The Fleshly Prelude 1938

[Asiaticus]

The Fleshly Prelude
A Realistic Novel
By Robert Sermaise

The Vendome Press
338, Rue Saint-Honore, Paris, 1938

[April]

CHAPTER I

"Yet another victim of masculine brutality!" concluded my Uncle,
sententiously; and on looking once more at the photographs he added:
"It's a pity all the same, for she is jolly good looking. And well-made,
too, eh?"

"Diana personified. Neither too plump nor too thin. Moreover, as
supple as a willow-wand."

"Lucky chap! You said that the marriage was fixed for..."

"July 20th."

"Next Wednesday?... And since when have you been engaged?"

"Officially since last Thursday, the very day of my return from
Shanghai."

"This is bewildering. You mean to tell me that you'll have the shameful
courage to... to..."

"Oh! she has advanced beyond that: she holds a Licentiate's degree in
both literature and history. Above all, her reading has been most
extensive; and whatever she has read she has assimilated perfectly."

"All that is very, very bad."

"Why so?"

"With a body so perfectly formed as this"— my Uncle tapped the
photographs with his forefinger—"a young woman who is
passionately fond of study must certainly, as Freud would have said, be
suffering from a complex due to repressed sexuality... And what a
complex it must be!... The whole gamut."

"That holds forth a prospect not wholly disagreeable."

"Obviously, provided the man is skilful. But a veritable artist in love is
called for and not a frantic tourist such as you are. For, believe me, my
dear nephew, the danger in these young women resides in the fact that
they are at one and the same time most sensual and yet rather
unsociable; certainly capable of flaming like a torch—and for their
whole lifetime if one knows how to awaken them; but at first
hesitating, like a flame which still flickers; and this flame threatens to
go out on the very first day if it is handled without due precaution. In
short, I'll explain everything to you soon... Proceed with your story."

"We spent three weeks after that fashion— three weeks of delicious
intimacy: intellectual and moral. I was able, wholly at my leisure, to
appreciate Therese's qualities, and I found her to be a sterling young
creature,—affectionate and spontaneous, yet reserved and reflective.
On the eve of my departure I confessed my love for her..."

"In the moonlight and to the sound of muted violins... and amidst
kisses!"

"No, no,—nothing of the sort! I told Therese that I loved her—I asked
her to become my wife. Whereupon she turned pale and declared that
she felt deeply sympathetic towards me. But her final words were that
both of us had need to reflect. I had great hopes of a kiss, which, despite
her words, would, in a way, have pledged her. But she refused.
However, she did so in a very friendly, most simple manner, while
explaining to me that she was not yet sufficiently certain as regards
her future decision."

"Ah! Ah! All the same that was rather cold on her part."

"I'm giving you only a rough outline of what happened. In her voice
there were those warm inflections which are hardly ever to be
mistaken; and on the following day I was wholly satisfied. Early in the
morning, while I was fastening my luggage, she knocked at my door.
This must have cost her a good deal. She seemed quite out of breath
and spoke so quickly at first that I had difficulty in understanding her.
She begged me not to be put out by her reply of the previous night—
not to regard it as a refusal. What she feared, she went on to explain,
was a hasty decision, given—perhaps—unduly, under the influence of
the sorrow my departure caused her. And as she spoke of my imminent
departure she made a poor little grimace after the manner of a child
who is swallowing down its tears. Then, suddenly, she fell upon my
shoulder and wept."

"Whereupon you dried her tears with your ardent kisses."

"I ought to have done that—eh? But she came to me so trustfully; she
seemed, suddenly, to be so helpless. I did not dare to take advantage of
her!"

"Bravo! Bravo!"

"You find me guilty of stupidity? Believe me, had she been a woman,
or a semi-virgin... But in the case of so young a girl..."

"Why make so many excuses for yourself? Do you take me to be a
brute?"

"Two days later I embarked for Shanghai... And then followed two
years of exile which, this time, were indeed a heavy burden. However,
we had arranged to write to each other by every mail."

"What about the Cerberus?"

"You mean her Grandmother? Well, Therese saw to that. Moreover,
four months after my departure we became semi-officially engaged."

"By proxy? And I suppose the betrothal kiss was bestowed by
Wireless?"

"Manifestly we had to wait until last Thursday for that..."

"I suppose that during the last week you have made up for lost time?"

Here I shrugged my shoulders, irritated by this cross-examination, and
somewhat at a loss how to reply, for Therese and I were under close
observation. It was on the sly and ever on the spur of the moment that
we managed to kiss each other. But my Uncle understood this quite
well, as indeed his words proved:

"Grandmamma Rolland shows crass stupidity. Her conduct is more
than bewildering. It's positively criminal... Think of it—betrothed for a
fortnight and not allowed a moment's intimacy. My dear nephew, you
are going full-steam ahead towards a catastrophe."

"Come now! A catastrophe? You are exaggerating. This has happened
in the case of other people."

"Don't talk to me about other people! I know you through and through.
You regard marriage seriously. You want your wife to be really your
mistress. And indeed you're jolly well right there; for nothing better
has yet been invented than a husband and a wife who love each other
carnally—totally—without the slightest reticence, or false modesty.
Yet you are going to spoil everything."

"What would you have me do then? I'm off back to China in six weeks.
Must I wait for the eve of my departure to get married?"

"Oh! no,—anything but that... Bunks inconveniently narrow... seasickness...
passengers keeping you continually under their observation!... Very bad
conditions for a honeymoon voyage,— I mean a real honeymoon between
a gentleman and a lady who are capable of understanding the importance
of what they are about. Here!— have a cigarette and let me explain my
ideas to you. You can carry them out or not, just as you like. Anyway, my
conscience will be more at its ease."

My uncle glanced at his pipe—which had gone out—as though in
search of ideas; then he methodically emptied it by a regular
succession of little taps on the edge of the ashtray, before remarking:

"Can you spare the time to listen to me?"

"Certainly. You can quite understand how deeply this question
interests me."

"Good!... First of all, let us try to fix the boundaries of the problem. What
are we aiming at? Our object is to manufacture conjugal love. Not that
spurious affection—based on financial interests, or the dictates of the
fashionable world —which so often goes by that name. What we want
is a total—that is to say, an intellectual and fleshly—union between
two beings who make love to each other and... don't care a damn for
anything else. Do you agree with me?"

"Absolutely."

"Now, in order to manufacture that sort of love, it is perfectly clear we
require raw material of the finest quality,—that is to say, a woman
with an infinite capacity to give forth vibrations and a man who has a
passion for love."

"But if he loves too ardently he will not be content with conjugal
pleasures."

"Ah!—there you make a mistake,—a great mistake, my dear nephew.
A man who plays the part of a Don Juan, without being able to fix his
mind anywhere, is not a true lover. He is generally a neuropath. And if
he finds excitement in novelties, it is through a necessity to restore a
punctured erotism which is periodically becoming deflated."

"It may also be through eclecticism."

"Eclecticism? That of hotel-porters, who jabber several living
languages, without having had the time to fathom a single one. Have
you noticed that the most profound writers—a Mauriac, for
instance—are men of the soil, faithful to the self-same landscape?
And people with veritable amorous temperaments are also to be
measured by their fidelity. Instead of repeating the same little
experiments with easy little women, they prefer the great adventure of
a total love-affair."

"On condition that, in marriage, they find a partner worthy of the
adventure."

"Obviously! That's a question of initial choice. I don't insist on it, since
you appear to have solved the problem sufficiently well. However, I
must admit it is a delicate one and hazardous as regards its solution.
But, above all, it appears to me to be badly set, because one affects to
ignore its sexual side. One is floundering about in a sea of hypocrisy.
And when one comes to realize that there's a misdeal,—that the
couple are decidedly ill-matched, the fiction is continued. People talk
about incompatibility of temper, whereas it is clearly evident it's a
question of incompatibility of the sexes. A marriage is not a
satisfactory one unless sexual harmony reigns. Everything else, you see,
is of secondary consideration,—at any rate in the case of those who
claim to realize that erotic masterpiece,— 100% conjugal love."

"That is to say..."

"That is to say marriage containing a big dose of fleshly love. One of
those skilfully compounded cocktails containing a slight common
basis of intellectual and moral aspirations, a suspicion of equally shared
social prejudices, but the whole most generously moistened
with sensuality, and without forgetting a certain flavour of folly."

"Go a little further and you'll entirely suppress the slight intellectual
and moral foundation."

"Not at all! On the contrary that is essential: it's an indispensable
gyroscope with which to preserve the stability of households. But
when the hour for desire comes and it is fanned into flame, I would see
husband and wife capable of forgetting everything save their passion; I
would then have them capable of obeying the wildest suggestions of
their senses,—capable of banishing all reticence or shame, amidst the
sole preoccupation of diversifying and renewing their
voluptuousness."

"But in that case, what is the difference between a legitimate spouse
and the professional vendor of love?"

"The difference?—Why, that existing between passion and venality;
between inspirations of desire and actions merely learnt; between true
tenderness and vulgarity! Everything which separates a body which
has been wholly yours and one which others have polluted,—nay,
which they may have contaminated. I delight to plunge into a
mountain lake; but it is not without a feeling of repugnance that I do so
in a public swimming-bath."

"By Jove!—what comparisons you do draw."

"They are literally exact. Between two young married people, really in
love with each other, I can picture, without a feeling of disgust, an
intimacy of lips and the flesh which, in the case of a prostitute, would
sicken me."

"But there are caresses which a husband cannot accept from his wife."

"Why so? If, on her part, the tender action is spontaneous and if he
cannot reproach himself either with conjugal infidelities or old-time
blemishes. Clearly this latter condition is a necessity. Unless we have
to do with an unspeakable cad... By the bye, what about your sojourns
in the East...?"

"Nothing... I lived there like a monk—a veritable monk, and strictly
observant of his rules. As to my behaviour in France, I've had only a
couple of liaisons, and most sentimental ones to boot. But I've never
touched a prostitute... No, on that score, I'm sure of myself."

"In that case, my boy, you can, as regards conjugal tendernesses, permit
yourself everything, and accept everything."

"As an objection against that, some people might raise that minimum
of deference which a husband owes his wife and which forbids him to
take certain liberties."

"Ah! yes. The great objection of the father-confessors,—'dignity as
regards conjugal love.' What a sinister piece of hypocrisy! How is it
that Christian moralists,—those most eloquent champions of fidelity
in marriage,—make themselves the grave-diggers of that very virtue?
For that is indeed what they do when they pretend to limit the rites of
conjugal love and restrict it to the brevity of a utilitarian act. They
would have the nuptial bed as frigid as an operating-table. Yet they
know quite well that disappointed love will seek consolation in other,
warmer beds;—and that will be the doom of conjugal fidelity. You
were speaking just now of the respect due to a married woman; but
would it not be inflicting a grave wrong upon her if she were made
merely the passive receptacle of a bi-monthly satisfaction? And what
a lamentable piece of trickery is that of so many stupidly unfaithful
husbands! They abandon their wives in order to purchase their
pleasures from prostitutes, without suspecting that a spouse, when
awakened to fleshly love, may become an incomparable mistress.
Quite as inventive as the others, but more sincere, more passionate, and
healthier."

"But do you think she would always accept that part as a mistress?
That she would yield to the exigencies of your love at 100 %?"

"Clearly there are redhibitory cases, such as that of a stupid,
amorphous woman; or the more delusive case of one who is very
beautiful, and so smitten with her own beauty that she fears to blemish
it. In all other instances, a woman's adhesion to the rites of love depend
entirely on her husband."

"And what must he do to obtain it?"

"Exactly the opposite of what is usually done."

"But practically?"

"He must understand that he is not an animal in a state of rut, legally
authorized to satisfy himself by raping his wife on the very night of
their marriage. A day will perhaps come when the honest man, far
from pluming himself on the rapidity of that rape, will make a point of
honour in deferring it a little; and that day will inaugurate an era of
better understanding in households. Come, my boy, can you imagine
what that first night must be like to a virgin? The ridiculous nudity of a
hairy man; the brutal revelation of the hugeness of his sex; the
repulsive obligation of allowing herself to be ridden; the pain
consequent on the act of violation; and the grotesque movements
accompanying the man's desire for satisfaction. I am fully aware that
many young brides accept these horrors without too great an emotion.
Some have already been instructed while others are endowed by
Nature with the treasures of a stupid, bovine indifference. But what
happens in the case of an intelligent, sensitive, and truly ingenuous
young woman? Either she will no longer accept carnal love save as a
degrading job, with the result that her husband will tire of her; or else,
retiring within herself, she will meet some charming initiator, who is
capable of revealing to her, delicately, the marvels of the senses,—and
the husband will be deceived. In both cases there is a dissociation of
the household."

"But, once more, what is one to do?"

"Simply be patient. Know how to enjoy those ineffable pleasures,—the
progressive discovery of the various parts of a young woman's body,
the awakening of her curiosity as regards the body of the male, and her
slow initiation into the mysteries of the flesh. Moreover, these delights
should be those of newly married couples,—officially,—and the fact
should be patent to everyone."

"You don't mean it!"

"Certainly I do, my boy. At least if we were living in a better organized
world, in which mothers were very intelligent and young men were
absolutely straightforward. But in your case...

"Well, exactly,—in my case?"

"The essential thing is to compensate the brevity of the betrothal by
secretly prolonging it after marriage. That would be a most beautiful, a
most subtly voluptuous procedure,—the man in question being
absolutely master of the virgin, but knowing how to bide his time..."

"To bide his time? To wait until when?"

"Until the hour came when that virgin,— overflowing with love for the
flesh of the male, steeped in his caresses and crazy with desire,— cried
out of her own accord,—'Have me!' Then it would no longer be the
lamentable discordance of a desire imposed on a feeling of disgust, but
the sublime harmony of two desires, raised to the same pitch."

"And suppose the woman does not come to that decision?"

"Then the husband is either a duffer, or she is a goose. Two hypotheses
to be set aside in your case."

[April]

CHAPTER II

There had been protestations on the part of Therese's grandmother,
and I myself had had to be obstinate. Nobody was to know the
whereabouts of the summer resort where we were to spend our
honeymoon. But, after the manner of a board of enquiry which
classifies the counterfoils of cheques, my future wife's family began to
collect all sorts of indications, such as the beach-pyjamas ordered by
Therese, the canicular preoccupations revealed by my own wardrobe,
and the characteristics of the motor-car I had purchased. On the basis
of these indications a legend took form and, favoured by my own semi disclosures,
it finally crystallized into a certainty around the name of Juan-les-Pins.

Moreover, on the day of the marriage, we took advantage of this; for
those "in the know", fearing the length of the journey by road, urged us
not to tarry unduly. And thus, at four o'clock-I was at the wheel, with
my wife and our luggage aboard. The members of the blessed family
were lined-up on the causeway and became odiously noisy in that
almost deserted quarter of Passy. The way in which I started up the
motor was commented upon mockingly; bantering good-wishes were
showered upon me; and then came a final salvo of familiar advice,—

"Don't go too quickly!"—"Don't run the whole night!" —"Be sure to
break the journey at Dijon!"— Followed by laughter—already
distant, but which grated on my nerves, despite the fact that I did my
best to drown it by treading on the gas. And, as I carried off the woman
I had conquered, the primitive joy of being able to take flight mingled
with the roar of the motor.

Seated by my side, Therese remained silent. A white beret, set awry,
gave her a spurious air of assurance, while her slightly turned up nose
added a suspicion of the provocative. Nevertheless her features
remained passive and somewhat tense. When, begging for a look, I
leaned forward, she responded with a smile, but the limpidity of her
blue eyes was veiled by a shadow of anxiety. Whereupon I mused on
the fact that we were indeed, as partners still uncertain of each other,
on the point of entering on a delicate ordeal.

Therese was certainly virginal and, despite the maturity of her mind,
had remained very much a young girl. I realized—and this she was to
confirm later—that she had voluntarily avoided certain acts of
curiosity. She was certainly aware that marriage resolved itself into
physical contact; but the little she had guessed on that subject left
such a fringe of uncertainty and the unknown! She had certainly often
said to herself: "My husband will explain to me"; and so she left to that
distant personage—the future— the task of elucidating the fleshly
mystery. But now she was faced by the future, and it was so suddenly
near that the fringe of uncertainty appeared to her tremendously
enlarged. And now that the husband had come, Therese did not dare to
question him.

Hers was an unexpressed anguish, but easily to be divined. "Should I
dispel it by some piece of pleasantry?—reduce the mystery to the
proportions of a somewhat ridiculous formality?" Instinctively, I was
warned that that would have been a supreme error of judgment. As I
knew her—affectionate and reflective—my wife would accept
fleshly love as a religious act, presided over by serious rites; or she
would turn away from it under the impression that it was a downfall.
She was the possessor of an ardent temperament, certainly, and apt,
under a slow initiation, of rising to the most subtle heights of
voluptuousness; but she likewise had a delicate soul, and an imprudent
word would suffice to provoke a hostile feeling of disgust. Therefore I
preferred to remain silent. A recollection of my uncle's advice came to
me and I was the better able to understand its profound wisdom.

* * *

Had Therese believed, like the others, in the Juan-les-Pins legend? In
order not to prevaricate to her mother, she preferred not to ask me for
any precise information. And now, absorbed by problems which were
otherwise serious, she doubtless troubled herself hardly at all over the
question of our mysterious destination. Yet she appeared to awaken
from her day-dream when we were about to cross the St. Cloud bridge.

"You've not made a mistake as to the route?"

"Ah! I lay claim to a forfeit: you have forgotten to say tu when speaking
to your husband."

Whereupon I culled my forfeit from her lips. Therese—now
thoroughly awakened—disengaged herself, laughingly, and declared
I was an imprudent driver. Then she returned to her question.

"All the same, this is not the way towards the Midi?"

"Clearly it isn't."

"Well then, what about Juan-les-Pins?"

"I let that be understood. But I'd thoroughly made up my mind not to
allow our love to stew in the neighbourhood of that public bathingplace.
Come now, guess where we are going."

She enumerated some of the beaches on the western coast,—and to
one after the other, by a simple gesture, expressive of disdain or
disgust, I took exception to them. When she had definitely confessed
her incapacity to guess correctly, I uttered, triumphantly, the solution
of the enigma: "Versailles!—Versailles-les-Bains." Therese has no
great fondness for fashionable beaches. Though their picturesque
medley of colours may momentarily amuse her, like a well-staged
sketch, she becomes quickly tired of their somewhat vulgar
worldliness. However, at the mention of Versailles, she was unable to
hide her disappointment.

"Not really?" she questioned, with a forced smile, which badly
attenuated a little frown.

"Nothing more correct."

"But why Versailles at this time of the year?"

"Why Versailles? First of all, because I wanted to spend our holiday in
a place of safety, undisturbed by the incursions off the members of thy
family. They would have sought us out at Juan-les-Pins,—at
Deauville,—nay, on the very summit of Mont Blanc. On the other
hand, Versailles, in the summer, is much too far away for them."

"But, dearie, the temperature will be infernal."

"On the contrary, the temperature will be paradisian,—similar to that
which protected the amorous nudity of Adam and Eve." Feeling,
immediately, that I could have kicked myself for this premature piece
of stupidity, I went on to speak of something else. "As far as I'm
concerned, you know, it's not the heat which troubles me. Moreover,
the place is very shady and when you're wearing your beachpyjamas..."

"Oh! I say, you don't really picture me in pyjamas in the park of the
Grand Roi?"

"Certainly not, darling; but in our private garden I do."

"You possess a garden in Versailles?"

"An ideal garden, my dear,—a veritable lover's nest. An extensive
park,—a most comfortable villa,—and a garage."

"What about the staff?"

"Like the Kobolds of German legends: a couple of old gardeners will
watch over us, discreetly. As a matter of fact, they'll remain in their
own little habitation so long as we don't evoke them by ringing."

"Quite charming. But I can't quite make it out."

"Yet it's all very simple... like every genial idea. You are aware that
Albert is in garrison at Versailles?"

"Didn't he send in his resignation after his wonderful heritage?"

"Not at all. He remained in the army. Horse-shows and the rest. He's
immensely fond of all that."

"More faithful than you are to the cult of Mars... But continue."

"As proof of his fidelity to the god Mars, he has raised one of those little
temples to Venus! A model bachelor's establishment. And, zealous
high-priest that he is, it is rumoured that his altars have not lacked for
beautiful victims."

"You wish to add me to the list?"

"Oh! no,—what a shocking thing to suggest. But the priest of Mars and
Venus has thrown open his residence to us. That is where we are going
to install ourselves."

"In such a house of ill-repute? That's a fine thing, in the case of a young
married woman."

"Would you prefer a bedroom in an hotel? I can telegraph from
here,—'Require for young married woman bedroom having sheltered
only rosieres or other virtuous maidens. Kindly furnish guarantees or
attestations.'"

Therese began to laugh.

"Well, after all," she said, "a good work will have been accomplished.
By our legitimate union we shall have rehabilitated that place of
perdition."

"And, in close proximity to the Temple of Venus, we will raise a little
altar to the Cupid who presides over regular households."

"With a saucepan and a feather-duster to mark his attributions.
Apropos of the household, are your horrible bachelor's quarters fairly
comfortable? I mean for a fairly lengthy stay?"

"The best of everything in. its way. As regards this particular bachelor's
home, don't imagine a diminutive and obscure ground floor, as in the
bad books which Sainte Barbe, your grandmother, allowed you to
read. On the contrary, picture a well-trimmed park..."

"The Parc aux Cerfs!" (1)
(1) An old quarter of Versailles which gave its name to a house,
situated in the Rue Saint-Mederic, which Louis XV purchased in 1755
as a residence for his many transitory mistresses who were brought
there by his valet de chambre Lebel.

"If that is what they taught you in preparation for your degree in
history, I shall begin to doubt of the virtue of our so-called true young
women."

"Fortunately we still have left the exquisite politeness of our so-called
well-behaved men." As she uttered these words she smiled at me,
while momentarily hesitating; and then, slightly blushing, continued:

"If they had asked me what Louis the Well Beloved did exactly in his
Pare aux Cerfs, I should have obtained very bad marks. I had better
warn you."

"I thought as much and... I love you. But let us return to the question of
Albert's house. I was saying that there is a well-trimmed park,— the
villa is spacious,—there is a room at each of the four, points of the
compass, so that one can choose according to the season,—there are
two bath-rooms; and all the rest is on the same scale."

"But what are you doing as regards the master of the house?"

"There now, you've said vous again, instead of tu. Another forfeit..."
She refused me her lips, exclaiming:

"Not now, impudent driver!"

"Imprudent?"

"Imprudent and impudent. But that's not the question. I mean to be
alone with you, otherwise back I go to the home of my grandmother,
Sainte Barbe, as you so respectfully call her."

"Clearly, you would give her great pleasure by doing so. But your
venerated grandmother— God preserve her soul!—will, alas! be
deprived of that joy. For the master of the house is a model of
discretion; he thought he was under the obligation of accepting a
mission in Africa."

"That was nice of him!"

"That's a heart-felt cry which would touch poor Albert."

***

We continued along a most quiet avenue, provincial to perfection,—
past modest villas, and then lofty hermetic walls behind which one
could picture convents. Two children were playing marbles and a dog
was fussing around some boundary-stones. They appeared to have
been placed there of set purpose by a skilful stage-manager, in order
to emphasize the peaceful solitude of that suburban landscape. I
stopped opposite a closed gate-way; but doubtless our arrival, amidst
the silence of the deserted avenue, had been heard from afar, for the
gates immediately opened, disclosing a fairly long and very shady
park-like carriage-road. At the end of this tunnel of verdure the house
appeared, astonishingly luminous, and with its white facade
brightened up by purple blinds.

So, while the family into which I had married was deploring my
excessive speed along roads leading to Juan-les-Pins, we rolled slowly
along in that Versailles garden,—very slowly indeed, as though we
feared that the luminous apparition at the end of the drive might
vanish on our approach. Somewhat disturbed a short time before by
my wife's objections, I was now wholly reassured as to the fortunate
choice of our holiday-place. Dumb with astonishment, Therese
snuggled up to me and, with a movement in which admiration was
mingled with a suspicion of unformulated fear, stretched out her
clasped hands towards the house.

I left Therese oh the flight of steps,—white marble steps adorned with
red geraniums, and while the gardeners were discreetly seeing to our
luggage I went off to garage the car. The garage was quite near, yet I
purposely dawdled over my job, the prey to a disquietude which
wrung my heart and loins. For the sight of that house in which, for
weeks past, I had placed my amorous dreams suddenly let loose in me
a maddening series of erotic visions.

My sexual impatience, dormant during the carrying out of ordinary
daily duties, was suddenly awakened and already whispered its
pernicious advice in my ears.

The day before, again, I feared the necessary yet brutal act which was
to seal my union with Therese definitely. This fear was comparable to
physical anguish, incessantly mingled with the warp and woof of my
dreams; and just as I succeeded in momentarily eluding it, it returned,
more lancinating than ever, to interpose itself between our bodies,
which in thought I had united. Some people will laugh at this fear of
mine and consider it hardly manly; but others will understand me,—
those who regard a young woman as something more than the
possessor of a pair of bubbies and Callipygian buttocks.

Far from growing indistinct at the approach of marriage, this dull
anguish of mine increased, on the contrary, as! began to appreciate
better the delicate purity of Therese. But all at once it was dissipated,
at the sudden appeal of my desire; and arguments crowded to my
brain to justify this volte-face. What should I gain by deferring an act
which alone could give us access to fleshly delights? Was I going to
succumb to a morbid fit of sentimentality?—make myself ridiculous in
my own eyes by omitting to exercise, that very night, my rights as a
husband? Would it not be better, at the cost of a transitory suffering on
Therese's part, to awaken to-morrow side by side with the body of a
real woman, capable of appeasing my desire? A shiver passed through
me and in response came a violent tension of my sex. My thoughts were
concentrated on a narrow, voluptuous image,—that of my flesh
tenderly imprisoned by the flesh of my beloved. The preceding rape
had already lost all importance in my eyes;—it was nothing save a
rapid and indeed insignificant act; a brief pain which would quickly
evaporate amidst the fire of immediate sensual enjoyment.

[April]

CHAPTER III

Therese was waiting for me in the vestibule. Laughingly, she greeted
me with the words: "The luggage has been taken upstairs and the
gardeners have vanished. Therefore, my Lord and Master, am I all
alone and at Thy mercy." Then, with outstretched arms and a
somewhat troubled look in her eyes, she advanced towards me; and,'
suddenly throwing herself into my arms, kissed me passionately on the
mouth.

Long did we remain standing in that position, closely pressed one
against the other. Therese's lips were burning hot and from time to time
they trembled. Through the light material of her summer gown, I could
feel the dual provocation of her breasts. My two hands slid down to her
hips and I pressed her violently to my body, to appease my
exacerbated desire against the warmth of her stomach. A
hallucinating dizziness mounted from my loins to my brain. My
willpower, under a force which was, as it were, foreign to me, but to
which I felt a desire to succumb amidst the total nudity of both our
bodies, began to disintegrate. But Therese thought only of my lips,
without the faintest idea of how my sex, in such close contact with her,
was quivering. I felt annoyed with her for not responding to my
lascivious pressure against her tummy; I felt annoyed when she did not
respond by some movement or other of her lips which, despite the
intervening clothing, would have assuaged that pressure by a caress.
Through one of those inconsistencies so common in love, I was irritated
by my wife's naiveté and by that very purity which had attracted me
to her.

Feeling my lips detach themselves from hers, Therese opened her
eyes,—and in the timorous astonishment of her look I read the
bestiality of my own features. But that was no longer the time for
stupid sentimentality and foolish pity. A single idea, under the
precipitate throbbing of my temples, dominated me: to put an end to
the excessive erection of my sex by possessing the female who had
thrown me into such a condition of rut.

Wholly unaffected by her terrified look, I raised Therese in my arms
and carried her away to a corner of the vestibule where there was a
pile of cushions. Overturning her on to these, I fell down by her side
and slipped my hand under her petticoats. She sought to repulse me,
but I overpowered her, one of my legs twined around hers and my body
pressed against her breasts. And with mouth to mouth came the
expression of my desire,—furiously: "I want to possess you! I want to
possess you!" Already my hand, above the stocking, had reached her
naked thigh. But Therese succeeded in getting away: she raised herself
up with a sudden movement like that of a tracked animal and, seizing
my wrist, drove her finger-nails into, my flesh desperately. We looked
at each other exactly as, during the savage hours of the War, a
wounded man and the brute who was about to kill him must have
gazed into each other's eyes. Two tears welled m Therese's eyes, and
from her lips came the supplication—"Oh! no, not that! I implore
you,—not that!"

Suddenly brought to my senses, I drew her head on to my shoulder and
kissed her eyes. She murmured,—"I believe that I should never have
forgiven you!" Then she hid her face against my neck and I could feel
her scalding tears coursing one after the other down her skin. No other
noise in the house broke the silence, save that of the pendulum of a
clock hammering out the seconds. I could feel that Time was flowing,
materially, between my fingers: Time for ever completed on that day of
my wedding, which was now irremediably spoilt. It must have been
still very light out in the garden; but the vestibule, behind the closed
shutters, was already dark and, like two abandoned children, we were
huddled in its darkest corner. Hours passed. Therese no longer wept.
Yet her face was still hidden against my neck and from time to time, at
long intervals, she sobbed.

My desire—recently so tyrannical—had completely subsided,
indifferent to my wife's hand, which had involuntarily slipped
between my legs. Mortally sad—as one can be after a defeat, the
weight of which must be supported alone—I now realized, with bitter
lucidity, the brutality of my act. And, when I called to mind my
previous relations with Therese, its lamentable brutality appeared to
me still more unpardonable.

For those relations, as regards a fleshly preparation, had been
practically nil,—three weeks of a wholly intellectual comradeship,—
two years of an increasingly tender yet ever deferential
correspondence,—and a fortnight's betrothal under close observation.
A fortnight during which we had done a great deal of kissing, to the
extent of ravaging our lips, to the great scandal of those around us. But
these kisses were only too rapid, too quickly interrupted; any slightly
prolonged silence indeed gave the alarm to that sentinel on the watch
in the adjoining room—Therese's grandmother. Never was the contact
of our lips sufficiently long, or sufficiently profligate to enable me to
dare to add a caress with my tongue and though my hands strayed to
Therese's breasts, or stroked the curves of her loins, this could be done
very furtively without the intimacy of a partly-unbuttoned piece of
clothing. Perhaps she did not even notice the enveloping movement of
those caresses, wholly occupied as she was by the only too-brief
contact of our lips. The thought of our very near marriage alone helped
me to accept the constraint imposed on our betrothal, and to support
the suspicion which weighed on our actions.

On the other hand, we were allowed the greatest liberty as regards
correspondence and conversation. The vigilant sentinel at her
listening-station was unable to distinguish our words. As a matter of
fact, all that she required was to hear a confused and uninterrupted
sound. And so we profited by this to chatter together the livelong day
and far into the night.

Our previous conversations had already revealed to me Therese's
complete psychology,—a combination of intellectual maturity and
juvenile spontaneity, beneath which could be glimpsed a rich
potentiality of still dormant sensuality. But the more intimate
conversations during our betrothal enlightened me on one point
which, up to then, had remained in the shade: namely, Therese's
profound innocence,—her total ignorance regarding carnal details.
This combination of maturity and ignorance will, perhaps, be regarded
as paradoxical,—at the very least contradictory; yet it characterizes a
type of young woman, absolutely homogeneous and more common
than people think,—a type, moreover, which has nothing in common
with the goose-like girl of former times.

In the case of these latter, love is reduced to a childish scale of
sentimental and roguish pranks. But to Therese marriage was
something else,— it was an intellectual and sentimental problem
involving a fleshly aspect. She had traced the boundaries of this
problem, forbidding herself to go beyond them, or enervate her mind
in the process. Above all, she had been antagonistic to listening to the
semi-confidences of vicious companions, who would primarily have
besmirched love in her eyes. Confident that, at the chosen hour, the
one she loved would know how to initiate her, totally, without
subterfuges, she had retained for him the virginity of her mind, as
jealously as that of her body. Contemporary literature is certainly not
favourable to such a mental virginity, and Therese, already for a
number of years, had gone far beyond the programme of classical
works. But she took advice and instinctively avoided the reading of
certain books, after the manner of those young men who, left wholly
free but mindful of their sexual hygiene, know how to flee from the
contamination of certain women.

Was this voluntary absence of unhealthy curiosity in Therese's case an
indication of some sensual deficiency? I had no fear on that score. From
the outset of our very first conversations, I had amused myself over the
passion she displayed for everything which had once interested her,—
study and reading, music and tennis, even her dolls which she still
secretly fondled, nay, even the old dog which had so long been the
discreet confident of her troubles. The conclusions I had drawn from
this were soon confirmed by other more symptomatic details,—the
profundity of certain looks, the involuntary lasciviousness which
sometimes emanated from her adorably supple body; and, during our
betrothal, the rapid acceleration of her pulse under the influence of a
somewhat prolonged kiss. Yet her temperament remained—like her
intellectual curiosity—outside the zone of fleshly preoccupations.
With all these characteristics I was acquainted. They had even come
into greater relief since my examination of them from that central
point of view—new to me—which my uncle had revealed. And
though, at first, I challenged his sensual theories, judging the
conclusions either exaggerated or ridiculous, I soon came to realize
their wisdom: productive of deeper voluptuous sensations. Moreover,
they adapted themselves exactly to Therese's temperament; they
emphasized at one and the same time the resources and the danger.
The resources of such a temperament were at one and the same time its
richness, its diversity, its assured consent to the most ardent carnal love,
provided I knew how to defer the hour for total possession; at the same
time—at the cost of imposing a few days' constraint on my feelings—
there was the certainty of finding her to be an ideal mistress,—an
ardent, delicate, and inventive inspirer of our love. On the other hand,
the danger at one and the same time was that pride and hypersensibility
of a young woman who had remained pure voluntarily; that
was the very perfection of her temperament,—too delicately complex
to support without damage a clumsy initiation.

Intelligent as she was,—capable of understanding a merely hinted
allusion, and though she was voluntarily ignorant of certain physical
sides of love, this was clearly no reason why they should be grossly
revealed to her by a drunken Helot, incapable of curbing his instincts..,
And to think that I, myself, had been that ruttish being,—an object of
terror and disgust in the eyes of the woman he loved! Face to face with
this lamentable check to my dreams, I remained, now, in a state of
bewilderment.

* * *

I guessed that the end of the day had come by the shriller chirping of
the birds,—as it were the clamour of quarrelsome children in a huge
dormitory. But for a long time now they had calmed down. Deep
obscurity had invaded the corner where we were stranded. It was very
warm. Moistness emanated from Therese's body, and disquieted me.
Gently seizing her hand, I removed it from the neighbourhood of the
secret re-awakening of my desire. Raising herself up, she felt for my
face and lightly touched my lips with a fugitive kiss. Then, in a voice
she wished to be mirthsome, but which still trembled a little, she said:
"What a terrible dungeon! You must have mistaken the house, darling.
This is surely the mansion of Gilles de Retz himself. He must be spying
upon us from over there, in the darkness,—with his horrid blue beard!"
Simulating fear, she pressed herself against me. Then, without
transition, she continued:

"Did you think me stupid a short time ago?"

"My beloved!—let us say not a word more on the subject. Imagine that
you were sleeping and had a bad nightmare. But you are no longer
frightened now, are you, little one? Whatever has happened, you see
full well that I obey you. Pardon me,—I implore you."

"Yes, you were indeed very naughty. You were the horrid Bluebeard.
But I love you too deeply to bear you much of a grudge."

"You will pardon me entirely later,—when you understand better.
Think, dearie, of the many, many months, out there, I have been
thinking of you,—thinking of nothing save you. Desire for a woman
one loves to distraction is like the gradual suffocation of a drowning
man; he clutches savagely at the person who has come to deliver him
from that anguish, without a thought of the harm he may do... and spoil
everything."

"You love me so madly as that, darling?"

"I do indeed. At times I become dizzy, as in a great fit of madness. But
you have no longer any need to fear: I regret my brutality too bitterly
to be ready to recommence. And now we are going to dine and think of
something else."

* * *

For a time—and colliding with piece after piece of furniture—we
groped about in the dark ness, seeking for a switch. When, with a cruel
shock the light was turned on, dazzling us, we were astonished to
behold how discomposed our features were.

I led Therese to the first floor and showed her her room. All that I saw
there was the bed,— a very low and extensive bed, as broad as it was
long. It emerged from a mass of white furs cast on the floor. I repressed a
flood of distracting ideas.

"Is this where both of us are going to sleep?" asked Therese, without
daring to look me in the face.

"No, No!... This is Madam's bed-chamber. I... until fresh orders... shall
sleep in the adjoining room."

Whereupon I opened the communicating door.

"It's most comfortable, as you can see. And I've also got a bath-room, all
to myself."

Therese gave me a long and affectionate, yet somewhat sad look.

"Listen..." she murmured. Then was silent and gave a little sigh.

It appeared to me that it was charitable to divert the conversation.

"I shall listen no longer to anything, dear Madam. Are you aware that
it is nearly ten o'clock? We'll titivate ourselves up a bit and then go
down to dinner. I'm as hungry as a hunter and could positively devour
you."

"At your service, my dear sir."

"Get along with you, Temptress!"

I fled from temptation with a haste which made her laugh. But
through the closed door her voice still pursued me:

"You're a perfect darling!"

[April]

CHAPTER IV

The first to arrive in the dining-room, I set out our provisions on the
table: a cold yet most respectable supper, which I had brought with us
from Paris. Champagne, too,—iced to perfection in her Thermos-flask.
Red carnations were standing dormant in a vase, and these I scattered
over the table-cloth, where their colour suddenly appeared to become
brighter. Then, awaiting the somewhat tardy Therese, I sat down. I felt
slightly scatter-brained, yet profoundly calm,—nay, rather
humiliated by the complete torpor of my feelings.

Therese made a brilliant arrival. With her blonde tresses coiled around
her head, she had formed a sort of diadem, suggestive of some exotic
Grand Duchess or other. She was truly most beautiful in her
immaculately white, low-cut gown. Moreover, I recognized it to be the
one she had worn on the day of our betrothal. Was this intentional?
Did she wish to suggest to me the chaste thoughts of a still timid
fiancé? I hardly appreciated this call to order; but at my wife's first
words I began to repent for the baseness of my suspicions.

"Do you remember, darling, how much you liked this dress? It was on
the day of your arrival; at long last you returned to me from that
distant East, and to me it was, as it were, a true wedding-day. I wanted
to put it on again today, so that you may love me as much as you did on
your return."

I thanked Therese with a look of admiration; but my silence made her
uneasy.

"Is my darling very very sad? He doesn't even kiss his little wife, to
congratulate her?"

But my desire was again awakened by the brilliant nudity of her
throat and shoulders, and, still in fear of my dangerous reflexes of the
afternoon, I dare not kiss her.

"Not immediately, darling. Let me get used to seeing you like this."

"But you saw me like this already—a fortnight ago.

"With other eyes."

"Do you love me less already?"

"It's naughty of you to put it that way! Seriously, darling, if sometimes I
appear strange to you and difficult to understand, just tell yourself
that I love you too deeply and that... that I shall suffer so long as you
are not absolutely my wife."

Therese sat down to table without replying. She began to put on the
airs of an affected Marchioness and sought to make me laugh. But I
could not for the life of me succeed in reaching her pitch and the
irritation I felt against myself increased my uneasiness. Was I going to
oscillate incessantly between brutality and sullenness? Therese's
roguishness rang false and clashed with my silence; and soon, like an
amateur conjurer who is intimidated by an indifferent audience, she
became discouraged. Bringing her little game to an end, she gazed
earnestly at me.

"Listen, my dear, I should like to say something to you. Only you must
promise not to take advantage of it."

With a movement of my head, I acquiesced.

"You promise?... Well, I want to confess to you that... I feel not the
slightest regret for what happened—not a single action on your part
—a short time ago. Since then you have shown exquisite delicacy
towards me. However, I believe I should have appreciated it less if I
had not seen you so... well as you were at the time of our coming here.
And later, when I understand everything better, it seems to me that I
shall cherish that recollection,—that I shall love to picture you, once
more, so crazy, so fantastically crazy on the occasion of our very first
moment of solitude."

"Yes, later. But for the time being I should prefer that you think of it no
more."

"Oh! no. On the contrary, I want to let my mind dwell on it, in order the
better to feel that I love you."

She reflected and then, as though speaking to herself, continued:

"...in order the better to feel that I love you ever so much more, already,
than before our arrival here."

Her final words were uttered in a low voice, as though her instinct gave
consent, but with the disapprobation of her mind. However, this very
conflict made her confession more precious to me. In the midst of the
trial I had imposed on myself, so that my wife, with her whole soul and
flesh, would accept the fleshly rites, it seemed to me that already her
body was conniving with my feelings. I had promised not to take
advantage of her confession; but, indifferent to this promise, and as
though it were a being foreign to myself, my sex began to stiffen at the
thought of the possibility of immediate possession. Was there not the
assurance of pardon in advance?—had it not been even suggested?
Momentarily I closed my eyes, so as to relish to the full the image
evoked by my desire,—the intimate contact of my imprisoned flesh
within her conquered garden.

When, again, I looked in her direction, Therese smiled at me,—a most
tender smile. However, as though she had suspected my mental
treason, her eyes became veiled with a certain sadness. Then, from the
bottom of my heart there welled a silent feeling of humility, a mute
protest of loyalty. I had said "no" to my intractable desire, and I was
sure of being able to dominate it, because I realized that Therese was so
weak, so ready for all forms of indulgence. It was no longer against
myself alone, it was against our joint instincts—already
accomplices—I had now to struggle. But, stronger through all the
hope springing through that complicity, I felt sure of being able to
bridle their blind impatience,— until the time came when, in the full
consciousness of her desire, my wife would give herself to me
voluntarily.

Therese's confession—dispelling the restraint which weighed upon
us—now inspired a paean of victory in my heart. Joy at regaining
confidence in myself,—joy at the thought of a future which had again
become luminous! Therese read that joy in my eyes. Seizing one of the
crimson carnations and kissing it, she exclaimed "Ready!" and cast the
bloom in my face. Our dinner concluded amidst an atmosphere of
gaiety which, but a short time before, had certainly never been my
hope.

* * *

With a thousand burlesque ceremonies, Therese led me to an armchair
and made me sit down, while she occupied herself with clearing
away. All she had to do, however, was to place the remains of our little
dinner in a turning-box (like that in convents), whence they could be
removed from the outside, without disturbing our solitude. For the
master of the house had seen to all intimate refinements; and we might
have wandered about stark naked from cellar to garret without fear of
any indiscreet surprise.

Momentarily I imagined myself in that condition, without, however,
the slightest libidinous idea: above all I evoked the well-being of a
state of nudity on such an exceedingly hot evening as that was. But I
kept that innocent little dream to myself. My wife is not fond of that
kind of humour and never will be. After many months of marriage,
during which we have practiced every form of voluptuousness and
obeyed every suggestion of an unfettered imagination, she would still
take offence at a risky joke or vulgar gesture. The passionate priestess
of our fleshly delights, and capable of overcoming all sense of shame
amidst the intoxication of the senses, she would never, on the other
hand, sanction either those sacrilegious pleasantries or needless
indecencies which profane love without enriching sensual pleasure.
While clearing the table, Therese resumed her pranks. This time she
was no longer the Marchioness of the top of a sweet-meat box but a
smart little maid who scamped her household duties in order to join
her lover as quickly as possible. Then she tripped towards me and, after
claiming a kiss for her mimicry, sat down on my knees. Under the warm
pressure of her thighs and owing to the thinness of our clothing, my sex
began to swell with desire; and in response to its dull pulsations came
the accelerated throbbing of my temples. With my left arm bent, I
made a support for Therese, while with my free hand I pressed her legs
against me, so as to prevent this hand, against my will, from fondling
her breasts, which were so tantalizingly accessible beneath her lowcut
dress.

Therese brought her lips to my mouth and kissed me most passionately.
I responded by advancing my tongue. For a moment her lips resisted
and even drew back a little; but suddenly they half-opened, in a sort of
ardent aspiration, as though they were drinking at an unknown spring.
And while with my tongue I slowly, lightly caressed those offered lips,
Therese remained in a state of complete immobility, hardly breathing,
and with her voluptuous attention at full stretch. Meanwhile, similar to
those ground-swells which suddenly disturb the apparent calmness of
the sea, a great shiver ran through her body and set her trembling
when, on separating her lips, my caress became more active and
persistent. Then, again, Therese surrendered herself, almost in a swoon,
as though all the life in her were taking refuge in the acceptation of an
unsuspected pleasure.

When, much later, I interrupted this caress, her own tongue, in its turn,
advanced, slowly following the outline of my lips,—moistening and
penetrating them. And soon, on this arranged double theme, we
played a thousand alternated variations. Our lips set traps for us,
momentarily refusing the offered tongue, so as to seize it afterwards,
imprison it, and rob it of all its saliva. A clock struck the hours; but I was
incapable of counting them. However, what did that matter to me?
Time had become, as it were, an inconsistent fog... Then, once more, a
tremor passed through my beloved; she opened her eyes and, gently
repulsing me, murmured:

"My darling, I can't stand it any longer: your little wife is positively
shattered."

To guard her mouth from my caresses, she leaned against my neck, but
her tongue continued to bestow light and furtive kisses upon me. On
raising her head, she seemed appeased and smiled at me.

"I should have liked to surrender myself to your tenderness eternally;
but, really, I believe I should have ended by fainting. It was as though
there were a dissociation of my whole body. You cannot know into
what a state you threw me."

Alas! I knew that full well. I was well aware of that anguish of instinct,
of her instinct more conscious than she was of our desire. But it was still
too soon. I remained silent.

"My darling is not annoyed,—is he? He is my all-powerful Lord and I
should like—oh! I should like so intensely to be wholly his slave. Yet,
in spite of myself..."

Apparently embarrassed by my look, she drew my head nearer to her
and rested her cheek against my eyes.

"Yes, despite myself, I remain somewhat timid."

"Have I been clumsy again? Are you annoyed with me?"

"Oh! no. On the contrary, I am deliciously surprised. Even a little
astonished that such dizziness—so sweet, so ineffably sweet—can be
bought without pain. But I know that, sooner or later, you will hurt
me,—that you must hurt me."

"People have been frightening you needlessly, darling."

"I'm not frightened on my own account. When I'm in the state into
which you threw me just now, you could indeed do anything you like
with me. But I am anxious on account of our love. I fear the moment
when the infinitely tender and delicate being you are to-night must
appear to me more violent and... how can I express it?"

"Say what you have got to say, without fear."

"Rather bestial perhaps. But understand me clearly. I confessed it to
you to-night; and I would pardon you for anything now. Only, I would
first of all be saturated with your tenderness, up to the point of no
longer having even to pardon you,—up to the point of accepting
everything without a feeling of revolt, since I should have lost all willpower
under your caresses."

For a time we remained silent. Then she continued:

"You must find me stupidly complicated, my poor dearie. Maybe I was
wrong in remaining voluntarily ignorant of too many things. But I
attached such great importance to this great mystery: so ardently did I
desire never to approach it until I was in a state of grace."

"I attach an equal importance to it, darling. Nay, a more self-conscious
importance, though from a different point of view. Later I will tell you
how ardently—over there, in my distant place of exile—I desired your
body. But I also loved the profoundness of your soul, your intelligence
and seriousness, because they seemed to me to be the pledge of a
richer love, because... It's difficult to explain to you,—and I fear to give
offence to your sense of delicacy."

"Oh! no, speak on. Am I not your wife?— your loving wife? What do
you want to say to me?"

"That, in advance, your very intelligence, your mystic soul brought me
a promise of pleasurable sensations—of fleshly voluptuousness. I read
therein the certainty of a more ardent intimacy of our flesh, because it
would be nourished by all the resources of your soul as well as by your
bodily instincts. Nevertheless I misunderstood you."

"You?"

"I was incapable of seeing that all this perfection I love in you is a
delicate plant. I failed to understand with what warm and patient
tenderness it must be surrounded to bring it to florescence,—to make it
bloom with the intense passion of which I knew you were capable. To
open my eyes another person was necessary,— and I will tell you more
on that score. On the other hand, since then I have reflected and taken
an oath... But, after the unspeakable incident of this afternoon, you will
not believe me."

"Come now, darling, let me say once more that I love you all the more
on that account. Moreover, you know quite well what absolute faith I
have in your loyalty, although it may momentarily break down under
the stress of that madness... That state of madness which is not
yourself,—and which some day, perhaps, will be what I love most in
you."

"The oath I have taken—and I believe, despite everything, that I shall
have the strength to keep it—is to wait until the moment when, with
your entire consent—knowingly, you will surrender yourself. And now
I wish you no longer to have the slightest fear, neither for yourself nor
for our love, knowing that on you alone depends the hour for our
complete union".

[April]

CHAPTER V

Once more she let her head fall on to my shoulder and repeated: "I
love you... I love you." Then, seizing my hand, which was resting on her
knees, she raised it gently, with a sliding movement, in contact with
her dress, and brought it to rest against her bosom. Under the material,
which moulded her form to perfection, I could feel the perfect
rotundity of one of her breasts. Two of my fingers were resting on her
bare throat, at the very opening of her bodice. Had I understood my
wife's action? Was it a mere reflex of her tenderness,—or a conscious
appeal for more intimate caresses? I dare not come to any conclusion,
through the fear that I might too easily give way to the suddenly hot
feeling which rose to my brain from my stiffening sex. Meanwhile
Therese curved-in the small of her back; her bosom was raised towards
me, completing her tender movement until it became an unmistakable
offering. It was then, with a slightly trembling hand, that I drew down
her dress.

Admirable in its purity, the budding curve of a breast came into view. I
was filled with astonishment on discovering such immaculate
whiteness,—a whiteness all the more disturbing through its contrast
with her throat and arms, tanned by the sun. Very slowly—despite an
impatience which I had a difficulty in restraining —the dress slid
down until a tinted aureole proclaimed the appearance of a nipple.
Compressed by the descending dress, it looked, at first, as though it
wanted to hide itself; but, suddenly, out it slipped, in all its rosy
firmness,— quite small, yet oh how alluring! I gazed intensely on this
morsel of delicate flesh, which seemed the quintessence of Therese's
femininity; and my voluptuous sensations still further increased at the
idea that this nipple—so fleshly, so full of living animality—belonged
to an intelligent and pure being.

However, wholly absorbed in contemplation, I remained motionless,
and my hand forgot to draw her dress still further down. Therese raised
her head, blinked under the dazzling light, and glanced at her seminude
breast. She herself appeared to be astonished at its whiteness.
Then, suddenly, she hid it with her hands and, in a little childish voice,
roguish and supplicatory at one and the same time, exclaimed:
"I'm almost ashamed, darling. For the light, here, is so crude."
Without responding a single word, I took her in my arms and carried
her into the adjoining room.

* * *

This room—a rococo drawing-room of doubtful taste, yet comfortable
withal— was illuminated merely by a low lamp, the blue shade of
which allowed but little light to filter through. Having placed Therese
in an ample easy-chair, I knelt down on the carpet at her side. I was in
an uncertain state of mind and somewhat exasperated. Was I to come
into continual conflict with that easily shocked modesty of hers?... But
without more ado, my wife slipped down the shoulder-straps of her
dress; and then, with a pretty, supple movement, she pulled it down
altogether, denuding herself entirely, down to her waist. She had
closed her eyes and, with her head against the back of the chair, was
extending her breasts towards me.

In the domain of pure aesthetics, even in the case of a cool-headed
observer whose desire is uninfluenced by a too-partial admiration, I
know nothing more harmoniously beautiful than a woman's torso. A
miracle of Nature,—all the more touching as it is most rare, as it is a
unique marvel among so many ill-formed shapes. As my eyes became
used to the semi-darkness of the room, that torso appeared to me to
stand out in relief still more, strengthening the purity of its lines. A
delicate and disturbing geometry, whose curves could not fail to
identify themselves with a never-ending voluptuousness; but their
exact symmetry seemed to be a concession made to the exigencies of
reason. Placed high up, yet without exaggeration, Therese's breasts
were most firm in their fullness; no unsightly fold broke the
harmonious line which attached them to her body. Perhaps they were
just a little less ample than they ought to have been, according to strict
canonical rules; but they appeared all the more youthful and
attractive on that account.

With a sigh, Therese stretched herself,— doubtless impatient with me
because of my long contemplation, which deprived her of caresses.
Those twin points of rosy flesh—her nipples— were erect, clamouring
their hallucinatory appeal; and my hands—timorous up to then—
responded to that appeal. On my fingers coming into contact with her
skin, Therese quivered; a vibration which was prolonged in a
succession of warm undulations to my loins, and which exasperated my
sex to the point of an almost painful tension. Then the rhythm of my
caresses was quickened.

At one time, placing both my hands against my wife's naked waist, I
brought them slowly upward. They glided with an equal pressure over
her bosom, which momentarily gave way and then regained the
perfection of her contour. At another, seizing her here and there, I
amused myself with alternately squeezing and parting her breasts; and
the hollow between them formed, according to my fancy, either a
narrow and exciting fold of flesh, or a broader, more chaste valley. At
the same time I let my hands stray ever so lightly, so that they hardly
touched the imperceptible down on her epidermis; but when they
traversed the twin summits of her bosom they encountered those little
points of rebellious flesh,—and their emotion was such that it rippled
throughout the whole of her body. Or else, multiplying my fingers so as
to produce a thousand rapid contacts, I teased her breasts; then, seizing
a rosy nipple between finger and thumb, I pressed it most tenderly, as I
would have done a tiny berry whose juice I wished to express, but all
the time fearing to injure it. And then, under the increased impatience
of my caresses, those breasts of my beloved stiffened, as though still
more eager for voluptuousness.

In a low voice, there came from her the words: "Kiss me, my darling."
Submissive to her demand, I passed my two arms around her naked
waist and approached my lips towards hers. But she withdrew her
mouth.

"No, darling," she whispered, "not that way."

Fearing to give way to my own desire, I still hesitated to understand
her. Whereupon, with an imperious and almost violent movement, she
seized me by the neck. She lowered my head towards her bosom, while
her other hand, thrusting forward one of her bubbies, drew it towards
my mouth. Under my now close breath, her bosom became still more
arched. However, instead of snatching at the beautiful fruit presented
to my lips, it was only the point which I caressed with the tip of my
tongue. Therese uttered a cry of surprise which at first made me draw
back. But she continued to murmur — "Again! Again!" These words let
loose on her bosom a perfect avalanche of caresses: multitudinous
caresses with tongue and lips, more varied and more intoxicating than
any bestowed by the hands.

I was kneeling on the right-hand side of my wife, and suddenly
became aware that my position was inconvenient. She was indeed too
lateral to enable me to dose, in exactly equal parts, the contribution of
my tenderness towards her breasts. Was that strict division really so
essential?—or was this merely a pretext suggested by my desire?...
However that might be, I rose and knelt down facing Therese, between
her knees, which I had parted. Then I continued the interrupted
feast,—tickling, alternately, the twin rose-buds with my lips, or taking
them into my mouth to suck them. Or else, using my tongue in long
sweeps, the moist tracks of which crossed and intercrossed, I licked the
whole of her bosom greedily. Nay, sometimes I sought to take almost
the whole of one of her bubbies into my mouth, to suck it in voraciously
until Therese pushed me away, with the exclamation— "You are
hurting me, my darling giddy goat."

Under the pressure of my hips, her legs had unconsciously parted. Her
dress, becoming gradually rucked up, disclosed first of all a silk-
sheathed knee, then, suddenly, above the stocking, a snow-white
thigh. I closed my eyes so as to blot out this unexpected temptation.
Meanwhile, a remark she had made to me during dinner came back to
me. I had expressed a fear that her gown, made of silver lame, must be
very heavy for her to wear on such a warm evening, whereupon
Therese had replied,—"But I've nothing else,—absolutely nothing
else underneath." This reply now set my imagination in a blaze; it took
a delight in picturing, under her dress, the nudity of her thighs as far as
the altar of love,—that warm spot which was so near and which,
through the parting of her legs, must now be half-open. I was seized
with dizziness. Under the material which imprisoned and caused it to
adhere to my flesh, my sex became in such a state of erection that I was
positively in anguish, and in order to relieve the pain I was forced to
unbutton my trousers and release the Phallus until it was wholly nude.
With her head thrown back and her body thrilled by the thousand
caresses from my lips and tongue, my wife was unable to suspect what I
had done. I strove to keep within bounds the convulsive movements
made by my liberated member, for fear it came into contact, under her
dress, with her naked thighs, and thus arouse her attention. Already
my thoughts were concentrated with an anxious and voluptuous
feeling, on the inevitable consequences of my imprudence. I realized
those consequences most clearly; I accepted them, without pity for my
wife's too-confident abandonment, without a scruple on account of
promises made. I was conscious of my bad faith; I measured the
shameful contrast between the tenderness with which I was
intoxicating Therese, in order the better to disarm her suspicion, and
the cruel laceration amidst which I should satisfy my desire. I imagined
a sorrowful cry and a look of painful astonishment. But I had waited
too long,—I was at the end of my powers of resistance, and, cowardly, I
discounted the pardon promised in advance.

The throbbing of my temples increased and bewildered me, driving
every thought from my brain. All that remained was a crimson vision
of moist, defenceless flesh, and the pulsations of my sex extended
towards that flesh. I raised myself with an instinctive movement, which
brought my lips up to Therese's mouth,—a movement above all
prompted by a wish to place my sex on an exact level with her own.
With my two arms still around her naked waist, I drew my wife slowly
towards me; and already I could feel my flesh, thrilling with lustful
desire, gently touching the blond moss surrounding the coveted fleshly
nook. Then, becoming wildly impatient, I seized hold of her dress to
turn it up completely. Therese was startled and advanced her hand to
restrain me,—then she renounced, with the words:

"Darling, my own darling. I am yours... But remember your promise."

The resigned sweetness of her voice, much more than her very words,
dragged me from the enchantment of my desire. Amidst a flash of
dizziness, as though after a fall, I regained consciousness of my actions.
For a few moments longer I remained leaning over Therese, with my
mouth against hers, for I wanted to immobilize her head against the
back of the chair and so prevent her seeing me while I remedied the
indecency of my attire.

But the trivial vulgarity of this action emphasized the grotesqueness of
my situation. I was annoyed with myself through this abdication of my
virility,—a stupid abdication in the presence of a little girl who
foolishly refused to let me have her, when I had a perfect legal right to
do so. Above all was I angry with Therese herself for having once more
baulked my desire. When she raised her head and looked into my
eyes, she was astonished to find them so full of hostility. She smiled at
me sadly. Then her glance descended to her bare bosom, to her legs
which I kept apart, and to her raised dress, disclosing her thigh. Yet she
made no attempt to veil her nudity, and, instead of pushing me away
she drew me towards her, burying my face in the valley between her
bubbies and pressing me to them passionately. A sob rose in my
throat,— a sob of vexation and remorse and also tenderness. But the
tears appeased me,—they steadied my nerves; and I abandoned
myself to the infantile sweetness of letting myself be consoled.
I myself drew down her dress, after furtively kissing the nude, moist
thigh; I myself veiled, with amorous precautions, my beloved's
beautiful breasts, so that no harm could come to their fragile, rosy
nipples. Then, closely pressed one against the other, we ascended to our
rooms. The open window on the landing was already glowing with a
phosphorescence which heralded in the approaching end of night.
Therese was leaning on my shoulder and whispered in my ear:

"You have been infinitely tender and deliciously indulgent, my
darling. But I implore you not to be disappointed over this first night of
our marriage. To me it has been so full of love,—infinitely more
beautiful, richer in voluptuousness than all my dreams. Don't you see
how I am still all a-tremble through your caresses?—and how madly
in love I am with you? I don't know how to tell you all this. But it is with
the whole gift of my body that I would thank you."

On the threshold of her room our lips were again united, and then I
took refuge in my own bed-chamber.

[April]

CHAPTER VI

Therese was standing before me in a state of complete nudity, and
laughing so uproariously that her breasts danced up and down. Her
very haunches joined in the rhythm. Moreover, her mocking laughter
was directed against her husband, for my sole article of clothing was a
shirt so short that it barely reached my navel. But her hilarity was
above all incited by the pitiable appearance of my virility, which had
shrivelled up to a condition of total impotency. She ended, however, by
taking pity on me and awakening my sex by a few caresses, after
which she threw herself on the bed and began to go through a series of
frolics of the most disturbing obscenity. Maddened with lust in my turn,
I threw myself upon her, whereupon she slipped away, dashed towards
the window, and jumped into space!

A cry escaped from my lips and brought this erotic nightmare to a
sudden end. I awoke, covered with perspiration and my sex in a state of
erection. Though still heavy with sleep, I resisted the desire to snuggle
down under the bed-clothes again. Better get up immediately: a
modicum of fatigue would, I decided, certainly do me good.
I had, at first, some difficulty in re-arranging and re-valuing my
recollections of the preceding evening. Was it possible that my
marriage dated only since yesterday? But soon a dominating,
luminous idea came uppermost: the certainty that out of our union I
could produce a masterpiece of intellectual and fleshly harmony. I
repeated my oath. And though, on two occasions already, I had
experienced its fragility, on the other hand, that morning I felt more
sure of myself. Measuring the splendour of the goal to be reached, I
accepted the trial cheerfully.

For a few seconds I listened behind the door. My wife was still asleep. I
waved a kiss to her with my hand and then went to dress myself.
On re-entering my room, my toilet completed, Therese heard me, and
began to talk through the partition.

"Good-morning, darling. What time can it be?"

"Nine o'clock. But have another snooze. It was so late when we went to
bed."

"No, I want to see you. Come and give me a kiss."

"You think that that is a very obvious thing to do?"

"Clearly, you old and neglectful hubby."

"But the door's locked."

"Liar!—you know very well it isn't."

So I went in and knelt down by the side of the low bed.
I was astonished to find my wife more divinely beautiful than I had
pictured her in my mind. Her blond hair, which she had never
consented to have cut, lay like a stream of liquid gold on the bedclothes,
while the changeful blue of her eyes, that morning, had turned
to a deep azure. She was wearing a most chaste night-gown: too chaste
to my taste, since it barely left one shoulder and a slight portion of one
of her breasts visible.

I gave her a long, long kiss. But when my lips strayed down towards her
bosom, which my hand had already reached, she stopped me, with a
caressing movement.

"Listen, darling. You must be reasonable this morning. Last night you
made me quite crazy,—and my breasts still hurt me a little."

Then, as she concluded, she began to laugh:

"I know a gentleman who is certainly borne down with remorse, and
very much disinclined to start again."

On my looking sulky and knitting my eyebrows, she added:

"You don't want to be reasonable? We can profit by the still fresh
morning hours to sit in the garden. And this afternoon, when it gets too
hot outside, we can take refuge there. You will then find me... as I am
now, if you like."

"And you'll try to be pardoned for your naughtiness."

"Yes, bad and exacting man that you are! But on the condition that you
go away immediately."

"Why?"

"To let me have my bath and dress myself."

"Upon my word, if that's the reason, I'd rather remain here."

She gave me a little tap on my lips, and then said, smilingly:

"Promise that you'll go away at once, and you shall have a reward."

Without waiting for my promise she uncovered her breasts, one after
the other, and presented them to my lips.

* * *

Under the dense foliage of the linden-tree arbour, we spent, as
foreseen, a most "reasonable" yet charming morning. Therese was a
veritable chatter-box, sparkling with wit; and, on several occasions,
she spouted long classical passages, or verses by Ronsard, as proud as
Punch at being able to show that she knew much more than I did on
that score. She appeared to have completely forgotten the look of care
which, on the previous night, had sometimes veiled her eyes. When I
questioned her on that subject, asking her if she were no longer
frightened of her husband, she replied, half-playfully, half-pensively:

"I had no fear on my own account, you know; I was disquieted on
account of your love. But I have slept on it, and from to-day onwards it
is on you I rely, on your wisdom... or on your folly."

"You have seen, however, that my folly can be obedient to you
immediately?"

"Yes. But shall I still have the strength to will that you obey me? At
certain moments certainly no longer."

After a short silence, burdened with our combined thoughts, she
concluded:

"But you who can perceive better than I do. Think of our love: protect it
against the blindness of our desire."

* * *

We had luncheon outside. The somewhat ordinary restaurant was, on
the other hand, agreeably cool, and so we decided, at first, to dawdle
there awhile. But soon a feeling of uneasiness crept over us. Without
daring to admit the fact to ourselves, all our thoughts were
concentrated on the privacy of our house,—and on the feast of the
senses which was to be resumed there. We hurried over the end of our
meal and by the beginning of the afternoon were back again.
I advised Therese, in order to make up for her too short night's rest, to
get right into bed; and I promised to let her sleep. But she insisted on
my remaining with her and, holding me by the hand, led me towards
her room. She made me sit down on the edge of the bed, moved towards
the bath-room, came back to make me swear that I would not run
away, and then disappeared for a short time.

When she returned she had the air of a child, in a long and barely
décolleté chemise; and this illusion was completed by two thick plaits
of hair the shadow of which attenuated the outline of her breasts. I
held my arms open to receive her, but she escaped from me and
quickly slipped under the sheet, laughing at its momentary freshness.
On the other hand, the room was very warm, the shutters having
inadvertently been left open. I ought to have had a care for Therese's
repose. Only, a secret joy ascended from my loins. Under the thin sheet,
covering my wife, my eyes began to follow with amusement the lines of
her body.

"You feel sleepy, dearie?"

"Yes, sir, with the direct intention of enraging you. But I know quite
well you won't let me sleep and... I'll do my best not to be too angry with
you.'

The invitation was easy to accept and I was glad that, of her own free
will, Therese had thought of continuing our caresses, which had been
interrupted that morning too soon. Having thrown back the sheet
down to her waist, she had stretched herself out, with closed eyes,
shivering a little as my hand came into contact with her bosom. But
after a few caresses I began to protest against that night-gown, which
was not sufficiently open to enable me to uncover her bosom
completely.

"Take it off, darling."

"But I shall be stark naked in bed if I do. And then who's going to be
naughty?"

"You are, if you are too severe."

She uttered a little affected cry, to which her laughing eyes gave the
lie direct; and, having obliged me to turn my back, she unrobed as
quick as lightning, after which she hid herself in the bed, with the
sheet pulled up to her chin. I could—with a mere snatch—have
removed that sheet and feasted my eyes on the complete nakedness of
her lissom body; but I loved better once more to discover my beautiful,
voluptuous kingdom progressively.

Slipping down very slowly, the sheet gradually denuded her breasts
and liberated their vermilion nipples; then it descended below her
waist, revealing the diaphanous, snowy whiteness of a very flat
stomach; and already my eyes were ablaze on perceiving, at the base
of her tummy, the edge of blond and silky curls, like spun-gold.
But there, voluntarily, I brought my incursion to an end. Only too well
did I know that, if I went further, no consideration would prevent me
from parting Therese's legs—even by force— so as to conquer the
intimacy of her flesh. However, I decided that I had better not, by an
act of premature brutality, scare away her total relinquishment to my
caprices.

On her naked breast—the splendour of which dazed me—I repeated
my caresses of the preceding night: manual manipulations,
multifarious digital contacts, little teasing touches with my tongue,
and also from my lips a whole succession of suctions. These caresses of
mine—enriched by a second conquest—were extended to her
tremulous stomach; and thus, in the hollow of the navel there glistened,
like a miniature lake, a modicum of my saliva. Therese let me do
exactly as I wanted, with her arms motionless and apparently wholly
indifferent; but when my tongue, gliding on her stomach, slowly
ascended towards her breasts, I observed that they swelled with
voluptuous expectancy, that her respiration became quicker, and that
the nipples stiffened and grew.

I was squatting by the side of the low bed, with one arm, above Therese,
resting upon it. And this arm, left bare in its sports' shirt with very short
sleeves, happened to graze her lips. So, slightly raising herself, she
placed her mouth in the hollow of my arm-pit and entered on a
prolonged respiration, at the close of which she proceeded to lick,
moistening me with her saliva abundantly. However, my shirt was in
her way, so, in an impatient, excited voice, she bid me remove it. In my
haste to obey her, I rose from my semi-recumbent position. Therese
glided to the edge of the bed and, turning towards me, directed her
eyes eagerly to my tummy, which the raised shirt was gradually
uncovering. A wild temptation took possession of me,—to outstrip her
thought and lower what remained of my clothing, and then, suddenly,
to bring my entirely liberated sex before her face. However, though
this imagined gesture still further increased my lust, its very indecency
made me hesitate and desist. I realized the dangerous imprudence of so
brutally obscene a revelation.

There was the risk of alienating for ever the woman whom I wished to
make the adorer—a most tenderly sensual one— of my "manly
blade".

Moreover, my wife did not allow me time to reflect further.
Immediately my torso was bare she enclosed me within her naked
arms and forced me to stretch myself at her side. And then, with lips
and tongue, she began to design upon me a thousand interlaced
arabesques. Afterwards, with the supple crawling movement of a
young wild animal, she came nearer until her breasts and nipples were
resting on my stomach,—and with the latter, whose fine flesh seemed
slightly fresher than the rest of her skin, she amused herself by gently
grazing my body. At times she brought her nipples on to a level with
my mouth and momentarily stopped until I had tasted their fresh
savour; while at others she descended to my navel and hid the little
vermilion fruit there, until—untiringly recommencing her little
game—she once more brought them up again to my lips.

But while, lying on her stomach across the bed, she was crawling
towards me, her buttocks slipped from underneath the sheet and
within immediate reach of one of my hands. She was still only partially
nude, yet quite sufficient to reveal the entire harmonious curve of her
hips, up to the very beginning of a narrow valley. Soon I pushed down
the sheet, whereupon the double outline was wholly uncovered, in its
abundant yet slender plenitude. Was Therese going to protest against
the indiscretion of this action? For a few seconds I thought she would,
because there was, at first, a contraction of her hips, ready to refuse
themselves; but she immediately relaxed and revealed her nudity to
my scrutiny. I did not wish, however, to take advantage of my victory.
Restraining the desire to seize hold of my voluptuous discovery, I
confined myself to a greedy visual examination of the perfection of her
curves and their mysterious shadow-line.

Wearied, at last, with having caressed me too much, Therese let her
head recline on my tummy. Hers was the movement of a broken doll,
but a somewhat crazy doll, who instinctively extended her hips
towards me. So, slightly raising myself, in order to reach the coveted
riches with both my hands, I began to stroke them with my fingers very
gently. The same reflex action as a short time before followed: the
contraction provoked by a modesty which would still resist, and then
the relaxation of a body which, curious of new forms of voluptuousness,
consented. My hands, becoming still more enterprising, were now busy
kneading the soft plenitude of both her thighs.

First of all, I followed her haunches longitudinally. Starting with the
curve of her loins, my hands scaled the double hillock and redescended
towards the dimples which mark the beginning of the
thighs. And often, on arriving there, an indiscreet finger brushed
against a silky, moss-like bank, in close proximity to the warm centre
of love. But, fearful of my own impatience, I took immediate flight from
that disturbing contact, and returned towards the centre of the loins,
where I recommenced my amorous to and fro movements immediately.
At other times, it was from left to right, or from right to left that my
caresses progressed, enclosing and then relaxing the twin globes of her
flesh. Flesh at one and the same time plastic and firm, and of a texture
which was infinitely soft to the touch; flesh more cool on the summits,
but moist and warm where the shadow-lines lay; flesh that was alive
under my caresses, and which sometimes shrank, so as to protect the
privacy of its secret valley, but which, on the other hand, surrendered
itself, in a confiding and visible voluptuousness, when my hands drew
closer together its equal rotundities. In my ardent love for my wife, her
pleasure under my touches was as delicious to me as though that
pleasure had been my own; and so I multiplied my caresses incessantly.
The shades of evening were already falling when Therese—her eyes
heavy with voluptuous lassitude—cried for mercy.

[April]

CHAPTER VII

The bed had become moist through the perspiration from our bodies.
So we decided to install ourselves, for dinner, on the sofa near the
window. With the twilight the atmosphere turned somewhat cool. I
fetched a dressing-gown for Therese, who, seized with a tardy fit of
modesty, had again hidden herself under the sheet. When I returned,
bringing our provisions, she was up, closely enveloped in her gown, the
belt of which she attached with minute care,—adding a second knot,
and then a third. And while doing so she glanced at me from
underneath her eyelashes mockingly.

All that we had to eat were the remains from the day before,—a most
meagre repast, but, thanks to a little champagne forgotten in the
Thermos flask, appearances were kept up. The meal at an end, we
chatted and smoked. The sky-blue rectangle formed by the window
changed from royal to Prussian blue, and then became studded with
stars, more and more numerous. We were unaware of the exact hour.
But what did that matter to us?

When night came completely,—a summer night which was
astonishingly tardy,—we cast aside our cigarettes by tacit consent,
and Therese snuggled up towards me, with her mouth extended
towards mine. A long dialogue between our lips and our tongues
followed. I meditated on the fact that, under her dressing-gown,
Therese was nude; but I did not dare to slip my hand within her bosom,
fearing that she was weary of our orgy of caresses of the afternoon.
Prudently, I placed my hand on her knees, covered by her garment.

* * *

To tease her, I drew back a little, with a semblance of wanting to avoid
her lips; and in the movement she made to reach my mouth her knee
became uncovered. I experienced a lukewarm surprise at finding a
morsel of bare flesh under my hand. Prudently I advanced my fingers,
wishing, to extend this unexpected conquest, without awakening her
attention unduly. Only the dressing-gown suddenly slipped,
uncovering the whole of her thigh as far as the shady line of the groin;
whereupon my wife made the movement I feared, ready to drape
herself afresh and still more closely. However, she did not complete her
gesture; feverishly—and as though she herself were completely
dazed—she thrust her tongue into my mouth, while her legs parted in
my direction, accepting my caress.

Notwithstanding her acquiescence, I still hesitated. What I wanted
was, indeed, a more complete conquest, and the slightest piece of
clumsiness might compromise it. Timidly, my hand went further up,
lightly touching the interior portion of her thigh, the epidermis of
which was so immaterially soft that I was astounded. As I progressed
the muscles relaxed, the skin became still more soft and then, without
transition, I felt under my fingers the crease formed by her sex and its
aureole of silky hair. Suddenly, however, her legs closed and my hand
was arrested. Once more there was refusal: modesty's invincible reflex,
which every time forbid me the ultimate privacy of the flesh.
Exasperated—giving up the idea of continuing my deceptive
incursion— I sought to withdraw my imprisoned hand. But Therese
prevented me, exclaiming:

"No, remain where you are. Wait a bit!" Her thighs relaxed their grip,
then opened completely. Her sex being, at long last, offered to me, I
placed my entire hand on it, with the palm on the thickest part of her
fleece, and the fingers right on the red and blooming flower of her
flesh. For a long time, too, I made no attempt at a more active caress,
but gave myself up to the voluptuousness of that warm contact,— to
the intoxication of having conquered the secret home of love. Under
my inactive hand, the intimate nudity of that part of her person
became animated by a succession of ripples: long and passionate
waves which thrilled through my wife's body until they reached our
closely united lips. The dead silence of the night was disturbed merely
by the low sound of our kisses as we embraced and disembraced.
Therese's tremors at last became less frequent, less passionate,
whereupon my hand awakened. Momentarily abandoning the
satisfied flesh, my fingers strayed over her smooth stomach and
ascended, under the dressing-gown, in search of the nipples of her
breasts. But soon they descended,—to become, as it were, Will-o'-thewisps,
which no more than grazed her sex, without actually touching its
inner folds. Like a light flame, my fingers went hippety-hop on her
fleece, skirting its shady, downy edges, and then slipping to her hips,
along the secret line of which my fingers travelled. Then, most
delicately, they made the return journey to their point of departure;
and thus the backward and forward movement proceeded. Little by
little, however, my fingers became more insistent and more
penetrative. Parting the curls, which my vagabond fingers had
entangled, I resumed tactile contact with the most secret spot of her
whole body. And soon on the most tender parts of her sex my
caresses—more and more rhythmic—were centred.

Therese, wholly absorbed in the intensely voluptuous sensations which
were again thrilling her, ceased to kiss me. She tried to undo the triple
knot of her waist-belt; then tore it off impatiently; and, casting her
garment aside, offered me, in the sweet light of that clear night, her
wholly nude body. Under my agile fingers, whose caresses I still further
accelerated, the flesh of her flesh became moist with desire; her legs—
parted still more—stretched towards me her exasperated flesh; and
with both hands clasped to her breasts she threw herself back with
upturned eyes.

[April]

CHAPTER VIII

Friday morning.

Those good friends of ours who, already the day before yesterday,
calculated on our "lying in bed" at Dijon would have been greatly
astonished if they had been able to see us all alone in another bed at
Versailles. Moreover, with what a torrent of sarcastic remarks they
would have deluged me had they known that my wife—on the third
day of her honeymoon—was still a virgin!

However, I felt neither bitterness nor humiliation on that account.
Rather a certain pride. I imagined an audience capable of
understanding me,—one that would have applauded me for having
overcome stupid masculine prejudices. Together we should have
evoked a new world in which Man was no longer the slave of his
Phallus and thirsting for the bestial satisfying of his passion... But how
many people are there— perhaps one in a thousand?—who, raising
themselves above the primitive brute, can bridle their desire in view of
a less egoistic voluptuousness? Egoistic? But had I not displayed an
egoistic spirit towards Therese on the previous evening? Why provoke
her solitary orgasm and then, afterwards, merely carry her off
shivering to her bed and leave her there? I had made a mere pretence
of obtaining an explicit appeal from her,—that "Take me!" which
would have surrendered her flesh to mine. Had she not appealed to me,
with her whole body straining towards me, amidst the semi-darkness
of that warm summer night?... However, if I had resisted her
intoxicating appeal to give her pleasure,—if I had bridled my own
mad lust, it was because the trial through which I passed made me
more ambitious, and also stronger. What I wanted from Therese was
not merely her fleshly consent, so ardently confessed that night; but
the more conscious acquiescence of her whole being. And I knew full
well that—anxious for a more intimate union than the mere union of
the sexes—I was in the right.

Meanwhile, through too protracted an evocation, in the warmth of my
solitary bed, of the incidents of the preceding night, my lust was once
more quickly aroused. Strange duplication of one's personality! While
my mind formulated its arguments and approved of what I had done,
my imagination, summoning up recollections, disapproved. My loins
were wrung with poignant regret. Once more I saw Therese casting
aside her dressing-gown and, wholly unashamed, offering her whole
body to me; once more I felt the sweet, moist appeal under my fingers.
Had I not made a gull of myself by refusing the offered pleasure? I
closed my eyes the better to relish what my enjoyment might have
been... I should have thrown myself on my knees, between her open
thighs, and, amidst the double moisture of our dual lust, I should have
caressed her flesh for a long, long time with my penis before suddenly
penetrating her. Or, perhaps, Therese's hands, with an instinctive
movement, and amidst a paroxysm of pleasure, would have seized hold
of my sex, already stiff through the approaching spasm, so as to thrust it
within her... Suddenly I became very warm and uncovered myself,—
and in order to relieve the burning turgidity of my sex, I was forced to
undo a few buttons of my pyjamas.

* * *

The sound of Therese drumming on the door made me draw up the
sheet quickly. In a clear and comically shrill voice, she sang:

"Au clair de la lune, Monsieur mon epoux,
Venez au jardin, il y fait tres doux."

I welcomed these humorous lines with a whistle of admiration, and
then replied, in an octave lower:

"Au clair de la lune, Monsieur repondit:
Je ne puis sortir-re, je suis dans mon lit."

A ripple of laughter came from behind the door, accompanied by the
words:

"No! Really? Get along with you, lazy fellow. May I come in?"

"Yes, yes. Come in at once."

"I suppose you are decent?"

"Most certainly,—as I always am."

"If that's so you shall have a reward." So saying, she half-opened the
door and peeped in distrustfully. Tranquillised, she then came right in.
She was dressed in beach pyjamas: a jersey, a bolero and broad
trousers,—a white ensemble braided with blue. The particular shade
of that blue, in complete harmony with that of her eyes, increased their
brilliancy. Pushing aside the bolero, her breasts stretched the thin
material of the jersey and brought into prominence their twin nipples.
A large, supple straw hat shaded her blond hair, gathered up into a
heavy chignon. I found my wife adorably beautiful and youthful,—so
much so that my stiffened penis, throbbing with desire, rose to salute
her. Just for a moment I stopped her on the threshold. "Stop there a
moment, darling, so that I may admire your ensemble."

"In such a get-up as this, you find me grotesque, don't you? The
Carnival of Nice on tour."

"Oh! not at all,—the Cortege of Venus. Or rather Venus herself
descended on Earth."

She rushed towards me, her bosom thrust forward and hands in a
threatening attitude, and, in a voice imitative of the Ogre, declaimed:

"C'est Venus tout entiere a sa proie attached."

Then, throwing herself on my bed, she covered my face and neck with
kisses. Soon her hands were drawing down the sheet ("To see if I'd not
told her a fib!") and this preliminary inspection was satisfactory, since
the top of my pyjamas was chastely buttoned up. But after a while she
was on the verge of discovering something most indecent: the ruddy
extremity of my bare penis.

I was bound, however, to stop that and save her eyes from the brutal
revelation of the ruttish condition in which I was, for that might have
been most repugnant to her. I know that others would have consented,
without making the slightest fuss; but those are the people who make
women passively subject to their lust, or else those prostitutes whose
venality surmounts all feeling of disgust. If, on the other hand, I wanted
my wife, some day, to be as enamoured over the violence of my sex as
full of tender pity for a penis exhausted by the love-act,—if I wished
to awaken in her a confiding and caressing passion for my very flesh,
other precautions were called for. I must first of all explain and guide
her hand before surrendering myself to her visual caresses. But my
will-power had broken down completely: mighty waves of lust flowed
from my loins to my brain and overwhelmed me.

As when in a state of dizziness, it was the very sense of danger which
attracted me,—the Sadistic expectation of Therese's astonishment. At
other moments, however, the waves of desire calmed down to a silent
prayer. I wanted to say to Therese:

"You still know hardly anything about my body. Look at it! Be gentle
with my impatient sex, as I was gentle last night with your so
intimately excited flesh. Fear not!—all that I want is to surrender
myself into your hands. And should you excite me to the point of
orgasm, I will tenderly draw a veil over your eyes."

Meanwhile, the hand which had drawn down the sheet had descended
below my waist and reached the point where my pyjamas began to be
half-open. Therese caught sight of a triangular morsel of flesh, and, in
its close proximity to my sex, already hairy. Her breathing quickened.
Her arm made a lascivious movement and then she clenched her hand.
But she immediately recovered herself. So as not to have to recognize a
fault on my part, she quickly drew the sheet over the fleshly triangle.
Again what she saw of my attire was perfectly decent and she
congratulated me on it. "That is quite all right: you are indeed most
proper." She had not understood—or did not want to notice—the too
apparent erection of my Phallus, a little lower down, under the sheet.
With feigned gravity, she then proclaimed:

"Under the terms of the powers conferred upon me, as much by the
Deputy Mayor as by Monsieur l'Cure, I will now bestow a reward upon
you."

Suiting the action to the word, she stripped my shoulders and body to
the waist, to repeat upon me the entire varied gamut of her caresses.
But this disturbing interlude lasted barely a quarter of an hour,—an
abnormally brief period of time, compared to the customary duration
of our love-feasts. Suddenly Therese stopped: her hand returned to the
triangular piece of flesh she had glimpsed a short time before; she
found it and slightly enlarged it, fumbling about on my stomach in
search of my navel. When she had found it she hid her tongue in it for a
few seconds. Finally, with a quick movement, she pulled the sheet right
up to my chin and rose to her feet.

"You don't really imagine, my dear Lord and Master," she proclaimed,
"that you are going to be decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order
of Caresses, because you have been fairly decent? Nay!... You have
merited only a decoration of the 3rd Class. The ceremony is concluded.
So get up at once, you bad lot!"

"Right-o! Right-o! I obey."

I made a movement as though to jump out of bed, notwithstanding
what she might be able to guess as regards the disorder of my attire.

But she screamed out:

"Stop! Stop!—Rascal! Let me get out first."

She took to her heels, laughing the while. A few moments later, the
sound of her voice came from the garden:

"I'll await you under the lindens, where I shall be reading. But I like to
read you better than a book."

"Thank you!"

"Only, you're a naughty book, and I hesitate to turn over the pages."

"Ah! I know a pretty little book the whole of whose pages I've turned
over."

"Silence!—ungrateful monster!"

And in order to drown my voice she began, with a "Tralala, la, la!" to
sing the revolutionary air from Louise.

How cheerful she was! I thought that recollections of the previous
night would have made her more serious that morning. If, momentarily,
she was almost sorrowfully dazed by the revelation of intense pleasure,
the recollection of it had calmed down to a feeling of confident
surrender. For I had been able to guide her (without either offending
her delicacy or ravaging her flesh) to the very threshold of the
intoxicating kingdom of voluptuousness. And at last, rid of all fear, she
was now vibrating with joyous impatience, similar to a child who, on
coming to the end of an unknown road, suddenly discovers the blue
expanse of the sea, glittering in the morning sun.

[April]

CHAPTER IX

I descended into the garden and, with the intention of surprising her,
advanced with the precautions of a Red Indian. The gravel crunched
under my feet treacherously. Therese, with her back turned to the
house, pretended not to hear me; yet she kept her blond head bent
down: a victim presenting her neck to the executioner. So upon it I
deposited a long and greedy kiss. Therese thrilled with joy and burst
into a ripple of laughter.

Seeing that the book upon her knees was closed, I asked her:

"Have you read much?"

"Much? No. But very conscientiously. I've read the same half-page ten
times."

"You have been learning it by heart?"

"I tried merely to understand. But I never got to the end of the
sentence."

"Absent-minded?—because of me?"

"By no means, conceited man! My absent-mindedness was the fruitful
one of great thinkers. I'm Thomas Aquinus, Newton, Einstein—
whoever you like. I've made a great discovery."

"Bless my soul! And what may you have discovered?"

"That the Almighty is marvellously intelligent and that his Creation is
not so badly managed. Moreover, I've told Him so while you left me to
my solitude. And I've presented humble apologies to Him for having
believed that the world consisted of my silly life as a young girl."

"Not so silly as that."

"Oh! yes,—it was stupid. Do you know what I resembled, without
knowing it? I was like those idiotic tourists who, in their Pullman cars,
read their newspapers, or snooze,—wholly unaware that, behind the
lowered blinds, there lies the whole of Provence singing in the sun."

"Yet, more knowing than the old gentleman of the Pullman, you
divined beforehand the sunlit countryside?"

"I divined it incompletely; and hoped, sometimes, that the blind would
not be raised too soon."

"The landscape didn't interest you?" "I feared to see, in its place, only
other railway carriages, stupidly similar to mine. Or else I feared that
the blind would be brutally raised to reveal some vulgar landscape,
the crude light of which would have blinded me." "You have that fear
no longer?" "Do you still dare to ask me that, hypocrite?" Her eyes,
fixed upon me, suddenly became sad. I guessed the reason: the shadows
cast by the unconfessed procession of fleshly thoughts, suddenly
awakened. Momentarily, she remained silent, and then solicited an
encouragement: "You promise not to make fun of me?" Without
uttering a single word, I pressed her to me.

"It's difficult to explain," she said. "Because I would ask for your
pardon, but pardon for something over which I feel no remorse".
Suddenly growing bolder, she added, "You understand, I regret
nothing,—nothing as regards that night on which I surrendered myself
wholly to your caresses. Not a single action do I regret,— not a single
one of my attitudes the most..."

She hesitated, so I sought to help her by attenuating her thought:

"The most amorous?"

"No. How can I express it?"

Turning her head away a little, she became more explicit:

"The most indecent. I'm a little ashamed of them, but I feel not the
slightest remorse."

"In that case, darling, what have I to pardon?"

"Why, precisely that,—for having so totally surrendered myself."

"You regret it?"

"I regret nothing, as I've just told you. But now I understand the
madness which I read in your eyes when we arrived here. And I should
like you, in your turn, to pardon me, if I appeared to you to have been...
I don't know how to put it... well, bestial... nay, perhaps repulsive."

"Oh! Be silent! Be silent! Do not profane the ecstasy which your
quivering body gave me,— so intensely quivering under my caresses."
But that imprudently evoked scene now stood out in my recollections
with intense and cruel clearness. The doubts which had assailed me
that morning reawakened with my desire; and once more I reproached
myself for not having possessed my wife during the acute crisis of my
lust. A bitter regret—compounded of humiliation, self-contempt, and
a dim feeling of rancour against Therese—came over me. To the more
rapid rhythm of my temples (the throbbing of which had several times
already almost precipitated my defeat) the saraband of my thoughts
was accelerated and whirled around a fixed idea. This idea became
more and more distinct and hallucinating,—there, on the thick,
sunbathed grass I saw the spot where I would throw Therese on to her
back and have her, after the fashion of the animals, without fear of the
huge expanse of sky above them, and without needless caresses.

Sufficient lucidity to calculate the stupid brutality of such an act still
remained. Yet with terrifying certitude I knew that my instinct was the
stronger. Intoxicated by the excess of my lust,—dazzled by lascivious
images, I staggered to my feet and drew Therese towards the sunny
lawn where I was to crush her body and satiate myself in her flesh. She
made no resistance; but her voice, which at first appeared to come to
me from far, far away, seemed to come nearer all of a sudden, and
dragged me from my hallucination.

"Darling—oh! my darling! Are you suffering? Come back and sit
down. There now, my little one, rest your head on my shoulder."
With childish words, she calmed me down,— those tender, simple
words the sweet reasonableness of which is understood only by lovers.
Yet she bore upon her own shoulders the accusation for my troubled
state:

"I am taking a cowardly advantage of your generosity, my poor dear. I
am unworthy of the delicacy you show me,—unworthy of all the
precautions inspired by your tenderness. This is too cruel a trial for you.
and it must not be protracted. And yet..."

"And yet... you prefer to wait?".

"'Yes' and 'no'. When my desire, born last night under your caresses,
again responds to your appeal, my whole body will revolt against the
attack. But when I am in a more lucid state of mind it seems to me that I
ought still to resist against my instinct, just as you knew how to combat
yours. For we are, as yet, only half way on our journey."

"Why? Because you don't love me sufficiently yet?"

"Don't love you sufficiently?"

She shook her head sadly, without refuting an idea which I myself felt
was an absurdity.

"No, but I don't know you sufficiently well yet. You—you know me
through and through; there is not a corner of my body whose reaction
to your caresses you do not know. But what do I know about you, my
darling?"

We remained silent, without stating precisely a barely formulated
thought, yet one which reverberated, in a series of ominous echoes, in
our flesh. However, no temptation to profit by the regret expressed by
Therese and to guide her hand to the discovery of my own body
overcame me. Assuredly I had many times imagined that exploration
and anticipated the pleasure of its exciting stages. But I was now
afraid of Therese's ignorance,—afraid of the possibility of arousing in
her a feeling of disgust. Was this an instance of ridiculous timidity on
my part?... It was, I think, a much more complex feeling, heavily dosed
with self-centredness. For, wishing to make my wife the caressing
worshipper of my virility, I was fearful (through a lack of patience) of
turning her merely into the passive and disgusting slave of my lust.

[April]

CHAPTER X

In the course of this voyage towards fleshly happiness, it seemed to me
to be necessary to take my bearings. It was a voyage whose charms
resided in the very slowness of its evolutions amidst the isles of
voluptuousness; but whose route—after centuries of erotic
speculations—was still inadequately charted. So many over-hasty
travellers had thought of going merely by the shortest route.
In order to give myself time to reflect and also, during a few hours, to
enable both of us to escape from the complete solitude which
exasperated our feelings, I proposed to Therese that we go a joy-ride in
the car. With lowered capote and wind-screen raised, our car tore
along mile after mile of road, the rapidity of our progress being
marked by the speed with which the trees, as they echoed past us,
flashed in an apparently never-ending succession. Tunnels of verdure
succeeded veritable orgies of brilliant sunlight. With faces alternately
scorched and fanned by the fresh breeze, all conversation was
impossible; but it stimulated my thought, carried away my hesitations
and doubts. I felt that I should return with strengthened nerves,—with
renewed certainty, and, as regards my will-power, infinitely more
patient.

I slackened the pace, so as to question Therese. Her thoughts had
progressed parallel with my own and also ended in a feeling of greater
certainty. But our conclusions were totally opposed and clashed.

"The trial has lasted far too long, darling."

"But you said, this very morning, that it appeared to you wiser to defer
our union."

"That is not exactly what I told you. When you asked me if I preferred
to wait, I replied: "Yes and No.' But in the possible 'yes' there was above
all a feeling of disquietude."

Still timid when face to face with precise details of a fleshly nature, she
stopped.

"What feeling of disquietude?"

"The fear of not being able to commune sufficiently intensely with
your body, through not having known it better before belonging to it
wholly. It was for that reason that, to your question as to the
opportuneness of still deferring it, I replied—'Yes... perhaps.' But now it
is definitely—' No.' No longer do I wish—no longer is it possible for
me—to wait; because I realize the useless cruelty of that delay, in
which my egoism alone is concerned."

Her egoism? I could not help smiling, because I hesitated to undeceive
her, fearing to be misunderstood, or shock her modesty. Then I grew
bolder and explained to her that she was not the only one who wished
it,—that preliminary knowledge of my body. Like herself, I awaited
it— voluptuously expectant; it was a delicate yet essential stage of our
progress, in which my sensuality would bask in the very naiveté of the
first caresses received. Through wishing to cover that stage at top
speed, Therese was depriving both of us of some most delicious
hours,—those hours of tender initiation, and the most certain-pledge
for the future of the most perfect union of our bodies.

Certainly I knew that she wished to shorten the trial of unsatisfied
desire, the painful acuteness of which she had measured on the
preceding night. And I knew—without daring to tell her —that her
tenderness would be still more affected when the burning tension of
my Phallus, throbbing for her flesh, was revealed to her. But I begged
her not to give way prematurely to a feeling compound more of pity
for me than desire.

* * *

On our return journey we stopped for dinner, tete-a-tete, in a quiet
orchard, on the edge of an already dark wood. In its semi-somnolent
state, the inn had the air of dreaming of the rush of automobilists which
the week-end would scatter along the roads. However, we received a
hearty welcome there.

After the meal we lounged about. We had, in fact, decided to wait
until complete darkness came before starting again; and beforehand
we relished the freshness of that nocturnal ride in the keener air. But
the summer night tarried and already we were filled with uneasiness.
Therese momentarily pressed her clasped hands between her knees,
expressive of chilliness, and a twinge responded to her movement from
my loins and explained it to me.

I questioned her as to what she knew exactly regarding the physiology
of marriage. In brief, very little, since she had voluntarily repressed all
sexual curiosity.

"Clearly I know," she said, "that children are not born among the
cabbages. Moreover, after my bachot, I wished to acquire a few more
precise notions on the subject of woman and maternity. Naturally I
didn't want to limit myself to stupid lyrism or the superstitious
nonsense of boarding-school girls."

"Your grandmother's prudery was not offended?"

"I didn't consult her. What I considered as a duty—one of intellectual
probity—she would have construed into a piece of unhealthy
curiosity. A senior friend guided my studies. Besides, you know her,—
Mathilde D..."

"The elegant doctoress? I can believe, indeed, that life has no secrets
for her. She has certainly had some adventures."

"Yes, I, too, believe that that is so, although she said nothing to me
about them. More tears, however, than happiness, if I am to judge by
the sorrowful face she sometimes had. But that very experience made
her more understandable and more to be respected by the young girl
who had remained intact. And by a tacit agreement we eliminated
man's role in marriage. We set out from the ovary and followed its
evolutions without asking..."

Here she hesitated for a moment and, as she continued, began to laugh.

"You know, as in cosmography, when one starts with the primitive
nebulous system, without asking whether the initial impulsion came
from God, the devil, or chance."

"And you had no suspicion of anything?"

"Oh! All the same! One would really have been a goose not to have
made certain comparisons. The biology course, with its precise details
regarding the reproduction of plants, clearly made me reflect."

"And what did you conclude from that?" "That woman, in order to give
birth to children, must be impregnated by man. Moreover, all novels
make it quite clear that it's a matter of physical possession. I know—
how could a young woman of my age be in ignorance of the fact?—
that this possession is at first painful to the woman, and I'm not ignorant
of the change which takes place in us. But I can only dimly imagine—
how can I put it?—the details of things,—the exact part played by
man."

Yet she knew the difference between the sexes, at any rate as it
appears in the case of children. But she had not sought for an
explanation of the mystery, because she was ignorant of man's strange
physiological metamorphosis under the impulse of desire. So I
revealed to her, in the simplest words, what that change was, avoiding
all needless crudity, and still more careful not to make use of ridiculous
metaphors. The seriousness with which she listened would have
prevented me—had such a banal temptation overcome me—from
indulging in the slightest pleasantry. I explained to her how the male
organ, transformed with a view to carnal union, became capable of
penetration and impregnation; then the abatement of desire; and how
the impatient male became like a somewhat sad child in the arms of
his beloved wife.

Therese, with her head resting on my shoulder, listened to me without
uttering a single word. Her prolonged silence ended by disquieting
me. I raised her face, but, in the already intense darkness of the night,
could only very badly distinguish her features. On the fringe of her
closed eye-lids I was inclined to detect the bitterness of a tear.

"Have I grieved you, darling?"

Astonished at my question, she opened her eyes.

"Grieved me? Oh! no... It's just beautiful.— so much more beautiful
than I should ever have imagined."

Twenty minutes later we were at home.

[April]

CHAPTER XI

I accompanied Therese to the threshold of her room and took leave of
her.

She protested: "Ah! no."

"What? You don't want to say good-night to me?"

"I shall say good-night to you in my bed". She became more precise: "In
our bed. Why do you still want to abandon me?"

"But I do so on your account, dearie; so as not to be indiscreet." This
appeared to me to be rather a feeble argument; but I was so little of a
mind to be in the right. "Yesterday and the day before I acted in the
same..."

"And you did quite right, darling. I should have loved you less had you
thrust yourself upon me on the very first night. I should have been
vexed with you—a little—if you had been a brutal husband, too sure
of your rights and incapable of realizing certain differences of
meaning. But to-night, dearie, I should suffer if I were left alone."

"You would be as wretched as that?"

"Yes, yes. Your little girl would weep all night. And at dawn she would
come to you and slip into your bed."

"Suppose I drove her away?"

"Oh! she would be all a-tremble with cold... and humiliation. You
could never resist clasping her in your arms. And since you would be
eaten up with remorse, you would have forgotten all your fine
resolutions before the cock crowed thrice."

"Well, now I'm forewarned!"

She threw her arms around my neck.

"Come, darling! Should you fear our folly, we will place a sword
between us,—like Tristan and Yseult, you know, in the Forest of
Morvis. Come, and I will tell you that beautiful story, which I have
read so often."

She made me sit down on the edge of the big, low bed, And, standing
before me, she recited Bedier's prose, more poetic than so many poems:

"Under the protection of the green boughs, and on ground prettily
carpeted with grass, Yseult was the first to stretch herself. Tristan lay
down by her side and placed his sword between their bodies..." Therese
told me—without a lapse of memory—of the old King's visit, the
awakening, and the lovers' flight.

Then she remained silent, with her hands stretched towards me, as
though awaiting her reward. Amidst her disordered hair, two long
golden tresses were hanging, enframing her face. I remained in a state
of ecstasy in the presence of so mediaeval and so pure a figure,
expectant of my desire.

With infinite precautions—and putting a check on the growing
feverishness of my hands—I undressed her. Still motionless and with
half-closed eyes, my beloved Yseult was gradually transformed into a
Pagan goddess... Soon, from amidst the clothes scattered around her,
her snow-white body appeared,—like Botticelli's Venus from her
shell. Once she was stark naked, my arms were entwined around her
waist, and my hands were pressed upon her buttocks passionately,
while I placed a long, long kiss on the silky triangle which her nudity
offered to me. Finally, I overturned her on to the bed, where she
surrendered herself—panting the while—to my caresses.

For a hundred times, already, my lips traversed her body,—for a
hundred times my hands felt and caressed her, turning her over this
way and that. But I could not satisfy my passion for her beauty. Many,
many details, hardly perceived before, intoxicated me with their
perfection: the immaculate whiteness of her slender stomach, the
lissom plenitude of her haunches, the clear curve of her thighs, and the
elegant length of her legs. It was towards these sweet novelties that,
first of all, the whole ardour of my lips and tongue was directed. But
they also tarried in the neighbourhood of the fleshy roundness of her
rump, and amidst its warm shadows,—spots which up to then my
hands alone had explored. I amused myself by tickling with my tongue
the two adorable dimples which emphasized that rump. Comparable
to two indiscreet arrows which a roguish hand might have traced there
as sign-posts towards the most secret of voluptuous pleasures! Then I
turned her lovely body (which bent between my arms voluptuously)
over again, to enter on a voyage with my lips along her supple thighs
and smooth belly. Meanwhile. Therese's breasts, pointing their tiny,
rosy nipples, transmitted towards me a silent yet provocative appeal;
they gave me the impression that they reproached me for having
abandoned them. So I responded to their appeal. And the repetition of
a multitude of caresses, which I had taught them on the previous night,
was hardly sufficient to make them forget the impatience of too long a
wait.

Therese thrilled ardently; and at the same time with absolute sincerity,
incapable as she was of feigning an inexperienced sensation. Some
particular caress which I imagined was the quintessence of
voluptuousness remained without an echo; whereas another, inspired
by an almost unconscious reflex, made her quiver like an asp. At times
her whole supple body writhed on the bed, as though maddened with
the impossible desire to offer herself, wholly and simultaneously, to the
pressure of my hands and lips. Meanwhile, if my fingers or tongue,
descending the whole length of her belly, sought to surprise and
penetrate the most shady and private nook of her sex, she refused to
submit, by suddenly pressing her thighs together. Doubtless she feared
that a spasm of desire, similar to that of the preceding night, would
drag from her an irresistible appeal to my body, to that body which,
however, she wished to know before the supreme gift of her flesh.
Divining her thought, I resisted the temptation to force open her legs
and crush her sex under the pressure of my lips. I resumed my
incursions towards other regions of her body. But soon I returned to the
attack, thirsting still more to refresh my lips with the forbidden,
voluptuous moistness; once more my mouth was placed on the golden
fleece which attracted it; and once more Therese's legs came together,
preventing my going any further. Gradually, however, I felt her
resistance grow weaker; and then, rapidly, with a great thrill, Therese
confessed that she was defeated. Her legs slowly opened, still
hesitative, yet docile to the pressure of my caresses; then they
suddenly spread wide apart, presenting the ruddy nudity of the flesh
to my eager lips.

Indifferent to Therese's modesty, which too long a resistance had,
moreover, weakened, I let her body slip to the very edge of the bed, in
more immediate proximity to my mouth. Then, amidst my vertiginous
and tender folly, I began to mould that still virginal flesh. The
prolonged suctions with my lips alternated with multitudinous teasing
touches from my tongue. Or else, I covered it entirely with my mouth,
which, starting from the dimples on her rump and delicately touching
the whole of her sex, finally blossomed on her stomach.

At last I was forced to stop, so tired had my loins become through the
irritating tension of my Phallus; while Therese stretched herself, as
though she were dragging herself from a dream. But, all of a sudden,
her consciousness returned. With a quick movement she covered her
sex with one of her hands and with the other gently pushed me away,
saying that "we were really too crazy." She sat on the edge of the bed,
with her hand pressed, shiveringly, between her closed legs; and,
gathering up a piece of clothing from the heap on the carpet, she
sought to veil her nudity with it. But she succeeded very badly. Still
dazed through her state of prolonged voluptuousness, she was
touchingly, comically awkward; so that, indocile to her efforts,
sometimes it was a breast that re-appeared, sometimes the blonde tuft
adorning her sex. Meanwhile, I felt sorry for her and the re-awakening
of her sense of shame. Raising her in my arms, I stretched her on the bed
and covered her up.

A travelling time-piece on a bed-side table gave forth its rapid tictac.
It was already one o'clock in the morning—time indeed to
interrupt our gambols.

My wish was at least to obtain a momentary respite for both of us. But,
involuntarily, I went off into a dose in my bath. From the adjoining
room came my wife's voice, calling out to me:

"You have forgotten me, naughty man!"

Hastily slipping on a dressing-gown, I returned to her.

She had switched off all the lights. From the sofa, near the open
window, a childish voice directed me thither: "Cuckoo! darling. This
way!" There was less luminosity than on the previous night,—nothing
of that phosphorescence with which that feminine body, straining
towards the awakening of her flesh, was surrounded. For the stars,
under the tread of many clouds, had been crushed one by one.
Nevertheless, their luminous soul still exhaled in the form of diffused
light, so that the whiteness of her neck, through the opening in the
dark dressing-gown she was wearing, stood out. I placed my hand
there: a movement rather of tenderness than of lust, since my Phallus
was dormant. But Therese stopped me immediately.

"No, my darling! No more to-night. Do you realize the state into which
you have thrown me? Moreover..." Leaving her sentence unfinished,
she merely added: "Snuggle up to me,— quite close to me, dearie."
Seated on my right, she placed her head on my shoulder with a
movement already familiar to her, and one I loved. Her hand, lightly
touching my chest, sought for the opening in the garment, and she
trembled slightly on coming into contact with my skin. Then she
remained absolutely motionless. Around us was no other movement
than the distant scud of the clouds. Therese would soon fall asleep.
Sorrow for her lassitude came over me, and I decided that, after a little
while, I would carry her, as though she had been a child, to her bed,—
carry her with infinite precautions, so as not to frighten her.
But the hand resting on me began to awaken and finger me. Then, with
a slow and very delicate progression, it descended along my body.
Mighty waves of voluptuousness were awakened by its contact and
rippled down to my loins, while my Phallus, in its turn, was aroused
from its slumbers and came to life in a series of rapid pulsations.
Despite myself, I held my breath; and one might almost say that, of our
two bodies, only her hand and my penis were alive, in the double
expectation with which they trembled. Under the light material of my
dressing-gown, her hand continued to advance. Now it slid along my
stomach, and appeared to be astonished when it came into contact
with a fleece similar to her own, only rougher. Divining the nearness of
my penis, Therese's fingers began to grope about, feverishly. But when
she suddenly touched it she momentarily hesitated—astonished by its
burning hardness. Uncertainly and somewhat timorously, she began to
finger it,—to ascend to the point where my desire was concentrated;
and then her hand closed and became immobile around its delicate skinned
prey. In a grave and far-away voice,—an infinitely tender
voice,—Therese murmured words of ardent love in my ear. Amidst a
strange relativist complex, Time and the fleeting clouds became
confounded: neither of us could have said whether they were quartersof-
an-hour or Eternity.

Meanwhile, Therese was touched by the marked pulsations of my
Phallus, and as though to calm them her hand, with instinctive, tender
movements, became caressing: still unskilfully, yet infinitely delicate.
Then she resumed her course, curious to know me better. Momentarily
she strayed amidst the curly swell which surrounded my sex and
advanced between my legs; but there —on coming, unexpectedly, in
contact with the proofs of my virility—she stopped immediately.
Therese questioned me in a low voice. She "caught on" at once as to the
delicate physiology of these organs,—and was astonished at their
fragility, which contrasted so strangely with the proud rigidity of the
penis. And then her fingers, ever so lightly, began to envelop my
testicles with a long caress, as though she wished to be pardoned for a
piece of awkwardness, due to her ignorance.

Again her hand began to wander about, less timid than before,—nay,
impatient to traverse in all directions the living kingdom she had just
conquered. Already she knew where to find, once more, such or such a
fleshly nook whose softness she had liked; already she recalled the
itineraries marked out by the more striking reactions of my
voluptuousness. But her backward and forward movements, at one and
the same time quicker and more delicate were too often impeded by
the garment which still covered me, so I threw it off and at last gave
myself up to the sensual delight of being entirely nude in the presence
of the woman I loved.

Accustomed to the semi-darkness, her eyes now divined every detail
of my body and followed the convulsive movements of my penis, which
was athirst for tenderness. Having ceased her caresses, she now looked
at me most eagerly and I could hear her murmur, repeatedly: "My
beautiful body! My beautiful, beloved body!" Then she rose, in her turn
cast aside her garment, and came to crouch at my feet,—amorously
hiding her nudity between my parted legs. Her gaze was centred on
my Phallus, quite close to her; she wreathed it with her smiles,
enveloped it with these tender words: "You fill me, still, with a little
fear, yet I shall adore you 1" At last her lips advanced towards me and,
in the expectation of a caress which I had not the strength to refuse, my
desire made me wince. But at the supreme moment her timid hand
thrust aside my penis and she buried her face in the bushy hollow of
my groin. She was still a timorous neophyte in the presence of the idol
which she did not dare to touch ever so lightly with her lips, but of
which, some day, she would be the ardent priestess.

A gust of wind, portending a storm, banged to the window and made
Therese shiver.

"Get up, darling," I said. "You'll catch cold. Besides, it will soon be
dawn, and you must really rest."

A pale light was appearing on the horizon: dawn which, since the War,
I have never been able to behold without sadness, at the recollection of
the anxiety we experienced on the occasion of day-break attacks.
Suddenly filled with something approaching shame at our nudity, we
hurried towards the bed and, shiveringly, pressed one against the
other.

Therese curled herself up with her back to me. With breast, belly and
thighs I enveloped her closely,—moulded my body to hers. My still
unappeased sex found a refuge—a warm and dangerous refuge—
between her legs. Again Therese became aware of its throbbing,
whereupon her hand placed it in the most secret hollow of her flesh
with a movement which, at first, she wished to be expressive of pity and
appeasement. But she was surprised by such softness in that contact
between my flesh and hers. So she increased her pressure,—repeated
and increased it, without knowing that she exasperated my lust to the
verge of paroxysm...

I closed her hand again upon me—that hand which she now refused to
open,—the jealous guardian of the warm and abundant offering
which my love poured forth before her.

[April]

CHAPTER XII

Still torpid through my heavy slumbers, I had great difficulty in
waking up. Yet it must have been already late, judging by the
indiscreet insistence of the light on my eye-brows. With closed eyes, I
let myself be lulled by the monotonous sound of a shower, pattering on
the foliage of the chestnut-trees. My thoughts were still scattered,—
ravelled out,—similar to the light clouds stretched out, far far above in
the morning sky; and my vision of Therese was still reduced to the
vague recollection of a happy event, with which Fate had recently
gratified me.

Then followed a sensation of chilliness. The coverlet must have slipped
off the bed. Mechanically I sought to draw it over me, but a hand
stopped me and woke me up completely. Enveloped in her dressinggown,
Therese was stretched flat on her stomach across the bed, with
her face on a level with my haunches, and her eyes fixed on my body.
Doubtless she had intentionally denuded me, for the sheet was only
partially raised and uncovered me with a most precise indecency.
Therese appeared to disapprove of my awakening; she looked upon it
as premature, and when I became obstinate she said:

"Come now, darling. Pretend to be still asleep, just to please me."

I wanted to be obedient to her; I wanted to defer the awakening of my
desire, without fear of confessing to a loving woman the frail humility
of my dormant Phallus. But the immaterial touch of her look already
disturbed me,—that look which travelled over my flesh and lovingly
took in all its details. Intractable to my will, my sex began to elongate
under the tenderly amused eyes centred upon it,—and its throbbing,
at first hesitative, soon quickened. Then, suddenly,— and at the same
moment Therese was provoked to laughter,—it stood erect. Somewhat
timorously she started back, letting her head fall on my bosom. I could
see nothing more than her half-undone hair; but I could divine that her
eyes were still fixed on my penis. And soon she returned to it. Her
cheek, gliding along my body, already grazed my stomach with a
prolonged caress. And suddenly, through the indescribably sweet
contact of that warm caress enveloping the extreme nudity of my flesh,
I was thrilled.

It was an intense yet only too brief sensation of voluptuousness, an
involuntary movement having detached me from it. Yet I did not dare
to provoke its renewal. So, seeking a diversion, I raised Therese's
dressing-gown, uncovering the slender curve of her legs and the
adorable profile of her buttocks. There was not the suspicion of a
refusal on her part; nor did she react when my hand strayed between
her legs and reached her most secret spot. But, as though in response to
my provocation, the already experienced warm caress once more
enveloped my own flesh.

Meanwhile, under the hypertension of my sex, I became aware of the
imperious appeal of an approaching spasm. Suddenly becoming more
lucid, I sensed the danger of an unpardonable profanation: one that
nothing could have excused. So, with a sudden movement, I detached
myself from my wife's excessively voluptuous tenderness, to throw
myself upon her, with my face buried in the shady crossroads where
her garden bloomed.

* * *

Did she realize the cause of my anguish? What matter! In a few days
all thoughts passing between us would be clarified. However, I did not
wish to let her fear that she herself had caused me pain. And in order
to calm her possible disquietude I amused myself, with the tip of my
tongue, in exploring all the nooks and corners of her flesh. This game,
against which she defended herself by pressing her legs together,
distracted us from the paroxysm of our desire; and soon Therese began
to laugh, tickled by my incursions and amused by the resistance she
succeeded in opposing to them. I feigned fatigue; whereupon her
muscles relaxed; and before she had time to collect her wits, I
separated with both hands the double rotundity of her buttocks and
clove them with a mighty and indiscreet lick... Quickly turning
away—and all the same somewhat annoyed—she drove me off; but
she soon returned, laughingly, and raised a threatening finger, with
the words:

"You are the limit! First of all, hide yourself under the sheets. You are
far too improper."

"Whose fault is that? I was sleeping very soberly this morning..."
For a few moments we quarrelled: each seeking to absolve herself or
himself from all responsibility. Therese called me "Bluebeard" and a
"woman-eater"; while I stigmatised her gluttony,—that of an ogress,
who lies in wait for children at their awakening. To put an end to the
dispute, we took refuge in our respective bathrooms.

The rain-storm that morning barely cooled the atmosphere, so by tacit
consent we remained in the very simple attire of our dressing-gowns.
Having sent the gardener for provisions, we found our food in the
pantry turning-box and had a gay little luncheon. Afterwards, we
spent the greater part of the afternoon on a sofa in the drawing-room,
Therese reading verses to me, hap-hazard, from an anthology. I listened
to her; but, deaf to her protests, I had partly opened her dressing-gown,
so as to lay my cheek against the delicate whiteness of her stomach.
She again protested, but without further convincing me when, at
dinner-time, I took her on my knees; for, opening my garment and
raising hers, I wanted her buttocks to rest in direct contact with my
thighs. However, I respected the condition of apparent indecency
which, as a last resource, she insisted on laying down,—chastely I drew
down her dressing-gown over our dual nudity. And during the whole
of the dinner we pretended to ignore the persistent swelling of my sex
under the delicious weight of her loins.

Before the door of what was "her" room I no longer proposed, as on the
previous day, to separate. However, Therese expressed a wish that we
should be "very good". The day's programme appeared, indeed,
honourable, our morning's frolics having been prolonged beyond noon,
and the remainder of the day having been only relatively chaste. But
as soon as the light was switched off, our bodies—still thirsting for
tenderness—sought for each other. Night becoming our accomplice,
our bodies were enlaced in the maddest manner; innumerable caresses
were alternated with hands, mouths, and flesh.

The total obscurity—humouring her modesty— let loose in Therese's
imagination a perfect tornado of erotism. There and then I foresaw in
her an inventive mistress who, after many years of married life, would
continue to renew and diversify our pleasure. I gave myself wholly up
to her fancies,—fancies sometimes naive, rarely clumsy, more often
most precise in their sensual intuition. But I avoided all contact (of
however slight a duration) between my flesh and hers. The very
persistence which Therese displayed in provoking such contacts and
binding me to them put me on my guard against their inevitable
evolution. Fatally and of common accord, they would have ended in
total possession". Now, this appeared to me to be still premature.
Why I should have had a difficulty in explaining. Was it a desire to
prolong the disturbing charm of that virginity of hers? A yearning
after those hours of initiation, the end of which would be marred by the
act of possession? Hesitation to cause suffering to an already overbeloved
flesh? Perhaps... Certainly and above all a fear that, through a
brutal action, I might spoil a memorable date in our fleshly history. For
that was indeed the very first day on which our bodies, having
completed their reciprocal discoveries, were at last able to surrender
themselves, without restraint, to a complete orgy of caresses... My most
ardent wish was that the recollection of that day should remain
impregnated with voluptuous tenderness, in a most unique manner,
and without that discordant note which an act of violence, even
accepted, would have produced.

Whether my reasons were sound or unsound, Therese accepted them.
Moreover, we knew instinctively that that night marked the extreme
possibility of our expectations; on the morrow our dual desire would
result in the union of our bodies, willy nilly. Filled with more
confidence by the very certainty of that abdication, now so near, we
dared to commit a piece of supreme imprudence. In the middle of the
night, Therese, with legs apart, offered me her full-blown nudity; and
with the moist extremity of my sex— though I stiffened my will
against the temptation to penetrate her violently—I touched her sex
ever so lightly. At first very slowly, my caress soon became more
persistent, more rapid; then entered on the path of that supreme
voluptuousness with which my whole body was vibrating. A cry came
from Therese's lips,—"Have me!" but on her palpitating stomach I had
already offered a sacrifice to my lust. Therese brought her hand down,
eager to retain that ephemeral pledge of our love; and soon, with our
legs still entwined, we both fell sound asleep.

[April]

CHAPTER XIII

Having made most accurate prognostications regarding the brightness
of that Sunday morning, our programme had been drawn up on the
previous evening. We were to walk to church and rise at an early hour.
Better to be ahead of the hour when the sun was pouring down upon
the road and making it unbearable. However, projects of the day
before have a strange habit of being changed on awakening the next
morning. Therese moaned that she was sleepy; she threw her arms
around my neck and sought to keep me in bed. And when I tried to
disengage myself, she slid her hand with great rapidity towards the
middle of my body and treacherously seized hold of me. Laughing at
her roguishness, she exclaimed: "Tenio lupum auribus!"

"You're a deep one! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"

"But it's in the Latin Grammar, darling."

"I'm not talking to you about the Latin Grammar."

Meanwhile she showed great concern over the fragile flabbiness of my
sex, which was still somnolent in her hand. Stopping her laughter, she
pressed me to her tenderly and murmured caressing words in my ear.
Then, once more, the azure of her eyes lit up with an amused look; for,
beneath her imprisoning fingers, she began to feel my sex awaken from
its torpor. Having relinquished the idea of getting out of bed, I already
accepted defeat and anticipated the voluptuous reward for my
cowardice. But Therese, doubtless, only wanted to make sure of my
power over her. Satisfied with the experiment, she threw back the
sheet and, at a glance, noted her triumph; then, after bestowing a rapid
kiss on the Phallus, standing at attention in her hand, she escaped in
the direction of the bath-room and doubly locked herself in.
After the monotony of the extensive walls skirting our deserted
avenue, the road towards the church suddenly opened out into the
country. It meandered between two thick-set hedges,—a true roadway
of former times, when roads were not yet saddened beneath a
black livery of tar. In the distance—as though from a past century— a
light cart jolted towards us,—a veritable cart of former days with a
piebald horse, its hood swaying backwards and forwards, and little
spurts of dust rising under each wheel.

Therese had armed herself with a Japanese parasol (probably all that
remained of some gallant fete) which had been left hanging about in
the vestibule; and when she twirled this multicoloured omhrelle on her
shoulder a kaleidoscopic effect aureoled the tranquil happiness of her
face. It was certainly, on that day, going to be particularly hot; the
shadows were already gathering together and taking refuge, as
though in fear, at the base of the trees. But Therese's wish was to
pardon the sun, because of the gaiety of the birds, the provocative red
of the poppies, the snowy-whiteness of the washing hanging in the
orchards. And when, in advance, I made my excuses to her for a return
journey which was bound to be irksome, she began to declaim a hymn
to Light:

"Salut! car avant toi les choses n'etaient pas.
Salut! douce; salut! Puissante
Lumiere, c'est par toi que les femmes sont belles." (1).
(i) "Hail! for before Thy birth all things were void.
Most sweet and powerful Light—
Hail land once more Hail.
'Tis through Thee, O Light, that women are beautiful."

On coming to the end of these lines, she asked: "Who wrote that? Now,
guess." Uncertain, I named a number of authors, haphazard. She smiled
at the name of Victor Hugo, burst into laughter when I mentioned
Arthur Rimbaud, and clapped her hands joyfully when I attributed
the poem to "some illustrious unknown writer." Then, triumphantly, she
named the "unknown one":

"Anatole France, my dear sir."

Whereupon, without transition, she stopped in the middle of the road
and kissed me on the lips. Looking at me in a humble manner, she said:

"Don't think that I'm filled with stupid vanity for having learnt a few
verses by heart. I am well aware that a vast scientific and professional
world exists,—one in which you, my darling, evolve at your ease. And
when I think of that I feel shamefully ignorant."

* * *

During the whole of the service, Therese, with her face in her hands,
remained kneeling at her prie-dieu and appeared to ignore me
completely. I felt rather annoyed at this. I envied the turbulent crowd
of youngsters of the catechism class who were playing sly little tricks
on each other; I envied their stifled laughter when they beheld a
choir-boy, in too short a surplice, revealing his chubby, rubicund
calves. And when we got outside I remained for a short time in the
sulks.

"You are saying nothing, darling."

"I don't dare to speak a word. I'm still intimidated by your recent
meditation."

"Meditation?" She shook her head. "Rather my attempt to meditate. I
was more distracted than Margaret after her fall; and doubtless some
Mephistopheles near to me was inspiring impure thoughts in my
brain."

"Who was it? The stout gentleman who was sitting on your right?"

"Oh! I say! I didn't even notice him. No, you, in all probability, were the
Tempter."

"If I may say so, I was sitting most quietly in my corner—yawning, and
had no other distraction than to caress your legs with my eyes."
"But that was very naughty of you, sir. I don't want you to have the air
of being a libertine, or one who makes a show of his incredulity. What
must the poor devout folks have thought of you?"

She concluded in a more serious tone:

"You must not shock them!"

"Are you yourself such a firm believer?"

"A believer? No: at any rate not sufficiently one. On the other hand, I
am incapable of turning other peoples' beliefs to derision. If there's one
piece of vulgarity which exasperates me, it's that which ridicules
mystic preoccupations,—the stupid sufficiency of Monsieur Homais."

"Is that meant as a reproach?"

"Oh! not at all, darling. I know quite well that, as regards so-called
religion, you think as I do. Had I been a more firm believer—even a
little more devout—you would have been respectful of my faith."
Pressing herself against me, she added in a lower voice:

"Just as you have been respectful—so tenderly respectful of my fears,
of my first feelings of shame as a young wife."
She repeated to me what her letters had already revealed regarding
the evolution of her soul: her religious aspirations, the anguish aroused
by her early doubts, the revival of faith in consequence of a "retreat",
and then, once more, a spiritual downfall. I admired her mental
seriousness, her intellectual probity, and the precision of her own
psychological diagnosis.

"I have not confessed to you... But I am afraid you will make fun of me."

"No, no. Tell me, dearie."

"For a time I went into training with Loyola's Spiritual Exercises."

"Seriously?"

"Indeed so. And with every bit as great a conviction as is shown to-day
when training for a final in a foot-ball contest... However, I didn't
succeed. But sometimes I was transported by mighty mystic
aspirations, yet without succeeding in coming to any clear conception
of my ideal. Perhaps it was towards you that, unconsciously, I aspired."

* * *

As soon as we got back, we separated for a short time, in order to put on
what we called our "garden costumes",—in her case, ample beach
pyjamas, a light jersey, and a very short bolero; in mine, a flannel suit,
worn next the skin. But I made out that her jersey was superfluous.

"Take it off, Therese. It's getting scorching hot outside."

"But you see quite well that that's an impossibility. This is a
ridiculously short bolero and it would be terribly open on my bosom. I
should be a most indecent object."

"Nobody will see us under the arbour."

"What about the gardeners?"

"I have granted them, most royally, the day off. They are at Evreux, or
somewhere in the neighbourhood. In this six to seven acre park we are
as much alone as Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden."

She accused me of criminal premeditation; and then, without further
protest, allowed me to bare her bosom. She was so calm, amidst the
Olympian indifference of her semi-nudity, that I did not dare—
despite the temptation—to kiss her breasts. So that, when I replaced
her bolero and fastened it as well as possible around her breasts, she
began to reproach me.

"Naughty man!"

"What's the matter?"

"You don't love me any more. You didn't even give them a kiss."

Only too happy to make amends, I bent towards her. But she crossed
her arms over her bubbies and with well-feigned indignation
exclaimed:

"No, sir. They are very annoyed with you. They will let everybody kiss
them, save you."

* * *

As on preceding days, we took refuge under the cool shade of a clump
of lindens, which were almost completely encircled by a thick hedge
of privet, leaving, in that sunlit garden, only a narrow and discreet
glimpse of the distance. The wooden seat was already familiar to us,—
a common wood bench, made of green strips, such as one can see in
every garden. But its curved back (doubtless designed by some
sensually-minded constructor) fitted to the body most softly. Seated on
my right, Therese removed her large straw hat, with an excellent
imitation of Cyrano's manner: "Gracefully I fling aside my felt...", at the
same time, in a comical voice, imitating the nasal drawl of certain old
actors. Then she stopped for a few moments, fell into a dreamy state,
and, with a sigh, let her head droop on to my shoulder.

"Are you sad, Therese?"

"No, most happy. Only a little tired."

Under her wide-open bolero I could perceive the curve of a breast, its
pure line emphasized by a ruddy spot. My wish was to be able to
admire it peaceably, but already my loins became affected: that
indocile parasite, my penis, awakened and began to lengthen itself
out. Encircling Therese's shoulders with one arm and advancing my
free hand towards the beautiful, semi-bare breast, I bestowed upon it
the softest of caresses. Therese laid her hand on mine to immobilize it.

"Darling,—leave your hand where it is, but don't move it. You know
quite well that if you caress me, I shall at once become frightfully
excited. I want to rest a little. It is so delightfully shady here after the
sunny road."

I obeyed her, enclosing the throbbing globe with my hand; and it was a
novel, delicious pleasure to note that this somewhat tiny portion of her
bosom coincided exactly with the measurements of my fingers. My
conversion to the thesis of final causes was then an easy matter. The
rosy nipple—unhardened by voluptuousness—slumbered, as it were,
under my palm.

Therese had placed a hand on my knee. I drew it very gently towards
me. Immediately responding to this impulse, her hand travelled along
my thigh, came into contact with my stiffened member, under the thin
flannel of my trousers. And then her fingers clutched it. But this
contact was too indistinct a one to give either of us satisfaction, so her
hand again moved, searching for the opening in my garment.

"Help me a little, darling," she whispered. "I'm still much of a novice."

Feverishly unbuttoning, until my "fly" was wide-open, I could not help
feeling somewhat ashamed when my dark fleece was suddenly
disclosed and Therese's eyes were fixed upon me. But she smiled and
snuggled up tenderly in the hollow of my shoulder. Her hand was soon
busy amusing itself with the untangling of the little curls, or losing
itself in the hairy labyrinth; but soon she seized hold of the burning rod
and fingered it,—though still with a little uncertainty, And on coming
to the extreme point where my desire was centred, she stopped there
for a short time before starting again. This time her hand slipped
between my legs to caress, ever so lightly, those organs with whose
timorous fragility her fingers were already acquainted. With her
fingers she made a little nest for them and became wholly motionless.
The dense foliage of the linden-trees completely isolated our love. But
the shrill cries from the swallows, wheeling in the sky, and the
confused concert of the church-bells, reminded us of the infinite
stretch of blue sky on that Sunday in July. With closed eyes, Therese
appeared to have dozed off to sleep on my shoulder. Nevertheless, her
fingers—still holding me prisoner— were animated by a strange
tremor; it was a barely perceptible caress, yet my hypersensitive flesh
responded at once. My hand, still encircling her breast, then
momentarily contracted. Therese strained towards me and, amidst a
sigh, said:

"I love you,—I love you, darling. How intensely I love you. Oh! that I
could explain... So many things."

"Is it so difficult to put them into words?"

"Yes,—alas! And yet I feel that the immensity of the love which
disturbs me is so full of life. My heart overflows with it,—rises, one
might think, straight to my lips and escapes in the form of ardent
words. But lips, you know, possess only one language when they are
amorous,—that of kisses. And when you ask them to express
themselves verbally, they are incapable of accurate translation."
After a short silence, she continued: "Moreover, I should fear to give
you an analysis of myself in your presence. You would find me so
terribly complicated."

"Do you still mistrust me? That's hardly nice. Do you think that I should
love you more if, instead of being complicated, as you say you are, you
gave way to your instinct, without reflecting? On the contrary, I love
the adorable diversity of your being, infinitely. My love for you,
darling,—my love, so intensely fleshly, has its birth in that very
diversity; it is compound of admiration for the clarity of your
intelligence, the limpidity of your soul, almost as much as of the desire
for your body. And our caresses the most... the most tenderly bold
appear to be legitimate because, despite everything, I love in you
something more than your body."

Somewhat reticent (apparently so at any rate) but above all coquettish
and playful, Therese pouted. She protested:

"Nevertheless, you must not disdain my body; even when it surrenders
itself too madly. You must not be ashamed of loving it."

"Ah! yes, indeed it looks as though I did so. But, seriously, dearie, the
veneration I feel for your intellectual and moral soul must not disturb
you. It does not make my desire more timorous. On the contrary, it
provokes it, makes it more exacting, more audacious. It allows it
greater freedom, because there is thus an excuse for its very folly. And
it will make my desire still more durable."

Therese did not reply. But her hand, nestling between my legs,
enveloped me at one and the same time with a persistent and fluidlike
sensation. There was a fluidity in her touch which aroused a keen
sense of voluptuousness and positively electrified me. Suddenly
indifferent to our discussion, Therese took no further interest save in
the prolonged echoes of that caress throughout my sensual frame. She
kept on the alert for those vibrations,—nay, provoked them time after
time; and finally let them die down altogether. Then she smiled,—with
a rather troubled expression, and appeared to make an effort to
recover the thread of her ideas.

"What were we talking about?"

"Of ourselves, dearie. And of your love, which you regarded as so
complicated."

"Ah! yes. What appeared to me to be complicated, you know,—what I
wanted to be able to explain to you, was,—-how can I express it?—
the multiplicity of my love. Doubtless it has grown too quickly; it
contains a little of everything. But in what a state of disorder! A
veritable bric-a-brac shop. Remnants of religious mysticism, mingled
with a paganistic adoration of yourself; a profound admiration for your
intelligence, at the same time as a crazy tenderness for certain details
of your body; an almost material need to coddle you and then, all of a
sudden, an ardent desire for your caresses. All that I perceive quite
clearly, especially when I am against you, fascinated by the depth of
your looks and yet disturbed by your sex, which vibrates so intensely in
my hand. But I express myself so badly and fear that you will not
understand to what extent I love you."

"Yet you are not downcast, are you?"

"Downcast? What for, indeed?"

"Owing to the long wait I have imposed on you. Later, perhaps, you
will be doubtful of my desire—of my love for you?"

"Oh! darling. But I have seen, I have touched your sex and felt it falter
through the excess of our caresses. And don't you understand that I
love you all the more for having known the whole of you before my
own surrender? Don't you realize my gratitude—and also my pride—
for not having had to surrender myself blindly?"

Nevertheless her words troubled me. It was with a feeling of
apprehension that I asked her:

"Do you think that it would be better to wait still longer?"

"Oh! no, no. Really I couldn't. You know quite well that I am now
longing to belong to you,—body and soul. But it is thanks to you that I
have passed a few days amidst a miraculous dream, which will ever
illuminate our love; a dream that would have been impossible, I know
full well, with any other person than you."

Her hand, which held me prisoner with tender precautions,
recommenced its wanderings on my body. Over the hard stiffness of
my sex she became compassionate, and the moist confession of my
desire moved her.

"I understand what it must have cost you," said Therese. "I understand
to how severe a trial I have put your tenderness—your infinite
delicacy. What I admire in you, above all, is precisely the contrast
between your terribly imperious desire and your indulgence towards
my fears—those of a little girl. At one and the same time I love you for
the violence you displayed the first day, to my very great fear, and for
your patience since then."

Within the corolla of her closed fingers, she amorously pressed the
ardent extremity of my penis, and concluded as follows:

"I adore Thee,—I adore Thee because Thou art... as He is, most powerful
and yet most tender."

Her voice grew fainter and seemed to hesitate, as though weary of
everything that words could not express. But her fingers became more
caressing, more inquisitive of the details of my flesh, more skilful in
provoking my sensual vibrations. And under my own hand I felt that
Therese's breast was swelling—was protruding its nipple towards me.
With a painful and dull hammering on my temples, I rose.

"My beloved wife," said I, "come with me.

[April]

CHAPTER XIV

A few yards away from our arbour there stood a little wooden house,
used as a shed for the garden-furniture, or as a shelter for promenaders
in case of an unexpected shower. Thither I led Therese and closed the
door.

Inside, the atmosphere was that of a greenhouse and it vibrated with a
strange luminosity: reflections of the sun which the surrounding field
stained green and projected through the openings in the closed
shutters on to the ceiling. The furniture looked so poverty-stricken that
I was disappointed: a half-open croquet box with its rows of painted
balls; in a corner, some folded sun-shades in the centre, a pile of iron
tables and chairs. However, against the back wall was a large grey
cloth which appeared to hide other pieces of furniture. With a certain
distrust, we raised one corner of this covering, and then—joyfully
surprised—threw it wholly on one side. A profusion of multicoloured
cushions appeared, spread out on the floor, and from their disorderly
billowy midst there emerged a sofa, luxuriously upholstered in red
velvet. I pushed Therese on to it, impatient to undress her; and as I did
so I anticipated the pearly whiteness of her nudity, when contrasted
with the crimson material. However, she resisted, exclaiming: "No, it's
my turn. Let me do what I want." Seated on the edge of the sofa, she
held me in front of her, imprisoning my legs between hers. My clothes,
since our recent caresses, had remained unbuttoned and displayed the
attachment of my penis. Therese deposited a kiss on the bushy fleece
and greedily inhaled the perspiration from my skin. Then she began to
undress me. She first of all removed my jacket, busied herself for a few
moments over the buckle of my waist-belt, and finally succeeded in
undoing it. Then her two hands glided down my haunches and caused
my final garment to fall to the ground. I stood stark-naked before her,
with my sex—still vibrating through having been suddenly
released—stretched out.

As though she had discovered my body for the first time, Therese
contemplated it with an astonished smile. With the lightest of touches
she stroked me all over,—rained upon me a multitude of rapid kisses.
Long did she hold me in that manner, without getting tired of looking
at me, feeling me, or licking me. Then, still pressing me to her, upright
and between her legs, she made me turn round so that I was in profile.
She began to follow the double contour of my body passionately,
caressing it with both hands,— one sliding along my back and passing
round my loins; the other, with a parallel movement, straying to my
stomach and my penis.

Gradually, however, her caresses became more precise and reflective;
they sought for the most sensitive spots of all; they returned there,
again and again. I besought Therese to interrupt a pleasure (the
danger of which I foresaw) so exquisite as that. But she only smiled at
an excessive pleasure in which her inventive tenderness took a pride;
and the confession of my weakness, far from appeasing it, made it still
more ardent. I felt the intoxicating wave of an irrepressible
voluptuousness rising within me; I knew that, soon, no sense of modesty
would be able to restrain it,—not even the shame of the final spasm
under the greedy curiosity of that look of hers. Meanwhile a brief fit of
dizziness came to the aid of my failing will-power. In that excessively
heavy atmosphere the walls seemed to totter around me, and I
collapsed on to the cushions scattered on the ground, thus escaping,
despite myself, from Therese's too madly amorous hands. A look of
disappointment darted from her eyes. But, noticing my pallor, she
threw her arms around my neck and hid my head against her stomach,
which the too narrow bolero had left bare.

My sensual hypertension, so near the point of orgasm, was slow in
becoming appeased. In vain did I seek—motionless and with closed
eyes—to escape from it. A recollection sufficed to awaken it; my sex
began to swell as a wave of voluptuousness passed through it. The
agonizing pulsation was, however, attenuated, then broke out afresh,
and was again lessened. At last it disappeared, but only to leave my
desire keener, more ravenous than ever, and reach once more that state
of dizziness whose satisfaction it awaited.

Squatting down, in a state of nudity, between Therese's legs, I wanted
to denude her also: the pyjamas she still wore had become physically
intolerable to me. With a movement of her loins, she assisted me in
uncovering her haunches and slipping off her garments. She let me
part her legs; she let me unravel the blond locks on her pubes; she let
me half-open the most secret spot of her body. Leaning backwards on
the sofa, with open thighs and arched body, she made an offering of
her panting sex, and greedily surrendered it to the multitudinous
caresses of my lips and tongue, which were positively intoxicated by
her moist and ever-increasing desire.

At last, in order to take breath, I drew myself up, and thus, kneeling
between her legs, our sexes came together again. Then, with my flesh I
touched ever so lightly that offering of hers,—as lightly and as slowly
as the burning tension of my lust permitted. It was a prolonged caress
which first of all availed itself of the hollows of my wife's loins, then
ascended all along the fleshly crimson valley, setting in vibration her
most subtle sensibility, and finally ending where her fleece was the
thickest. As I stimulated her pleasure, Therese's breasts trembled with
greater and greater rapidity. Straining towards me, her body rose and
fell rhythmically, in obedience to an instinctive desire to intensify and
increase the light rubbing together of our moist flesh. And then a cry
came from her:

"Oh! Take me,—have me now for good and all!"

However I hesitated. Dominating the tumult of my feelings, a scruple
still held me back: the fear of lacerating that flesh whose fragile
sweetness I knew so well, and compassion for the sensitiveness of that
virginal body which wished to surrender itself to the brutal
satisfaction of my lust. Astonished at my hesitation and perhaps
somewhat disappointed, Therese remained at first motionless,
subsiding on the sofa. But soon she half-raised herself, encircled me
with her arms, and clutched my thighs. And at the very moment when
my penis began once more to caress and re-ascend the folds of her
flesh, she pulled me towards her with such a passionate movement that
I was suddenly buried in her.

On her features I read the extraordinarily rapid succession of her
emotions: first of all a wince of pain on her face; then a tearful and
troubled look in her eyes; and finally a flash of joyous pride. For yet
another moment she smiled at me,—a rather dolorous yet infinitely
tender smile. Then, closing her eyes, she fell backwards without any
other protest than a cry of love:

"My husband! My beloved husband!"

[April]

CHAPTER XV

"That's all!" I murmured by way of conclusion. I was somewhat
embarrassed by my uncle's stubborn silence and feared that I had said
too much. Without uttering a word, and with closed eyes, he persisted
in drawing imaginary puffs of smoke from his pipe, although it had
gone out a long time ago. At last, looking at me so mildly that I was
astonished, he said:

"You don't regret having followed my advice?"

"No, certainly not."

"Well then, don't keep your recipe all to yourself, egoistically. Let
others profit as well as yourself."

"In what way?"

"Relate your experiences to them."

"Never! In your case it's granted. You inspired the experiment and
therefore I owed you an accurate account of it. But can you picture me
making bed-room disclosures at a public lecture?"

"Write your story under a pseudonym. But do so very objectively,
without any literary complications. Just a simple 'experimental
subject', to use the language of physiologists."

"To make them really convincing, my experiences would have to be
described in strict chronological order, and without any fear of going
into details as regards the multitudinous reactions of desire. But how
could one do it without raising a storm of indignation?"

"Let the Pharisees shout as loud as they like. What they want to read
about are adulterous women and inverts and enormities in general,
suggested in ambiguous words; for the rule of the game consists in
evoking scabrous situations by means of a vocabulary with a double
meaning."

"They would therefore accuse me of trickery if I evoked merely
healthy conjugal love, and called things by their proper names."

"On the other hand, other people would be grateful to you. They
would approve of you for having frankly and without mock modesty
approached that essential problem,—perhaps the most important of
all social problems: sexual harmony in marriage."

"Nevertheless they would object to the needlessness of too many
details. Our fathers were content with points of suspension... and the
rest was left to the imagination."

"Carnal imagination? Let's talk about that. You are well aware that
the 'average man'—whether he be a banker or an engineer—is totally
devoid of it. Others find a substitute either in maniacal vices or a string
of brutal obscenities; and as regards a household understanding that
serves hardly any better purpose. But can one, without hypocrisy,
reproach those primary pupils in the art of love with their
unskilfulness? Who has ever thought of awakening or correcting their
conjugal psychology?"

"Your primary pupils in erotism will always know enough to enable
them to caress a woman and bring her to the pitch of their desire."

"Not at all! The virtuoso in conjugal love is as rare as the true poet. All
the others with their big clumsy paws are lamentable,— capable,
perhaps, of the beginning of a caress, but soon short of breath for want
of inspiration. And it is for their sake (to prevent their wives going
elsewhere to slake their thirst for fleshly tenderness) that you ought to
publish your 'experimental subject'."

"Others have done it before me."

"They have only done it by half. They didn't dare to stoop to that
humble minuteness as regards details for which the contented egoism
of an unimaginative husband is in no way a substitute."

Without waiting for further objections on my part, my uncle
continued:

"Many times when, during the War, we were 'in the blues', young
officers confided their amorous exploits to me,—and often with
splendid vigour. But, in almost every case, what a lack of light and
shade there was!—what lamentable ignorance as regards the reflexes
of a virgin!— what brutality on the occasion of the initiation! And
when I reproached one of them for having celebrated the first night of
his marriage cavalierly, without waiting for a few days necessary for
his young wife's fleshly awakening, he looked at me nonplussed and
exclaimed: 'Well, that's a good joke! We were absolutely alone in my
bachelor's quarters, and I was bursting to have her. Wait a few days
before possessing my wife! What should we have done all that time?' "

"It is to that question that my narrative ought to be an answer."


THE END