[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-114552-en":3,"doc-seo-114552-105":28,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":89},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":11,"is_downloadable":11,"audit_status":11,"page_count":20,"language":21,"language_code":22,"site_id":23,"html_lang":22,"table_of_contents":24,"faqs":25,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":26,"read_time":27},114552,13056703019404,"Miles","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_29158cc5080c5b710cf443261637dec0",1,"Story & Novel","The Blood Oranges - John Hawkes","A first-person narrative explores love as an all-consuming force that shapes desire, intimacy, and identity across many years of marriage. The narrator recounts recurring erotic encounters and then faces a changed domestic reality with a South European maid, replaced rituals, and restrained rules of speech rather than touch. Visits to an earlier lover and meticulous daily habits underscore endurance, elegance, and fidelity while questioning whether love’s purification has stripped away the narrator as well.","[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nFor James Laughlin  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nIs there then any terrestrial paradise where, amidst  \nthe whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like and take their ease in shadows andn coolness?  \n—Ford Madox Ford; THE GOOD SOLDIER  \n[OceanofPDF.com](OceanofPDF.com)  \nLOVE WEAVES ITS OWN TAPESTRY, SPINS ITS OWN GOLDEN thread, with its own sweet breath breathes into being its mysteries—bucolic, lusty, gentle as the eyes of daisies or thick with pain. And out of its own music creates the flesh of our lives. If the birds sing, the nudes are not far off. Even the dialogue of the frogs is rapturous.  \nAs for me, since late boyhood and early manhood, and throughout the more than eighteen years of my nearly perfect marriage, I always allowed myself to assume whatever shape was destined to be my own in the silken weave of Love’s pink panorama. I always went where the thread wound. No awkward hesitation, no prideful ravaging. At an early age I came to know that the gods fashion us to spread the legs of woman, or throw us together for no reason except that we complete the picture, so to speak, and join loin to loin often and easily, humbly, deliberately. Throughout my life I have never denied a woman young or old. Throughout my life I have simply appeared at Love’s will. See me as small white porcelain bull lost in the lower left-hand corner of that vast tapestry, see me as great white creature horned and mounted on a trim little golden sheep in the very center of Love’s most explosive field. See me as bull, or ram, as man, husband, lover, a tall and heavy stranger in white shorts on a violet tennis court. I was there always. I completed the picture. I took my wife, took her friends, took the wives of my friends and a fair roster of other girls and women, from young to old and old to young, whenever the light was right orthe music sounded.  \nNow there is only my little South European maid. She speaks an ugly language that will never be mine, she cannot understand a word  \nof my lengthy erotic declarations. She does not smile, she has never known my sexual embrace, may never have known the sexual embrace of any man, this small solemn girl who appears to have been created only to draw water and build fires. But together we live in our otherwise abandoned villa which is one of a pair, long and singlestoried, with broken red tiles and fireplaces like abandoned urinals, live together in our drafty and sometimes muddy villa where I knew my last mistress, sang my last song, last spread the legs of my wife. I have named my maid Rosella because the calves of her legs are raw, unshaven, and because she wears thick gray woolen socks. She cooks, she draws water, I spend my time attempting to inflame Rosella with words she does not understand, attempting to surround the ignorant virginity of Rosella’s spirit with at least the spoken tones of joy and desire. I have made myself rules: no touching, nothing overt. Only the spoken tones of joy and desire.  \nWhy, after more than eighteen years, does the soft medieval fabric of my tapestry now hang in shreds—here the head of a rose, there the amputated hoof of some infant goat? Is it possible that in purging her field of Hugh’s sick innocence Love (impatient Love) purged me as well? Eliminated even her own faithful sex-singer from the joyous field? It is possible. The villa that is twin to mine and that lies just on the other side of the funeral cypresses is empty.  \nBut I am patient, I am faithful, perhaps one day I will reach out and close my fingers on Rosella’s thigh, perhaps my last mistress may again become my mistress. It is possible. We shall wait and see.  \nYESTERDAY I PAID MY WEEKLY VISIT TO MY LAST MISTRESS. She has been given refuge in the sanctuary, that small white cluster of Moorishlooking buildings above the town. Each week I visit her. My ritual, my weekly ritual of hope and fidelity, and in the proc","cbCaijqTxqYq6T6V","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaijqTxqYq6T6V","pdf",1201637,248,"English","en",105,"# Love and desire as tapestry\n## Rules, distance, and a changed household\n# Waiting, doubt, and possible return","[{\"question\":\"How does the narrator describe love and its effect on his life?\",\"answer\":\"He portrays love as a weaving force that determines his shape and draws him repeatedly into intimate relationships, treating desire as both music and mystery.\"},{\"question\":\"What is the narrator’s situation with his maid Rosella?\",\"answer\":\"He lives in an otherwise abandoned villa with Rosella, attempts to inflame her with words she cannot understand, and sets rules that forbid physical touching.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the narrator keep visiting his last mistress?\",\"answer\":\"He follows a weekly ritual of hope and fidelity, believing his refined habits and memory preserve his elegance despite time passing and surroundings remaining unchanged.\"}]",1785401039,382,{"code":4,"msg":29,"data":30},"ok",{"site_id":23,"language":22,"slug":31,"title":13,"keywords":32,"description":14,"schema_data":33,"social_meta":84,"head_meta":86,"extra_data":88,"updated_unix":26},"the-blood-oranges-john-hawkes","",{"@graph":34,"@context":83},[35,52,66],{"@type":36,"itemListElement":37},"BreadcrumbList",[38,42,46,49],{"item":39,"name":40,"@type":41,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":43,"name":44,"@type":41,"position":45},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":47,"name":12,"@type":41,"position":48},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/story-novel/",3,{"item":50,"name":13,"@type":41,"position":51},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-blood-oranges-john-hawkes/114552/",4,{"url":50,"name":13,"@type":53,"author":54,"headline":13,"publisher":56,"fileFormat":59,"inLanguage":22,"description":14,"dateModified":60,"datePublished":60,"encodingFormat":59,"isAccessibleForFree":61,"interactionStatistic":62},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":55},"Person",{"url":39,"name":57,"@type":58},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-30",true,{"@type":63,"interactionType":64,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":65},"ViewAction",{"@type":67,"mainEntity":68},"FAQPage",[69,75,79],{"name":70,"@type":71,"acceptedAnswer":72},"How does the narrator describe love and its effect on his life?","Question",{"text":73,"@type":74},"He portrays love as a weaving force that determines his shape and draws him repeatedly into intimate relationships, treating desire as both music and mystery.","Answer",{"name":76,"@type":71,"acceptedAnswer":77},"What is the narrator’s situation with his maid Rosella?",{"text":78,"@type":74},"He lives in an otherwise abandoned villa with Rosella, attempts to inflame her with words she cannot understand, and sets rules that forbid physical touching.",{"name":80,"@type":71,"acceptedAnswer":81},"Why does the narrator keep visiting his last mistress?",{"text":82,"@type":74},"He follows a weekly ritual of hope and fidelity, believing his refined habits and memory preserve his elegance despite time passing and surroundings remaining unchanged.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":50,"og:type":85,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":57,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":87,"canonical":50},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":23},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":90},[91,94,98,102,107,112,117,122,127,130,134],{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":92,"slug":93},90,"story-novel",{"id":45,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":95,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":97},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":51,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":99,"show_sort_weight":100,"slug":101},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":103,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":104,"show_sort_weight":105,"slug":106},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":108,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":109,"show_sort_weight":110,"slug":111},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":113,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":114,"show_sort_weight":115,"slug":116},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":118,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":119,"show_sort_weight":120,"slug":121},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":125,"slug":126},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":125,"slug":129},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":131,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":132,"show_sort_weight":131,"slug":133},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":135,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":136,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":137},19,"General","general"]