MihaElla > Recent Status Updates

The sight of him was one of the most painful of my first impressions on my arrival.Yet he was by no means an old man,he was only 45.Looking at him more closely I found in his handsome face something even more striking than what I had kept in my memory.There was less of the brilliance of those days,less external beauty,less elegance even;but life had stamped on that face something far more interesting than before

[...] but she was carried away by a violent emotion, which sometimes gains a fatal and tragic ascendancy when the victim is of a certain degree of simplicity. There is no telling: perhaps she fell madly in love with … the cut of his clothes, the Parisian style in which he parted his hair, his French accent—yes, French, though she didn't understand a word of it—the song he sang at the piano;

But I know for certain, though, that some women fascinate by their beauty, or by anything you like, all in a minute, while you may ruminate over another for six months before you understand what is in her; and that to see through and love such a woman it is not enough to look at her, it is not enough to be simply ready for anything, one must have a special gift besides.

“What's your name?"
"Dolgoruky."
"Prince Dolgoruky?"
"No, simply Dolgoruky."
"Ah, simply! Fool.”

Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. They clasped and sundered, did the coupler's will. From before the ages He willed me and now may not will me away or ever. A lex eterna stays about Him. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions?

—I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard.
     My mother's a jew, my father's a bird.
     With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree.
     So here's to disciples and Calvary.

     —If anyone thinks that I amn't divine
     He'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine
     But have to drink water and wish it were plain
     That i make when the wine becomes water again.

—Look at the sea.What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola, Kinch,& come on down.The Sassenach wants his morning rashers.

—Don't mope over it all day,he said. I'm inconsequent.Give up the moody brooding.

His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of the stairhead:
     And no more turn aside and brood
     Upon love's bitter mystery
     For Fergus rules the brazen cars

Suflet mic, suflet bland si calator, tovaras al trupului meu care te-a gazduit, vei cobori pe meleagurile livide, aspre, pustii, unde nu vei mai fi jucaus precum obisnuiai odinioara. Inca o clipa, sa privim impreuna taramurile familiare, obiectele pe care neindoielnic nu le vom mai vedea niciodata...Sa incercam sa patrundem in moarte cu ochii deschisi...

Nu ma iubesti. N-are importanta. Nu este neaparat nevoie sa ma intelegi. Exista mai multe intelepciuni si toate sunt necesare lumii; nu e rau ca ele sa alterneze.

...ma gandeam cu strangere de inima ca nimic nu merge mai incet decat adevarata nastere a unui om...

Imperiilor, ca si oamenilor, nu le este dat ragazul sa invete din greseli. Daca un tesator isi va carpi panza, un socotitor priceput isi va corecta erorile, un artist isi va retusa capodopera imperfecta inca, ori putin deteriorata, natura prefera sa plece chiar de la lut, chiar de la haos, iar aceasta risipa este ceea ce se numeste firea lucrurilor.

Altminteri concepeam eu raporturile cu divinul. Ma vedeam ajutandu-l in efortul sau de a da forma unei lumi si de a o orandui, de a dezvolta si inmulti circumvolutiunile, ramificatiile, sinuozitatile. Eram unul dintre segmentele rotii, unul dintre aspectele acestei forte unice care strabate lucrurile fara de numar, vultur si taur, om si lebada, falus si creier deopotriva, Proteu si Jupiter totodata.

...fiecare om trebuie necontenit sa aleaga in cursul scurtei sale vieti intre neobosita speranta si inteleapta lipsa de speranta, intre placerile haosului si cele ale stabilitatii, intre titan si olimpian. Sa alegi intre ei sau sa reusesti sa-i impaci intr-o buna zi unul cu celalalt.

“It was a sad and sentimental wedding — an end to the fine, glamorous youth of a girl who was universally admired and loved. Perhaps to no onlooker there were its details symbolical of the end of a period, yet from the vantage point of a decade, certain things that happened are already powdered with yesterday’s ridiculousness, and even tinted with the lavender of the day before.”

She was in the world of being alone with a male, a world through which she had moved surely since she was eight years old. She did not plan; she merely let herself go, and the overwhelming life in her did the rest. It is only when youth is gone and experience has given us a sort of cheap courage that most of us realize how simple such things are.

One face emerged suddenly around a man’s upper arm,& Anthony was the object of the saddest & most tragic regard that had ever been directed upon him.It was a smile & not a smile-two big gray eyes with bright triangles of color underneath,& a mouth twisted into a universal sympathy that seemed to include both him & herself-yet withal, the expression not of a victim,but rather of the very demon of tender melancholy

Why should I kiss you? she demanded. I hardly know you, and besides, you’re engaged to somebody else

Oh, that! She doesn’t care

No, really!

You’re a good girl.

Well, I’m certainly not an idiot.

All right, go on being a good girl.

She stood up, but lingered a minute, very fresh and cool, and not upset at all.

I suppose this means you won’t give me a job? she asked pleasantly

Be wise, Marston. On your side there’s an obstinate prejudice; on mine there are forty million dollars. Don’t fool yourself. Let me repeat, Marston, that money is power. You were abroad so long that perhaps you’re inclined to forget that fact. Money made this country, built its great and glorious cities, created its industries, covered it with an iron network of railroads.

She hurried into a new spring evening dress of the frailest fairy blue. In the excitement of seeing herself in it, it seemed as if she had shed the old skin of winter and emerged a shining chrysalis with no stain; and going downstairs her feet fell softly just off the beat of the music from below. It was a tune from a play she had seen a week ago in New York, a tune with a future —

Josephine was an exquisite size for seventeen &of a beauty that was flowering marvelously day by day into something richer & warmer.People gasped nowadays,whereas a year ago they would merely have stared,& scarcely glanced at her a year before that.She was manifestly to be the spectacular débutante of Chicago next year,in spite of the fact that she was an egotist who played not for popularity but for individual men

What are you preparing to do,Hélène?he demanded kindly.What profession do the nuns teach you?
She shrugged her shoulders.
I shall marry,she said.A rich American if I can.That young man I just left for example — he is on the staff of the New York Herald Tribune
Reporters are not rich,he reproved her,& that one doesn’t look very promising
Oh, he is drunk now,said Hélène,but at times he is all one would desire.

It was Sunday again — the lovely, lazy perspective of the next twenty-four hours unrolled before him — every minute was something to be approached with lulling indirection, every moment held the germ of innumerable possibilities. Nothing was impossible — everything was just beginning. He poured himself another drink

“The psychoanalyst told Miles that he had a mother complex. In his first marriage he transferred his mother complex to his wife, you see — and then his sex turned to me. But when we married the thing repeated itself — he transferred his mother complex to me and all his libido turned toward this other woman.”
Joel knew that this probably wasn’t gibberish — yet it sounded like gibberish.”

People tried to make marriages coöperative and they’ve ended by becoming competitive. Impossible situation. Smart men will get to fight shy of ornamental women. A man ought to marry somebody who’ll be grateful, like Betty here.

Now don’t talk so much, Theodore Van Beck, Betty interrupted. Since you’re such a fine musician, you’d do well to express yourself with music instead of rash words.

No, if I tried to keep up with Teddy, I’d have white hair by now, Betty said. Of course, I go to his concerts, but often I fall asleep — not that he ever knows it. So long as he doesn’t take too much to drink and knows where his home is, I don’t bother about where he wanders. All and all, he’s a good husband to me and we have a happy life together, without interfering with each other.

I’ve reached the point where I can neither sleep nor eat from thinking of you. What point is that?

Well, don’t think of me as I am now, she said. My face is getting rougher every day and my muscles lean out of an evening dress like a female impersonator. People are beginning to refer to me as handsome instead of pretty. Besides, I’m in a vile humor. It seems to me women are always just edged out of everything.

“I’ll have to tell you from the beginning. I’ve realized for a long time that we have nothing in common. You’re interested in your music, and I can’t even play chopsticks.” Her voice was weary as if with suffering; her small teeth tugged at her lower lip.

“What of it?” he demanded, relieved. “I’m musician enough for both. You wouldn’t have to understand banking to marry a banker, would you?”

Her beauty sparkled bright against his strong,tall form,& they floated hoveringly, delicately,like two people in a nice,amusing dream.Tom admired the faint dust of powder over her freshness,the guarded sweetness of her smile,the fragility of her body calculated by Nature to a millimeter to suggest a bud,yet guarantee a flower. Her innocent,passionate eyes were brown,perhaps;but almost violet in the silver light

“Do you mind if I weep a little?” she said.

“I’m afraid I’m boring you,” he responded quickly.

“You’re not. I like you. But I’ve just had a terrible afternoon. There was a man I cared about, and this afternoon he told me out of a clear sky that he was poor as a church-mouse. He’d never even hinted it before. Does this sound horribly mundane?”

“Perhaps he was afraid to tell you.”

Ninth Day, Ninth Story

Two young men ask advice from Solomon, one of them as to what he must do to be loved, the other as to how he should punish his stubborn wife; Solomon tells the first man to love and the other to go to the Goose Bridge.