'Fighting is a soldier's religion; I never changed that. The other is the affair of women and priests. As for me, I always adopt the religion of the country I am in.'
Sayfa 233Kitabı okudu
Her affair with Nathaniel had passed through its traumatic, tortured beginnings, and one began to see the emergence of a provocative, sexual woman. There was a new glow about her like a young woman in love; her stern features took on a softness and a femininity, as if cold marble had been warmed by an inner fire. Timidly, by slow, careful steps, Ayn was again attempting to live in the present, and was finding, in her work and in her romantic attachment—perhaps to her astonishment—a fulfillment the present had never before afforded her.
Sayfa 281
In retrospect, it appears that the rejection of her story in itself only partially accounts for the intensity and injustice of Ayn’s anger that night. More relevant is the fact that it was I, whom she had chosen, along with Nathaniel, as her closest friend, whom she had likened to her heroines, whom she had praised as an example and exemplar of her philosophy, was now invading the safe haven of her world not merely with alien values, but, still worse, with a repudiation of her work. And perhaps it was, as well, the explosion of all the frustrations of her affair with Nathaniel, all the unrecognized pain and guilt it was causing her, all that I stood for in her mind as the wife her lover steadfastly refused to leave. And no one heard her silent cry that life was intended for happiness and fulfillment—and why was that joy denied to her? It was in this tortured, explosive fusion of overheated emotions, of anguish and rage and frustrated longings and bitterness—and of love and sexual passion and ecstatic fulfillment—that Ayn at last completed the writing of John Galt’s speech.
Sayfa 279
The sexual affair between Ayn and Nathaniel had begun early in 1955. Years later, Nathaniel would acknowledge that their romance was not truly lived in reality. Rather, it was theater—no, not theater, it was a scene from a novel by Ayn Rand, full of sexual dominance and surrender and the uncontrollable pas- sion of two noble souls. Ayn, so desperate to live in the real world, not merely in her novels and in a future that never came—could not, after all, be content with reality. Once more, she was struggling to turn base metals—the painful, unsatis- factory fact of a woman having an adulterous affair with the too young husband of her closest friend—into the gold of a great and exalted romance. She succeeded in her fiction. She did not succeed in her life.
Sayfa 272
The character of Vesta Dunning, included in Ayn’s early thinking about the novel—it was to appear in the first typed version—was removed before publication. Vesta was to be a young and idealistic actress who falls in love with Roark; they have a love affair, although he knows she is not his final or lasting romantic choice. The reader was to see her gradual spiritual decay as she began to debase her great talent in order to win public acceptance. Years after the end of their relationship, she would meet Roark again; she had become a world-famous actress—and a mediocrity.’*
Sayfa 141
In late ancient times, romanice designated a language derived from Latin, the speech of the Romans, as opposed to one derived from a Germanic language. Next, in Old French the word shifted to indicate a composition in such a language. Many of those early (and popular) compositions involved chivalrous knights, heroic adventures, and lovely damsels, all narrated with an air of imaginative unworldliness. Hence romance , a literary genre. Finally – and this happened only about a century ago – the word got attached to another prominent feature of romances. Hence romance signifying “love, love affair.”
Edgardo Mortara was a Jewish boy whose family lived in the papal territory of Bologna. When he was still only one, the child fell dangerously ill, and a Christian maidservant secretly baptised him by sprinkling water from a bucket while his parents were out of the room. When news of her action leaked out the Inquisition investigated, since it was contrary to Catholic law for a Christian – which the boy now technically was – to be brought up as a Jew. Eventually the six-year-old Edgardo was forcibly taken away from his parents, and placed under the direct protection of the pope in Rome.
Despite the serious misgivings of many Catholics, including the pope’s own Secretary of State, the appeals of the family, of the Roman Jews, the intervention of the Emperor of Austria and Napoleon III of France, and the protests of the anti-clerical press, Pio Nono resolutely rejected all pleas. He made a pet of Edgardo, escorting him into public audiences, playing hide and seek with him under his cloak. The pope’s French protectors were so acutely embarrassed by the whole affair that the French ambassador seriously discussed with Cavour the possibility of kidnapping Mortara and returning him to his parents.
“In Costa Rica, you asked if I’d ever been in love. I said no.” I lowered my head until our foreheads touched and her lips were scant inches from mine. “Ask me again.”
It was the same request I’d made at the hospital, but this time, Bridget didn’t break our gaze as she asked, “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Larsen?”
“Only once.” I slid my hand up from her neck to the back of her head, cupping it. “And you, princess. Have you ever been in love?”
“Only once,” she whispered.
I exhaled sharply her words sank into my soul, filling cracks I hadn’t known existed.
Until Bridget, I’d never loved or been loved, and I finally understood what the fuss was about. It was better than any bulletproof armor or oblivion I found at the bottom of the bottle during my short-lived affair with alcohol.
Alcohol was for numbing, and I didn’t want to be numb. I wanted to feel every goddamn thing with her.
I pulled Bridget close until our bodies pressed flush against each other. “Damn right,” I said fiercely. “Only once. First and last. Don’t forget that, princess.”
I was not, therefore, directly involved in the extraordinary developments of early 1972, when Amin broke with Israel and began his love affair with Libya. But I was to see their effects, and a brief summary is essential for an understanding of Uganda’s recent history. The events were dictated by Amin’s need for ready cash. Britain was still willing to help, but most of her funds were tied up with specific projects, and British officials always wanted feasibility studies before funds were allocated. Similarly, the Israelis, apart from the fact that they had limited funds and were deeply involved in a number of projects, gave serious consideration to new ideas strictly on merit. That was not the kind of money Amin wanted. He saw his chance while on a state visit to West Germany in February 1972. Shortly before his return, he decided to visit Libya’s head of state, Gaddafi. Since he was flying an Israeli jet, many ministers were shocked at the prospect of his dropping in on an extremist Arab dictator, but he went, met with Gaddafi, and received promises of massive financial and military aid. It was an attractive prospect for Gaddafi as well, for he was suddenly presented with an opportunity to have Israel thrown out of an African country.
Sayfa 55Kitabı okuyor
Agatha kıskançlığın dürtüsüyle eczanedeki boş zamanlarında "The Mysterious Affair at Styles-Ölüm Sessiz Geldi" adlı romanını kurguladı.
Women are usually willing to commit to a long-term relationship while guys often prefer to have a one-night stand or a casual affair that doesn't last long so he can "get out of it before it gets too messy, complicated"
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“I seek refuge in the light of Your Face by which all darkness is dispelled and every affair of this world and the next is set right.”
Sayfa 108
In the Odyssey , the bard Demodokos sings of the adulterous affair between Ares and Aphrodite, Hephaistos’ wife. Sun acts as informant, and Hephaistos forges a net with strands so fine, that they are practically invisible. The net entraps Ares and Aphrodite the next time they make love. Hephaistos bursts on the scene and calls the gods to witness; the goddesses, we are told, stay home out of modesty. Here it is Poseidon, not Dionysos, who barely mollifies the enraged god.
Life is a hopeless affair and certainly not worth living.
Sayfa 155Kitabı okudu
