- "I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way." - Vita Sackville-West, in a letter to Virginia Woolf
- John 1:4-5 In ipso vita erat et vita erat lux hominum / et lux in tenebris lucet et tenebrae eam non conprehenderunt | In him was life and the life was the light of men / and light shineth in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it
- the entries for february 2nd and 3rd from Franz Kafka's Diaries: The happiness of being with people. / There is a certain failing, a lack in me...
- passages from Clarice Lispector's "The Hour of the Star": G-d belongs to those who succeed in pinning Him down. / Because, however awful her situation might be, she has no wish to be deprived of herself. She wanted to be herself.
- Passages fetched from Richard Einhorn's libretto "Voices of Light", available for the 1999 Criterion Collection release of Carl Th. Dreyer's 1928 film "The Passion of Joan of Arc":
- Whether or not you wish it, this will be yours. I know what I have chosen. - Na Prous Boneta
- And after I have laid myself in you, now lay yourself in me. This is my creature. / Lord, that which I do, I do only to find you. - Blessed Angela of Foligno
- Those who do not remain in me will be discarded like branches: they will wither. So they will be gathered up, thrown on the fire, and burnt. - John 15:6
- This Soul has fallen from love into nothingness. - Marguerite Porete
- The Spirit madly possessed by violent desire... Only through everlasting Love is it drawn into the eternity of Love. - Beatrice of Nazareth
- Excerpts from Robert Burton's "The Anatomy of Melancholy", the 1896 edition:
- All these allurements hitherto are afar off, and at a distance; I will come nearer to those other degrees of love, which are conference, kissing, dalliance, discourse, singing, dancing, amorous tales, objects, presents, &c, which as so many Syrens steal away the hearts of men and women. For, as Tacitus observes, l. 2, "It is no sufficient trial of a maid's affection by her eyes alone, but you must say something that shall be more available, and use such other forcible engines; therefore take her by the hand, wring her fingers hard, and sigh withal; if she accept this in good part, and seem not to be much averse, then call her mistress, take her about the neck and kiss her, &c." But this cannot be done except they first get opportunity of living, or coming together, ingress, egress, and regress; letters and commendations may do much, outward gestures and actions : but when they come to live near one another, in the same street, village, or together in a house, love is kindled on a sudden. (478)
- This opportunity of time and place, with their circumstances, are so forcible motives, that it is impossible almost for two young folks equal in years to live together, and not be in love, especially in great houses, princes' courts, where they are idle in summo gradu, fare well, live at ease, and cannot tell otherwise how to spend their time. . . .If there be seven servants in an ordinary house, you shall have three couple in some good liking at least, and amongst idle persons how should it be otherwise? (479)
- SUBSECT. 1. — Symptoms or signs of Love Melancholy, in Body, Mind, good, bad, &c. Symptoms are either of body or mind; of body, paleness, leanness, dryness, &c. Pallidus omnis amans, color hie est apius amanti, as the poet describes lovers; fecit amor maciem, love causeth leanness. Avicenna de Ilishi, c. 33. "makes hollow eyes, dryness, symptoms of this disease, to go smiling to themselves, or acting as if they saw or heard some delectable object.". . ."as one who trod with naked foot upon a snake," hollow-eyed, their eyes are hidden in their heads, Tenerque nitidi corposis cecidit decor, they pine away, and look ill with waking, cares, sighs. (496)
- Tennessee Williams' play "Summer and Smoke", Pt. II Sc. VIII
- John: I wouldn't have made love to you. . .The night at the Casino--I wouldn't have made love to you. Even if you had consented to go upstairs. I couldn't have made love to you. (She (Alma) stares at him as if anticipating some unbearable hurt.) Yes, yes! Isn't that funny? I'm more afraid of your soul than you're afraid of my body. You'd have been as safe as the angel of the fountain--because I wouldn't feel decent enough to touch you...
- Hermann Hesse's "Narcissus and Goldmund":
- Although he was on good terms with everyone, he had not made a real friend. There was no one among his classmates for whom he felt any particular affinity, let alone fondness. . .He felt that the Abbot (Brother Narcissus) was a saint. He was immensely attracted by his kind simplicity, his clear, concerned eyes, by the way he gave orders and made decisions, humbly, as though it were a task, by his good, quiet gestures. He would have liked to become the personal servant of this pious man, to be in his presence constantly, obedient and serving, to bring him the sacrifice of all his youthful need for devotion and dedication, to learn a pure, noble, saintly life from him. (14)
- Some secret flaw seemed attached to Goldmund's birth, something unspoken that sought expiation. . .Narcissus knew only too well what a charming golden bird had flown to him. This hermit soon sensed a kindred soul in Goldmund, in spite of their apparent contrasts. Narcissus was dark and spare; Goldmund, a radiant youth. Narcissus was analytical, a thinker; Goldmund, a dreamer with the soul of a child. But something they had in common bridged these contrasts: both were refined; both were different from the others because of obvious gifts and signs; both bore the special mark of fate. Narcissus took an ardent interest in this young soul. . .But Goldmund was timid; the only way he knew to court Narcissus was to exhaust himself in being an attentive, eager student. But more than timidity held him back. He sensed a danger to himself in Narcissus. (15)
- It was a curious friendship that had begun between Narcissus and Goldmund, one that pleased only a few; at times it seemed to displease even the two friends. At first it was Narcissus, the thinker, who had the harder time of it. All was mind to him, even love; he was unable to give in to an attraction without thinking about it first. He was the guiding spirit of this friendship. For a long time he alone consciously recognized its destiny, its depth, its significance. For a long time he remained lonely, surrounded by love, knowing that his friend would fully belong to him only after he had been able to lead him toward recognition. (26)
- With glowing fervor, playful and irresponsible, Goldmund abandoned himself to this new life; while Narcissus, aware and responsible, accepted the demands of fate. For Goldmund it was a release at first, a convalescence. His youthful need for love had been powerfully aroused, and at the same time hopelessly intimidated, by the looks and the kiss of a pretty girl. Deep inside himself he felt the life he had dreamed of up to now, all his beliefs, all the things for which he felt himself destined, his entire vocation, threatened at the root by the kiss through the window, by the expression of those dark eyes. (26)
- . . .toward a pious, ascetic hero-image, and at the first furtive encounter, at life's first appeal to his senses, at the first beckoning of femininity he had felt that there was an enemy, a demon, a danger: woman. And now fate was offering him salvation, now in his most desperate need this friendship toward him and offered his longing a new alter for reverence. Here he was permitted to love, to abandon himself sinning, to give his heart to an admired older friend, more intelligent than he, to spiritualize dangerous flames of the senses, to transform them into nobler fires of sacrifice. (27)
- NYRB Edition of "The Gallery" by John Horne Burns. pages 179-180, 245-246, 257-258.
- Uday Prakash's "The Girl with the Golden Parasol", 2008 translation by Jason Grunebaum. Read as a PDF so page numbers absent.
- Rahul and Anjali locked themselves in an embrace with such force, filled with such longing, it was as if they needed the entire expanse of the earth to make their wish come true. The space between stacks of books was too narrow. Never before had Rahul lifted Anjali up and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Those seconds were like suddenly finding oneself in the middle of a misty twilight. Both could scarcely catch their breath. Rahul's half-closed eyes opened from their trance and regarded Anjali's face, which had changed completely. Now it was some flower being burned by fire, quivering, wilting into an enchanting potion.
- In that hazy moment, Anjali's eyes appeared to Rahul. What eyes they were, watching a dream unfold of another world. Her eyes were strictly focused, but what she was staring at was some scene far off in the distance, of another realm, another time. She looked as if she would swoon. They were like two fish swimming in the strong current of a stream, having touched one another, yet their tiny bodies still full of such longing for one another that they continue to swim, and they still want to pierce one another through and through. Time and again their bodies make innocent, improbable gestures to extract themselves from each other's insides.
- Yesterday had been Thursday, and in spite of everything turned upside down, the organic timepiece in Rahul's heart had been beating through every second in wait: tick-tick, tick-tick. . .Then he (Hemant Barua) took Rahul aside and said, "I'm leaving in ten days, so take what I have to say very seriously. Get yourself out of this gutter. I've warned you from the beginning, and I've given you all the data. . .You will neither get a job in this Hindi business, nor will you become an author. You are a neoromantic idealistic simpleton." Hemant thought a bit more and continued. "You're not going to like this, and I couldn't decide whether or not it was best to spell it out for you. But I'm your friend and really love you. So here it is. The truth is that you're never going to get this girl you're chasing after and, by the way, also gambling your life with. You'll end up on the losing end. Mark my words: when it comes time for her to make a choice, she won't choose you, she'll choose someone from her own caste. Get yourself out of here, Rahul. You've become their walking target," Hemant said. He began to get choked up, and his eyes filled with tears.
nov 18 2023 ∞
mar 6 2025 +