with me. Let’s make it.” “No, please, Hank.” She just sat there. “What can I do for you?” I asked. “Nothing.” She sat there 10 minutes. I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. When I came out she said, “You ready to drive?” “Sure.” “You know where the hospital is?” “Of course.” I helped her into the car. I had made two practice runs the week earlier. But when we got there I had no idea where to park. Fay pointed up a runway. “Go in there. Park in there. We’ll go in from there.” “Yes, ma’am,” I said ... She was in bed in a back room overlooking the street. Her face grimaced. “Hold my hand,” she said. I did. “Is it really going to happen?” I asked. “Yes.” “You make it seem so easy,” I said. “You’re so very nice. It helps.” “I’d like to be nice. It’s that god damned post office ...” “I know. I know.” We were looking out the back window. I said, “Look at those people down there. They have no idea what is going on up here. They just walk on the sidewalk. Yet, it’s funny ... they were once born themselves, each one of them.” “Yes, it is funny. “ I could feel the movements of her body through her hand. “Hold tighter,” she said. “Yes.” “I’ll hate it when you go.” “Where’s the doctor? Where is everybody? What the hell!” “They’ll be here.” Just then a nurse walked in. It was a Catholic hospital and she was a very handsome nurse, dark, Spanish or Portuguese. “You ... must go ... now,” she told me. I gave Fay crossed fingers and a twisted smile. I don’t think she saw. I took the elevator downstairs.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  [Footnote 273: Or "augured well from the hearing of the name." _Carapresa_ signifies "a dear or precious prize, gain or capture."] Carapresa, like a good woman as she was, hearing this, left her in her hut, whilst she hastily gathered up her nets; then, returning to her, she wrapped her from head to foot in her own mantle and carried her to Susa, where she said to her, 'Costanza, I will bring thee into the house of a very good Saracen lady, whom I serve oftentimes in her occasions and who is old and pitiful. I will commend thee to her as most I may and I am very certain that she will gladly receive thee and use thee as a daughter; and do thou, abiding with her, study thine utmost, in serving her, to gain her favour, against God send thee better fortune.' And as she said, so she did. The lady, who was well stricken in years, hearing the woman's story, looked the girl in the face and fell a-weeping; then taking her by the hand, she kissed her on the forehead and carried her into her house, where she and sundry other women abode, without any man, and wrought all with their hands at various crafts, doing divers works of silk and palm-fibre and leather. Costanza soon learned to do some of these and falling to working with the rest, became in such favour with the lady and the others that it was a marvellous thing; nor was it long before, with their teaching, she learnt their language.

• From The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (2004)

  At such moments it was impossible to do anything with him. “I seem to have a particularly bad effect on him.” Jenifer had smiled ruefully. “But then I never seemed to have much control over my other children either.” The Harts had a nanny who had lived with the family for almost thirty years, ever since their oldest child, Joanna, had been born. “Nanny is a treasure,” Jenifer had told me sternly. “It’s vital that you get on with Nanny.” And Jacob was able to attend a special school for educationally disadvantaged children, which wasn’t really right for him, as in some ways he was apparently very bright. He had, I was told, an extraordinary vocabulary for his age, and could read fluently. “The doctors told me that he would never be able to read,” Jenifer said. “I think they thought that because we are academics, we were obsessed with literacy. They kept telling us not to push it. But you know, it happened quite naturally—by accident, really. When he was little, he used to sit next to me at breakfast while I read the paper, so to keep him quiet and give him something to do, I taught him to pick out all the O s and then the A s and so on, and then, all of a sudden, he started reading all by himself.” My job would be to look after Jacob while Nanny was off duty. That meant that I would take care of him after supper on Wednesday evenings, when Nanny went off to visit a friend, and Jenifer and I would share him on Saturday, which was Nanny’s half day. Jenifer would take him during the afternoon and give him his supper, and then I would take him to my room until it was time for bed. Because of his epilepsy, I would have to sit with him while he went off to sleep, until Jenifer came to bed, at about 10:30 p.m. I was startled to hear that for years she had shared a large attic room at the top of the house with Jacob, who was absolutely terrified of the dark and could not sleep alone because of his night terrors and seizures. Herbert, Jenifer’s husband, slept in his study next to the drawing room, a small, chronically disordered lair that was almost entirely filled with a massive homemade stereo system, constructed out of large wooden crates by Alan Ryan, the Harts’ former son-in-law, who was about to take up a fellowship at New College. Even though he was now divorced from Joanna, I was told that Alan was still very much a part of the family—an idea that I found intriguing. In my Catholic family, divorce was a cataclysm that led to permanent estrangement. “And,” Jenifer continued, “I wonder if you would mind relieving Nanny, who usually sits with him, when I am especially late—out at a dinner or something.

• From The Story of My Experiments with Truth (An Autobiography) (1927)

  We had to take the train from Durban for Phoenix, whence our Settlement was reached by a road of two miles and a half, I was undoubtedly taking a very great risk, but I trusted in God, and proceeded with my task. I sent a messenger to Phoenix in advance, with a message to West to receive us at the station with a hammock, a bottle of hot milk and one of hot water, and six men to carry kasturbai in the hammock. I got a rickshaw to enable me to take her by the next available train, put her into it in that dangerous condition, and marched away. Kasturbai needed no cheering up. On the contrary, she comforted me, saying: ‘Nothing will happen to me. Don’t worry.’ She was mere skin and bone, having had no nourishment for days. The station platform was very large, and as the rickshaw could not be taken inside, one had to walk some distance before one could reach the train. So I carried her in my arms and put her into the compartment. From Phoenix we carried her in the hammock, and there she slowly picked up strength under hydropathic treatment. In two or three days of our arrival at Phoenix a Swami came to our place. He had heard of the resolute way in which we had rejected the doctor’s advice, and he had, out of sympathy, come to plead with us. My second and third sons Manilal and Ramdas were, so far as I can recollect, present when the Swami came. He held forth on the religious harmlessness of taking meat, citing authorities from Manu. I did not like his carrying on this disputation in the presence of my wife, but I suffered him to do so out of courtesy. I knew the verses from the Manusmriti, I did not need them for my conviction. I knew also that there was a school which regarded these verses as interpolations: but even if they were not, I held my views on vegetarianism independently of religious texts, and Kasturbai’s faith was unshakable. To her the scriptural texts were a sealed book, but the traditional religion of her forefathers was enough for her. The children swore by their father’s creed and so they made light of the Swami’s discourse. But Kasturbai put an end to the dialogue at once. ‘Swamiji,’ she said,’Whatever you may say, I do not want to recover by means of beef tea. Pray don’t worry me any more. You may discuss the thing with my husband and children if you like. But my mind is made up. 108DOMESTIC SATYAGRAHAMy first experience of jail life was in 1908. I saw that some of the regulations that the prisoners had to observe were such as should be voluntarily observed by a brahmachari, that is, one desiring to practise self-restraint. Such, for instance, was the regulation requiring the last meal to be finished before sunset.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Of course she knows your Ladyship! She's just showing off," said Mrs. Flint, glowing and looking up with a sort of flushed confusion, "but it's so long since she's seen you. I do hope you are better." "Yes thanks, I'm all right." "We've hardly seen you all winter. Will you come in and look at the baby?" "Well!" Connie hesitated. "Just for a minute." Mrs. Flint flew wildly in to tidy up, and Connie came slowly after her, hesitating in the rather dark kitchen where the kettle was boiling by the fire. Back came Mrs. Flint. "I do hope you'll excuse me," she said. "Will you come in here." They went into the living-room, where a baby was sitting on the rag hearthrug, and the table was roughly set for tea. A young servant-girl backed down the passage, shy and awkward. The baby was a perky little thing of about a year, with red hair like its father, and cheeky pale-blue eyes. It was a girl, and not to be daunted. It sat among cushions and was surrounded with rag dolls and other toys in modern excess. "Why, what a dear she is!" said Connie, "and how she's grown! A big girl! A big girl!" She had given it a shawl when it was born, and celluloid ducks for Christmas. "There, Josephine! Who's that come to see you? Who's this, Josephine? Lady Chatterley--you know Lady Chatterley, don't you?" The queer pert little mite gazed cheekily at Connie. Ladyships were still all the same to her. "Come! Will you come to me?" said Connie to the baby. The baby didn't care one way or another, so Connie picked her up and held her in her lap. How warm and lovely it was to hold a child in one's lap, and the soft little arms, the unconscious cheeky little legs. "I was just having a rough cup of tea all by myself. Luke's gone to market, so I can have it when I like. Would you care for a cup, Lady Chatterley? I don't suppose it's what you're used to, but if you would." Connie would, though she didn't want to be reminded of what she was used to. There was a great relaying of the table, and the best cups brought and the best teapot. "If only you wouldn't take any trouble," said Connie. But if Mrs. Flint took no trouble, where was the fun! So Connie played with the child and was amused by its little female dauntlessness, and got a deep voluptuous pleasure out of its soft young warmth. Young life! And so fearless! So fearless, because so defenceless. All the older people, so narrow with fear! She had a cup of tea, which was rather strong, and very good bread and butter, and bottled damsons. Mrs. Flint flushed and glowed and bridled with excitement, as if Connie were some gallant knight. And they had a real female chat, and both of them enjoyed it.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  She sat on his thighs, her head against his breast, and her ivory-gleaming legs loosely apart, the fire glowing unequally upon them. Sitting with his head dropped, he looked at the folds of her body in the fireglow, and at the fleece of soft brown hair that hung down to a point between her open thighs. He reached to the table behind, and took up her bunch of flowers, still so wet that drops of rain fell on to her. "Flowers stops out of doors all weathers," he said. "They have no houses." "Not even a hut!" she murmured. With quiet fingers he threaded a few forget-me-not flowers in the fine brown fleece of the mount of Venus. "There!" he said. "There's forget-me-nots in the right place!" She looked down at the milky odd little flowers among the brown maiden-hair at the lower tip of her body. "Doesn't it look pretty!" she said. "Pretty as life," he replied. And he stuck a pink campion bud among the hair. "There! That's me where you won't forget me! That's Moses in the bulrushes." "You don't mind, do you, that I'm going away?" she asked wistfully, looking up into his face. But his face was inscrutable, under the heavy brows. He kept it quite blank. "You do as you wish," he said. And he spoke in good English. "But I won't go if you don't wish it," she said, clinging to him. There was silence. He leaned and put another piece of wood on the fire. The flame glowed on his silent, abstracted face. She waited, but he said nothing. "Only I thought it would be a good way to begin a break with Clifford. I do want a child. And it would give me a chance to, to--" she resumed. "To let them think a few lies," he said. "Yes, that among other things. Do you want them to think the truth?" "I don't care what they think." "I do! I don't want them handling me with their unpleasant cold minds, not while I'm still at Wragby. They can think what they like when I'm finally gone." He was silent. "But Sir Clifford expects you to come back to him?" "Oh, I must come back," she said: and there was silence. "And would you have a child in Wragby?" he asked. She closed her arm round his neck. "If you wouldn't take me away, I should have to," she said. "Take you where to?" "Anywhere! away! But right away from Wragby." "When?" "Why, when I come back." "But what's the good of coming back, doing the thing twice, if you're once gone?" he said. "Oh, I must come back. I've promised! I've promised so faithfully. Besides, I come back to you, really." "To your husband's gamekeeper?" "I don't see that that matters," she said. "No?" He mused a while. "And when would you think of going away again, then; finally? When exactly?"

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  "Sir Clifford!" he said. "Won't he ... won't he be...?" She paused a moment to consider. "Perhaps!" she said. And she looked up at him. "I don't want Clifford to know ... not even to suspect. It would hurt him so much. But I don't think it's wrong, do you?" "Wrong! Good God, no! You're only too infinitely good to me ... I can hardly bear it." He turned aside, and she saw that in another moment he would be sobbing. "But we needn't let Clifford know, need we?" she pleaded. "It _would_ hurt him so. And if he never knows, never suspects, it hurts nobody." "Me!" he said, almost fiercely; "he'll know nothing from me! You see if he does. Me give myself away! Ha! Ha!" He laughed hollowly, cynically at such an idea. She watched him in wonder. He said to her: "May I kiss your hand and go? I'll run into Sheffield I think, and lunch there if I may, and be back to tea. May I do anything for you? May I be sure you don't hate me?--and that you won't?"--he ended with a desperate note of cynicism. "No, I don't hate you," she said. "I think you're nice." "Ah!" he said to her fiercely, "I'd rather you said that to me than said you love me! It means such a lot more.... Till afternoon then. I've plenty to think about till then." He kissed her hands humbly and was gone. "I don't think I can stand that young man," said Clifford at lunch. "Why?" asked Connie. "He's such a bounder underneath his veneer ... just waiting to bounce us." "I think people have been so unkind to him," said Connie. "Do you wonder? And do you think he employs his shining hours doing deeds of kindness?" "I think he has a certain sort of generosity." "Towards whom?" "I don't quite know." "Naturally you don't. I'm afraid you mistake unscrupulousness for generosity." Connie paused. Did she? It was just possible. Yet the unscrupulousness of Michaelis had a certain fascination for her. He went whole lengths where Clifford only crept a few timid paces. In his way he had conquered the world, which was what Clifford wanted to do. Ways and means...? Were those of Michaelis more despicable than those of Clifford? Was the way the poor outsider had shoved and bounced himself forward in person, and by the back doors, any worse than Clifford's way of advertising himself into prominence? The bitch-goddess, Success, was trailed by thousands of gasping dogs with lolling tongues. The one that got her first was the real dog among dogs, if you go by success! So Michaelis could keep his tail up.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He shut the door, and lit a tiny light in the hanging hurricane lamp. "One time we'll have a long time," he said. He put the blankets down carefully, one folded for her head. Then he sat down a moment on the stool, and drew her to him, holding her close with one arm, feeling for her body with his free hand. She heard the catch of his intaken breath as he found her. Under her frail petticoat she was naked. "Eh! what it is to touch thee!" he said, as his finger caressed the delicate, warm, secret skin of her waist and hips. He put his face down and rubbed his cheek against her belly and against her thighs again and again. And again she wondered a little over the sort of rapture it was to him. She did not understand the beauty he found in her, through touch upon her living secret body, almost the ecstasy of beauty. For passion alone is awake to it. And when passion is dead, or absent, then the magnificent throb of beauty is incomprehensible and even a little despicable; warm, live beauty of contact, so much deeper than the beauty of wisdom. She felt the glide of his cheek on her thighs and belly and buttocks, and the close brushing of his moustache and his soft thick hair, and her knees began to quiver. Far down in her she felt a new stirring, a new nakedness emerging. And she was half afraid. Half she wished he would not caress her so. He was encompassing her somehow. Yet she was waiting, waiting. And when he came into her, with an intensification of relief and consummation, that was pure peace to him, still she was waiting. She felt herself a little left out. And she knew, partly it was her own fault. She willed herself into this separateness. Now perhaps she was condemned to it. She lay still, feeling his motion within her, his deep-sunk intentness, the sudden quiver of him at the springing of his seed, then the slow-subsiding thrust. That thrust of the buttocks, surely it was a little ridiculous. If you were a woman, and apart in all the business, surely that thrusting of the man's buttocks was supremely ridiculous. Surely the man was intensely ridiculous in this posture and this act! But she lay still, without recoil. Even, when he had finished, she did not rouse herself to get a grip on her own satisfaction, as she had done with Michaelis; she lay still, and the tears slowly filled and ran from her eyes. He lay still, too. But he held her close and tried to cover her poor naked legs with his legs, to keep them warm. He lay on her with a close, undoubting warmth. "Are ter cold?" he asked, in a soft, small voice, as if she were close, so close. Whereas she was left out, distant. "No! But I must go," she said gently.

• From Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

  He thought with infinite tenderness of the woman. Poor forlorn thing, she was nicer than she knew, and oh! so much too nice for the tough lot she was in contact with. Poor thing, she too had some of the vulnerability of the wild hyacinths, she wasn't all tough rubber-goods and platinum, like the modern girl. And they would do her in! As sure as life, they would do her in, as they do in all naturally tender life. Tender! Somewhere she was tender, tender with a tenderness of the growing hyacinths, something that has gone out of the celluloid women of today. But he would protect her with his heart for a little while. For a little while, before the insentient iron world and the Mammon of mechanised greed did them both in, her as well as him. He went home with his gun and his dog, to the dark cottage, lit the lamp, started the fire, and ate his supper of bread and cheese, young onions and beer. He was alone, in a silence he loved. His room was clean and tidy, but rather stark. Yet the fire was bright, the hearth white, the petroleum lamp hung bright over the table, with its white oil-cloth. He tried to read a book about India, but tonight he could not read. He sat by the fire in his shirtsleeves, not smoking, but with a mug of beer in reach. And he thought about Connie. To tell the truth, he was sorry for what had happened, perhaps most for her sake. He had a sense of foreboding. No sense of wrong or sin; he was troubled by no conscience in that respect. He knew that conscience was chiefly fear of society, or fear of oneself. He was not afraid of himself. But he was quite consciously afraid of society, which he knew by instinct to be a malevolent, partly-insane beast. The woman! If she could be there with him, and there were nobody else in the world! The desire rose again, his penis began to stir like a live bird. At the same time an oppression, a dread of exposing himself and her to that outside Thing that sparkled viciously in the electric lights, weighed down his shoulders. She, poor young thing, was just a young female creature to him; but a young female creature whom he had gone into and whom he desired again.