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 Decameron (1353)

  Monna Sismonda had been listening the whole time, and as soon as she heard her husband leaving the house, she opened the bedroom door and re-lit the lamp, to discover her maidservant lying there, all bruised and battered, and crying her eyes out. Having consoled her as best she could, she led the girl back to her own room, where she covertly arranged for her to be nursed back to health and waited upon, and rewarded her so handsomely from Arriguccio’s own coffers that the girl was more than contented. No sooner was the maid safely bestowed in her room than Monna Sismonda returned, remade the bed, and tidied up the whole room so as to make it look as if no one had slept there. Having re-lit the main lamp, she dressed herself and combed her hair to give the impression that she had not yet gone to bed, then she lit another lamp, which she took out on to the landing with some of her sewing. She then sat down and began to sew, and waited to see how things would develop. On leaving the house, Arriguccio had hurried round to his wife’s brothers’ house as fast as his legs would carry him, and hammered away at the door until someone came to let him in. Hearing that it was Arriguccio, the lady’s three brothers and her mother got up out of bed, called for lights to be lit, and came down to ask him what had brought him to see them, all alone, at that hour of the night.

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

  “Follow me,” she said, her smile so encouraging I would have followed her anywhere. We entered a softly lit hallway through which I saw straight ahead to a living room, where people in evening clothes sipped martinis. Anaïs ducked left into a small kitchen, and I followed. A dark-skinned, slender woman, whom I later learned was Haitian, rose from her reading chair smoothing her cotton skirt, printed with dancing salamanders. “Millie Fredericks, this is Tristine …” Anaïs looked at me, stricken. “I am so sorry, I don’t have your surname.” She made me spell it and then cried, “Like my friend, the actress Luise Rainer!” Only Anaïs pronounced it, “Rriiiner.” She lowered her voice as if sharing a confidence. “Luise was an intimate friend of mine when she was married to Clifford Odets. I put them in my diary. Are you related to her?” She lifted my chin gently with her manicured fingers. “You have the same beautiful, almond-shaped eyes.” Unused to compliments, I blurted, “I’m not related to anyone important.” Anaïs looked so disappointed, I jumped to add, “Except my godmother, I guess, though we’re not blood related.” “Certainly, your godmother! Tawney is a genuine artist. So pure!” There was an involuntary quiver in my voice when I said, “My godmother told me that you write a diary.” “Do you keep a diary?” Anaïs gave me her extraordinary smile of approval. I nodded. I felt transparent, but also, as never before, completely accepted, completely safe. Growing up, I’d been a misfit in Southern California, neither blond nor cheerful, constantly accused of having my head in a book or in the clouds, and usually dressed in ill-fitting hand-me-downs since my father split. But Anaïs’s smile said: I understand you as you always hoped to be understood; I see your great specialness as you have always dreamt of being seen. “One afternoon we will have a long talk about our diaries!” She beamed. I nodded so vigorously that more leaves fell to the floor. Anaïs laughed gaily, speaking in French with Millie, but seeing my incomprehension, changed back to English. “We’re looking for a crrrystal bowl.” Millie produced one from a cabinet and told me, “Hon, why don’t you dump those leaves in the sink?” I did so and saw they had soiled the front of my pink shirtwaist dress, which I had bought for starting college in the fall with my waitressing tips. Without a word, Millie took a cloth and dabbed at the spots. Then she dusted each leaf before handing it to Anaïs. We oohed and ahhed as Millie presented each gold-specked fan and Anaïs arranged them in the bowl. Waving one flirtatiously, Anaïs said, “Do you think it’s a coincidence we call these leaves maidenhair, while the Chinese, who call it gingko, consider it an aphrodisiac?”

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

  Miltitz discovered on his journey a wide-spread and growing sympathy with Luther. He found three Germans on his side, especially in the North, to one against him. He heard bad reports about Tetzel, and summoned him; but Tetzel was afraid to travel, and died a few months afterwards (Aug. 7, 1519), partly, perhaps, in consequence of the severe censure from the papal delegate. Luther wrote to his opponent a letter of comfort, which is no more extant. Unmeasured as he could be in personal abuse, he harbored no malice or revenge in his heart.208 Miltitz held a conference with Luther in the house of Spalatin at Altenburg, Jan. 6, 1519. He was exceedingly polite and friendly; he deplored the offence and scandal of the Theses-controversy, and threw a great part of the blame on poor Tetzel; he used all his powers of persuasion, and entreated him with tears not to divide the unity of the holy Catholic Church. They agreed that the matter should be settled by a German bishop instead of going to Rome, and that in the mean time both parties were to keep silence. Luther promised to ask the pardon of the Pope, and to warn the people against the sin of separating from the holy mother-church. After this agreement they partook of a social supper, and parted with a kiss. Miltitz must have felt very proud of his masterpiece of ecclesiastical diplomacy. Luther complied with his promises in a way which seems irreconcilable with his honest convictions and subse-quent conduct. But we must remember the deep conflicts of his mind, the awful responsibility of his undertaking, the critical character of the situation. Well might he pause for a while, and shrink back from the idea of a separation from the church of his fathers, so intimately connected with his religious life as well as with the whole history of Christianity for fifteen hundred years. He had to break a new path which became so easy for others. We must all the more admire his conscientiousness. In his letter to the Pope, dated March 3, 1519, he expressed the deepest personal humility, and denied that he ever intended to injure the Roman Church, which was over every other power in heaven and on earth, save only Jesus Christ the Lord over all. Yet he repudiated the idea of retracting his conscientious convictions. In his address to the people, he allowed the value of indulgences, but only as a recompense for the "satisfaction" given by, the sinner, and urged the duty of adhering, notwithstanding her faults and sins, to the holy Roman Church, where St. Peter and St. Paul, and many Popes and thousands of martyrs, had shed their blood.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  One day she had said: ‘Stand still or you’ll hurt it—it’s all round us—it’s a white smell, it reminds me of you!’ And then she had flushed, and had glanced up quickly, rather frightened in case she should find Anna laughing. But her mother had looked at her curiously, gravely, puzzled by this creature who seemed all contradictions—at one moment so hard, at another so gentle, gentle to tenderness, even. Anna had been stirred, as her child had been stirred, by the breath of the meadowsweet under the hedges; for in this they were one, the mother and daughter, having each in her veins the warm Celtic blood that takes note of such things—could they only have divined it, such simple things might have formed a link between them. A great will to loving had suddenly possessed Anna Gordon, there in that sunlit meadow—had possessed them both as they stood together, bridging the gulf between maturity and childhood. They had gazed at each other as though asking for something, as though seeking for something, the one from the other; then the moment had passed—they had walked on in silence, no nearer in spirit than before. 3Sometimes Anna would drive Stephen into Great Malvern, to the shops, with lunch at the Abbey Hotel on cold beef and wholesome rice pudding. Stephen loathed these excursions, which meant dressing up, but she bore them because of the honour which she felt to be hers when escorting her mother through the streets, especially Church Street with its long, busy hill, because every one saw you in Church Street. Hats would be lifted with obvious respect, while a humbler finger might fly to a forelock; women would bow, and a few even curtsy to the lady of Morton—women in from the country with speckled sunbonnets that looked like their hens, and kind faces like brown, wrinkled apples. Then Anna must stop to inquire about calves and babies and foals, indeed all such young creatures as prosper on farms, and her voice would be gentle because she loved such young creatures. Stephen would stand just a little behind her, thinking how gracious and lovely she was; comparing her slim and elegant shoulders with the toil-thickened back of old Mrs. Bennett, with the ugly, bent spine of young Mrs. Thompson who coughed when she spoke and then said: ‘I beg pardon!’ as though she were conscious that one did not cough in front of a goddess like Anna. Presently Anna would look round for Stephen: ‘Oh, there you are, darling! We must go into Jackson’s and change mother’s books’; or, ‘Nanny wants some more saucers; let’s walk on and get them at Langley’s.’ Stephen would suddenly spring to attention, especially if they were crossing the street. She would look right and left for imaginary traffic, slipping a hand under Anna’s elbow. ‘Come with me,’ she would order, ‘and take care of the puddles, ’cause you might get your feet wet—hold on by me, Mother!’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  ‘Oh, but yes,’ smiled Mademoiselle Duphot, ‘I teached her. She was terribly naughty over her dictée; she would write remarks about the poor Henri—très impertinente she would be about Henri! Stévenne was a queer little child and naughty—but so dear, so dear—I could never scold her. With me she done everything her own way.’ ‘Please tell me about that time,’ coaxed Mary. So Mademoiselle Duphot sat down beside Mary and patted her hand: ‘Like me, you love her. Well now let me recall— She would sometimes get angry, very angry, and then she would go to the stables and talk to her horse. But when she fence it was marvellous—she fence like a man, and she only a baby but extrémement strong. And then. . . .’ The memories went on and on, such a store she possessed, the kind Mademoiselle Duphot. As she talked her heart went out to the girl, for she felt a great tenderness towards young things: ‘I am glad that you come to live with our Stévenne now that Mademoiselle Puddle is at Morton. Stévenne would be desolate in the big house. It is charming for both of you this new arrangement. While she work you look after the ménage; is it not so? You take care of Stévenne, she take care of you. Oui, oui, I am glad you have come to Paris.’ Julie stroked Mary’s smooth young cheek, then her arm, for she wished to observe through her fingers. She smiled: ‘Very young, also very kind. I like so much the feel of your kindness—it gives me a warm and so happy sensation, because with all kindness there must be much good.’ Was she quite blind after all, the poor Julie? And hearing her Stephen flushed with pleasure, and her eyes that could see turned and rested on Mary with a gentle and very profound expression in their depths—at that moment they were calmly thoughtful, as though brooding upon the mystery of life—one might almost have said the eyes of a mother. A happy and pleasant visit it had been; they talked about it all through the evening. CHAPTER 411B urton, who had enlisted in the Worcesters soon after Stephen had found work in London, Burton was now back again in Paris, loudly demanding a brand-new motor. ‘The car looks awful! Snub-nosed she looks—peculiar—all tucked up in the bonnet;’ he declared. So Stephen bought a touring Renault and a smart little landaulette for Mary. The choosing of the cars was the greatest fun; Mary climbed in and out of hers at least six times while it stood in the showroom. ‘Is it comfortable?’ Stephen must keep on asking, ‘Do you want them to pad it out more at the back? Are you perfectly sure you like the grey whip-cord? Because if you don’t it can be re-upholstered.’ Mary laughed: ‘I’m climbing in and out from sheer swank, just to show that it’s mine. Will they send it soon?’

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  In the end it would be Barbara who must console. ‘We’ll be rich some day when you’ve finished your opera—anyhow my cough isn’t dangerous, Jamie.’ Sometimes Jamie’s music would go all wrong, the opera would blankly refuse to get written. At the Conservatoire she would be very stupid, and when she got home she would be very silent, pushing her supper away with a frown, because coming upstairs she had heard that cough. Then Barbara would feel even more tired and weak than before, but would hide her weakness from Jamie. After supper they would undress in front of the stove if the weather was cold, would undress without speaking. Barbara could get out of her clothes quite neatly in no time, but Jamie must always dawdle, dropping first this and then that on the floor, or pausing to fill her little black pipe and to light it before putting on her pyjamas. Barbara would fall on her knees by the divan and would start to say prayers like a child, very simply. ‘Our Father,’ she would say, and other prayers too, which always ended in: ‘Please God, bless Jamie.’ For believing in Jamie she must needs believe in God, and because she loved Jamie she must love God also—it had long been like this, ever since they were children. But sometimes she would shiver in her prim cotton nightgown, so that Jamie, grown anxious, would speak to her sharply: ‘Oh, stop praying, do. You and all your prayers! Are you daft to kneel there when the room’s fairly freezing? That’s how you catch cold; now to-night you’ll cough!’ But Barbara would not so much as turn round; she would calmly and earnestly go on with her praying. Her neck would look thin against the thick plait which hung neatly down between her bent shoulders; and the hands that covered her face would look thin—thin and transparent like the hands of a consumptive. Fuming inwardly, Jamie would stump off to bed in the tiny room with its eye-shaped window, and there she herself must mutter a prayer, especially if she heard Barbara coughing.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Stephen had felt rather bored just at first at the prospect of teaching the new member her duties, but after a while it came to pass that she missed the girl when she was not with her. And after a while she would find herself observing the way Mary’s hair grew, low on the forehead, the wide setting of her slightly oblique grey eyes, the abrupt sweep back of their heavy lashes; and these things would move Stephen, so that she must touch the girl’s hair for a moment with her fingers. Fate was throwing them continually together, in moments of rest as in moments of danger; they could not have escaped this even had they wished to, and indeed they did not wish to escape it. They were pawns in the ruthless and complicated game of existence, moved hither and thither on the board by an unseen hand, yet moved side by side, so that they grew to expect each other. ‘Mary, are you there?’ A superfluous question—the reply would be always the same. ‘I’m here, Stephen.’ Sometimes Mary would talk of her plans for the future while Stephen listened, smiling as she did so. ‘I’ll go into an office, I want to be free.’ ‘You’re so little, you’d get mislaid in an office.’ ‘I’m five foot five!’ ‘Are you really, Mary? You feel little, somehow.’ ‘That’s because you’re so tall. I do wish I could grow a bit!’ ‘No, don’t wish that, you’re all right as you are—it’s you, Mary.’ Mary would want to be told about Morton, she was never tired of hearing about Morton. She would make Stephen get out the photographs of her father, of her mother whom Mary thought lovely, of Puddle, and above all of Raftery. Then Stephen must tell her of the life in London, and afterwards of the new house in Paris; must talk of her own career and ambitions, though Mary had not read either of her novels—there had never been a library subscription. But at moments Stephen’s face would grow clouded because of the things that she could not tell her; because of the little untruths and evasions that must fill up the gaps in her strange life-history. Looking down into Mary’s clear, grey eyes, she would suddenly flush through her tan, and feel guilty; and that feeling would reach the girl and disturb her, so that she must hold Stephen’s hand for a moment. One day she said suddenly: ‘Are you unhappy?’ ‘Why on earth should I be unhappy?’ smiled Stephen.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  All the same there were nights now when Stephen lay awake even after her arduous hours of service, hearing the guns that were coming nearer, yet not thinking of them, but always of Mary. A great gentleness would gradually engulf her like a soft sea mist, veiling reef and headland. She would seem to be drifting quietly, serenely towards some blessèd and peaceful harbour. Stretching out a hand she would stroke the girl’s shoulder where she lay, but carefully in case she should wake her. Then the mist would lift: ‘Good God! What am I doing?’ She would sit up abruptly, disturbing the sleeper. ‘Is that you, Stephen?’ ‘Yes, my dear, go to sleep.’ Then a cross, aggrieved voice: ‘Do shut up, you two. It’s rotten of you, I was just getting off! Why must you always persist in talking!’ Stephen would lie down again and would think: ‘I’m a fool, I go out of my way to find trouble. Of course I’ve grown fond of the child, she’s so plucky, almost anyone would grow fond of Mary. Why shouldn’t I have affection and friendship? Why shouldn’t I have a real human interest? I can help her to find her feet after the war if we both come through—I might buy her a business.’ That gentle mist, hiding both reef and headland; it would gather again blurring all perception, robbing the past of its crude, ugly outlines. ‘After all, what harm can it do the child to be fond of me?’ It was so good a thing to have won the affection of this young creature. 2The Germans got perilously near to Compiègne, and the Breakspeare Unit was ordered to retire. Its base was now at a ruined château on the outskirts of an insignificant village, yet not so very insignificant either—it was stuffed to the neck with ammunition. Nearly all the hours that were spent off duty must be passed in the gloomy, damp-smelling dug-outs which consisted of cellars, partly destroyed but protected by sandbags on heavy timbers. Like foxes creeping out of their holes, the members of the Unit would creep into the daylight, their uniforms covered with mould and rubble, their eyes blinking, their hands cold and numb from the dampness—so cold and so numb that the starting up of motors would often present a real problem. At this time there occurred one or two small mishaps; Bless broke her wrist while cranking her engine; Blakeney and three others at a Poste de Secours, were met by a truly terrific bombardment and took cover in what had once been a brick-field, crawling into the disused furnace. There they squatted for something over eight hours, while the German gunners played hit as hit can with the tall and conspicuous chimney. When at last they emerged, half stifled by brick-dust, Blakeney had got something into her eye, which she rubbed; the result was acute inflammation.

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

  “Wow!” He took in the 10,000 square feet of open space punctuated by painted columns, wooden looms, and long worktables. Lenore’s towering woven sculptures hung from the high cathedral ceilings: one a ten-by-ten black cross made entirely of tight little knots, another a circle filled with open airy threads enclosed by a solid, dense weave. The tallest weavings, twenty feet high, were narrow, woven totems that swung slightly to and fro, great sacred beings that seemed to breathe and watch us. As if we were in church, Jean-Jacques whispered, “Where do you sleep?” I pointed to a muslin screen that partially concealed my rollaway bed. Once I’d collapsed on it, I realized I couldn’t get up again. The loft was rising over my head, circling under the bed, and coming up repeatedly from the metal frame at my feet. My hands grabbed the mattress and held on. “The room,” I murmured. “Stay there,” Jean-Jacques said. Where would I go? He rifled around in Lenore’s bathroom and brought back two aspirin with a glass of water. He supported my spine as I swallowed the pills. “These will help in the morning.” I sank back down on the feather pillow, and though I worried that I’d never be able to get up to pee, I did feel better from his care. It made me think of my mother’s tenderness when she used to bring me baby aspirin and a rubber hot-water bottle. Maybe that’s why it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to be unbuttoning the front of my dress as if I were a sleepy child. “Let’s get you some air,” he said. He tried to pull my slip over my head. “No,” I said weakly. He stopped and, sitting on the edge of the cot, leaned down to kiss me. I responded, lost in his musk of exertion, Gitanes, and French cologne. His fingers traced my arms and his lips softly brushed mine. I’d expected, because he was French, that he would put his tongue in my mouth, which I didn’t like when the boys my age tried it. But Jean-Jacques just kept touching his lips to mine tenderly, and I responded with the same light touch. When, after a long, dreamy time his tongue entered my mouth, it wasn’t slobbery or pushy at all. Unwrapping himself from me gently, he stood up, looked at me, bent to place a finger to my lips, then quickly removed his slacks. He was wearing gray satin shorts, sort of like a prizefighter’s, but smaller, and in the dim light I saw a horizontal tent protruding in the front of them. Only then did I realize his intentions. “I’m a virgin,” I said, my voice so faint I wondered if he’d heard. He must have, for after a moment’s pause, he said, “I respect that. Don’t worry.”

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

  “How about really getting a movie made from one of your novels?” It was evidence of just how little I knew about the movie business that I would have suggested this. Anaïs liked that idea, though. “Which of my novels do you think would be best as a movie?” “Without question, A Spy in the House of Love.” “Yes, I think so, too.” She nodded. “We just need a producer to option the book and commission a script.” “I don’t know any producers,” I said. “Or a director who can get a movie made,” she said. “What about your friend Curtis Harrington?” “I thought about Curtis, but he only does horror films and, anyway, he’s gone commercial.” The way she said “gone commercial,” it sounded like heinous treason. She knitted her thin brows. “Renate’s the one who knows everybody in the movie industry.” “But she’s grieving now,” I said, feeling on delicate ground. I’d never known anyone who’d endured tragedy as huge as Renate’s, but instinctively I recognized there could be no pain like the death of one’s child. Anaïs was pensive for a long while, and in the quiet, it felt as if we were saying a prayer for Renate. Finally, Anaïs stated, “It would be good for Renate to take on this movie project with us.” I didn’t know which part of Anaïs’s pronouncement shocked me more: that she thought getting involved with a movie project would be good for Renate after her son’s death, or that I would be participating. Anaïs continued enthusiastically, “I’ll call Renate to see if she’ll meet with us.” “I don’t think I should be there,” I said. “You have to be there.” “I don’t think she’s going to want to see me at a time like this.” “How old are you?” “Twenty-one.” “Peter’s age,” Anaïs said softly. She looked at me tenderly, and in that moment I understood a momentous thing was about to happen in my life. It was an alarming idea, akin to providing a new kitten for a friend whose beloved cat had died. Anaïs had begun to see me as Renate’s replacement for Peter. [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] The next time Anaïs phoned me she reported, to my relief, that Renate was still refusing any visits. To keep our movie project moving along, she suggested we have lunch at the Chateau Marmont café. She asked if I would pick her up; Rupert no longer allowed her to drive because she’d smashed up the T-bird again. The Chateau Marmont parking lot was closed off, so I parked on Sunset, and we hiked up the steep driveway to the hotel. A handsome young waiter with gelled hair took our lunch orders, and Anaïs pulled from her purse a nine-by-twelve envelope filled with thermofaxed pages. Handing it to me, she smiled. “It’s from my diary of my Paris years. I’ll need to have it back, though, so don’t let it out of your sight and don’t let Neal see it.”

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

  “Because I love you so much, I could never leave you and never divorce you. So I did something worse, something illegal.” She watched her words tear off the blinders he’d worn through their marriage. His face slowly fell and his voice capitulated. “I know lawyers who can take care of messes like that.” “I have a lawyer. A woman lawyer. It’s taken care of. But I’m dying and I have to clear things up with you.” This man had suffered so many shattering blows, she thought with compassion. The loss of his income and pension, his health, his pride in accepting an allowance from her. Now this, his memory of their happy marriage. “You were everything to me: father, husband, friend, and lover,” she assured him, “and it will always be so. I will make sure that after my death you will continue to receive your income and that your medical care will be covered by my estate.” “You’re not going to die! I’ll get you the best doctors at Sloan Kettering. You can’t stay in the hands of these bushwhack, West Coast doctors!” “This is where I want to be. I want to die in the house Rupert built for me here. Until then, I want to swim in my pool and feel the California light.” He was weeping. “Please don’t cry, Hugo. Please forgive me. My healer, Dr. Brugh Joy, believes it is my guilt for loving more than one man and my deceptions that caused my cancer.” He looked up. “No!” “You can help save my life, dearest, but only by absolving me. The situation I created was unusual, but please try to see it within the realm of the human and thus forgivable. Please forgive me, and be my savior one more time.” “Yes, yes, I forgive you! There is nothing to forgive. I always knew I only had a part of you. You were a creature of flight and had to fulfill your nature.” What a beautiful thing for him to say, she thought, and then he admitted, “I knew that to hold onto you, I had to let you go, or I would lose you completely.” He looked up from where he still knelt on the floor. “Thank you for staying my wife.” “Even if not yours alone?” “Yes.” He started to weep again. “Stop, Hugo, darling. I can’t bear to see you cry. Look in my eyes as we used to do for hours when we were first in love.” He raised his faded gray eyes to her obediently. She leaned down toward him to touch the side of his face. “Do you remember when I told you I had found the secret to happiness?” He wiped his eyes, trying for stoicism, for manliness. “I’m sorry, I don’t, Anaïs.” “My trick of displacement?” “Please don’t tease my bad memory. I’ve just received a shock.”

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

  “I’ve been using my displacement trick here in the hospital. Instead of writing in my diary about my pain, I write about music. I imagine death as a rising symphonic crescendo. My secret to happiness is that I give myself completely to the joyous moments when they come. And when it comes to the catastrophes, I use my imagination to displace myself.” She stroked his cheek. “You’re an artist, my talented Ian Hugo. You can transcend this pain with your imagination. Just think of me as on another journey.” He kissed her fingers as they brushed his mouth, and she bent down closer to him. “As for the joyous moments, dearest, we savored them together, and I am so happy it was with you. You have been my true husband for fifty years. Nothing and no one can take that away from us.” He was gazing at her now in wonder, as in their courtship days and early marriage. “Please, Hugo, get off the floor. There’s a chair you can sit on.” He grabbed for his cane but could not manage to get off his knees even when he pushed himself against the bed. He flailed, losing his balance, and caught himself on the bars of the hospital bed with both hands, his ebony cane falling to the floor. Once he realized he hadn’t broken anything he laughed, chagrined, and Anaïs laughed with him to ease his embarrassment. “Oh, we are a pair, aren’t we? One on crutches and the other in a hospital bed!” When their laughter finally subsided, Anaïs, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, said, “Stay there. I think I like you kneeling.” She touched his face again. “Now, please, listen to me carefully. This is important. Rupert is young, sixteen years younger than I am. He is physically able to lift me and prepare the foods I have to eat. He can take care of me. Would you deprive me of that comfort? That is why I have to stay with Rupert.” It wasn’t the only reason, of course. Sex had given her a connection with Rupert that she’d never shared with Hugo, but she had been so candid, finally, that this omission to save what remained of Hugo’s ego was inconsequential. Struggling for dignity, Hugo said, “I can’t go against your wishes, but at least let me come visit you regularly now that I know the truth.” “No, it’s too expensive, and it will be too hard on your health. There should be only one invalid at a time.” “But I can’t go on being banished like this,” he begged. “I’ll die of worry.” “I’ll speak to Rupert. I’ll ask him to let you phone,” she promised. But, of course, first she had to tell Rupert he was not her only husband. Rupert was in no state to listen to anything when he barged into her room.

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

  Having seen her condition in the hospital, I was surprised by her strength as she lowered herself to her knees to remove the lid from a cardboard file box. I offered to get down on the floor to help her, but she refused and then ignored me as she examined the contents of a file. Finally I said, “Rupert told me at the hospital about Joan Palevsky’s donation to buy your diaries.” She didn’t respond, seemingly absorbed in deciphering a file name. Was this going to be it? I would squirm and talk, and she, doing busywork, would act as if she had not heard me? I declared, “I tried to stop Rupert, Anaïs!” “Dear Tristine.” She looked up at me affectionately. Was she giving me the extra sweet treatment before cutting me out of her life, as I’d seen her do with people who had not been sufficiently faithful? Or was she really forgiving me because, after my declarations at the hospital, she loved me now as my mother did, unconditionally? I ventured, “What happened when Rupert discovered Hugo at your bedside?” “I will tell you. Only first, let me tell you about my visit with Hugo, before Rupert barged in.” [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] ANAÏS Hugo leaned his cane against her nightstand. That motion was enough to topple Anaïs’s glasses from the pyramid of mail and books. Looking down at the floor, he assured her that her glasses hadn’t broken and lowered himself, clasping the bars of her hospital bed, to retrieve them. Winded from his effort, he braced himself against the bed frame as he handed the glasses up to her. She managed to balance them again on the makeshift pyramid as Hugo, still kneeling and holding onto a metal bar on the bed, gazed up and declared his love for her, begging her to come home with him. She looked down on him beneficently, realizing that he could not walk out on her now—he couldn’t seem even to get back on his feet. Nor could he play on her guilt, because she was the one close to death who needed sympathy. It was the perfect time to confess to him. She said, “Hugo, darling, we have always had a sophisticated marriage, one based on love and respect. Several times I’ve tried to tell you that there was another man in my life, but you didn’t want to hear it.” “I don’t want to hear it now,” he grumbled, looking down at the linoleum floor, evidently resigned to remaining on his knees. “But you have to listen now, because this other man, his name is Rupert Pole, was not just an affair. I married him.” Hugo looked confused, as when he would wander into the kitchen, open a cabinet door, and be unable to recall why he was there. After a long delay, he said, “You couldn’t marry him. You’re married to me.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Messer Torello, the time is approaching for you to be severed from me, and since I can neither go with you nor send another in my place, being prevented from doing so by the manner of your travelling, I am forced to take my leave of you here and now, which is why I have come. But before bidding you farewell, I implore you in the name of our love and our friendship to remember me. And before our lives are spent, I beg you if possible to settle your affairs in Lombardy and come once more to visit me; for not only will I rejoice to see you, but I shall then be able to repair the omissions which your haste to depart imposes upon me. Until such time as this should come about, let it not weary you to visit me with your letters, and ask of me whatever you please, for you may be sure that there is no other person on earth whose wants I would supply more readily.’ Messer Torello, being unable to control his tears, was prevented from replying at any length. And so in few words he declared it was impossible for him ever to forget Saladin’s courteous deeds and sterling worth, and that without fail he would do as Saladin had requested, whenever the opportunity arose. So Saladin enfolded him tenderly in his arms, kissed him, and, weeping copiously, wished him God-speed and withdrew. Then all his nobles took their leave of Messer Torello and accompanied Saladin to the hall where the bed had been set.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  By a singular coincidence, at that very moment Titus turned up at the law court, and on staring the wretched prisoner in the face, having learned the reasons for the sentence, he recognized him at once as Gisippus. Titus wondered how the fortunes of Gisippus could have reached so low an ebb, and how on earth he came to be in Rome; but his chief concern was to assist his friend in his hour of need, and since he could see no other way of saving him except by shifting the blame from Gisippus to himself, he quickly stepped forward and exclaimed: ‘Marcus Varro, recall the wretched fellow you have just condemned, for he is innocent. I have already offended the gods enough by striking the blow that killed the person whose body was found by your men this morning, without wishing to offend them now with the death of another innocent.’ Not only was Varro astonished to hear these words, but aggrieved that everyone in court should also have heard them; and since he was morally obliged to follow the course prescribed by the laws of the land, he had Gisippus brought back and said to him, in the presence of Titus: ‘How could you be so foolish as to confess, without being forced, to a crime that you never committed, knowing full well that your life was at stake? You told us that you were the person who killed that fellow in the cave last night, and now this other man comes and says it was he and not you who did the killing.’ Gisippus looked up, saw that it was Titus, and realized at once that he was doing this for his deliverance, out of gratitude for the favour that Gisippus had done him in the past. And so, shedding many a piteous tear, he turned to the praetor and said: ‘I assure you, Varro, that it was I who killed him. It is too late now for Titus to concern himself with my deliverance.’ Whereupon Titus for his part said: ‘My lord, as you see, this fellow is a foreigner, and when they found him beside the body of the victim, he was unarmed. You have only to look at him to realize that it’s his poverty that makes him want to die. Let him go, therefore, and give to me the punishment I deserve.’ Varro, marvelling at the persistence of the two men, was already of the opinion that neither of them was guilty, and just as he was deliberating how best to absolve them, there suddenly stepped forth a youth named Publius Ambustus, who was known to everyone in Rome as a hardened criminal and notorious thief, and who in fact was the real murderer. And knowing that neither of the two was guilty of the crime to which both were confessing, he was so overwhelmed by their innocence that out of pure compassion he went up to Varro and said:

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

  “Wow!” He took in the 10,000 square feet of open space punctuated by painted columns, wooden looms, and long worktables. Lenore’s towering woven sculptures hung from the high cathedral ceilings: one a ten-by-ten black cross made entirely of tight little knots, another a circle filled with open airy threads enclosed by a solid, dense weave. The tallest weavings, twenty feet high, were narrow, woven totems that swung slightly to and fro, great sacred beings that seemed to breathe and watch us. As if we were in church, Jean-Jacques whispered, “Where do you sleep?” I pointed to a muslin screen that partially concealed my rollaway bed. Once I’d collapsed on it, I realized I couldn’t get up again. The loft was rising over my head, circling under the bed, and coming up repeatedly from the metal frame at my feet. My hands grabbed the mattress and held on. “The room,” I murmured. “Stay there,” Jean-Jacques said. Where would I go? He rifled around in Lenore’s bathroom and brought back two aspirin with a glass of water. He supported my spine as I swallowed the pills. “These will help in the morning.” I sank back down on the feather pillow, and though I worried that I’d never be able to get up to pee, I did feel better from his care. It made me think of my mother’s tenderness when she used to bring me baby aspirin and a rubber hot-water bottle. Maybe that’s why it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to be unbuttoning the front of my dress as if I were a sleepy child. “Let’s get you some air,” he said. He tried to pull my slip over my head. “No,” I said weakly. He stopped and, sitting on the edge of the cot, leaned down to kiss me. I responded, lost in his musk of exertion, Gitanes, and French cologne. His fingers traced my arms and his lips softly brushed mine. I’d expected, because he was French, that he would put his tongue in my mouth, which I didn’t like when the boys my age tried it. But Jean-Jacques just kept touching his lips to mine tenderly, and I responded with the same light touch. When, after a long, dreamy time his tongue entered my mouth, it wasn’t slobbery or pushy at all. Unwrapping himself from me gently, he stood up, looked at me, bent to place a finger to my lips, then quickly removed his slacks. He was wearing gray satin shorts, sort of like a prizefighter’s, but smaller, and in the dim light I saw a horizontal tent protruding in the front of them. Only then did I realize his intentions. “I’m a virgin,” I said, my voice so faint I wondered if he’d heard. He must have, for after a moment’s pause, he said, “I respect that. Don’t worry.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  ‘Since you want me to leave you, gentlemen, I shall do so. But first I should like to say this: I know not who you are, nor do I wish to know more than you are willing to tell me. But whoever you may be, you cannot persuade me to believe that you are merchants. And with that I bid you farewell.’ To which Saladin, having already taken his leave of Messer Torello’s companions, replied as follows: ‘We may yet have the chance, sir, of showing you some of our merchandise, and then you shall be persuaded well enough. But meanwhile we bid you adieu.’ Saladin then rode off with his companions, being firmly resolved, if his life were spared and he avoided defeat in the war with which he was faced, to return the hospitality of Messer Torello in full. He talked a great deal to his companions about Messer Torello and his lady, and about all the things he had done for them, waxing more eloquent in his praises on each occasion he returned to the subject. And when, at the cost of no little fatigue, his tour of the West was completed, he returned by sea with his companions to Alexandria, where, now that he was fully apprised of the facts, he drew up his plan of defence. Meanwhile Messer Torello had returned to Pavia, and although he pondered at great length upon who these three men might have been, he never arrived at the truth nor even came anywhere near it. When the time arrived for the Crusade, and the soldiers were assembling everywhere in large numbers, Messer Torello, undeterred by the tears and entreaties of his lady, firmly made up his mind to go with them. He therefore made all his preparations, and as he was about to ride away, he summoned his wife, whom he loved very deeply, and said to her: ‘As you see, my lady, I am joining this Crusade, both for personal renown and the good of my soul. I leave our good name and our possessions in your hands; and since my return is far less certain than my departure, owing to any of a thousand accidents that may befall me, I want you to promise me this: that whatever should be my fate, failing positive news that I live, you will wait for a year and a month and a day before you remarry, beginning from this, the day of my departure.’ ‘Torello,’ she replied, weeping most bitterly, ‘how I am to bear all the sorrow into which I am plunged by your going away, I simply cannot tell. But if I am strong enough to survive it, and if anything should happen to you, rest assured that for as long as I live I shall be wedded to Messer Torello and his memory.’

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

  He begged his father to console his mother and referred him to a poem by his pen on the contempt of the world, which he had left among his papers. In this letter and several letters to his mother, which are extant, is shown the young monk’s warm affection for his parents and his brothers and sisters. In the convent, the son studied Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and became familiar with the Scriptures, sections of which he committed to memory. Two copies of the Bible are extant in Florence, containing copious notes in Savonarola’s own handwriting, made on the margin, between the printed lines and on added leaves.1175 After his appointment as provincial, he emphasized the study of the Bible in Hebrew and Greek. In 1481, he was sent to Florence, where he became an inmate of St. Mark’s. The convent had been rebuilt by Cosimo de Medici and its walls illuminated by the brush of Fra Angelico. At the time of Savonarola’s arrival, the city was at the height of its fame as a seat of culture and also as the place of lighthearted dissipation under the brilliant patronage of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The young monk’s first efforts in the pulpit in Florence were a failure. The congregation at San Lorenzo, where he preached during the Lenten season, fell to 25 persons. Fra Mariano da Gennazzano, an Augustinian, was the popular favorite. The Dominican won his first fame by his Lenten sermons of 1486, when he preached at Brescia on the Book of Revelation. He represented one of the 24 elders rising up and pronouncing judgments upon the city for its wickedness. In 1489, he was invited back to Florence by Lorenzo at the suggestion of Pico della Mirandola, who had listened to Savonarola’s eloquence at Reggio. During the remaining nine years of his life, the city on the Arno was filled with Savonarola’s personality. With Catherine of Siena, he shares the fame of being the most religious of the figures that have walked its streets. During the first part of this short period, he had conflict with Lorenzo and, during the second, with Alexander VI., all the while seeking by his startling warnings and his prophecies to bring about the regeneration of the city and make it a model of civic and social righteousness. From Aug. 1, 1490, when he appeared in the pulpit of St. Mark’s, the people thronged to hear him whether he preached there or in the cathedral. In 1491, he was made prior of his convent. To preaching he added writings in the department of philosophy and tracts on humility, prayer and the love of Jesus. He was of middle height, dark complexion, lustrous eyes dark gray in color, thick lips and aquiline nose. His features, which of themselves would have been called coarse, attracted attention by the serious contemplative expression which rested upon them, and the flash of his eye.

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

  Anaïs was alone when I arrived, propped against a pillow, writing in a small journal with her winged glasses on. She looked tiny in the metal hospital bed. She wore a lacy negligee and a pink terrycloth turban that matched the color of her rouged cheeks. To my surprise the room was bare of flowers or gifts. When word had gone out the previous year that Anaïs needed a transfusion, young women had circled the block at the Women’s Building downtown to give blood. Yet she appeared to have been forgotten now. She glanced up and removed her glasses. Her heavily outlined eyes, once jewel bright, had faded to dull gunmetal. “Come in, Tristine.” She leaned forward, an invitation to kiss her shrunken cheeks. Above her head hung a translucent bag containing yellowish liquid. When I leaned in to kiss her, I saw that the evil-looking tubing was attached to a needle embedded in her bruised hand and I felt queasy. Losing my balance, I fell towards the bed, her startled eyes flashing into mine. I threw out a hand to catch myself on the edge of her mattress. She winced. As I pulled myself upright I cried, “I’m so sorry! I hurt you!” She dismissed my concern with a wave of that poor hand, the tubing following like puppet strings. “I’m fine,” she assured me with a weak smile. “Pull up a chair.” I started to lug over a heavy steel chair, the only one in the room; but it made such an ugly screech scraping the floor, I just perched my bottom on its edge. I placed my large purse on my knees and dug in it for the little toy bird I’d brought. Mother, who to her credit was never jealous of my devotion to Anaïs, had found the little stuffed bird in one of her boxes of junk. It had looked festive at Mother’s house with its real red feathers decorated with tiny pearls and mirrors, so I’d brought it to the hospital instead of flowers. As Anaïs took it from my hand, though, I thought what a puny gift it was, really just a Christmas decoration. Trying to enhance it, I said, “I brought him to sing to you. But you’ll have to imagine his song.” Anaïs cupped the bird in her palms tenderly as if he were breathing. “I love him!” she cried, and made the same fuss over that token gift as she’d made over my armful of Ginkgo leaves the first time we met. I found myself whispering as to a child, “His feet have wire in them so we can put him wherever you want.” “Attach him to the bed post!” she exclaimed, pointing to the foot of the hospital bed. “He’ll sing to me first thing when I wake up.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  In the end Mary had had to find collar and lead and tie David up to the desk in the study, where he brooded and sucked his white satin bow, deciding that only the four-legged were grateful. But at long last Adèle was arrayed to be wed, and must show herself shyly to Mary and Stephen. She looked very appealing with her good, honest face; with her round, bright eyes like those of a blackbird. Stephen wished her well from the bottom of her heart, this girl who had waited so long for her mate—had so patiently and so faithfully waited. 2In the church were a number of friends and relations; together with those who will journey for miles in order to attend a funeral or wedding. Poor Jean looked his worst in a cheap dress suit, and Stephen could smell the pomade on his hair; very greasy and warm it smelt, although scented. But his hand was unsteady as he groped for the ring, because he was feeling both proud and humble; because, loving much, he must love even more and conceive of himself as entirely unworthy. And something in that fumbling, unsteady hand, in that sleekly greased hair and those ill-fitting garments, touched Stephen, so that she longed to reassure, to tell him how great was the gift he offered—security, peace, and love with honour. The young priest gravely repeated the prayers—ancient, primitive prayers, yet softened through custom. In her mauve silk dress Pauline wept as she knelt; but Pierre’s handkerchief was spread out on the stool to preserve the knees of his new grey trousers. Next to Stephen were sitting Pauline’s two brothers, one in uniform, the other retired and in mufti, but both wearing medals upon their breasts and thus worthily representing the army. The baker was there with his wife and three daughters, and since the latter were still unmarried, their eyes were more often fixed upon Jean in his shoddy dress suit than upon their Missals. The greengrocer accompanied the lady whose chickens it was Pauline’s habit to prod on their breastbones; while the cobbler who mended Pierre’s boots and shoes, sat ogling the buxom and comely young laundress. The Mass drew to its close. The priest asked that a blessing might be accomplished upon the couple; asked that these two might live to behold, not only their own but their children’s children, even unto the third and fourth generation. Then he spoke of their duty to God and to each other, and finally moistened their bowed young heads with a generous sprinkling of holy water. And so in the church of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires—that bountiful Virgin who bestows many graces—Jean and his Adèle were made one flesh in the eyes of their church, in the eyes of their God, and as one might confront the world without flinching.